CHICAGO — The NATO alliance that has fought for a decade in Afghanistan is helping that nation shift toward stability and peace, but there will be “hard days ahead,” President Barack Obama said Sunday as alliance leaders insisted the fighting coalition will remain effective despite France’s plans to yank combat troops out early.
WASHINGTON — Three more Secret Service officers resigned Friday in the expanding prostitution scandal that has brought scorching criticism of agents’ behavior in Colombia just before President Barack Obama’s visit for a summit meeting last week. Agency Director Mark Sullivan came to the White House late Friday to personally brief Obama in the Oval Office.
WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled Senate moved methodically Thursday to complete a massive defense bill that would deny suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation’s borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention.
NAMIE, Japan — Japan’s system to forecast radiation threats was working from the moment its nuclear crisis began. As officials planned a venting operation certain to release radioactivity into the air, the system predicted Karino Elementary School would be directly in the path of the plume emerging from the tsunami-hit Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.
Japanese officials warned of a possible second explosion at a nuclear plant crippled by the earthquake and tsunami as they raced to stave off multiple reactor meltdowns, but they provided few details about whether they were making progress. More than 180,000 people have evacuated the area, and up to 160 may have been exposed to radiation.