"The U.S. and its partners in the International Energy Agency have decided to release a total of 60 million barrels of oil onto the world market over the next 30 days to offset the disruption in the oil supply caused by unrest in the Middle East," the White House just announced.

Of that, 30 million barrels will come from the United States' Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Outraged over a Southwest Airlines pilot's offensive rant that was broadcast over an air traffic control frequency this spring, and not satisfied with the airline's response, Southwest flight attendants may file a federal workplace discrimination complaint, Houston's KPRC-TV reports.

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Only one establishment has applied for a license to sell alcoholic beverages by the drink, since the city of Harlan passed the ordinance in late February and started accepting applications. The sole applicant so far is the Harlan Center, a facility owned by the city itself.

Before his surprising revelation Wednesday on the website of The New York Times magazine that he is an undocumented immigrant, journalist Jose Antonio Vargas had worked with editors at one of his previous employers, The Washington Post, to tell the story on the Post's p

Lynette Holloway is a frequent contributor to The Root. The Chicago-based writer is a former New York Times reporter and associate editor for Ebony magazine.

As states grappled with ways to reinvigorate the flagging public education system, charter schools were offered up as an attractive alternative: a way to break outside the mold and offer the kind of innovative learning environment and accountability for results that is more often associated with private schools.

There were 429,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance filed last week, an increase of 9,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration just reported.

And in further evidence of a weak labor market, it revised up its estimate of first-time claims from that previous week: to 420,000 from the initial estimate of 414,000 for the week ending June 11.

A.J. Rossmiller is a fellow at the National Security Network, a former intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the author of Still Broken: A Recruit's Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, from Baghdad to the Pentagon.

Good morning.

Elizabeth Dickinson is a freelance journalist and former assistant managing editor at Foreign Policy.