From Christy Harvey
Center for American Progress, and KUDO 1080am

907 News

1) BP Alaska Project Makes Front Page Of NYT
The New York Times takes BP’s Liberty drilling project national, saying the company is moving ahead with a new “controversial and potentially record-setting project” to drill three miles off the coast of Alaska. Regulators exempted BP’s project, “Liberty,” from President Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium because “it sits on an artificial island… built by BP” and thus qualifies as “onshore.” [NYT]
Follow-Up: Craig Medred from the Dispatch has a piece on how the NYT bought into the wrong hype. [Alaska Dispatch]

2) Bruce Weyrauch Gets A Second Chance
The Supreme Court this morning ruled that the “honest services” fraud law used to convict white-collar criminals like Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling was too broad and can only be used in overt bribery and kickback schemes. The Court also ruled that, under this new definition, they must throw out the “appeals court ruling against former Alaska legislator Bruce Weyhrauch, who is facing charges under the honest services law.” [Houston Chronicle]

3) Poll Position
The only things more unpopular than Sarah Palin (29% favorable/43% unfavorable) , according to the latest NBC WSJ national poll? George W. Bush (29/50), oil companies (17/56), and BP (6/67).  [Pollster.com]

4)  Less Production = Less Safety
The Alaska Dispatch reports less oil production in Alaska could mean less money for oil spill response and prevention, a fund filled by a per-barrel tax. “The Department of Environmental Conservation’s Spill Prevention and Response Division — or SPAR, as it’s known — gets most of its operating budget from the fund. And advocacy groups say there’s reason to worry that SPAR, the state’s principal oil spill watchdog, won’t have the wherewithal to do its job if the Legislature doesn’t take steps to bolster the funds, and soon.” [Alaska Dispatch]

5) Suing
The Juneau Empire reports “Alaska Electric Light & Power is threatening to sue the Regulatory Commission of Alaska if it doesn’t get the rate increase it says it needs.” What we mean by rate increase: “At stake is $13,500 per day (or $4.9 million a year) in revenues either lost by AEL&P or saved by customers, depending on one’s view.” AEL&P attorney Dean Thompson told an RCA pre-hearing teleconference yesterday that unless they get the rate increase they want, they’ll take it to the Superior Court (though he added AEL&P was not making a threat.) [Juneau Empire]

DC2AK

1) Terrorism Charges Against Virginians
Pakistan today convicted five Virginian men on terrorism charges and sentenced them to ten years in prison. Alexandria attorney Nina Ginsberg disputed the verdicts, saying, “This was a rigged trial that appears to have been based on fabricated evidence in a secret court with a preordained result.” The FBI is said to be conducting its own investigation into the men and their activities after leaving Alexandria, VA, to supposedly help orphans in Afghanistan. [WashPo]

2) Energy Reform Push Coming
The League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, SEIU and VoteVets.org are planning an $11M ad campaign beginning next week “designed to pressure” sens. “on the need for comprehensive energy reform” (“The Fix“).

3) Defending Al Gore
Salon.com has “Three Reasons to Doubt The Al Gore Sex Assault Story,” pointing out both the cops and the local Portland paper failed to find any validity in a Oregon masseuse’s accusations of  repeated, unwanted sexual contact back in 2006. [Salon]

4) Spill News
From the WSJ: “When the House agreed to give subpoena powers to President Barack Obama’s newly formed oil-spill commission, 420 members voted for the plan and only one voted against it: Texas Republican Ron Paul.” [WSJ]

5) Gates On McChrystal
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates weighed in on the McChrystal controversy today, saying the scandal that led to the ouster of the top military leader in Afghanistan is “an anomaly, not a systemic problem” in the U.S. military. McChrystal was dismissed from duty yesterday after a Rolling Stone article came out in which he and his top aides talked trash about other White House leaders and their role in the war in Afghanistan. [NYT]

Watercooler News

1) Move Over, Puxatawny Phil
Meet Paul the Octopus. Paul is keeping hope alive for the nation of Germany today after predicting their team will win their World Cup match against Ghana tonight. “For the European Championship in 2008 Paul had a success rate of more than 80 percent for the German games,” said a spokesman for the Sea Life aquarium. “And for this World Cup, he has had a 100-percent success rate so far.” [AFP]

2) Tupac Lives
Tupac Shakur lives on! The Library of Congress in Washington this week chose the rapper’s “Dear Mama” as one of 25 recordings for the National Recording Registry, the list of songs “to be preserved and always available for the American public” because it tells of his forgiveness of a mother who, “despite a cocaine habit, ‘never kept a secret, always stayed real.’” [Washington Examiner]

3) Whew!
John Isner finally beat Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon today after a match that took a grueling 11 hours and 5 min over three days to complete. The final score: 70-68. [CNN]

4) Vacation’s All We Ever Wanted
According to a new poll, the Japanese take the least amount of vacation time a year – a paltry 9 days off – while the French are the vacation champs, taking an average 34.5 days annually. (We hit a happy medium in the United States, using about 14 vacation days a year.) [MSNBC]

5) Acting!
Bristol Palin’s acting debut on “The Secret Life Of the America Teenager” will air July 5 on ABC Family. Here’s a sneak peek. [USA Today]