Government

The news was mixed this week as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would move forward on a review of 29 plant and animal species and assess their inclusion on the federal endangered species list. The fact that the agency is considering listing any species represents a change from the last eight years. But the service also rejected petitions for nine species, including the ashy storm-petrel, a California seabird. For those who submitted petitions that were denied, the situation appeared dire.

Small cities in California are facing high unemployment, drained treasuries and now what some residents see as an assault on the only sacred moment in municipal affairs: the invocation at the start of city council meetings. Turlock, Tracy, Tehachapi, Lancaster -- all have been threatened in the last few months with lawsuits claiming that prayer at meetings breaches the wall between church and state. Nowhere has the ensuing debate played out more dramatically than in Lodi, where, after a tumultuous five-hour meeting this week, the City Council voted not only to continue invocations but also to allow phrases such as "in Jesus' name."

A senior Pakistani official said Thursday that Islamabad has tightened the screws on Jamaat ud-Dawa, a charity created by the founders of the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which India has accused of masterminding the Mumbai attacks. Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters in Islamabad that his government had shut down five training camps run by Jamaat ud-Dawa in Punjab province and the Pakistani-administered portion of Kashmir.

Sri Lanka's victory this week after a 25-year battle against the Tamil Tiger rebels represents a rare success story for governments fighting insurgencies. Even as leaders in Colombo, the capital, declared a national holiday and citizens danced in the streets, military planners and analysts around the world began scrutinizing the war for lessons on how to fight Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups.

The release of internal Bush administration interrogation memos this week answered long-standing questions about the CIA's techniques for getting prisoners to talk, but left unsettled a debate in Washington over whether those methods worked. The White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee are in the early stages of inquiries designed to address that issue, which nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks remains one of the most divisive in the intelligence community.

The government's major financing agencies for overseas development projects reversed direction Friday, committing to scrutinize fossil-fuel facilities for their effect on global warming and pledging to help build renewable energy plants abroad. The decision was revealed in settlement agreements filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in a lawsuit brought by two environmental groups, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, against the U.S.

A year ago, opposition leader Raila Odinga hit the streets to protest a flawed presidential election that sparked the deadliest political standoff in Kenya's post-independence history. Demonstrations led to riots and then ethnic clashes that spread across this East African nation, leaving more than 1,000 people dead and 350,000 homeless. It wasn't the first time Odinga had to fight to be heard.

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name the nation's first-ever federal chief technology officer sometime soon. According to Obama's website, the CTO's role will be to "ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century." It's not surprising that Obama plans a major emphasis on technology.

The Mexican government on Tuesday proclaimed that it was making progress in its war against drug traffickers, in a state of the nation report delivered to a new Congress expected to challenge President Felipe Calderon during his remaining three years in office. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled the country for seven decades until 2000, is back in control of the Chamber of Deputies, which plays a key role in budget decisions that will be high on the agenda in coming months.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity sank this month as the state budget crisis worsened, but Californians overwhelmingly approve of President Obama's job performance, according to a new poll. Schwarzenegger's dismal ratings come amid a conservative backlash over $12.5 billion in tax hikes that he pressured fellow Republican lawmakers to join Democrats in passing last week.