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Nation briefs: Ex-Obama aide who insulted Clinton back

Compiled from news dispatches

November 29, 2008

Samantha Power, the Harvard professor who was forced to resign from Barack Obama's presidential campaign last spring after calling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "a monster," is now advising the president-elect on transition matters relating to the State Department - which Clinton is slated to head. Power is listed on Obama's transition Web site as part of the team reviewing national security agencies. She is part of a team that is likely to work directly with Clinton, a potentially awkward situation.

A set of 1-month-old girls believed to be the first known American-Indian conjoined twins are doing well and will be separated, doctors say. Preslee Faith and Kylee Hope Wells were born Oct. 25 and are joined at the liver and rib cage, said David Tuggle, a pediatric surgeon who will be involved in the separation. Tuggle said conjoined twins are rare and occur in about 1 in 600,000 births in Oklahoma.

The industrial chemical melamine is safe in baby formula in small amounts, U.S. regulators said, revising their earlier recommendations. The Food and Drug Administration's discovery of melamine and a byproduct of the chemical in two U.S.-made formulas doesn't pose health risks, said Stephen Sundlof, director of the agency's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. The FDA had said before finding the contamination that melamine may be harmful in infant formula in any amount.

A decision by federal officials this week to press ahead with a controversial sale of oil and gas leases in eastern Utah is stoking the debate over how to balance the nation's needs for fossil fuels against concerns over the environmental impact on iconic national parks and other sensitive areas. In the latest skirmish, the Bureau of Land Management announced Tuesday it would proceed with most of a proposed sale of oil and gas leases on nearly 500 square miles of public land in eastern Utah, which had sparked protests from environmental advocates and National Park Service officials. Opponents fear the drilling activity will damage air quality in several nearby popular national parks.