Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's first day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee went so smoothly that some observers, like New York University Law School Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, say that Kagan's hearing is shaping up to be largely symbolic; this morning's headlines.

Over hours of confirmation hearings yesterday, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan faced tough questioning from senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. For nearly twenty minutes, ranking Republican Jeff Sessions asked Kagan about her policies banning military recruiters from campus while she was the dean of Harvard Law School. Kagan repeatedly said recruiters were never banned and that she always complied with the law, as she saw it. In response, Sessions told the nominee her remarks were "unconnected to reality."

Later in the day, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch from Utah explained his personal frustrations with criticisms on Citizens United v. FEC, the controversial campaign finance ruling by the Supreme Court. Kagan argued the case on behalf of the federal government as Solicitor General and maintained that as a justice, she would respect "settled law" and Supreme Court "precedent." It was the same answer she used when asked about the Second Amendment and Roe v. Wade.

Louise Story, finance reporter for The New York Times, co-reported on a big story in today's paper. In the fall of 2008, when the government propped up A.I.G. with billions of taxpayer dollars, the insurance giant was forced to forfeit its right to sue the very banks which helped drive it into the ground.

A.I.G. investors and executives alike have been frustrated over their lack of legal recourse against big banks, including Goldman Sachs, for insuring over-leveraged mortgage backed securities with them. However, after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit for fraud against Goldman Sachs in April accusing the bank of misrepresenting a mortgage deal to investors. A.I.G. is now examining the idea of filing its own suit against Goldman. Was A.I.G. indeed misled by Goldman into insuring mortgage deals that the bank knew were flawed?

If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan will only be the fourth woman to serve on the bench. Yesterday, we spoke with Lori Ringhand, a professor of law at the University of Georgia about a new study that shows that women and minorities get harsher questioning in hearings. Takeaway listeners had lots to say.

A local Minneapolis magazine is getting backlash from readers for its decision to run a story about an anti-gay pastor who attended a support group for men grappling with same-sex attraction. Lavender Magazine reported that Rev. Tom Brock, of the Hope Lutheran Church, who publicly criticized the Evangelical Lutheran Church for liberalizing its gay clergy policies, attended Faith in Action, the Minnesota affiliate of the Catholic Church's Courage program. The program, according to its website, claims people can "move beyond the confines of the homosexual identity" by developing an interior life of chastity.

Taliban and NATO forces clashed in eastern Afghanistan this morning. Militants set off a car bomb and stormed an entrance to an airport used by Afghan and international forces. BBC Afghan service reporter, Inayatulhaq Yasini reports that the violence has ended now, but was partially due to insurgents taking advantage of good weather and conditions that make it easier to carry out attacks.

Just when it seemed like the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico couldn't get any worse, hurricane season has officially begun. The tropical storm called Alex has been upgraded to a hurricane and is expected to make landfall in the next 24 hours.

Rough seas caused by Alex's winds are not only disrupting the cleanup of the BP oil spill, it's also having an impact on the already distressed shrimpers and seafood processors in the region. To find out how the seafood industry is reacting first-hand, we talk to Dean Blanchard. He's planning on sticking out the storm, and tells The Takeaway how this latest setback is affecting his livelihood in Grand Isle, Louisiana.

We here at The Takeaway are always looking to connect with local communities. So this week we're hosting a summit with our friends at WLRN in Miami that's made possible by the Knight Foundation. We're experimenting to see how we can use text messaging as a tool for uncovering local issues that matter in Little Haiti, Miami. Can it help journalists and the communities they cover tell more compelling stories?

This Fourth of July weekend, a lot of us will be eating hot dogs, potato salad, corn on the cob, and hamburgers. But when we’re done feasting on the char-broiled delicacies that have come to represent our nation’s independence, how should we finish it all off?

Bill Yosses has some suggestions. He’s the official White House Pastry Chef, and author, along with Melissa Clark, of a new cookbook called “The Perfect Finish.” Chef Yosses joins us live from the White House, where he gives us the scoop on everything from what he serves official visitors to the first family's favorite sweets.

Below, Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark's red, white and blue berry buttermilk bundt cake with orange glaze.

This morning we're continuing our coverage of Elena Kagan's Supreme Court confirmation hearings with our Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich. He's been watching the hearings closely, and we ask him what the toughest question Kagan has gotten so far; this morning's headlines.

We're following up on a story we did yesterday, from the perspective of Chicago funeral home owner Spencer Leak Sr., about the challenges Chicago is facing in combatting gun and gang violence. On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down a Chicago ban on handgun ownership, a move that divided city residents. Some Chicagoans were thrilled, and say the ability to own a handgun makes them feel safer. Others say even more people will lose their lives. Why is gun violence such a problem in Chicago? The Chicago Police Department says that gang activity was involved in 74 percent of murders in the first five months of 2010. 80 people were shot and thirteen killed over the past two weekends in the city.

In her first day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan got off to a rocky start in a nearly 20-minute back-and-forth debate with ranking Republican Senator Jeff Sessions. In the sparring session, Sen. Sessions maintained that Kagan had circumvented the law and was disrespectful to the military when she limited military recruiters' access to campus as dean of Harvard Law School. Kagan repeatedly said Harvard was always in compliance with the law. 

Yesterday we spoke with Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree about his new book on fellow Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, and his infamous arrest at his home in Cambridge last summer. Ogletree's book, "The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America" is sure to engender debate on race relations in America, and our interview with him got many of you talking.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster is permeating political campaigns across the country, even far beyond the Gulf Coast. Candidates around the country are incorporating the event and its ramifications into their campaigns, whether or not they are directly affected by the spill.

Gary McDowell, a Democrat from the Michigan House of Representatives running for Congress, has made it a key talking point on the road. McDowell called for a permanent ban on drilling in the state's Great Lakes, warning that without this protection, they could become "the next victim of a tragic oil spill disaster like the one caused by BP." Representative Joe Sestak, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, accused his opponent, Pat Toomey, of caring more about "Big Oil profits" in a political ad (which you can watch after the jump).

There will be lights, cameras and red carpets in the Indonesian capital Jakarta this evening at the the opening of a new film based on President Obama's childhood. 

The film, "Obama, the Menteng Kid," a reference to the neighborhood he lived in, is the creation of Indonesian writer Damien Dematra who wrote a fictional novel on Obama's upbringing in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Jakarta. 

BBC correspondent Karishma Vaswani watched a sneak preview and tells us what she saw. (Watch the trailer after the jump.)

LeBron James becomes a free agent on Thursday and his NBA fate is still undecided. To help him out, we asked listeners and fans, why should LeBron come to your city? Fans from Miami, New Jersey and New York all had strong arguments for why he should come to their town. Peter Patakos from Cleveland, said he should actually stay there:

"The fact that he just means so much to the area here, he can just mean more. To turn his back for the extra money or extra exposure when he could have stood for things like community, loyalty, family staying in Cleveland and winning even one championship - he wouldn't have to win more than that."

Hurricane Alex is expected to hit land in the next 24 hours, and we've been monitoring the situation all morning. Earlier this morning, we checked in with a seafood wholesaler in Louisiana, and now we turn our focus to Texas, where everything's bigger, even the winds. 110 mph winds are ripping through Brownsville, Texas, sending some residents fleeing while others prepare storm shelters. We speak with Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada, who is confident his town will weather the storm.