NPR News

A House panel will meet Wednesday to consider a report holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over subpoenaed documents related to the controversial Operation Fast and Furious, a botched gun-trafficking operation.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, met with Holder on Tuesday in an effort to resolve difference over his panel's subpoena for the documents.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block at NPR West, in California.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Advocates for prisoners rights say too many inmates spend years in solitary confinement — in violation of the constitutional bar against cruel and unusual punishment. Today, they persuaded the U.S. Senate to hold the first hearing on the issue, as state and federal prison systems fend off new lawsuits over the practice.

OK, so it's not exactly news that the Obama administration hasn't done the best job in the world selling the Affordable Care Act to the American public.

But now the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has some statistics to demonstrate just how sorry that job has been. And it suggests that the media gets at least some of the blame.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wrapped up a five-day, six-state tour in Michigan on Tuesday.

Each of the states he visited was won by President Obama in the 2008 election. Each is also shaping up as a potential battleground this year.

In Michigan, the state where Romney was born, he avoided big cities and stayed in places friendly to the GOP. As he traveled east to west across central Michigan by bus, there were some pockets of protesters, but mostly at a distance.

Beaches on the West Coast are getting a regular dose of debris from the 2011 tsunami in Japan. The first few items were curiosities — a boat here, a soccer ball there — but as the litter accumulates, officials such as Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire have acknowledged the scale of the problem.

"We are in for a steady dribble of tsunami debris over the next few years, so any response by us must be well-planned — and it will be," she said.

Beyond the obvious problem of litter, officials are on the lookout for hidden dangers.

Debris 'Everywhere'

Will recent changes to the way health care is delivered and paid for last even if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Health Act?

It's far from unanimous, but many believe Newton's law of inertia will kick in even if the statute that launched the changes drops away.