“After applying relevant case law to the particular facts of this case, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida has decided not to pursue a federal case regarding the alleged acts of “cyberstalking” involving Paula Broadwell,” the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tampa said in a statement.

Anonymous emails that Broadwell sent to Jill Kelley, a Tampa, Florida socialite who knew Petraeus, prompted an FBI investigation that exposed Broadwell’s affair with Petraeus, a retired U.S. Army general known for his success in the Iraq war.

The Army selected a dozen contractors — including Lockheed Martin Global Training and Logistics — to bid on contracts worth as much as $7 billion during the next five years as part of its Software and Systems Engineering Services Next Generation program, or “SSES NexGen.”

The broadly aimed initiative covers technologies aimed at improving battlefield command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconaissance work, officials said.

“Lockheed Martin’s focus for this program is to provide warfighters in the field with reliable software and technical solutions that help them complete missions effectively and safely,” Judy Burke, Lockheed Global Training and Logistics’ vice president of mission support, said in a prepared statement.

Other big military contractors joining Lockheed in the competition include BAE Systems, Computer Sciences Corp., L-3 Services Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp. and Science Applications International Corp. Others on the list include Adams Communication & Engineering Technology, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., CACI Technologies Inc., ManTech Sensor Technologies Corp. and Sotera Defense Solutions Inc.

So far, Lockheed is the only competitor to indicate that some of its work on NexGen contracts could take place in Orlando. Its Global Training & Logistics unit has managed the program until now, though that will end in January when Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. restructures the training operation.

Following that restructuring, management of the NexGen program will be handled by the Dallas headquarters of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, a separate unit that also employs more than 4,000 people in Orlando, Lockheed spokeswoman Sharon Parsley said.

Work on future NexGen contracts could wind up being done in Orlando or Dallas, depending on the kinds of software expertise needed, Parsley said.

In Lockheed’s new corporate structure, the Global Training & Logistics division will become Training & Logistics Solutions and will report to Lockheed’s Missions Systems and Training organization, based in Washington.

Lockheed announced the restructuring in October as a cost-cutting measure to help it deal with potentially large cuts in U.S. military spending. The company plans to eliminate 200 jobs in the restructuring, though it has not disclosed how many of those will be in Orlando.

Defense contactors are bracing for the potential fallout from “sequestration,” the mandatory federal budget cuts also known as the “fiscal cliff,” which would chop $1.3 trillion from the Pentagon’s budget over 10 years. The White House and Congress are trying to negotiate a deal to avoid such across-the-board cuts, which were mandated by the 2011 deficit-reduction law.

If the budget cuts do take effect Jan. 1, it would be several months before Lockheed begins significantly shrinking its work force, Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Officer Bob Stevens told Bloomberg News on Monday. He also indicated he is more hopeful now that Congress and the Obama administration will reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Four semi-historic houses bordering Lake Eola Park will soon be either demolished or given away, but if you really want one, you’d better act fast.

The houses need to be moved to new lots — a costly proposition — and prospective owners only have until Dec. 28 to put $100,000 in escrow to show they’re serious.

“After working with a number of house moving companies to determine the feasibility of moving these homes, it is quite clear that it will be extraordinarily expensive, and it is likely the structures can only be moved a short distance,” Greg Chelius of The Trust for Public Land wrote in an e-mail to about 60 would-be owners on Friday.

The Trust for Public Land is helping the city of Orlando acquire the land to expand Lake Eola Park. City officials wanted to buy the property in 2009 to stop a proposed office tower from being built there, but there was no money in the budget. The nonprofit organization stepped in and made the purchase.

In August, the City Council voted to exercise an exclusive option to purchase the property from The Trust, at a total cost of $8.5 million. But Mayor Buddy Dyer’s administration wants the land for additional recreational space — not the old houses.

There are five houses that are surrounded on three sides by Orlando’s signature downtown park, but only four are available.

The city is keeping one of the homes — a 4,300-square-foot house The Trust bought for $2.2 million in 2009 — to use for community meetings and a new park office. Of the five houses, it’s the one closest to the lake. Like many older buildings, it needs a little work, including plaster and wood-rot repairs, city spokeswoman Cassandra Lafser said.

The other four were built between 1915 and 1925, and are surrounded on three sides by the park. Three are along East Washington Street, and the other is on Eola Drive.

Some residents pushed to save all of the houses, perhaps for some type of public use. But Dyer and other city leaders objected, saying the city can’t afford to maintain the aging structures.

In August, The Trust was deluged with calls and e-mails from people who wanted a free house. But desire isn’t enough.

Chelius said any takers would be responsible for all expenses, including hiring a moving company and paying to temporarily relocate electric lines and other utilities that hang too low to allow a house to drive past. That doesn’t include the cost of a new lot, repairs and permitting fees.

Anyone who has a vacant lot and the money must, by Dec. 28, send The Trust a check for $100,000 to be held in escrow, along with the location of the new lot and the proposed route.

The buildings are expected to be either moved or demolished before March.

“If there are no takers we will salvage everything of value in the homes and then demolish them,” Chelius said.

There are currently tenants in some of the buildings, and security guards are keeping an eye on the property to discourage trespassers.

Haley named Scott, a Tea Party Republican congressman from the state, to replace Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., in a press conference just after noon on Monday. Scott will also be the only black in the Senate.

Tea Party leader DeMint is stepping down to head conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.

“He earned this seat for what I know he’s going to do in making South Carolina and making our country proud,” Gov. Haley said of Scott’s appointment.

South Carolina Republicans predicted Scott would get the seat since DeMint announced his resignation less than two weeks ago.

DeMint called Scott “a great choice for South Carolina and the nation,” in a statement released Monday. Tea Party group FreedomWorks also had praise for Gov. Haley’s decision.

“We are confident that Tim Scott will be a leading voice to advance the principles of individual freedom and limited-government, and he will be an excellent addition to a growing caucus of fiscal conservatives in the Senate,” FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe said Monday.

In accepting Haley’s nomination Scott reflected on his childhood growing up in a single-parent household with a “mom who believed that sometimes love has to come at the end of a switch.”

“And she loved me a lot,” Scott laughed.

He said at this time, the nation is faced with some tough decisions and “needs some backbone.”

“I look forward to pressing the flesh on economic development issues, having the opportunity to work on making sure that our economy in this state continues to hum like an engine and get on the team with Nikki Haley to make sure that all of America continues to hear the great things about South Carolina.”

Scott was the first black Republican in Congress since 2003 when he was first elected in November 2010 and the first black Republican from the South since 1901.

Scott will be the fifth black Senator since Reconstruction when he takes his seat. The four others include Sen. Edward Brooke, R-Mass., who served from 1967 to 1979 and is the only other black Republican to join the Senate since Reconstruction; Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, D-Ill., who served as the first black woman Senator from 1993-1999; then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who was the first black male Democrat to join the Senate and served from 2005 until his resignation in 2008; and Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., appointed to President Obama’s seat in 2009.

Today’s announcement makes him the first African American Southerner to take a seat in the Senate after the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

In December 2010 he declined to join the Congressional Black Caucus, saying, “The black community, like all communities, will benefit when businesses can use their profits to hire more workers instead of paying higher taxes.”

“Reducing the tax burden, decreasing government interference in the private sector, and restoring fiscal responsibility, and I don’t think those ideals are advanced by focusing on one group of people,” Scott said at the time.

Scott was one of 10 black congressmen elected in South Carolina since 1870.

The 1,123-foot (342-metres) long Enterprise was commissioned in 1961 with eight nuclear reactors on board, and the next year was deployed to participate in a blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Since then, it has played a role in a number of naval missions, including deployments to Vietnam and to the Middle East as part of the U.S. response to the September 11, 2001, attacks. It returned from its final deployment about a month ago, said Navy spokesman Mike Maus.

Nicknamed the “Big E,” the Enterprise was the oldest active duty ship in the U.S. Naval fleet, according to the military, and was the eighth U.S. military ship to bear the name Enterprise.

The roughly 12,000 people who participated in the ceremony for the USS Enterprise include many former crew members and their friends, Maus said. The ceremony was held in Virginia at Naval Station Norfolk.

The Enterprise will stay at Naval Station Norfolk for several months and then will move to a shipyard in nearby Newport News, Virginia, where its nuclear fuel will be removed from the vessel, Maus said.

After that, the ship will be towed to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington state, where its nuclear reactors will be dismantled and the Enterprise will be scrapped, Maus said.

There are no plans to turn the Enterprise into a museum, as has been done with other historic warships.

The Navy said in a statement that inactivation and defueling of the Enterprise will have “major impacts on the structure of the ship” and that it would be too costly to “return the ship to a condition that would support it becoming a museum.”

It’s the third fatal accident involving a train in the area since 2002.

Every three hours in the United States there is an accident involving a train and person or vehicle, and currently there is no law requiring an arm bar at railroad crossings in Florida.

The intersection of Glenrose and Orange is one of the intersections that only has a stop sign, but soon that will change.

“And what the game plan is, is to double track it and have flashing lights and gates that drop down,” said Steve Olsen from the Florida Department of Transportation. “As a matter fact that’s the game plan with 89 out of the 91 crossing that we are going to have in phase one.”

The upgrades are all part of the Sunrail construction ramping up to a 2014 launch.

The commuter train will share the tracks with freight trains, but Olsen isn’t concerned about the extra volume wearing on the patience of commuters.

“The wait we hope is going to be brief because at max. We are going to have an engine and probably three cars. So we are going to be through those intersections probably as quickly as possible. The gates going to drop down, the car goes through, the gates go up. So, it shouldn’t be any longer than waiting through a light cycle, maybe less than that,” said Olsen.

Work on the area is set for the spring.

The launching, which North Korea said would take place between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22, is likely to prompt international condemnations and heighten tensions with Washington and its allies. Critics consider North Korea’s launching of a Unha-3 rocket a cover for testing technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles that could eventually be used to carry nuclear weapons.

In an effort in April, a rocket blasted off from the launching site on the west coast near China, only to disintegrate shortly afterward, failing in its goal of putting an earth-observation satellite into orbit.

Saturday’s announcement came at a delicate time in the region. South Korea is gearing up for a presidential election on Dec. 19, and Japan plans parliamentary elections on Dec. 16. In Washington, President Obama will begin his second term in January.

“For Kim Jong-un, a successful rocket launching may be the best he can think of to show his achievements in his first year in power,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul and a visiting scholar in international studies at Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Kim took over after the death of his father last Dec. 17.

April’s launching led to the collapse of a deal under which Washington promised to ship humanitarian aid to North Korea in return for North Korea’s promise to suspend nuclear and missile tests, as well as uranium enrichment, and allow United Nations monitors back into its main nuclear complex.

The official Korean Central News Agency quoted an unidentified spokesman for the Korean Committee for Space Technology as saying that North Korea had “analyzed the mistakes” made in April and had improved the precision and reliability of the rocket and satellite. The rocket is expected to take the same path as that abortive launching, traveling between China and the Korean Peninsula. North Korea said Saturday that it would conduct the launching “transparently” and according to “international practices.”

South Korea expressed “serious concern” about the plan, calling it “a grave provocation” in defiance of international warnings and said it would set off a “strong response” from the international community. “The North must realize that its repeated provocations have only deepened its isolation,” the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Since 1998, North Korea has launched several long-range rockets, which the United States and South Korean officials say have all exploded in midair or failed in their stated goal of putting satellites into orbit. North Korea, however, has insisted that two satellites were circling the earth, broadcasting songs praising the Kim dynasty.

North Korea has often used nuclear and missile threats during changes of power in the region as a way to try to force the new governments to engage in talks and possibly offer concessions. North Korea has also been accused of using military provocations to influence elections in the South.

This time, the announcement about the launching “could very well have to do primarily with domestic political considerations, that Kim Jong-un wants a demonstrable feat to boost his legitimacy, and his technicians have assured him they are ready,” said John Delury, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul.

“It doesn’t hurt that South Korea is in the middle of a string of aborted efforts at launching a satellite of their own; should Pyongyang succeed, it scores points in the ongoing inter-Korean rivalry, but also highlights what it sees as the hypocrisy of banning one Korea from doing what the other Korea does freely,” he said.

South Korea has twice failed to launch a rocket with a satellite on board — in 2009 and again in 2010. Its third attempt has been delayed twice in the last two months because of technical glitches. North Korea has been citing South Korea’s space program to help justify its own rocket development.

Mr. Kim, the analyst, said it would be hard to predict how the planned rocket launching, whether successful or not, would affect the election in South Korea, which pits Park Geun-hye, the conservative candidate from the governing Saenuri Party, against Moon Jae-in, the liberal opposition candidate.

The North’s provocation may be a disadvantage for Ms. Park, who has never served in the military and is trying to become the first female president of South Korea, but at the same time could help rally conservative voters around the conservative party candidate. Mr. Moon could try to use the provocations to rally liberal voters who oppose the conservatives’ hard line and prefer a more aggressive engagement with North Korea as the best means of taming its behavior.

The North’s announcement came a day after Kim Jong-un met a delegation sent by China’s new leader, Xi Jinping. South Korean news media had speculated that one of the missions of the Chinese delegation might have been to try to persuade Pyongyang to refrain from launching a rocket again. While China remains the North’s only real ally, North Korea has ignored some of its requests in the past to cease provocations.

Petraeus also told a reporter for the HLN television network that it was the affair, not any questions over the CIA’s role during the September 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that prompted him to step down.

A computer used by Broadwell contained substantial classified information that should have been stored under more secure conditions, law enforcement and national security officials said on Wednesday.

Petraeus’ comments to the network occurred last week, according to Steven Boylan, who was the general’s spokesman in Iraq and has spoken to him since he resigned at the CIA.

Petraeus has also been telling associates the affair did not lead to security breaches. “He told me that he had not passed any classified information to Paula or anyone else,” Boylan said.

Petraeus’ remarks notwithstanding, investigators on Thursday said they had not ruled out the possibility that Petraeus passed on classified material to Broadwell. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing law enforcement investigation.

Broadwell, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, has made no public comment since the scandal erupted last week.

The developments underscored a central question hanging over a scandal that led to the downfall of one of the most respected U.S. public figures: whether a private indiscretion put national security at risk.

‘PRETTY CRITICAL INTERVIEW’

Some lawmakers have questioned why they were not notified of the probe until after last week’s presidential election.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the FBI did not see any possible threats over the course of the investigation that were urgent enough to notify Obama or lawmakers until shortly before Petraeus stepped down.

“After a pretty critical interview occurred the Friday before we made that disclosure, when we got to that point where we thought it was appropriate to share the information, we did so,” Holder said at a news conference.

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that there was no indication so far that any classified information had been disclosed as a result of the affair.

Sources who have been briefed on the investigation said on Thursday that none of the classified material found on Broadwell’s computer came from the CIA. The material, they said, pre-dates the start of Petraeus’ tenure at the spy agency in September 2011.

As an Army reserve officer involved in military intelligence, Broadwell had a security clearance that allowed her to handle sensitive documents. With Broadwell’s consent, the FBI searched her Charlotte, North Carolina, house on Monday evening.

Broadwell’s security clearance has now been suspended, and she could have it revoked and face harsher penalties if it is found she mishandled classified data.

Law enforcement officials have said that they believe the investigation is likely to end without criminal charges.

The scandal this week also ensnared the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Marine General John Allen.

Allen has pledged to resolve questions surrounding what officials have called his inappropriate email communications with Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, who is also at the center of the Petraeus case.

Last spring, Kelley informed the FBI of harassing emails that were ultimately traced to Broadwell. A subsequent FBI investigation uncovered Broadwell’s affair with Petraeus.

Traveling in Bangkok, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he knew of no other military officials who have been drawn into the Petraeus investigation beyond Allen. He acknowledged that further revelations were possible.

Panetta also ordered the U.S. military’s top brass to conduct of review of ethics training to find any gaps that may need to be addressed.

Petraeus on Friday is due to face lawmakers who are examining the September attacks in Benghazi that caused the death of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. The attack has turned into a flash point between Obama and Republicans who accuse his administration of misleading the public in the days following the attack.

The questioning will be confined to the events in Benghazi, said one lawmaker who is expected to participate.

“We’ll get his perspective on what information he knew and how his assessment of that intelligence changed over time,” said Democratic Representative Adam Schiff.

CLERMONT, Fla. — Headline: Red light cameras could be coming to Clermont

At some of the most congested intersections in Clermont red light runners could soon be caught on camera.

“If somebody runs a red light they deserve a ticket,” said Ray Goodgame, a Clermont City Council member.

Goodgame said he expects his fellow council members to move forward with plans to install red light cameras.

Use of the cameras was approved by the Florida legislature in 2011.

Details like costs and contracts with a vendor are still up in the air, according to Goodgame, but he said he knows where he’d put the cameras.

“U.S. 27 at Hook Street, State Road 50 and Hancock, State Road 50 and Citrus Tower, those are three of the big ones,” said Goodgame.

Goodgame said those intersections are some of the busiest in town, and the most likely to see accidents. But some of those who spoke to WFTV said the cameras could cause more accidents.

“A lot of people have had accidents trying to stop at a red light because they’re afraid it’s going to be a situation where they’re going to get a ticket and it’s caused other people to rear-end them,” said resident Alec Strickland.

Some drivers say that risk is better than running the red light.

“I’m for it. They need to do it, because there are a lot of people running red lights and killing innocent people,” said driver Bibi Jagroop.

Goodgame said the goal of the red light cameras is accident prevention, not a source of income for the city..

“What do you say to people who say this is more about revenue than about safety?” WFTV reporter Karla Ray asked Goodgame.

“Well, if they’re in an accident and they get T-boned and they’ll change their mind,” said Goodgame.

The Clermont City Council will discuss the cameras during its December 11 meeting.