In the news

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., is set to become the first woman chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, a position left open by the death of Hawaii’s Sen. Daniel Inouye, after Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chose to remain chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

President Barack Obama

has been named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2012, said Time editor Rick Stengel, who called Obama “both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America,” as he announced the selection on NBC’s Today show.

Sean Varone, 35, faces criminal charges over allegations that he knocked over a trash can, threw a high chair and assaulted an employee at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s because there was cheese on his hamburger.

Jalal Talabani, 79, president of Iraq, is in “stable” condition and will be flown to Germany for medical treatment after he suffered a stroke earlier this week.

Gerry Kelly

and Alex Maskey, two lawmakers from Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein party, were among five lawmakers who were sent live bullets in the mail as part of a protest about a decision to stop flying the British flag outside Belfast City Hall every day.

Sam Donaldson, 78, a longtime ABC News journalist, faces a drunken-driving charge in Lewes, Del., and is set to be arraigned Friday.

Victor Ponta, Romania’s prime minister, said he and President Traian Basescu, who once called Ponta a “pig,” have signed an agreement to cooperate for the good of the country, adding that “we won’t call each other names and we won’t use comparisons to the animal kingdom.”

Darla Williams, 48, an Oliver Springs, Tenn., middle-school teacher, has been suspended for making about 20 eighth-grade boys use toothbrushes to scrub a restroom where graffiti had appeared, school officials said, adding that two of the boys were taken to a hospital after other students sprayed them in the face with the cleaning chemicals.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/20/2012