The nation's poverty rate rose last year to 15.1 percent, the highest level in 17 years, according to new data from the Census Bureau. The agency's latest poverty report, released Tuesday, shows that 46 million people were poor and that the median income dropped last year by more than two percent to about $49,445.

Not unexpectedly, the continued lack of jobs was the main cause.

Ted Weschler of Charlottesville, Va., paid $2.6 million dollars at a charity auction in both 2010 and 2011 to have lunch with Warren Buffett.

In a press release, yesterday, Berkshire Hathaway announced that Weschler was joining Buffett and another partner to manage some of Berkshire's equity holdings. But the interesting part comes later in the release, when the company says:

Warren Buffett, Berkshire's Chairman, will continue, however, to manage most of the funds until his retirement.

Tuesday's hearing in the supercommittee was supposed to be about the history of the current debt crisis. Almost nothing causes more partisan bickering than that. Each party is fervent in its belief about who drove the government into the ditch — namely, the other guys.

On Tuesday, however, Doug Elmendorf, the man who runs the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), immediately dispensed with the question of blame and laid out the options for the supercommittee.

Now the nation's pediatricians have waded deep and early into the race for the presidency. In an unusual instance of political fact-checking of a candidate's statements by physicians themselves, the American Academy of Pediatrics has a tough prescription for Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann: Get your facts straight on the HPV vaccine.

It's been nearly four months since a tornado slammed into Joplin, Mo., destroying about one-third of the city. More than 525 businesses were in the direct path of the storm.

Now as they rebuild, business owners are seeing some opportunities in the wake of their tremendous losses.

'Can Do' Attitude

After the tornado hit, the building that housed the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy in Joplin was destroyed. A safe used to store narcotics was one of the only things to survive and even it got knocked over by the powerful winds.

The Obama administration is scrambling to head off what it fears will be a diplomatic train wreck at the United Nations next week.

After years of gridlock in Mideast negotiations, the Palestinians plan to seek U.N. membership as a state on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war. That territory includes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and the plan would go through the Security Council, where the U.S. has already promised to use its veto.

Partisans on both sides continue to argue over whether to put more money into the coffers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is running short of cash because there have been so many tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters this year.

The political bickering is nothing new, of course.