A National Security Council spokesman is denying claims made by former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

The Obama administration has failed to respond to GOP questions about Libya, a group of Republican senators said Wednesday. 

The Obama administration is preparing a statement addressing the ongoing crackdown against pro-democracy protests by U.S. ally Bahrain amid increasing international condemnation, a State Department official told The Hill on Wednesday.

The Persian Gulf kingdom, which is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, banned all public demonstrations on Tuesday. It also threatened legal action against protest supporters amid intensifying complaints of discrimination against the Sunni-ruled country's Shiite majority. Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdulla al-Khalifa justified the decision by accusing protesters of fomenting violence and disrupting the economy.

The State Department and the U.S. embassy in Manama have so far declined to comment. The department, by contrast, vocally condemned the death of a Bahraini policeman earlier this month when his patrol came under attack by rioters.

There will not be a delay in Afghanistan’s elections, the country’s independent election commission said Wednesday, announcing that the elections will be held as scheduled in April 2014.

Afghanistan will pick a new leader in 2014; the Afghan constitution does not allow President Hamid Karzai to run again. Opposition groups and independent observers have been concerned that Karzai would try to push back the date of the presidential election.

The elections are scheduled to occur in a crucial year for Afghanistan, when its forces are supposed to take control of security from NATO as most U.S. and international troops will depart.

Brig. Gen. Eric Wendt began his tenure as the new head of U.S. special forces in South Korea, officially taking the reins from outgoing commander Brig. Gen. Neil Tolley on Tuesday, according to recent reports. 

"Five minutes after [an attack], ... relief will spread across the region,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview.

Nearly 8,000 National Guard troops have been sent to states along the eastern seaboard to assist relief efforts.

Top Obama administration officials have told the United Kingdom that the country's last remaining resident still at Guantanamo Bay could be set free under the new defense spending bill, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia native Shaker Aamer was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and has been at Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) since 2002. He is one of 56 detainees cleared for release by the executive branch who have so far failed to meet the requirements imposed by Congress in annual spending bills.

“Senior U.S. officials have confirmed that the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 has the potential to make Mr. Aamer’s release more likely than the act of the previous year, but no releases have yet taken place under that act and the criteria for the national security waiver remain unclear,” Hague told the British Parliament. “We will certainly be pursuing this with the reelected or incoming U.S. administration.”

Navy leaders are putting the piece in place to expand its missions in the Mideast and Asia-Pacific to counter potential threats in those regions, according to new guidance by issued by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert.