By Susan Cornwell and Jane Sutton WASHINGTON/MIAMI (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pledge on Thursday to lift a ban on transfers of detainees to Yemen from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, addresses one of the core obstacles to clearing out the detention camp. Of the 86 detainees who have been cleared for transfer or release, 56 are from Yemen, where al Qaeda has a dangerous presence. There are 80 more prisoners who are not cleared and an unknown number of those are Yemeni as well. Most of the Yemeni prisoners were captured more than a decade ago. ...

By Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he directed Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a review of Department of Justice guidelines for investigations that involve journalists and report back by early July. Obama has come under criticism for his administration's pursuit of journalists who have reported leaked material. In recent weeks, it emerged that the Justice Department seized Associated Press phone records as part of a probe into leaks about a 2012 Yemen-based plot to bomb a U.S. ...

By Mark Hosenball and David Ingram WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government formally acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that it had killed four Americans, including militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who died in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. Attorney General Eric Holder named the dead U.S. citizens in a letter to members of Congress a day before President Barack Obama is expected to promise more transparency on national security issues in a speech on counterterrorism. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes since 2009 in Pakistan and Yemen. The disclosure to Congress comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday that the United States has killed four Americans in counterterrorism operations, three of whom were not targets of the strikes involving drones in Yemen and elsewhere. Holder named the four dead U.S. citizens in a letter to members of Congress one day before President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver an address on the use of drones. The letter defends the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the one dead American who was an intended target of a drone strike, the letter said. ...