Surgeon general named
President Obama nominated a rural Alabama family practitioner to be surgeon general. Dr. Regina Benjamin, 51, runs a clinic in Bayou La Batre that serves low-income whites, blacks, and Asian immigrants. When it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, she solicited small donations and deferred her salary to rebuild it. “She has seen, in a very personal way, what is broken about our health-care system,” Obama said.
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Steven Rattner, the Obama administration’s “car czar,” stepped down, saying his work was finished now that Chrysler and General Motors have emerged from bankruptcy. But his departure came as his investment firm, Quadrangle, entered settlement talks with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The firm has been under investigation over payments it made to middlemen to win business from state pension funds.