Federal City Digest

A Bailout Program For Journalists?

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), above, said yesterday that the team overseeing distribution of stimulus funds should consider hiring recently laid-off journalists to help craft the tone and message of the government's Recovery.gov Web site.

Her suggestion came at a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing at which Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, and Robert L. Nabors, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers that the government has doled out at least $51 billion in stimulus funding.

McCaskill expressed concern that the written weekly updates on the new government Web site about the stimulus were inadequate, our colleague Ed O'Keefe reports.

"They don't feel like they're being written so people can look at it and really understand what's happening," she said.

Obama Makes Picks At Education, DOT

President Obama tapped three nominees to head key divisions of the Education and Transportation departments yesterday, our colleague Philip Rucker reports.

Victor M. Mendez, director of the Arizona Department of Transportation, is Obama's pick for administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Mendez worked under then-Gov. Janet Napolitano before she became Obama's secretary of homeland security. Joining Mendez at the Transportation Department will be Peter H. Appel, Obama's nominee for administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration and a principal with the global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney.

At the Education Department, meanwhile, John Q. Easton is the nominee for director of the Institute of Education Sciences. Like Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Easton is from Chicago, where he currently serves as executive director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago.

WHAT TO WATCH

-- The president will leave London today for a meeting in Strasbourg, France, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a town hall before dashing off to Baden-Baden, Germany, for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a working dinner of NATO leaders.

-- Vice President Biden will speak to the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network convention at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers in Manhattan. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan is also expected to appear.

-- Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Keith Hall will go before the monthly Congressional Joint Economic hearing on the employment situation to lay out the March numbers.

-- Garance Franke-Ruta

federalcity@washpost.com