The Obama girls on their way to school in Chicago

(CNN) – Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter confirms to CNN the Obama daughters will attend Sidwell Friends school in Washington, DC.

"They looked at a lot of great schools but they felt Sidwell fit their best interests," spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter told CNN.

Chelsea Clinton also attended the school when her father was in the White House.

Obama's cell phone records were breached.

(CNN) — Verizon Wireless has fired employees connected with a breach of records from a cell phone used earlier this year by President-elect Barack Obama, a Verizon source told CNN Friday.

The source would not say how many people were terminated, but said that "we now consider this matter closed."

Verizon reported the breach Thursday, and Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the transition team had been notified Wednesday. Gibbs said the president-elect no longer uses that phone, which has been inactive for months.

The fired employees were hired "to take care of customers," the Verizon source told CNN, and were not authorized to access customer records unless asked to do so by the customer.

The source also said the employees in question could not have read text messages, if Obama sent or received them, and would not have been able to access the content of any voicemail messages, although they would have been able to see if any had been left.

"This was some employees' idle curiosity," the source said, adding that records of no other customers of note were breached.

Ari Schwartz of the Center for Democracy and Technology said the employees likely had access to the dates and times of calls, the length of calls and the telephone numbers of those Obama spoke with.

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(CNN) – Two sources close to the transition say that New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner is “on track” to being offered the nomination for Treasury Secretary. The announcement will happen within days, possibly Monday, potentially with another member or members of the Obama economic team as well.

After dropping out of the presidential race, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who had worked in Bill Clinton's administration, endorsed Barack Obama.

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is a serious contender for commerce secretary in the Obama administration, two sources close to the transition said Friday.

The same sources, however, cautioned that Richardson could be tapped for another senior post as well. They do not consider Richardson's appointment to the Commerce Department to be a done deal.

Richardson, 61, was a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Currently in his second term as New Mexico's governor, he previously served as ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary in the Clinton administration.

(CNN) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader harry Reid have issued a leader to the CEO's of the big three auto companies, first obtained by CNN.

The letter lists the deails of exactly what they want submitted by December 2.

Full text of the letter after the jump

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Join the conversation on Jack's blog.

There are high hopes for big change when Barack Obama becomes President of the United States in about two months. The expectations for this man are approaching euphoria and that could be setting the stage for a big disappointment. We’ve got big problems in this country and no one is going to wave a magic wand and fix them in a matter of weeks or months. It’s likely going to take several years.

Some of the president-elect’s advisers want to make sure Americans realize this and they’re speaking out.

To read more and contribute to the Cafferty File discussion click here

President-elect Obama is considering several people for the post of national security adviser.

(CNN) – A former military man, retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, appears to be leading the pack of likely contenders for the position of national security adviser in the incoming Obama administration.

Here’s CNN’s list of other possible contenders to advise President-elect Obama on national security:

JAMES STEINBERG: Steinberg has previously served in government as a deputy national security adviser and in the State Department.

RET. GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI: This Vietnam War veteran formerly headed U.S. Central Command.

DR. SUSAN RICE: A veteran of the Clinton administration, Rice has worked in the State Department and the National Security Council and was a senior adviser to the Obama campaign.

DENNIS ROSS: Like many of the other contenders for national security adviser, Ross served in the Clinton administration and advised the last Democratic president about the Middle East. Ross has also advised Obama about the volatile region.

Click here for additional CNN short lists for Obama’s potential cabinet.

An interview Gov. Sarah Palin did Thursday is causing a stir.

(CNN) — It’s the ultimate holiday photo-op for any governor: the yearly pardoning of a turkey to spare it from demise days before Thanksgiving.

But former Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is causing a stir for an interview she gave after pardoning an Alaska turkey Thursday, during which one bird was being slaughtered in the background.

Palin appeared unaware of what was going on directly behind her, though she did seem to take a glance at the unfortunate event at one particular point during the interview.

"It's nice to support a local business and just participate in something that isn't so heavy handed politics that invites criticism," Palin said during the interview. "Certainly will probably invite criticism for even doing this too, but at least it was fun."

"I am always in charge of the turkey so I am where I need to be today to prepare for that," she also said.

Michael Bloomberg's approval ratings have dropped since trying to change the city's mayoral term limits.

(CNN) — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's approval rating appears to have taken a significant hit since he successfully sought to change the city's mayoral term limits.

According to a new survey from Marist College, Bloomberg's approval rating is down 9 points from a similar survey taken one month ago. The mayor still enjoys a 59 percent approval rating, though Marist reports this is the first time since 2005 it has been in the 50 percent range.

"The voters don't like being defied, and Bloomberg is paying a penalty for persuading the City Council to overturn term limits that were passed twice by New York City voters," CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider said.

"He has one advantage, Schneider also said. "No Democrat at this point seems strong enough to over take Bloomberg. He also has another advantage. Lots of money."

Fist elected in 2001, Bloomberg cited the financial crisis for the reason he was seeking a third term.

"I don't think the city needs another campaign. It's going to be tough enough to get us through this," Bloomberg told reporters last month referring to the meltdown on Wall Street.

The poll was conducted from November 17-19, and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Soon after his historic White House win, President-elect Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended at parent-teacher conference at their daughters' school in Chicago.

(CNN) – While a candidate, Barack Obama frequently said on the campaign trail that the federal No Child Left Behind law left the money behind. One of Obama’s first educational decisions as President-elect will be his education secretary.

Here’s CNN’s list of possible contenders to head the new administration’s Department of Education:

LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND: This professor of education at Stanford University was also an education policy adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign.

JOEL KLEIN: Klein, a veteran of former President Clinton’s Justice Department and White House Counsel’s Office, is currently the Chancellor of New York City’s public school system.

TOM KEAN: This Republican former governor of New Jersey was also the president of Drew University for 15 years and a member of the federal commission that investigated the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

ARNE DUNCAN: Duncan has local ties to Obama; he’s the CEO of the public school system in Chicago, where Obama’s political career began.

Click here for additional CNN short lists for Obama’s potential cabinet.

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

Charles Shenk, Bob Sirkus, and Michael Stern enjoy a football game

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– There were a couple of groups of guys in Chicago during the last seven days, all while the Barack Obama transition efforts were taking shape in a federal office building downtown.

One group of guys was gathered in room 1101 in the Sofitel Hotel near Rush Street. Their names were Charles Shenk, Bob Sirkus and Michael Stern; men in their early 60s, they were in town with their wives for a wedding, but the wives had gone out to lunch and had then gone shopping, whatever shopping now constitutes in this economy. The men weren’t budging from room 1101.

None of the three are political professionals, but all had been intensely, even passionately, interested in the presidential campaign; one of the men, utterly indifferent in past years to the electoral process, had surprised himself and his wife when, watching the Grant Park Election Night speech on television back in central Ohio, he began to cry because of the emotion of the historic moment.

On this day, in room 1101, he looked as if he might cry again. “Don’t drop it!” he wailed as an Ohio State receiver bobbled a pass attempt. He and his two friends– along with CNN Election Express producer Josh Rubin and I– were watching the Ohio State-Illinois football game together, and every time Josh and I attempted to discuss presidential transition team developments, the men shot us looks that made us think that if they could hit a “mute” button and silence us, they would.

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Jones is the leading candidate to be Obama's national security advisor.

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) – Two sources close to the Obama transition team tell CNN retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones has emerged as President-elect's leading choice to become national security adviser in the White House.

The sources said Jones has been given the impression by the President-elect that the job is his if he wants it. But the officials said there are still private discussions underway and no final decision has been made.

The discussions are focused on precisely how much power Jones will have in the staff job since he is used to being in a command role. Among his many posts, Jones served for several years as the operational commander for NATO.

In the third and final presidential debate, Obama noted that he deeply values advice from Jones, who has four decades of military service.

One person close to the transition noted Jones is a bipartisan figure who has warm relationships with both current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who may stay on the job for at least a brief period, as well as Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is now on track to be nominated as Secretary of State after Thanksgiving.
CNN first reported last week that Jones was getting serious consideration for either national security adviser or Energy Secretary.

Larry Summers looks on as his former boss, Bill Clinton, speaks. Summers, who served as treasury secretary under Clinton, is now thought to be among the contenders for the same post under President-elect Obama.

(CNN) – With the nation’s economy stuck in the grips of a financial crisis it just can’t seem to shake, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for the next head of the Treasury Department is among a handful of the most important Cabinet choices he will make. Indeed, in a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 41 percent of those surveyed said the choice for Treasury will matter most to the country’s future.

Here’s CNN’s list of possible contenders to be Obama’s treasury secretary:

LARRY SUMMERS: The former chief economist for the World Bank also previously served as Secretary of the Treasury under former President Bill Clinton.

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Geithner played a role earlier this year in the acquisition of Bear Stearns and the bailouts of AIG and Lehman Brothers.

PAUL VOLCKER: Volcker was chairman of the Federal Reserve under presidents Carter and Reagan.

ROBERT RUBIN: Like Summers, Rubin served as treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. Rubin also spent more than two decades at Goldman Sachs.

JAMIE DIMON: As president and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, Dimon was involved in Chase’s acquisition of Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual earlier this year.

Click here for additional CNN short lists for Obama’s potential cabinet.

Martin is seeking to unseat Sen. Chambliss.

(CNN) — He may not be going there in person, but Barack Obama is lending his voice to the Democrats' efforts to win back a Republican-held senate seat in Georgia.

The President-elect speaks out in a new 60-second radio ad for Jim Martin, the Democratic challenger to freshman Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Martin and Chambliss face off in a runoff election on Tuesday, December 2.

Chambliss won a plurality of the vote 17 days ago on Election Day, but Georgia state law calls for the winner to grab 50 percent plus one vote. Due to the inclusion of a third party candidate, Chambliss fell just shy of that threshold, forcing a runoff contest.

In the radio ad, Obama says Martin, a former state lawmaker, will “do everything he can to help me change Washington and get America moving again.” Obama ends the ad with a plea to voters, saying “please join me in supporting Jim Martin for the United States Senate on Tuesday, Dec. 2, and head to the polls just one more time this year.”

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Obama's cell phone records appear to have been breached.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Records from a cell phone used by President-elect Obama were improperly breached, apparently by employees of the cell phone company, Verizon Wireless said Thursday.

"This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone account," Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and CEO, said in a statement.

"All employees who have accessed the account — whether authorized or not — have been put on immediate leave, with pay."

The Obama transition team was notified Wednesday by Verizon of the breach, said team spokesman Robert Gibbs. He said the president-elect no longer uses the phone.

Full story

Ballots are being counted in Minnesota.

(CNN) – The number of ballots being challenged in the Minnesota recount is growing. This as more than 40 percent of votes have been recounted in the battle for Norm Coleman's US Senate seat. The recount kicked off Wednesday and could extend into next month.

Unofficial results from the November 4th election put Coleman, a freshman Republican senator, just 215 votes ahead of his Democratic challenger, Al Franken, known across the country from his days on Saturday Night Live and from his years as a talk show host on Air America, the progressive radio network. The slim margin for Coleman, far less than one half of one percent, triggered an automatic recount, the first time there's ever been a recount of a US senate race in Minnesota.

Now election officials, at 107 sites across Minnesota, are beginning the long process of recounting all of the ballots. They're surrounded by election observers and lawyers from both campaigns, and the media.

The Secretary of State's office reports that 734 ballots have been challenged in the first two days of recounting, with 374 questioned by Franken's camp and 360 by Coleman's camp.

Earlier: Minnesota recount could get ugly

According to the Secretary of State's office, 42.33 percent of the more than 2.9 million votes cast in the election were recounted by yesterday. It appears Franken's made a dent into Coleman's pre recount lead of 215. According to the results posted on the Secretary of State's website, Franken now trails Coleman by 129 votes.

The recount will extend well into December. The recount sites across Minnesota have a deadline of the first week of December to report their results. After that the state's canvassing board meets to rule on disputed ballots and to certify the election. And after that, if one side is not happy with the results, legal action could be possible.

Watch Al Gore talk about President-elect Barack Obama's victory.

(CNN)—Former Vice President Al Gore was fired up over the election of Sen. Barack Obama in one of his first post-election interviews.

“I can barely contain my excitement about this election,” Gore told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. “Regardless of the differences over issues and politics this was a water shed election that really just gave every American a feeling of great pride in our nation’s ability to transcend our past, and redeem the revolutionary promise of our Declaration of Independence: that every human being is created equal, and it’s electrifying seeing that declaration.”

Despite the Republican’s loss, Gore also said he saw many of them express a sense of pride on election night.

Be sure to catch the full interview on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS, Sunday at 1 p.m. E.T on CNN.

Watch Mukasey collapse while giving a speech Wednesday night.

(CNN) — U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed while giving a speech Thursday at the Federalist Society dinner at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington.

Mukasey, 67, was giving a spirited defense of the Bush administration's legal policies when his speech began to slur and he lost track of his thoughts about 30 minutes into his talk. Seconds later, he became rigid and then began to slump.

Mukasey was rushed to George Washington University Medical Center, said Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman.

"The attorney general is conscious, conversant and alert," said Carr. "His vital statistics are strong and he is in good spirits.

Full story

Clinton appears increasingly likely to be Obama's secretary of state.

(CNN) — President-elect Obama is on track to nominate Sen. Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state after Thanksgiving, three aides on Obama's transition team told CNN Thursday.

Clinton senior adviser Philippe Reines repeated a statement that "any and all speculation about Cabinet or other administration appointments is for President-Elect Obama's transition team to address."

CNN also has learned that Obama is getting foreign policy advice from an unlikely source: Republican Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser in the first Bush administration.

Two sources familiar with the conversations confirm to CNN that Obama reached out to Scowcroft for phone chats even before he ran for president, and the back-and-forth has continued in recent days as the president-elect assembles his Cabinet.

Full story

President Bush is thanking staff members and their families.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – During a midday appointment at the White House, it is a surprise to see a young boy in a blazer and tie, walking in the West Wing corridor just steps from the Oval Office and anxiously clutching a shiny new baseball.

It is a sign of the times – and a sign of the president’s respect for those who keep the government working.

In his final weeks in office, President Bush just about every day he is in Washington is blocking out an hour of time to take farewell photographs with Executive Branch staffers and their families.

Aides say Mr. Bush wanted a chance to say thank you to those who work in the administration – as well as a chance to thank their spouses and children for putting up with the long hours. Not to mention sign a few baseballs.