Blog Posts by Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News

The aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) are pictured in port at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. Pentagon civilian and military leaders have warned spending cuts will force them to slash ship and aircraft maintenance and curtail trainin. (Ernest R. Scott/U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters)Roughly two out of three Americans say that automatic spending cuts set to trigger Friday will have a major negative effect on the economy, according to a new public opinion poll. And more would blame congressional Republicans (45 percent) than President Barack Obama (32 percent), the non-partisan Pew Research Center found in its survey.

But there are signs that Americans are growing tired with Washington’s seemingly boundless appetite for manufactured crises: Only 25 percent said they are following the news about the so-called sequestration cuts very closely. That’s down from 40 percent of respondents saying they were following the so-called fiscal cliff standoff in early December, weeks before a January 1 deadline.

With just days before the cuts start coming into force on Friday, Obama was taking the political fight Tuesday to the pivotal swing-state of Virginia. The president was to visit Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia's largest manufacturing employer, as part of an aggressive public relations campaign to warn that the sequester will harm jobs.

The White House and its Republican opponents have stepped up their war of words over sequestration. The president describes the looming spending reductions as catastrophic (though independent analysts sharply question his rhetoric), while the GOP has alternately tried to blame him as the person who first proposed it (Congress voted to approve it) and played down the overall impact. The two sides are profoundly at odds with how to replace it – Obama wants a blend of spending cuts and tax hikes, Republican leaders have flatly rejected any tax increases. The public, meanwhile, basically backs the president but can't figure out what it wants to cut.

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Apparently missile launches and stealth fighters aren’t the only things keeping Iranian Photoshoppers busy these days: First lady Michelle Obama’s shoulder-baring Oscars dress got some digital tailoring to meet Tehran’s standards, as well.

First lady Michelle Obama, appearing on screen at the Oscars. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Obama wore the shiny Naeem Khan number at the White House to announce the Best Picture winner— “Argo,” the thriller based on a CIA operation to rescue Americans in post-revolution Iran.

It was apparently too much for Iran's semiofficial Fars News Agency, which modified Obama’s gown for its online report.

(Hat tip: Enduring America via Agence France-Presse photographer Patrick Baz)

President Barack Obama at the White House on Feb. 5, 2013 (Charles Dharapak/AP)If you were in charge of government spending, what programs would you cut to reduce the deficit and maybe take a bite out of the debt? A new poll from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center suggests that the answer is: Nothing…well, maybe aid to the world’s poor.

The survey was released one week before automatic across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration are due to start coming into force.

Sure, Pew found just a few weeks ago that 72 percent of Americans say President Barack Obama and Congress should make cutting the deficit a “top priority.” And Pew also found that a majority backs Obama’s call for a blend of cuts and tax increases to stem the tide of red ink.

So Pew asked Americans whether they wanted to cut, maintain or increase spending in 19 areas—from veterans’ benefits to infrastructure to Medicare to crime-fighting. The most vulnerable category turned out to be “aid to the world’s needy,” which 48 percent of respondents said they wanted to decrease,while 49 percent said they either wanted to leave it at current levels (28 percent) or see it increased (21 percent)."

Chuck Hagel testifies during a Jan. 31, 2013, hearing on his nomination to be defense secretary. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)Add Bob Dole—former senator, former presidential candidate, grievously wounded in World War II—to the list of Republican heavy-hitters urging the Senate to confirm the embattled Chuck Hagel as defense secretary.

“Hagel’s wisdom and courage make him uniquely qualified to be Secretary of Defense and lead the men and women of our armed forces,” Dole said in a statement released by the White House. “Chuck Hagel will be an exceptional leader at an important time.”

Hagel, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and Republican former senator from Nebraska, already had the support of five former secretaries of defense from Republican and Democratic administrations—Bob Gates, Bill Cohen, William Perry, Harold Brown and Melvin Laird. He also enjoyed the support of former Senate Armed Services Committee chairmen Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and John Warner, R-Va.

While it’s not clear what pull Dole retains with his former colleagues, Democrats already appear to have lined up the 60 votes needed to break through another Republican filibuster and definitely have the 51 needed to confirm Hagel as Leon Panetta’s successor. Republican Sen. Richard Shelby announced earlier Thursday that he would support Hagel.

A Predator B unmanned aircraft taxis at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas. (Eric Gay/AP)Just how many people have America’s drones killed? Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has put the death toll at 4,700—the first time an American official has publicly put a precise figure on the impact of strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles. The South Carolina lawmaker's office said he was citing an estimate already discussed on cable television.

Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, used the figure during a question and answer session on Tuesday with the Rotary Club of Easley in his home state of South Carolina. His remarks were first reported by the Easley Patch.

“We've killed 4,700,” the lawmaker said. “Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of al-Qaida.”

Drone strikes, President Barack Obama’s signature tactic for killing suspected al-Qaida and other extremist fighters, have been “very effective,” said Graham. “It's a weapon that needs to be used.”

Amid a controversy sparked by Obama’s targeted assassination of American citizens overseas suspected of consorting with terrorists, Graham came down sharply against any judicial oversight of the drone war, calling the idea “crazy.”

“I can't imagine, in World War [II] for Roosevelt to have gone to a bunch of judges and said, 'I need your permission before we can attack the enemy,'” Graham said.

President Barack Obama sits on the famed Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford Museum, April 18, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama will join Democratic and Republican congressional leaders next week for the ceremony to unveil a statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks at the U.S. Capitol—the first statue of an African-American woman in the halls of Congress.

In 1955, Parks, a Montgomery, Ala., seamstress, refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. She was convicted of violating the state’s segregation laws, and her legal battle ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled the bus segregation law unconstitutional.

In April 2012, Obama visited the Henry Ford Museum after a campaign rally in Dearborn, Mich. Official White House photographer Pete Souza snapped a picture of the president sitting on the Rosa Parks bus.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid invited Obama to attend the unveiling.

Secretary of State John Kerry delivers his first foreign policy speech, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. (Steve Helber/AP)

In his first formal policy speech as the top U.S. diplomat, Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday branded calls to cut foreign aid as politically easy but strategically dumb, and said his department helps create American jobs and advance American values.

“As a recovering politician, I can tell you that nothing gets a crowd clapping faster in a lot of places than saying, ‘I’m going to Washington to get them to stop spending all that money over there,’” Kerry said in a speech at the University of Virginia. “If you’re looking for an applause line, that’s about as guaranteed an applause line as you can get.

"But guess what? It does nothing to guarantee our security. It doesn’t guarantee a stronger country. It doesn’t guarantee a sounder economy or a more stable job market,” the Democratic former Massachusetts senator continued. And “deploying diplomats today is much cheaper than deploying troops tomorrow.”

Kerry’s remarks came as he geared up to make his first overseas trip since taking over the State Department from Hillary Clinton. That 11-day voyage will take him to the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Kerry noted that the public grossly overestimates the State Department’s budget, sometimes putting foreign aid as high as 25 percent of Washington’s overall outlays. The real figure is about 1 percent, he said.

First lady Michelle Obama's new official portrait (Chuck Kennedy/Official White House Photograph)The White House on Wednesday unveiled first lady Michelle Obama's new official portrait for President Barack Obama's second term—"midlife crisis" bangs and all.

The photo appeared on the White House's official Flickr stream, and the first lady tweeted a link to it.

The picture was taken in the Green Room of the presidential mansion by official photographer Chuck Kennedy.