Biden to declare plans to 'ramp up' stimulus projects over summer

Biden, who was put in charge of overseeing the recovery package by Obama, said that 3,600 projects are underway from the stimulus package, which just passed its 100-day mark, and that the lower number of layoffs shows "some signs" of this.

Critics, however, have complained that money for roads and other infrastructure projects has been slow in arriving, and have questioned the administration's jobs figures - more than 150,000 saved or created as of late last month, 100 days after the stimulus was passed.

The top House Republican, John Boehner of Ohio, used the jobs report to lay into the Obama administration's policies and the effectiveness of the stimulus package, which not a single GOP representative supported.

"It's another reminder of how Washington is hanging middle-class Americans out to dry," he said in a statement. "More than 2.5 million Americans have lost their jobs this year, and what have the Democrats in charge of Washington given them? A trillion-dollar 'stimulus' that isn't producing jobs immediately, as the administration promised."

Intelligence pick bows out over role in CIA tactics

WASHINGTON - President Obama's pick for intelligence chief at the Homeland Security Department withdrew from consideration yesterday amid questions about his role in the CIA's interrogations of suspected terrorists.

As deputy director of the Office of Terrorism Analysis at the CIA during the Bush administration, Philip Mudd had direct knowledge of the agency's harsh interrogation program, according to a congressional aide, who was not authorized to disclose the information and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The interrogation methods have been criticized by Democratic lawmakers and Obama as torture.

"I know that this position will require the full cooperation with Congress and I believe that if I continue to move forward I will become a distraction to the president and his vital agenda," Mudd, who had been scheduled to appear next week before senators considering his nomination as undersecretary of intelligence and analysis, said in a statement.