President Obama has chosen to disclose the controversial interrogation techniques used by the CIA, but he will not prosecute the agents who used them. According to the Associated Press, “The Obama administration on Thursday informed CIA officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects that they will not be prosecuted.” The statement from Attorney General Eric Holder is the first definitive assurance that those CIA agents are in the clear, so long as their actions were in line with legal advice they received. The statement was released alongside four Bush-era legal opinions that detailed, in graphic detail, the interrogations of terror detainees. One memo specifically authorizes the combination of multiple techniques, which human rights groups allege is torture even if the individual methods—which include sleep deprivation, forced nudity, and slamming of detainees into walls—are not.

President Obama is arriving in Mexico City ready to unveil his support for the Inter-American Arms Treaty aimed at reducing the flow of guns to cartels. The plan "addresses a key hemispheric concern relating to people's personal security and well-being," an administration official said. Obama's trip to Mexico is more fraught with heady issues than his recent much-hyped trip to the G-20 summit in Europe. Aside from curtailing drugs and gun sales, top issues on the agenda are civil unrest in Mexico, the economic crisis, immigration, cross-border trucking, and clean energy challenges. "We are going to be dealing not only with drug interdiction coming north, but also working on helping to curb the flow of cash and guns going south," Obama said of drug policy ahead of his departure. More than 10,000 people have been killed since 2006 in drug-related violence in Mexico.

A probe into an alleged kickback scheme at New York state’s pension fund has ensnared the head of Obama’s auto task force, Steven Rattner, The Wall Street Journal reports. A SEC complaint says a “senior executive”—said to be Rattner—at his former firm, Quandrangle, spoke with a politically connected consultant about a finder’s fee. The pension fund then invested in the firm, and the firm paid a $1.1 million fee. About 20 investment firms allegedly broke SEC rules and made payments in exchange for investments from the New York State Common Retirement Fund; the case hinges on whether the firms knew or should have known that paying for access to the $122 billion fund was illegitimate. An official at the Treasury Department said officials were aware of the probe when they took on Rattner during the transition.

Newspapers aren’t the only victims of the cratering advertising market—even Google is feeling the pinch. The company, considered a sure bet by investors, saw profits rise in the first quarter of 2009, but also saw total revenue decline 3 percent from the previous quarter because of cutbacks in online ads. It is “the first sequential revenue decline for Google since it went public nearly five years ago,” The Wall Street Journal reports. The company, however, is far from panicking: It reported net income of $1.42 billion and said it will continue “investing for the long term to drive future growth in our core and emerging businesses.”

The wheels of justice are already turning: Abdulawali Muse, one of four teen pirates who attacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama last week, is being extradited to the United States to face trial in a New York court. Muse, of course, is the only survivor among the attackers—his three accomplices were shot dead by Navy SEALs as they held Captain Richard Phillips hostage at gunpoint. CBS reports that Muse, 19, will be tried in New York’s Southern District, where Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and other terror suspects have been tried. No word yet on when he’ll be transported to New York.

This is an interesting approach to diplomacy: During one eventful lunch this week, Nicolas Sarkozy managed to call President Obama’s decisions inadequate, belittle Angela Merkel’s leadership in Germany, and suggest that Spain’s José Luis Zapatero is stupid. “He is not always up to scratch with decisions and efficiency,” Sarkozy was quoted as saying of Obama. Of Merkel’s economic policies: “Once she realized the state of her banks and her car industry, she had no choice but to come round to my position.” And, in a grand finale, Sarkozy—described by other leaders as hyperactive and overfamiliar, often texting during important meetings—allowed that the Spanish prime minister might not be “very intelligent.” (The Elysée firmly denies this last comment.)

In Alaska, a nomination by Governor Sarah Palin is fast becoming the political kiss of death: Palin’s pick for attorney general, Wayne Anthony Ross, was roundly rejected today by the Alaska Legislature, 35-23. A fervent gun rights advocate, Ross came under a storm of criticism was a controversial pick for his characterization of gays as “immoral” and “degenerate.” This week he caused a stir after saying Democrats should fill Juneau’s much-debated vacant state Senate seat—whether it was legal or not. Palin said of Ross’ rejection: “I think there was a lot of politics of personal destruction involved in this and that’s a shame...I am surprised that, for what I believe is some personal petty political reasons, some lawmakers chose not to support a candidate who fit that bill.”

Could this be a scoop from GOOP? In her latest dispatch, actress Gwyneth Paltrow delves deep into the human psyche: “Back in the day, I had a ‘frenemy’ who, as it turned out, was pretty hell-bent on taking me down.” Paltrow says she “tried to take the high road” and not fight back against her toxic friend, but when something “unfortunate and humiliating” happened to the former friend, she felt “deep relief.” Who could said frenemy be? Celeb-watchers point to Winona Ryder, who was arrested in 2001 for shoplifting thousands of dollars worth of clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Paltrow also quotes a tabloid editor as saying bad news sells more than good news. “So, why does it feel so good to hear something bad about someone you don’t like? Or someone you DO like? Or someone you don’t KNOW?” she asks.

As part of President Obama's effort to reduce dependence on oil, $8 billion of the economic stimulus will be dedicated to an upgrade of America's railroad system over the next four years. "My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way we travel in America," Obama said, adding that the investment was "long overdue." Reuters reports that the first grants for rail projects could be awarded as early as this summer. Obama's vision involves a network of high-speed rails in numerous corridors throughout the country that would reduce cars on the road and compete with travel by plane. Experts foresee the cost of high-speed rail development requiring substantial investment from the private sector.

It’s stork season in Hollywood: Heidi Klum and husband Seal are expecting their third child—and Klum’s fourth. The 35-year-old Victoria’s Secret model and Project Runway host tells People her life is “kind of perfect,” though she still tries to stay grounded. “It’s not like I’m this glamour diva who hands everything over and I just sit on my throne at home. When we’re home, we’re cooking and doing things with the kids, driving them to school. We do the things that everyone has to do,” Klum said.

Congress is on the case: The day after The New York Times reported that the NSA’s interception of email and phone conversations “went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress,” the Senate announced plans to investigate the matter. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein said a hearing will be held within a month. The Justice Department claims to have corrected the NSA’s excesses, but has not disclosed any specifics.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, who just this week ended a hunger strike, is in the headlines again—but this time he’s on the receiving end of an international assassination plot. Bolivia says three would-be foreign assassins are dead after a shootout in a hotel in Santa Cruz, the center of opposition to Morales. The president ordered their arrest after receiving intelligence about the assassination plot, which also targeted the vice president and a Cabinet minister, he said. Morales, who’s in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez ahead of the Summit of the Americas, said two other guns for hire have been arrested.

Banks may be returning to profitability, but the recession isn’t over: Jobless claims topped six million for the first time today, and housing construction plunged to its second-lowest level on record. The Associated Press writes, “Analysts expect the labor market to remain weak for the most of this year with companies reluctant to hire new workers until an economic recovery is well under way. And the latest housing data show the slump in that market, a major factor in triggering the recession, has yet to hit bottom.” Some silver linings: “For the second straight week the number of people filing new benefits claims dropped more than expected, and single-family home construction, while depressed, appears to be leveling off.”

For 10 years Russia has been struggling with its own insurgent movement in Chechnya. Now, despite numerous claims of human rights abuses and separatists' pledges to continue the struggle, Russia has declared the "counter-terrorism operation" over. Chechnya's current president, Ramzan Kadyrov, is a pro-Kremlin strongman who is suspected of having firsthand experience torturing rebels and orchestrating kidnappings. Now, he is said to rule Chechnya through fear. The surviving separatists have been forced to flee to mountain areas and have not been able to launch a significant attack since 2004. In an effort to erase all memories of the brutal conflict, the once-war torn capital, Grozny, is being quickly rebuilt by the Russians.

French Elle's decision to feature eight models without the aid of makeup or airbrushing on its April cover has earned near-unanimous praise from female bloggers. Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress, though, presents the move as little more than a ploy and a step backwards for body-image troubled women. "A lot of people have done a lot of work over the years to get people to understand that images you see on magazine covers are not images of actual human beings," he writes, suggesting that French Elle's initiative is "a deliberate effort to re-inject the artifice into the conversation under guise of rejecting it."

This story pushes the limits of good taste no matter what your thoughts are on cultural relativism. Afghan women protesting the new law dictating that they submit to sex with their husbands took to the streets today, and were met with mobs of men hurling stones and slurs. Many women were unable to reach the protest because they were forbidden by their husbands or denied transportation by bus drivers. Nevertheless, about 300 women assembled in front of a hard-line mosque in Kandahar in a rare show of solidarity. The Globe and Mail reports that some police joined the male mob and threatened the women.

Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano apologized to veterans angry over the department's report that returning vets could be recruited by right-wing extremist groups. "I think it is important for all of us to remember that Americans are not the enemy. The terrorists are," the head of the American Legion wrote in a letter to Napolitano. On CNN this morning, Napolitano responded: "I know that some veterans groups were offended by the fact that veterans were mentioned in this assessment, so I apologize for that offense. It was certainly not intended," she said. "The return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone-wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks," the report said, citing Timothy McVeigh, the Gulf War vet who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Boom! Football broadcaster John Madden announced today he’ll be retiring from football broadcasting. Madden said in a statement, “It’s time. I’m 73 years old. My 50th wedding anniversary is this fall…It’s been such a great ride…the NFL has been my life for more than 40 years, it has been my passion—it still is.” After a Hall-of-Fame career as a coach, Madden began broadcasting in 1979.

The crewmen of the Maersk Alabama are enjoying a homecoming befitting celebrities—which, we suppose, they are, judging by the media horde following them everywhere. The crew is still without their captain, Richard Phillips, who was delayed because the navy destroyer he was aboard had to be diverted to aid another U.S. ship under attack from pirates. The rest of the crew, 19 in all, is in Maryland and enjoying the company of friends and family. As their plane flew over Washington, D.C., the men cheered, with one telling reporters, "God bless America." Several families of the crew were treated to a tour of The White House yesterday.

New York Governor David Patterson unveiled a gay marriage bill today, and New York's new Archbishop Timothy Dolan fired the opening salvo. "You can bet I will be active and present and, I hope, articulate," Dolan said in his first press conference, adding that he will not mince words when it comes to other controversial topics. Dolan also addressed the Catholic Church's need to reach out to immigrant communities and persuade more Catholics to attend on Sundays. One of Patterson's colleagues in Albany criticized the timing of the gay marriage bill as "disrespectful" to the Archbishop.

YouTube has already transformed quite a few amateurs into popular professionals, but this may be the first time that the website has brought unknowns into such an historic and coveted venue. Of the 3,000 aspiring musicians that submitted audition videos, 96 were inducted into the YouTube Symphony Orchestra yesterday at a performance in New York's Carnegie Hall. The winners, coming from over 30 different countries, had only two days to practice with before playing before for a curious and sold out crowd of New Yorkers. Because of their varying backgrounds and minimal practice time, the YouTube orchestra stuck with the classics---performing a movement of Brahms and a movement of Tchaikovsky among other crowd favorites. "For us it's been something between a classical music summit conference (and) scout jamboree combined with speed dating," said conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

Could George Foreman Grills save the world? In combatting climate change, attention has mostly focused on reducing emissions from cars, power plants, and buildings. But the simplest of human technologies—fire—is responsible for as much as 18 percent of global warming, according to scientists. Cooking fires in the third world, fueled by twigs and dung, release black soot, one of the most potent types of carbon emissions. Climate experts are calling for new efforts to supply modern stoves to these areas in order to reduce emissions.

Are the banks back to making money? On the heels of better-than-expected performances by Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase announced a record first quarter, beating analysts’ expectations with $2.1 billion in profits. The 40 cents per share profit was 10 cents lower than the first quarter of last year, but still better than the 32 cents that was projected. The investment banking division did much of the heavy lifting, reporting a net income of $1.6 billion. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, said the bank would like to repay its TARP funds as soon as possible.

Nadya Suleman, America's favorite mother of octuplets, is seeking to trademark her media nickname "Octomom" in order sell baby goods and a TV show, E! Online writes. According to the patent application, the mother of fourteen wants to attach the name to future TV projects, including a documentary that will follow the children until they're 18, as well as a children's clothing line and disposable and cloth diapers. Last March, Super Happy Fun Fun Inc, a toy company, filed an application to trademark the name for toys, computer games and action figures.

Desperate to escape the Colombian authorities, Don Mario—described by President Alvaro Uribe as "one of the most feared drug traffickers in the world—offered $1,000 for every killed cop on his trail. But the law (or at least what passes for it) eventually caught up to him, and Don Mario, who had a $2 million bounty on his head, was found "cowering like a dog" under a tree in northern Colombia. Don Mario, a.k.a. Daniel Rendon Herrera, was the boss of a paramilitary organization thought to be responsible for 3,000 murders in the last 18 months. The arrest marks a major coup for Uribe, who now has orchestrated the disarmament of most paramilitary organizations and the arrests of the leaders that refused to lay down their weapons.

He led the 1990s crackdown on illegal border crossings, and now former U.S. attorney and Justice Department official Alan Bersin will be America’s first “border czar,” in charge of overseeing efforts to quell drug cartel activity on the U.S.-Mexico border and to diminish illegal immigration. Appointed today by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Bersin and Napolitano pulled a Strasbourg and gave a presser on a bridge over the Rio Grande that connects the U.S. to Mexico. Speaking in both Spanish and English, Bersin cautioned against overstating the cartels’ threat to the U.S., pointing out that violent spillover north of the border has been relatively low. Bersin dismissed some people’s calls for America to position troops on the Mexican border: “The posse comitatus have served this country well,” he said, referring to the legal statutes that keep the U.S. military from operating as law enforcement stateside. Both Bersin and Napolitano were U.S. attorneys during the Clinton administration. Bersin’s Justice Department service included border patrol increases in the American southwest and San Diego. Earlier, he was superintendent of the San Diego public school system.

Baby, he's a rich man. To acknowledge Tax Day, the White House released the Obamas' and Bidens' tax returns. In 2008, the Obamas had an adjusted gross income of $2,657,000 and paid some $855,000 in federal income taxes (32% of their income). 6.5% of their income ($172,000) went to charity, including $25K each to CARE and the United Negro College Fund. By contrast, the Bidens earned $269,000 in 2008 ($183,300 after taxes) but donated a mere $1,900 to charity, less than 1% of their eranings. The White House issued a statement explaining the Bidens' seeming tight-fistedness: "They donate to their church, and they contribute to their favorite causes with their time, as well as their checkbooks."

President Bush's former No. 2 State Department official says he hopes he would have had "the courage to resign" if he knew the CIA was using waterboarding, a torture tactic, to interrogate suspects. Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, told Al Jazeera English in an interview airing Wednesday he doesn't think CIA agents who interrogated using waterboarding should be prosecuted, even though he thinks it was torture. The White House and the Justice Department signed off on the CiA waterboarding of three terror detainees in 2002 and 2003. "I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would've had the courage to resign. But I don't know. It's in hindsight now," Armitage said. Armitage left his post the day after Colin Powell resigned, shortly after Bush's re-election in 2004. Armitage said in the interview that the State Department was in the dark about the abuse of prisoners until the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April 2004. President Obama has ended the CIA interrogation program and approved a one-year deadline for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base prison. CIA Director Leon Panetta said last week that the secret sites where detainees were waterboarded are being shut down and that no CIA employees will be prosecuted for their role at the sites.

You know the bipartisanship is deep when a minority-party governor starts talking secession. At a "tea party" tax protest in Austin today, Texas Governor Rick Perry did just that. The Huffington Post reports that an "animated" Perry, speaking before a flag-waving crowd cheering "secede!" called the protesters "patriots" and said that Texas' joined the United States in 1845 with the understanding that it could pull out whenever it wanted to -- like when the national government chooses a tax policy against Lone Star's liking. "We've got a great union," Perry said. "There's absolutely not reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot." Austin's tea party is part of a national movement to protest President Obama's tax plan, inspired by the historic Boston Tea Party as well as CNBC personality Rick Santelli who first advocated such protest on his television show. Governor Perry is among the GOP governors rejecting portions of the stimulus and faces a steep re-election battle against fellow Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2010. Texas' last secession, in 1861, ended when the North won the Civil War.

Amidst Afghanistan’s efforts to legalize marital rape, another disturbing report on women’s rights from the Middle East: A Saudi judge has refused for the second time to annul the marriage of an 8-year-old girl who was wed to her father’s 47-year-old friend in order to settle a debt between the two men (who are “close friends”). The girl’s mother had petitioned for the divorce, but the judge, Sheikh Habib Al-Habib, “insisted that the girl could petition the court for a divorce once she reached puberty.”