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Shortly before midnight, the Senate confirmed Wednesday a new secretary of housing, Steven Preston, replacing Alphonso Jackson, the last chief of the Housing and Urban Development who resigned amid a contracting scandal.

The Senate also approved conservative author James Glassman to replace Karen Hughes as the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. Glassman had prompted concerns from Democrats because of his strong conservative leanings.

The nominations were confirmed after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House reached a deal to move a slew of executive branch nominees.

-Manu Raju

The Department of Energy today submitted an application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for what would be the nation's first repository for spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.

The site would be located under Yucca Mountain, 90 miles from Las Vegas.

The 8,600 page application was several years in the making according to the department, which also said over 20 years of scientific analysis have been conducted to determine whether the proposed facility will be safe as a permanent disposal site for nuclear waste.

The department touted the submission as progress for nuclear energy in the U.S. "Submittal of the Yucca Mountain license application will further encourage the expansion of nuclear power in the United States, which is absolutely critical to our energy security, environmental goals, and national security," Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said today in a release.

The politically charged Yucca Mountain proposal has seen support and opposition from both sides of the aisle. See DoE's release here.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that the United States needs to do more than merely talk to Iran.

In a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's conference in Washington, Rice said that the United States is conducting diplomacy with the Islamic state, but she dismissed a debate over whether U.S. leaders should "talk" to the country.

"We would be willing to meet with them, but not while they continue to inch closer to a nuclear weapon, under the cover of talk," Rice said, speaking for the Bush administration. "So the real question is not, 'Why won't the Bush administration talk to Tehran?' The real question is, 'Why won't Tehran talk to us?'"

A greater willingness to meet with leaders who have been antagonists of the United States has been central to Barack Obama's foreign policy. Obama's proposal has prompted criticism from Republicans and their presidential nominee, John McCain, who suggested today that Obama is offering something that has been tried and hasn't worked.

Rice also added that the United States has done more than just talk with Iran. It has sanctioned Iranian military forces and its banks and has sent U.S. ships to the region to deter attacks by Iran on other countries, Rice noted.

"Diplomacy is not a synonym for talking," she said. "True diplomacy means structuring a set of incentives and disincentives to produce change in behavior."

Former Vice President Al Gore is praising Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) for her work on the Lieberman-Warner climate bill, which is now being debated in the Senate.

"I want to commend Senator Boxer for her leadership of the Environment and Public Works Committee," Gore said in a statement yesterday. "Thanks to her vision and dedication, we have the first global warming bill in history that is comprehensive, bipartisan and that enjoys support across the country -- from labor and agriculture to the business and the environmental communities. Of course the bill needs to be stronger, but it's vital that Congress begin to act. While it's important that people change their light bulbs, it's even more important that we change the laws."

Boxer chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Democracy for America (DFA), a Democratic activist group founded in 2004 by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, is telling supporters to drop AT&T and switch to its own wireless phone service.

In an email to supporters today, DFA posed its wireless service as an alternative to AT&T, which donated to President Bush's presidential campaign in the 2000 and 2004 election cycles.

"AT&T must have thought that electing and re-electing Bush/Cheney was good for business. But it wasn't good for you and me. And it definitely wasn't good for the country or the world," Democracy for America Finance Director Rachel Moss wrote in the email. Read more...

The plaster model used to cast the U.S. Capitol's Statue of Freedom will begin its journey Monday from the Russell Senate Office Building to the Capitol Visitors Center, where it will be the center piece of the public center's Emancipation Hall, set to open this winter.

Architect of the Capitol staffers are planning to construct a scaffold around the model, which has been displayed in the Senate office building's basement rotunda for 15 years, and begin to disassemble its pieces.

Originally cast in five parts, the statue's model arrived in America in 1858 from Rome where sculptor Thomas Crawford crafted the mold. Crawford died before the nearly 20-foot statue's bronze casting was completed four years later and raised atop the newly finished cast-iron Capitol dome in 1863.

"Visitors will be able to see detail of the model for the Statue of Freedom that would be impossible for them to see by looking at the statue on top of the Capitol," said Terrie S. Rouse, chief executive officer for visitor services for the visitors center. "We expect that the compelling story of Freedom will be something that visitors of all ages will take with them after they leave the Capitol Visitor Center."

The female figure depicted in the statue, which weighs about 15,000 pounds, holds a laurel wreath of victory in one hand while her other hand rests atop a sheathed sword. Her helmet was originally designed as a liberty cap, a symbol of freedom for slaves. But Secretary of War Jefferson Davis objected, and Crawford substituted a Roman helmet with a crest depicting an eagle's head, feathers and talons (a reference to the costume of Native Americans) encircled by stars.

-Jordy Yager

Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) Policy Conference today, John McCain called for a worldwide divestment campaign against Iran, with businesses and investors across the globe severing ties to the country.

"We should privatize the sanctions against Iran by launching a worldwide divestment campaign," McCain said. "As more people, businesses, pension funds, and financial institutions across the world divest from companies doing business with Iran, the radical elite who run that country will become even more unpopular than they are already."

"Years ago, the moral clarity and conviction of civilized nations came together in a divestment campaign against South Africa, helping to rid that nation of the evil of apartheid," McCain said." In our day, we must use that same power and moral conviction against the regime in Iran, and help to safeguard the people of Israel and the peace of the world."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had a late-night encounter with the rock band Kiss while on a diplomatic trip to Sweden Thursday.

Rice, in Stockholm for a conference on Iraq, first ran into Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer in the lounge of the Sheraton Hotel, the Associated Press reports. Rice later accepted an invitation to meet with the band after her dinner with the Swedish foreign minister.

Though the rockers did not have on their painted faces and leather costumes, Rice said she was "thrilled."

"It was really fun to meet Kiss and Gene Simmons," Rice, a classically trained pianist, told reporters. She said that her favorite Kiss song is "Rock And Roll All Nite."


(Photo courtesy of KISSONLINE.)

Confidence in the American economy has equaled its record low for 2008, with 88 percent of Americans saying the economy is getting worse, according to Gallup. Nine percent of Americans said they thought the economy was improving.

The previous low was set earlier this month. Confidence had risen slightly since then, with Gallup's last poll indicating 85 percent of Americans thought the economy was getting worse, before falling again today.

The economy consistently polls as the issue voters see as most important, especially among Democratic voters.

Gallup surveyed over 1,400 Americans on May 25, 27, and 28 for the poll.

J.C. Watts, the former House Republican from Oklahoma, will start a new television news station focused on black audiences in 2009.

Watts, who runs his own communications firm and frequently appears as a cable news pundit, has signed an agreement with Comcast to air the station, called the Black Television News Channel, in Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington D.C., Atlanta and Baltimore, the New York Post reports.

"I'm not so sure that you see anything on CNN or Fox News that specifically targets the African American community," Watts said in an interview with the Post.

Watts served in the House from 1995 to 2003.