In this task, you are given news articles and you need to generate a highlight, i.e., a short summary, with a maximum length of 10 lines.

Q: Washington (CNN) -- On Saturday he was the comedian-in-chief, cracking jokes with reporters and celebrities at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. On Sunday he oversaw one of the riskiest special forces operations since Desert One, Jimmy Carter's ill-fated attempt to rescue the American hostages from Iran more than three decades ago. Barack Obama isn't just the president. He's the nation's ultimate multi-tasker, juggling enough roles and responsibilities to make the average person's head spin. Over the last month and a half, Obama held at least five National Security Council meetings to help plan the assault on Osama bin Laden's compound. The days in which those meetings were held coincided with, among other things, an education reform speech, two political fundraisers, a discussion with the Japanese prime minister about that country's nuclear crisis, a long-awaited deficit reduction speech, and two meetings on immigration reform. The day before the last National Security Council meeting -- on April 28 -- the "birther" controversy came to a head. Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room to release his long-form birth certificate. (Yes, he actually was born in Hawaii.) And in the midst of all the planning, the president cut a deal with congressional Republicans to narrowly avert a government shutdown. He also dealt with a series of devastating storms in the South. Has this always been par for the course at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Not really, according to Boston University presidential historian Robert Dalleck. The frenetic pace of the presidency is largely a reflection of America's role as the premier global power in the post-World War II era, Dalleck told CNN. Harry Truman dealt with countless domestic crises during the Korean War; LBJ tackled the Great Society and civil rights while fighting in Vietnam. But in recent years, he said, the daily pace has accelerated due to the rise of the internet, wireless, and other facets of the communications revolution. There's a "kind of blinding rapidity" in which one event quickly overtakes the next, said Dalleck. Our attention -- and that of the president -- is whipped from the latest economic crisis to the newest tornado wreckage to the latest protest or outbreak of violence in the Middle East. Faced with a pressure for constant response, modern administrations face times "of great pressure and intense demand over a series of compelling issues," he said. "(Abraham) Lincoln's burdens were as great as any president will face," Dallek noted. But the rapid onslaught of information from around the world contributes to "a different sort of feel now." Case in point: the execution of Sunday's mission against bin Laden's compound. Obama was able to "monitor the situation in real time," according to White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. That ability "does speed things up and create a greater sense of pressure," Dallek said. Dallek questioned whether an older person -- including a more hands-off administrator such as Ronald Reagan -- could adequately function in today's version of the pressure cooker environment. He or she "might be overwhelmed," Dallek said. Among other things, "you need to have good health." You also need to be constantly on call. Teddy Roosevelt would "just disappear as president for months at a time and people didn't know where he was," noted acclaimed Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley. If Obama were to disappear for 15 minutes, people "would freak out." Current times are not "uniquely oppressive," Brinkley noted, drawing a contrast with the divisions of the 1960s and the generations that fought World War II and the Civil War, Brinkley said. But globalization and the interconnectedness of the modern age -- while increasing the flow of information -- have contributed to an overarching sense of "frustration and fear" that the administration is now confronting. Wendy Schiller, a Brown University political scientist, noted that every president since Eisenhower has recognized the need for an executive office equipped to handle "a wide range of issues quickly and responsibly." Ike "laid the foundation for the West Wing infrastructure of expertise that we see now working for Obama (constantly), and that infrastructure gives presidents the capacity" to adapt quickly on a broad range of issues. "The key challenge for presidents in the 21st century is knowing when to respond immediately and knowing when to take their time to manage a given situation," Schiller said. "It is not just that Obama has been involved in such a broad range of issues and activities. It is that he has handled them each differently and appropriately," she asserted. The president's speech late Sunday night "reinforced an image of a man -- as commander-in-chief -- who knows how to prioritize the nation's interests," she said. Schiller argued that the "24/7 news media and now social media puts far greater pressure on presidents for an immediate response or reaction to national and world events because voters learn about (developments) much more quickly than they used to." But while the "informational time gap between the president and the voters has narrowed considerably .... the president incurs the same costs for reacting rashly or impatiently as his predecessors did in eras of slower technology," she warned. Does she agree with Dallek's assertion that an older person might be overwhelmed by the nature of the modern presidency? Schiller didn't say, but she did offer a quote from Alexander Hamilton: "Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government." Twenty-first century presidents, she said, must have that energy "in all senses of the word." Above all, "be sane," Dallek concluded. "That's the watchword."

A: NEW: Douglas Brinkley says modern times are not "uniquely oppressive"
Obama dealt with a number of high-stakes issues in the run-up to Sunday's raid .
Robert Dallek questions whether an older president could cope with today's burdens .
Political scientist Wendy Schiller says the 24/7 media is forcing more rapid responses .
****
Q: SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN)  -- Imagine collecting thousands of empty plastic bottles, lashing them together to make a boat and sailing the thing from California to Australia, a journey of 11,000 miles (17,700 km) through treacherous seas. This 60-foot sailboat, the Plastiki, is being built from more than 12,000 recycled plastic bottles. You'd have to be crazy, or trying to make a point. David de Rothschild is trying to make a point. De Rothschild hopes his one-of-a-kind vessel, now being built on a San Francisco pier, will boost recycling of plastic bottles, which he says are a symbol of global waste. Except for the masts, which are metal, everything on the 60-foot catamaran is made from recycled plastic. "It's all sail power," he said. "The idea is to put no kind of pollution back into the atmosphere, or into our oceans for that matter, so everything on the boat will be composted. Everything will be recycled. Even the vessel is going to end up being recycled when we finish." De Rothschild's vessel, scheduled to set sail from San Francisco in April, is called the Plastiki. Its name is an homage of sorts to Thor Heyerdahl, the fabled Norwegian explorer who in 1947 sailed 4,300 miles across the Pacific on the Kon-Tiki, a raft made from balsa wood. De Rothschild is something of an adventurer himself. The scion of a wealthy British banking family, he is one of only several dozen people to traverse both the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps. In 2005 he founded Adventure Ecology, an organization that uses field expeditions to call attention to environmental issues.  Watch how the boat is constructed » . Joining him on the Plastiki will be a permanent crew of three sailors and scientists plus a handful of other crew members who will rotate through the voyage. The Plastiki is expected to stop in Hawaii, Tuvalu and Fiji on its way to Sydney, a trip estimated to take more than 100 days. The plastic sailboat is taking shape in an old pier building not far from this city's famous Fisherman's Wharf. Here, thousands of two-liter soda bottles are being stripped of their labels, washed, filled with dry-ice powder and then resealed. The dry ice sublimates into carbon dioxide gas and pressurizes the bottle, making it rigid. The vessel's twin hulls will be filled with 12,000 to 16,000 bottles. Skin-like panels made from recycled PET, a woven plastic fabric, will cover the hulls and a watertight cabin, which sleeps four. "This actually is the same material that is made out of bottles," said de Rothschild of the PET fabric. "We actually wrap the PET fabric over the PET foam and then basically put it under a vacuum, heat it, press it and create these long PET panels. So that means the boat is, technically, one giant bottle." Two wind turbines and an array of solar panels will charge a bank of 12-volt batteries, which will power several onboard laptop computers, a GPS and SAT phone. Only about 10 percent of the Plastiki will be made from new materials, de Rothschild said. He declined to reveal how much it's costing him to build the boat. "We could potentially put together a boat that costs a fraction of what normal conventional boats are made of," he said. "The idea is to take the Plastiki, break it down [after the voyage], and put it back into the system. So, it may come out being a jacket, a bag, more bottles. It's infinitely recyclable." The ultimate goal of the Plastiki voyage is not just to encourage people to embrace clean, renewable energy but also to see consumer waste as a potential resource. That's what this is all about -- showcasing cradle-to-cradle products rather than cradle-to-grave," de Rothschild said. Whether the Plastiki will successfully complete its unique journey remains to be seen. But to conservationists concerned about the amount of energy required to manufacture and distribute plastic bottles, its symbolic message is a welcome one. "Anything that gets in the news and makes people stop and think about plastic can be very helpful," said Betty McLaughlin, executive director of the Container Recycling Institute. "But it strikes me as a long way to go. I flew from Los Angeles to Australia once, and it took forever. This trip strikes me as kind of dangerous."

A: An adventurer is building a sailboat out of thousands of recycled plastic soda bottles .
He plans to sail it this spring from California to Australia, a journey of 11,000 miles .
Expedition leader is David de Rothschild, scion of a wealthy British banking family .
Boat, the Plastiki, will be a symbol of how consumer waste can be repurposed .
****
Q: (CNN) -- Getting hired or promoted in today's competitive environment is no easy feat. But, then again, neither was our pitch for MasterCard. The rules of the game were made clear: whichever advertising campaign had the best consumer test score would be declared the winner and awarded the MasterCard account. Yet, despite the fact that our now famous "Priceless" campaign did not fare well in testing, we won the business, and the rest is history. Fifteen years later, "Priceless" remains one of the most recognizable ad campaigns in recent history. So why did we win the business, defying set rules and what early testing said would be a failure? According to MasterCard's CMO Larry Flanagan, it was because of our "core" -- we were a fighting and a cohesive team of competitors, who believed with every ounce of our beings that this campaign would crush their long-standing competitor, Visa. In other words, we had tapped their "hidden agenda." The hidden agenda is the unspoken, visceral, emotional motivation that is behind every decision. Whether deciding who wins the billion dollar deal ... or the job, the hidden agenda is always at work. Your mission is to connect to it, and here's how: . Do your hidden-agenda homework . It's not enough to know factoids about the company. That's table stakes. Do your homework about the emotional state of the company. Are they on a high, yet searching for the next big thing? Are they in crisis and in need of a turnaround? Are they guided by a value system that drives the decisions they make? It turns out that every decision stems from a hidden agenda, which can be found in three forms: . â€¢ Wants are about people viewing their circumstances through the lens of ambition and confidence. â€¢ Needs are about viewing circumstances through the lens of fear or concern. â€¢ Values are about people viewing the world entirely through the lens of their belief systems. In addition to understanding the company's hidden agenda, study the person who will be interviewing you to determine their hidden agenda. Connect with your real ambition . I had breakfast a few weeks ago with a very compelling young man. This electrifying fellow was exuberant, quirky bordering on eccentric, and without pretense. He spoke of what he hoped to create in his life, and I hired him on the spot. Your real ambition is a deep desire to create something special that doesn't yet exist. It's bigger than mere ambition because it's noble. When the person you are trying to reach is touched by your real ambition and makes common cause, they'll hire you. Try this: Think about what you want to accomplish, but precede with the words "I will ..." Make sure it is seemingly impossible, devoid of practicality and utterly fantastic. You can create a shared bond with your interviewer, because they see you both share a common vision. See also: Is happiness the secret of success? Bond with your credo . A company is many things, but it is a community first. Each community has a set of values that bind them; I call it a credo, Latin for "I believe." Dig deeply and look behind the facts and figures. What does the company you're applying to believe? If you want to be part of it, know it and connect yourself to it. Try this: Take out a sheet of paper, and write "I believe that ..." What words would you select? What values would you express that would make you proud for others to see? Connections are made because of the beliefs you share. You'll be hired, because your interviewer will see that your credo syncs perfectly with theirs. Ignite with your core . Your core is what makes you stand out from the pack. While many people have similar traits, your core is comprised of a set of skills, abilities, and strengths that, together, are completely unique to you. And as was the case with MasterCard, your core will be seen as something the company needs -- the "answer to their prayers" and a means by which you can help them. See also: Is workplace boredom 'the new stress?' Critical to your core is authenticity. As a wonderful mentor once told me when I was presenting what I thought was a perfect version of myself and thinking that the real me was no road to glory: the person you are is the person they want to see. They are hiring you, not a manufactured version of something or someone else. Try this: Ask five people who know you well and support you to write down the key characteristics they associate with you. Not only will you be staggered by what you'll get, but you will also feel proud and affirmed. You mobilize people to hire you, because their vital needs are satisfied by the authenticity and sincerity of your core. Your pursuit for the promotion or job of your dreams is not a fact and figures game -- it is a human game. When you make a profound connection with the emotional desire of your boss or interviewer, the facts and figures will take the backseat, every time. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Kevin Allen.

A:
Every company has an emotional motivation, or hidden agenda, says Kevin Allen .
He believes tapping into the hidden agenda is key to getting your dream job .
Share your 'real ambition' to connect with potential employers .
When applying for a job, show that you connect with the company's core beliefs .
****