White House news

• Netanyahu row casts doubt on Obama pledge to 'have Israel's back'

  20-03-2015 23:44
  
  By Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama, who once famously said he would “always have Israel’s back,” may be rethinking that promise as aides begin weighing options in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-election disavowal of a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. Following Obama’s warning that the United States would “reassess” its relationship with Israel, the administration is not only reconsidering the diplomatic cover it
  
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• John Boehner announces post-election visit to Israel

  20-03-2015 22:18
  
  Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Republicans have been highly critical of the talks – with Speaker Boehner inviting Mr. Netanyahu to address Congress directly about the issue last month, without first consulting the White House. Mr. Boehner “looks forward to visiting the country, discussing our shared priorities for peace and security in the region, and further strengthening the bond between the United States and Israel,” his spokesman, Kevin Smith said in a statement. At
  
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• On US campaign trail, your 15 Meerkats of fame

  20-03-2015 21:29
  
  As the 2016 presidential race comes into view, social media app-of-the-moment Meerkat offers American candidates a promising but perhaps risky way to reach out to the masses. The online video streaming service, which was launched last month, allows users to broadcast footage live from their smartphone with the touch of a button. Fueling the hype, the White House made its Meerkat debut Friday, with spokesman Josh Earnest sitting for a live-streamed interview with MSNBC correspondent Kasie Hunt. S
  
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• ‘King Coal’ McConnell Wants to Scrap Obama’s Carbon Plan

  20-03-2015 20:56
  
  President Obama is stepping up his drive to combat greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, this time by ordering the federal government to reduce its carbon emissions by 40 percent from 2008 levels over the coming decade and expanding its use of renewable fuels in the government’s electricity supply. At the same time, the administration has enlisted voluntary agreements from federal suppliers including giants General Electric, IBM, Honeywell and United Technologies to slash
  
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• Obama hosts student film festival at the White House

  20-03-2015 20:48
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said the film festival he hosted at the White House Friday is probably the only one ever featuring a director with a loose tooth.
  
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• AFI & SAG-AFTRA Set Ambitious Mentorship Programs After Obama’s Call To Service

  20-03-2015 20:45
  
  President Obama announced today that the American Film Institute and SAG-AFTRA will launch mentorship programs aimed at the next generation of entertainment professionals. Speaking at the second annual White House Student Film Festival today, he said the groups will work alongside the federal agency that leads his United We Serve program with a goal of 1 million mentor hours in the next three years. A number of big names from the biz attended today’s event at the White…
  
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• Obama, Hollande discuss Iran nuclear talks, Ukraine crisis: White House

  20-03-2015 20:36
  
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama spoke with French President Francois Hollande on Friday to discuss the talks between Iran and six world powers on a nuclear agreement, the White House National Security Council said on Twitter. The leaders also discussed the situation in Ukraine, the White House said. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler)
  
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• U.S. House Speaker Boehner to visit Israel

  20-03-2015 20:25
  
  By Luke Baker and Patricia Zengerle JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Boehner, Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives at the center of a political furor in Washington over relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will visit Israel in coming weeks, his office said on Friday. The trip, Boehner's first to Israel in seven years, follows Netanyahu's surprise election victory on Tuesday and his March 3 speech to Congress criticizing President Barack Obam
  
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• White House: cannot confirm link between Yemen attack, Islamic State

  20-03-2015 20:17
  
  The White House cannot confirm a claim by Islamic State that suicide bombers who attacked two mosques in Yemen were affiliated with the militant group, a spokesman said on Friday. "There is not, at this point, clear evidence of an operational link between these extremists in Yemen and ISIL fighters in Iraq and Syria," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, using a different acronym for Islamic State. He said the United States was trying to find out whether there were "command-and-control struc
  
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• Global Shale Revolution On Hold

  20-03-2015 19:52
  
  Oil prices responds positively to delay in interest rate hikes, oil majors put majority of non-North American shale projects on ice, White house introduces new fracking rules
  
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• Oldest U.S. female military veteran dies at 108 in Texas

  20-03-2015 19:40
  
  By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Lucy Coffey, the oldest living female U.S. military veteran, has died at the age of 108. Coffey, who served with the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in the Pacific Theater during World War Two and retired after nearly three decades of military-related service, died on Thursday morning in Texas, the Bexar County Veterans Service Office said. She was working at an A&P grocery store in Dallas in 1943 when she joined the newly formed Women's Army Auxiliary Corps,
  
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• President Obama Tells Prince Charles That Americans Like the Royals More Than U.S. Politicians

  20-03-2015 19:25
  
  President Barack Obama told Prince Charles during a visit to the White House that Americans care more about the British Royals than U.S. leaders — read the funny quotes here
  
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• Boehner off to Israel; Netanyahu's ties to Obama hit new low

  20-03-2015 18:49
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — The leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, is heading to Israel as already strained relations between the White House and newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit a new low this week.
  
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• Is McConnell 'out of bounds' to ask governors to defy EPA?

  20-03-2015 18:35
  
  A senior White House official responded strongly to the letter Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky sent Thursday to all state governors urging them to defy rules drafted by the Obama Administration to curb carbon pollution from coal fired power plants. In his letter, Senator McConnell, who represents a major coal producing state, laid out a legal rationale for the governors to refuse to submit compliance plans to the Environmental Protection Agency. He argued that the use of
  
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• At Least 142 Killed In Yemen Suicide Bombings

  20-03-2015 18:25
  
  White House spokesman Josh Earnest said there is not, as yet, a "clear operational" link between Yemeni extremists and IS fighters in Syria and Iraq. "We express our condolences to the families of the victims, we deplore the brutality of the terrorists who perpetrated today's unprovoked attack on Yemeni citizens, who were peacefully engaged in Friday prayers," he said.
  
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• Hillary's Campaign Is Built on a Shaky Foundation

  20-03-2015 18:08
  
  The thing about the controversies shaking Hillary Clinton's still-not-yet-presidential campaign is how utterly predictable they are. Friday's news actually brings two, somewhat-related stories about questionable practices at the Clinton Foundation, the charitable organization that Bill Clinton created after leaving the White House. Reuters notes that when she became secretary of state in 2009, Hillary Clinton pledged to President Obama that the foundation would issue an annual report o
  
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• White House 'strongly condemns' Yemen suicide bombings

  20-03-2015 17:49
  
  Washington (AFP) - The White House on Friday said it "strongly condemns" twin suicide bombings on Yemeni mosques that killed at least 142 worshippers, but said it was too early to pin blame on Islamic State.
  
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• White House: No sign of Islamic State link to Yemen attacks

  20-03-2015 17:46
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says there's no indication the Islamic State group had any operational link to a string of suicide bombings in Yemen that killed at least 137 people.
  
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• White House says cannot confirm that Yemen attackers affiliated with Islamic State

  20-03-2015 17:40
  
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States cannot confirm the claim that the attackers in Yemen were affiliated with Islamic State militants, the White House said on Friday. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said there was no clear operational link between the people who carried out a bomb attacks in Yemen on Friday, killing 126, and Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria. (Reporting by Julia Edwards; Editing by Eric Beech)
  
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• Obama calls on Iran to immediately release detained Americans

  20-03-2015 16:18
  
  WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday called on Iran's government to immediately release three detained Americans - Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati and Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian - and to help find Robert Levinson, an American who disappeared in Iran eight years ago, the White House said. Obama made the statement in conjunction with Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. ...
  
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• House Speaker Boehner to travel to Israel

  20-03-2015 15:55
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — The leader of the U.S. House of Representatives is headed to Israel at a time when relations between the White House and newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have reached a new low.
  
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• Netanyahu's Palestinian backtrack fails to mollify US: analysts

  20-03-2015 15:48
  
  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has begun to tone down anti-Palestinian rhetoric in order to mend ties with a furious White House but analysts say he will have to do more. The White House has warned that it might withdraw crucial diplomatic cover for Israel at the United Nations, even as Netanyahu denied he had ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state. On Monday, the day before he was reelected, Netanyahu was asked if it were true that there would be no Palestinian state were he t
  
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• White House hires Facebook engineering director as its new director of information technology

  20-03-2015 15:13
  
  Flickr/Brian Solis The White House has hired one of Facebook’s engineering directors, David Recordon, as its new director of information technology, according to Yahoo! Tech’s Alyssa Bereznak. Recordon, who has worked at Facebook since 2009, will work in his new position to “ensure that the technology utilized by the White House is efficient, effective, and secure,” according to a statement from the White House. While at Facebook, Recordon has worked on various open source projects in ad
  
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• Monica Lewinsky just gave ‘one of the best, most courageous TED talks ever’

  20-03-2015 14:39
  
  Screenshot/YouTube Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky made her latest public appearance in a TED talk called “The Price of Shame” on Thursday. “Like me, at 22, a few of you may also have taken wrong turns by falling in love with the wrong person,” Lewinsky said, according to the New York Times. “Maybe even your boss. Unlike me, though, your boss probably wasn’t the President of the United States of America.”  Lewinsky’s widely known story — she was former President Bill Clinton
  
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• Monica Lewinsky On The Price Of Online Shame

  20-03-2015 13:38
  
  Monica Lewinsky has taken on cyberbullying as she broke her public silence with a TED talk called The Price Of Shame. The one-time White House intern, now 41, has largely remained out of the spotlight since her affair with then-President Bill Clinton made her name known across the world and almost brought down his presidency. The talk, in Vancouver, marked her most public appearance to date, though last year she wrote an essay for Vanity Fair about life after the Clinton affair and has recently
  
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• US to train 750 Ukraine troops in bid to counter Russian aggression

  20-03-2015 11:47
  
  Washington, March 20 (ANI): In a bid to counter Russian aggression in east Ukraine, the White House has announced that the U.S. will start training 750 Ukraine troops. The news came on Wednesday and followed a phone call between Vice President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and coincided with Russia's celebration of the first anniversary of their country's annexation of Crimea, reported Fox News. Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez said that soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Br
  
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• HP SVP and GM Marilyn Crouther Joins President Obama to discuss HP’s Carbon Footprint

  20-03-2015 11:30
  
  Climate change is one of the most serious issues the world is confronting today. One that requires new ways of doing business, including developing long-term strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across industries. Yesterday, Marilyn Crouther, SVP and GM for HP Enterprise Services, U.S. Public Sector represented HP in a roundtable discussion at the White House. ...
  
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• Obama Enlists AFI, SAG-AFTRA to Expand Film Mentorship Programs

  20-03-2015 11:06
  
  The president will announce a "Call to Arts" program at a White House event, expected to be attended by the likes of Hilary Swank and Kal Penn, to support of "the next generation of storytellers."
  
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• U.S. Congress speaker Boehner to visit Israel this month

  20-03-2015 11:06
  
  Republican John Boehner, the speaker of the U.S. Congress and an ardent backer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will visit Israel at the end of this month, diplomatic sources said on Friday. The visit will follow Netanyahu's surprise election victory this week and his speech to Congress earlier this month on Boehner's invitation, an event that aggravated the White House and drew sharp criticism. Officials in the prime minister's office and at the U.S. embassy in Israel had no immedi
  
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• President Obama Enlists AFI, SAG-AFTRA for One Million Mentor Hours

  20-03-2015 11:00
  
  The American Film Institute and SAG-AFTRA are pledging to work toward 1 million hours of mentorship as part of President Obama’s United We Serve initiative. Obama will announce the commitment on Friday as part of the White House Student Film Festival, which will showcase projects from 15 students tied to the theme “The Impact of... Read more »
  
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• Israel-US defence ties to remain 'intensive'

  20-03-2015 10:59
  
  A senior Israeli official said Friday that defence ties with the United States would remain "intensive" despite a deepening rift between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The picture is clear -- security relations are extremely strong," the defence ministry's strategic affairs director Amos Gilad told Israel public radio, hours after a frosty Thursday night phone conversation between the two leaders. Two full days after Netanyahu's shock
  
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• Obama to 'reassess' Israel ties

  20-03-2015 09:24
  
  Washington, March 20 (IANS) The US will "reassess" aspects of its relationship with Israel after Benjamin Netanyahu's provocative statements leading up to Tuesday's Israeli elections, President Barack Obama told the Israeli prime minister during a phone call. The phone call on Thursday was officially described as a message of congratulations on Netanyahu's victory, but it also carried a serious warning after the prime minister -- during the last days of his campaign -- opposed the creation of a
  
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• Monica Lewinsky tackles cyberbullying in TED talk, calls for more compassionate internet

  20-03-2015 08:47
  
  London, Mar 20 (ANI): Monica Lewinsky has delivered a powerful speech about the devastating effects of online harassment, describing herself as "patient zero" of cyberbullying and pleading for more compassion on the internet. The former White House intern, whose love affair with President Bill Clinton made headlines around the world in 1998, began her speech at the Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference by joking she was the only 40-something who did not wish to be 22 again, the B
  
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• Obama to host White House Student Film Festival

  20-03-2015 08:12
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — It won't be a Hollywood movie director shouting "lights, camera, action," but rather President Barack Obama opening the 2nd White House Student Film Festival.
  
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• Little White House, Key West, Florida, USA: The island retreat of former US president Harry Truman - Sydney Morning Herald

  20-03-2015 08:00
  Little White House, Key West, Florida, USA: The island retreat of former US president Harry Truman  Sydney Morning Herald
  
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• Netanyahu 'changes his tune' on creation of separate Palestinian state post Israel election

  20-03-2015 07:00
  
  London, March 20 (ANI): Days after he vowed to not allow the formation of a separate Palestinian state, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a U-turn on his declaration amid mounting international criticism. In his first interview since winning Tuesday's election, Netanyahu backed off by saying that he did not want a one-state solution but a "sustainable, peaceful two-state solution." However, he added, "But for that, circumstances have to change," reported The Guardian. Netanyahu
  
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• Top Indian-American NSA lawyer returns to private practice

  20-03-2015 05:34
  
  Washington, March 20 (IANS) Indian-American Rajesh "Raj" De has left his post as the top lawyer at the National Security Agency (NSA) to return to private practice as partner at the Washington law firm of Mayer Brown. He first made partner at Mayer Brown in 2007, before leaving for a string of government posts. De, 41, became the agency's general counsel in May 2012, putting him right in the centre of the debate over leaks by former contractor Edward Snowden starting in 2013, the Hill said. "Eve
  
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• Obama orders reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent

  20-03-2015 03:36
  
  Washington, March 20 (IANS/EFE) President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by the federal government by 40 percent over the next decade, a move made as part of his administration's efforts to fight climate change. The executive order also set a target for 30 percent of the electricity consumed by the federal government to come from renewable sources. In addition, according to the White House, the efforts will be complemented with "com
  
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• Obama phones Netanyahu to congratulate him on election victory

  20-03-2015 03:08
  
  Washington, March 20 (IANS/EFE) President Barack Obama on Thursday telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him on his election victory earlier this week, a call that had been delayed after new tensions surfaced between Washington and Tel Aviv over recent comments the premier had made. The White House said in a statement that Obama had "reaffirmed the United States' long-standing commitment to a two-state solution that results in a secure Israel alongside a sovereign
  
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• Obama tells Netanyahu U.S. to "reassess" policy on Israel, Mideast diplomacy

  20-03-2015 01:00
  
  By Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama told Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that Washington would "reassess" its options on U.S.-Israel relations and Middle East diplomacy after the Israeli prime minister took a position against Palestinian statehood during his re-election campaign, a White House official said. Obama’s telephone call to Netanyahu followed a television interview in which the Israeli leader backed away from his pre-election declaration that the
  
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• Obama offers condolences, help to Tunisian president

  20-03-2015 00:35
  
  US President Barack Obama on Thursday called his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi to offer condolences for the deadly museum attack and continued assistance in the investigation. Obama "extended sympathy, on behalf of all Americans, to the victims' families and loved ones," the White House said, following the attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis which killed 21 people.
  
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• Obama says US to 're-assess' options after Netanyahu win

  20-03-2015 00:30
  
  President Barack Obama on Thursday warned Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington will "re-assess" its policies after the prime minister's election win called into question crucial US diplomatic cover for Israel at the UN. Two full days after Netanyahu's shock election victory, the White House said Obama called the Israeli leader to congratulate him -- though the message was decidedly lukewarm. Obama warned that the veteran Israeli leader's last-minute campaign
  
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