Is the raucous Tea Party movement experiencing growing pains? After a vocal segment of the group, called the Tea Party Express, issued a controversial blog post this week suggesting that African Americans regret emancipation because “it means having to work for real,” and “think for ourselves,” the group has been expelled from the main National Tea Party Federation. A federation spokesman called the post “clearly offensive,” saying on the CBS show Face the Nation that the group and its spokesman, Mark Williams, refused to apologize for the comments and have been ousted within the last 24 hours. Ironically, the Tea Party Express’ blog post was meant as a rebuke to a call by the NAACP to crack down on racism in the movement.

As the Gulf enters its fourth day with the leaking oil well capped, BP and its government overseers are struggling to agree on a long-term plan to keep the crude away. BP’s chief operating officer said on Sunday that he’d like to keep the cap closed for good, but news of a possible seep near the wellhead may prompt a different plan. Admiral Thad Allen, the administration’s response chief, said that the government is sticking to its original plan of eventually opening the well to siphon oil up to the surface, which is a more cautious route, but BP is getting another 24 hours to continue the cap test. In either scenario, the ultimate goal is to permanently fix the leak by drilling a relief well and pumping it with mud and cement. Allen was measured in his comments, expressing relief that the spill was plugged but pledging to "take all appropriate action to keep it that way."

She’s only been on the ground for a day, but Hillary Clinton has already scored a major victory in Pakistan, prodding the country into signing a landmark trade agreement with neighboring Afghanistan. Among other benefits of the deal, the two nations—whose often-frosty relations have been tested by war, political coups, and distrust—will now have greater access to each other’s territory, allowing each side to export goods without having to load them onto the native country’s truck at the border. The deal is an auspicious start to Clinton’s visit, the goal of which is to ease tensions among the neighboring countries and help to bolster their economies. Implementation of the accord is not yet assured, though: It must still be approved by Afghanistan’s parliament.

Vice President Joe Biden's new anthem seems to be, "We will, we will shock you": On Sunday he brushed off forecasts of the Democrats' demise as premature, insisting that the party will not only hold its head above water in the 2010 midterm elections but will be in "great shape." Biden told ABC's This Week: "We're going to win the House and we're going to win the Senate...I don't think the losses are going to be bad at all." Meanwhile, Republicans have been singing a different tune, taking to talk shows to trumpet their party's resurgence: National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Rep. Pete Sessions said that the GOP would be able to take back control of the House. Biden chalked up predictions that the GOP will best Dems in the fall to polls taken too early in the campaign season: "This is July," he said. "The most vulnerable time any public official finds himself in is when they have no opponent."

If U.S. intelligence officials are correct, the driving force behind one of al Qaeda’s latest propaganda initiatives is a U.S. citizen. Yemeni-American Samir Khan, 23, is believed to be the main author of Inspire, a slick, English-language online magazine published by al Qaeda’s Arabian arm and intended to instigate violence among aspiring jihadists. Khan, who was born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Queens and North Carolina, flew to Yemen in 2008 on a round-trip ticket but never returned. While in the States, he was known for running various radical Islamist blogs in which he translated al Qaeda multimedia into English, using the handle inshaAllhashaheed—Arabic for “God willing a martyr.” Inspire’s first issue, which appeared last week, included articles on bomb-making, encoding messages, and an interview with a prominent Islamic cleric.

A controversial European trend extended to Spain Sunday, as the country’s leading opposition party announced an upcoming push to ban burqas in public. Spain’s majority party, the Socialists, plans to support the measure, which would bar women from wearing the traditional Muslim body cover in all public places. Head veils, which are part of some traditional Spanish cultures, would not be included. With the debate, Spain joins Belgium, the Netherlands, and France—whose lower house approved a ban this week—in attempting to block the traditional garment. Justice Minister Francisco Caamano said this week that the burqa is “hardly compatible with human dignity.” Spain is home to about 1 million Muslims; the nation's Islamic Commission criticized the measure as an infringement on personal liberty.

The cast of MTV’s Jersey Shore is refusing to film—again—and it’s not because they need to catch up on their tanning and laundry. According to TMZ, the reality-TV stars are supposed to be shooting “at home” scenes for the show’s upcoming third season, but have balked at the cameras until they’ve negotiated more lucrative contracts. Snooki and most of her castmates have all declined to shoot, with The Situation expected to follow suit as well. Apparently, the cast believes they can make more cash doing promotional appearances than filming the show that made them famous.

Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett has some explaining to do. On Saturday, the right-handed star fumbled a start against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays—only the latest in a string of poor showings—and took out his frustration by punching a clubhouse door with both hands. Now he’s got lacerations on both hands, and it’s unclear if he’ll be able to make his next start on Friday. Burnett apologized to his teammates, but declined to share any details of the mea culpa. “It’s over and I learned from it, and hopefully everybody else learned from it.” Teammate Derek Jeter agreed that the matter is a private issue: Burnett “doesn’t have to address it with anyone in the media,” he said. The pitcher is reportedly performing well in the bullpen despite the injury.

Yes, human slavery still exists in America—but fortunately, lawmakers across the country are stepping up efforts to crack down on it. More than 40 bills have been enacted by state legislatures over the last year, a significant increase from the eight such laws that were enacted in 2006. Lawmakers are pushing through such tough measures as forcing employers to notify foreign workers of relevant labor laws and seizing known traffickers’ assets. According to the Polaris Project, an anti-trafficking group, it’s not about “brute force” anymore—modern traffickers often use threats and blackmail, or exploit immigrants by seizing their travel documents. A recent Justice Department survey estimated that as many as 17,500 immigrants are trafficked here each year, and 250,000 children are victims of trafficking.

Former actress Zsa Zsa Gabor has been hospitalized at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center with a broken hip bone and several other broken bones after she fell out of bed in her home. According to her ninth husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt, "She was watching her favorite show, Jeopardy, when the phone rang...She reached over to pick it up and fell." The 93-year-old socialite is reportedly in critical condition and is surrounded by her family. In 2002, Gabor was paralyzed in a car accident and has since been wheelchair-bound.

Where’s the AIDS bailout? A report issued ahead of a major international summit found that global funding to treat the disease essentially flat-lined in 2009, after several years of steady growth. Governments contributed a total of $7.6 billion for AIDS treatment in 2009, a figure that was most likely brought down by the global financial crisis, which tightened budgets across the globe. But AIDS activists aren’t buying it. “Over the last year, the same leaders had absolutely no problem finding money to bail out their corporate friends,” said the president of the International AIDS Society. “Yet when it comes to global health, the purse is always empty.” The heartbreaking aspect is that mounting evidence shows that global AIDS treatment has been very effective in recent years, both reducing deaths and slowing transmission rates for millions in the developing world.

Charged with the task of fixing the United States’ frayed relationship with Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad early Sunday morning as part of a trip through Asia that will also include stops in Afghanistan, South Korea, and Vietnam. The U.S. is deeply unpopular in Pakistan, where American drone operations serve as a constant reminder of their adversarial relationship. "There was a huge trust gap," said Vali Nasr, a senior adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. "We are not going to be able to change their foreign policy on a dime.” Outside of military concerns, Clinton will also discuss American plans to spend billions of dollars on a series of social and economic improvements in Pakistan’s notoriously fraught tribal region.

Mel Gibson is trying to get as far away as possible from his headline-grabbing scandal. According to one report, he’s supposedly packing his bags and moving back to his native Australia, where he will reunite with his ex-wife, Robyn. According to London’s Daily Mail on Sunday, Gibson is so serious about leaving the country that he has already sold his homes in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Malibu. The Greenwich home, a mock Tudor property known as Old Mill Farm, went for $24 million—though it was listed at $39.5 million in 2007. The Malibu house, Lavender Hill Farm, was just put on the market at $15 million.

The First Family lost no time enjoying their vacation and seem just as busy as they  would be in Washington. Since arriving at Mount Desert Island, Maine on Friday afternoon, they have been biking, hiking, and boating. But, as a matter of course, critics have already assailed the Obamas for their destination selection. Many pundits say that Michelle Obama ignored the advice she gave the rest of the country by not traveling to the Gulf of Mexico. Scott Stanzel, a deputy press secretary during the administration of George W. Bush, told Fox News that the president could be "setting an example" but "has chosen not to do that." But White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton jumped to the president’s defense. "I don't think that there's a person in this country [who] doesn't think that their president ought to have a little time to clear his mind," he told the Associated Press.

With 500 million members, Facebook sees users die on a regular basis, especially with its crowd growing older—6.5 million people over the age of 65 signed up in May alone. But unlike other milestones of life, like birthdays and weddings, the world’s largest social networking site has had a hard time finding an automatic, yet delicate way to deal with death. When users die, their profiles often stay up for long stretches of time. “It’s a very sensitive topic,” said a company spokeswoman, “and, of course, seeing deceased friends pop up can be painful.” Given the site’s size, “and people passing away every day, we’re never going to be perfect at catching it,” she added. Facebook’s handling has changed over time. It used to immediately erase profiles of the dead, but now it is working on options to turn those pages into tributes. Though the option is not well publicized, profiles can now be “memorialized”—some personal information is deleted, but friends can still post messages.

Roman Polanski has finally been let out of the house, and he's back to living the good life. Less than a week after Swiss authorities declined to extradite him to the U.S. to face charges for having sex with a minor in 1977, the embattled director made his first public appearance to watch his wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, perform at a Swiss jazz festival in Montreux. Though his attendance caused quite a stir with the press and photographers, Polanski stayed mostly out of sight, watching quietly from a VIP box during his wife's 55-minute set. Prior to the show, the famous director taped his first television interview since leaving the house, telling a Swiss media outlet that though he wasn't sure of his future plans, he was "happy to be free." He added, "I never asked for special treatment." Polanski, 76, is an old friend of Claude Nobs, the founder of the festival, and was spotted staying at Nobs' chalet earlier in the day, about an hour's drive from Gstaad, where he spent months under house arrest.

Since leaving office in 2009, Sarah Palin sure isn’t keeping out of politics. According The New York Times, she’s endorsed at least 50 candidates in the 2010 elections, many of them women, whom she calls “Mama Grizzlies.” Though her endorsements give an impression of spontaneity, sometimes appearing without warning on her Facebook page, her choices in governor’s races tend to closely track the preferences of the Republican Governor’s Association, and there is now a formal structure through which Republican operatives can apply for Palin’s benediction. Despite the increased visibility she gains by weighing in on so many primary races, it doesn’t necessarily behoove a run in 2012, as she’s making as many enemies as friends.

A suicide bomb attack this morning took the lives of at least 40 Iraqi security forces who were waiting in line to get paid. All the victims were a part of the government-backed militia Sahwa (Sons of Iraq). In 2006 Sahwa turned against al Qaeda and joined the U.S. and Iraqi government, helping to quell violence in the state. "There were more than 85 people lined up in three lines at the main gate of the military base when a person approached us,” a witness said. “When one of the soldiers tried to stop him, he blew himself up...I lost consciousness and woke up to find myself in hospital."

Shahram Amiri is alleging that the United States not only kidnapped and held him against his will for over a year, but pressured him to participate in a "spy" swap for Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal, the three U.S. hikers in custody in Tehran. The U.S. government maintains that the three hikers were on vacation and accidentally ventured across an unmarked border, questioning whether or not they were even in legitimate Iranian territory at the time. But Amiri insists that the government admitted to him that Shourd, Fattal, and Bauer were spies. "They [U.S. agents] wanted me to say that 'I was an Iranian intelligence agent infiltrating the CIA,’" he told Iranian state television. "If I said this, they said I could be part of a spy exchange program, whereby I could be handed over to Iran in return for the three American spies arrested near the Iraqi border."

If only Greg Mortenson also advised him to keep his mouth shut: Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former head of America's war effort in Afghanistan, had found a trusted source of advice and guidance not in think-tank strategists or a preacher, but in the author of Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson—who doesn't believe there is a military solution in Afghanistan—had elucidated the complex on-the-ground realities of Afghan life for McChrystal and other military officials. Nine hours before President Obama fired McChrystal from his post, McChrystal sent Mortenson an email that read: "Will move through this and if I’m not involved in the years ahead, will take tremendous comfort in knowing people like you are helping Afghans build a future." In the past year alone, McChrystal has met with Mortenson—who has built over 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan and believes that the education of girls is the key to Afghanistan's future—over three dozen times. Mortenson says he "never, ever expected" to have such an influence on high-ranking military officials.

It all seems so familiar for John McCain. As he battles the younger, more charismatic J.D. Hayworth in his senate bid in Arizona, there are unmistakable echoes of his presidential campaign two years ago. And in two debates over the weekend, it even seemed as if McCain was running against Barack Obama rather than Hayworth. “I am proud of the leadership position I have taken fighting this administration,” McCain said at a debate in Phoenix on Friday. Listing a number of conservative organizations he has behind him, McCain added: “They all support me because they know that I’m not only going to go back to Washington to fight, but to lead.” For the Freudians out there, there was even a slip of the tongue to confirm that old habits die hard. He began one answer by addressing “the American,” before pausing and correcting himself to say, “people of Arizona.”

Senate approval of the landmark financial-reform bill may have seemed like a win for the president—but he may not see the political benefits or an immediate boost to his approval ratings. Experts expect that the bill will begin to resonate with voters in a meaningful way that would boost the 2012 race, rather than before the upcoming 2010 midterm elections. The 2,300-page reform bill is complex and will be difficult for voters to digest—especially as they’re preoccupied with job creation and swelling deficits—and it may take some time before voters can grasp how the overhaul affects their lives. An Internet poll found that 38 percent of Americans had never heard of the overhaul, and only 33 percent were familiar with it but didn’t know the basics of the legislation. Senior Obama aide David Axelrod, however, insists that the public will feel the effects of the bill, namely when it comes to their credit cards and mortgages: "I understand that not everybody is steeped in the knowledge of derivatives and all of this kind of exotic instruments that were part of the saga of the financial crisis...But everybody in America deals with the headache of credit card fine print and variable mortgages,” he said.

Leo hit another one out of the park: Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a big hit this weekend, grossing $60.4 million at domestic box offices. The mind-bending thriller, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is another No. 1 hit for the Dark Knight director. The 3-D animated feature Despicable Me was second, pulling in $32.7 million. Sorcerer’s Apprentice earned $17.4 million for third place.