Day One

Obama Gets Busy

Closing Gitmo, freezing White House salaries.

President Obama wasted no time getting started on his first day in office. This morning, the new administration drafted an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within a year. Obama also announced plans to freeze salaries for about a hundred White House employees who make over $100,000 annually. "Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington," he said in a statement. The president took time to call four Middle East leaders--President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority--to discuss progress in the region.