• President Obama, visiting CIA headquarters yesterday, defended his decision to release Bush-era memos on interrogation tactics, saying the country will ultimately be stronger as a result. He met with officials and employees there and talked to them about the importance of the agency’s mission to national security.
• President Obama gathered together every confirmed member of his Cabinet for the first time as president yesterday and challenged them to cut $100 million in the next 90 days. The edict is part of Obama’s “commitment to go line by line through the budget to cut spending” and “reform the government.
• The Norm Coleman legal team announced yesterday that it would be filing a notice of appeal with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Coleman’s lawyers say it could take anywhere from “two weeks to two months” for the court to begin hearing oral arguments.
• A number of delegates walked out of a United Nations conference on racism in Geneva yesterday when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a racist government during his address. Some 40 Western diplomats walked out of the room when Ahmadinejad said Israel was created on the “pretext of Jewish suffering” from the Second World War. The U.S. Canada, and Israel all boycotted the meeting.
• A Boston University medical student was arrested yesterday in the shooting death in a hotel of a masseuse and the robbery of another woman who both advertised their services on Craigslist.
