The budget battle is heating up in Washington when House Democrats unveiled a $94.2 billion wartime spending bill yesterday that adds $9.3 billion to White House requests. But the bill also challenges some of President Obama's priorities, especially his plans for closing Guantanamo within a year. Other battle lines are being drawn, too. President Obama has already begun calling senators who will play key roles in the confirmation process of whoever he nominates to replace retiring Justice David Souter. President Obama has said he would like the new justice seated by early October.

To help us map the battle plans, we turn to The Takeaway's Washington Correspondent Todd Zwillich. Also joining the conversation is Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, the legal affairs editor of The New Republic and the author of The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America.

Jeffrey Rosen has started publishing a series of reports in The New Republic about the strengths and weaknesses of the leading candidates on Barack Obama's Supreme Court shortlist. Up first, The Case Against Sotomayor.

The election of Barack Obama may have had what we'll call The Urkel Effect. Takeaway Contributor and Senior Editor at Essence Magazine, Patrik Henry Bass says the rise of the bookish President may clear a path for people once maligned as nerds and bookworms. And he says that may have a particularly strong impact in the black community, especially in conjunction with the rise of authors such as Colson Whitehead and Trey Ellis.

Which books were on Patrik's list?

• Paul Beatty, The White Boy Shuffle
• John Ridley, What Fire Cannot Burn
• Trey Ellis, Platitudes
• Mat Johnson, Drop
• Victor LaValle, Big Machine
• David Anthony Durham, The Other Lands
• Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor

Barack Obama may be President, but will he get his own breakfast cereal like Urkel?

Bullying causes more than tears, according to new research. Scientists reporting in the May issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry say that childhood bullying can lead to teenage psychotic episodes such as delusions and paranoia. Here to tell us more is study co-author Dieter Wolke, a professor of developmental psychology and individual differences at the University of Warwick, England.

To read the study for yourself, click here. To help someone you know is being bullied, check out the website Stop Bullying Now. Are you a target of workplace bullying? Here are some tips to stop bullying at work. For more on why bullies feel the need to target people, read Why Bullies Bully.

For more on the effects that childhood trauma has on our biological development, listen to The Takeaway's February 2009 conversation with Michael Meaney, Keep your hands to yourself: Child abuse affects our genes.

Demographic statistics can be complicated, and they tend to be oversimplified and sensationalized in media coverage. That’s Martin Walker’s argument. He’s a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and UPI Editor Emeritus. In an article out this month in a journal called the Wilson Quarterly, he’s taken a closer look at some demographic statistics and overturned some accepted truths about how populations around the world are changing. He joins The Takeaway with an explanation of his findings.

The future of the Boston Globe is in peril, as the paper's owner, The New York Times Company, and the unions continue to negotiate. The company is looking for $20 million of cost cuts in order to save the 137-year-old broadsheet. The Globe—one of the biggest names in journalism—is the highest selling paper in New England and the 14th largest in the nation. But its owner has threatened to close up shop if The Globe can't stem losses expected to reach $85 million this year. Joining us to discuss the paper’s fate is Emily Rooney. She is the host of the news show Greater Boston, she also the also hosts the weekly media criticism show, Beat the Press. For a sense of what the city and its readers will lose we are also joined by two devoted Boston Globe readers: David E. Williams of Brookline in Boston and Catherine Bumpus of Woods Hole, Mass.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrives in Washington today as part of a series of meetings this week that may determine his and his country's future. Today, President Obama's special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, testifies on the administration’s plans for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tomorrow President Obama meets with Karzai along with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in talks to stabilize the volatile region. A lot is at stake for President Karzai. His visit comes amid reports of bombs being dropped in the Taliban-controlled region of the country and his selection of a controversial warlord as a vice-presidential running mate. While much is at stake for Afghanistan, there is a lot on the table for the U.S., too. Joining The Takeaway is Ambassador Robert Finn: he was America’s first Ambassador to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2002. He currently has a dual appointment in Princeton's Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

The news is filled with stories of the economic beating Detroit, Michigan has taken lately, but the politics there aren't doing too well either. Today voters in Detroit will elect a new mayor after Kwame Kilpatrick was ousted from office and convicted of lying under oath. Two mayoral candidates, Dave Bing and Mayor Ken Cockrel, Jr., are hoping to breath new life into the politically-beleaguered city. Joining us with all the details of the race is Noah Ovshinsky, a political reporter for WDET in Detroit.

Are we ethically obliged to cover our mouths when we cough? To wash our hands after we sneeze? These questions prompted a column by our friend and New York Times Ethicist Randy Cohen, and he joins us with more.

For more, read Randy Cohen's entry, Flu Fighters in his Moral of the Story blog for the New York Times.

The government in one of the world's youngest democracies collapsed yesterday when the Prime Minister of Nepal resigned. This ends government rule by former Maoist guerrillas, who took power in elections after fighting a ten-year civil war against the King. Protests from all sides have exploded in Kathmandu in recent days. Somini Sengupta joins The Takeaway with more of the story. She's the South Asia Bureau chief for our partner The New York Times.

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You can't get swine flu from eating pork. (And it’s not even called swine flu anymore—technically it’s H1N1 Influenza A.) Nonetheless, the pork industry can’t be happy about having its product associated with a frightening illness, even if that association is completely imaginary. Advertising consultant Cindy Gallop (who's never actually worked for the pork industry) joins The Takeaway with her creative suggestions for resuscitating a product that's been sullied by circumstances.

Curious about the pork industry's response to the flu? Check out our conversation with Mike Faga from Iowa Select Farms, the largest pig producer in Iowa, in Pork producers push back at H1N1 fears.