Harsh words for Cheney

Harsh words for Cheney

WASHINGTON — CIA Director Leon Panetta says former Vice President Dick Cheney’s criticism of the Obama administration’s approach to terrorism almost suggests “he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point.”

Panetta told The New Yorker for an article in its June 22 issue that Cheney “smells some blood in the water” on the issue of national security.

Cheney has said in several interviews that he thinks Obama is making the U.S. less safe. He has been critical of Obama for ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, halting enhanced interrogations of suspected terrorists and reversing other Bush administration initiatives he says helped to prevent attacks on the U.S.

Cash boost for education

RALEIGH, N.C. — U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is offering federal cash incentives to achieve one of his priorities: developing national standards for reading and math to replace a current hodgepodge of benchmarks in the states.

Duncan said Sunday that the efforts of 46 states to develop common, internationally measured standards for student achievement would be bolstered by up to $350 million in federal funds to help them develop tests to assess those standards.

Taliban leader targeted

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan ordered its army to go after the country’s top Taliban commander, a feared al-Qaida-allied militant whose remote stronghold could prove a difficult test for troops but whose demise would remove a major threat to the country’s stability.

The announcement Sunday of the operation in South Waziristan, rumored for weeks, came hours after a suspected U.S. missile strike killed five alleged militants there. The move will likely please Washington, which wants Pakistan to eliminate safe havens for militants leaving Afghanistan and which considers South Waziristan a particularly troublesome hide-out for al-Qaida.

VA medical hearing

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A congressional panel is pressing the Department of Veterans Affairs to disclose Tuesday whether non-sterile equipment that may have exposed 10,000 veterans to HIV and other infections was isolated to three Southeast hospitals or is part of a wider problem.

The subcommittee scheduled Tuesday’s hearing in Washington to discuss mistakes involving endoscopic equipment used for colonoscopies and other procedures at its hospitals in Miami; Murfreesboro, Tenn.; and Augusta, Ga.; with top agency officials and to receive a yet-unreleased report by the VA’s inspector general.

Increase in ill sea lions

FORT CRONKHITE, Calif. — A recent surge in weakened and malnourished sea lions found along the Northern California coast is mystifying scientists and keeping workers hopping at the newly expanded Marine Mammal Center here.

Experts at the nonprofit center, located on wind-swept Marin headlands just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, believe the perplexing spike in malnourished sea lions along several hundred miles of coast could be due to a decline in populations of smaller fish that young seals and sea lions eat while developing.

Charged in cat mutilations

MIAMI — A teenager faces charges in a gruesome string of cat mutilations and killings that have horrified his neighbors and shaken animal lovers in two South Florida communities.

Tyler Hayes Weinman, 18, was charged Sunday with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body and four counts of burglary related to the deaths.

In the past month, residents in the Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay neighborhoods have reported finding the bodies of more than two dozen cats. Police said some were likely killed by dogs. Some were missing fur — neighbors said some had been skinned — and appeared to have been cut with a sharp, straight instrument, police said.

Swine-flu death in U.K.

LONDON — A person with underlying health conditions died of swine flu in Scotland on Sunday — the first reported death from the illness outside the Americas, health officials said.

Britain has been harder hit by the virus — known as H1N1— than elsewhere in Europe. Earlier Sunday, Britain had reported 61 more cases of swine flu, bringing the U.K. total to 1,226 cases.

Associated Press