Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum put campaigning in Florida on hold Sunday, as his daughter, Bella, was hospitalized just days before a key primary vote.

Two days before Florida's winner-takes-all primary, Santorum spent the day in Pennsylvania, where his three year-old was admitted to a Philadelphia children's hospital.

Iran could develop a nuclear bomb in about a year and create the means for delivery in a further two to three years, the U.S. defense chief said Sunday, reiterating President Barack Obama's determination to halt the effort.

"The United States -- and the president's made this clear -- does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the CBS program "60 Minutes."

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is due to step down next month, arrived Saturday in the United States on a politically sensitive visit to seek medical treatment for wounds inflicted in a bombing.

The embattled leader flew from Oman to the United States with a brief refueling stop at Stansted Airport outside London, ending days of speculation about whether or when he would make the trip.

The U.S. military plans to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran and intensifying fighting in Yemen, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Citing unspecified procurement documents, the newspaper said the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos in response to requests from the U.S. Central Command.

The WikiLeaks document dump, which saw hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. files leaked, rattled U.S. intelligence officials, forcing them to implement reforms to prevent another such breach.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said changes were being put in place over the next five years that would create a new security "architecture," making it infinitely harder to disclose America's secrets.

Despite the killings of Osama bin Laden and radical U.S.-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaida terror network remains a "real threat to the United States," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a TV interview late Wednesday.

CBS News released excerpts of an interview with Panetta scheduled to run Sunday, in which the Pentagon chief discusses U.S. strategy to disband al-Qaida's global networks.

President Barack Obama hailed the demise of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and warned Syria's Bashar Assad his regime's days were numbered Tuesday as he vowed enduring U.S. support for the ideals of the Arab Spring.

"As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sanaa to Tripoli," Obama said in his annual State of the Union address in Congress.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that a peaceful resolution was still possible in the international showdown with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

But Obama vowed in his annual State of the Union speech that he would "take no options off the table," including the military option, in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

U.S. Special Forces troops flew into Somalia on a nighttime helicopter raid early Wednesday, freed an American and a Danish hostage and killed nine pirates in a mission that President Barack Obama said he personally authorized.

The Danish Refugee Council confirmed that the two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted, were freed and "are on their way to be reunited with their families."

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Monday he would consider it an "act of war" if Iran was to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit route for global oil supplies.

"It is appropriate and essential for our military, for our navy to maintain open seas," Romney said at a debate between the four remaining Republican candidates in Tampa, Florida. "Of course it's an act of war."