Letter To The Editor Of Phila. Front Page News: Prophet Muhammad - A Messenger of Peace - From Taseer Bhatti

Letter To The Editor Of Phila. Front Page News: Prophet Muhammad - A Messenger of Peace - From Taseer Bhatti  

Rogue elements of society have portrayed the Prophet Muhammad’s character and message in a negative manner.

In response to this defamation, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has launched the first ever nationwide Muhammad Messenger of Peace (MMOP) campaign to illustrate what the Prophet Muhammad actually taught.

This open house event promotes peaceful dialogue among all Americans. When we discuss with civility, we follow the example of the great Godly men of history – Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, and Muhammad. These kinds of discussions place a sense of camaraderie among people and thus strengthen our society. This is what the MMOP campaign is all about, so please join us.

Visit www.muslimsforpeace.org/events/phi-upenn/ to register for the event taking place in Philadelphia on April 10^th.

Cold case arrest prompts cross-country probe

Cold case arrest prompts cross-country probe 

In this Monday, March 4, 2013 photo, Samuel Little, a suspected serial killer, appears at Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles. Little, 72, was arrested in Louisville, Ky., in September by U.S. Marshals on an unrelated narcotics warrant while investigators built their case. He later waived extradition and was brought to Los Angeles, where he was charged with three murder counts and the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- When Los Angeles cold case detectives caught up with Samuel Little this past fall, he was living in a Christian shelter in Kentucky, his latest arrest a few months earlier for alleged possession of a crack pipe. But the LA investigators wanted him on far more serious charges: The slayings of two women in 1989, both found strangled and nude below the waist - victims of what police concluded had been sexually motivated strangulations.

Little's name came up, police said, after DNA evidence collected at old crime scenes matched samples of his stored in a criminal database. After detectives say they found yet another match, a third murder charge was soon added against Little.

Now, as the 72-year-old former boxer and transient awaits trial in Los Angeles, authorities in numerous jurisdictions in California, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio are scouring their own cold case files for possible ties to Little. One old murder case, in Pascagoula, Miss., already has been reopened. DNA results are pending in some others.

Little's more than 100-page rap sheet details crimes in 24 states spread over 56 years - mostly assault, burglary, armed robbery, shoplifting and drug violations. In that time, authorities say incredulously, he served less than 10 years in prison.

But Los Angeles detectives allege he was also a serial killer, who traveled the country preying on prostitutes, drug addicts and troubled women.

They assert Little often delivered a knockout punch to women and then proceeded to strangle them while masturbating, dumping the bodies and soon after leaving town. Their investigation has turned up a number of cases in which he was a suspect or convicted.

Police are using those old cases - and tracking down surviving victims - to help build their own against Little.

"We see a pattern, and the pattern matches what he's got away with in the past," said LAPD Detective Mitzi Roberts.

Little has pleaded not guilty in the three LA slayings, and in interviews with detectives after his September arrest he described his police record as "dismissed, not guilty, dismissed."

"I just be in the wrong place at the wrong time with people," he said, according to an interview transcript reviewed by The Associated Press.

Still, as more details emerge, so do more questions. Among them: How did someone with so many encounters with the law, suspected by prosecutors and police officers of killing for decades, manage to escape serious jail time?

"It's the craziest rap sheet I've ever seen," said Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, who has worked many serial killer cold cases. "The fact that he hasn't spent a more significant period of his life (in custody) is a shocking thing. He's gotten break after break after break."

Deputy Public Defender Michael Pentz, who represents Little, declined to comment.

Authorities have pieced together a 24-page timeline tracking Little's activity across the country since his birth. His rap sheet has helped them pinpoint his location sometimes on a monthly basis. Law enforcement agencies are now cross-referencing that timeline with cold case slayings in their states.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is leading a review of that state's unsolved murders and helping coordinate the effort among 12 jurisdictions. The department published an intelligence bulletin alerting authorities in Florida, Alabama and Georgia about Little's case, noting he lived in the area on and off in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

"We strongly encouraged them to look at any unresolved homicides that they had during those time frames and then consider him as a potential suspect," said Jeff Fortier, a special agent supervisor at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The department is re-examining DNA evidence in about 15 cases that was collected before advances in forensic science allowed for thorough analysis, Fortier said.

"We are in the infancy stages of what we expect will be a protracted investigation," he said.

In Mississippi, Pascagoula cold case Detective Darren Versiga is re-investigating the killing of Melinda LaPree, a 22-year-old prostitute found strangled in 1982. Little had been arrested in that crime but never indicted, Versiga said. The detective has tracked down old witnesses and is working to reconstruct the case file because much of it was washed away during Hurricane Katrina.

Little, who often went by the name Samuel McDowell, grew up with his grandmother in Lorain, Ohio. His rap sheet shows his first arrest at age 16 on burglary charges. After serving time in a youth authority he was released and, months later, arrested again for breaking and entering.

In an hour- and 15-minute interview with Los Angeles detectives, Little spoke openly about his past and his time in the penitentiary, where he started boxing as a middleweight against the other inmates. "I used to be a prizefighter," he said.

In his late 20s, Little went to live with his mother in Florida and worked at the Dade County Department of Sanitation and, later, at a cemetery. Soon, he began traveling more widely and had more run-ins with the law; between 1971 and 1974 Little was arrested in eight states for crimes that included armed robbery, rape, theft, solicitation of a prostitute, shoplifting, DUI, aggravated assault on a police officer and fraud.

"I've been in and out of the penitentiary," he told the California officers.

"Well, for what?" a detective asked, to which Little responded: "Shoplifting and, uh, petty thefts and stuff."

Then came the 911 call of Sept. 11, 1976, in Sunset Hills, Mo.

Pamela Kay Smith was banging on the back door of a home, crying for help, naked below the waist with her hands bound behind her back with electrical cord and cloth. Smith, who was a drug addict, told officers that she was picked up by Little in St. Louis. She said he choked her from behind with electrical cord, forced her into his car, beat her unconscious, then drove to Sunset Hills and raped her.

Officers found Little, then 36, still seated in his car near the home where Smith sought refuge, with her jewelry and clothing inside. Little denied raping Smith, telling officers: "I only beat her." The case summary was recalled in court papers filed by prosecutors in Los Angeles.

Little was found guilty of assault with the intent to ravish-rape and was sentenced to three months in county jail. Pascagoula Detective Versiga, who reviewed the Smith case, believes Little may have pleaded to a lesser charge and received a shorter sentence because of the victim's lifestyle. The case file refers to Smith as a heroin addict who often failed to appear in court.

After that, the charges against Little grew more serious.

In Pascagoula, LaPree went missing in September 1982 after getting into a wood-paneled station wagon with a man witnesses later identified as Little. A month later her remains were found, and Little was arrested in her killing and the assault of two other prostitutes. Versiga believes grand jurors failed to indict in part because of the difficulty in determining a precise time of death but also because of credibility problems due to the victim and witnesses working as prostitutes.

Little, nevertheless, remained in custody and was extradited to Florida to be tried in the case of another slain woman.

Patricia Ann Mount, 26 and mentally disabled, was found dead in the fall of 1982 in rural Forest Grove, Fla., near Gainesville. Eyewitnesses described last seeing her leaving a beer tavern with a man identified as Little in a wood-paneled station wagon.

According to The Gainesville Sun's coverage of the trial, a fiber analyst testified that hairs found on Mount's clothes "had the same characteristics as head hairs taken from" Little. But when cross-examined the analyst said "it was also possible for hairs to be transferred if two people bumped together."

A jury acquitted Little in January 1984.

By October 1984, Little was back in custody - this time in San Diego, accused in the attempted murder of two prostitutes who were kidnapped a month apart, driven to the same abandoned dirt lot, assaulted and choked. The first woman was left unconscious on a pile of trash but survived, according to court records. Patrol officers discovered Little in a car with the second woman and arrested him.

The two cases were tried jointly, but the jury failed to reach a verdict. Little later pleaded guilty to lesser charges of assault with great bodily injury and false imprisonment. He served about 2.5 years on a four-year sentence and, in February 1987, he was released on parole.

As he told the LA detectives in his interview, Little then moved to Los Angeles, where three more women were soon discovered dead: Carol Alford, 41, found on July 13, 1987; Audrey Nelson, 35, found on Aug. 14, 1989; and Guadalupe Apodaca, 46, found on Sept. 3, 1989. All were manually strangled.

It is for those slayings that Little now stands charged. No trial date has been set, though Little is due back in court this month for a procedural hearing. If convicted, Little would face a minimum of life in prison without parole, though prosecutors said they may seek the death penalty.

When the case landed on Detective Roberts' desk, she had no idea it would grow from two local cold case slayings to a cross-country probe into the past of a man with some 75 arrests. As she studied her suspect, Roberts also began calling agencies that had dealt with Little most recently.

He had been arrested on May 1, 2012, by sheriff's deputies in Lake Charles, La., for possession of a crack pipe and released with an upcoming court date. At Roberts' request, deputies tried finding him but came up empty. Then last September deputies called with a hit tracing an ATM purchase by Little to a Louisville, Ky., minimart. Within hours he was found at a nearby shelter.

In his interview with police, Little said he didn't recognize the slain LA women. Detectives said that DNA collected from semen on upper body clothing or from fingernail scrapings connect him to the crimes.

Roberts and others who've investigated Little through the years said some cases may not have gone forward because DNA testing wasn't available until the mid-1980s and, even when it was, wouldn't have been useful in these cases unless authorities tested clothing, fingernails or body swabs. Due to this perpetrator's particular modus operandi, DNA wouldn't necessarily be found through standard rape kit collection.

Even in those cases that did go to trial, they said, jurors may have found the victims less credible because of their backgrounds, and the witnesses - often prostitutes - in some cases disappeared. Because Little was also a transient, Roberts said: "I don't think he stuck in a lot of peoples' minds much."

"But what's different now, we're just not going to allow that to happen," she said. "I think we owe it to the victims. I think we owe it to the families."

Tony Zambrano was 17 when he learned his mother, Guadalupe Apodaca, was killed after going out for a drink one night.

"My brother told me she left, she went to go have a couple beers, and never came home," he recalls. Soon after he learned of her slaying.

For years Zambrano tried to find out what happened to his mother. When Roberts called him following Little's arrest, he was grateful. But he's also upset.

"My mom shouldn't really be dead now. For all those charges in San Diego, who gets four years?" Zambrano said. "This thing ain't over for a long shot."

Dad says diplomat had passion for foreign affairs

Dad says diplomat had passion for foreign affairs 

This undated photo provided by Tom Smedinghoff, shows Anne Smedinghoff. Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was killed Saturday, April 6, 2013 in southern Afghanistan , the first American diplomat to die on the job since last year's attack on the U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Anne Smedinghoff had a quiet ambition and displayed a love of global affairs from an early age, joining the U.S. Foreign Service straight out of college and volunteering for missions in perilous locations worldwide.

So when the 25-year-old suburban Chicago woman was killed Saturday in southern Afghanistan - the first American diplomat to die on the job since last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya - her family took solace in the fact that she died doing something she loved.

"It was a great adventure for her ... She loved it," her father, Tom Smedinghoff, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "She was tailor-made for this job."

Anne Smedinghoff grew up in River Forest, Ill. - an upscale suburb about 10 miles west of Chicago - the daughter of an attorney and the second of four children. She attended the highly selective Fenwick High School, followed by Johns Hopkins University, where she majored in international studies and became a key organizer of the university's annual Foreign Affairs Symposium in 2008. The event draws high-profile speakers from around the world.

Those who knew Smedinghoff described her as a positive, hard-working and dependable young woman.

While a student in Baltimore, she worked part time for Sam Hopkins, an attorney near campus. He described her as ambitious "but in a wonderfully quiet, modest way."

Her first assignment for the foreign service was in Caracas, Venezuela, and she volunteered for the Afghanistan assignment after that. Her father said family members would tease her about signing up for a less dangerous location, maybe London or Paris.

"She said, `What would I do in London or Paris? It would be so boring,'" her father recalled. In her free time, she would travel as much as possible, her father said.

Smedinghoff was an up-and-coming employee of the State Department who garnered praise from the highest ranks. She was to finish her Afghanistan assignment as a press officer in July. Already fluent in Spanish, she was gearing up to learn Arabic, first for a year in the U.S. and then in Cairo, before a two-year assignment in Algeria.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday at a news conference in Turkey that Smedinghoff was"vivacious, 

smart" and "capable." Smedinghoff had assisted Kerry during a visit to Afghanistan two weeks ago.

He also described Smedinghoff as "a selfless, idealistic woman who woke up yesterday morning and set out to bring textbooks to school children, to bring them knowledge."

Her father said they knew the assignments were dangerous, though she spent most of her time at the U.S. 

Embassy compound. Trips outside were in heavily armored convoys - as was Saturday's trip that killed five Americans, including Smedinghoff. The U.S. Department of Defense did not release the names of the others 

who died: three soldiers and one employee.

"It's like a nightmare, you think will go away and it's not," he said. "We keep saying to ourselves, we're just so proud of her, we take consolation in the fact that she was doing what she loved."

Friends remembered her Sunday for her charity work too.

Smedinghoff participated in a 2009 cross-country bike ride for The 4K for Cancer - part of the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults - according to the group. She served on the group's board of directors after the ride from Baltimore to San Francisco.

"She was an incredible young woman. She was always optimistic," said Ryan Hanley, a founder of the

group. 

"She always had a smile on her face and incredible devotion to serving others."

Johns Hopkins officials mourned her death in a letter on Sunday to students, faculty and alumni. Smedinghoff graduated in 2009. In the letter, University President Ronald J. Daniels praised her work on the symposium, her involvement in her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, and her involvement outside campus too.

"Her selfless action for others was nothing new," he wrote.

Funeral arrangements for Smedinghoff are pending.

South Africa: Mandela discharged from the hospital

South Africa: Mandela discharged from the hospital 

FILE - In this June 17, 2010 file photo, former South African President Nelson Mandela leaves the chapel after attending the funeral of his great-granddaughter Zenani Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa. The South African presidency says Mandela has been discharged, Saturday, April 6, 2013, from a hospital after an improvement in his condition. Officials say he was treated for pneumonia.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Former President Nelson Mandela was discharged from a hospital on Saturday following treatment for pneumonia, the presidency said in news that cheered South Africans who had waited tensely for health updates on a beloved national figure.

Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who spent 27 years in prison for opposing white racist rule, was robust during his decades as a public figure, endowed with charisma, a powerful memory and an extraordinary talent for articulating the aspirations of his people and winning over many of those who opposed him. In recent years, however, 94-year-old Mandela became more frail and last made a public appearance at the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament, where he didn't deliver an address and was bundled against the cold in a stadium full of fans.

South Africans hold the former leader dear as a symbol of sacrifice and reconciliation stemming from his pivotal role in steering South Africa from the apartheid era and into democratic elections in 1994, at a time of great hope but also tension and uncertainty. The new South Africa, beset by economic inequality, crime and corruption, has not lived up to the soaring expectations of its people, but they still see hope through their icon, Mandela.

Primrose Mashoma, a South African, said she wished that Mandela would live, basically, forever.

"I wish him to stay maybe a hundred more years," she said.

A statement from the office of President Jacob Zuma said there had been "a sustained and gradual improvement" in the condition of Mandela, who was admitted to a hospital on the night of March 27.

"The former President will now receive home-based high care," the statement said.

Mandela had received similar treatment at his home in Johannesburg after a stay at a hospital in nearby Pretoria in December, when he was treated for a lung infection and had a procedure to remove gallstones. 

Earlier in March, the anti-apartheid leader was hospitalized overnight for what authorities said was a successful scheduled medical test.

During Mandela's latest hospitalization, doctors drained fluid from his lung area, making it easier for him to breathe.

On Saturday afternoon, shortly after the presidential statement on Mandela's discharge, a military ambulance was seen entering his home in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Houghton. In recent years, Mandela had been spending more time in Qunu, the rural area in Eastern Cape province where he grew up. But his delicate condition required that he be moved to South Africa's biggest city.

Many South Africans refer affectionately to Mandela by his clan name, Madiba. Buildings, squares, and other places have been named after him, and his image adorns statues and artwork around the country. The central bank issued new banknotes last year that show his smiling face.

"I'm really happy about Madiba coming out," said student Anele Gcolotela, using Mandela's clan name, a term of affection. "I think it's been too long now."

After Mandela's release from prison in 1990, he was widely credited with averting even greater bloodshed by helping the country in the transition to democratic rule, negotiating with the guardians of the same system that had deprived him of freedom for decades. He became South Africa's first black president in 1994 after elections were held, bringing an end to apartheid.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been particularly vulnerable to respiratory problems since contracting tuberculosis during his 27-year imprisonment under apartheid. Most of those years were spent on Robben Island, a forbidding outpost off the coast of Cape Town where Mandela and other prisoners spent part of the time toiling in a stone quarry.

The elderly are especially vulnerable to pneumonia, which can be fatal. Its symptoms include fever, chills, a cough, chest pain and shortness of breath. Many germs cause pneumonia.

South African officials have said doctors were acting with extreme caution because of Mandela's advanced age.

In Saturday's statement, Zuma thanked the medical team and hospital staff that looked after Mandela and expressed gratitude for South Africans and people around the world who had shown support for Mandela. The South African government has sought to balance efforts to satisfy wide public interest in Mandela's condition with an intense campaign to preserve the privacy of an ailing figure who already has his place in history.

The African National Congress, the ruling party that led the struggle against apartheid and has held power since its demise, expressed its "happiness" at the discharge of its former leader from the hospital.

"We acknowledge the important role played by President Zuma and his office to keep the nation, the continent and the world informed about progress made on his treatment on a regular basis," the party said in a statement.

Church: Pastor Rick Warren's son commits suicide

Church: Pastor Rick Warren's son commits suicide 

This undated photo provided by the Saddleback Valley Community Church shows Matthew Warren, the son of Pastor Rick Warren. Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., said in a statement Saturday, April 6, 2013, that Warren's 27-year-old son, Matthew Warren, has committed suicide after struggling with mental illness and deep depression.

 

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (AP) -- The Southern California church headed by popular evangelical Pastor Rick Warren announced Saturday that Warren's 27-year-old son has committed suicide.

Warren's Saddleback Valley Community Church said in a statement that Matthew Warren had struggled with mental illness and deep depression throughout his life.

"Matthew was an incredibly kind, gentle and compassionate young man whose sweet spirit was encouragement and comfort to many," the statement said.

"Unfortunately, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in deep depression and suicidal thoughts. Despite the best health care available, this was an illness that was never fully controlled and the emotional pain resulted in his decision to take his life."

Warren, the author of the multimillion-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life," said in an email to church staff that he and his wife had enjoyed a fun Friday evening with their son before Matthew Warren returned home to take his life in "a momentary wave of despair."

Church spokeswoman Kristin Cole said he died Friday night.

Over the years, Matthew Warren had been treated by America s best doctors, had received counseling and medication and been the recipient of numerous prayers from others, his father said.

Still, he struggled over the years.

"I'll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said `Dad, I know I'm going to heaven. Why can't I just die and end this pain?'" Warren recalled.

Despite that, he said, his son lived for another decade, during which he often reached out to help others.

"You who watched Matthew grow up knew he was an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man," Warren wrote. "He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He'd then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them."

The elder Warren founded Saddleback Church in 1980, according to his biography on the church website, and over the years watched it grow to 20,000 members. He and his wife, Kay, began by holding Bible studies for people who weren't regular churchgoers.

In 2008, the church sponsored a presidential forum with Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain. Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney had been invited to a similar forum last fall, but Warren canceled it, saying the campaign had become too uncivil.

As Saddleback has grown over the years, it has spread out from its Lake Forest headquarters, 65 miles southeast of Los Angeles, adding several other campuses and ministries around Southern California.

The church says it now offers more than 200 community ministries and support groups for parents, families, children, couples, prisoners, addicts, and people living with HIV, depression and other illnesses.

Warren was named the top newsmaker of the year for 2009 by the Religion Newswriters Association. He gained attention that year with his invocation at President Barack Obama's inauguration that year and comments he made in the aftermath of California's Proposition 8, which overturned gay marriage.

Obama apologizes to Calif. AG for comment on looks

Obama apologizes to Calif. AG for comment on looks 

FILE - This Nov. 16,2012 file photo shows California Attorney General Kamala Harris speaking during a news conference in Los Angeles. President Barack Obama praised Harris for more than her smarts and toughness at a Democratic Party event Thursday, April 4, 2013. The president also commended Harris for being "the best-looking attorney general" during a Democratic fundraising lunch in the Silicon Valley.

  

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has apologized to California Attorney General Kamala Harris for causing a stir when he called her "the best-looking attorney general" at a Democratic fundraiser they attended together this week.

A spokesman for Harris said she had a great conversation with Obama and strongly supports him but would not say whether she had accepted the president's apology.

Obama apologized to Harris by telephone Thursday night after returning from two days of fundraising in California, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

At a fundraiser in Silicon Valley earlier that day, Obama raised eyebrows when he said Harris "happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general in the country. It's true! C'mon." He prefaced the remark by saying she is "brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you'd want in anybody who is administering the law."

Harris was present and had addressed the crowd before the president spoke.

The "best-looking" comment instantly lit up news blogs and websites, with some highlighting it as an example of the hurdles working women still face.

Carney and Harris' spokesman, Gil Duran, both noted that Obama and Harris are longtime friends.

"He called her to apologize for the distraction created by his comments," Carney told reporters Friday. "He did not want in any way to diminish the attorney general's professional accomplishments and her capabilities."

He noted that Obama also commented on Harris' smarts.

Carney went on to say that Obama "fully recognizes the challenge women continue to face in the workplace and that they should not be judged based on appearance."

In an emailed statement, Duran noted the longstanding ties between Obama and Harris.

"They had a great conversation yesterday, and she strongly supports him," he said.

Duran later said he would not comment beyond the statement. He declined to say whether Harris had accepted the president's apology or whether she was offended by his comment.

Harris had scheduled no public appearances Friday and was not expected to comment herself.

Harris and Obama have campaigned for each other in prior elections. Some pundits also have described her as a female version of Obama because of her stage presence and because, like the president, she is of mixed race.

Obama seeks deal, proposes cuts to Social Security

Obama seeks deal, proposes cuts to Social Security 

FILE - In this April 3, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at the Police Academy in Denver. A senior administration official said Friday, April 5, 2013 that Obama's proposed budget will call for reductions in in the growth of federal Social Security pensions and other benefit programs in an attempt to strike a compromise with congressional Republicans.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seeking an elusive middle ground, President Barack Obama is proposing a 2014 budget that embraces tax increases abhorred by Republicans as well as reductions, loathed by liberals, in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs.

The plan, if ever enacted, could touch almost all Americans. The rich would see tax increases, the poor and the elderly would get smaller annual increases in their benefits, and middle income taxpayers would slip into higher tax brackets despite Obama's repeated vows not to add to the tax burden of the middle class. His proposed changes, once phased in, would mean a cut in Social Security benefits of nearly $1,000 a year for an average 85-year-old, smaller cuts for younger retirees.

Obama proposed much the same without success to House Speaker John Boehner in December. The response Friday was dismissive from Republicans and hostile from liberals, labor and advocates for the elderly.

But the proposal aims to tackle worrisome deficits that are adding to the national debt and placing a long-term burden on the nation, prompting praise from independent deficit hawks. Obama's budget also proposes new spending for public works projects, pre-school education and for job and benefit assistance for veterans.

"It's not the president's ideal approach to our budget challenges, but it is a serious compromise proposition that demonstrates that he wants to get things done," said White House press secretary Jay Carney.

The budget, which Obama will release Wednesday to cover the budget year beginning Oct. 1, proposes spending cuts and revenue increases that would result in $1.8 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years. That figure would replace $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that are poised to take effect over the next 10 years if Congress and the president don't come up with an alternative, thus delivering a net increase in deficit reduction of $600 billion.

Counting reductions and higher taxes that Congress and Obama have approved since 2011, the 2014 budget would contribute to $4.3 trillion in total deficit reduction by 2023.

The budget wouldn't affect the $85 billion in cuts that kicked in last month for this budget year.

A key feature of Obama's plan is a revised inflation adjustment called "chained CPI." This new formula would effectively curb annual increases in a broad swath of government programs but would have its biggest impact on Social Security. By encompassing Obama's offer to Boehner, R-Ohio, the plan would also include reductions in Medicare spending, much of it by targeting payments to health care providers and drug companies. The Medicare proposal also would require wealthier recipients to pay higher premiums or co-pays.

Obama's budget proposal also calls for additional tax revenue, primarily by placing a 28 percent cap on deductions and other tax exclusions. That plan would affect wealthy taxpayers as would a new administration proposal to place limits on tax-preferred retirement accounts for millionaires and billionaires.

Obama made the same offer to Boehner in December when he and the speaker were negotiating ways of avoiding a steep, so-called fiscal cliff of combined across-the-board spending cuts and sweeping tax increases caused by the expiration of Bush-era tax rates. Boehner rejected that plan and ultimately Congress approved tax increases that were half of what Obama had sought.

"If you look at where the president's final offer and Boehner were ... they were extremely close to each other," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "We do think that it's a very good sign that the president has included real entitlement reforms in the budget."

Boehner, in a statement Friday, said House Republicans made clear to Obama last month that he should not make savings in entitlement programs that both sides agree on, contingent on more tax increases.

"If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there's no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes," Boehner said. "That's no way to lead and move the country forward."

The inflation adjustment would reduce federal spending on government programs over 10 years by about $130 billion, according to White House estimates. Because it also affects how tax brackets are adjusted, it would also generate about $100 billion in higher taxes and hit even middle income taxpayers.

Once the change is fully phased in, Social Security benefits for a typical middle-income 65-year-old would be about $136 less a year, according to an analysis of Social Security data. At age 75, annual benefits under the new index would be $560 less. At 85, the cut would be $984 a year.

The concept behind the chained CPI is that consumers substitute lower-priced alternatives for goods whose costs spike. So, for example, if the price of oranges goes too high for some consumers, they could buy alternatives like apples or strawberries if their prices were more affordable. This flexibility isn't considered in the current system of gauging inflation, a calculation that determines how much benefits grow each year. 

Taking it into account means such benefits won't grow by as much.

Advocates for the elderly say seniors pay a higher portion of their income for health care, where costs rise more quickly than inflation.

The White House has said the cost-of-living adjustments would include protections for "vulnerable" recipients.

"The president should drop these misguided cuts in benefits and focus instead on building support in Congress for investing in jobs," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement.

AARP's legislative policy director said Obama's budget proposal, while not a surprise, was a disappointment.

"The message seems to be that the president wants a deal and is willing to even sacrifice such important benefits as Social Security as part of that deal," said David Certner. The seniors lobby argues that Social Security doesn't belong in the budget talks because it isn't contributing to the deficit and is separately financed with its own dedicated taxes.

Citing the effect on veterans, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, said he was "terribly disappointed" in the Obama plan and would "do everything in my power to block" it.

While Obama has proposed the slower cost of living adjustment plan during fiscal negotiations with Republican leaders, placing it in the budget would put the administration's official imprint on the plan and mark a full shift from Obama's stand in 2008, when he campaigned against Republican Party nominee John McCain.

In a Sept. 6, 2008, speech to AARP, Obama said: "John McCain's campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost-of-living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear: I will not do either."

Obama also proposes $305 billion in cuts to Medicare over a decade, including $156 billion through lower Medicare payments to drug companies and higher premiums or co-pays from wealthy recipients. That's to the right of the conservative budget of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which barely touches Medicare in the coming 10 years, cutting just $129 billion from the program. The huge Medicare savings from Ryan's proposal, which transforms the system into a program in which the government subsidizes health insurance purchases on the private market, wouldn't accrue until the following decade.

Obama's budget comes after the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-run Senate passed separate and markedly different budget proposals. House Republicans achieved long-term deficit reductions by targeting safety net programs; Democrats instead protected those programs and called for $1 trillion in tax increases.

But Obama has been making a concerted effort to win Republican support, especially in the Senate. He has 

even scheduled a dinner with Republican lawmakers on the evening that his budget is released next week.

As described by the administration officials, the budget proposal would also end a loophole that permits people to obtain unemployment insurance and disability benefits at the same time.

Obama's proposal, however, includes calls for increased spending. It proposes $50 billion for public works projects. It also would make preschool available to more children by increasing the tax on tobacco.

Ebert, nation's best-known film critic, dies at 70 

FILE - This undated file photo originally released by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, shows movie critics Roger Ebert, right, and Gene Siskel. The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that its film critic Roger Ebert died on Thursday, April 4, 2013. He was 70. Ebert and Siskel, who died in 1999, trademarked the "two thumbs up" phrase.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Roger Ebert had the most-watched thumb in Hollywood.

With a twist of his wrist, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic rendered decisions that influenced a nation of moviegoers and could sometimes make or break a film.

The heavy-set writer in the horn-rimmed glasses teamed up on television with Gene Siskel to create a format for criticism that proved enormously appealing in its simplicity: uncomplicated reviews that were both intelligent and accessible and didn't talk down to ordinary movie fans.

Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, died Thursday at the Rehabilitation Institute of 

Chicago, two days after announcing on his blog that he was undergoing radiation treatment for a recurrence of cancer. He was 70.

"So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I'll see you at the movies." Ebert wrote Tuesday on his blog.

Despite his wide influence, Ebert considered himself "beneath everything else a fan."

"I have seen untold numbers of movies and forgotten most of them, I hope, but I remember those worth remembering, and they are all on the same shelf in my mind," Ebert wrote in his 2011 memoir titled "Life Itself."

After cancer surgeries in 2006, Ebert lost portions of his jaw and the ability to eat, drink and speak. But he went back to writing full time and eventually even returned to television. In addition to his work for the Sun-Times, he became a prolific user of social media, connecting with hundreds of thousands of fans on Facebook and Twitter.

Ebert's thumb - pointing up or down - was his trademark. It was the main logo of the long-running TV shows Ebert co-hosted, first with Siskel of the rival Chicago Tribune and - after Siskel's death in 1999 - with Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper. A "two thumbs-up" accolade was sure to find its way into the advertising for the movie in question.

The nation's best-known movie reviewer "wrote with passion through a real knowledge of film and film 

history, and in doing so, helped many movies find their audiences," director Steven Spielberg said. His death is "virtually the end of an era, and now the balcony is closed forever."

In early 2011, Ebert launched a new show, "Ebert Presents At the Movies." The show had new hosts and featured Ebert in his own segment, "Roger's Office." He used a chin prosthesis and enlisted voice-over guests or his computer to read his reviews.

Fans admired his courage, but Ebert told The Associated Press that bravery had "little to do with it."

"You play the cards you're dealt," Ebert wrote in an email in January 2011. "What's your choice? I have no pain. I enjoy life, and why should I complain?"

Always modest, Ebert had Midwestern charm but stuck strongly to his belief that critics honestly tell audiences "how better to invest two hours of their lives."

On the air, Ebert and Siskel bickered like an old married couple and openly needled each other. To viewers who had trouble telling them apart, Ebert was known as the fat one with glasses, Siskel as the thin, bald one.

Ebert favored blue sweater vests and khakis. After his surgeries, he switched to black turtlenecks and white, film director-style scarves.

Joining the Sun-Times part-time in 1966, he pursued graduate study at the University of Chicago and got the 

reviewing job the following year. His reviews were eventually syndicated to several hundred other newspapers, collected in books and repeated on innumerable websites, which would have made him one of the most influential film critics in the nation even without his television fame.

His 1975 Pulitzer for distinguished criticism was the first, and one of only three, given to a film reviewer since the category was created in 1970. In 2005, he received another honor when he became the first critic to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Ebert's breezy and quotable style, as well as his deep understanding of film technique and the business side of the industry, made him an almost instant success.

He soon began doing interviews and profiles of notable actors and directors in addition to his film reviews - celebrating such legends as Alfred Hitchcock, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Ebert also offered words of encouragement for then-newcomer Martin Scorsese, who was one of three filmmakers working on a bio-documentary about Ebert at the time of his death.

In 1969, Ebert took a leave of absence from the Sun-Times to write the screenplay for "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." The movie got an "X" rating and became somewhat of a cult film.

Ebert's television career began the year he won the Pulitzer, first on WTTW-TV, the Chicago PBS station, then nationwide on PBS and later on several commercial syndication services.

And while Siskel and Ebert may have sparred on air, they were close off camera. Siskel's daughters were flower girls when Ebert married his wife, Chaz, in 1992.

"He's in my mind almost every day," Ebert wrote in his autobiography. "He became less like a friend than like a brother."

Ebert found a professional and personal partner in Chaz, who acted as his co-producer. During television interviews, he often used his computer voice to tell her "I love you."

She returned the sentiment, telling Ebert during the final dress rehearsal for "Ebert Presents at the Movies" 

that he had an "indomitable spirit."

"And you know that's right," Chaz Ebert told her husband. "Because people would have understood totally if you decided never to do any of this again."

Ebert was also an author, writing more than 20 books that included two volumes of essays on classic movies and the popular "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie," a collection of some of his most scathing reviews.

The son of a union electrician who worked at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign campus, Ebert 

was born in Urbana on June 18, 1942. The love of journalism, as well as of movies, came early. Ebert covered high school sports for a local paper at age 15 while also writing and editing his own science fiction fan magazine.

He attended the university and was editor of the student newspaper. After graduating in 1964, he spent a year on scholarship at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and then began work toward a doctorate in English at the University of Chicago.

Ebert's hometown embraced the film critic, hosting the annual Ebertfest film festival and placing a plaque at his childhood home.

In the years after he lost his physical voice, Ebert was embraced online. He kept up a Facebook page, a 

Twitter account with more than 800,000 followers and a blog, Roger Ebert's Journal.

He posted links to stories he found interesting, wrote long pieces on varied topics, not just film criticism, and wittily interacted with readers in the comments sections. He liked to post old black-and-white photos of 

Hollywood stars and ask readers to guess who they were.

"My blog became my voice, my outlet, my `social media' in a way I couldn't have dreamed of," Ebert wrote 

in his memoir. "Most people choose to write a blog. I needed to."

Writing in 2010, he said he did not fear death because he didn't believe there was anything "on the other side of death to fear."

"I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state," he wrote. "I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting."

SKorea: North Korea moved missile to east coast

SKorea: North Korea moved missile to east coast 

A North Korean soldier watches the South Korean side at the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in South Korea Thursday, April 4, 2013. South Korea's defense minister said Thursday North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, but said it is not capable of hitting the United States.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- After a series of escalating threats, North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, South Korea's defense minister said Thursday. But he emphasized that the missile was not capable of reaching the United States and that there are no signs that the North is preparing for a full-scale conflict.

North Korea has been railing against U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began in March and are to 

continue until the end of this month. The allies insist the exercises in South Korea are routine, but the North calls them rehearsals for an invasion and says it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself. The North has also expressed anger over tightened U.N. sanctions for its February nuclear test.

Analysts say the ominous warnings in recent weeks are probably efforts to provoke softer policies from South Korea, to win diplomatic talks with Washington and solidify the image of young North Korean leader 

Kim Jong Un. Many of the threats come in the middle of the night in Asia - daytime for the U.S. audience.

The report of the movement of the missile came hours after North Korea's military warned that it has been authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. The reference to smaller weapons could be a claim that North Korea has improved its nuclear technology, or a bluff.

The North is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to miniaturize nuclear bombs enough to mount them on long-range missiles. Nor has it demonstrated that those missiles, if it has them at all, are accurate. It also could be years before the country completes the laborious process of creating enough weaponized fuel to back up its nuclear threats.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said he did not know the reasons behind the North's missile movement, and that it "could be for testing or drills."

He dismissed reports in Japanese media that the missile could be a KN-08, which is believed to be a long-range missile that if operable could hit the United States.

Kim told lawmakers at a parliamentary committee meeting that the missile has "considerable range" but not enough to hit the U.S. mainland.

The range he described could refer to a mobile North Korean missile known as the Musudan, believed to have a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles). That would make Japan and South Korea potential targets - along with U.S. bases in both countries - but there are doubts about the missile's accuracy.

The Pentagon announced that it will hasten the deployment of a missile defense system to the U.S. Pacific 

territory of Guam to strengthen regional protection against a possible attack.

Experts say North Korea has not shown that it has accurate long-range missiles. Some suspect that an apparent long-range missile unveiled by the North at a parade last year was actually a mockup.

"From what we know of its existing inventory, North Korea has short- and medium-range missiles that could complicate a situation on the Korean Peninsula (and perhaps reach Japan), but we have not seen any evidence that it has long-range missiles that could strike the continental U.S., Guam or Hawaii," James Hardy, Asia Pacific editor of IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, wrote in a recent analysis.

Kim, the South Korean defense minister, said that if North Korea were preparing for a full-scale conflict, there would be signs such as the mobilization of a number of units, including supply and rear troops, but South Korean military officials have found no such preparations.

"(North Korea's recent threats) are rhetorical threats. I believe the odds of a full-scale provocation are 

small," he said. But he added that North Korea might mount a small-scale provocation such as its 2010 shelling of a South Korean island, an attack that killed four people.

At times, North Korea has gone beyond rhetoric.

On Tuesday, it announced it would restart a plutonium reactor it had shut down in 2007. A U.S. research institute said Wednesday that satellite imagery shows that construction needed for the restart has already begun.

For a second day Thursday, North Korean border authorities denied entry to South Koreans who manage jointly run factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong. South Koreans already at the plant were being allowed to return home.

South Korea has prepared a military contingency plan should North Korea hold South Korean workers hostage in Kaesong, Defense Minister Kim said. He wouldn't elaborate.

Outraged over comments in the South about possible hostage-taking and a military response from Seoul, a North Korean government-run committee threatened to pull North Korean workers out of Kaesong as well.

The parading of U.S. air and naval power within view of the Korean peninsula - first a few long-range bombers, then stealth fighters, then ships - is as much about psychological war as real war. The U.S. wants to discourage North Korea's young leader from starting a fight that could escalate to renewed war with South Korea.

North Korea's military statement Thursday, from an unidentified spokesman from the General Bureau of the Korean People's Army, said its troops had been authorized to counter U.S. "aggression" with "powerful practical military counteractions," including nuclear weapons.

It said America's "hostile policy" and "nuclear threat" against North Korea "will be smashed by the strong will of all the united service personnel and people and cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means."

White House spokesman Jay Carney has called on Russia and China, two countries he said have influence on North Korea, to use that influence to persuade the North to change course.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich criticized a move by the North Korean parliament this week to declare the country in effect a nuclear weapons state.

"It's categorically unacceptable to see such defiant neglect by Pyongyang of U.N. Security Council resolutions and fundamental regulations in the area of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also had sharp words for the North.

"Nuclear threat is not a game," Ban said Thursday in Madrid. "It's very serious and I think they have gone too far in the rhetoric. I am concerned that if by any misjudgment, by any miscalculation of the situation, a crisis happens in the Korean Peninsula. This really would have very serious implications."

South Korea's Defense Ministry said its military is ready to deal with any provocation by North Korea. "I can say we have no problem in crisis management," deputy ministry spokesman Wee Yong-sub told reporters.

On Sunday, Kim Jong Un led a high-level meeting of party officials who declared building the economy and "nuclear armed forces" as the nation's priorities.

North Korea is believed to be working toward building an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a long-range missile. Long-range rocket launches designed to send satellites into space in 2009 and 2012 were widely considered covert tests of missile technology, and North Korea has conducted three underground nuclear tests.

"I don't believe North Korea has the capacity to attack the United States with nuclear weapons mounted on missiles, and won't for many years. Its ability to target and strike South Korea is also very limited," nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said this week.

In comments posted on CISAC's website, Hecker said North Korea knows a nuclear attack would be met with "a devastating nuclear response."

Hecker has estimated that North Korea has enough plutonium to make several crude nuclear bombs. Its announcement Tuesday that it would restart a plutonium reactor indicated that it intends to produce more nuclear weapons material.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies has analyzed recent commercial satellite imagery of the Nyongbyon nuclear facility, where the reactor was shut down in 2007 under the terms of a disarmament agreement. A cooling tower for the reactor was destroyed in 2008.

The analysis published Wednesday on the institute's website, 38 North, says that rebuilding the tower would take six months, but a March 27 photo shows building work may have started for an alternative cooling system that could take just weeks. Experts estimate it could take three months to a year to restart the plant.

Legislative Advocacy Workshop in Harrisburg on April 6th | PICC

Legislative Advocacy Workshop in Harrisburg on April 6th | PICC

"This free training will provide residents of the Commonwealth with advice regarding how to communicate effectively with their elected officials...."

More at Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition 

Michelle Obama praises Jackie Robinson movie

Michelle Obama praises Jackie Robinson movie 

First Lady Michelle Obama introduces a panel of the cast and crew of the movie "42", next to Rachel Robinson, widow of baseball great Jackie Robinson, before a workshop for high school and college students, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Michelle Obama said Tuesday that a new movie chronicling Jackie Robinson's rise through Major League Baseball, including the racial discrimination he endured while breaking the sport's color barrier in the 1940s, left her and the president "visibly, physically moved" after they saw it over the weekend.

The film, "42," also left the couple wondering "how on Earth did (the Robinsons) live through that. How did they do it? How did they endure the taunts and the bigotry for all of that time?" she said.

Mrs. Obama commented at a workshop for a group of high school and college students who saw the movie in the White House theater. Some of the students attend a Los Angeles charter school named for Robinson and others are undergraduate scholars in a program that bears the baseball great's name.

The students also participated in a question-and-answer session with Robinson's widow, Rachel, and members of the cast and crew, including Chadwick Boseman, who plays Robinson, Harrison Ford, who stars as former Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey, and director-screenwriter Brian Helgeland.

President Barack Obama held a separate screening of "42" for the cast and crew Tuesday evening.

Mrs. Obama said everyone should see the movie, which opens nationwide April 12.

"I can say with all sincerity that it was truly powerful for us," she said. "We walked away from that just visibly, physically moved by the experience of the movie, of the story," and the "raw emotion" they felt afterward.

The first lady added that she was also "struck by how far removed that way of life seems today," noting how times have changed despite progress still to be made toward eliminating racial discrimination.

"You can't imagine the baseball league not being integrated. There are no more "Whites Only" signs posted anywhere in this country. Although it still happens, it is far less acceptable for someone to yell out a racial slur while you're walking down the street," she told the students. "That kind of prejudice is simply just not something that can happen in the light of day today."

After playing for the Negro Baseball League and the International League, Robinson became Major League Baseball's first black player on April 15, 1947, batting for the Brooklyn Dodgers. His number was 42.

Barack Obama broke a similar barrier in politics by winning election in 2008 as the first black U.S. president.

Mrs. Obama said the Robinsons' story is a reminder of the hard work it takes to move a country forward.

"It reminds you how much struggle is required to make real progress and change," she said, echoing her husband.

NRA study suggests trained, armed school staffers

NRA study suggests trained, armed school staffers 

National School Shield Task Force Director, former Arkansas Rep. Asa Hutchinson gestures during a news conference at National Press Club in Washington, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, to discuss his groups's school-guns study. The National Rifle Association's study recommends schools across the nation each train and arm at least one staff member.

  

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate gun control debate on the near horizon, a National Rifle Association-sponsored report on Tuesday proposed a program for schools to train selected staffers as armed security officers. The former Republican congressman who headed the study suggested at least one protector with firearms for every school, saying it would speed responses to attacks.

The report's release served as the gun-rights group's answer to improving school safety after the gruesome December slayings of 20 first-graders and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. And it showed the organization giving little ground in its fight with President Barack Obama over curbing firearms.

Obama's chief proposals include broader background checks for gun buyers and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines - both of which the NRA opposes.

The study - unveiled at a news conference watched over by several burly, NRA-provided guards - made eight recommendations, including easing state laws that might bar a trained school staff member from carrying firearms and improving school coordination with law enforcement agencies. But drawing the most attention was its suggested 40- to 60-hour training for school employees who pass background checks to also provide armed protection while at work.

"The presence of an armed security personnel in a school adds a layer of security and diminishes the response time that is beneficial to the overall security," said Asa Hutchinson, a GOP former congressman from Arkansas who directed the study.

Asked whether every school would be better off with an armed security officer, Hutchinson replied, "Yes," but acknowledged the decision would be made locally.

It is unusual for guards to provide security at events that lack a major public figure at the National Press Club, which houses offices for many news organizations. NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said he did not know whether the guards were armed, and several guards declined to say if they were.

Hutchinson said school security could be provided by trained staff members or school resource officers - police officers assigned to schools that some districts already have.

Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said while a trained law enforcement officer with a gun would be valuable, his group opposes arming "a teacher or an employee who simply has taken a course and now has the ability to carry a weapon."

The Brady Campaign, a leading gun-control group, accused the NRA of "missing the point" by ignoring the need for expanded background checks and other measures the Senate is considering. It said people want "a comprehensive solution that not only addresses tragic school shootings, but also helps prevent the thousands of senseless gun deaths each year."

Also denouncing the recommendations was Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.5 million teachers and other workers. She called it a "cruel hoax that will fail to keep our children and schools safe" while helping only gun manufacturers.

The NRA released its report as congressional momentum seems to have stalled for any sweeping steps to curb firearms violence.

Top Senate Democrats have little hope for a proposed ban on assault weapons, and the prospects for barring large-capacity magazines also seem difficult. Key senators remain short of a bipartisan compromise on requiring gun transactions between private individuals to undergo federal background checks, which currently apply only to sales handled by licensed gun dealers. The Senate plans to begin debating gun legislation next week.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said administration officials were seeking middle ground and emphasized background checks, widely seen by gun control advocates as the most effective step available.

"We are working with lawmakers of both parties, and trying to achieve a compromise that can make this happen. Especially when it comes to the background checks," Carney told reporters.

The spokesman commented as a White House official revealed that the president plans a trip next week to Connecticut, scene of the horrific elementary school shootings that spurred the new push for gun control legislation. Obama wants to use the trip to build pressure on Congress to pass legislation.

Obama also plans to focus on firearms curbs in a trip Wednesday to Denver, not far from last summer's mass shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

The 225-page study cost the NRA more than $1 million, Hutchinson said. The task force included several former top officials of federal law enforcement and security agencies, including the Secret Service and Homeland Security Department.

Hutchinson acknowledged that the study omitted an earlier NRA recommendation that retired police officers and other volunteers be armed to provide school safety. He said the idea encountered "great reluctance" from school superintendents.

Hutchinson said the NRA did not interfere with his task force's work. In a written statement, the NRA said the report "will go a long way to making America's schools safer."

Hutchinson also called "totally inadequate" a gun control measure working through the Connecticut legislature that includes a tightening of the state's assault weapons ban. The measure wouldn't prevent an attacker with a handgun or other firearms from attacking a school, he said.

Debbie Leidlein, chairwoman of the Newtown Board of Education, said having trained staff members carry weapons "can become a dangerous situation to have any individuals outside of those who have police training to be carrying weapons around children."

But the proposal won support from Mark Mattioli, whose 6-year-old son James was killed at Newtown and who attended the NRA news conference.

"These are recommendations for solutions, real solutions that will make our kids safer," Mattioli said.

BENNER TOWNSHIP: Ceremony marks opening of Benner state prison; public tours of the facility continuing | News | CentreDaily.com

BENNER TOWNSHIP: Ceremony marks opening of Benner state prison; public tours of the facility continuing | News | CentreDaily.com

"...Lamas, who also serves as superintendent for neighboring Rockview state prison, said approximately 186 inmates will be transported to the prison each week until the facility is at full capacity — roughly 2,000 prisoners..." More at CentreDaily.com

2,000-year-old Damascus synagogue destroyed — RT News

2,000-year-old Damascus synagogue destroyed — RT News

A galvanizing moment for CeaseFirePA's executive director

A galvanizing moment for CeaseFirePA's executive director

"...In the four months since Newtown, Pennsylvania has added its mental-health records to a federal database; closed the so-called Florida loophole, which let Pennsylvanians apply for a Florida permit to carry a concealed weapon here even if they had been denied one; and converted a key vote in the U.S. Senate - Bob Casey, formerly a staunch NRA supporter.
But CeaseFirePA's more ambitious goals - universal background checks, mandatory reporting of lost and stolen guns, etc. - are still up for debate, and the clock is ticking. Goodman said it was important for gun-control supporters to build on the post-Newtown momentum..." More at Philly.com
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BRIC, BRICS or BRICSI? The Growing Challenge - NYTimes.com

BRIC, BRICS or BRICSI? The Growing Challenge - NYTimes.com