Week In The News: Ukraine, CPAC, Obamacare, SAT

Crisis over Russia and Ukraine. Another delay for Obamacare. Big changes to the SAT. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Russia and Crimea and Ukraine over all this week.  Moscow pushing.  Putin defiant.  Washington, the White House, talking diplomacy with Ukraine’s freedom nakedly on the line.  Back home, conservatives rally in D.C.  Hear Christie, Rubio, Cruz, Trump, Palin.  In the U.S. Senate, a big push to take on sexual assault in the U.S. military is turned back.  In the House, Republican Darrell Issa shuts down a colleague.  Is called “un-American.”  He’s apologized.  We’ve got another Obamacare delay.  A big SAT revamp.  This hour On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Susan Davis, chief congressional correspondent for USA Today. (@DaviSusan)

Trudy Rubin, worldview columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. (@TrudyRubin)

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

USA Today: Senate blocks Obama nominee over cop-killer case -- "The U.S. Senate narrowly rejected President Obama's nominee to oversee the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division due to Republican and law enforcement objections to the role he played in the defense of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal."

Philadelphia Inquirer: Reality check on Crimea -- "Folks, although the Ukraine situation may show some similarities, this is not Cold War redux, nor does Putin, for all his thuggery, remotely resemble Hitler (or Stalin). Unless politicians on both sides of the aisle take a more coolheaded approach to the realities in Ukraine, and in Russia, they will make the situation worse."

 New York Times: The Story Behind The SAT Overhaul — "More than a year ago, Coleman and a team of College Board staff members and consultants began to try to do just that. Cyndie Schmeiser, the board’s chief of assessments, told me that their first order of business was to determine what the test should measure. Starting in late 2012 and continuing through the spring of 2013, she and her team had extensive conversations with students, teachers, parents, counselors, admissions officers and college instructors, asking each group to tell them in detail what they wanted from the test. What they arrived at above all was that a test should reflect the most important skills that were imparted by the best teachers. "