NATIONAL NEWS AT A GLANCE Editors: To avoid duplication, please note that all these stories are also moving in longer form. For publication on Monday, Nov. 29 FRIENDS SAY BOMBING SUSPECT APPEARED CHANGED OF LATE Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old naturalized American citizen from Somalia, had seemed to be a well-adjusted American teenager: a solid student whose interests included basketball, girls and the nightlife at Oregon State University, where he studied engineering. But those who know him say he changed in recent months. He dropped out of school and stopped attending mosque. And, perhaps most telling, he began lying about his plans for the future. 'He seemed to be in a state of confusion,' said Yosof Wanly, the imam at the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center in Corvallis, which Mohamud attended while at college. RANGEL SAID TO BE SEEKING LESSER PENALTY FOR VIOLATIONS Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has embarked on a last-ditch campaign to convince colleagues that he deserves the far less serious punishment of a reprimand for his ethics violations, according to two people close to Rangel. Rangel, 80, who may face censure in front of the full House as early as this week, is arguing that the punishment -- a move short of expulsion -- is reserved for violations more grave than those he committed. To make that case, his staff has prepared a 10-point chart to distribute to other members of Congress, along with a history of punishments meted out before. LIBERAL GROUPS TO PROPOSE ROUTES TO SMALLER DEFICIT As President Barack Obama's fiscal commission faces a deadline this week for agreement on a plan to shrink the mounting national debt, liberal organizations will unveil debt-reduction proposals of their own in the next two days, seeking to sway the debate in favor of fewer reductions in domestic spending, more cuts in the military and higher taxes for the wealthy. Both plans are comparable to one recently proposed by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a liberal Democrat from Illinois who is a member of the commission. Schakowsky opposed the commission's draft as too hard on the middle class. A NEW POLITICAL CALCULUS FOR OBAMA AND THE GOP President Barack Obama's relationship with Republican congressional leaders begins a less predictable phase this week that confronts each side with a new political calculus. The House speaker-to-be, John Boehner, and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, will visit the White House on Tuesday. Their political momentum will be leavened with increased governing responsibility, while the president has lost the option of working solely through fellow Democrats, and faces choices on how to seek accommodation with Republicans. BEER WITH KICK IS CAUGHT IN FDA'S NET The Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on companies producing beer containing caffeine. The FDA sent notices to four beer-makers that they must remove it from their beverages or stop selling them. One of the manufacturers, Rhonda Kallman of New Century Brewing, said, 'This is prohibition in 2010. It's devastated the company, and as a U.S. citizen, I'm just flabbergasted.' She said her beer, which has an alcohol content of 5 percent and 69 milligrams of caffeine -- about twice that of a can of Pepsi -- is being unfairly lumped in with high-alcohol, high-caffeine malt energy drinks that bear no resemblance to her beer. 