• 700+ engineers are battling the Fukushima crisis source

• » Progress, but no end in sight: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano had these vaguely calming words about the incident: “We are preventing the situation from worsening — we’ve restored power and pumped in fresh water — and making basic steps toward improvement,” he said, “but there is still no room for complacency.” There are good and bad parts about the overall situation right now — while aftershocks are starting to tail off, radiation levels in seawater miles away are very high, but are said to be of little threat to those eating seafood from the ocean. Still, though …

• Charlie Sheen still makes more sense than John Boehner, because at least Charlie Sheen is winning.
• Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips • Expressing dissatisfaction with the Speaker of the House. A topical comparison, sure, but is it really accurate to say that Charlie Sheen is “winning?” source

• How a dramatic standoff ended: Jamie Hood, 33, was on the run from police in Athens, Georgia, suspected in the killing of a cop and the shooting of another on Tuesday. (They were trying to arrest him in a carjacking.) Eventually, Hood took a number of hostages — whom he reportedly knew — in an hours-long standoff. Here’s the end of he standoff. Dramatic. But on the plus side, nobody was hurt and Hood turned himself in peacefully. source

• We’re supposed to be all Libyans, we are all brothers, but this is what the Gadhafi militia men did to me.
• A reported rape victim • Talking to hotel staffers who were trying to restrain her (and her story) at the hotel where members of the press were invited by Gaddafi’s government. We’d like to note one thing: The AP notes in their article that the policy on naming rape victims is to only do it when they volunteer their names, as she did in this case. We think that we don’t have to necessarily follow that standard in this case. We greatly debated it, though. We can tell the story just as well without it. source

• The fine print in the NYT’s paywall: Have you been wondering to yourself, “Who the heck would pay $260 extra to subscribe to the iPad version of the New York Times?” So have a lot of people. From a distance, the price plan makes little sense and makes the paper nearly as expensive as the dead-tree version (which costs $770 a year for the seven-days-a-week edition outside of NYC). But Poynter’s Damon Kiesow has a really interesting take on the matter which a lot of people haven’t considered: What if the Times wants to discourage mobile app use by pricing them at a premium, specifically with the iPad version? (above pic taken by Robert Scoble — yes, that’s the man’s hand)

• $385 yearly cost of a weekday subscription to the Times

• $195 yearly cost of a Web-only Times subscription
• $260 yearly cost to add mobile to the Web
• $455 yearly cost to add tablet use to the bunch source

• » What this all means to you: Now, if you’ve ever used an iPad, it’s pretty clear that the New York Times Web site is as good, if not better than, the NYT iPad app, at least for now. And if they want to further emphasize the tablet-y nature of the iPad, they already have that in the form of Times Skimmer. Furthermore, Apple doesn’t take a 30 percent cut out of Web-based subscriptions. Damon Kiesow’s perfectly apt reasoning, then, is that the NYT is trying to de-emphasize the App Store by pricing people out of that direction. And you know what? He’s right. The NYT Web site will work fine on the iPad. There is an advantage to using NYT’s app on your cell phone, so that’s kept at a more reasonable cost, but the NYT’s plan to focus on the Web over the app? Sneaky.

• Stephen Harper has some pretty huge problems right now. The Canadian Prime Minister’s government was found in contempt by the House of Commons — the first time that’s happened in the country’s history. The situation, pushed by a coalition led by the minority Liberal party, promises to add an interesting twist to Canadian politics over the next six weeks. “The principle at stake in this debate goes to the heart of parliamentary democracy: the obligation of a government to provide members of this House with the information they need in order to hold the government accountable to the people of Canada,” said Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff. Now, we understand that many of our readers may not know much about Canadian politics, so here’s a quick explanation of what’s going on:

• What happened? Stephen Harper’s Conservative minority government was found in contempt — the first time that’s happened in Canadian history. The contempt vote, pushed by minority parties, also doubled as a no-confidence vote.
• What’s next? Tomorrow, Harper is expected go to the Governor-General David Johnston to dissolve parliament. In May, Canadians would vote in the country’s 41st election — the country’s fourth election in roughly seven years.
• The reason The three major minority parties — Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois — say that the Harper government kept them in the dark on the budgetary elements of certain pieces of legislation, which led to the contempt vote. source

• » Other frustrations: The minority parties also have shared frustrations in Harper’s corporate tax cuts and push for increased defense spending on military jets — allowing for the opposition parties to find common ground. If they were to gain control, expect these things to be targets.

How the party lines break down

• A plurality government with no majority: The House of Commons — the main voter-elected body in the Canadian government — has led with a plurality government for a few years, strengthening their hold in 2008, but with the 308 seats up for grabs a little over four weeks, the body could change significantly. While polls suggest Harper’s Conservatives could gain a majority this time out, if they don’t, it’s possibile that the three main minority parties (along, possibly, with the Greens, who currently don’t have a seat in the House of Commons) could form their own coalition, forcing Harper off his perch entirely. Here’s what the House of Commons looks like now:

• 143 Conservatives seats in the House of Commons

• 77 seats are held by the Liberal Party
• 47 seats are held by Bloc Quebecois
• 36 seats are held by the New Democratic Party

• » Minor members and the Senate: On top of the parties here, two of House of Commons seats are held by independent candidates, and three seats are currently empty. Also of note: The Canadian parliament also has a Senate, but it isn’t directly elected, is kind of a messy situation of its own, and holds no say over the situation with Harper or the government.  Harper’s job lies in the hands of the confidence of the House of Commons — which he just lost. (By the way, our boy Ilya Gerner has a pretty interesting take on the whole Canadian plurality system worth checking out.)

Harper’s take on the issue