Today's Papers: Obama Changes Tune On Iran

The New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with, while the rest of the papers off-lead, President Obama delivering his harshest criticism of Iran's post-election crackdown of protesters. After days of criticism from Republican leaders who said the president wasn't showing enough support for the Iranian demonstrators, Obama said he was "appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings, and imprisonments of the past few days." Despite the tough words, Obama only took it so far. While stating that there are "significant questions about the legitimacy of the election," he emphasized the United States has no way of judging who really won. He also didn't mention any possible sanctions against the regime if it continued down its current path and, more importantly, refused to state that his administration was giving up on its goal to have talks with Iranian officials.The Washington Post leads with news that the Metro subway train that crashed into another on Monday had its emergency brakes activated. Investigators also said the train was in automatic mode, which means that the train's computers should have stopped the train long before it got close to the stationary train. The paper also reports that the first two cars of the striking train were two months overdue for scheduled maintenance on its brakes. The Los Angeles Times leads with a look at how a significant portion of the tactics that California's lawmakers and governor are proposing to deal with the state's fiscal crisis involve gimmicks that will only ensure the problem gets kicked down the road. What kind of gimmicks? Well, one proposal would have state employees receiving their June 2010 paychecks at 12:01 a.m. on July 1 so California would only have to meet 11 months of payroll in the new fiscal year.To continue reading, click here.