As if BP couldn't do anything to be hated more, the oil giant is now being investigated by four U.S. senators for possibly negotiating a deal with Libya for the release of Lockerie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, in exchange for a $900 million offshore drilling deal. Megrahi, who was convicted of killing 270 people—including 189 Americans—in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was released from prison last year after doctors insisted he only had a few months to live. In 2007, BP and the Libyan government agreed to a $900 million oil-exploration deal, and BP admitted last year to lobbying the British government for Megrahi's release. Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton requesting an investigation into the deal and whether BP will use “blood money” from the deal to pay for damages incurred by the Gulf spill. "It is shocking to even contemplate that this company is profiting from the release of a terrorist with the blood of 189 Americans on his hands," Lautenberg wrote.

Nearly five years after Hurricane Katrina, the federal government has charged four New Orleans police officers with civil-rights violations in the fatal shootings of two people, as well as the wounding of four others—all reportedly unarmed—on a bridge in the chaotic post-storm aftermath. Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen, as well as Officers Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon, were charged with deprivation of rights under color of law and use of a weapon during the commission of a crime—and if convicted, they could face the death penalty. Two others, Sgts. Arthur Kaufman and Gerard Dugue, were charged in covering up the crime. Five other officers have already pleaded guilty in helping to cover up the shootings. Those officers testified that they found bloodied bodies on the Danziger Bridge with no guns on or near them. Their pleas could be laying the groundwork for even more serious charges against those suspected of committing the actual shooting and cover-up.

Financial reform is on the cusp of becoming law: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will end debate on financial reform later Tuesday, setting up a final vote on the matter in the Senate for Thursday. He figures to have the 60 necessary votes after Republican Senators Scott Brown (MA), Olympia Snowe (ME), and Susan Collins (ME), and Democratic Senator Ben Nelson (NE) agreed to break a GOP filibuster. The House has already passed the financial-reform bill, so it will go to President Obama’s desk once the Senate passes it.

BP will not proceed Tuesday night with a pressure test on the blown-out Gulf oil well that could possibly cap the spill. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said additional analysis is needed before administering the test, which would establish whether the well could hold up under the pressure of closing the cap. Allen said regardless of the test results, BP should be able to contain the free-spilling oil by mid-July with oil-siphoning vessels.

In a landmark ruling, a federal appeals court in New York struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s strict rules governing indecency as a violation of the First Amendment. Broadcast TV networks sued the FCC after being slapped with huge fines when celebrities such as Bono, Nicole Richie, and Cher all uttered expletives on live broadcasts of awards shows. Under the Bush administration and after Janet Jackson’s flashing at the 2004 Super Bowl, the FCC began cracking down on indecency on television. The court said the FCC’s policy was “unconstitutionally vague” and created a “chilling effect” on the programs networks could air. “Under the current policy, broadcasters must choose between not airing or censoring controversial programs and risking massive fines or possibly even loss of their licenses, and it is not surprising which option they choose," the ruling judge wrote in her decision.

Xenophobia or a victory for women's rights? France's lower house of Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to ban Muslim women from wearing a full veil in public. Only one parliamentarian voted against the bill, though France’s Socialist Party boycotted the vote altogether. It targets, in particular, veils that obscure a woman’s entire face, like the burka and the niqab. The bill would slap a $200 fine on women who wear veils, and men would face a one-year jail term if they force their wives to wear burkas. The Senate will have to ratify the bill in September in order for it to become law.

After speculation that Sarah Palin may be gunning for a 2012 presidential run based on her raising $865,000 in the second quarter, FrumForum says not so fast. A look at Michele Bachmann shows that the Republican representative has been quietly raising huge amounts of money for her campaign, even while managing her  duties as a congresswoman and her reelection campaign. She raised a dizzying $1.7 million last quarter, beating Palin’s much-publicized fundraising machine. Mitt Romney also raised more in just two months than the former governor did in three.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, filed for divorce from his wife of 16 years, Mary Richardson Kennedy, The Journal News reports. The divorce papers were filed May 12, and is one in a series of rocky incidents for the Kennedys. On May 10th, Mary Kennedy called police alleging her husband was “verbally abusive to herself and children,” but officers on the scene reported she was “visibly intoxicated” and had “great difficulty collecting her thoughts and her reason for calling.” On May 13th, police were called to their residence after an alleged domestic incident where Mary Kennedy was reportedly intoxicated, and finally, on May 15th, Mary Kennedy was arrested for drunk driving. The couple has four children, and this will be the second divorce for Kennedy. He has refused to comment on his personal life.

Vince Vaughn and his wife, Kyla Weber, are expecting their first child, E! News reports. The couple married in January, and Vaughn recently said “for the first time, I really want to have kids.” He continued: “I've been very fortunate in my career, and my life has been about that for so long that you get bored of it. You're ready for your life to be about other people and other things,” Vaughn said.

Let this be a cautionary tale for the digital age. Starz President Chris Albrecht thought he was responding to an email about Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett, chief executive and chief operating officer of Overture Films, a subsidiary of Starz. Since Starz no longer wants to pursue the movie business, it was likely that McGurk and Rosett were going to be let go. Except for replying to Starz executives, Albrecht accidentally sent the email to 400 employees—including McGurk and Rosett. The two immediately resigned, and the fate of the whole company is now up in the air. McGurk and Rosett have been looking for a parent company for Overture after Starz parent company owner John Malone lost interest in the movie business and wanted to dump the company that controls 16 movie titles in its library.

Will this new guy make nerds cool, too? President Obama has chosen Peter Orszag's successor at the Office of Management and Budget—Jacob Lew, who held the job under President Clinton. Since leaving the Clinton administration in 2001, Lew has worked at New York University and a Citigroup hedge fund. "At a time when so many families are tightening their belts, he's going to make sure the government continues to tighten its own," President Obama said in announcing his selection.

So, about that recall … The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyotas that were in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration. The results? At the time of the crashes, the throttles were open and the brakes were not engaged, meaning that the crashes were likely the result of driver error. This is in line with a 1989 government study, which found that a spate of sudden-acceleration reports from Audi 5000 sedans were actually caused by driver error. Of the 3,000 complaints of Toyota sudden acceleration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has only verified one fatal crash due to problems with the vehicle. Toyota, for its part, has recalled more than 8 million cars to fix floor mats and sticky accelerators.

At least he went out with the Yankees on top: Outspoken owner of the New York Yankees George Steinbrenner died on Tuesday after suffering a massive heart attack. The baseball patriarch bought the Yankees for $10 million in 1973 and brought in seven World Series trophies and 11 pennants. "Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing," Steinbrenner once said. "Breathing first, winning next." He was twice suspended from baseball during that tenure--first, for making illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon; and then for paying a gambler to dig up dirt on baseball star Dave Winfield. His sons Hank and Hal, who have been running the team's operations now for several years, will succeed him as owners of the Yankees.

Are progressives set to pick a fight with conservatives over contraception? As The Daily Beast’s Dana Goldstein reports, right-wing activist groups are joining forces with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a fight against one of the provisions of President Obama’s health-care overhaul: Prescription birth control could soon be free of charge. ThinkProgress’ Matthew Yglesias says liberals would welcome a debate on the issue, calling it a “fight progressives have been wanting to have,” because polls suggest that a majority of Americans support free birth control. According to Yglesias, the issue would be perfect for exposing the “deeply reactionary” and “anti-woman ideology” behind the antiabortion movement. Of course, it may not go their way: The non-abortion reproductive health aspects of the Affordable Health Care Act have rarely been noticed in the past, and free prescription birth control could end up being largely ignored.

The implosion of the car industry has led Flint, Michigan, and neighboring Detroit to be declared the top two worst real-estate markets in the U.S., according to 24/7 Wall Street. The website calculated the worst markets by calculating the cities with the greatest median price cuts in June, a difficult time to sell after Congress failed to renew the homebuyer tax credit in April. Flint has seen a 12 percent median price cut, 31 percent of its listings have price cuts, and the city has a 15 percent unemployment rate overall. Its car-manufacturing neighbor, Detroit, is rated the second-worst real-estate market, with 28 percent of listings with price cuts, a 11 percent median price cut, and 14 percent unemployment. The other cities rounding out the tanked real-estate markets: Merced, El Centro, Santa Cruz, and Bakersfield in California, and Ocala, Vero Beach, Lakeland, and Miami-Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

Esquire takes a look into The Price Is Right’s only perfect bidder on a Showcase, and finds a perfect—if murky—storm of events leading up the bid. Lucky contestant Terry Kniess bid exactly $23,743 for the collection of prizes because, he said, he was able to estimate the $23,000 portion through studying the show, and the $734 amount was inspired by his PIN number. But the show’s producers have charged that Kniess had more than dumb luck on his side. They suspect an audience member named Ted Slauson, who had long been known to help contestants guess the prices due to his devotion to the show and his knack for remembering numbers, helped Kniess—and other contestants that day—make the right bids. In the end, the producers couldn't prove their case for cheating, and Kniess walked away with a handful of prizes and cash. Both Kniess and Slauson claim they just know how to play to the show's imperfections—but now no longer watch.

The case of Aimee Sword, the Michigan woman who pleaded guilty to having sex with the 14-year-old son that she gave up for adoption when he was only a few days old, may not be completely unheard of: Researchers say reunions between an adopted child and his or her biological parent can lead to sexual attraction. Genetic sexual attraction is "increasingly acknowledged" by adoption agencies as a "common feature" of reunions. A British researcher has examined the issue, and the CBC described the findings as such: "Combined with the feelings of loss and trauma associated with being put up for adoption and the excitement and fantasies of a reunion, the adoptees often felt vulnerable to such attraction." Sword, who is married and has five other children, contacted her son via Facebook and began a relationship with him that turned sexual.

Mort Zuckerman might want to check his publications’ correction policy, as he hastily pulled back from his statement Monday that he wrote a speech for President Obama. Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News and World Report and the New York Daily News, said he has “been asked by various public officials, including those in Washington, for my perspectives and views on numerous issues,” and his claim that he “helped contribute” to one of Obama’s speeches stemmed from those types of conversations. On Fox News Monday, Zuckerman said he wrote a speech for Obama, and news organizations rushed to prove the claim, especially since it would prove a cozy relationship between the conservative media mogul and Obama.

If you’re able to muster the energy, there’s a third Mel Gibson audio recording at RadarOnline.com. What pearls does Mad Mel offer this time? He refers to a Latino worker as a “wetback” and calls his ex-girlfirend, Oksana Grigorieva “a f------ mentally deprived idiot” and a “f------ using whore.” “I own you,” he yells at some point. He also accuses her of cheating with a “f------” ugly man. “You don’t give a f--- as long as they pay your rent,” he says.

An Edvard Munch print, never before seen by the public, sold for a record £1.25 million at a Bonhams auction, making it the most expensive print sold in the U.K. and the second most expensive in the world. The winning bid, which went to a U.S. buyer, was for double the artwork's estimated value. The hand-colored drawing, in Munch’s swirling style, is signed and dated 1895—arguably the earliest hand-colored drawing—and is described as being in “excellent condition,” having been in artist Frank Avray Wilson’s family for more than 100 years.

How damning is Consumer Reports' decision to withdraw its recommendation of the iPhone 4 due to the hardware flaw that causes the external antenna to drop calls? “Apple will be forced to do a recall of this product,” PR expert Matthew Seeger tells CultofMac.com, while Dr. Larry Barton tells the website that “there has to be a military-like response to this issue.” Others agree: C-Net’s Molly Wood is also calling for a recall, saying it must replace the current phones with new phones with properly coated antennas. “Yes, it would be expensive and unprecedented,” she argues. “But wow, would it win back some flagging hearts and minds.”

Reviews are in for the highly anticipated summer movie, Inception, which is released this Friday. Inception is a Warner Bros. picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and was written and directed by Christopher Nolan. The Associated Press lauds Inception as, “One of the year’s best films, one that will surely get even better upon repeated viewings.” Entertainment Weekly gives the film a B+, calling it, “As engrossing and logic-resistant as the state of dreaming it seeks to replicate,” and The Hollywood Reporter opines that it’s “a devilishly complicated, fiendishly enjoyable sci-fi voyage across a dreamscape.”

This ought to shut him up: The NBA has fined Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert $100,000 for what it calls his “inappropriate” comments about LeBron James. Gilbert had penned an open letter to Cavs fans after James bolted the team for the Miami Heat, calling the star “narcissistic” and denouncing his “cowardly behavior.” The fine came hours after Gilbert replied to Jesse Jackson, who accused him of treating James like a “runaway slave.” Gilbert kept it civil, saying “I strongly disagree with Rev. Jesse Jackson's recent comments and we are not going to engage in any related discussion on it.”

Well, Lou Dobbs could probably use a running mate for 2012: The man who replaced Dobbs on CNN, John King, could follow him out the door, writes the New York Post. King has lost more than half of Dobbs’ audience, and his poor lead-in helped to doom Campbell Brown’s 8 p.m. show. One insider predicts to the Post that Wolf Blitzer will take over King’s 7 p.m. slot. CNN says rumors of King’s demise are “not true.”

Italian police arrested 320 people in raids against the Calabrian mafia on Tuesday—a massive operation that included arrests in the United States, says the Associated Press. Known as ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia is much less known than its Sicilian counterpart, the Cosa Nostra. While it is centered in the poor Italian region of Calabria, it is a major player in the international drug trade. Charges against the arrested include murder and money laundering, though the specific charges against the U.S. individuals are unknown.

An Iranian nuclear scientist who vanished in June 2009 resurfaced Monday night at the Pakistani embassy Washington. Tehran has claimed that the scientist, Shahram Amiri, was kidnapped by the U.S. during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last year. (American officials deny the charge.) Earlier press reports said Amiri, 32 years old, had defected to the U.S. to work with the CIA on undermining Iran’s nuclear program. The story is further complicated by Amiri’s appearance in Web videos; in one, he claims he was kidnapped, in another he says he’s just studying in the U.S. On Tuesday, Iranian state-owned media reported that Amiri went to the Pakistani embassy demanding to return immediately to his homeland. The scientist’s appearance could become an embarrassment for the U.S. as it seeks to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Don’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet: BP has installed a new cap on the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico that should be able to collect all of the gushing oil, but it won’t actually know until later Tuesday, when it runs a test that will take between six and 48 hours. The new cap will either hold all the leaking oil or allow it to be siphoned to tankers on the ocean’s surface. Once that’s done, we can begin predicting where BP’s next disaster will be: The New York Times says the company has a long history of “boldness and costly blunders.” In 2005 for example, the company’s crown jewel $1 billion rig, Thunder Horse, listed dangerously to one side during Hurricane Dennis, nearly bringing on a Titanic-like disaster. “Despite a catalog of crises and near misses in recent years, BP has been chronically unable or unwilling to learn from its mistakes, an examination of its record shows,” the Times writes.

What hath Sully wrought? Every single goose—including the babies—was rounded up, put in crates, and gassed to death in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park last week. The geese—about 400 of them—were a signature of the park, and residents began to notice their conspicuous absence a few days ago. They mystery of their disappearance was solved Monday, when city officials, working with the federal Agriculture Department, admitted the birds were killed because they threatened human frequent fliers. The aim was to extinguish all goose populations within seven miles of major airports. Prospect Park is 6.5 miles from the La Guardia and JFK. Officials waited till the geese’s molting season—when the birds could not fly—to pounce. The birds were crated and then gassed with C02 at a nearby facility. Visitors, mourning the lifeless surface of the park’s lake, found zip-tie restraints among a scattering of gosling feathers.

It may just be one-quarter of a Super Bowl audience, but soccer continues to make strides in the United States: 24.3 million Americans tuned into the World Cup finals on ABC and Univision—the most ever in this country for a soccer match. That’s keeping with the overall tournament, which also drew more American viewers this year than ever before. In fact, 41 percent more people tuned in this year than did in the previous World Cup. The top markets for ABC’s broadcast were San Francisco, San Diego, and New York; while the top three for Univision’s broadcast were Miami, Los Angeles, and Houston.

In yet another sign of the shifting complexity of the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. now finds itself unwittingly funneling money to the Taliban as a result of well-intentioned efforts to upgrade a crucial Afghan power plant. U.S. forces have spent about $100 million in taxpayer dollars to upgrade the Kajaki hydropower plant, the largest source of electricity in southern Afghanistan. The problem, though, is that it’s located in a region run by the Taliban, which has control of the local power grid. Residents, then, pay their monthly utility bills to the insurgent group, who are free to turn around and use the cash flow to fund their fight against American troops. “The more electricity there is, the more money the Taliban make,” a local government tribal-affairs adviser told The Wall Street Journal. Cutting the Taliban’s power, unfortunately, would also adversely affect government buildings intertwined in the power grid, an unpleasant option: Providing basic services like electricity is a key component of the U.S. strategy to bolster faith in the Afghan government.

First came the photos of former Cuban President Fidel Castro greeting workers at a science facility in Havana, which were posted on a pro-government blog on Saturday. Now there’s this: On Monday, in a much-publicized television appearance on the daily Cuban talk show Mesa Redonda—all the more rare since Castro underwent intestinal surgery in 2006—the 83-year-old revolutionary talked about foreign politics, singling out Iran as "the most serious crisis," and also addressing the North and South Korean conflict. Castro, having largely stayed out of the public eye since ceding power to his younger brother Raul, appears to be making a media resurgence. Public appearances, especially this interview, may suggest a more pronounced role for the dictator, who still remains head of Cuba’s Communist Party.

Straight from the desk of Captain Obvious: The Israeli military’s report on the botched flotilla raid that killed nine Turkish activists on May 31 admits “mistakes”—mainly in planning and intelligence. However, the report defends the decision to dispatch commandoes to the boat, saying the only other options would have endangered the entire vessel. Specifically, the report said that the navy did not consider the possibility of a violent confrontation on board the boat, and that it did not consult enough with Mossad beforehand. It also said that the commandoes who carried out the raid should be “praised” for their operation.

Officials finally nabbed Colton Harris-Moore—the 19-year-old “Barefoot Bandit” who went on a two-year international crime spree—in the Bahamas on Sunday. Now, with the investigation officially under way, the question arises: How will enough direct evidence be collected to fully prosecute him? The answer may lie in toe prints Harris-Moore allegedly left on the floor of a Washington state grocery store, according to Slate. The difficulty, however, is that no one knows if toe-print matches are as accurate as fingerprints—and even then, fingerprinting is a hotly debated subject. Slate’s conclusion: Fingerprints are much more useful to police, because officials keep large record databases of them—occasionally, however, toe prints save the day.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs politely reminded NASA Administrator Charles Bolden of his job title today, saying that Bolden was quite mistaken when he said—twice—that a large part of NASA’s duties are to reach out to the Muslim world. The NASA head made the comments in February and again in an interview with Al Jazeera. The impetus for Muslim outreach at the space department, said Bolden, is to engage with the world’s best scientists. So far criticism has been swift, which is why Gibbs corrected Bolden’s comments at a daily briefing on Monday. “That was not his task and that’s not the task of NASA,” he said of Bolden’s remarks. Asked if Bolden had misspoken, Gibbs said, “I think so.”

Can we trade him for Anna Chapman? A 12th person suspected of being a part of the Russian spy ring has been detained, The Wall Street Journal reports. The man, 23, came to the U.S. in October 2009, and investigators began monitoring him shortly afterward, but his name was not disclosed when the spy ring case was made public earlier in June. The man’s name is still not public, and it’s unclear what his role in the ring might be. Investigators weren’t able to get enough evidence of his participation in a spy plot; he’s currently not in custody as deportation paperwork is being processed.

Apple’s troubles continue to mount: Consumer Reports has retracted its earlier recommendation for the iPhone 4, saying now that the phone’s poor antenna design, which causes users to drop calls if they hold it a certain way, has caused it to change its mind. “Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4’s signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software,” the non-profit magazine wrote. “Apple needs to come out with a permanent—and free—fix to the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4.

Seventy-six people died in Sunday’s terrorist attack in Uganda, but it could have been worse: An unexploded suicide vest was found at another site in Kampala, Uganda, a day after explosions tore into two city venues where people had gathered to watch the World Cup on TV. Four people, who weren’t Ugandan, were arrested in connection with the discovery. Police say the vest, uncovered at a suburban disco, contained ball bearings, just like those at the other blast sites.  Islamist group al Shabaab claimed credit for the attacks, saying they are a response to the Ugandan government sending peacekeeping troops to Somalia, where the government there is struggling to hold on to control of just a small section of the capital as it fights Islamic militants. Officials worry Somalia is becoming a training ground for international terrorists; the explosions mark the first time al Shabaab has made good on threats to kill people outside Somalia.

Danny Glover’s has gotten too old for this shit: Mel Gibson’s African-American costar from the Lethal Weapon movies declined to offer comment on the Gibson debacle to the Los Angeles Times. Jodie Foster, his close friend and director of his upcoming film The Beaver, also kept mum, as did the producer of Gibson’s recent film, Edge of Darkness. Still, his career may not be beyond repair: The Los Angeles Times says a smaller Hollywood agency has casually debated whether it should sign up the disgraced star.

Financial reform is ready at last: Democrats have the 60 votes needed to pass the financial-regulation overhaul after Republican Senators Scott Brown (MA), Susan Collins (ME) and Olympia Snowe (ME) agreed to break their party’s filibuster and vote for the bill. Unless Republicans agree to expedite the process, the bill won’t be ready for a final vote until Thursday, leaving plenty of time for Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who voted for the original bill in May, to sign up for the measure.