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President-elect Barack Obama comes from the same city and state as Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and it was the Obama seat in the Senate that Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell. Is it possible this scandal will leave the new president unsinged?

The chief U.S. diplomat in Africa ratcheted up the language against Zimbabwe's longtime president Robert Mugabe on Sunday. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer says the United States won't lift sanctions against that country until Mugabe is gone. NPR's Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks to host Andrea Seabrook about the developments.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Class, the Oscar-nominated French film about a high school class in an impoverished Paris neighborhood.

Michael Steele, the new head of the Republican Party, found himself in hot water again with his fellow Republicans when he told a GQ reporter that women have a right to choose an abortion. The comments could have political implications.

President Barack Obama's budget proposal is placing conservative Democrats in a tight spot. Republicans are asking them to be fiscally cautious. Liberals are targeting them with a barrage of ads, urging them to support the president's budget.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner went to Capitol Hill on Thursday with expansive plans to reduce "systemic risk" in the financial system. He called for new rules and better referees. And he was met with skepticism, particularly from Republicans.

A new translation of Carlo Collodi's 1881 classic Pinocchio reveals a puppet that's much darker than Walt Disney might have you believe. Critic-at-large John Powers has a review.

In Washington, it was a crucial day of meetings between the leaders of the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari huddled first with Secretary of State Clinton and later with President Obama and made a number of key commitments.

He helped lay the groundwork for bossa nova but defied confinement to any single genre.

President Obama is expected to nominate federal appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. She would be the first Hispanic justice. If confirmed by the Senate, Sotomayor would succeed retiring Justice David Souter.

The Bush administration has imposed new rules for the State Children's Health Insurance Program that state officials say may result in loss of coverage for thousands of kids. Congress has been working to renew the program, which is set to expire at the end of next month.

President Bush has called once again for the House to adopt a Senate bill on foreign intelligence — and by noon, Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was saying the House would take up a bill next week. Whether the bill includes the retroactive legal immunity for phone companies that the president demands was not immediately clear.

Even with the latest buzz surrounding product recalls, it can be difficult to stay updated on what has been cleared off the shelves. One Baltimore art student missed a contact-solution recall announcement — and found out about it the hard way.

Florida is next on the Republican presidential program, and all of the big names are arriving ahead of the vote a week from Tuesday. But one major GOP contender has been working the state all month, counting on a breakthrough there to overcome the influence of the early contests: former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

The race is crucial for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. In last-minute campaigning, Clinton struggled to avoid a highly damaging second straight defeat in the Democratic presidential race. Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney fought hard for victory in New Hampshire, where neither could afford to lose.

For many months, Barack Obama relied on a speech that last year vaulted him from the ranks of the Democratic presidential candidates to the lead position. But in recent days, he has found it necessary to revise and revamp.

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are back on Capitol Hill Wednesday, in an effort to convince lawmakers to freeze U.S. troop levels in Iraq after a small drawdown in the summer. Petraeus and Crocker appear before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees today.

Exiled former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says he will challenge President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in elections this fall, even as Musharraf considers a power-sharing agreement with another rival that would have him stepping down as head of the army.

President Bush renews his vow to veto any spending bill for the war in Iraq that attempts to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that if the timetable fails, he will move to cut off funding for the war by March 31 of next year.

Exit polls are showing Lee Myung-bak, a conservative former mayor of Seoul, winning South Korea's presidential election. Voters overlooked fraud allegations in hope that the former Hyundai CEO will revive the economy. Lee, of the Grand National Party, received 50.3 percent of the vote.