Pentagon to merge POW-MIA offices
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon took initial steps Friday to set up a new agency that will direct the troubled effort to search for America’s missing war dead, two years after an internal report found the current program was mismanaged and wasteful.
Defense officials said tthey will merge two existing agencies into one POW-MIA office that will be more streamlined and effective. The consolidation will be directed by Rear Adm. Mike Franken, a senior Navy officer, until a permanent civilian leader is named.
The new organization will be up and running early next year.
SpaceX schedules launch of supply ship
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – SpaceX is taking another crack at delivering supplies to the International Space Station and landing the rocket on an ocean barge.
The company’s unmanned Falcon rocket is set to blast off before dawn Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
On Tuesday, steering-system trouble halted the countdown at the last minute. A suspect motor was replaced.
The rocket holds more than 5,000 pounds of space station supplies. NASA needs the shipment more than ever because of a launch explosion last fall that destroyed another company’s supply ship.
Good weather is forecast for the 4:47 a.m. launch.
Once Dragon is headed to the station, SpaceX will attempt to fly the first-stage booster to a platform in the Atlantic for a vertical landing. Such a test is unprecedented.
Officials: U.S. didn’t hack North Korea
WASHINGTON –The U.S. government was not responsible for crippling North Korea’s Internet infrastructure after President Barack Obama blamed the country for hacking Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., two senior U.S. officials told The Associated Press, as Congress announced Friday it will examine North Korea’s cyberthreats starting next week.
The Obama administration has steadfastly blamed North Korea for hacking Sony but has been deliberately coy about whether it retaliated and caused North Korea’s outage, which affected all the nation’s Internet connections starting the weekend of Dec. 20. The two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to openly discuss the issue, acknowledged to the AP that it was not a U.S. operation.
In a twist, North Korea has denied it hacked Sony but publicly blamed the U.S. government for causing its Internet outages.
Associated Press
