The President has tasked Secretary of the Navy and former Mississippi governor Ray Mabus to lead the Gulf recovery effort. A congressional investigation into ACORN has cleared the organization, but months too late to save the now defunct voter registration group. As expected, Congress has drastically weakened Sen. Al Franken's regulatory language on bond ratings agencies as part of a compromise bill. Russia is buying Canadian and Australian dollars to counter the wild ride of the greenback and euro. Scientist say at some point in its distant past, water covered the northern third of Mars.