World/Nation Briefs November 9, 2012
Administration changes coming for second term
WASHINGTON - Big changes are coming to President Barack Obama's administration - just not right away.
The White House is making the nation's high-stakes fiscal crisis its top priority coming out of the election, underscoring the vital importance of averting severe year-end tax increases and spending cuts, not just for the economy but in setting the tone for Obama's second term.
Still, Obama is weighing replacements for high-profile officials expected to leave his Cabinet and the White House soon. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton both want to step down but have indicated a willingness to push their departures into next year, or at least until successors are confirmed. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also wants to retire next year.
Obama privately delved into both issues Thursday, his first full day back in Washington following his re-election on Tuesday. The president and his team were also assessing how congressional Republicans were positioning themselves following the election before saying much publicly about his second term.
SEALs punished for disclosing classified info
WASHINGTON - Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information, senior Navy officials said Thursday.
Four other SEALs are under investigation for similar alleged violations, one official said.
The SEALs are alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called "Medal of Honor: Warfighter."
Each of the seven received a punitive letter of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months. Those actions generally hinder a military member's career.
Anger builds over lingering Sandy power outages
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. - Vincent Pina finally saw a couple of utility trucks coming down his street Thursday and started to wave in anticipation. But they just cruised past his house and kept on going.
He hung his head in resignation.
"The thing that gets me the most is that there is no flood damage. I don't have any branches down. I have no wires down," said the Long Islander, who put a hand-painted sign out front that read: "Still No Power."
So why, he wondered, was it taking so long to get electricity?
A week and a half after Superstorm Sandy slammed the coast and inflicted tens of billions of dollars in damage, hundreds of thousands of customers in New York and New Jersey are still waiting for the electricity to come back on, and lots of cold and tired people are losing patience. Some are demanding investigations of utilities they say aren't working fast enough.
Syria's main opposition bloc to pick chief
DOHA, Qatar - Syrian opposition leaders say they have made progress toward forging a broad-based leadership group sought by the international community.
Riad Seif, the author of the proposal, says the main opposition bloc, the Syrian National Council, deferred a decision until after a final round of internal elections Friday.
The leadership group is to serve as a conduit for foreign support for those trying to oust President Bashar Assad.
Life in prison for man who shot Giffords, killed 6
TUCSON, Ariz. - Gabrielle Giffords limped to the front of the courtroom and stared silently Thursday as she came face-to-face for the first time with the man who tried to kill her.
The former congresswoman hadn't been near Jared Lee Loughner since the deadly rampage outside a meet-and-greet at a supermarket that killed six people and left her partially blind, with a paralyzed right arm and brain injury.
Giffords' astronaut husband told Loughner what Giffords couldn't, before he was sentenced to seven life terms for the January 2011 slayings and attempted assassination of a member of Congress.
"Mr. Loughner, you may have put a bullet through her head, but you haven't put a dent in her spirit and her commitment to make the world a better place," Mark Kelly said.
- The Associated Press