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(CBS News) Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said recently that al Qaeda terrorists may regroup in Africa, and that is why the U.S. is sending 100 Special Forces troops to one of the most violent places on Earth. The first 40 Americans have arrived in the region that includes South Sudan, scene of a long running civil war, and the Congo, site of the deadliest conflict since World War II. CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley sat down with Panetta, who said the Americans will train local forces to fight terrorists, including al Qaeda. Pelley: You're sending a hundred troops...

While the Obama Administration downplays violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities in Texas reveal that Mexican drug cartels have transformed parts of the state into a war zone where shootings, beheadings, kidnappings and murders are common. In fact, drug-cartel violence is so severe that Texas counties along the Mexican border are under attack around the clock, according to an alarming report published by the state’s Department of Agriculture. The agency was ordered by the state legislature to conduct an assessment of the impact of illegal activity along the Texas-Mexico border on rural landowners and the agriculture industry. Texas Agriculture...

Finally, some promising economic news in what has been a steady recent stream of dismal data and developments: Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner has agreed to stay in the Obama administration.The master of finance who has so successfully assisted President Obama in boosting the national debt by more than $3 trillion, driving unemployment back north of 9% by spending only $787 billion in stimulus funds, corroding consumer confidence and presiding over the first federal credit downgrading in history has agreed to stick around to continue his impressive work for this Democratic administration.Geithner is the sole survivor of President Obama's...

SAN YSIDRO — A Border Patrol agent shot and killed a man who was trying to enter the country from Mexico Tuesday night during a fight that left another agent injured. The agent spotted three men who were crossing at the border fence just before 7:30 p.m. and called for assistance, San Diego police homicide Lt. Ernie Herbert said. Border Patrol Agent Michael Jimenez said the location was 1.6 miles west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

Every time gas prices reach record highs the call goes out for more oil drilling. This year it's no different. "The Gulf is ready to get back to work to help create jobs and lower gasoline prices," Washington Republican Doc Hastings, head of the House Natural Resources Committee and a big proponent of more drilling, said last week. The problem is this: While increased oil and gas drilling in the United States may create good-paying jobs, reduce reliance on foreign oil and lower the trade deficit, it will have hardly any impact on gas and oil prices. That's because the...

Japan has asked the US for help to stop a quake-damaged nuclear reactor plunging into uncontrollable meltdown. The plea comes after a second hydrogen explosion occurred at a nuclear plant where officials warned that three nuclear rods in a cooling-starved reactor appeared to be melting. Plumes of grey smoke billowed into the air after the blast at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's number 3 unit, injuring 11 people. Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano confirmed the fear of rods melting inside all three of the site's most troubled reactors. "Although we cannot directly check it, it's highly likely happening," he said....

Ten years ago, President George W. Bush presented his energy plan to the United States Congress. The plan included $33.5 billion in tax incentives for energy companies to expand drilling for oil, natural gas and mining for coal. The plan also expanded energy conservation measures. One of the key components of the energy plan was expanding domestic oil drilling so that the United States could finally wean itself off foreign oil. The United States House of Representatives embraced the plan, which called for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Unfortunately for Americans, the legislation then went to the...

Please consider the validity of what I am about to say rather than having a knee jerk reaction dismissing it as being "over the top." Folks, we have an irresponsible egocentric evil man occupying the Oval Office. The Democrats and the liberal mainstream media sold the American people on Obama, "the man." Despite Obama's zero experience at running anything, they said a leader with his spirit and heart was "what we have been waiting for". Fearful of criticizing our first black president, politicians politely say, "President Obama's policies have been unfruitful," while ignoring the huge elephant in America's living room....

If top officials in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE)--and, for that matter, in the Department of Justice (and Department of State?)--had thought that media (and congressional) scrutiny of the growing "Project Gunwalker" scandal would go no further than the CBS Evening News segment of Feb. 23, then last night's follow-up must have come as a nasty shock. So, too, must be new articles in the Los Angeles Times, and from the Center for Public Integrity. Last night's CBS story featured courageous whistleblowing Agent John Dodson, who laid out in stark detail just how callously BATFE leadership...

Today is the 107th anniversary of the birth of Ted Geisel, the American-born writer best known for writing children’s books under the pen name, “Dr. Seuss.” A fan of his classic books, including Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hatches the Egg, Horton Hears a Who! and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I decided to pay tribute to Geisel by imitating his style Geisel by imitating his style with a decidedly-political twist. Barack O’Bam.Barack O’Bam. I do not like Barack O’Bam. It’s not because O’Bam is black. It’s...

With the unrest in the Middle East as his springboard, Gov. Sean Parnell lashed out at the Obama administration's stance on domestic oil production, saying the White House approach was having a tangible effect on the country's foreign policy. In a speech at the National Press Club, the Republican governor called the federal government "openly hostile" to oil-producing states, particularly for the delays in allowing Shell to drill exploratory wells on leases off Alaska's northern coast that the company purchased in 2008. "If it looks like a moratorium and walks like a moratorium ... maybe it is," said Parnell, who...

President Obama issued a veto threat Tuesday afternoon against the House GOP “continuing resolution” that would fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, saying the cuts in the bill would “undermine our ability to out-educate, out-build, and out-innovate the rest of the world” as well as undermine “core government functions and investments key to economic growth and job creation, and would reduce funding for the Department of Defense to a level that would leave the Department without the resources and flexibility needed to meet vital military requirements.”Democrats in Congress criticize the GOP cuts, which they say would...

President Barack Obama will visit Penn State University's main campus on Wednesday as part of a push for his new energy goals laid out in Tuesday's State of the Union address. Details about the president's State College, Pa., visit will come later this afternoon, but Obama is expected to tour the campus and make remarks, said Jen Psaki, a White House spokeswoman.

After the 2010 elections, it’s not exactly news that Obama has lost America. But in a less public referendum, he also lost the world. Obama’s cocktail party tour of the world’s capitals may look impressive on a map, but is irrelevant on a policy level. In less than two years, the White House has gone from being the center of world leadership to being irrelevant, from protecting world freedom to serving as a global party planning committee. Even the Bush Administration’s harshest critics could never have credibly claimed that George W. Bush was irrelevant. He might have been hated, pilloried...

Another Border Patrol agent on the Arizona border was shot and killed by Mexican drug smugglers last Tuesday. Of the eight attackers, four are in custody and a fifth is under surveillance by Border Patrol Blackhawk helicopters as he tries to make his way back to the Mexican border. Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/border-security/2010/12/18/tancredo-reveals-ammo-shocker-about-murder-border-patrol-agent#ixzz18UKLkaYs

Information taken from secret documents supplied by the WikiLeaks website will be published from 1830 GMT, the French newspaper Le Monde said on Sunday.

Original source is a video.

A landmark court decision was handed down in the case against Ahmed Ghailani, a Guantanmo Bay detainee accused of taking part in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Ghailani was acquitted of ALL BUT ONE of the 286 charges against him, which were for the murder of the 224 people killed in the bombings. This was the first detainee trial to be conducted in a CIVILIAN court. Few predicted such a propitious verdict for the al-Qeada collaborator, an outcome which carries heavy implication for the Obama administration. Ghailani, a former Islamic cleric, was also accused of conspiring...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) – More than half of the 1.4 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration's flagship foreclosure-prevention program have fallen out.</p> <p>A separate report Thursday showed that the number of Americans at risk of foreclosure improved slightly over the summer. The Mortgage Bankers Association said that about 9.1 percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment in the July-September quarter. That was down from 9.9 percen6t in the April-June quarter and compared to a record high of more than 10 percent in the January-March quarter.</p>

“I never thought that we’d be in this paramilitary type of engagement. It's a war on the border," said Captain Stacy Holland with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Holland leads a fleet of 16 state-of-the-art helicopters that make up the aviation assets used by the Texas DPS to fight Mexican drug cartels. In recent years, the cartels have become bolder and more ruthless. They cross the border with AK-47s on their backs, wearing military camouflage. They recruit in prisons and schools on the American side. Spotters sit in duck blinds along the Rio Grande and call out the positions...