Experts Michael Goldfarb and Mary Schiavo discuss whether air traffic controllers should get naps breaks on the job.  FULL POST

Photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros died Wednesday in Misrata, Libya. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen reports.

Ken Feinberg is in charge of compensating victims of the BP oil spill.  Is he giving out the $20 billion fast enough?

What does Eliot really think of Ken Feinberg?  CLICK HERE to read his number of the day.

Fmr. NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark says more support is coming to rebels fighting in Misrata, Libya.  FULL POST

Stocks soar, but leave the rest of the economy behind. CNN's Richard Quest discusses the schizophrenic U.S. economy.  FULL POST

Eliot Spitzer, former New York Governor and now the host of CNN's "In The Arena," has some harsh words for the New York budget pushed through by fellow Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo last month, comparing it to the budget priorities of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Spitzer made the remarks on tonight's edition of NY1's Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall” (at 10 p.m ET; CLICK HERE to watch the video).

Today’s Number of the Day is $3.8 billion.

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility was established last August to compensate residents who needed help after 200 million gallons of BP oil gushed into the Gulf. BP, in fact, provided $20 billion to start the fund.

On Monday, the GCCF announced that, so far, it has paid out $3.8 billion to Gulf residents. Approximately 857,000 claims from individuals and businesses have been filed so far—300,000 have been approved.

CNNMoney reports that, in the press release, the fund tried to defuse criticism that it has rejected too many applicants and that the awards have been far less than people hoped for.

"Amounts requested by claimants very often bear no reasonable relationship to the damages actually proven," the statement said, noting that one applicant tried to get all $20 billion. The fund employs 3,200 people in five states and has 35 offices. It is independently administered by Ken Feinberg, an attorney who helped distribute claims related to the Sept., 11 2001 terrorist attacks.

People who feel they were damaged buy the oil spill have the right to bypass the fund and go the old-fashioned route—by simply going to court.

Clearly though, hundreds of thousands have chosen to submit documents showing the causal link between the spill and economic harm they claim to have suffered, hoping to get fair compensation from the fund.

I can tell you from all my dealings with Ken over many years when I was in government, it is hard to find a more diligent, honorable or reasonable voice to take on such a tough set of problems.

See my interview with Feinberg on Wednesday at 8 pm ET. FULL POST

Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart explains why he told protesters to 'go to hell' while introducing Sarah Palin at a Tea Party rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, April 16.  FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s six OFF-SET questions is Jacqueline Patterson, the NAACP’s Climate Justice Director.

During her 3 and 1/2 year term as a volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps in Jamaica she worked with the Community Environmental Resource Center which began due to the contamination of the Harbour View community water supply by the neighboring Shell Company plant. After Peace Corps, Patterson went on to earn two Masters Degrees in Public Health and Social Work from Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland respectively. She is co-founder of the organization Women of Color United (WOCU). 

On Wednesday, April 20, 2011 the nation’s oldest civil rights organization releases an NAACP Special Investigation into the BP Oil Spill—the disaster that began one year ago today.

You and your team spent the better part of a year conducting this study and you reached the conclusion that the physical and mental health of Gulf residents is a primary concern. What kinds of health problems are people facing?

People showed us skin lesions they had acquired after being in contact with the water during the clean-up efforts. Others showed us documents from their health care provider showing compromised breathing after working on clean-up crews. One woman who had encountered spray from the water states that she is losing her vision in one eye. Her health care providers haven’t been able to pinpoint the source of her deteriorating eyesight. Many people reported depression. Yet others confessed to an increase in alcohol consumption.

Your report calls for BP to finance physical and mental health care systems to provide extensive care, from assessment through treatment. In your discussions with BP, are they open to this recommendation?

We’ve heard a willingness from BP to invest in research on long term impact on health. However, what we’ve heard from Gulf residents is that they don’t want people to study why they died. They want to know what’s wrong with them now and they want it fixed. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s five OFF-SET questions is Adam Bellow, an executive editor at HarperCollins, publisher of Broadside Books, which has just launched a series of short digital pamphlets called "Voices of the Tea Party."

Bellow, formerly an editor at Doubleday, guided the publishing of such provocative conservative books as "Illiberal Education: The politics of Race and Sex on Campus," by Dinesh D'Souza;  "The Real Anita Hill," by David Brock (who later apologized for the book); and "The Bell Curve" by Harvard psychologist  Richard Hernnstein and political scientist Charles Murray.

The son of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, Adam Bellow is author of the book, "In Praise of Nepotism."

There is one Tea Party, but many expressions of the movement across the country. How do you decide who will be published in this series and, in effect, speak for the movement?

 You have hit upon the essence of the challenge—as well as the great opportunity. Diverse concerns do animate the movement, depending on the issues faced by different groups at the local level.  In approaching these issues they are guided by commonly held principles, but the means they adopt vary widely.

That is one of the things that makes this such an exciting field for publishing. The Tea Party is a living laboratory of 21^st century activism; new ideas and methods are constantly being tried out in districts across the country. Most of these stories have yet to be told; and going forward, the movement needs a way to exchange ideas and share information.

That said, we certainly don’t think of ourselves as choosing spokesmen for the movement. We choose authors for the Tea Party series in the same way we do for our hardcover list: we look for people who have knowledge and ideas to share, and an ability to express themselves in writing. Some of them may go on to become thought leaders in the movement, but that is the extent of our role in picking “spokesmen.” FULL POST