The drug war that has consumed Mexico claimed the lives of three people with ties to the American consulate there Sunday. It added to the already grisly tally of nearly 50 people killed in apparent gang violence over the weekend in Mexico. American citizens Lesley A. Enriquez, 35, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelf, 34, were two of the people murdered on Sunday, while their baby survived in the back seat of their car on the bridge between violence-wracked Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. Enriquez worked for the U.S. consulate, while Redelf was a detention officer at an El Paso jail. The third person killed was the husband of a Mexican citizen employee of the consulate. Their two young children were wounded. President Barack Obama was "deeply saddened and outraged," according to the White House and Mexican President Felipe Calderon has promised an investigation.

For once, someone other than Joe Biden is apologizing. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has expressed regret for the unfortunate timing of an announcement of new construction in East Jerusalem right as Biden was arriving in the country to moderate peace talks. But Netanyahu not given any indication he will scrap the controversial plan, which Biden immediately condemned. "We will act according to the vital interests of the state of Israel," Netanyahu said. Several American officials were left less than satisfied with the apology and called on Israel to make a sweeping effort to repair the damage to the peace talks—Israel and Palestine had only just agreed to reopen contact after 14 months of radio silence. 

In a rare interview with Justice John Paul Stevens, New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin asks, “What will the Supreme Court be like without its liberal leader?” Stevens, the Supreme Court’s senior justice, has served 11 years longer than the next most experienced judge and is 13 years older than his closest colleague. He’s considering retirement now that President Obama is in office and could pick a successor. “I have a great admiration for [Obama] and certainly think he’s capable of picking successfully, you know, doing a good job of filling vacancies,” Stevens said, adding he will make up his mind in about a month: “You can say I will retire within the next three years. I’m sure of that.” Stevens also mentioned his aversion to State of the Union addresses, saying he will not, under any circumstances, be seen at another one. “First, they are political occasions, where I don’t think our attendance is required. But also, it comes when I am on break in Florida. To be honest with you, I’d rather be in Florida than in Washington.”

The marquee event for both college basketball and office pool seasons is upon us. The NCAA Selection Committee revealed the final field of 65 for its men’s basketball tournament Sunday night, with Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, and Syracuse unsurprisingly picking up the top seeds. The Kansas Jayhawks are the early favorites to win their second national title in three years. Play will begin Tuesday, but the tournament will begin in earnest Thursday, ready to consume the next three weekends.

Facing opposition from both sides, Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd will unveil his financial-reform bill Monday. And with Republicans asking for more time to consider it, Dodd is making a case for immediacy—he estimates there are only about 60 legislative days left on the calendar. He also said that major sections of the bill, particularly those regarding how to deal with too-big-to-fail financial firms without taxpayer money, were crafted with a consensus of committee members. The bill is expected to create a consumer-protection agency within the Federal Reserve, a far cry from Obama’s call for an independent agency and a measure bound to leave Democrats unsatisfied. According to a recent poll, 82 percent of Americans believe Wall Street needs to face tougher regulation.

The governor of Kandahar, in the center of the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan, is asking for more troops after dozens of explosions rocked the city Saturday night—killing at least 35 people, wounding 57, and damaging 42 homes. NATO is planning a major assault on the area, timed for later this year. ''Last night was like doomsday for all of Kandahar's people,'' one resident said. ''We don't feel secure in the presence of all the forces in Afghanistan, and it's terrible for us to live in this kind of situation. We don't feel safe even at home, and we can't walk around," another resident said. The primary target of the bombings was the prison where attackers were trying to free jailed allies.

Prominent women and human-rights activists from across the world gathered in New York this weekend at The Daily Beast’s Women in the World: Stories + Solutions summit to discuss the state of women’s rights. The gathering, organized by Tina Brown, co-founder and editor in chief of The Daily Beast, opened Friday with an address by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 1995, Clinton famously told the United Nations Women’s Conference, "Women's rights are human rights." This weekend she said that progress on that front has been “undeniable, but insufficient.” Other speakers included Queen Rania of Jordan—who discussed the importance of education for girls—presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. The summit also featured a special reading of the play SEVEN, a series of monologues about seven activists, performed by Meryl Streep and Marcia Gay Harden.

Glenn Beck, his chalkboard at his side, and Sarah Palin spoke in Tulsa during a three-and-a-half hour show as part of the “Taking Our Country Back” tour on Saturday. During the event, they homed in on what’s wrong with America: Washington. “We are going to be remembered as a country so riddled with debt,” said Beck. “People thought magic pixies would come down in the likeness of Tim Geithner and everything would be ok.” Palin, meanwhile, asked: “Oklahoma, do you love your freedom?” According to Palin, the first thing that needs to happen is a boost in the economy. Yet, despite economic woes, nearly 5,000 people were able to fork over tickets to the event—floor seats started at $150.

Best known for his role as the spymaster in television’s Mission: Impossible and the host of Biography, Peter Graves died of a heart attack Sunday at the age of 83. But perhaps the performance that brought him the biggest cult following was as Captain Oveur in the movie Airplane!, where he delivered deadpan lines like, “Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?” Graves was born Peter Aurness in Minneapolis and studied drama under the G.I. Bill at the University of Minnesota. He appeared in several classics such as Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17 and Otto Preminger’s Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, before turning to television. His most famous character was Mission: Impossible’s Jim Phelps, the serious leader of the Impossible Missions Force.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said by next weekend, we will have a health-care bill. “We believe health-care reform is going to pass, and once it passes we’re happy to have the 2010 elections be about the achievement of health-care reform,” Gibbs said on Fox News Sunday. “We’ll have the votes when the House votes, I think, within the next week.” Republicans, however, are not so certain. Even if the bill passes, the opposition has skepticism about its benefits for Democrats. “If they pass this thing, I think they lose the House of Representatives this fall,” said former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove.

April Fool’s is still more than two weeks away, but producers at the Imedi television station in the republic of Georgia chose to play an Orwellian joke on the country. Airing a mock documentary about a live Russian invasion of the country, intended as political satire, the station sparked widespread panic—after all, the two countries were briefly at war less than two years ago. Seeing a nervous anchor break news that sporadic fighting had already spilled into the streets of Tblisi and clumsy images of a fighter jet dropping bombs, people scrambled to safety and placed emergency calls. Clearly, they had missed the disclaimer at the beginning of the show. “If you hear that war started, of course you run for the bank machine, then run home, it’s natural,” a taxi driver in Tbilisi told The New York Times.

Toyota just can’t seem to get a break (or a brake). In the latest sudden-acceleration controversy, a San Diego-area resident was topping 90 mph when he called 911 to report his uncontrollable car. A California Highway Patrol officer caught up with the car, told the driver to put on the emergency brake and turn off the engine, maneuvered in front of the Prius and rolled it to a halt. The driver had been uncertain about the recall so he went to the dealership, who told him his vehicle was not on a recall list. However, the veracity of the story has been called into question as investigators were unable to make the Prius speed out of control as the driver had. “It does not appear to be feasibly possible, both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the bake at the same time,” a memo stated. Several other inconsistencies are also calling into question the driver’s credibility.

Once again, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is showing no signs of easing up in his country’s tough rhetorical stance against the United States. After riding out the financial crisis with some success, Wen made it clear that he would ignore the United States’ request to allow the yuan to appreciate against the dollar. President Obama had asked that China adopt “a more market-oriented exchange rate”—letting the yuan appreciate would theoretically make American exports more accessible in China. But Wen shot back that he does not believe the yuan to be undervalued and said the U.S. was using a protectionist tactic by seeking to grow its exports by modifying exchange rates.

Virginia Thomas is no ordinary activist. In fact, she’s the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and she has founded a Tea Party-linked group, which could stretch the court’s traditional sense of impartiality. Thomas’ new group is called Liberty Central Inc. It’s a nonprofit lobbying group set to issue score cards for Congress members during the November election. The group and work doesn’t violate ethical rules for judges, but it could potentially be grounds for conflict of interest for her husband. Liberty Central may be a nonpartisan group, but it leans toward conservative principles and its nonprofit title allows it to raise unlimited amounts of corporate money without disclosing its donors. The group is set to launch fully in May.

A 31-year-old American woman, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, who was arrested by Irish police in connection to an apparent plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist, has been released from jail along with two other women thought tied to the plot. Police said there were no charges against the women or against four other suspects. Under Irish law, none of the names of the arrested were released. In a teary interview with The New York Times, Paulin-Ramirez’s mother said her daughter declared her conversion to Islam last Easter. “I am terrified for my daughter,” she said. “And that baby is my heart.” Paulin-Ramirez, dubbed “Jihad Jamie,” was the second woman linked to the alleged plot, designed to kill an artist who had made fun of the Prophet Mohammed. In the U.S last week, an indictment was unsealed against Collen La Rose who was known online as Jihad Jane. Paulin-Ramirez's family now expects the woman to be deported.

More than 500,000 homes were without electricity in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York Sunday after a deadly storm knocked over trees and scattered debris with winds that reached 70 mph. At least two people were killed due to the hurricane-force winds. In Pittsburgh, meteorologists warned against the worst potential flooding since Hurricane Ivan in 2004. At least 4 inches of rain fell in parts of New Jersey. Similar to this month’s snowstorm, transportation proved problematic. Washington D.C.-bound passengers found themselves stranded on their train through New Jersey for nearly five hours before moving on and airport delays reached four hours. Residents in Atlantic City were evacuated to the Convention Center after a crane arm fell 47 floors into the Revel Casino construction site.

California Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher is moving to create “Chelsea’s Law,” in honor of 17-year-old Chelsea King, who went for a jog and was found in a shallow grave, allegedly the victim of a registered sex offender. No details have been provided, but Fletcher is looking into extending sentences and parole requirements. However, the concern with these laws (like Megan’s Law, Amber Alert, and Jessica’s Law) is whether or not they are effective, especially given California’s financial state. With spending tight, budgets may not be so lenient for action with unclear results. An estimated $80 million is spent on ankle-bracelet monitoring of high-risk offenders annually in California, but a report on the tracking devices show no indication that they have made the public safer. A UC Berkeley law professor who has studied the legislative actions said they are more “symbolic politics” than anything. Still, the assemblyman is up for the task. “Everyone wants action now,” said Fletcher. “We owe it to the memory of Chelsea King to make sure that we do this right.”

Alice in Wonderland came out on top of the box office for the second weekend in a row while the new action-drama Green Zone, starring Matt Damon, came in at a disappointing $14.5 million. Universal Pictures and its financing partner, Relativity Media, spent around $100 million to produce the film with millions more for marketing. CinemaScore gave the film a B- and word of mouth is mixed. Internationally, Green Zone only pulled in $9.7 million across 14 foreign territories. She’s Out of My League came in third for the weekend with $9.6 million.

A leading Republican in the Utah state legislature announced he was resigning from office, days after news broke that he paid off a woman who had gone skinny-dipping with the politician when she was a minor. In 1985, Kevin Garn, then 30, shared a hot tub with a naked 15-year-old Cheryl Maher. In 2002, Garn paid Maher $150,000 to keep the incident quiet as he was preparing for a run for Congress. "I expect to suffer public humiliation and embarrassment, but I also want you to know that I cannot allow one foolish mistake to continue to shadow my life," Garn told The Salt Lake Tribune Saturday.

The American government is trying to insure the safety of spices following 16 different recalls in the last decade. Sage and basil and other kitchen pantry staples have been responsible for various salmonella outbreaks. The FDA says the spice industry must do a better job keeping its products safe. Legislation tightening inspection has been passed by the House but held up by the Senate. A recent outbreak of salmonella was traced to contaminated black and crushed red pepper, sickening more than 200 people across the country.

Sonny with a Chance and Disney channel star Demi Lovato confirmed she’s dating Jonas Brothers member Joe Jonas, 20. Lovato, 17, coyly made the confession during an interview with Access Hollywood. “He is my best friend and he is incredible… he’s perfect,” she said. The pair had long been rumored to be dating, but denied it. The two first met in 2007 on the set of Camp Rock, and Lovato subsequently toured with the boy band the next year. The young couple even have a duet together, called "Make a Wave."

Dubai police had no human witnesses, only electronic ones, yet it was able to relatively quickly find the culprits of the murder of a Hamas commander named Mahmoud Mabhouh in a swanky hotel. How did they do it? Cameras track everyone who enters Dubai from the minute they walk off the plane; cars are tracked through automatic tolls, and hotels have cameras. A medical examiner spotted unusual marks on Mabhouh and concluded he’d been poisoned. Investigators quickly used surveillance tape to find the 27 people who didn’t belong in the hotel during the window in which the victim died and used facial recognition software to figure out their identities (or the stolen ones they used). They even tracked what one suspect bought at the mall. "They buy the best," a defense expert said. "They bought the latest technology in satellite and communications."

The Texas State Board of Education has voted on some controversial new standards for its public school history textbooks. The state’s standards are important because Texas is such a large market that most textbook publishers tailor their books to suit its demands, meaning states end up with those standards by default. The education board, made up of 10 Republicans and five Democrats, voted to exclude hip-hop from coverage of American music, because of explicit lyrics, though rock and the Beat Generation—known for sex and drugs—are included. The board also voted down a motion to include the eight Hispanics who died at the Alamo alongside James Bowie and Davy Crockett. More pages will be spent on President Ronald Reagan, but no coverage on the late Sen. Ted Kennedy or the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The massive loans that a London financier used to acquire the music company EMI are endangering the giant's future. One exec Elio Leoni-Sceti bailed on the company last week as EMI was trying to put together a rescue package. Private equity group KKR is tag teaming with Warner Music, hoping to create a plan which could break up the music rival. EMI's talent over the years has included The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Queen. Its prominence, according to The Guardian, was synonymous with the decades-long reign of British pop music.

Violence between warring drug cartels along the Mexico border has spooked reporters, leaving daylight shoot-outs and vicious murders unreported. “You begin to wonder what the truth is,” one resident of the embattled town of Reynosa told The New York Times. “Is it what you saw, or what the media and the officials say? You even wonder if you were imagining it.” According to the paper, attacks on reporters in the area have never been worse. Newsrooms have been shot up, and reporters have been told to keep quiet—or else. “They mean what they say,” one local reporter said. “I’m censoring myself. There’s no other way to put it. But so is everybody else.”

Some 300 activists and leaders of women’s rights organizations convened at the Hudson Theatre in midtown Manhattan this weekend for the first Women in the World summit, co-hosted by The Daily Beast. “Empowering women is the key to peace, prosperity and progress, not just here in the United States, but also in countries where women have endured repression for centuries,” said Daily Beast Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown, who kicked off the event with an introductory speech. Hillary Clinton, Meryl Streep, and Queen Rania of Jordan were among the high-profile attendees. “It’s not just that women’s rights are human rights, but women’s progress is human progress,” Clinton said in her remarks Friday.

There's still hope for a bipartisan bill on financial regulation, which hit a snag this week after negotiations broke down in the Senate. All Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee signed a letter to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the committee's chairman, saying they could get on board with legislation if given more time, according to a copy of the note obtained by Reuters. Dodd will likely release revised legislation Monday. "While we remain open to finding common ground and to working diligently toward the passage of bipartisan legislation, we believe a markup scheduled in haste would certainly prevent us from achieving that goal," the Republicans said.

Joy Behar, Cynthia Nixon, and the ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters were honored Saturday night during this year’s awards from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The 21st Annual GLAAD Media Awards were held in New York and also acknowledged the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Cynthia Nixon was honored with the Vito Russo Award for a gay media professional noted for “promoting equal rights for the gay community.”