April 27, 2009 | The Nation

On nearly every issue that could either relieve the suffering of Latin Americans or help the US to win back allies, domestic politics will hinder Obama's range of action.

American ideals no longer dominate the global public square. So how do we compete for hearts and minds?

As mob violence and political strife destroy Thailand's reputation as Southeast Asia's magic kingdom, the fortunes of Vietnam and Indonesia are rising.

Anything short of a categorical, even vociferous US refusal to countenance an Israeli attack on Iran might have horrific consequences.

A seaside community's battle to prevent a gas pipeline from ruining fragile coast and bog lands enters its tenth year.

In the wake of the Gaza incursion, the self-deceptions of the Israeli military have been exposed.

In my family, two medical crises have added up to financial disaster.

The privatization of veterans' healthcare limits the government's ability to honor those who serve.

Reducing unintended pregnancies is an urgent priority for African-Americans.

The Massachusetts healthcare reform model may rest on impeccable political logic, but it's economic and medical nonsense

Can Washington summon the will to cut costs, raise revenues and cover the uninsured?

Cambridge, Mass.

As Obama seeks to remake the US-Cuba relationship, why not form a partnership to transform the prison into a health research center?

Get involved in the peace movement. Demand oversight hearings. Read up on the war--and more.

Is Obama's dialogue with Iran already doomed?

John Nichols on rainbow pusher Merle Hansen; Richard Kim on April's "queer quake."

For the Labor Department damaged by eight years of Bush neglect, help is finally on the way.

Obama's hybrid approach to healthcare reform will succeed if progressives come together to support smart, incremental improvements in public programs.

Would a master thesaurus contain the history of human perception?

An outstanding history of women's struggle for equality through the courts and in the legal profession.

A conversation with the author of The Shipment about American theater, irony and Mariah Carey.

Anne Carson's An Oresteia offers a dark vision of violent grace.

FDR's first hundred days were unprecedented in their ambition and scope--and anything but politically coherent.

Poet and Nation contributor Ange Mlinko has won the Randall Jarrell Award in Poetry Criticism for work that is "eclectic and astringent yet always lucid and generous."

GOP "tea-baggers" take note: The Justice Department is closing in on offshore tax cheats. And former Sen. Phil Gramm, their chief enabler, could be caught in the net.

The rise of blue-water criminals may not be anything to cheer about, but it just might force us to consume less foreign oil.

President Obama needs to ditch the idiot savants of high finance and bring in advisers dedicated to doing something more than gaming the economy.

As newspapers become increasingly irrelevant, is making them tax-exempt their last, best hope?

Michelle Obama defies the boxes in which women have been caged, expanding the force field of feminism in ecumenical and unsettling ways.

Is that a promise?

ACROSS

 1 and 4 A gun-toter had to be, as does a speed artist. (5,2,3,4)