Egypt’s newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, sought to get ahead of growing street demonstrations by calling for “constitutional reforms” ahead of what is expected to be on Tuesday the largest turnout of popular discontent in the country yet.

In a Monday evening address on Egyptian television, the former intelligence chief—appointed Saturday by President Hosni Mubarak to a post left vacant for more than 30 years—said he would work with “all political parties” to fight corruption and unemployment. He also announced a review of contested results in last year’s parliamentary elections, which could include 25 disputed districts. . . . MORE >>

Read Mindy Belz’s complete report here.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the Obama administration’s healthcare overhaul is unconstitutional, siding with 26 states that sued to block it.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson accepted the states’ argument that the new law violates people’s rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.

Attorneys for the administration had argued that the states did not have standing to challenge the law and that the case should be dismissed.

The next stop is likely the U.S. Supreme Court. Two other federal judges have upheld the insurance requirement, but a federal judge in Virginia also ruled the insurance provision violates the Constitution.

In his ruling, Vinson went further than the Virginia judge and declared the entire healthcare law unconstitutional.

At issue was whether the government is reaching beyond its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce by requiring citizens to purchase health insurance or face tax penalties.

Attorneys for Obama’s administration had argued that the healthcare system was part of the interstate commerce system. They said the government can levy a tax penalty on Americans who decide not to purchase health insurance because all Americans are consumers of medical care.

But attorneys for the states said the administration was essentially coercing the states into participating in the overhaul by holding billions of Medicaid dollars hostage. The states also said the federal government is violating the Constitution by forcing a mandate on the states without providing money to pay for it.

Other states that joined the suit are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Iran has summoned an American woman to return to the country and stand trial on Feb. 6 along with two other Americans still in custody and accused of spying after crossing the border from Iraq, a judiciary spokesman said Monday.

Their families say Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal were just intrepid travelers out on a hike in northern Iraq’s relatively peaceful Kurdish region when they were arrested on July 31, 2009. Shourd was released on bail in September and returned to the United States. Her fiance, Bauer, and their friend Fattal remain in prison in Iran.

The U.S. government has denied the charges against them and demanded their release. Their lengthy detention has added to tensions between the two nations over issues like Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

A Revolutionary Court in Tehran has summoned Shourd to return and stand trial, said judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi in remarks carried on the state news agency, IRNA. Shourd, from Oakland, Calif., has not disclosed any plans to return for trial.

Iran has warned it will seize the $500,000 bail if she does not return. Who provided the bail money that was paid as part of a deal brokered by the Gulf sultanate of Oman has never been clear.

Ejehi, who is also Iran’s state prosecutor, said the trial date, already postponed before, could be delayed again if the lawyer for the defendants requests more time.

Initially, Tehran accused the three Americans only of illegally crossing into Iran, but later added espionage charges. Tehran’s chief prosecutor has claimed, without elaborating, that the Americans had “equipment and documents and received training.”

The three Americans are graduates of the University of California at Berkeley. Shourd and Bauer had been living together in Damascus, Syria, where Bauer was working as a freelance journalist and Shourd as an English teacher. Fattal, an environmental activist, went to visit them in July 2009.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

UPDATE: Egypt’s military promised Monday not to fire on any peaceful protests and said it recognized “the legitimacy of the people’s demands,” while urging protesters not to commit violence or damage property.

The military statement was the strongest sign yet that the army was willing to let the week-old protests continue and even grow as long as they remain peaceful, even if that leads to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. If the 82-year-old president, a former air force commander, loses the support of the military, it would likely be a fatal blow to his rule.

In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed Mubarak’s announcement of a new government, saying the situation in Egypt calls for action, not appointments.

OUR EARLIER REPORT: A coalition of opposition groups called for a million people to take to Cairo’s streets Tuesday to demand the removal of President Hosni Mubarak, the clearest sign yet that a unified leadership was emerging for Egypt’s powerful but disparate protest movement.

In an apparent attempt to show change, Mubarak named a new government Monday. But the lineup dominated by regime stalwarts was greeted with scorn by protesters camped out for the fourth day in the capital’s central Tahrir Square.

If Egypt’s opposition groups are able to truly coalesce—far from a certainty for movements that include students, online activists, old-school opposition politicians, and the Muslim Brotherhood—it could sustain and amplify the momentum of the week-old protests.

The official death toll from the crisis stood at 97, with thousands injured, but reports from witnesses across the country indicated the actual toll was far higher.

President Barack Obama called Britain, Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia over the weekend to convey his administration’s desire for restraint and an orderly transition to a more responsive government.

In Cairo, the coalition of groups, dominated by youth movements but including the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, were discussing the possibility of making prominent reform advocate Mohamed ElBaradei spokesman for the protesters, members said.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to form an Islamist state in the Arab world’s largest nation, said it would not take a leadership role in the opposition coalition. Western governments and many secular Egyptians have expressed fears about a significant Brotherhood role in Egyptian politics.

ElBaradei, a pro-democracy advocate and former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, invigorated anti-Mubarak feeling with his return to Egypt last year, but the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood remains Egypt’s largest opposition movement with its elaborate network of social, medical, and education services.

Rashad al-Bayoumi, the Brotherhood’s deputy leader, said the joint committee would issue demands that, besides Mubarak’s ouster, include the release of political prisoners, setting up a transitional government to run the country until free and fair elections are held and prosecuting individuals thought to be responsible for the killing of protesters.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cairo’s international airport was a scene of chaos and confusion Monday as thousands of foreigners sought to flee the unrest in Egypt and countries around the world scrambled to send in planes to fly their citizens out.

Shouting and shoving matches erupted as thousands crammed into Cairo airport seeking a flight home.

Making matters worse, check-in counters were poorly staffed because many EgyptAir employees had been unable to get to work due to a 3 p.m.-to-8 a.m. curfew and traffic breakdowns across the Egyptian capital.

Food was scarce at the airport, with people buying up chocolate in the duty-free shop. Airport staff shouted at travelers to get in line and the scheduling board listed flight numbers without destinations or times of departure.

Occasionally, an official emerged and shouted out the destination of a departing flight, triggering a rush of passengers with boarding passes. The process worked smoothly for nationals of countries that had sent planes—Denmark, Germany, China, Canada—others had no such support.

By curfew time, some people who had failed to get on a flight out of Egypt had boarded buses for the ride back into Cairo.

The State Department said more than 2,400 Americans had contacted U.S. officials seeking government-chartered evacuation flights from Egypt, and more than 220 had already left.

EgyptAir resumed its flights Monday morning from Cairo after a roughly 14-hour break because of the curfew and its inability to field enough crew.

Even Iraq decided it would evacuate its citizens, sending three planes to Egypt to bring home those who wish to return. Thousands of Iraqis had once fled to Egypt to escape the violence in their own country.

One big question was what to do with the tens of thousands of tourists in other parts of Egypt. Tour operators say they will fly home all their customers this week when their holidays end, or on extra flights, stressing there has not been any unrest in Red Sea resort cities. Still, food shortages were starting to be felt at some Egyptian resorts and some restaurants were refusing to serve foreigners.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence is running for governor of Indiana, putting any presidential hopes off until 2016 or 2020.

Those plans aren’t set in concrete, but the governor’s race makes sense on several counts.

The office would give him the executive branch experience that many presidents have had, especially on the Republican side. If he can implement his small government vision, he would have a chance to help Indiana shine as an economic star in the Midwest.

He also has two teenagers at home, and a son at Purdue. By diving into a presidential campaign, Pence would miss years with his daughters that he can never recover. By waiting, he also would improve his chances of one day mounting a successful run for the presidency. Barack Obama will be hard to beat next year, and the race will open up in 2016.

Pence could have an easy time winning a race for governor. His most formidable potential competitor, former Gov. and Sen. Evan Bayh, declined to run. He is heading to a financial firm instead to make some money.

Although Democrats have some good candidates, none is in the same league as Pence.

A potential Democratic nominee, former Rep. Brad Ellsworth, lost so badly to Sen. Dan Coats that he might have a hard time running again for statewide office.

Rep. Joe Donnelly has shown he can win even amid a Republican landslide. “He’s from outside Indianapolis,” notes Indiana Family Institute president Curt Smith, a top adviser to Republicans. “He’s got a moderate streak.”

Former Democratic state chairman Robin Winston thinks Democrats can make the race competitive, with help from Obama, who carried Indiana in 2008. “Indiana is going to be a priority for the president,” Winston said. State Democrats, he hopes, will find a consensus candidate this spring. “It’s a $15 million to $18 million race. I hope we won’t have a primary.”

Pence’s plans should keep the Republican field clear of other strong candidates.

“The social conservatives love him,” says former Republican state chairman Rex Early. “The fiscal conservatives—he talks the talk. He is a fiscal conservative. The business people would be very comfortable with him.”

He also doesn’t alienate the opposition. “I like Mike Pence,” says former House Speaker John Gregg, a Democrat. “He is a conservative, but unlike some conservatives he’s not angry. I don’t find him shaking his finger at a moderate or liberal. He invites discussion and an exchange of ideas.”

Although Pence’s path to the governor’s office appears clear at this point, he’s not likely to take it for granted. Pence knows what it’s like to lose an election, having made unsuccessful runs for Congress in 1988 and 1990. He learned from his mistakes in those campaigns, even apologizing to his opponent, Phil Sharp, for his use of hard-nosed political tactics

Pence spent the 1990s in the political wilderness of talk radio. It also was a time when he grew in his Christian faith, learning to submit his career ambitions to a timetable that is not entirely his own.

In last week’s State of the Union speech, President Obama outlined three major goals: “encouraging innovation,” “rebuilding America,” and the perennial “reforming education.” The president praised his administration’s Race to the Top program as “the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation.” To refresh our memory about Race to the Top he described it, rather crassly, this way: “To all 50 states, we said, ‘If you show us the most innovative plans to improve teacher quality and student achievement, we’ll show you the money.’”

That sounds like a more genteel version of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Stanley Kramer’s 1963 comedy in which a colorful and diverse group of strangers form teams and scramble over each other in a cross-country race to find a buried treasure. Hijinks ensue, but in the mad, mad educational world it isn’t so funny.

Public education has been in the process of “reformation” ever since the federal government got its hands on it in 1968, and presidents ever since have had something to say about it in almost every SOTU address. But no one ever stands up on the floor of the House chamber to ask why public education is taking so long to get reformed.

Obama actually dropped a clue in the speech: “You see, we know what’s possible for our children when reform isn’t just a top-down mandate, but the work of local teachers and principals; school boards and communities.” That’s the generality; for a specific he mentioned Bruce Randolph School in Denver: “Three years ago, it was rated one of the worst schools in Colorado. . . . But last May, 97 percent of the seniors received their diploma. Most will be the first in their families to go to college.”

What he didn’t explain was exactly how the school turned itself around. Bruce Randolph opened in 2003 as a middle school in the Five Points area of northeast Denver. Within just a few years, it received a failing grade according to standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act. (While NCLB has its problems, without it that school might never have been rated at all.)

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Larry Abramson filled in the backstory: “But the experience of this school highlights just how complicated and fragile these turnaround efforts can be. The transformation hinged on giving the staff of Bruce Randolph more autonomy from the central administration of the Denver city schools. So the president’s remarks are a bit of a swipe at the big-city school systems.”

They say that like it’s a bad thing. But there’s more. The transition principal, Kristin Waters, asked for autonomy, not only from district regulations, but also from union rules. Denver Public Schools granted that permission—and so, to their credit, did the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

The first thing Waters did was require all teachers to reapply, and from the applicants she selected only six. Those were the teachers who seemed to her the most flexible and the most dedicated to student welfare. She applied the same standards to every new teacher she hired. The school reopened for grades six through 12, and achieved that 97 percent senior-class graduation rate in 2010.

NPR pointed out, skeptically but fairly, that the senior graduation rate didn’t tell the story, since most dropouts don’t wait until 12th grade to drop out. Still, while test scores at Randolph remain low, and cultural problems abound (the school was the first in Denver to dispense contraceptives to students), a failing school owes its improvement to freedom rather than management.

As recent documentaries like The Lottery and Waiting for Superman have shown, nothing hinders school improvement more than rules and regulations. Unions are notorious for their rules, and the National Education Association is one of the Democratic Party’s largest contributors. And, even though the federal government supplies less than 10 percent of total school funding, it’s responsible for much more than 10 percent of the regulations. So we can’t expect the president to be too specific about what really works. Race to the Top is a good idea on its face, but in reality it’s a little like saying, “Gentlemen, start your engines! But don’t touch your steering wheels!”

Americans spent at the fastest pace in three years in 2010, boosted by a strong finish in December.

Consumer spending rose 0.7 percent in December, the sixth straight monthly increase, the Commerce Department reported Monday. Households saw their incomes rise 0.4 percent, the same as November.

For all of 2010, consumers boosted spending 3.5 percent. That was the best performance since a 5.2 percent rise in 2007, before the recession began.

The government reported Friday that consumer spending rose at a 4.4 percent rate in the final three months of 2010—the most since 2006 and helping retailers to the best holiday shopping season in that time.

Economists expect a cut in Social Security taxes will lift January’s spending and incomes even further than last month.

For 2010, incomes rose 3 percent after having fallen 1.7 percent in 2009. Still, incomes grew at the second-lowest annual pace in the eight years.

The rise in incomes and the faster increase in spending meant that the savings rate dipped slightly in December to 5.3 percent of after-tax incomes.

The savings rate edged down slightly to 5.8 percent, from 5.9 percent in 2009.

The December spending gain was powered by a 1.5 percent rise in purchases of nondurable goods, such as clothing and food. Consumers boosted their spending 0.7 percent on long-lasting products such as autos and appliances. Spending on services rose 0.4 percent.

The increased economic activity is not leading to higher inflation. A price gauge tied to consumer spending showed prices outside of food and energy increased 0.7 percent in the 12 months ending in December, a record low.

Economists expect a slowly improving job market and a payroll tax cut will boost spending further in 2011.

For all of 2010, the economy grew 2.9 percent, the best performance since 2005. That’s a sharp contrast to the 2.6 percent drop in GDP in 2009, the worst decline in more than 60 years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Burma (Myanmar) opened its first parliament in more than two decades Monday, an event greeted with cautious optimism by opposition lawmakers despite the military’s tight management of the event.

The military and its allies hold more than 80 percent of the seats in both houses of parliament, ensuring that the army exercises control over the wheels of power, as it has since a 1962 coup deposed the last legitimately elected legislature.

The 440-seat lower house and 224-seat upper house were opened simultaneously at 8:55 a.m. in a massive new building in Naypyitaw, the remote city to which the capital was moved from Yangon in 2005. The 14 regional parliaments, whose members were also elected last November, opened at the same time.

In the afternoon, the two houses convened together, and legislative officers were elected, according to Dr. Khin Shwe, an upper house representative of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Thura Shwe Mann, who had been the junta’s third-ranking member, was picked to be speaker of the lower house, and the junta’s Culture Minister Khin Aung Myint, named speaker of the upper house, Khin Shwe said. The election of a vice president was scheduled for Tuesday, while the timing for picking a president was not yet clear.

The 2008 constitution, drafted under the junta’s guidance and with provisions ensuring the military’s dominance, also came into effect Monday.

Delegates are not allowed to carry cameras, mobile phones, and other electronic devices into the parliament compound. Unlike in many democracies, their speech in parliament is not fully protected, and they are liable to be prosecuted if their statements are determined to endanger national security or the unity of the country.

Among the opposition members, there was muted hope that the new legislature will be a step, however small, toward a more democratic country.

“We are a minority in the parliament but we hope to make our voices heard and will ask for our rights,” said Sai Hla Kyaw, a lawmaker from the Shan Nationalities Development Party, which won a combined 21 seats in both houses.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A massive winter storm Monday will bring heavy snow and ice to much of the Plains and Midwest as the week progresses, forecasters said.

The National Weather Service forecast freezing rain and snow across the region Monday, heralding the start of a storm system that is expected to bring heavy snowfall Tuesday and Wednesday, paralyzing parts of the region. The storm was expected to march from the Rockies through much of the Plains and Midwest before making its way to the East Coast.

Early Monday, freezing drizzle made roads slick in northwest Missouri, causing cars to slide off highways in Buchanan County and prompting authorities to cancel classes at public and private schools in the area. Freezing rain and fog led to some flight delays Sunday at the airport in Rapid City, S.D.

Chicago and Milwaukee were expected to be particularly hard-hit. The weather service issued a blizzard watch for Tuesday and Wednesday for southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and northwest Indiana that included those cities. Forecasters said snowfall totals could reach up to 2 feet in some areas by the time the storm system has moved through the region.

The weather service said the heavy snowfall combined with high winds could create whiteout conditions, particularly on Tuesday night into Wednesday, making driving extremely dangerous in some areas. Snow drifts of 5 feet to 10 feet are possible. The service said winds on Tuesday could reach up to 60 mph in open areas and near Lake Michigan.

Once the storm has moved through, bitterly cold temperatures are expected to grip much of the region. The weather service said wind chills as cold as 40 degrees below zero could hit parts of North Dakota and South Dakota.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.