Pete Souza/The White House In the photo that has hung in the West Wing for three years, President Obama looks to be bowing to 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, his arm raised to touch the president’s hair — to see if it feels like his. WASHINGTON — For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture of President Obama remains after three years. In the photo, Mr. Obama looks to be bowing to a sharply dressed 5-year-old black boy, who stands erect beside the Oval Office desk, his arm raised to touch the president’s hair — to see if it feels ... Continue reading →

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which distinguished itself amid great adversity during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, is about to enact large staff cuts and may cut back its daily print publishing schedule, according to two employees with knowledge of the plans.Newhouse Newspapers, which owns the Times-Picayune, will apparently be working off a blueprint the company used in Ann Arbor, Mich., where it reduced the frequency of the Ann Arbor News, emphasized the Web site as a primary distributor of news and in the process instituted wholesale layoffs to cut costs.A request for comment late Wednesday night from the newspaper’s editor, Jim Amoss, was not returned.The plans have been kept under wraps, but the newspaper will likely publish two or three times a week rather than ... Continue reading →

Doug Mills/The New York Times President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, were seen on a screen Monday during the last day of the two-day conference in Chicago. CHICAGO — President Obama and the leaders of America’s NATO allies on Monday agreed to end their guiding role in the decade-long war in Afghanistan next summer, saying it is time for the Afghan people to take responsibility for their own security and for the United States-led international troops to go home. Declaring that “our forces broke the Taliban’s momentum,” Mr. Obama used the summit meeting of NATO leaders here in his adopted hometown to begin an exit from a conflict he embraced during his first campaign for president as America’s ... Continue reading →

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