The people who usually analyze imagery from U.S. spy satellites are helping emergency workers respond to the devastation from this week's deadly twister in Oklahoma.

Shortly after the tornado struck, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) asked the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to provide expertise to assess video, pictures and satellite imagery of the destruction.

And for the first time, NGA analysts are using an unclassified website to share that information with first responders.

Their assessments aim to help rescue workers conduct search and rescue operations and begin recovery efforts.

It's been part NGA's mission to provide humanitarian and disaster assistance when requested by a federal agency, but it's never been accomplished in real time on the Internet.

Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of the Northeast last October, prompted the agency to pursue a better way to more quickly respond.

The website only contains unclassified material and is available to authorized first responders and other appropriate federal, state, and local government personnel.

Recipients also have access on mobile devices.

The first medium NGA analysts turned to after the tornado slammed into Oklahoma was live television.

NGA senior analyst Lou Halbert said there's no reason to wait for traditional methods of collecting data.

"There is some amazing airborne collection that is occurring out there during an event," Halbert said at a briefing this week about the new website.

In an interview with CNN, Halbert said analysts watch video on the Internet and pause it to search for clues that will help the first responders determine what to focus on.

"What we're able to do is to show the level of catastrophic or the level of damage that we can see through those video still frames. In this case we're looking to see how impacted has the infrastructure or the structure of the buildings been devastated," he said.

The analysts compare the video of the damage with existing satellite imagery of the area that pinpoints schools, municipal buildings, theaters and other locations where people may congregate.

The information is passed on to first responders who don't have time to analyze video on TV or the Web.

"We can actually do the assessment for them, push it towards them," Halbert said. "Especially now, urban search and rescue is currently en route they will have assessments on the ground before they arrive."

And that could save lives, he said.

The analysts are also waiting to receive satellite images that have been stymied by heavy cloud cover, and for civil air patrol flights to begin, in order to help paint a clearer picture of the situation on the ground.

NGA has also deployed three analysts and three technicians to Oklahoma to help coordinate efforts.

Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, has told the judge in his case that he wants to represent himself at his upcoming trial, the Army base said in a media release Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Kris Poppe has been Hasan's attorney.

Because of the request, Col. Tara Osborn, the judge in the case, has postponed the start of the trial, which had been scheduled for May 30, to June 5.

Hasan's request will be among several motions to be considered at a hearing set for May 29.

John Galligan, who represented Hasan during the early stages of the case before Hasan had him removed, said he wasn't surprised by Hasan's move. "These things happen."

Galligan believes Osborn will instruct Koppe to stay in the courtroom for the duration of the trial as "standby counsel" in case Hasan changes his mind and decides he was an attorney after all.

A U.S. Army sergeant first class stationed at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point has been charged with allegedly secretly videotaping female cadets in their shower and latrine areas, according to Army officials.

Sgt. 1st Class Michael McClendon was charged May 14 with 13 "specifications" or allegations of "indecent conduct" in making videos between July 2009 and May 2012. Army criminal investigators are now contacting more than a dozen women who might have been videotaped, according to Army spokesman George Wright.

Wright said the investigation has been going on since May 2012, but charges were not made until last week because the Army was still trying to assemble computer evidence and identify the women involved.

He said he could not comment on how the matter was discovered because of the ongoing investigation.

McClendon, who helped train and mentor cadets, was relieved of all cadet duties and barred from any contact with cadets or cadet areas on May 17, 2012, and assigned to a desk job, Wright said.

He was transferred to Fort Drum, New York, on March 13, Wright said.

The story was first reported by the New York Times. The Army made no public announcement of the case and has only responded when asked questions by reporters.

This case comes as the Pentagon is grappling with a rise in sexual assaults in the military and pledges from President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to redouble efforts to address the problem.

The U.S. government has identified "a certain number of people" believed involved in the Benghazi, Libya, attack, a senior Republican lawmaker told CNN on Tuesday.

The lawmaker said that government investigators have put identities to individuals seen in surveillance video of the attack.

"They know the names. That's what we haven't known. These are individuals they know now. Not just the pictures," the senior lawmaker said.

The lawmaker, who is familiar with the status of the investigation, could not say how many had been identified.

Just last week, Attorney General Eric Holder hinted there were developments in the investigation.

"The investigation is ongoing, that we are at a point where we have taken steps that I would say are definitive, concrete, and we are - we will be prepared shortly I think to reveal all that we have done," Holder told Congress at a hearing last week.

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that, according to unnamed U.S. officials, five men have been identified, and that the government has enough information to justify the U.S. military grabbing the suspects but not enough evidence to try them in civilian court. The U.S. military has updated plans to "capture or kill" alleged perpetrators of the deadly terror attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, CNN reported last week.

A law enforcement official said there are definitely people the FBI is interested in and working to get more evidence on.

The FBI, in a statement, said the Benghazi investigation is "ongoing."

"We are aware of the media report and have no additional comments with regard to the investigation," the statement said.

Several weeks ago, the FBI released photos of three men seen at the compound on the surveillance video.

The FBI did not identify them as suspects but one official did say the men could be possibly implicated. But a CNN team in Benghazi has seen no evidence that the pictures are circulating among the local population and locals say the photos have not been posted or been shown on local television.

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden, saying Tuesday that she could not discuss specifics of an ongoing investigation or NSC internal deliberations, cited Obama's words a day after the attack: "Make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people."

The Army has suspended the top general at Fort Jackson in South Carolina due to allegations of adultery and assault, an Army spokesman says.

Brig. Gen. Bryan Roberts was relieved of his duties Tuesday as commanding general of the Army training center and Fort Jackson while the allegations are being investigated, said spokesman Harvey Perritt of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Roberts was suspended by Gen. Robert Cone, head of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Fort Jackson, where Roberts was the senior commander, is where most new Army recruits go through basic training, which includes training about sexual assault prevention.

This is the latest in a series of cases involving senior military officers accused of misconduct and comes at a time when President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have suggested a sexual assault crisis is risking the military's ability to conduct its mission.

Warning: the images contained in this piece may be disturbing.

There has been little improvement in religious freedom worldwide but some positive changes were seen in Turkey and Vietnam, according to an annual State Department survey of nearly 200 countries.

Secretary of State John Kerry, a former U.S. senator who helped push the law mandating the original report 15 years ago, helped announce the findings on Monday in the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.

"This report is a clear-eyed, objective look at the state of religious freedom around the world. And when necessary, yes, it does directly call out some of our close friends, as well as some countries with whom we seek stronger ties."

Government repression in China, North Korea and Saudi Arabia has kept all three countries on a list the report calls "Countries of Particular Concern."

U.S. Ambassador-at-large Suzan Johnson Cook said positive developments were found in Turkey, where restrictions have been relaxed on religious clothing, and in Vietnam, where the government has begun allowing large religious gatherings of 100,000 people or more.

But a ranking Republican says Vietnam deserves a tougher assessment.

U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said "religious freedom remains under attack in Vietnam."

In a statement issued soon after the report, he said "the Communist government in Vietnam has denied its people the most basic freedoms."

Royce has introduced legislation calling on the State Department to restore a negative status for Vietnam by again listing it as a Country of Particular Concern.

In the report, China was cited for a "pervasive" government campaign against freedom of religion, involving detention, surveillance and other techniques of repression.

And the report said North Korea in 2012 "dealt harshly with all opponents," and discouraged organized religious activities.

Kerry said governments that are behind repression hurt their own stability and are a risk to other countries.

"Attacks on religious freedom," Kerry said, are "both a moral and a strategic national security concern for the United States."

Secretary of State John Kerry tried to reassure diplomatic workers on Monday that security improvements are underway at American missions around the world where they are likely to be deployed.

The measures include plans for a rapid evacuation contingency if conditions turn deadly, as they did last September during a terror attack on the U.S. post in Benghazi, Libya.

In opening remarks at a "Security Overseas Seminar" at the Foreign Service Institute, Kerry said there's a balance between making contact with the local populations the United States is trying to serve, and protecting Americans working in hostile regions.

"Diplomacy and security needs do not have to be trade-offs," he said, declaring that "if we are going to bring light to the world, we have to go where it is dark."

Kerry cited hostilities in Libya last year that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and an attack this year in Afghanistan that killed American diplomatic worker Anne Smedinghoff.

"I am acutely aware of the very real risks we take around the world. I think of them every day," Kerry said, but that in helping others embrace American ideals, no one should be "surprised that there is danger."

To address such risk, Kerry said "we're bringing on more security personnel, we're enhancing our training, we're putting more Marines at high-threat diplomatic posts, and we're making sure that their first responsibility is protecting our people, not just classified materials."

And should a threat exceed the presence of Marines and security fortifications, Kerry said upgrades include "linking our embassies with various military commands to make emergency extradition more central to our military mission."

The two-day seminar is aimed at government workers and their families preparing for assignments overseas. A schedule for Tuesday listed panels that include "Hostage Survival," "Evacuations and Contingency Planning," and "Coping in a Crisis."

The next milestone will be landing the prototype back on board the carrier.

The Navy eventually plans to build armed versions of the stealth plane which will give the Navy long range strike and reconnaissance capability without risking the lives of pilots.

Buffeted by Republican criticism for its handling of last September's deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, the Obama administration is mounting a coordinated response.

Thursday, at a Rose Garden news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Barack Obama went out of his way to challenge Republicans to fully fund security for America's diplomats.

Republicans have ripped the administration for not providing adequate security for the Benghazi mission at which four Americans, including Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, were killed.

The White House, in response, has accused Republican lawmakers of cutting diplomatic security funding.

"I am intent on making sure that we do everything we can to prevent another tragedy like this from happening," Obama said. "But that means we owe it to them and all who serve to do everything in our power to protect our personnel serving overseas."

The president said the administration has been taking steps recommended by the Accountability Review Board report, completed last December, that examined the circumstances surrounding the Benghazi attack and made 29 recommendations.

"I'm calling on Congress to work with us to support and fully fund our budget request to improve the security of our embassies around the world," Obama said.

After the Benghazi attack the State Department reviewed security at posts around the world and submitted a request to reallocate $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2013 resources to begin work this year that was approved by the Congress.

The next fiscal year budget request, the administration says, provides over $4 billion for embassy security programs, including $2.2 billion to support increased embassy security construction recommend by the review board.

In a move coordinated with the White House, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez on Thursday introduced a bill funding construction at high-risk, high-threat diplomatic posts around the world.

The New Jersey Democrat said the State Department currently is allowed to construct eight to 10 facilities a year but is funded for only two to three.

The bill also would fund Arabic language instruction and provide more training for diplomatic security personnel.

In a nod to Republican criticism that no officials were fired in the wake of the Benghazi attacks, Menendez pointed out that "at the administration's request" the bill "will authorize disciplinary action in cases of unsatisfactory leadership by senior officials."

The new bill and Obama's comments followed the release Wednesday of almost 100 pages of e-mails between administration officials working out controversial "talking points" on Benghazi that were relied on by the administration to explain events around the attack and that Republicans suggest were downplayed for political reasons.

At the State Department, CNN asked spokeswoman Jen Psaki whether the administration's counter attack of Republican criticism was "damage control."

"I think this is actually the opposite of politicizing it," Psaki replied. "They're talking about what's important about this debate we've been having publicly."

"The secretary has raised this, as has the president today and in the past several days," she added. "While there's been a lot of talk about e-mail and other issues, what their focus is on is protecting the men and women who are serving around the world and taking many steps we can do to achieve that."

Out of the 29 recommendations by the review board, Psaki said the State Department has addressed nearly all of them so far, including creating 151 new diplomatic security positions. Forty-eight are expected to begin this July and another 48 are planned to begin in early September, she said.

As for the four State Department officials placed on administrative leave over the Benghazi attack, she said a review process begun by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues.

"Secretary Kerry has been briefed regularly and will be making a decision soon," she added.

But Republicans aren't letting up.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "Ultimately, the buck stops with who runs an organization."