CNN Domestic and CNN International will jointly produce special coverage of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress today.

Wolf Blitzer, Suzanne Malveaux and Hala Gorani will anchor, with Dana Bash, Elise Labott, Gloria Borger, Kevin Flower and Matthew Chance contributing reports and analysis from Washington, D.C. and Jerusalem.

In addition to television coverage, CNN will also stream Netanyahu's address on its mobile applications and CNN.com, where Elise Labott will host Foreign Policy magazine's Josh Rogin and Israeli spokesman Mark Regev in a live discussion focusing on the speech, its implications on peace efforts in the Middle East, and broader security issues around the region.

CNN special coverage begins at 10:45 (eastern) on CNN Domestic and CNN International.

CNN Press Release - CNN’s Wolf Blitzer will anchor special coverage of the confirmation hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to be associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court during the week of July 13. Beginning Monday at 10 a.m., CNN will provide comprehensive coverage during the opening statements as well as the days when Judge Sotomayor faces questioning from senators on Capitol Hill.

Blitzer will be joined by members of the Best Political Team on Television including senior political analyst Gloria Borger, senior political correspondent Candy Crowley, chief national correspondent John King, senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, and national political correspondent Jessica Yellin. Senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash and congressional correspondent Brianna Keilar will report live from Capitol Hill to provide updates and reaction from members of Congress. In addition, CNN contributor Alex Castellanos and guest contributor Maria Echaveste will provide analysis and commentary throughout the coverage.

CNN’s coverage will allow viewers to simultaneously observe a wide variety of incoming live video feeds, relevant file video, graphics and other visual story-telling tools. In addition, King will use the Magic Wall to report on Sotomayor’s relevant decisions, legal briefs and other documents from her years on the bench.

A special edition of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer will air at 4 p.m. on Monday, followed by regularly-scheduled programming of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Campbell Brown, Larry King Live and Anderson Cooper 360º, with a focus on the day’s happenings on Capitol Hill and a look ahead to the rest of the hearing.

Online, the Judge Sotomayor special report, located at www.CNN.com/Sotomayor, gives users access to an array of in-depth biographical information of the U.S. Supreme Court nominee, chronicling her life’s journey and career path. The special section features key case files from past rulings, sorted by topic so users can learn more about decisions she has made from the bench, as well as an interactive gallery of family snapshots that reveal her life in pictures.

When the confirmation hearings get underway, CNN.com will unveil a special series, which explores key aspects of Sotomayor’s life; from her roots in Puerto Rico to growing up in the Bronx, to entering the Ivy League and embarking on a career as prosecutor, to federal appellate judge and then becoming nominee to the highest court. Each weekday, CNN.com will publish a new story as well as special commentaries and video packages focused on one of these different parts of her life.

CNN.com Live, the Internet’s only live multi-stream video news service, also will stream the Sotomayor confirmation hearings live in their entirety.

CNN en Español will offer broad coverage of the Sotomayor hearings beginning on Thursday, July 9, with a preview special on Directo desde EE.UU. at 7:00 p.m. anchored by Patricia Janiot. This 30-minute special program, live from Washington, will review Sotomayor’s roots, her professional achievements and the facts that have made her a controversial candidate for the Court. On Sunday, July 12, at 1:30 p.m., correspondent Juan Carlos López will talk with a panel of experts to take a look at Sotomayor’s federal case rulings for clues on what judicial philosophy she may take to the highest court. Then, on Monday, July 13, the network will offer live coverage of the hearings with analysts weighing in throughout the day.

CNN International will also cover the live hearings and provide analysis from a global perspective.

CNN Radio will provide affiliates with special reports at the bottom of the hour beginning at 9:30 a.m. and running through the length of the hearing each day. There will be a one minute wrap-up at the end of the day, and this will also run in CNN Radio network newscasts. CNN Radio Capitol Hill correspondent Lisa Desjardins will be covering and providing affiliate live shots from Capitol Hill.

CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.

In the wake of its highly acclaimed coverage of the presidential election campaign, CNN is redeploying some of its Washington-based correspondents in preparation for the new Obama administration and the incoming 111th Congress.

“During the election, CNN’s political reporters established themselves as the class of television news, both cable and broadcast,” said David Bohrman, CNN’s senior vice president and D.C. bureau chief. “Now we’re positioning them in key roles that will ensure the most thorough and informative coverage as President Obama and Congress tackle the thorniest problems America has faced in our lifetimes.”

The changes come on the heels of the announcement that CNN’s lead political anchor Wolf Blitzer will remain with the network through the next presidential election cycle and chief national correspondent John King will anchor a four-hour programming block on Sundays starting in January.

The noteworthy changes include:
· Ed Henry, who has provided comprehensive coverage of the Obama transition,becomes senior White House correspondent after coveringthe past two years of the George W. Bush White House and spending two years as CNN’s congressional correspondent. Suzanne Malveaux, who distinguished herself with exceptional coverage of the Obama presidential campaign and reported a two-hour documentary on the president-elect, returns to the White House. She will also serve as a primary substitute anchor for The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.Boston bureau chief and correspondent Dan Lothian, who reported extensively from the campaign trail in both 2004 and 2008, will become a White House correspondent as well.
· Dana Bash, who broke numerous exclusives while covering the Republican primaries and the McCain campaign, is named senior congressional correspondent. Bash has covered Congress for nearly a decade and was honored with the prestigious Dirksen Award in 2002. She will be joined on Capitol Hill by Brianna Keilar, who has served as a general assignment correspondent for the network for nearly three years and covered Capitol Hill and the White House during the election campaign.
· Jessica Yellin, one of the standouts of CNN’s presidential campaign coverage, becomes national political correspondent. In addition to The Situation Room, Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull and John King’s Sunday block, Yellin will file daily reports for CNN’s prime-time programming analyzing the most important stories on politics, policy and culture.
· Jill Dougherty is named foreign affairs correspondent. Dougherty,who covered the Clinton White House for CNN and then served as Moscow bureau chief and correspondent and managing editor for Asia/Pacific based in Hong Kong, will track Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton’s stewardship of American foreign policy.
· Correspondent Chris Lawrence, a veteran of the Navy Reserve who has spent four years as a general assignment correspondent in CNN’s Chicago and Los Angeles bureaus, becomes a Pentagon correspondent.
· Zain Verjee becomes news anchor for The Situation Room and will also file special reports for the program. While serving as CNN’s State Department correspondent for the past two years, Verjee traveled with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to more than a dozen countries, including Israel, Libya, Russia and South Korea. She also covered the violent conflicts in Kenya, her native country.
· Elaine Quijano shifts from the White House to general assignment correspondent to cover other Beltway issues while continuing to cover the White House. She will be joined by Kate Bolduan, who has been reporting for the network for months and officiallymoves from CNN’s Newsource affiliate service.

CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.

Now that the holidays are over, we're getting back into the swing of things here at CNN Observations. We hope you had a great one!

• CNN International has (finally) launched updated pages for some of their programs, including their new program The Campaign Trail hosted by former Insight host and CNN/I Jonathan Mann. The new/updated program pages include The Campaign Trail, Inside Africa, International Correspondents, The Screening Room, and World Report.

• CNN's Washington D.C.-based America Bureau Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena has a new photo on her bio page:


• FishbowlDC is reporting that CNN Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash and CNN National Correspondent John King are engaged. Best of luck to the both of them!