Making an unannounced visit to Kabul on Saturday, new Defense Secretary Ash Carter suggested that the United States' troop withdrawal from Afghanistan may be slowed to ensure that "progress sticks," Reuters reports.
"President Obama is considering a number of options to reinforce our support for President (Ashraf) Ghani's security strategy, including possible changes to the timeline for our drawdown of U.S. troops," Carter said on Saturday.
The current schedule would wind the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan down to just more than 5,000 by the end of 2015, with a target of lowering that on to a "normal" troop presence at the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan by the end of 2016. Sarah Eberspacher
One big question mark in the recovery from the Great Recession is people who are out of the labor force entirely — they're not employed and they're not looking for work. They've been growing as a portion of the American population since the late 1990s, and spiked after the Great Recession. So everyone's wondering if this shift is permanent, or if a lot of these people can be brought back in.
A new analysis by The Wall Street Journal suggests a fair number of them can.
(Graph courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.)
A lot of people dropped out of the labor force either by staying in school or by retiring early. Neither solution is great: more education comes with more student debt, and early retirement means reduced benefits. But they may be the best option for people when jobs are scarce. Obviously, we may run out of time to get early retirees back into the labor market. But a lot of people in school can obviously be brought back in, if we get job growth going again.
Another big story here is the rise of disability as a form of early retirement. (In light blue.) There's a fair amount of evidence disability benefits have risen to offset the decay of workers' compensation programs. But disability itself is also relative: If you've injured your back and can't do manual labor, but a lackluster economy means there are no desk jobs in your community, or it's too late for you to acquire the skills for a desk job, then you're disabled for all intents and purposes. So this category is at least somewhat amenable to more robust job growth as well.
In short, with the right macroeconomic policies to restore job growth and full employment, there's every reason to think labor force participation can be brought back up. Jeff Spross
Now that Olympic freeskier Gus Kenworthy has neared his goal of becoming the world's best freeskier, he's making good on a promise to himself: "Tell everyone the truth." And in the cover story in latest issue of ESPN Magazine, Kenworthy delivers: "I guess I should start by saying, 'I'm gay.'"
I am gay. pic.twitter.com/086ayvChq2
— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) October 22, 2015
Throwing himself into skiing, he admits, may have been a way to grapple with his sexuality.
For him, being the best was a form of atonement. Kenworthy knew he was gay as early as 5 years old and felt different from other boys. With his brothers, he shared a love for skiing and hockey, but their similarities seemed to end there. "I was insecure and ashamed," he says. "Unless you're gay, being gay has never been looked at as being cool. And I wanted to be cool." [ESPN]
In the action sports world, Kenworthy says, image is everything. ESPN reports that Kenworthy "takes in around 80 percent of his $500,000 to $1 million a year from sponsorships, which are based as much on image as they are contest wins." "The industry isn't the most embracing of someone who's different," Kenworthy said. " I'm nervous about that."
Read the full story at ESPN. Becca Stanek
During a hearing before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Hillary Clinton shut down Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.) after the congresswoman brought out two printed stacks of emails representing Clinton's correspondences in 2011 and 2012. Brooks demanded to know why the 2012 stack was so short — 67 emails — compared to the 2011 stack that contained 795 emails, and questioned why there were no emails about the U.S. compound in Benghazi in 2012.
Rep Susan Brooks compares tall stack of 2010/2011 Clinton emails of Libya to the short 2012 stack #BenghaziCommittee pic.twitter.com/fU43W0EfTz
— Mona Salama (@PoliticalCrazy) October 22, 2015
"When we go to 2012 — Libya, Benghazi, Chris Stevens, the staff there — they seem to fall off your radar. And the situation was getting much worse there," Brooks challenged.
Clinton, who has had some practice answering questions about her emails, was ready. For the first time during the hearing, Clinton seemed to get a little fired up, defending herself by saying, "I did not have a computer, and I did not conduct most of my work on email." Clinton additionally said she did not send emails during the day but instead had several meetings with officials every morning as well as regular weekly briefings. Clinton also said she received most of her news from memos, some of which she said were so confidential that they were brought to her in a locked briefcase.
You can watch the hearing live here. Jeva Lange
A member of a U.S. military special operations team was killed when American and Kurdish commandos raided an Islamic State prison in northern Iraq to free hostages being held at the compound, U.S. officials said Thursday. Reuters reports that this marks the first time that a U.S. serviceman has been killed in a combat situation with the Islamic State, and it's the first time a solider was killed in action in Iraq since the 2011 withdrawal.
At least a dozen ISIS fighters were believed to have been killed in the raid, The Washington Post reports. The operation successfully rescued about 70 Kurdish hostages. Becca Stanek
In her opening statement before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Hillary Clinton asserted that she had already taken responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. She painted a portrait of Ambassador Chris Stevens, one of four Americans killed that day, noting that she knew them personally. While she made it clear that Stevens was aware of the dangers of Libya and was a willing volunteer for his post, she also admitted she had a role in the tragedy:
"I was the one who asked Chris to go to Libya as our envoy," Clinton said. "After the attacks I stood next to President Obama as Marines carried his casket off the plane at Andrews Air Force Base. I took responsibility."
But Clinton also stressed that being an ambassador is dangerous work, particularly in unstable regions of the world, and that Stevens was aware of those risks. "Chris Stevens understood that diplomats must operate in many places where our soldiers do not, where there are no other boots on the ground, and where safety is far from guaranteed. In fact, he volunteered for those assignments," Clinton said. She concluded that, "I am here, despite all the previous investigations [...] to honor those we lost and to do what I can to aid those who serve us still."
You can watch the hearing live here. Jeva Lange
Responding to damning audit results this past summer, the Obama Administration asked federal agencies to cut back on paid administrative leave for employees accused of misconduct.
Since then, an investigation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has found that nearly 100 DHS employees have been on paid administrative leave for more than a year. "DHS...failed to explain why such extended amounts of time were needed to conduct investigations into security issues, misconduct, or fitness for duty," notes Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who obtained this information from the agency.
The audit which prompted the initial leave cutback revealed that the federal government paid some 53,000 employees to sit at home, not working for a month or more, in fiscal year 2013. That came at a price of at least $775 million in salary (let alone the cost of other benefits), a total which is considered a significant underestimate because the audit did not encompass all agencies. Bonnie Kristian
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) tore into Republicans at the outset of Hillary Clinton's Thursday hearing before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Immediately after Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) finished an introductory statement that largely focused on a scandal surrounding Clinton's private email server, Cummings dismissed the hearing as a cynical political attack.
"Republicans are squandering millions of taxpayer dollars on this abusive effort to derail Secretary Clinton's campaign," Cummings said, charging that Republicans set up the committee "because [Clinton is] running for president" and that "everyone on this panel knows these accusations are baseless."
"It's time now for Republicans to end this taxpayer-funded fishing expedition," Cummings said. Becca Stanek

