Famed physicist Michio Kaku says northern Japan was almost lost to a "100% core melt" in the Fukushima nuclear accident. FULL POST

Jeffrey Toobin and Rick Lazio analyze the implications of Tuesday's meeting between Sarah Palin and Donald Trump on CNN's "In The Arena." FULL POST

CNN's Eliot Spitzer challenges Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio to pursue employers to combat illegal immigration on "In The Arena." FULL POST

Fouad Ajami tells Eliot Spitzer on CNN's " In The Arena" that Arab states are "very committed" to the Syrian regime, despite the brutal death of a teen protester. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Brooke Gladstone, co-host and managing editor of WNYC’s “On the Media,” a weekly magazine program distributed by NPR.

She has also served as NPR’s media correspondent, Russia reporter and senior editor of NPR news programs. Gladstone has received two Peabody Awards, a few Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the National Press Club’s press criticism award.

Gladstone is author of the new book, “The Influencing Machine,” illustrated by Josh Neufeld. In the form of a graphic non-fiction book, Gladstone offers her take on the history of media influence, on media bias, and the role of media consumers.

What is the impact on “professional” journalists that anyone with a cell phone, as you write, “can now presume to make, break or fabricate the news”? What is that amazing transformation doing to institutional journalism?

The radical change? It is less and less the role of mainstream journalism to break news of unfolding events.

It is increasingly its role to contextualize those stories and analyze their impact and significance. In other words, mainstream media’s big selling point no longer lies in being everywhere all the time, but in historical memory, experience, KNOWLEDGE,  qualities that take work and time to develop and not easily supplanted (at least not right now) by citizen journalists on the ground.

Why do you say that American media are afraid of their audiences and advertisers? What do they fear?

The “News Media” is a business. It seems to be selling information, but in fact it is selling an image of America. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's OFF-SET questions is Mike Hare, whose 16-year-old son, Lantz, who was killed during the terrible tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri last week.

Lantz Hare was among those on the list, released Thursday by the Missouri Department of Public Safety, of 232 people from the southwest Missouri city for whom missing persons reports had been filled out. Mike spent days searching for his son and appeared a number of times In The Arena, appealing for any information about Mike’s whereabouts.

But last week, Michelle, Lantz's mother, told CNN that her son had been ripped from a car Sunday night by winds exceeding 200 mph in Joplin, and that his body had finally been located.

Memorial services for Lantz have been scheduled for Saturday, 12 pm at the Bridge Ministries in Joplin, Mo. with an open skate/ride session at Autumn Ramp Park at the same facility. The family has created a memorial Facebook page (facebook.com/Rest Peacfully Lantz) where people can learn about Lantz and post condolences and prayers. There is also a Remembering Lantz website.

Mike, everyone here at CNN offers you and your family our condolences, and please know you have been in our thoughts and prayers.

You guys helped me get the story out there, and I can’t say enough how much my family and I appreciate what you did.

When you were searching for Lantz, you kept calling his cellphone. What kind of messages did you leave him?

Just that I was hoping that he was OK–please keep breathing until I get to you. FULL POST

Today’s number of the Day is 32.7 per cent.

That is how much home prices have fallen from their peak 5 years ago, and in the most recent quarter, they dropped another 1.5 percent, year over year, bringing them to a post bubble-bust low. So reports the S&P/Case-Shiller index on Tuesday.

Put simply: the housing market is still going the wrong way and it is hard to understand how the economy for most Americans will turn around until the housing market recovers.

The fascinating dichotomy is with the stock market—which has nearly totally recovered from the swoon of ’08. The Dow as of 11:14 am ET on Tuesday was 12,506.22  (+64.64) - compared to a low of 6547.05 on March 9 of 2009.

This division reflects the reality that profits are way up due to greater efficiencies and international market growth for companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. But as we all know, the recovery of jobs and middle class incomes has not happened yet.

Remember those 100 of billions we gave to the banks to clean up their balance sheets?

Imagine if we had required a real mortgage write-down process to clean-up the balance sheets of American homeowners! FULL POST

HOME PRICES FALL – Home prices fell below the 2009 housing bust bottom in the first quarter, dropping 4.2% from the prior three months, according to an industry report released Tuesday. CNNMoney.com reports that prices have not been this low in the S&P Case-Shiller national home price index since the middle of 2002. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's six OFF-SET questions is meterologist and tornado historian Thomas P. Grazulis, co-founder with his wife, Doris, of the Tornado Project  – which has collected data on some 60,000 tornadoes. He is author of the book, "Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm." 

You have studied thousands of tornadoes and there are tornadoes every year across the country. From your point of view, is there anything different or special about the storm that struck Joplin , Missouri last week?

It is very rare for a large intense tornado to do such continuous concentrated deadly damage.  The EF4/5 damage is usually scattered here and there, amongst larger areas of EF2/3 damage.  

The last time this happened was at Jarrell, Texas in 1997.  Twenty-seven people died in a small part of a small community. 

"What if that happened in a city?" was a question that we asked. Joplin answered the question. 

Hopefully it will be another 1/2 century before it happens again–but it will probably happen again, with similar results, no matter how good the warnings.  FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s six OFF-SET questions is Akbar Ahmed, Professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, DC.

Ambassador Ahmed is currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University. He was also the First Distinguished Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has taught at Princeton, Harvard, and Cambridge Universities and has advised General David Petraeus, the late Amb. Richard Holbrooke, and many US agencies on Islam and foreign policy.

A former Ambassador from Pakistan to the UK, Ahmed is also a playwright and the author of more than a dozen award-winning books, including "Discovering Islam," which was the basis of the BBC six-part TV series called “Living Islam.” The BBC called him “the world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam.”

Earlier this May, his essay, "The Code of the Hills (It's not Abbottabad the United States should be worried about)" was published by Foreignpolicy.com. 

"Suspended Somewhere Between / A Book of Verse," is his new collection of poems "that takes the reader from the forbidding valleys and mountains of Waziristan in the tribal areas of Pakistan to the think tanks and halls of power in Washington, D.C."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise visit to Pakistan last week and said the U.S. will continue to work with the nation, but that it must make “decisive steps” against Islamic militants there. In your view, should a main US concern be the Haqqani network - which is affiliated with the Taliban? What objectives does that network have?

America needs to be concerned about the Haqqani network which is suspected of supporting Taliban activity. More important it needs to watch the general law and order situation in Pakistan. The establishment is in disarray, people in despair. The leaders don’t seem to have any vision or strategy.

Ordinary Pakistanis are fed up. They say, one day they are killed by a drone strike, the next by a suicide bomber, and then military action. They face real hardships – unemployment, shortage of electricity, and high prices. Worse the gap between the  rich and ordinary Pakistanis has grown dangerously wide. Pakistanis see their leaders as corrupt and incompetent. FULL POST