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Winter nor'easter sweeping into Northeast

Labels: Health

A major snowstorm is passing through the Great Lakes Thursday morning, and by Friday night could make travel nearly impossible in parts of the Northeast.

CBS News weather consultant David Bernard says there is a potential for historic snows and blizzard conditions across the Northeast, with as much as 2 feet of snow in some areas.

The National Weather Service says this nor'easter-type storm system will bring strong winds and heavy snow to the region, with eastern New England experiencing the greatest effects. A blizzard watch was issued for Boston and surrounding areas, including Rhode Island, and has now been extended to the eastern end of Long Island and most of Connecticut.

A coastal flooding watch also is in effect for some shore communities in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Long Island.

Beginning late Thursday most of the Northeast will be under a winter storm watch. The snow will start Friday morning, with the heaviest amounts dumped going into Saturday as the storm moves past New England and upstate New York, the weather service said.

Bernard says the storm system - an area of low pressure over the Carolinas - is going to rapidly move to the Northeast during the day Friday; by Friday evening it may start as rain along the coast, but inland areas will get snow.

Late Friday night into Saturday morning, Bernard said, it should be all snow across the Northeast and New England. He said up to 2 feet of snow is not out of the question.

"This has the potential for being a dangerous storm, especially for Massachusetts into northeast Connecticut and up into Maine," said Louis Uccellini, director of the weather agency's National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

The storm would hit just after the 35th anniversary of the historic blizzard of 1978, which paralyzed the region with more than 2 feet of snow and hurricane force winds.

In New York City Friday's rain will turn to snow, with the potential of 6, maybe 12 inches of snow, Bernard said.

Assuming the snow clears out by the weekend with no major problems, ski areas in Massachusetts were excited by the prospect of the first major snowstorm they've seen since October 2011.

Tom Meyers, marketing director for Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton, Mass., said that at an annual conference of the National Ski Areas Association in Vermont this week, many participants were "buzzing" about the storm. He said the snow will arrive at an especially opportune time — a week before many schools in Massachusetts have February vacation.

"It is perfect timing because it will just remind everybody that it is winter, it's real, and get out and enjoy it," Meyers said.

"We'll be here with bells on," said Christopher Kitchin, inside operations manager at Nashoba Valley Ski Area in Westford, Mass. "People are getting excited. They want to get out in the snow and go snow-tubing, skiing and snowboarding."

At Mount Snow in Vermont, spokesman Dave Meeker said the true value of the storm will be driving traffic from southern New England northward.

"It's great when we get snow, but it's a tremendous help when down-country gets snow," he said. "When they have snow in their backyards, they're inspired."

Ex-LA Cop Sought in Shootings of 3 Cops, 2 Slayings

Labels: Business

Police in Southern California say they suspect that a fired cop is connected to the shootings -- one fatal -- of three police officers this morning, as well as the weekend slayings of an assistant women's college basketball coach and her fiancé in what cops believe are acts of revenge against the LAPD, as suggested in the suspect's online manifesto.

Former police officer Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, who's also a former U.S. Navy reservist, has been publically named as a suspect in the killings of Monica Quan, 28, and her 27-year-old fiancé, Keith Lawrence, Irvine police Chief David L. Maggard said at a news conference Wednesday night.

"We are considering him armed and dangerous," Lt. Julia Engen of the Irvine Police Department said.

Police say the expert marksman shot at four officers in two incidents overnight, hitting three of them: one in Corona, Calif., and two in Riverside, Calif.

Sgt. Rudy Lopez of the LAPD said two LAPD officers were in Corona and headed out on special detail to check on one of the individuals named in Dorner's manifesto. Dorner allegedly grazed one of them but missed the other.

"[This is an] extremely tense situation," Lopez said. "We call this a manhunt. We approach it cautiously because of the propensity of what has already happened."

The Riverside Police Department said two of its officers were shot before one of them died, KABC-TV reported. The extent of the other's injuries is unclear.
Police suspected a connection to Dorner.

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"They were on routine patrol stopped at a stop light when they were ambushed," Lt. Guy Toussant of the Riverside police department said.

A badge and identification belonging to Dorner have been found in San Diego, according to San Diego police Sgt. Ray Battrick. Dorner's LAPD badge and ID were found by someone near the city's airport, and turned in to police overnight, The Associated Press reported.

Police around Southern California are wearing tactical gear, including helmets and guns across their chests. The light-up signs along California highways show the license plate number of Dorner's car, and say to call 911 if it is seen. The problem, police say, is that they believe Dorner is switching license plates on his car, a 2005 charcoal-gray Nissan Titan pickup truck.

Lawrence was found slumped behind the wheel of his white Kia in the parking lot of their upscale apartment complex in Irvine Sunday and Quan was in the passenger seat.

"A particular interest at this point in the investigation is a multi-page manifesto in which the suspect has implicated himself in the slayings," Maggard said.

Police said Dorner's manifesto included threats against members of the LAPD. Police say they are taking extra measures to ensure the safety of officers and their families.

The document, allegedly posted on an Internet message board this week, apparently blames Quan's father, retired LAPD Capt. Randy Quan, for his firing from the department.

"Your lack of ethics and conspiring to wrong a just individual are over," he allegedly wrote.

One passage from the manifesto reads, "I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty."

"I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own," it reads. "I'm terminating yours."

Dorner was with the department from 2005 until 2008, when he was fired for making false statements.

Randy Quan, who became a lawyer in retirement, represented Dorner in front of the Board of Rights, a tribunal that ruled against Dorner at the time of his dismissal, LAPD Capt. William Hayes told The Associated Press Wednesday night.

According to documents from a court of appeals hearing in October 2011, Dorner was fired from the LAPD after he made a complaint against his field-training officer, Sgt. Teresa Evans, saying in the course of an arrest she had kicked a suspect who was a schizophrenic with severe dementia.

After an investigation, Dorner was fired for making false statements.

Should we still fear al Qaeda?

Labels: World

Mali military battles Islamist insurgents

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Peter Bergen: U.K. politicians called North Africa terror an existential threat

Bergen says core al Qaeda has been greatly weakened, hasn't mounted serious operations

Terror groups loosely affiliated with al Qaeda have also lost ground, he says

Bergen: Jihadist violence does continue, but it does no good to overstate threat

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad", and a director at the New America Foundation.

Washington (CNN) -- The attack in January on a gas facility in Algeria by an al Qaeda-linked group that resulted in at least 37 dead hostages has sparked an outpouring of dire warnings from leading Western politicians.

British Prime Minister David Cameron described a "large and existential threat" emanating from North Africa. Tony Blair, his predecessor as prime minister, agreed saying, "David Cameron is right to warn that this is a battle for our values and way of life which will take years, even decades."

Hang on chaps! Before we all get our knickers in a tremendous twist: How exactly does an attack on an undefended gas facility in the remotest depths of the Algerian desert become an "existential threat" to our "way of life"?

Across the Atlantic, American politicians also got into sky-is-falling mode. Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, fulminated, "This is going to get worse. You cannot allow this to become a national security issue for the United States. And I argue it's already crossed that threshold."

Peter Bergen

Previous real U.S. national security threats and their manifestations include 9/11, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (from the potential use of nuclear weapons) with the Soviets, Pearl Harbor and Hitler's armies taking over much of Europe.

A ragtag group of jihadists roaming the North African deserts is orders of magnitude less significant than those genuine threats to the West and is more comparable to the threats posed by the bands of pirates who continue to harass shipping off the coast of Somalia. They are surely a problem, but a localized and containable one.

Western politicians and commentators who claim that the al Qaeda linked groups in North Africa are a serious threat to the West unnecessarily alarm their publics and also feed the self-image of these terrorists who aspire to attack the West, but don't have the capacity to do so. Terrorism doesn't work if folks aren't terrorized.

North African group hasn't attacked in the West

Western politicians and commentators who claim that the al Qaeda linked groups in North Africa are a serious threat to the West unnecessarily alarm their publics...
Peter Bergen

Much has been written, for instance, in recent weeks about al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al Qaeda's North African affiliate, a splinter group of which carried out the attack on the Algerian gas facility. But according to Camille Tawil, who has authoritatively covered Islamist militant groups over the past two decades for the leading Arabic daily Al-Hayat and has written three books about al Qaeda, AQIM doesn't threaten the West: "To my knowledge no known attacks or aborted attacks in the West have been linked directly to AQIM."

AQIM was formed seven years ago so the group has had more than enough time to plot and carry out an attack in the West. By way of comparison, it took two years of serious plotting for al Qaeda to plan the 9/11 attacks.

So, what is the real level of threat now posed by al Qaeda and allied groups?

Let's start with "core al Qaeda" which attacked the United States on 9/11 and that is headquartered in Pakistan. This group hasn't, of course, been able to pull off an attack in the United States in twelve years. Nor has it been able to mount an attack anywhere in the West since the attacks on London's transportation system eight years ago.

Core al Qaeda on way to extinction

Osama bin Laden, the group's founder and charismatic leader, was buried at sea a year and half ago and despite concerns that his "martyrdom" would provoke a rash of attacks in the West or against Western interests in the Muslim world there has instead been.... nothing.

Meanwhile, CIA drone strikes in Pakistan during President Obama's tenure alone have killed 38 of al Qaeda's leaders in Pakistan, according to a count by the New America Foundation.

Those drone strikes were so effective that shortly before bin Laden died he was contemplating ordering what remained of al Qaeda to move to Kunar Province in the remote, heavily forested mountains of eastern Afghanistan, according to documents that were discovered following the SEAL assault on the compound where bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Core al Qaeda is going the way of the dodo.

Affiliates are no better off

And a number of the affiliates of core al Qaeda are in just as bad shape as the mother ship.

Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the virulent Southeast Asian al Qaeda affiliate that killed hundreds in the years after 9/11 is largely out of business. Why so? JI killed mostly Westerners in its first attacks on the tourist island of Bali in 2002, but the subsequent Bali attack three years later killed mostly Indonesians. So too did JI's attacks on the Marriott hotel in the capital Jakarta in 2003 and the Australian embassy in 2004. As a result, JI lost any shred of popular support it had once enjoyed.

At the same time the Indonesian government, which at one point had denied that JI even existed, mounted a sophisticated campaign to dismantle the group, capturing many of its leaders and putting them on trial.

In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf Group, a number of whose leaders had trained in Afghanistan in al Qaeda's camps, and which specialized in kidnapping Westerners in the years after 9/11, was effectively dismantled by the Philippine army working in tandem with a small contingent of U.S. Special Operations Forces.

In Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban in 2009 took over the once-tranquil mountainous vacation destination of Swat, and destroyed some 180 schools and beheaded 70 policemen there. Suddenly, they were only 70 miles from the capital Islamabad and some warned that the Pakistani state was in danger. Today, the Pakistani Taliban have been rolled back to their bases along the Afghan border and 16 of their leaders have been killed by CIA drones since President Obama took office.

Al Qaeda militants based in Saudi Arabia mounted a terrorist campaign beginning in 2003 that killed dozens of Saudis, and they also attacked a number of the oil workers and oil facilities that lie at the heart of the Saudi economy. This prompted the Saudi government to mount such an effective crackdown that the few remaining al Qaeda leaders who were not killed or captured have in recent years fled south to Yemen where the remnants of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are now based.

From its new headquarters in Yemen AQAP has made serious efforts to attack the United States, sending the "underwear bomber" to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 and also smuggling bombs on to U.S.-bound cargo shipments in October 2010.

None of these attempts were successful.

Yemen militants decimated

As a result of the threat posed by AQAP, the United States has mounted a devastating campaign against the group over the past three years. There was one American drone strike in Yemen in 2009. In 2012 there were 46. That drone campaign has killed 28 prominent members of the group, according to a count by the New America Foundation. Among them was the No. 2 in AQAP, Said al-Shihri, who was confirmed to be dead last week.

In the chaos of the multiple civil wars that gripped Yemen in 2011, AQAP seized a number of towns in southern Yemen. But AQAP has now been pushed out of those towns because of effective joint operations between U.S. Special Operations Forces, the CIA and the Yemeni government.

The Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, even went to the United Nations General Assembly in September where he publicly endorsed the use of CIA drones in his country, something of a first.

A couple of years ago, al Qaeda's Somali affiliate, Al- Shabaab ("the youth" in Arabic) controlled much of southern Somalia including key cities such as the capital Mogadishu.

Once in a position of power, Shaabab inflicted Taliban-like rule on a reluctant Somali population, which eroded its popular legitimacy. Shabaab was also the target of effective military operations by the military of neighboring Kenya, troops of the African Union and U.S. Special Operation Forces.

As a result, today the group controls only some rural areas and for the first time in two decades the United States has formally recognized a Somali government.

Mali conflict shows weakness of jihadist militant groups

Similarly, groups with an al Qaeda-like agenda captured most of northern Mali last year, a vast desert region the size of France. Once in power they imposed Taliban-like strictures on the population, banning smoking and music and enforcing their interpretation of Sharia law with the amputation of hands. The militants also destroyed tombs in the ancient city of Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, on the grounds that the tombs promoted "idol worship."

None of these measures endeared the jihadist militants to the population of Mali. In the past weeks, as a relatively small force of some 2,000 French soldiers has rolled through Mali putting the militants on the run, the French have been cheered on by dancing and singing Malians.

When French soldiers are greeted as an army of liberation in an area of the world that in the past century was part of a vast French empire, you can get a sense of how much the jihadist militants had alienated the locals.

Last week the French military took the city of Timbuktu. The defeat of the al Qaeda-linked groups as effective insurgent forces in Mali is now almost complete.

What has just happened in Mali gets to the central problem that jihadist militant groups invariably have. Wherever they begin to control territory and population they create self-styled Islamic "emirates" where they then rule like the Taliban.

Over time this doesn't go down too well with the locals, who usually practice a far less austere version of Islam, and they eventually rise up against the militants, or, if they are too weak to do so themselves, they will cheer on an outside intervention to turf out the militants.

The classical example of this happened in Iraq where al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) controlled Anbar Province, about a third of the country in 2006. AQI cadres ruled with an iron fist and imposed their ultrafundamentalist rule on their fellow Sunnis, who they killed if they felt they were deviating from their supposedly purist Islamic precepts.

This provoked the "Sunni Awakening" of Iraqi tribes that rose up against AQI. These tribes then allied with the U.S. military and by the end of 2007 AQI went from an insurgent group that controlled vast territories to a terrorist group that controlled little but was still able to pull off occasional spectacular terrorist attacks in Baghdad.

Jihadist violence still a threat

The collapse of core al Qaeda and a number of its key affiliates does not, of course, mean that jihadist violence is over. Such religiously motivated mayhem has been a feature of the Muslim world for many centuries. Recall the Assassins, a Shia sect that from its base in what is now Iran dispatched cutthroats armed with daggers to kill its enemies around the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries. In so doing the sect gave the world the useful noun "assassin."

And so while core al Qaeda and several of its affiliates and like-minded groups are in terrible shape, there are certainly groups with links to al Qaeda or animated by its ideology that are today enjoying something of a resurgence.

Most of these groups do not call themselves al Qaeda, which is a smart tactic, as even bin Laden himself was advising his Somali affiliate, Al Shabaab, not to use the al Qaeda name as it would turn off fundraisers because the shine had long gone off the al Qaeda brand, according to documents recovered at bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

One such militant group is the Nigerian Boko Haram, which bombed the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria in 2011 and has also attacked a wide range of Christian targets in the country. However, the group has shown "no capability to attack the West and also has no known members outside of West Africa," according to Virginia Comolli of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies who tracks the group.

Ansar al-Sharia, "Supporters of Sharia," is the name taken by the militant group in Libya that carried out the attack against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in September in which four Americans were killed. Similarly, in Yemen militants that are aligned with al Qaeda have labeled themselves Ansar al-Sharia.

But this new branding hasn't done the militants much good in either country. In Libya, shortly after the attack on the U.S. consulate, an enraged mob stormed and took over Ansar al Sharia's headquarters in Benghazi. And, as we have seen, in Yemen the jihadists have now been forced out of the towns in the south that they had once held.

One strong foothold in Syria

The one country where jihadist militants have a serious foothold and are likely to play an important role for some period in the future is in Syria. That is because of a perfect storm there that favors them. The Sunni militants in Syria are fighting the regime of Bashir al Assad, a secular dictator who is also an Alawite, which many Muslims believe to be a heretical branch of Shiism.

For the jihadists, Assad's secularism makes him an apostate and his Alawi roots also make him a heretic, while his brutal tactics make him an international pariah. This trifecta makes funding the Sunni insurgency highly attractive for donors in the Gulf.

And for the Arabs who form the heart of al Qaeda the fight against Assad is in the heart of the Arab world, a contest that happens to border also on the hated state of Israel. Also Syria was for much of the past decade the entry point for many hundreds of foreign fighters who poured into Iraq to join Al Qaeda in Iraq following the American invasion of the country. As a result, al Qaeda has long had an infrastructure both in Syria and, of course, in neighboring Iraq.

The Al Nusra Front is the name of arguably the most effective fighting force in Syria. In December the State Department publicly said that Al Nusra, which is estimated to number in the low thousands and about 10% of the fighters arrayed against Assad, was a front for Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

Al Nusra certainly seems to have learned from AQI's mistakes. For starters, it doesn't call itself al Qaeda. Secondly, it hasn't launched a campaign to crack down on social issues such as smoking or listening to music and so has not alienated the local Sunni population as AQI did in Iraq.

Barak Barfi, a journalist and fellow at the New America Foundation who has spent several months on the ground in Aleppo in northwestern Syria reporting on the opposition to Assad, says Nusra fighters stand out for their bravery and discipline: "They are winning over the hearts and minds of Aleppo residents who see them as straight shooters. There is a regimented recruiting process that weeds out the chaff. Their bases are highly organized with each person given specific responsibilities."

Arab Spring countries seen as an opportunity

The chaotic conditions of several of the countries of the "Arab Spring" are certainly something al Qaeda views as an opportunity. Ayman al-Zawahiri the leader of the group, has issued 27 audio and video statements since the death of bin Laden, 10 of which have focused on the Arab countries that have experienced the revolutions of the past two years.

But if history is a guide, the jihadist militants, whether in Syria or elsewhere, are likely to repeat the mistakes and failures that their fellow militants have experienced during the past decade in countries as disparate as Somalia, the Philippines, Yemen, Iraq, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and now, Mali.

That's because encoded in the DNA of al Qaeda and like-minded groups are the seeds of their own destruction because in power they rule like the Taliban, and they also attack fellow Muslims who don't follow their dictates to the letter. This doesn't mesh very well with these organizations' claims that they are the defenders of Muslims.

These groups also have no real plans for the multiple political and economic problems that beset much of the Islamic world. And they won't engage in normal politics such as elections believing them to be "un-Islamic."

This is invariably a recipe for irrelevance or defeat. In not one nation in the Muslim world since 9/11 has a jihadist militant group seized control of a country. And al Qaeda and its allies' record of effective attacks in the West has been non-existent since 2005.

With threats like these we can all sleep soundly at night.

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Boeing 787 probe results weeks away, says NTSB chief

Labels: Technology

WASHINGTON: The results of the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation into the causes of a battery fire on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner are expected in the coming weeks, NTSB chair Deborah Hersman said on Wednesday.

"We're probably weeks away from being able to tell people what happened and what needs to be changed," Hersman said at a news conference.

The NTSB chief said investigators were "proceeding with a lot of care" in probing the cause of a January 7 lithium-ion battery fire on a Japan Airlines 787 that occurred as the plane sat on the tarmac at Boston's Logan airport.

Hersman said the most concerning issues seen in the probe so far were short circuits and thermal runaway, an uncontrolled chemical reaction that produces rising temperatures.

"These factors are not what we expected to see in a brand-new battery," she said.

The battery problem on the JAL 787, and another on an All Nippon Airways 787, led to a global grounding of all 50 Dreamliners in service until the issue is fixed.

The NTSB will hold a news conference on Thursday to update the public on the 787 investigation, Hersman said.

- AFP/de

Defense chief: Budget cuts could ground some planes

Labels: Lifestyle

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Speaker Boehner accuses Democrats of avoiding needed spending cuts

Secretary Panetta says political partisanship threatens U.S. stability

"This is not a game. This is reality," Panetta says of reduced readiness

The across-the-board cuts will take effect March 1 unless Congress acts

Washington (CNN) -- Furloughed workers, reduced combat readiness, shrunken naval operations and cuts to Air Force flying hours and weapons maintenance.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta listed those consequences as he provided a stark warning Wednesday about the effects of impending budget cuts on the military. The result, he said, would be "the most serious readiness crisis" faced by the military in over a decade.

Panetta's address at Georgetown University in Washington, which he called "hopefully one of my last speeches as secretary of defense," included the first details of how the Pentagon would deal with the automatic spending cuts -- or sequestration in congressional jargon -- set to trigger March 1.

For the Department of Defense, sequestration means $46 billion in spending cuts this year, which would result in "a serious disruption in defense programs and a sharp decline in our military readiness," Panetta said.

Opinion: How to avoid job-killing budget cuts

"There are no good options" to deal with the situation, he continued, saying 46,000 department jobs would be at risk and more damaging measures in coming months could include:

-- Furloughing as many as 800,000 civilian workers for up to 22 days;

-- Cutting back on Army training and maintenance, which would reduce readiness of combat brigades outside Afghanistan;

-- Shrinking naval operations; and,

-- Reducing Air Force flying hours and weapons systems maintenance.

"This is not a game. This is reality," Panetta said, his voice rising. "These steps would seriously damage a fragile American economy and they would degrade our ability to respond to crisis precisely at a time of rising instability across the globe."

His comments sought to increase pressure on Republicans and Democrats to reach agreement on deficit-reduction steps, thereby avoiding the across-the-board spending cuts of sequestration that were part of a 2011 deal that raised the federal debt ceiling.

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama called for a short-term deal to put off the cuts so Congress could continue work on a permanent fix that provides desired reductions in the federal deficit.

Obama made clear that he still wants a broader deficit-reduction agreement with Republicans that includes spending cuts, entitlement reforms and increased revenue from eliminating some tax breaks.

However, Obama said, with time running out before the sequestration cuts slash government spending and result in job losses and economic slowdown, Congress should pass a temporary fix that would allow time for further negotiations on a broader plan.

"Our economy right now is headed in the right direction and it will stay that way as long as there aren't any more self-inflicted wounds coming out of Washington," he said. "So let's keep on chipping away at this problem together, as Democrats and Republicans, to give our workers and our businesses the support that they need to thrive in the weeks and months ahead."

In response, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, accused Obama and Democrats of avoiding needed spending cuts and trying put off tough decisions instead of facing their responsibilities as elected leaders.

"At some point, Washington has to deal with its spending problem," Boehner told reporters Wednesday. "I've watched them kick this can down the road for 22 years. I've had enough of it. It's time to act."

He also echoed Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in saying that further deficit-reduction steps should focus on spending cuts and reforming entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, rejecting Obama's call for including more tax revenue in the mix.

Opinion: Republicans, be smart about defense cuts

In the 2011 debt ceiling deal that ended a showdown over whether to increase the federal government's borrowing limit to meet its obligations, Congress and the White House agreed to include the automatic spending cuts of sequestration as motivation to pass a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan.

Deep partisan divisions prevented such an agreement from happening in 2012, an election year. Initially the cuts were to go into effect on January 2, but the government delayed the impact of sequestration for the first two months of 2013.

In his speech, Panetta referred to what he described as "partisan dysfunction in Congress" that he said threatens the quality of life and national security of the nation.

Instead of making tough decisions to resolve problems, political leaders from both parties let issues become crises that require immediate but insufficient responses, he said.

"It's the easy way out," Panetta said, adding that there is a price to be paid for such an approach.

"You lose the trust of the American people," he said. "You create an aura of constant uncertainty that pervades every issue and gradually undermines the very credibility of the nation."

Referring specifically to sequestration, he said: "There isn't anybody I've talked to on Capitol Hill that doesn't think this is crazy."

Obama said Tuesday that he still supports a broader deficit deal and made clear that revenue from tax reform measures previously agreed to by Republicans -- such as eliminating some loopholes to increase revenue for the government -- should be part of it.

However, he noted that it is unlikely Congress will reach a deficit-reduction deal by March 1 to render the sequestration cuts moot.

"If they can't get a bigger package done by the time the sequester is scheduled to go into effect, then I believe that they should at least pass a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms that would delay the economically damaging effects of the sequester for a few more months until Congress finds a way to replace these cuts with a smarter solution," Obama said.

Boehner reacted to news of Obama's plan by saying it was the president who "first proposed the sequester and insisted it become law."

Reiterating the longstanding position of Republicans in budget negotiations, Boehner called for replacing the sequester plan with spending cuts and reforms -- a reference to changes in entitlement programs.

A last-second agreement in the previous Congress that passed in the first days of 2013 raised tax rates on top income earners as part of a limited deficit-reduction package.

That measure followed weeks of tough negotiations involving Obama and Congress in which other steps to increase government revenue, such as eliminating some tax breaks for corporations, were considered but not included in the final deal.

How our tribes cause gridlock in Congress

Obama and Democrats now want such revenue-raising steps to be part of a package that would replace the mandated deficit reduction of the sequester cuts.

McConnell expressed his opposition to such a move Tuesday, saying, "The American people will not support more tax hikes in place of the meaningful spending reductions both parties already agreed to and the president signed into law."

Federal spending cuts under sequestration total more than $1 trillion over 10 years, half of which would come from the Pentagon.

Obama's push to avoid those cuts comes a week before he outlines his second-term agenda in the State of the Union address.

Congress, which authorizes federal spending, has failed to pass detailed annual budgets in recent years due to partisan gridlock over spending and debt, as well as electoral politics.

Instead, it has approved a series of extensions of past spending authorizations -- called continuing resolutions -- to keep the government funded.

Temporarily extending the sequester deadline would follow a similar move by congressional Republicans last month on raising the nation's debt ceiling. That deal put off further wrangling on the federal borrowing limit until mid-May.

Some analysts warn that Washington's fiscal paralysis harms the nation's fragile economy and could bring another recession.

CNN's Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

Boy Scouts leaders make announcement on gay ban

Labels: Health

Updated at 11:07 a.m. ET

IRVING, Texas The Boy Scouts of America put off a decision Wednesday on whether to lift its ban on gay members and leaders, saying the question will be taken up at the organization's national meeting in May.

"After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America's National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy," Deron Smith, the BSA director of public relations, said in a statement.

Smith said the organization's national executive board will prepare a resolution for the 1,400 voting members of the national council to consider. The annual meeting will take place in May 2013 in Grapevine, Texas.

BSA announced last week it was considering allowing troops to decide whether to allow gay membership. That news has placed a spotlight on executive board meetings that began Monday in Irving, Texas, where scouting headquarters is located.

Smith said last week that the board could take a vote Wednesday or decide to discuss the policy, but that the organization would issue a statement either way. Otherwise, the board has remained silent, with reporters barred from the hotel where its meetings are taking place.

At nearby BSA headquarters, a handful of Scouts and leaders delivered petitions Monday in support of letting gay members join. The conservative group Texas Values, meanwhile, had organized a Wednesday morning prayer vigil urging the Scouts to keep their policy the same.

Play Video

Obama on women in combat, gay Boy Scouts

President Obama, an opponent of the policy, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Eagle Scout who supports it, both have weighed in.

"My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life," said Mr. Obama, who as U.S. president is the honorary president of BSA, in a Sunday interview with CBS News.

Perry, the author of the book "On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For," said in a speech Saturday that "to have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate."

The board faces several choices, none of which is likely to quell controversy. Standing pat would go against the public wishes of two high-profile board members — Ernst & Young CEO James Turley and AT&T Inc. CEO Randall Stephenson — who run companies with nondiscrimination policies and have said they would work from within to change the Scouts' policy.

Conservatives have warned of mass defections if Scouting allows gay membership to be determined by troops. Local and regional leaders, as well as the leadership of churches that sponsor troops, would be forced to consider their own policies. And policy opponents who delivered four boxes of signatures to BSA headquarters Monday said they wouldn't be satisfied by only a partial acceptance of gay scouts and leaders.

"We don't want to see Scouting gerrymandered into blue and red districts," said Brad Hankins, campaign director of Scouts for Equality.

US Postal Service to End Saturday Mail Delivery

Labels: Business

Feb 6, 2013 8:28am

Weekend mail delivery is about to come to an end.

The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays, but will continue to deliver packages six days a week, the USPS announced at a news conference this morning.

While post offices that open on Saturdays will continue to do so, the initiative, which is expected to begin the week of August 5, will save an estimated $2 billion annually. The USPS had a $15.9 billion loss in financial year 2012.

“America’s mailing habits are changing and so are their shipping habits,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said. “People will say this is a responsible decision. It makes common sense.”

The service reduction is the latest of Postal Service steps to cut costs as the independent agency of the U.S. government struggles with its finances.

To close its budget gap and reduce debt, it needs to generate $20 billion in cost reductions.

USPS officials have pushed for eliminating mail and package delivery on Saturdays for the past few years, but recent data showing growth in package delivery, which is up by 14 percent since 2010, and projected additional growth in the coming decade made them revise their decision to continue package delivery only.

Saturday mail delivery to P.O. boxes will also continue.

Research by the post office and major news organizations indicated that 7 out of 10 Americans support switching to five-day service.

Since 2006, the Postal Service has reduced annual costs by $15 billion, cut the career force by 28 percent and consolidated 200 mail-processing locations.

The USPS announced in May it was cutting back on the number of operating hours instead of shuttering 3,700 rural post offices. The move, which reduced hours of operation at 13,000 rural post offices from an eight-hour day to between two and six hours a day, was made with the aim of saving about $500 million per year.

The cutback in hours last year resulted in 9,000 full-time postal employees’ being reduced to part time plus the loss of their benefits, while another 4,000 full-time employees became part time but kept their benefits.

gty us postal service lpl 130206 wblog U.S. Postal Service to End Saturday Mail Delivery

(Image Credit: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Richard III 'still the criminal king'

Labels: World

Richard III on stage and screen

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Dan Jones: Richard III's remains found; some see chance to redeem his bad reputation

Jones says the bones reveal and confirm his appearance, how he died and his injuries

Nothing changes his rep as a usurper of the Crown who likely had nephews killed, Jones says

Jones: Richard good or bad? Truth likely somewhere in between

Editor's note: Dan Jones is a historian and newspaper columnist based in London. His new book, "The Plantagenets" (Viking) is published in the US this Spring. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Richard III is the king we British just can't seem to make our minds up about.

The monarch who reigned from 1483 to 1485 became, a century later, the blackest villain of Shakespeare's history plays. The three most commonly known facts of his life are that he stole the Crown, murdered his nephews and died wailing for a horse at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. His death ushered in the Tudor dynasty, so Richard often suffers the dual ignominy of being named the last "medieval" king of England -- in which medieval is not held to be a good thing.

Like any black legend, much of it is slander.

Richard did indeed usurp the Crown and lose at Bosworth. He probably had his nephews killed too -- it is unknowable but overwhelmingly likely. Yet as his many supporters have been busy telling us since it was announced Monday that Richard's lost skeleton was found in a car park in Leicester, he wasn't all bad. In fact, he was for most of his life loyal and conscientious.

Dan Jones

To fill you in, a news conference held at the University of Leicester Monday confirmed what archaeologists working there have suspected for months: that a skeleton removed from under a parking lot in the city center last fall was indeed the long-lost remains of Richard III.

His official burial place -- under the floor of a church belonging to the monastic order of the Greyfriars -- had been lost during the dissolution of the monasteries that was carried out in the 1530s under Henry VIII. A legend grew up that the bones had been thrown in a river. Today, we know they were not.

What do the bones tell us?

Well, they show that Richard -- identified by mitochondrial DNA tests against a Canadian descendant of his sister, Anne of York -- was about 5-foot-8, suffered curvature of the spine and had delicate limbs. He had been buried roughly and unceremoniously in a shallow grave too small for him, beneath the choir of the church.

He had died from a slicing blow to the back of the head sustained during battle and had suffered many other "humiliation injuries" after his death, including having a knife or dagger plunged into his hind parts. His hands may have been tied at his burial. A TV show aired Monday night in the UK was expected to show a facial reconstruction from the skull.

Opinion: What will the finding of Richard III mean?

In other words, we have quite a lot of either new or confirmed biographical information about Richard.

He was not a hunchback, but he was spindly and warped. He died unhorsed. He was buried where it was said he was buried. He very likely was, as one source had said, carried roughly across a horse's back from the battlefield where he died to Leicester, stripped naked and abused all the way.

All this is known today thanks to a superb piece of historical teamwork.

The interdisciplinary team at Leicester that worked toward Monday's revelations deserves huge plaudits. From the desk-based research that pinpointed the spot to dig, to the digging itself, to the bone analysis, the DNA work and the genealogy that identified Richard's descendants, all of it is worthy of the highest praise. Hat-tips, too, to the Richard III Society, as well as Leicester's City Council, which pulled together to make the project happen and also to publicize the society and city so effectively.

However, should anyone today tell you that Richard's skeleton somehow vindicates his historical reputation, you may tell them they are talking horsefeathers.

Back from the grave, King Richard III gets rehab

Richard III got a rep for a reason. He usurped the Crown from a 12-year old boy, who later died.

This was his great crime, and there is no point denying it. It is true that before this crime, Richard was a conspicuously loyal lieutenant to the boy's father, his own brother, King Edward IV. It is also true that once he was king, Richard made a great effort to promote justice to the poor and needy, stabilize royal finances and contain public disorder.

But this does not mitigate that he stole the Crown, justifying it after the fact with the claim that his nephews were illegitimate. Likewise, it remains indisputably true that his usurpation threw English politics, painstakingly restored to some order in the 12 years before his crime, into a turmoil from which it did not fully recover for another two decades.

So the discovery of Richard's bones is exciting. But it does not tell us anything to justify changing the current historical view of Richard: that the Tudor historians and propagandists, culminating with Shakespeare, may have exaggerated his physical deformities and the horrors of Richard's character, but he remains a criminal king whose actions wrought havoc on his realm.

Unfortunately, we don't all want to hear that. Richard remains the only king with a society devoted to rehabilitating his name, and it is a trait of some "Ricardians" to refuse to acknowledge any criticism of their hero whatever. So despite today's discovery, we Brits are likely to remain split on Richard down the old lines: murdering, crook-backed, dissembling Shakespearean monster versus misunderstood, loyal, enlightened, slandered hero. Which is the truth?

Somewhere in between. That's a classic historian's answer, isn't it? But it's also the truth.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Jones.

BP profits slide on US oil spill fallout

Labels: Technology

LONDON: British energy giant BP on Tuesday said its net profits slumped by more than half last year on fines and asset sales linked to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, ahead of a US trial later this month.

Earnings after tax tumbled 54 percent to $11.58 billion (8.6 billion euros) in 2012, compared with $25.7 billion in 2011, BP said in a results statement.

Adjusted net profit, stripping out fluctuations in the value of inventories, plunged by almost 50 percent to $11.99 billion.

The London-listed group took a pre-tax charge of $4.1 billion for the fourth quarter in relation to the Gulf of Mexico disaster, taking its total clean-up bill to $42.2 billion.

Profits were hit also by divestments, including the sale of BP's 50-percent stake in the troubled Russian joint venture TNK-BP to the main Russian oil producer Rosneft.

BP added it was still assessing the impact of the deadly attack at its joint venture in the In Amenas gas site in Algeria last month, but remained committed to the country.

The energy major also revealed it had reached its target to sell $38 billion of assets a year earlier than originally planned, as it sought to meet the bill for the oil spill costs.

However, the sell-offs pushed annual production lower. Output sank more than five percent to 2.319 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, excluding TNK-BP's output.

The results were issued one week after a US judge approved a $4.5-billion deal in which BP pleaded guilty to criminal charges from the 2010 oil spill.

The devastating blast on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010 killed 11 people and unleashed some 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

Later this month, BP will face a mammoth trial consolidating scores of remaining lawsuits stemming from the worst environmental disaster to strike the United States.

It must also still resolve a civil case on environmental fines which could amount to as much as $18 billion if gross negligence is found. BP also remains on the hook for billions in economic damages, including the cost of environmental rehabilitation.

Despite plunging profits, chief executive Bob Dudley argued that the group was well positioned for long-term growth.

"We have moved past many milestones in 2012, repositioning BP through divestments and bringing on new projects. This lays a solid foundation for growth into the long-term," said Dudley in Tuesday's earnings release.

"Moving through 2013 we will deliver further operational milestones and remain on track for delivery of our ten-point strategic plan, including our target for operating cash flow growth, by 2014," he added.

BP shares rose 1.67 percent to stand at 469.75 pence in late trading on London's FTSE 100 index, which was up 0.71 percent to 6,291.47 points.

The company's results were meanwhile published three weeks after a fatal Islamist attack on the BP-operated In Amenas gas plant, in a hostage-taking siege that ended with the deaths of almost 40 captives, mostly foreigners.

"We are working with our partners to assess the impact of the incident and intend to resume activities when it is safe to do so," BP said on Tuesday.

"BP remains committed to operating in Algeria, where we have high-quality assets and have been present for over 60 years."

The In Amenas gas field is a joint venture between BP, Norwegian group Statoil and Algerian state-owned oil firm Sonatrach.

-AFP/ac

Source: Authorities feared kidnapper's mental state

Labels: Lifestyle

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Jimmy Lee Dykes' mental state was declining, a law enforcement source says

NEW: The FBI's hostage rescue team freed the boy, the source says

NEW: An FBI shooting review board is on its way to the scene, a spokesman says

NEW: The boy remains hospitalized, his school principal says

Midland City, Alabama (CNN) -- The rescue of a kindergartner from the underground bunker where he had been held for almost a week was precipitated by concerns the kidnapper's mental state was in sudden decline, a law enforcement source close to the investigation said Tuesday.

Authorities have said little publicly about the Monday rescue that killed 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes and freed his 5-year-old captive just two days before the boy's birthday.

But the law enforcement source said Dykes' mental state deteriorated in the 24 hours before the Monday afternoon rescue, and experts from FBI units, including a crisis negotiation team, tactical intelligence officers and a behavioral sciences unit, determined he was in a downward psychological spiral.

The FBI's hostage rescue team forced its way into the bunker and rescued the boy, the source said.

While authorities have not said whether Dykes killed himself or if the team that stormed the bunker shot him, the FBI is sending a "shooting review board" from Washington to look into the incident, FBI spokesman Jason Pack said Tuesday from Alabama.

Evidence teams are also at the site, waiting for bomb technicians to finish their work, which was set to resume Tuesday morning, Pack said.

Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said Tuesday he could not release much information about the case.

"It's still actually an ongoing investigation, and we still have a lot of work to do here," he said.

The boy, identified by authorities only as Ethan, remained hospitalized Tuesday, according to Midland City Elementary School Principal Phillip Parker. There is no time frame for his release, Parker said.

Monday night, the boy's uncle said he expected Ethan to remain in the hospital at least overnight.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Steve Richardson said Monday that Ethan was in a private area with heavy security.

"He is doing fine," said Richardson, who had visited the boy. "He's laughing, joking, playing, eating."

What's next for Ethan?

Relief that Ethan was safe was palpable, but many questions remain about what comes next for him.

How does a 5-year-old heal from this ordeal? How does a youngster go on after witnessing his bus driver shot to death, then being dragged to an underground bunker by a gun-toting stranger? How will he deal with what he experienced the six days he languished in that hole and what he saw during the explosive rescue Monday that killed his captor?

"It's very hard to tell how he's going to do," said Louis Krouse, a psychiatrist at Chicago's Rush Medical Center. "On the one hand, he might get right back to his routine and do absolutely fine. But on the other hand, the anxieties, the trauma, what we call an acute stress disorder, even post-traumatic stress symptoms, can occur."

Support crucial for kids after trauma

The ordeal

Dykes boarded a Dale County school bus a week ago, demanding that the driver hand over two children, police said.

The driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., refused, blocking access to the bus's narrow aisle as at least 21 children escaped out of the back emergency door, authorities said.

The gunman killed Poland, then grabbed Ethan before barricading himself and the boy inside a nearby bunker he had built on his southeast Alabama land. In the ensuing days, officials said little about what was going on in the bunker or in their strategy, or what -- if anything -- Dykes wanted.

While authorities have not said how they communicated with Dykes, they have said they were frequently in touch with him.

At one point Monday, Olson told reporters that Dykes had "a story that's important to him, although it's very complex."

Negotiations rapidly deteriorated, Olson said later. Dykes had also been observed holding a gun, according to authorities.

At 3:12 p.m. (4:12 ET), the FBI team went in.

One neighbor said he was outside when he was startled by the sound of an explosion.

"I heard a big boom and then ... I believe I heard rifle shots," said Bryon Martin, who owns a home near the bunker where Ethan had been held since last Tuesday.

It was a loud noise that "made me jump off the ground," he said.

Authorities wouldn't say whether the blast was set off as a diversionary tactic or whether Dykes had planted explosives around the bunker.

When the rescue was over, Dykes was dead and Ethan was unharmed.

Olson declined to say whether the boy saw his abductor die.

"He's a very special child. He's been through a lot, he's endured a lot," he said.

When terrible things happen: Helping children heal

The recovery

Someone who knows all too well what Ethan may go through is Katie Beers, who as a 10-year-old was held underground in a concrete bunker for two weeks by a New York man.

"I am ecstatic that Ethan has been retrieved safe and sound," said Beers, who recently released a book about her abduction. "As for my ordeal, I just keep thinking about the effects of it: being deprived sunlight, nutritious food and human contact. And how much I wanted to have a nutritious meal, see my family."

Beers says she still feels the effects of her kidnapping.

"The major issue that I have is control issues with my kids and finances," she said. "I don't like my kids being out of my sight for more than two seconds. And I think that that might get worse as they get older."

Guiding children through grief and loss

Martin Savidge reported from Midland City; Lateef Mungin reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Victor Blackwell, Vivian Kuo, Rich Phillips, Larry Shaughnessy, Barbara Starr, Michael Pearson and Steve Almasy and HLN law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks also contributed to this report.

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Richard III 'still the criminal king'

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Source: Authorities feared kidnapper's mental state

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