Nation & World briefly

Obama reaches health care milestone

WASHINGTON (AP) - Eight months in office, Barack Obama has now pushed closer than any other president in generations to creating a basic health care safety net for working Americans. Yet the fate of legislation delivering on his goal is far from certain: Republicans are nearly unified in opposition, Democrats hardly united in support.

Indeed, few if any of the major arguments about the scope and costs of the historic undertaking are settled as congressional leaders prepare to take legislation to the floor in the next two weeks.

Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee came together early Friday - after 2 a.m. - to finish the heavy lifting on a bill designed to appeal to moderates. Obama hailed it as a milestone and noted, for history, that overhauling health care has eluded presidents from Harry S. Truman to Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton.

"We are now closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will offer security to those who have coverage and affordable insurance to those who don't," Obama said.

But not yet. And not for sure.

Obama meets with top Afghan official

WASHINGTON (AP) - At a pivotal point in the administration's Afghanistan strategy, President Barack Obama and his top Afghan war commander met privately aboard Air Force One Friday for a talk the White House described as productive.

The 25-minute meeting with Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, aboard Air Force One as it waited to carry the president home from Denmark, gave Obama a chance to step outside the circle of advisers he has convened to study the problem of Afghanistan. His war council has been sharing differing opinions on whether the U.S. should send thousands more troops to tamp down the Taliban, or shift to a narrower focus on al-Qaida in neighboring Pakistan.

The Copenhagen meeting was an extension of those war council sessions "as we reassess and re-evaluate moving forward in Afghanistan," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

He said Obama and McChrystal "both agree that this is a helpful process." No decisions were made at their meeting, Gibbs said.

Todd Palin resigns from oil field job

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The husband of former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has quit his oil field job on the North Slope.

Todd Palin's resignation as a production operator for oil giant BP PLC comes almost two months after his wife stepped down as Alaska governor and shortly before the release of her highly anticipated memoir in a deal rumored to be worth millions.

"Todd loved his union job on the Slope and hopes to return," Meghan Stapleton, Sarah Palin's personal spokeswoman, said in an e-mail Friday. "For now, he is spending time with his family."

The resignation was effective Sept. 18, according to BP spokesman Steve Rinehart.

Todd Palin earned nearly $34,472 working part-time last year for BP in Prudhoe Bay.