we need to talk about race and community relations, we need to talk about training and those conversations are conversations that need to take place now. they needed to take place ten years ago. but again, this brand that we re concerned about, the false narrative we re concerned about shouldn t be what defines us, that s what we re saying, you have a right to say it, that doesn t mean i have to like it or agree with it as a brand. i think we re stuck with it, though, chris. you understand it s not just about the mike brown shooting. it s been adopted about the concerns across the country, yes? sure, of course i do. and so does the rest of the department, there s no doubt about that. when you say it s a false narrative, you re construing it very narrowly to what happened with mike brown and your reckoning of the facts as we understand them in that case. how is it a false narrative even with respect to mike brown? because it relies almost totally on the testimony of dorian johns
defense department by somebody who has tried to protect against the sequestration, against the across-the-board hits in the defense department. this is an individual who i think john mccain is likely to see as a real ally. the issue in the hearings is going to be more about how the president has made decisions in the defense department. how he has made decisions in his wars, whether he is going to listen to the defense secretary at all or just to his insular set of officials in the white house. that s the real criticism with this president and i think mccain will use the hearings to examine how the president has made decisions on national security. john, why do so few people want the job of defense secretary. it s kind of stunning for the leader, most complex powerful organizations in the world. had you three leading contenders say thanks but no thanks. but this is sort of a classic second-term appointment this is along the lines of william perry in clinton s, the guy behind the sc
following a huge blackout tuesday that closed schools, forced evacuations, even trapped people in elevators. the aging power grid in detroit has been run for decades by the city s public lighting department. however, decades of delayed maintenance have led to frequent outages. a $200 million, four-year upgrade is currently under way in hopes of avoiding similar outages in the future. the wife of a maryland man serving 15 years in cuba is begging toor his release. five years after his arrest, judy gross says her husband, alan is in poor health and will not make it another year. her words come a day after the state department renewed calls for cuba to free gross. the former state department subcontractor was arrested for bringing satellite communications equipment into cuba. well, it is beginning to look a lot like christmas. an 88-foot tall minnesota spruce