National: Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled a Republican budget plan that would slash taxes on the rich from 39% to 25% while eliminating President Obama’s health care reform, Wall Street regulations and plans for high-speed rail. Medicare would be mostly privatized. …

National: The federal budget “sequester”, $85 billion in across the board cuts, begins today. Congress went home yesterday. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning  surprisingly admitted giving thousands of classified documents to the website Wikileaks and pleaded guilty to 10 criminal counts. …