In Brief

Obama names transition teams for 3 agencies

WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama has named a team heavy on experience in the Clinton administration to help guide transition efforts in the State, Defense and Treasury departments. In a statement yesterday, Obama revealed the agency review team leaders who will be responsible for reviewing budgets, personnel and policy in the three departments. All six served in some capacity under President Bill Clinton. The Treasury team leads are Josh Gotbaum, an investment fund adviser who has experience in multiple federal agencies; and Michael Warren, chief operating officer of advisory firm Stonebridge International who was executive director of the President's National Economic Council. At State, the leads are Tom Donilon, a lawyer who was an assistant secretary of state; and Wendy Sherman, a principal of the Albright Group advisory firm and a former top State Department official. The Defense team is being led by John P. White, chair of the Kennedy School Middle East Initiative at Harvard and a former deputy defense secretary; and Michele Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security who worked in the Pentagon under Clinton.

Stevens trailing by 3 votes in Alaska's Senate race

ANCHORAGE, Alaska : Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, a titan of Alaska politics convicted of felony charges last month, fell behind by three votes yesterday as the count resumed in his re-election bid. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich began yesterday down more than 3,200 votes but closed the gap as officials resumed counting 90,000 outstanding early and absentee ballots. Neither side expected to be able to claim victory yesterday.

Candidates still battling ahead of Minn. recount

MINNEAPOLIS: There are no voters left to persuade. But as Minnesota's U.S. Senate race heads toward a statewide recount, the bare-knuckle fight between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken feels as if Election Day had never come and gone. "Franken campaign attempts to stuff ballot box at the last minute," blared a Monday news release from the Coleman campaign. That came two days after Team Franken characterized a Coleman legal filing as a "sneak attack to stop counting of ballots." Coleman leads by about 200 votes out of almost 3 million cast. An automatic recount is set to begin Wednesday.