In Today’s Times
- By appointing a clean air regulator to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, and a natural gas advocate to run the Department of Energy, President Obama sent an unmistakable signal that he intends to mount a multifaceted campaign in his second term to tackle climate change, John M. Broder and Matthew L. Wald report.
- President Obama nominated Sylvia Mathews Burwell, a Clinton-era veteran, to be the budget director on his economic team, Jackie Calmes and Richard W. Stevenson report.
- Across-the-board spending cuts have placed the president between two political imperatives, Michel D. Shear writes. As the leader of his party, he has to dramatize the impact of the sequestration cuts on families, businesses and the military, but as leader of the country, he has to make them appear as painless as possible.
- Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina governor who turned the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail†into a euphemism for an extramarital affair, is one of 18 candidates in what is, by all accounts, the wildest political race in the country right now, Kim Severson reports.
Happening in Washington
- President Obama will visit with Wounded Warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Later, he and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will sit down with Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary, in the Oval Office.
