Nation in brief: Blair leaving intelligence post

Washington – National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair is resigning under pressure from the White House, ending a tumultuous 16-month tenure marked by intelligence failures and spy agency turf wars.

Blair, a retired Navy admiral, is the third director of national intelligence, a position created in response to the failure to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

His departure underscores the disorganization inside the Obama administration’s intelligence apparatus, rocked over the past six months by a spate of high-profile terror attacks that revealed new national security lapses. And it comes two days after a stark Senate report criticized Blair’s office and other intelligence agencies for new failings that, despite a top-to-bottom overhaul of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, allowed a would-be bomber to board a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.

Silver dollar sold for $7.85 million

Los Angeles – What may be America’s oldest silver dollar has become the world’s most expensive coin, with its owner saying it changed hands in a private transaction between coin collectors for nearly $8 million.

Steven L. Contursi, who has owned the mint-condition 1794 Liberty dollar for the past seven years, confirmed Thursday that he sold it to the Cardinal Collection Educational Foundation for $7.85 million.

Target recalls 350,000 trunks

Washington – Target recalled about 350,000 trunks Thursday after an 18-month-old girl suffered brain damage from being pinned between the lid and the rim of a trunk.

The lids of these woven rattan, abaca or banana leaf trunks can drop very quickly when released, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The trunks were manufactured in China and the Philippines and sold at Target stores nationwide between February 2009 and April 2010.