Beyonce admits Inauguration Day pre-recording

Beyonce admits Inauguration Day pre-recording 

Beyonce kicks off the NFL football Super Bowl XLVII press conference at the New Orleans Convention Center by singing the National Anthem, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. in New Orleans. The singer says she did lip sync when she performed the national anthem on Inauguration Day. She said she's a "perfectionist" and wanted her performance for President Barack Obama to be a memorable one. She called the day "emotional."

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Beyonce answered critics of her Inauguration Day performance the best way she could - with another sterling performance of the national anthem.

The difference?

On Thursday, it was live: She admitted during her Super Bowl news conference that when she performed for President Barack Obama and the nation, she decided to sing to a prerecorded track because she didn't have time to practice. Calling herself a self-proclaimed "perfectionist," she said wanted the day to go off without a hitch.

"I practice until my feet bleed and I did not have time to rehearse with the orchestra," she said, adding that she was also emotional that day. "Due to no proper sound check, I did not feel comfortable taking a risk. It was about the president and the inauguration, and I wanted to make him and my country proud, so I decided to sing along with my pre-recorded track, which is very common in the music industry. And I'm very proud of my performance."

It was the superstar's first public comments on what has become known as "Beyonce-gate."

Her rendition of the anthem was critically praised, but was scrutinized less than a day later when a representative from the U.S. Marine Band said Beyonce was lip-syncing - merely mouthing the words to a pre-recorded track - and the band's accompanying performance was taped. Shortly after, the group backed off its initial statement and said no one could tell if she was singing live or not.

With the controversy growing each day, and everyone from politicians to other entertainers weighing in, the inauguration performance threatened to overshadow her planned Super Bowl halftime show. So the 31-year-old, wearing a tight, cream mini-dress, addressed the issue as soon as she took to the podium Thursday afternoon.

She asked everyone to stand, and, with an image of the American flag behind her, performed a live rendition of the national anthem that mirrored the one on Inauguration Day. After, she said with a laugh: "Any questions?"

Despite her performance, there were.

When pressed about whether any sound was coming from her voice when she sang for the president, she said she was singing along to the track and not mimicking (though it's unclear how audible her voice was). And when asked if she would be singing live at the Super Bowl, she said: "I will absolutely be singing live.

"This is what I was born to do."

She added later: "I always sing live. ... The inauguration was unfortunately a time where I could not rehearse with the orchestra, actually because I was rehearsing for the Super Bowl. So that was always the plan."

Beyonce also got a chance to talk more in detail about the reason why she was in New Orleans - to perform at the halftime show. Calling it one of her career aspirations, she said when she arrived at the Superdome, she was so moved by the experience she took her shoes of and ran on the field, taking in the history at the famed venue.

"It really makes me emotional," she said. "When I am no longer here, it's what they're gonna show."

Beyonce has teased photos and video of herself preparing for the show, which will perhaps be the biggest audience of her career. Last year, Madonna's halftime performance was the most-watched Super Bowl halftime performance ever, with an average of 114 million viewers. It garnered more viewers than the game itself, which was the most-watched U.S. TV event in history.

But she would not give anything more away about the performance. While a Destiny's Child reunion was shot down by Michelle Williams, who is starring in a production of "Fela!", the third Destiny's Child member, Kelly Rowland, is in town. Beyonce laughed off questions of whether Rowland or Beyonce's husband, Jay-Z, would join her on stage.

"I can't give you any details, sorry," she said.

She also would not reveal her set list, though acknowledged she was having a hard time trying to "condense a career into 12 minutes."

Before the news conference, Beyonce's "Life is But A Dream" was shown to the media. The documentary about the star's life features her talking in-depth about intimate details of her life, including suffering a miscarriage; it will air on HBO on Feb. 16.

In it, she also reveals more of her 1-year-old daughter Blue Ivy, whom she called her inspiration.

"I feel like my daughter changed me and changed my life and has given me so much purpose," she said. She added that she was counting down until 9 p.m. Sunday, when her performance would be over - and she could be reunited with Blue Ivy.

Iran says it will speed up nuclear program

Iran says it will speed up nuclear program 

FILE - In this Sept. 2007 file picture an anti-aircraft gun position is seen at Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran. Iran is poised for a major technological update of its uranium enrichment program, allowing it to vastly increase production of the material that can be used for both reactor fuel and nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. The diplomats said that Iran last week told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it wants to install thousands of high-technology machines at its main enriching site at Natanz, in central Iran. The machines are estimated to be able to enrich up to five times faster than the present equipment.

VIENNA (AP) -- In a defiant move ahead of nuclear talks, Iran has announced plans to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Eager to avoid scuttling those negotiations, world powers are keeping their response low-key.

Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency of its intentions last week, and the IAEA informed member nations in an internal note seen by The Associated Press on Thursday.

The brief note quoted Iran as saying new-generation IR2m "centrifuge machines ...will be used" to populate a new "unit" - a technical term for an assembly that can consist of as many as 3,132 centrifuges.

It gave no timeframe. A senior diplomat familiar with the issue said work had not started, adding that it would take weeks, if not months, to have the new machines running once technicians started putting them in. He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge confidential information.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert and former senior official at the U.S. State Department, described the planned upgrade as a potential "game-changer."

"If thousands of the more efficient machines are introduced, the timeline for being able to produce a weapon's worth of fissile material will significantly shorten," said Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"This won't change the several months it would take to make actual weapons out of the fissile material or the two years or more that it would take to be able to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile, so there is no need to start beating the war drums," he said. "But it will certainly escalate concerns."

The planned upgrade could burden international efforts to coax Tehran into scaling back its nuclear activities and cooperating with the agency's attempts to investigate its suspicions of secret weapons work. Talks are tentatively set for next month with a date and venue still open.

Iran insists it does not want nuclear arms and argues it has a right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear power program. But suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic hid much of its nuclear program until it was revealed from the outside more than a decade ago. A deadlock in the IAEA's probe of Iran's nuclear program has furthered suspicions of a clandestine pursuit of atomic weapons.

Defying U.N. Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment, Iran has instead expanded it. 

Experts say Tehran already has enough enriched uranium to be able to turn it into weapons-grade material for several nuclear weapons.

The Iranian plan was condemned by Israel, which sees Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat and has said it would use all means to stop it from reaching weapons capability.

"While the world is discussing where and when the next meeting with Iran will be, Iran is rapidly advancing towards obtaining a nuclear bomb," said a senior official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. "The international community cannot allow Iran to arm itself with a nuclear weapon."

The official demanded anonymity because he said he was not allowed to comment publicly on the issue.

Phone calls seeking comment from Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief IAEA delegate, went to his voicemail.

The envisaged centrifuge upgrade potentially complicates planned talks next month during which the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany are expected to press Tehran to cut back on uranium enrichment, and Iran is likely to seek relief from sanctions cutting into its oil sales and financial transactions.

Iran may be hoping that its tough line on enrichment will force further concessions from the six, which over the past year have scaled down their demands from a total enrichment freeze. More recently, after a series of inconclusive meetings, they've asked merely for a halt to Iran's higher-enrichment program.

Yousaf Butt, professor and scientist-in-residence at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, who supports Iran's right to enrich uranium, said Tehran was "using the only leverage it has - its enrichment program - as a means to coax some sanctions relief."

There was no indication late Thursday that the six powers were ready to go that way. But moderate reactions from some suggested they were eager to keep negotiation channels open.

The British Foreign Office confirmed that Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plan, and described it as "a cause for concern," noting it breached both U.N. Security Council and IAEA board resolutions urging Iran to curb enrichment.

But it avoided linking the move to the next round of talks. Instead the statement expressed hope that Iran would soon respond to the six powers on a time and place for a meeting, adding: "We hope that Iran will agree to talks quickly and come to the table ready to engage and negotiate seriously."

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted Thursday that Moscow and its fellow U.N. Security Council members "have called on Iran to freeze enrichment operations during the negotiations." But he too avoided any direct suggestion that the planned Iranian centrifuge update would upend such talks.

The White House said the move by Iran did not come as a surprise, describing it as a further escalation and continuing violation of Iran's international obligations.

"It would mark yet another provocative step by Iran, and will only invite further isolation by the international community," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. "We continue to believe that there is time and space for diplomacy to work, but actions like this only undercut the efforts of the international community to resolve its concerns."

The European Union's top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, said she is confident negotiations over Iran's nuclear program will resume soon. Ashton has convened past meetings, and her spokesman had suggested last week that Iran was delaying by setting new preconditions and not agreeing to a venue.

A Western diplomat accredited to the U.N. agency said IAEA delegation heads from the U.S. and its allies exchanged views over Iran's plans Thursday and agreed to await further developments. He also demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the issue.

While acknowledging that the Iranian plan was of concern, he noted that Tehran had set no date for installing the new centrifuges. That, he said, gave the international community breathing space.

Iran says it is enriching only to power reactors and for scientific and medical purposes. But because of its nuclear secrecy, many countries fear that Iran may break out from its present production that is below the weapons-grade threshold and start enriching uranium to levels of over 90 percent, used to arm nuclear weapons.

Tehran now has more than 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main plant at Natanz, 225 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Tehran, to fuel grade at below 4 percent. Its separate Fordo facility, southwest of Tehran, has close to 3,000 centrifuges - most of them active and producing material enriched to 20 percent, which can be turned into weapons-grade uranium much more quickly.

Iran has depended on domestically made and breakdown-prone IR-1 centrifuges whose design is decades-old at both locations up to now, but started testing more sophisticated prototypes in the summer of 2010.

David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Technology serves as a resource for some U.S. government branches, estimated in a 2011 report that 1,000 of the advanced machines "would be equivalent to about 4,000-5,000 IR-1 centrifuges" in production speed.

Separately from the talks between Iran and the six powers, IAEA experts are scheduled to visit Tehran on Feb. 13 in their more-than-yearlong effort to restart the probe of the weapons allegations.

The British statement urged Iran to "take serious practical steps to cooperate with the IAEA on all matters of substance relating to the possible military dimensions to its nuclear programme."

Standoff: Ala. gunman kills bus driver, seizes boy

Standoff: Ala. gunman kills bus driver, seizes boy 

Heavily armed men move away from the suspects home at the scene of a Dale County hostage scene in Midland City, Ala. on Wednesday Jan. 30, 2013. Authorities were locked in a standoff Wednesday with a gunman authorities say on Tuesday intercepted a school bus, killed the driver, snatched a 6-year-old boy and retreated into a bunker at his home in Alabama.

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) -- A gunman holed up in a bunker with a 6-year-old hostage kept law officers at bay Wednesday in an all-night, all-day standoff that began when he killed a school bus driver and dragged the boy away, authorities said.

SWAT teams took up positions around the gunman's rural property and police negotiators tried to win the kindergartener's safe release.

The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.

He had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.

The standoff along a red dirt road began on Tuesday afternoon, after a gunman boarded a stopped school bus filled with children in the town of Midland City, population 2,300. Sheriff Wally Olsen said the man shot the bus driver when he refused to hand over a 6-year-old child. The gunman then took the boy away.

"As far as we know there is no relation at all. He just wanted a child for a hostage situation," said Michael Senn, a pastor who helped comfort the traumatized children after the attack.

The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was hailed by locals as a hero who gave his life to protect 21 students.

Authorities gave no details on the standoff, and it was unclear if Dykes made any demands from his underground bunker, which resembled a tornado shelter.

The sheriff said in a brief statement Wednesday evening that negotiators continued talking to the suspect and "at this time we have no reason to believe that the child has been harmed."

About 50 vehicles from federal, state and local agencies were clustered at the end of a dirt road near where Dykes lived in a small travel trailer. Nearby homes were evacuated after authorities found what was believed to be a bomb on his property.

State Rep. Steve Clouse, who met with authorities and visited the boy's family, said the bunker had food and electricity, and the youngster was watching TV. He said law enforcement authorities were communicating with the gunman, but he had no details on how.

At one point, authorities lowered medicine into the bunker for the boy after his captor agreed to it, Clouse said. The lawmaker said he did not know what the medicine was for or whether it was urgently needed.

Chris Voss, a former international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, said negotiators at the scene should remain patient and calm, resisting the urge to force a quick resolution.

"Getting what you want is not the same as getting even," said Voss, whose firm, the Black Swan Group, now consults on high-stakes negotiations. "Flooding the zone will not save lives."

Mike and Patricia Smith, who live across the street from Dykes and whose two children were on the bus when the shooting happened, said their youngsters had a run-in with him about 10 months ago.

"My bulldogs got loose and went over there," Patricia Smith said. "The children went to get them. He threatened to shoot them if they came back."

"He's very paranoid," her husband said. "He goes around in his yard at night with a flashlight and shotgun."

Patricia Smith said her children told her what happened on the bus: Two other children had just been dropped off and the Smith children were next. Dykes stepped onto the bus and grabbed the door so the driver couldn't close it. Dykes told the driver he wanted two boys, 6 to 8 years old, without saying why.

According to Smith, Dykes started down the aisle of the bus and the driver put his arm out to block him. Dykes fired four shots at Poland with a handgun, Smith said.

"He did give his life, saving children," Mike Smith said.

Patricia Smith said her daughter, a high school senior, began corralling the other children and headed for the back of the bus while Dykes and the driver were arguing. Later, Smith's son ran inside his house, telling his mother: "The crazy man across the street shot the bus driver and Mr. Poland won't wake up."

Patricia Smith ran over to the bus and saw the driver slumped over in his seat. Her daughter used another child's cellphone to call 911.

Another neighbor, Ronda Wilbur, said Dykes beat her 120-pound dog with a lead pipe for coming onto his side of the dirt road. The dog died a week later.

"He said his only regret was he didn't beat him to death all the way," Wilbur said. "If a man can kill a dog, and beat it with a lead pipe and brag about it, it's nothing until it's going to be people."

Dykes had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday to face a charge of menacing some neighbors as they drove by his house weeks ago. Claudia Davis said he yelled and fired shots at her, her son and her baby grandson over damage Dykes claimed their pickup truck did to a makeshift speed bump in the dirt road. No one was hurt.

"Before this happened, I would see him at several places and he would just stare a hole through me," Davis said. "On Monday I saw him at a laundromat and he seen me when I was getting in my truck, and he just stared and stared and stared at me."

Israeli jets bomb military target in Syria

Israeli jets bomb military target in Syria 

 

Map locates Jamraya, Syria

BEIRUT (AP) -- Israel's air force launched a rare airstrike on a military site inside Syria, the Syrian government and U.S. officials said Wednesday, adding a potentially flammable new element to regional tensions already heightened by Syria's civil war.

The strike appeared to be the latest salvo in Israel's long-running effort to disrupt the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah's quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel's air force and spreading destruction inside the Jewish state.

U.S. officials said the target was a convoy of trucks that Israel believed contained anti-aircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the operation.

Regional officials said the shipment included sophisticated Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which if acquired by Hezbollah would be "game-changing," enabling the militants to shoot down Israeli jets, helicopters and surveillance drones.

Regional security officials said the strike, which occurred overnight Tuesday, targeted a site near the Lebanese border, while a Syrian army statement said it destroyed a military research center northwest of the capital, Damascus. They appeared to be referring to the same incident.

The Israeli military and a Hezbollah spokesman both declined to comment, and Syria denied the existence of any such weapons shipment. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The strike follows decades of enmity between Israel and allies Syria and Hezbollah, which consider the Jewish state their mortal enemy. The situation has been further complicated by the civil war raging in Syria between the forces of President Bashar Assad and rebel brigades seeking his ouster.

The war has sapped Assad's power and threatens to deprive Hezbollah of a key supporter, in addition to its land corridor to Iran. The two countries provide Hezbollah with the bulk of its funding and arms.

Many in Israel worry that as Assad loses power, he could strike back by transferring chemical or advanced weapons to Hezbollah, which is neighboring Lebanon's most powerful military force and is committed to Israel's destruction.

Israel and Hezbollah fought an inconclusive 34-day war in 2006 that left 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead.

While the border has been largely quiet since, the struggle has taken other forms. Hezbollah has accused Israel of assassinating a top commander, and Israel blamed Hezbollah and Iran for a July 2012 attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. In October, Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made reconnaissance drone over Israel, using the incident to brag about its expanding capabilities.

Israeli officials believe that despite their best efforts, Hezbollah's arsenal has markedly improved since 2006, now boasting tens of thousands of rockets and missiles and the ability to strike almost anywhere inside Israel.

Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor.

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the dangers of Syria's "deadly weapons," saying the country is "increasingly coming apart."

The same day, Israel moved a battery of its new "Iron Dome" rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 war. The Israeli army called that move "routine."

Syria, however, cast the strike in a different light, linked to the country's civil war, which it blames on terrorists carrying out an international conspiracy.

A Syrian military statement read aloud on state TV Wednesday said low-flying Israeli jets crossed into Syria over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and bombed a military research center in the area of Jamraya, northwest of Damascus.

The strike destroyed the center and damaged a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others, the statement said.

The military denied the existence of any convoy bound for Lebanon, saying the center was responsible for "raising the level of resistance and self-defense" of Syria's military.

"This proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people," the statement said.

Despite its icy relations with Assad, Israel has remained on the sidelines of efforts to topple him, while keeping up defenses against possible attacks.

Israeli defense officials have carefully monitored Syria's chemical weapons, fearing Assad could deploy them or lose control of them to extremist fighters among the rebels.

President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a "red line" that if crossed could prompt direct U.S. intervention, though U.S. officials have said Syria's stockpiles still appear to be under government control.

The strike was Israel's first inside Syria since September 2007, when warplanes destroyed a site that the U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a nuclear reactor. Syria denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.

Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008, but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and build on its site.

In 2006, Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's palace in a show of force after Syrian-backed militants captured an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip.

And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis.

Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks but never did.

In Lebanon, which borders both Israel and Syria, the military and the U.N. agency tasked with monitoring the border with Israel said Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity in the past week.

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon, and it was unclear if the recent activity was related to the strike in Syria.

Syria's primary conflict with Israel is over the Golan Heights, which Israeli occupied in the 1967 war. Syria demands the area back as part of any peace deal. Despite the hostility, Syria has kept the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated for Israeli attacks.

In May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad regime to divert the world's gaze from his growing troubles at home.

Senate confirms Kerry nomination for State Dept.

Senate confirms Kerry nomination for State Dept. 

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., emerges after a unanimous vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approving him to become America's next top diplomat, replacing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013. Kerry, who has served on the Foreign Relations panel for 28 years and led the committee for the past four, is expected to be swiftly confirmed by the whole Senate later Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed President Barack Obama's choice of five-term Sen. John Kerry to be secretary of state, with Republicans and Democrats praising him as the ideal successor to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The vote Tuesday was 94-3. One senator - Kerry - voted present and accepted congratulations from colleagues on the Senate floor. The roll call came just hours after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved the man who has led the panel for the past four years.

No date has been set for Kerry's swearing-in, but in a letter to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Kerry says his resignation is effective at 4 p.m. Friday. The State Departments plans a welcoming ceremony for Kerry on Monday.

Obama tapped Kerry, 69, the son of a diplomat, decorated Vietnam veteran and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, to succeed Clinton, who is stepping down after four years. The Massachusetts Democrat, who had pined for the job but was passed over in 2009, has served as Obama's unofficial envoy, smoothing fractious ties with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Sen. Kerry will need no introduction to the world's political and military leaders and will begin Day One fully conversant not only with the intricacies of U.S. foreign policy, but able to act on a multitude of international stages," said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who will succeed Kerry as committee chairman.

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the panel's top Republican, called Kerry "a realist" who will deal with unrest in Egypt, civil war in Syria, the threat of al-Qaida-linked groups in Africa and Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Kerry, a forceful proponent of climate change legislation, also will have a say in whether the United States moves ahead on the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, a divisive issue that has roiled environmentalists.

Obama had nominated Kerry after Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, removed her name from consideration following criticism from Republicans over her initial comments about the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Voting against Kerry were three Republicans - Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas. Absent from the vote were Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and John Hoeven, R-N.D.

"Sen. Kerry has a long history of liberal positions that are not consistent with a majority of Texans," Cornyn said in a statement. The senator is up for re-election next year and could face a tea party challenge.

Kerry's smooth path to the nation's top diplomatic job stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment for Obama's other national security nominees - Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary and John Brennan to be CIA director.

Hagel, the former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, faces strong opposition from some of his onetime GOP colleagues who question his support for reductions in the nuclear arsenal and cuts in defense spending. Lawmakers also have questioned whether he is sufficiently supportive of Israel and strongly opposed to any outreach to Iran.

Democrats have rallied for Hagel, and he has the announced support of at least a dozen members in advance of his confirmation hearing on Thursday. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi will support Hagel, a spokesman said Tuesday, making him the first Republican to signal he will vote for the nomination.

Six Republicans have said they would vote against him, with some opposing Obama's choice even before the president's announcement.

Brennan faces questions from the GOP about White House leaks of classified information and from Democrats about the administration's use of drones.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., threatened to block the nomination of both men until he gets more answers from the Obama administration about the assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Graham, who earlier this month signaled he would delay Brennan's pick, said in an interview Monday night with Fox News' "On the Record" the he would "absolutely" block Hagel unless Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testifies about the attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton testified for more than five hours last Wednesday before the House and Senate, but that wasn't sufficient for Graham.

"Hillary Clinton got away with murder, in my view," he said. "She said they had a clear-eyed view of the threats. How could you have a clear-eyed of the threats in Benghazi when you didn't know about the ambassador's cable coming back from Libya?"

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters Tuesday that a hearing with Panetta on Libya is planned though the date is uncertain. Graham welcomed that news and said he would not thwart a committee vote on the nomination.

"Happy as a clam. News to me," said Graham, who met with Hagel for 20 minutes on Tuesday.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said Panetta had not responded yet to the request but that the department has been forthcoming with information. He insisted that the Hagel confirmation process move as quickly as possible.

Two former chairmen of the committee - Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia and Republican John Warner of Virginia - plan to introduce Hagel, according to officials close to the confirmation process. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the committee has not formally made an announcement.

As a White House emissary, Kerry has tamped down diplomatic fires for Obama. He also has stepped ahead of the administration on a handful of crises. He joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as an early proponent of a more aggressive policy toward Libya, pushing for using military forces to impose a "no-fly zone" over Libya as Moammar Gadhafi's forces killed rebels and other citizens. He was one of the early voices calling for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down as revolution roiled the nation two years ago.

During his tenure, Kerry has pushed for reducing the number of nuclear weapons, shepherding a U.S.-Russia treaty through the Senate in December 2010, and has cast climate change as a national security threat, joining forces with Republicans on legislation that faced too many obstacles to win congressional passage.

He has led delegations to Syria and met a few times with President Bashar Assad, now a pariah in U.S. eyes after months of civil war and bloodshed as the government looks to put down a people's rebellion. Figuring out an end-game for the Middle East country would demand all of Kerry's skills.

The selection of Kerry closes a political circle with Obama. In 2004, it was White House hopeful Kerry who asked a largely unknown Illinois state senator to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic convention in Boston, handing the national stage to Obama. Kerry lost that election to President George W. Bush. Four years later, Obama was the White House hopeful who succeeded where Kerry had failed.

Obama on immigration overhaul: 'Now is the time'

Obama on immigration overhaul: 'Now is the time' 

President Barack Obama speaks about immigration reform Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Declaring "now is the time" to fix the nation's broken immigration system, President Barack Obama on Tuesday outlined broad proposals for putting millions of illegal immigrants on a clear path to citizenship while cracking down on businesses that employ people illegally and tightening security at the borders. He hailed a bipartisan Senate group on a similar track but left unresolved key details that could derail the complex and emotional effort.

Potential Senate roadblocks center on how to structure the avenue to citizenship and on whether legislation would cover same-sex couples - and that's all before a Senate measure could be debated, approved and sent to the Republican-controlled House where opposition is sure to be stronger.

Obama, who carried Nevada in the November election with heavy Hispanic support, praised the Senate push, saying Congress is showing "a genuine desire to get this done soon." But mindful of previous immigrations efforts that have failed, he warned that the debate would be difficult and vowed to send his own legislation to Capitol Hill if lawmakers don't act quickly.

"The question now is simple," Obama said during a campaign-style event in Las Vegas, one week after being sworn in for a second term in the White House. "Do we have the resolve as a people, as a country, as a government to finally put this issue behind us? I believe that we do."

Shortly after Obama finished speaking, cracks emerged between the White House and the group of eight senators, which put out their proposals one day ahead of the president. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, faulted Obama for not making a citizenship pathway contingent on tighter border security, a central tenet of the lawmakers' proposals.

"The president's speech left the impression that he believes reforming immigration quickly is more important than reforming immigration right," Rubio said in a statement.

House Speaker John Boehner also responded coolly, with spokesman Brendan Buck saying the Ohio Republican hoped the president would be "careful not to drag the debate to the left and ultimately disrupt the difficult work that is ahead in the House and Senate."

Despite possible obstacles to come, the broad agreement between the White House and bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate represents a drastic shift in Washington's willingness to tackle immigration, an issue that has languished for years. Much of that shift is politically motivated, due to the growing influence of 

Hispanics in presidential and other elections and their overwhelming support for Obama in November.

The separate White House and Senate proposals focus on the same principles: providing a way for most of the estimated 11 million people already in the U.S. illegally to become citizens, strengthening border security, cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants and streamlining the legal immigration system.

A consensus around the question of citizenship could help lawmakers clear one major hurdle that has blocked previous immigration efforts. Many Republicans have opposed allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens, saying that would be an unfair reward for people who have broken the law.

Details on how to achieve a pathway to citizenship still could prove to be a major sticking point between the White House and the Senate group.

Obama and the Senate lawmakers all want to require people here illegally to register with the government, pass criminal and national security background checks, pay fees and penalties as well as back taxes and wait until existing immigration backlogs are cleared before getting in line for green cards. Neither proposal backs up those requirements with specifics.

After achieving legal status, U.S. law says people can become citizens after five years.

The Senate proposal says that entire process couldn't start until the borders were fully secure and tracking of people in the U.S. on visas had improved. Those vague requirements would almost certainly make the timeline for achieving citizenship longer than what the White House is proposing.

The president urged lawmakers to avoid making the citizenship pathway so difficult that it would appear out of reach for many illegal immigrants.

"We all agree that these men and women have to earn their way to citizenship," he said. "But for comprehensive immigration reform to work, it must make clear from the outset that there is a pathway to citizenship."

"It won't be a quick process, but it will be a fair process," Obama added.

Another key difference between the White House and Senate proposals is the administration's plan to allow same-sex partners to seek visas under the same rules that govern other family immigration. The Senate principles do not recognize same-sex partners, though Democratic lawmakers have told gay rights groups that they could seek to include that in a final bill.

John McCain of Arizona, who is part of the Senate immigration group, called the issue a "red flag" in an interview Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."

Washington last took up immigration changes in a serious way in 2007, when then-President George W. Bush pressed for an overhaul. The initial efforts had bipartisan support but eventually collapsed in the Senate because of a lack of GOP support.

Cognizant of that failed effort, the White House has readied its own immigration legislation. But officials said Obama will send it to the Hill only if the Senate process stalls.

Most of the recommendations Obama made Tuesday were not new. They were included in the immigration blueprint he released in 2011, but he exerted little political capital to get it passed by Congress, to the disappointment of many Hispanics.

Some of the recommendations in the Senate plan are also pulled from past immigration efforts. The senators involved in formulating the latest proposals, in addition to McCain and Rubio, are Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Also Tuesday, in another sign of Congress' increased attention to immigration issues, a group of four senators introduced legislation aimed at allowing more high-tech workers into the country, a longtime priority of technology businesses. The bill by Republicans Rubio and Orrin Hatch and Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Chris Coons would increase the number of visas available for high-tech workers, make it easier for them to change jobs once here and for their spouses to work and aim to make it easier for foreigners at U.S. universities to remain here upon graduation.

Whitney Houston's mother has words for Bobby Brown

Whitney Houston's mother has words for Bobby Brown 

This Jan. 22, 2013 photo shows American gospel singer and author Cissy Houston posing for a portrait in New York. Houston, mother of the late singer Whitney Houston, is releasing a book, "Remembering Whitney," on Tuesday, Jan. 29.

  

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cissy Houston has a few words, and a few more, for Bobby Brown.

In "Remembering Whitney," the mother of the late Whitney Houston writes that from the start she had doubted whether Brown was right for her daughter. And she thinks that Whitney might not have ended up so "deep" into drugs had they not stayed together.

"I do believe her life would have turned out differently," Houston writes. "It would have been easier for her to get sober and stay sober. Instead she was with someone who, like her, wanted to party. To me, he never seemed to be a help to her in the way she needed."

"Remembering Whitney" came out Tuesday, two weeks short of the first anniversary of Houston's death. She drowned in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 48. Authorities said her death was complicated by cocaine use and heart disease.

During a recent telephone interview, Houston said she has no contact with Brown and didn't see any reason to, not even concerning her granddaughter, Bobbi Kristina. She reaffirmed her comments in the book that Whitney Houston would have been better off without him. "How would you like it if he had anything to do with your daughter?" she asked.

A request to Brown's publicist for comment was not immediately returned Monday.

Houston said she wanted the book published so the world would not believe the worst about her daughter. 

Cissy Houston, herself an accomplished soul and gospel singer who has performed with Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, describes Whitney as a transcendent talent and vivacious and generous person known affectionately by her childhood nickname, "Nippy." But she acknowledges in the book that her daughter could be "mean" and "difficult" and questions at times how well she knew her.

"In my darkest moments, I wonder whether Nippy loved me," she writes. "She always told me she did. But you know, she didn't call me much. She didn't come see me as much as I hoped she would."

But, "almost always," Whitney Houston was "the sweetest, most loving person in the room."

Brown is portrayed as childish and impulsive, hot tempered and jealous of his wife's success. Cissy Houston describes a 1997 incident when Whitney sustained a "deep cut" on her face while on a yacht with Brown in the Mediterranean. Whitney insisted it was an accident; Brown had slammed his hand on a table, breaking a plate. A piece of china flew up and hit Whitney, requiring surgery to cover any possible scar.

The injury was minor, the effects possibly fateful.

"She seemed sadder after that, like something had been taken away from her," Houston writes.

For years, Whitney's drug problems had been only a rumor to her mother, who writes that concerns expressed by record executive Clive Davis were kept from her by her daughter and others. But by 2005 she had seen the worst. Houston remembers a horrifying visit to the Atlanta home of Brown and Houston, where the walls and doors were spray-painted with "big glaring eyes and strange faces." Whitney's face had been cut out from a framed family picture, an image Cissy Houston found "beyond disturbing." The next time Houston came to the house, she was joined by two sheriff's deputies who helped her take Whitney to the hospital.

"She was so angry at me, cursing me and up and down," she writes. "Eventually, after a good long while, Nippy did stop being angry at me. She realized that I did what I did to protect her, and she later told people that I had saved her life."

Brown and Whitney Houston divorced in 2007, after 15 years of marriage. When she learned that her daughter was leaving Brown, Cissy Houston was "extremely relieved" and "thanking God so much I'm sure nobody else could get a prayer in to Him."

Houston has no doubt that if Whitney were alive she would still be singing and making records. Houston said during her interview that she has seen "Sparkle," a remake of the 1970s movie that came out last summer and featured Whitney as the mother of a singing group struggling with addiction. Although Cissy Houston doesn't like movies about "drugs and all that kind of stuff," she was impressed by "Sparkle."

"I thought she was great in it and all the kids were great," says Houston, who adds that the "whole movie was hard to get through."

The book, too, was painful and her grief continues. She writes that sometimes she hears a doorbell ring and thinks it's Whitney, or sees a vase in a different place and wonders if her daughter is around. Some nights, Cissy Houston wakes up crying, not sure at first where she is.

"But then I get up out of bed, wipe my eyes, wash my face, and lie back down to my sleep. Because that is all I can do," she writes. "I am so grateful to God for giving me the gift of 48 years with my daughter. And I accept that He knew when it was time to take her."

Scouts considering retreat from no-gays policy

Scouts considering retreat from no-gays policy 

FILE - In this July 18, 2012 file photo, Jennifer Tyrrell, right, arrives for a meeting at the Boys Scouts of America national offices in Irving, Texas, with her son Jude Burns, 5, second from right, partner Alicia Burns, and son Cruz Burns, 7, left. The Ohio woman was ousted as a den mother because she is a lesbian. The Boys Scouts of America announced Monday, Jan. 28, 2013, that it is considering a dramatic retreat from its controversial policy of excluding gays as leaders and youth members.

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Boy Scouts of America may soon give sponsors of troops the authority to decide whether to accept gays as scouts and leaders - a potentially dramatic retreat from an exclusionary nationwide policy that has provoked relentless protests.

Under the change now being discussed, the different religious and civic groups that sponsor Scout units would be able to decide for themselves how to address the issue - either maintaining an exclusion of gays, as is now required of all units, or opening up their membership.

Monday's announcement of the possible change comes after years of protests over the no-gays policy - including petition campaigns that have prompted some corporations to suspend donations to the Boy Scouts.

Under the proposed change, said BSA spokesman Deron Smith, "the Boy Scouts would not, under any circumstances, dictate a position to units, members, or parents."

Smith said the change could be announced as early as next week, after BSA's national board concludes a regularly scheduled meeting on Feb. 6. The meeting will be closed to the public.

The BSA, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2010, has long excluded both gays and atheists. Smith said a change in the policy toward atheists was not being considered, and that the BSA continued to view "Duty to God" as one of its basic principles.

Protests over the no-gays policy gained momentum in 2000, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the BSA's right to exclude gays. Scout units lost sponsorships by public schools and other entities that adhered to nondiscrimination policies, and several local Scout councils made public their displeasure with the policy.

More recently, amid petition campaigns, shipping giant UPS Inc. and drug-manufacturer Merck announced that they were halting donations from their charitable foundations to the Boy Scouts as long as the no-gays policy was in force.

Also, local Scout officials drew widespread criticism in recent months for ousting Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian mom, as a den leader of her son's Cub Scout pack in Ohio and for refusing to approve an Eagle Scout application by Ryan Andresen, a California teen who came out as gay last fall.

Tyrrell said she's thrilled for parents and their children who've been excluded from scouting and "for those who are in Scouts and hiding who they are."

"For me it's not just about the Boy Scouts of America, it's about equality," she told The Associated Press. "This is a step toward equality in all aspects."

Many of the protest campaigns, including one seeking Tyrrell's reinstatement, had been waged with help from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

"The Boy Scouts of America have heard from scouts, corporations and millions of Americans that discriminating against gay scouts and scout leaders is wrong," said Herndon Graddick, GLAAD's president. "Scouting is a valuable institution, and this change will only strengthen its core principles of fairness and respect."

The Scouts had reaffirmed the no-gays policy as recently as last year, and appeared to have strong backing from conservative religious denominations - notably the Mormons, Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists - which sponsor large numbers of Scout units. Under the proposed change, they could continue excluding gays.

Prior to Monday's announcement, the BSA conferred with some leaders of these religious groups, although there were no official statements as to how they would respond.

Said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "The bishops hope the Boy Scouts will continue to work under the Judeo-Christians principles upon which they were founded and under which they have served youth well."

Were the change adopted, said Deron Smith, "there would no longer be any national policy regarding sexual orientation, and the chartered organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting would accept membership and select leaders consistent with each organization's mission, principles, or religious beliefs.

"BSA members and parents would be able to choose a local unit that best meets the needs of their families," he said. "Under this proposed policy, the BSA would not require any chartered organization to act in ways inconsistent with that organization's mission, principles, or religious beliefs."

The announcement came shortly after new data showed that membership in the Cub Scouts - the BSA's biggest division - dropped sharply last year, and was down nearly 30 percent over the past 14 years.

According to figures provided by the organization, Cub Scout ranks dwindled by 3.4 percent, from 1,583,166 in 2011 to 1,528,673 in 2012. That's down from 2.17 million in 1998.

The Boy Scouts attribute the decline largely to broad social changes, including the allure of video games and the proliferation of youth sports leagues and other options for after-school activities.

However, critics of the Scouts suggest that its recruitment efforts have been hampered by high-profile controversies - notably the court-ordered release of files dealing with sex abuse allegations and persistent protests over the no-gays policy.

The BSA's overall "traditional youth membership" - Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturers - totaled 2,658,794 in 2012, compared to more than 4 million in peak years of the past. There were 910,668 Boy Scouts last year, a tiny increase from 2011, while the ranks of Venturers - a program for youths 14 and older- declined by 5.5 percent.

In addition to flak over the no-gays policy, the Scouts have been buffeted by multiple court cases related to past allegations of sexual abuse by Scout leaders, including those chronicled in long-confidential records that are widely known as the "perversion files."

Through various cases, the Scouts have been forced to reveal files dating from the 1960s to 1991. They detailed numerous cases where abuse claims were made and Boy Scout officials never alerted authorities and sometimes actively sought to protect the accused.

The Scouts are now under a California court order, affirmed this month by the state Supreme Court, to turn over sex-abuse files from 1991 through 2011 to the lawyers for a former Scout who claims a leader molested him in 2007, when he was 13. It's not clear how soon the files might become public.

The BSA has apologized for past lapses and cover-ups, and has stressed the steps taken to improve youth protection policy. Since 2010, for example, it has mandated that any suspected abuse be reported to police.

Egypt declares state of emergency in 3 provinces

Egypt declares state of emergency in 3 provinces 

Smoke rises after Egyptian protesters clash with police, unseen, in Port Said, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Violence erupted briefly when some in the crowd fired guns and police responded with volleys of tear gas, witnesses said. State television reported 110 were injured. Egyptian health officials say 3 have been killed in clashes between protesters and police in Port Said.

CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's president declared a state of emergency and curfew in three Suez Canal provinces hit hardest by a weekend wave of unrest that left more than 50 dead, using tactics of the ousted regime to get a grip on discontent over his Islamist policies and the slow pace of change.

Angry and almost screaming, Mohammed Morsi vowed in a televised address on Sunday night that he would not hesitate to take even more action to stem the latest eruption of violence across much of the country. But at the same time, he sought to reassure Egyptians that his latest moves would not plunge the country back into authoritarianism.

"There is no going back on freedom, democracy and the supremacy of the law," he said.

The worst violence this weekend was in the Mediterranean coastal city of Port Said, where seven people were killed on Sunday, pushing the toll for two days of clashes to at least 44. The unrest was sparked on Saturday by a court conviction and death sentence for 21 defendants involved in a mass soccer riot in the city's main stadium on Feb. 1, 2012 that left 74 dead.

Most of those sentenced to death were local soccer fans from Port Said, deepening a sense of persecution that Port Said's residents have felt since the stadium disaster, the worst soccer violence ever in Egypt.

At least another 11 died on Friday elsewhere in the country during rallies marking the second anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising. Protesters used the occasion to renounce Morsi and his Islamic fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged as the country's most dominant political force after Mubarak's ouster.

The curfew and state of emergency, both in force for 30 days, affect the provinces of Port Said, Ismailiya and Suez. The curfew takes effect Monday from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day.

Morsi, in office since June, also invited the nation's political forces to a dialogue starting Monday to resolve the country's latest crisis. A statement issued later by his office said that among those invited were the country's top reform leader, Nobel peace Laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabahi, a leftist politician who finished third in last year's presidential race.

The three are leaders of the National Salvation Front, an umbrella for the main opposition parties.

Khaled Dawoud, the Front's spokesman, said Morsi's invitation was meaningless unless he clearly states what is on the agenda. That, he added, must include amending a disputed constitution hurriedly drafted by the president's Islamist allies and rejected by the opposition.

He also faulted the president for not acknowledging his political responsibility for the latest bout of political violence.

"It is all too little too late," he told The Associated Press.

In many ways, Morsi's decree and his call for a dialogue betrayed his despair in the face of wave after wave of political unrest, violence and man-made disasters that, at times, made the country look like it was about to come unglued.

A relative unknown until his Muslim Brotherhood nominated him to run for president last year, Morsi is widely criticized for having offered no vision for the country's future after nearly 30 years of dictatorship under Mubarak and no coherent policy to tackle seemingly endless problems, from a free falling economy and deeply entrenched social injustices to surging crime and chaos on the streets.

Reform of the judiciary and the police, hated under the old regime for brutality, are also key demands of Morsi's critics.

Morsi did not say what he plans to do to stem the violence in other parts of the country outside those three provinces, but he did say he had instructed the police to deal "firmly and forcefully" with individuals attacking state institutions, using firearms to "terrorize" citizens or blocking roads and railway lines.

There were also clashes Sunday in Cairo and several cities in the Nile Delta region, including the industrial city of Mahallah.

Egypt's current crisis is the second to hit the country since November, when Morsi issued decrees, since rescinded, that gave him nearly unlimited powers and placed him above any oversight, including by the judiciary.

The latest eruption of political violence has deepened the malaise as Morsi struggles to get a grip on enormous social and economic problems and the increasingly dangerous fault lines that divide this nation of 85 million.

In an ominous sign, a one-time jihadist group on Sunday blamed the secular opposition for the violence and threatened to set up vigilante militias to defend the government it supports.

Addressing a news conference, Tareq el-Zomr of the once-jihadist Gamaa Islamiya, said:

"If security forces don't achieve security, it will be the right of the Egyptian people and we at the forefront to set up popular committees to protect private and public property and counter the aggression on innocent citizens."

His threat was accompanied by his charge that the opposition was responsible for the deadly violence of the past few days, setting the stage for possible bloody clashes between protesters and Islamist militiamen. The opposition denies the charge.

In Port Said on Sunday, tens of thousands of mourners poured into the streets for a mass funeral for most of the 37 people who died on Saturday. They chanted slogans against Morsi.

"We are now dead against Morsi," said Port Said activist Amira Alfy. "We will not rest now until he goes and we will not take part in the next parliamentary elections. Port Said has risen and will not allow even a semblance of normalcy to come back," she said.

The violence flared only a month after a prolonged crisis - punctuated by deadly violence - over the new constitution. Ten died in that round of unrest and hundreds were injured.

In Port Said, mourners chanted "There is no God but Allah," and "Morsi is God's enemy" as the funeral procession made its way through the city after prayers for the dead at the city's Mariam Mosque. Women clad in black led the chants, which were quickly picked up by the rest of the mourners.

There were no police or army troops in sight. But the funeral procession briefly halted after gunfire rang out. Security officials said the gunfire came from several mourners who opened fire at the Police Club next to the cemetery. Activists, however, said the gunfire first came from inside the army club, which is also close to the cemetery. Some of the mourners returned fire, which drew more shots as well as tear gas, according to witnesses. They, together with the officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation in the city on the Mediterranean at the northern tip of the Suez Canal.

A total of 630 people were injured, some of them with gunshot wounds, said Abdel-Rahman Farag, director of the city's hospitals.

Also Sunday, army troops backed by armored vehicles staked out positions at key government facilities to protect state interests and try to restore order.

There was also a funeral in Cairo for two policemen killed in the Port Said violence a day earlier. Several policemen grieving for their colleagues heckled Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the force, when he arrived for their funeral, according to witnesses.

The angry officers screamed at the minister that he was only at the funeral for the TV cameras - a highly unusual show of dissent in Egypt, where the police force maintains military-like discipline.

Ibrahim hurriedly left and the funeral proceeded without him, a sign that the prestige of the state and its top executives were diminishing.

In Cairo, clashes broke out for the fourth straight day on Sunday, with protesters and police outside two landmark, Nile-side hotels near central Tahrir Square, birthplace of the 2011 uprising. Police fired tear gas while protesters pelted them with rocks.

Deadly smoke, lone blocked exit: 230 die in Brazil

Deadly smoke, lone blocked exit: 230 die in Brazil 

A man carries an injured victim of a fire at the Kiss club in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, early Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Firefighters say that the death toll from a fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil has risen to 180. Officials say the fire broke out while a band was performing. At least 200 people ere also injured.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) -- Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing more than 230 people as panicked partygoers gasped for breath in the smoke-filled air, stampeding toward a single exit partially blocked by those already dead. It appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

Witnesses said a flare or firework lit by band members started the blaze in Santa Maria, a university city of about 225,000 people, though officials said the cause was still under investigation.

Television images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who had attended a university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at windows and walls to free those trapped inside.

Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper that firefighters had a hard time getting inside the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance."

Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.

Another survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit flares that started the conflagration.

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."

Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I looked up and noticed the roof was burning"

"It might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any trouble with it.

"When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working"

He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that the toll had risen to 233 with the death of a hospitalized victim - he said earlier that the death toll was likely made worse because the nightclub appeared to have just one exit through which patrons could exit.

Officials counted 232 bodies that had been brought for identification to a gymnasium in Santa Maria, which is located at the southern tip of Brazil, near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.

Federal Health Minister Alexandre Padhilha told a news conference that most of the 117 people treated in hospitals had been poisoned by gases they breathed during the fire. Only a few suffered serious burns, he said.

Brazil President Dilma Rousseff arrived to visit the injured after cutting short her trip to a Latin American-European summit in Chile.

"It is a tragedy for all of us," Rousseff said.

Most of the dead apparently were asphyxiated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria who went to the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.

Beltrame said he was told the club had been filled far beyond its capacity during a party for students at the university's agronomy department.

Survivors, police and firefighters gave the same account of a band member setting the ceiling's soundproofing ablaze, he said.

"Large amounts of toxic smoke quickly filled the room, and I would say that at least 90 percent of the victims died of asphyxiation," Beltrame told The Associated Press by telephone.

"The toxic smoke made people lose their sense of direction so they were unable to find their way to the exit. At least 50 bodies were found inside a bathroom. Apparently they confused the bathroom door with the exit door."

In the hospital, the doctor "saw desperate friends and relatives walking and running down the corridors looking for information," he said, calling it "one of the saddest scenes I have ever witnessed."

Rodrigo Moura, identified by the newspaper Diario de Santa Maria as a security guard at the club, said it was at its maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 2,000, and partygoers were pushing and shoving to escape.

Santa Maria Mayor Cezar Schirmer declared a 30-day mourning period, and Tarso Genro, the governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, said officials were investigating the cause of the disaster.

The blaze was the deadliest in Brazil since at least 1961, when a fire that swept through a circus killed 503 people in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro.

Sunday's fire also appeared to be the worst at a nightclub since December 2000, when a welding accident reportedly set off a fire at a club in Luoyang, China, killing 309.

In 2004, at least 194 people died in a fire at an overcrowded nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Seven members of a band were sentenced to prison for starting the flames.

Several years later, in December 2009, a blaze at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, killed 152 people after an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches.

Similar circumstances led to a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people in the United States. Pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling of a Rhode Island music venue.

The band performing in Santa Maria, Gurizada Fandangueira, plays a driving mixture of local Brazilian country music styles. Guitarist Martin told Radio Gaucha the musicians are already seeing hostile messages.

"People on the social networks are saying we have to pay for what happened," he said. "I'm afraid there could be retaliation".