President Obama launched a media blitz yesterday, doing so many prime time interviews you would think it was campaign season again. This time, though, he was touting his economic stimulus plan. Every stop on his media tour was peppered with questions about his two failed Cabinet nominations. For a look at the latest on the Obama stimulus and the nagging questions over Daschle, we are joined by April Ryan, the White House Correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks.

The election of Barack Obama brought, for the first time, a black family to the White House. But more than that: there’s a new black family in the neighborhood. Long a haven of ambition, achievement, community and art, Washington D.C.’s black community hasn’t always had an easy relationship with the White House. To take a look at how the new residents at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might interact with D.C.’s black community we are joined by Patrik Henry Bass, Books Editor at Essence Magazine and author of Like a Mighty Stream: The March on Washington, August 28, 1963.

The photographer Patrik Henry Bass mentioned? Addison Scurlock. And the National Museum of American History has an impressive online archive of his work.

Energy experts have a theory: It won't be a fancy new technology straight out of a science fiction novel that will help us reduce our energy consumption. Rather it will be something simple, sleek, a mere re-design if you will. The concept that will slow down how much energy we eat? Energy efficiency. Some energy efficient products are already out there—CFL lightbulbs and Energy Star refrigerators. Others are in the pipeline. As part of The Takeaway's Power Trip energy series, John Hockenberry heads to Novato, California, where some wacky guys are using the human lung to create better air conditioners.

Sri Lanka marks its 61st Independence Day today, but the celebrations have been muted by ongoing skirmishes between the government and separatists. The President declared that the military has nearly crushed the 25-year Tamil rebellion for a separate homeland, but fighting continues and the humanitarian crisis worsens. For more we are joined by Somini Sengupta, the South Asia bureau chief for the New York Times.

For more, read Somini Sengupta's article, Wounded Flee Shelling of a Hospital in Sri Lanka, in today's New York Times.

The economic spending bill now being debated in the Senate would pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy. But it wouldn’t do anything to help the transit system in St. Louis, which is in a crisis so grave that it may be forced to sell off many of its buses. The Takeaway's Andrea Bernstein and Les Sterman, executive director of East-West Gateway Council of Governments, a regional transportation organization based in St. Louis, talk about the stimulus plan and the public transportation crisis.

A day after President Obama announced he would stand by his man, Tom Daschle, the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department, has withdrawn his name for consideration. His abrupt decision left everyone from reporters to the Obama administration scrambling. In the end, President Obama made the media rounds last night taking full responsibility for the situation. For more we turn to Todd Zwillich of Capitol News Connection in Washington, D.C.

Ten years ago today, four New York City police officers shot at Amadou Diallo 41 times, hitting him with 19 bullets. Diallo, a 22-year old immigrant from West Africa was unarmed. The officers, all charged with second-degree murder, were eventually acquitted. One of the many unanswered questions surrounding the Diallo shooting is: If Amadou Diallo were an unarmed white man would he have been shot at? That’s a question that Joshua Correll has been trying to answer since 2002. Correll is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. His primary line of research uses videogame simulation of police encounters to examine racial bias in shoot/don't-shoot decisions. He joins us to discuss his results.

As interest rates for mortgage loans continue to drop, homeowners are looking to refinance and lock in lower long term rates. But most applicants are getting turned down. Takeaway contributor Alvin Hall joins host Adaora Udoji to talk about whether it's a good time to try and refinance and how to go about the process in a tough lending market.

Wall Street executives are getting plenty of criticism for handing out $18 billion in bonuses to themselves last year. But maybe there's a way to put bonuses to good use—by paying them to regulators who help keep the system in check. Andrew Ross Sorkin, chief mergers and acquisitions reporter for the New York Times, joins Adaora and Alvin Hall to talk about the idea of rewarding watchdogs with cold, hard cash.

For more information, read Andrew Ross Sorkin's column, What if Watchdogs Got Bonuses? in the New York Times.

Our current economic crisis isn’t the first crisis in history or even in recent memory and it most likely won’t be the last. But can events of the past teach us something this time around? To help answer that question, we are joined by Carmen Reinhart, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland and co-author of the forthcoming book “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.”