In response to criticism of outlandish executive pay, the government is now tightening the reins. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced the brand new position of "pay czar" and appointed Ken Feinberg, the Washington lawyer known for setting the compensation amount for families of the 9/11 victims. Now he turns his attention to setting a very different kind of monetary figure. To talk about this is Nell Minow, editor and co-founder of the Corporate Library, a think-tank that studies executive pay.

On Monday New York State Senate Republicans staged a coup against the Democratic majority. In response, the Democrats refused to unlock the gates to the Senate chamber, and state business has come to a standstill. Rex Smith, Editor of the Albany Times-Union, joins The Takeaway with a look at the New York state government's chaos.

Watch footage from the floor of the Senate in the video below.

In the past 50 years, Denver has grown from a small city to a sprawling metropolitan region. With urban sprawl comes gentrification. The Takeaway caught up with Andres Duany, the founding member of the New Urbanism movement, to ask him about gentrification. How do you keep a neighborhood mixed, economically and socially?

Also, hear this bonus web-only interview we did with Duany on urban sprawl!

This week The Takeaway is examining Denver as a laboratory for how the American city and surrounding suburbs are changing. The so-called "new urbanists" are pushing for more walkable, mixed-use (and mixed price) communities. They are gathering in Denver this week for the Congress on New Urbanism.

Matt Dellinger, transportation writer, joins The Takeaway to talk about who he's met and what he's learned while on safari in downtown Denver.

Follow along on The Takeaway's Urban Safari series.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrapped up his re-election campaign by accusing his opponents of conspiring with Israelis to discredit him. He went on TV to denounce them for lying, insulting him and being corrupt. The BBC's Jon Leyne is in Tehran to review the Iranian campaign and predict how fair or free the vote will be.

For more on Ahmadinejad and the Iranian elections, watch the video below.

The Obama administration has announced the appointment of a compensation czar who will regulate executive pay at seven of the largest companies getting TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds. He will also develop a compensation structure for 80 smaller companies. The man who is taking on that job is Kenneth Feinberg, a Washington, D.C. attorney who was in charge of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. He joins The Takeaway to tell us about his plans. (Click through to read the interview.)

The average salary for middle-school teachers is $46,000, according to the Department of Labor. But a charter school in New York’s Washington Heights will be paying a salary of $125,000, trying to find out if better pay means a better education. Zeke Vanderhoek, the founder and principal of the charter school The Equity Project (TEP) joins The Takeaway to talk about the school. The Takeaway also has Joe Williams, Executive Director of Democrats for Education Reform, to talk about whether paying teachers a high salary would improve public schools in the long run.

When Obama meets with top leaders and government officials, he often puts an arm around their shoulders. To some, this could be seen as a friendly gesture, but to others it's a power play. What does a politician's body language really mean? Joining The Takeaway to decipher this for us is Karen Studd, a teacher of movement analysis at the Laban Institute of Movement Studies, who is an Associate Professor of Dance at George Mason University.

The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tvangirai, is in Washington this week to meet with President Obama. He’s here to garner support for Zimbabwe’s power-sharing “Unity” government. What's the real state of the country, politically and economically? The BBC Mike Thomson has just returned from an undercover reporting trip to the country, and joins The Takeaway to talk about Zimbabwe's troubles, and the orphans who suffer the price.

An 88-year-old white supremacist with a rifle walked into the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, fatally wounding a security guard. The gunman was identified by law enforcement officials as James W. von Brunn, who embraces conspiracy theories involving Jews, blacks and other minority groups and has waged a personal war with the federal government. Jack Levin, Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Northeastern University joins The Takeaway to talk about the shooting and the trends in hate crimes.

An 88-year-old white supremacist walked into the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. yesterday with a rifle, fatally shooting a security guard. The alleged shooter, James von Brunn, is believed to have a long history of anti-Semitic beliefs.

Joining The Takeaway is a man whose organization tracks threats and attacks by hate groups, Mark Potok, Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.