SparksGuitar• Sexy Liberal Hal Sparks joins us in the Los Angeles Bureau at 11am ET / 8am PT for Humpdays With Hal

• Top U.S. security officials revealed yesterday that the government’s recently exposed surveillance programs led them to an al Qaeda cell that plotted, scouted, but ultimately abandoned a plan to bomb the Wall Street in 2008.

The NSA is reviewing whether to stop collecting a vast stockpile of records of Americans’ telephone calls by allowing telecommunications companies to retain the data until U.S. intelligence officials have a specific reason to review it for possible connections to terror plots, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

President Obama will renew his call Wednesday at a speech in Berlin to reduce the world’s nuclear stockpiles, including a proposed one-third reduction in U.S. and Russian warhead arsenals, a senior administration official says.

• Despite calls from GOP leaders to move away from focusing on social issues in light of the GOP’s 2012 election losses, the Republican-led House of Representatives Tuesday passed a bill that would restrict abortions to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

FBI agents plan a third day of digging Wednesday in suburban Detroit for the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared 38 years ago.