Week In The News: New Cabinet, Gun Summits, Flu

New cabinet picks.  Joe Biden’s gun summits. The flu hits hard. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Big cabinets picks, guns, and flu in the news this week.

All the President’s men, so far, in his first round of second term nods.  Chuck Hagel.  John Brennan.  Jack Lew, and his loop-the-loop signature, for Treasury.

Joe Biden invited the NRA over for gun talks.  They came, but say they won’t come back.

Hamid Karzai, in from Afghanistan, to talk about the US getting out.  Flu all over.  In and outs for Oscars and the Baseball Hall of Fame.  And those trapped killer whales, free in the far north.  Good for them.

This hour, On Point:  our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-Tom Ashbrook

Diane Brady, senior editor and content chief for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. (@dianebrady)

Tom Gjelten, global security reporter for NPR. (@tgjelten)

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

CNN "A federal task force looking for ways to curb gun violence will have a set of recommendations by Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday. Speaking during a week of meetings with disparate groups on various sides of the issue — including some for and others against stricter gun controls — Biden, who oversees the task force, said the recommendations, to be given to President Barack Obama, will serve as a beginning."

The Washington Post "Cabinet musical chairs continues in earnest with the news Wednesday afternoon that Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is leaving and Attorney General Eric Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki are staying on."

ABC News "This flu season seems especially bad this year now that Boston has declared a public health emergency and a Pennsylvania hospital was forced to construct a tent to handle flu cases. But doctors — backed up by the numbers — say that this season is a shock partly because we had so little flu last year."