Joplin Coroner Mark Bridges says the process of identifying tornado victims improved after some relatives complained.

Dan Mitchell of The Bridge Ministries in tornado-ravaged Joplin, Missouri, says he welcomes a visit by President Obama.

Meantime, The Bridge Ministries is accepting donations. If you wish to help, please go to their Facebook page to donate or go to their main website.

Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi says Hamas, widely designated a terrorist group, "is part of our political system."

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Gary Scheffmeyer, President of Rolling Thunder, Inc., the non-profit organization with more than 90 chapters throughout the U.S. and abroad that brings together veterans and motorcycle riders.

Rolling Thunder conducts charity events for veterans and active military and families in need of help; works on behalf of Prisoner of War and Missing in Action issues, sponsors search missions into Southeast Asia for POW/MIAs and the remains of those killed in action; and stages huge motorcycle events involving thousands of riders.

Rolling Thunder XXIV is scheduled to take place May 29^th in Washington, D.C.

First of all, what will happen on Sunday?

Depending on the weather, there will probably be between 750,000 – 800, 000 people participating. We’ll begin at the Pentagon and ride to Washington, D.C. We cross thePotomac, go around the Lincoln Memorial, then down on to Constitution Avenue. Then we cut over to Independence Avenue, then to Ohio Driveto a ball field.

In the morning, when everyone assembles, we fill a 22-acre parking lot and an over flow lot and then into the street–so it’s 100,000 motorcycles easy.

 Sarah Palin is scheduled to appear at a Rolling Thunder event on the National Mall. Do you know if she’ll speak there?

She’s not scheduled to speak as of yet. But she and her husband will come to the Pentagon a motorcycle, and they will participate in the demonstration. FULL POST

Editor's Note: In The Arena's Eliot Spitzer is a weekly contributor to Slate.com.

CLICK HERE to read his essay, "Netanyahu Blew It: The Israeli prime minister picks a stupid, unnecessary, and wrong fight with President Obama."

Netanyahu decided to pick a fight over a meaningless and indeed standard articulation of where the future borders of a Palestinian state would be drawn. By saying that "the 1967 borders with agreed upon swaps" would be the basis of negotiation, President Obama merely reiterated what anybody who has any sense of the negotiations over the past decade knows to be the actual basis for all recent negotiations. It was nothing new. To have deviated from it would have been new.

Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner, authors of the new book, "Reckless Endangerment," are scheduled to appear In The Arena on Friday, May 27, 2011.

In the book, Morgenson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist of The New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy. Drawing on previously untapped sources and building on original research from Rosner—who himself raised early warnings with the public and investors, and kept detailed records—Morgenson connects the dots that led to this fiasco.

BLOG EXTRA: Here is the introduction to "Reckless Endangerment" by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.

Introduction: This is not the first book to be written about the epic financial crisis of 2008 and neither will it be the last. But Josh and I believe that Reckless Endangerment is different from the others in two important ways. It identifies powerful people whose involvement in the debacle has not yet been chronicled and it connects key incidents that have seemed heretofore unrelated.

As a veteran business reporter and columnist for the New York Times, I've covered my share of big and juicy financial scandals over the years. For more than a decade as an established financial and policy analyst, Josh has seen just about every trick there is.

But none of the scandals and financial improprieties we experienced before felt nearly as momentous or mystifying as the events that culminated in this most recent economic storm. That's why we felt that this calamity, and the conduct that brought it on, needed to be thoroughly investigated, detailed, and explained. The disaster was so great—its impact so far-reaching—that we knew we were not the only ones who wanted to understand how such a thing could happen in America in the new millennium. FULL POST

Today’s Number of the Day is $13.5 billion.

That’s the net worth of 27-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder and CEO.

Fortune editor–at-large Patricia Sellers reports that Zuckerberg is pursuing a new "personal challenge," as he calls it. "The only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself."

Zuckerberg has been killing chickens, pigs and goats, sending them to a local Silicon Valley butcher, and then cooking what he has slaughtered.

He sent Fortune an email detailing his thoughts. Here are a few excerpts…

“To start, let me give you some background on what I'm doing. Every year in recent memory, I've taken on a personal challenge - something to learn about the world, expand my interests and teach myself greater discipline. I spend almost all of my time building Facebook, so these personal challenges are all things I wouldn't normally have the chance to do if I didn't take the time.

“This year, my personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat. I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have. This year I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself. So far, this has been a good experience. I'm eating a lot healthier foods and I've learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals.

“I started thinking about this last year when I had a pig roast at my house. A bunch of people told me that even though they loved eating pork, they really didn't want to think about the fact that the pig used to be alive. That just seemed irresponsible to me. I don't have an issue with anything people choose to eat, but I do think they should take responsibility and be thankful for what they eat rather than trying to ignore where it came from.”

Who said that being super-rich doesn’t change your life?

FULL POST

JOPLIN TO SEE UPDATED LIST OF MISSING – Authorities in Missouri will release Friday an updated list of people who are still missing after the tornado that devastated the region. This list will be an update of the tally of 232 missing people the Missouri Department of Public Safety released Thursday.

As officials worked to ensure the community was up-to-date, some residents got answers on the fate of loved ones following the massive tornado that hit the Missouri city of Joplin on Sunday. Michelle Hare said she learned that her 16-year-old son had been confirmed dead. Lantz was ripped from a car Sunday night by winds exceeding 200 mph, and was one of the people named Thursday.  Authorities also said 126 people had died from the storm, making the tornado the single deadliest to touch down in the U.S. since modern record-keeping began in 1950. The Hares had been among many around Joplin, still desperately searching for missing loved ones.

But one of the frustrations was a holdup at the morgue. Some were told that they may have to wait for two weeks before they can visit the morgue to search for relatives. A local coroner said that this will change for some Friday as some people will be allowed into the morgue to identify family members if they know unique characteristics such as tattoos.  FULL POST