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politics lead
Analysis: How will Rice, Power affect U.S. foreign policy?
Keep your friends close, and the friends that took a hit for your administration even closer. President Barack Obama is circling the wagons, and moving two allies up the ranks.
The embattled U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, moves to the White House as national security adviser, and former National Security Council aide Samantha Power will take Rice's place at the UN, if the U.S. Senate approves of the pick.
Former White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton, American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka, and Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic joined CNN "The Lead's" political roundtable to discuss what these choices mean for foreign policy. Check out their analysis in the video above.
sports lead
MLB ready to suspend A-Rod, Ryan Braun, and others
The hammer may be coming down in what could be by far the biggest crackdown yet on steroids in Major League Baseball.
According to ESPN, the league may hand down 100-game suspensions to as many as 20 players connected to a suspicious Miami anti-aging clinic. The list includes big names like former MVP Ryan Braun of The Brewers, and Alex Rodriguez, who is in the middle of the richest contract in baseball history - 10 years for $ 275 million. The New York Yankees handed him the contract back in 2007, in hopes that he would have a clean, and very lucrative pursuit of the all-time home run record.
The MLB has no positive drug tests, but appears ready to hand down the serious penalties without them.
CNN's Rachel Nichols reports for "The Lead" in the video above.
world lead
Liberal columnist: Obama not leading on Syria
The shakeup at the White House Wednesday could have implications for President Barack Obama's policy on Syria.
Susan Rice and Samantha Power, Obama's picks for national security adviser and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations respectively, are both advocates for intervening where countries are killing their people in masses, such as what happened in Rwanda. Power even wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about it, where she argues that no president has ever made preventing genocide a priority.
But it is unclear if the same rules apply to Syria.
Richard Cohen, a left-leaning columnist for The Washington Post, said he doubts either Rice or Power will affect Obama's stance on Syria.
"He's already unhesitatingly overruled his Secretary of Defense, his Secretary of State, his CIA director, on providing arms to the Syrian rebels," said Cohen.
"I can't see these appointments as game changers, they're personnel changes," said Cohen.
FULL POST
money lead
Watchdog: Certain older Chrysler Jeeps have the worst defect since the Pinto
In a rare rebuff of the U.S. government, Chrysler Group is refusing a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration request for a recall of 2.7 million SUVs.
The auto safety agency says the gas tank design used in the 1993 to 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the 2002 to 2007 Jeep Liberty is unsafe.
NHTSA concluded there were 44 deaths involving rear impact fire crashes with Jeep Grand Cherokees and seven with the Jeep Liberty.
But Chrysler has no plans to issue a recall, saying the government’s analysis is inaccurate.
But Clarence Ditlow, the director of the Center for Auto Safety who is pressing the government for a recall, sees things very differently.
In fact, Ditlow says the problem with the earlier model Jeep brands as “the most serious fire defect since the old Ford Pinto."
FULL POST
national lead
Judge gives sick girl shot at lung transplant
Her plight has captured the sympathy of people all across the country. Now, 10-year-old Sarah Murnahan may be getting a new shot at life. Sarah has end-stage cystic fibrosis. If she does not get a lung transplant, she will die.
Yet, there is a policy in place in the U.S. that prevents children younger than 12 from getting adult organ transplants. But her parents took on those rules and the government, and won - at least for now.
CNN national correspondent Jason Carroll reports in the video above.
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