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Clinton also strongly defended the Obama administration’s decision to scrap Bush-era plans for a missile defense shield in Europe, calling it a move that ultimately will leave the United States and its allies better positioned to defend against a potential threat from Iran.

“Our agenda is ambitious,” she told an audience at the Brookings Institution about the highly anticipated U.N. session, saying it stems from President Obama’s belief the United Nations is “a critical, central institution.”

The United Nations “does not have to be just a diplomatic talk shop,” she said. “At its best, it can be an institution that brings the world’s nations together to solve global problems.”

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NEW YORK (CNN) — The upcoming eighth anniversary of the attacks of September 11 raises a compelling question for millions of Americans: How should we best observe this uniquely tragic day in our nation’s history?

Surely, it should not be a holiday. This is no time for days off from work and three-day weekends to enjoy barbeques and white sales.

No, September 11 is a day for reflection, and its historical and emotional significance should not lessen with time or be diminished in any way. It is a day to focus on the substantial lessons learned.

I’m a 9/11 family member. My brave brother, Glenn J. Winuk, was a partner at a large law firm, Holland & Knight, located two blocks from the World Trade Center.

Full Story At News.Yahoo.com

WASHINGTON – Congress has taken its first step toward an energy revolution, with the prospect of profound change for every household, business, industry and farm in the decades ahead.

It was late Friday when the House passed legislation that would, for the first time, require limits on pollution blamed for global warming — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Now the Senate has the chance to change the way Americans produce and use energy.

What would the country look like a decade from now if the House-passed bill — or, more likely, a water-down version — were to become the law of the land?

“It will open the door to a clean energy economy and a better future for America,” President Barack Obama said Saturday.

But what does that mean to the average person?

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SELMA, Alabama (CNN) — To cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge into Selma is to share a stage with history. And these days, it is to come face-to-face with a bleak present.

Storefront after storefront is closed, and many of the buildings in the famous photos from the days of the historic March 1965 events have fallen into disrepair.

“It is very depressing,” Selma Mayor George P. Evans tells us during an evening walk down Broad Street in downtown. “People are not buying. People are not spending. Businesses are going out of business.”

This is the heart of Alabama’s “Black Belt,” and Selma is a reminder that a recession that has punished so many across America has hit hardest in places that were already struggling.

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The measure passed 275-155 in a largely party-line vote, and will now move to the Senate for further review.

Among other things, the bill allocates substantial funds for improvements along the Gulf Coast, where many school districts are still struggling to repair buildings damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The legislation, according to the House Education and Labor Committee, also makes schools part of the effort to revive the U.S. economy and fight global warming by “creating clean energy jobs that will help put workers in hard-hit industries back to work.”

Full Story At  CNN.com

The president announced the initiative, to be administered by the Interior Department, while reiterating his pledge to push for a comprehensive energy plan that encourages the development of alternative fuel sources, cuts dependence on foreign oil, addresses climate change, and creates new jobs.

Wind power can generate 20 percent of the country’s electricity by 2030 and support 250,000 jobs, Obama said during a visit to a wind turbine tower manufacturing plant.

It is part of “beginning a new era of energy exploration,” he said.

Full Story At  CBS News

he list of governors threatening to decline federal stimulus money last month read like a list of Republicans considering running for president in 2012: Governors Mark Sanford, Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin led the anti-stimulus charge.

But what began with a bang is ending with something closer to a whimper. All three of those governors have been forced to scale back their expectations, to varying degree, as the push of conservative philosophy gave way to the pull of political reality.

Full Story At  msnbc.com

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama signed legislation Monday setting aside more than 2 million acres as protected wilderness.

Obama called the new law among the most important in decades “to protect, preserve and pass down our nation’s most treasured landscapes to future generations.”

Also included in the legislation signed by Obama is a provision named for “Superman” actor Christopher Reeve that provides for paralysis research and care for persons with disabilities.

Full Story At news.yaho.com

WASHINGTON – Attacking President Barack Obama’s grand spending plans, a GOP lawmaker who almost joined the Democrat’s Cabinet said Saturday the U.S. must live within its means or risk its tradition of passing a more prosperous country from one generation to the next.

“We believe you create prosperity by having an affordable government that pursues its responsibilities without excessive costs, taxes or debt,” Sen. Judd Gregg said in the Republican radio and Internet address.

Full Story At CBS News

CBS) Proclaiming to a joint session of Congress and an recession-scarred American people that the “day of reckoning has arrived,” President Obama said Tuesday night that the country must now act “boldly and wisely” to take charge of its future.

In a speech pegged on dire economic rhetoric, but laced with assurances that America will get back on its feet, the president vowed that the country would emerge stronger from the current crisis.