The Takeaway

Thirteen countries in the world ban HIV-positive visitors from entry, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Sudan, Moldova... and the United States. We take a look at the ban and ask why that law has stayed on the books.
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The theme of Sunday's talk shows: Hillary is toast. But then again, anything could happen...
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The fight over voter identification requirements has heated up after the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter ID law. Nineteen states are considering new voter ID measures, but we focus on Missouri, which The New York Times' Ian Urbina tells us is the only proposal that could become law in time for November’s presidential election.
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Saudi Arabia wants to call a meeting between oil-producing and oil-consuming countries to discuss record high prices. President Bush has called for the United States to be less dependent on hydrocarbons. The Takeaway speaks with Lisa Margonelli to discuss the persistent high price of energy and its social and cultural effects.
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Guamanians head to the primary polls on Saturday...
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Lisa Margonelli

The last time that we saw gas prices rising this quickly was in the 1970s, when Americans responded by cutting their gas use by 30 percent. Lisa Margonelli, author of "Oil on the Brain: Adventures from Pump to Pipeline," says the high price of oil is, in part, driven by one group of people that surprised us: oil speculators.
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MIKHAIL METZEL/AFP/Getty Images

Vladmir Putin is expected to be confirmed as Russia’s Prime Minister today. Putin's nomination was the first official presidential act of newly sworn-in Dmitry Medvedev. The Takeaway asks: What’s ahead for Russia?
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Chicago residents are now paying the highest gas prices in the country - an average of $4.07 per gallon. You might think that gas stations are thriving with high gas prices, but gas station owners are actually losing money.
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Karen Dickinson

The signs are all around us: salmonella outbreaks; riots over food shortages; fears over mad cow disease; water shortages; skyrocketing global food prices. These are portents for the end of easily accessible food. Paul Roberts, author of "The End of Food" and "The End of Oil" sees the potential cataclysm ahead.
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Today, Christie's auctions a memento from John Lennon: his scrawled lyrics for “Give Peace a Chance.” Lennon gave the page to then-16-year-old Gail Renard in 1969 after she and a friend climbed up a fire escape to see him and Yoko Ono during their Montreal “bed-in.”
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Gerald L. Nino/Department of Homeland Security

The United States has spent millions per mile to build a border fence to keep unauthorized migrants out of the country, and recently, there has been a substantial drop in migrants arrested at the border. Professor Josiah Heyman says it's not solely because of the wall. There are other deterrents, such as the struggling U.S. economy and the downturn in the housing and construction markets.
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Sign up here to join Harvard's oil crisis simulation, April 28, 2008.

In 1988 I drove more than a thousand miles on a whim-fueled road trip to see an ichthysaur skeleton. The dirt cheap gas that enabled this ridiculous and ultimately unsuccessful project (the ichthysaur was closed when I got there) was partly and indirectly provided by the Forties Pipeline in the UK's North Sea, which was just closed by a strike at a Scottish refinery.

This week, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama travel to Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Though the three states account for 19 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, they’re likely to be pivotal in the November presidential election.
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For the first time in almost 50 years, West Virginia matters. The polls already foretell West Virginia primary’s likely outcome — a victory for Hillary Clinton — but the Democratic nomination race continues to energize young voters across the state.
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The earthquake that struck China’s central region yesterday is the deadliest the country has seen since 1976. We talk with Roger Bilham, professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, about how both natural and man-made factors created such devastation.
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The California Public Health Department has halted the work of 13 genetic testing companies, barring them from selling tests without a doctor’s orders. Today the companies must detail how they’ll “prevent further violation of California state laboratory law” to the health department. The Takeaway talks with Wired's Alexis Madrigal about the intertwined issues of privacy and public health, and whether there’s a potential health benefit from barring individuals from their own genetic information.
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Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Lisa Margonelli says this could be a day we all remember, when oil finally spikes to a price that makes us change our behavior.
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