Tag Archives: usa

Obama picks Leon Panetta for CIA director

A shake-up is coming?

President-elect Barack Obama will name former congressman and Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA, tapping a veteran government manager who once oversaw the top-secret U.S. intelligence budget but has no hands-on espionage experience, Democratic officials said on Monday.

If he’s confirmed by the Senate, Panetta would take over an agency that’s leading the fight against terrorism as it struggles to overcome the damage dealt to its credibility and integrity by its Sept. 11 and Iraq intelligence failures and by its use of interrogation methods on suspected terrorists at secret prisons that many experts consider torture.

John Travolta’s Son Tragedy

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP)

An autopsy is planned for John Travolta’s teenage son, who died after apparently hitting his head on the bathtub while the family was vacationing at their home in the Bahamas, authorities said.

Jett Travolta, 16, had last been seen entering the bathroom on Thursday and had a history of seizures, Police Superintendent Basil Rahming said in a statement.

A house caretaker found the teenager unconscious in a bathroom late Friday morning. He was taken by ambulance to a Freeport hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the statement said.

Jett apparently hit his head on the bathtub, said a police officer who declined to be named because she was not authorized to speak on the matter.