WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison by Jan. 22 was followed by a series of mistakes and missteps by his administration that will delay the prison's closure for months, according to a report from a policy organization with close ties to the White House.

Those mistakes — which ranged from initially having too few people on board to handle the workload to misreading Congress — have put the timetable months behind schedule and will push the prison's closure well beyond the January deadline, which Obama announced with great fanfare two days after he took office.

The White House declined to comment on the report. » read more

FORT HOOD — No Army base in America has had more memorial services than this one.

In the last six years alone, more than 545 young men and women assigned to Fort Hood have died in Iraq or Afghanistan, their names inscribed on memorials around this massive Central Texas installation.

President Barack Obama, on his first presidential visit to the post, the day before Veterans Day, memorialized 13 more Tuesday, all of them killed, authorities believe, by a fellow soldier Thursday afternoon. » read more

WASHINGTON — Any momentum from Saturday's historic House approval of a sweeping health care overhaul is likely to be short-lived as the focus moves to the Senate, where progress has been stalled for weeks.

Washington lawmakers on Sunday had two views of what the House's 220 to 215 vote means.

One was that the narrowness of the vote, with 39 Democrats opposed, showed the weakness of the bill. President Barack Obama, whose top lieutenants lobbied furiously, including a presidential visit to the Capitol 11 hours before the vote. » read more

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives Saturday passed, by a vote of 220 to 215, historic health care legislation that would require virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance and create a government-run health insurance plan to help them do so.

If passed by the Senate, the bill would bring about the most sweeping change in the American health care system since Medicare was created 44 years ago.

Supporters of the measure burst into cheers and applause on the House floor as it became clear the measure had won, but the vote was excruciatingly close, just two more than the bare minimum needed. One Republican, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted for the bill; 39 Democrats voted against. » read more