Utah Gov. John Huntsman Jr.'s move from the statehouse to the U.S. Embassy in China seems a no-brainer given his resume—Huntsman speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, has an adopted daughter from China, and previously served as a diplomat in Singapore before taking office. But Barack Obama's reported decision to name Huntsman as ambassador to China also carries tremendous political benefits for the president back home. Huntsman is practically the only prominent Republican moderate in the country who is still popular with his constituents and is considered a likely presidential candidate in 2012. Obama's 2008 campaign manager recently singled Huntsman out as a candidate he feared in a potential 2012 matchup thanks to his centrist appeal. Now, with Huntsman out of the picture for the foreseeable future, it seems the Dick Cheney wing of the party will be free to rule the roost without any major GOP moderates around to counter their message.

No confirmation yet of the rumor the Obamas will visit Martha's Vineyard for a vacation in August, but the first couple are filling out their itinerary for a diplomatic trip in July. A month after the president's historic address in Egypt, he and Michelle will travel to Moscow July 6-8 for a summit with President Medvedev focusing on reducing nuclear weapons and strengthening ties. Next the Obamas travel to earthquake-ravaged L'Aquila, Italy, for a G-8 summit. From there they'll go to Accra, Ghana for talks on bilateral and regional issues with President Mills.

After a strong start, female racehorse Rachel Alexandra clung to her lead and won Preakness, the heralded second jewel of the Triple Crown. The only filly in the race, Rachel Alexandra was the 9-5 favorite to win. Though the Kentucky Derby's underdog winner, Mine That Bird, gave chase, the powerhouse filly moved the front of the pack at the No. 13 post and won with a long lead, at one minute and fifty five seconds. The last time a filly won Preakness was 1924.

On Saturday astronauts completed the third and riskiest spacewalk in their mission to upgrade and fix the Hubble Space Telescope. The Washington Post calls intergalactic repairmen John Grunsfeld's and Andrew Feustel's work "a wild success" after removing "a refrigerator-sized, mirror-packed instrument." The most harrowing of the repairs required Grunsfeld to remove 32 screws from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveying unit, which was not designed to be opened or fixed -- much less opened and fixed in outerspace. The procedure was considered risky because Grunsfeld had to reach into the unit, where sharp edges could have poked a life-endangering hole in his space suit, and physically remove an electric circuit card. With Feustel standing behind him and assisting, Grunsfeld shook and pulled for some time at the card with needle-nosed pliers, then panted via radio: "I think we'll get it." The spacewalk's plan required six and a half hours; Grunsfeld and Feustel took an extra six minutes to complete the task, considered a great success after other spacewalks met hitches earlier in the week.

Even the leader of the free world needs the occasional Saturday afternoon off. After naming Utah Governor and Republican John Huntsman ambassador to China, President Obama ditched the White House to attend two soccer matches, where daughters Malia and Sasha were playing in two separate games. Wearing a Chicago White Sox jacket, the president attended first 7-year-old Sasha's game, then 10-year-old Malia's. At one point, when, Sasha's team scored, the president was witnessed cheering "go... go... go... GOAL!" After the soccer matches, he retired to the golf course.

India's Congress Party has been restored to power in Parliament. Though ballots are still being counted, the defeated parties—the Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist Party of India—are now admitting defeat. Like to the presidential election in the U.S., Congress' number one issue was the economy. It vowed to revive the economy and stimulate growth, while the BJP centered on—ring any bells here?—reducing taxes. Voter turnout is thought to have risen slightly form the 2004 elections to 60 percent, and Congress' election is now being called "the people's verdict." There have been celebrations around the streets of Mumbai, and Congress, which will officially take control of Parliament on June 2, has officially thanked its constituents. Said party president Sonia Gandhi: "The people of India know what's good for them and have made the right choice."

As the war between Nancy Pelosi and the CIA intensifies, it's the GOP who's coming out on top. While their previous attempts to derail the House speaker, like questioning her use of a government airplane, have failed, Republicans may now be gaining traction. On the heels of CIA chief Leon Panetta's statement that all CIA agents briefed members of Congress "truthfully"—rebutting Pelosi's accusations that she had been lied to—Republicans are getting a chance to sink their teeth into the speaker. They are disputing Pelosi's statement that she was briefed only once as a member of the House Intelligence Committee in 2002 and that she was told that while the Bush administration had determined waterboarding was legal, it would not be used. But while the debate over what Nancy knew has provided a cause for inquiry, experts think this kerfuffle won't jeopardize Pelosi's job as speaker.

Obama thinks all his hard work on health care and clean energy is going to pay off. In his weekly video address on Saturday, the president said a "foundation for the future" was laid this week for health care and clean energy reform. He praised congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle for coming together "around common goals—to embrace a shared sense of responsibility and make historic progress." Corporate leaders are on board for clean energy initiatives, he said, and health care companies have pledged to reduce costs. "That's the kind of urgency and determination we need to achieve comprehensive reform by the end of this year," he said.

A peaceful gay rights demonstration—held before the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow—took a violent turn on Saturday when Russian riot police arrested 40 protesters. As soon as gay rights activists began waving their banners, authorities handcuffed them and packed them into police cars. Among those detained were British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell and Nikolai Alexeyev, one of the leaders of the Russian gay rights movement. The mayor of Moscow has called gay rights parades "satanic" and suggested that gay rights would undermine the city. "We can no longer be silent in Russia," said one advocate. "We want the president to see how we are treated like dirt and common criminals. We want to meet the leaders."

Solitary confinement has never looked so good. Swine flu has penetrated the most protected place in New York City—Rikers Island Prison—where an inmate has been diagnosed with the virus. The prisoner was housed in the Ann M. Kross section, which holds 600 people, and now there's a fear that the virus will spread inside the prison. One advocate has called for the entire prison to be closed, and the inmates relocated. The virus appears to be spreading rapidly in the city, and five schools in Brooklyn and Queens have already been closed.

Brooke Shields probably thought being at the center of the Kiefer Sutherland head-butting scandal was her lowest point this month. But she was wrong: Shields' mother, who suffers from dementia, was checked out of her nursing home by two journalists looking for a "tabloid story." Two freelance reporters—who police said worked for the National Enquirer—appeared at the New Jersey nursing home on Thursday and checked out Teri Shields, 75, pretending to be her friends. The reporters drove the elder Shields around the neighborhood mining for gossip, and police found them in a diner not far from the nursing home. "The idea that the National Enquirer took advantage of her state is reprehensible and disgusting," the actress said. "I intend to take every lawful action against all who were involved or who authorized this despicable act."

A scandal of CEO-pay proportions is making waves across the pond as reports of dubious expenses claimed by members of Parliament have infuriated Britain. New evidence suggests that members from all parties, from Labour to representatives of Sinn Fein, have been bilking the system. In order to get around salary hikes in the 1980s, Parliament expanded the list of expenses in members' lives that could be reimbursed, from bags of manure to home entertainment systems, and members of Parliament have been collecting every since. "Hard-up members would head back to the north of the country four of them in one car, and they might make four claims," said Norman Tebbit, chairman of the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher. Details of the expenses were first published by The Daily Telegraph following a new law that allows for government accountability, and a series of high-profile resignations have resulted. The scandal has heightened not only national concern over abuses of power, but also a fundamental distrust of Parliament itself. But Conservative MP Richard Shepherd says the scandal has ultimately been a good thing, "however uncomfortable it has made us and however low it has brought us."

Already under fire for failing to uncover Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission now faces the prospect of corruption within its ranks, as well. Federal prosecutors usually tasked with weeding out scandal elsewhere are now investigating two of their own enforcement lawyers for violating insider-trading laws. Evidence has surfaced the lawyers several times suspiciously traded stocks of companies that were under investigation. While a report released by the attorney general said one of the lawyers sent e-mails to family members recommending stocks, and the other made 200 trades in two years, both of the parties under investigation have denied wrongdoing. "My heart is pure," one of the lawyers says.

After 25 years, the war in Sri Lanka may be officially over. Government soldiers seized the final stretch of land controlled by the Tamil Tiger rebels on Saturday, after surrounding it from the north and south. But because the Tigers occupied territory with a heavy civilian population, the government's attempts to weed out the rebels has caused what a U.N. official called a "bloodbath" of collateral damage. The Tigers have fought for an independent minority state in Sri Lanka and at least 70,000 people have been killed since the war began in 1983.

In keeping with the theme of his visit to the Middle East, Pope Benedict XVI ended his tour of the West Bank on a note of unity. In his final speech on Friday, Benedict XVI condemned Holocaust denial—which Israelis had criticized him for not doing earlier in the trip—and made his strongest appeal for the creation of a Palestinian state. And while the pope left on a high note, some Israelis and Palestinians were disappointed. Israelis wanted the German-born pontiff to commit more fully to fighting anti-Semitism, and Palestinians wanted him to highlight their own suffering under Israeli occupation. Instead, the pope served up broad words of peace: "Allow me to make this appeal to all the people of these lands," he said. "No more bloodshed. No more fighting. No more terrorism. No more war!"

New Yorkers may be tightening their belts amid a tough recession, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking extravagance to new levels in his re-election campaign, spending record amounts of his own money on his bid for a third term. So far his campaign's spending for the November contest has totaled $18.6 million, more than double what Bloomberg had spent at this point in his last campaign in 2005. The money has gone to high-powered consultants, polling, and a flood of TV ads boosting his candidacy. While it is unclear how much his rivals, city Comptroller Bill Thompson Jr. and potential challenger Rep. Anthony Weiner, have spent, according to their records they have raised only $10 million between the two of them.

When President Obama pushed his $787 billion stimulus package through Congress, a key provision was a $36.5 billion investment in electronic health records that the White House said was crucial to long term health care reform. The sudden infusion of cash into electronic records came only after years of intensive lobbying from the relevant industries, The Washington Post reports, which funded research and carefully cultivated allies in order to build a case in political circles for the spending package. But their success also pushed aside criticisms from various circles who argued that the potential savings promised by the industry were overly optimistic. "It was perhaps a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make something happen," said H. Stephen Lieber, the president of the trade group behind the push, tells The Post. Obama "identified the vehicle that he could use to move his policy agenda forward without the crippling policy debate."

No mouse traps here: Animals rights activists are going crazy for rats. A group of scientists and activists are rallying behind ethical treatment of the unpopular, and often unwelcome, animals. "Rats and mice tend to get a bad rap," one activist says. "We just have these biases built in that are not really representative of who they are." Rats have been omitted from all animal laws, and are frequently used for testing. But public sympathy for the much maligned creatures is growing. A new group of rat-loving researchers has come to the forefront of the fight for the ethical treatment of rodents. "I used to see rats and think 'Ew,'" one pharmacologist who used to test on rats, says. "Now I see rats and think, 'Those rats have probably got a family somewhere."

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and GM’s top executives have all been ousted—should Citigroup and Bank of America’s CEOs be worried, too? The FDIC chairman is saying that last week’s stress test results will have more consequences than the $74.6 billion in capital needed to prop up the ailing bank industry. “Management needs to be evaluated,” said chairman Sheila Bair Friday on a Bloomberg television show to be broadcast this weekend. “Have they been doing a good job? Are there people who can do a better job?” The FDIC immediately released a statement qualifying Bair’s remarks, stating, “She did not refer to CEOs specifically,” and added, “Bair also did not suggest the federal government will remove the bank CEOs.” In a briefing on Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “Those regulators also will make determinations about not just the suitability of those plans going forward, but whether or not the corporate leadership of those institutions is right in instituting what has to happen in those plans.”

The pomp and circumstance is finally taking place Sunday but abortion rights protestors at the University of Notre Dame haven’t slowed down. On Friday, 20 protestors, including former presidential hopeful Alan Keyes and a 78-year-old priest, were arrested while demonstrating against the decision to award President Obama with an honorary degree. He will also make the commencement address at the Catholic university where some conservatives are saying his invitation violates a 2004 order by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that states Roman Catholic institutions should not “honor figures whose public stances violate church teachings.” Obama can count on one vocal supporter: former New York governor Mario Cuomo, whose invitation to the university 25 years ago was met with similar protests calling him a “baby killer.” Cuomo said the invite is “saying he's a good man and a good president and we wish him well and we're gratified the president of the United States would come to this university and honor us with” his presence.

What will the tabloids do now? California health regulators fined a Bellflower hospital $250,000 for not preventing employees from leaking medical information about octomom Nadya Suleman to tabloids. A state medical privacy law was enacted at the beginning of this year after violations of Farrah Fawcett, Britney Spears, Maria Shriver and other celebrities’ medical records were widely publicized. This fine is the first instance of enforcement of the law. Eight workers were implicated for snooping in Suleman’s medical files. “It's the hospital's job to prevent these breaches from occurring, not just crack down after the fact," said the state's Secretary of Health.