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1 of 1Full Size WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama has selected Kevin Concannon to run the government's public nutrition programs and Rajiv Shah to oversee agricultural research and education, the White House said on Friday. Both posts, as undersecretary at the Agriculture Department, require Senate confirmation. USDA is expected to spend more than $65 billion this fiscal year on nutrition programs such as school lunch and food stamps. Concannon is director of the Iowa Department of Human Services, which is responsible for Medicaid, food assistance and low-income programs. He held similar positions in Maine and Oregon before appointment...

Two Indian brothers are among four men who have been indicted by a US federal court on charges of providing material support to slain Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, prosecutors said. The two Indians are Yahya Farooq Mohammad, 37, and his brother Ibrahim Zubair Mohammad, 36. The other two are Asif Ahmed Salim, 35, and his brother Sultane Room Salim, 40. All four men have been indicted on one count of conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists, one count of providing material support and resources to terrorists and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice....

<p>More than 100 days after he invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying before the House committee investigating the Benghazi terrorist attack, a key Hillary Clinton aide is at the center of the separate and ongoing investigation by the FBI into Clinton's use of a private unsecured server while she was secretary of state.</p>

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Pakistani security forces have detained a senior terrorist leader behind suicide attacks in the capital who has links to the leader of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque. A terrorist commander known as Fidaullah was arrested on May 27 along with Shah Abdul Aziz, a former member of parliament. The arrests took place outside the home of Maulana Abdullah Aziz, the former leader of the Red Mosque who was released from prison in mid-April on $2,500 bail." SNIPPET: "Fidaullah was a recruiter and handler of suicide bombers; he reportedly recruited from religious schools in Islamabad and...

During Tuesday night’s Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton ... obscures a largely forgotten moment in U.S. diplomacy: a period less than two years earlier when she and the Obama administration were actively cozying up to the “murderous” Gadhafi. “I am very pleased to welcome Minister Gadhafi here to the State Department,” she said, warmly greeting Mutassim Gadhafi, the Libyan dictator’s son and national security adviser, at the State Department in April, 2009. “We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya.” To be sure, the rapprochement with Gadhafi began under President George W. Bush in 2003 when the Libyan...

For seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned. One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah,...

The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that a former Hillary Clinton State Department staffer who reportedly set up her home brew server will invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to testify to Congressional committees investigating Clinton’s home email system. Bryan Pagliano, though his attorney, informed the House Benghazi Select Committee which had subpoenaed him to testify on September 10, that he was declining to testify. The Post reported the letter cited the FBI investigation in to Clinton’s email system. Senate committees seeking Pagliano’s testimony were also informed he would be taking the Fifth. ““While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s...

(04-09) 16:37 PDT SAN JOSE -- Vandals cut fiber-optic cable lines belonging to AT&T at two locations early today, knocking out phones and access to 911 emergency services to thousands of residential customers and businesses in southern Santa Clara County, in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties and along the Peninsula, authorities said. Four AT&T fiber-optic cables in an underground vault were severed shortly before 1:30 a.m. along Monterey Highway north of Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, police Sgt. Ronnie Lopez said. Four more underground cables, at least two of which belong to AT&T, were cut about two...

http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/42563292.html SNIPPET: "A stolen airplane from Thunder Bay, Ontario that had U.S. defense Officials on high alert throughout Monday, landed on a Missouri highway." MULTIMEDIA WATCH THE VIDEO SNIPPET: "Spokespeople say a student at a flight school stole the aircraft and took off. The plane continued to fly towards Madison and that's when two F-16 fighter jets fighter intercepted the stolen Cessna"

Iranian and Turkish media are all abuzz about the possibility that President Obama and former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami might meet at a U.N.-sponsored conference in Turkey this week. Hurriyet, the big Turkish daily, is reporting that since both men are expected to attend the Alliance of Civilizations conference in Istanbul on Monday and Tuesday, the odds of a chance encounter are high, although noting that "it was not clear as of yesterday if the two would be at the summit at the same time." Iran's conservative Mehr News Agency cited a close aide to Khatami as saying that "most...

The brother of a man accused of plotting terrorist attacks in the U.S. says the wall the government built around him for years has eased with officials allowing him to make phone calls from prison. But Naji al-Marri (NAH'-jee ahl-MAR'-ee) says federal authorities have robbed 43-year-old Ali al-Marri (AH'-lee ahl-MAR'-ee) of more than seven years of his life.

An American journalist jailed in Iran has been convicted of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison, her lawyer said Saturday, dashing any hopes for her quick release. The verdict was the first time Iran has found an American journalist guilty of spying, and it was unclear how the conviction would affect recent overtures by the Obama administration for better relations and engagement with Washington's longtime adversary. Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge leveled a far more serious...

Iran charges US journalist with spyingApril 9, 2009, 9:42 am An American journalist jailed for more than two months in Iran has been charged with spying for the US, a judge said on Wednesday, dashing hopes of a quick release days after her parents arrived in the country seeking her freedom. The espionage charge is far more serious than earlier statements by Iranian officials that the woman had been arrested for working in the Islamic Republic without press credentials and her own assertion in a phone call to her father that she was arrested after buying a bottle of wine....

"My time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience." It was close to midnight on Jan. 20, 2009, and I was about to go to sleep when my iPhone beeped. There was a new text message. It was from Richard Holbrooke. It said, "Are you up, can you talk?" When I called, he told me that Barack Obama had asked him to serve as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would work out of the State Department, and he wanted me to join his team. "No one knows this yet. Don't tell anyone. Well, maybe...

Yesterday during testimony on Capitol Hill, we heard Former ATF Special Agent in Charge William Newell admit he was in contact with White House National Security staffer Kevin O'Reilly about Operation Fast and Furious as early as September 2010. Newell also admitted that the DHS, IRS, DEA, ATF, ICE and the Obama Justice Department were all heavily involved and were full partners in coming up with the concept and execution of Operation Fast and Furious. Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama still deny authorizing the lethal program, despite President Obama specifically asking Holder to conduct a complete review

<p>NewsletterShare Close this Share Box154 Comments | Post Comment.Wed Dec. 1, 2010 2:47 PM PST In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.</p>

One way to get around the whole bowing problem? Don’t let in the reporters until you’re already sitting down. President Obama played host to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the White House on Tuesday but avoided the diplomatic trapdoor he fell through a year ago by greeting the monarch without cameras around to record whether he bowed first. The president raised eyebrows and stirred criticism in April 2009 when he encountered King Abdullah at a summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations in London. As Mr. Obama approached, he appeared to bow before the king. The White House...

Several have sent word that a YouTube video of recently assassinated lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg has sent Guatemala into a tailspin. The video of Rosenberg claims that if you are watching, he has been murdered by President Alvaro Colom with help from presidential secretary Gustavo Alejos. "The video spread across the Internet after family members handed it out during Rosenberg's funeral on Monday. In the 18-minute tape, a seemingly calm Rosenberg, sitting behind a desk and microphone, alleges that Colom, the First Lady and two associates were involved in murder, corruption and money laundering. The group, he says, filtered public funds...

SNIPS Two months ago, the Obama administration acted to relax a trade embargo imposed on the island nation in 1962. A senior State Department official described the potential for damage as great and the timing unfortunate, noting that it could affect congressional support for the administration's recent attempts to engage Cuba. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. Cuba is notorious for not paying its agents, said a former intelligence official speaking anonymously because of the highly sensitive matter. Indeed, court documents indicate the couple received little money for their efforts, but instead professed a...

Note: The following text is a quote: Former State Department Official and Wife Arrested for Serving as Illegal Agents of Cuba for Nearly 30 Years Couple Allegedly Conspired to Provide Classified Information to Cuban Government A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government. The arrests were announced today by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Channing D. Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Joseph Persichini, Jr.,...