White House won’t accept new tax offer from Republican leader

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is not ready to accept a new offer from the Republican leader of the U.S. the House of Representatives to raise taxes on top earners in exchange for major cuts in entitlement programs, a source said late Saturday.

The shape and details of Boehner‘s offer were uncertain Saturday night, as was the exact reason the president was prepared to reject it.

The source said Obama sees the offer made on Friday by U.S. House Speaker John Boehner as a sign of progress, but simply believes it is not enough and there is much more to be worked out before Obama can reciprocate.

Tax rates and entitlements are the two most difficult issues in the so-far unproductive negotiations to avert the “fiscal cliff” of steep tax hikes and spending cuts set for the new year unless Congress and the president reach a deal to avoid them.

The Boehner offer is the first significant sign of a shift in the Republican insistence that low tax rates set to expire on December 31 be extended for all taxpayers, and comes at some risk to the speaker.

Conservatives, particularly Tea Party-supported Republicans, see opposition to tax increases for anyone as an abandonment of party principles, and of the Republican base.

Obama wants high earners – those earning roughly $ 250,000 a year or more – to pay higher taxes in order to put the burden of deficit reduction on those he says can best afford it.

Republicans have privately spoken of coming back at Obama with a threshold of $ 1 million. Obama has previously called that unacceptable because it would not raise enough money on its own to cut the deficit significantly or provide enough money to avert across-the-board spending cuts.

On entitlements, the president faces pressures of his own from Democrats, who see protecting Medicare, the government health insurance program for seniors, as a bedrock principle.

A major bloc of congressional Democrats has already signaled they will not accept major cutbacks in Medicare as part of any deal.

It was unclear on Saturday if the president had communicated his response to Boehner.

NOT A COMPLETE SURPRISE

Boehner’s shift did not come as a complete surprise. Recent polls have suggested little public support for his position and he has been getting pressure from Senate Republicans to be more flexible.

The massacre in Connecticut silenced fiscal cliff talk in public on Saturday as the both sides got ready for a final scramble, with sessions of the House now scheduled just days before Christmas.

Obama canceled a trip he had planned to make next Wednesday to Portland, Maine, to press his case for tax hikes for the wealthy. He is heading on Sunday to Newtown, the site of Friday’s school shootings, in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults before taking his own life. The gunman also killed his mother, according to police.

Boehner of Ohio canceled the standard Republican radio response on Saturday to Obama “so that President Obama can speak for the entire nation at this time of mourning,” he said in a statement issued late on Friday.

The moratorium on cliff pronouncements masked a growing recognition the two sides could remain deadlocked at the end of the year on the key sticking points – taxes and entitlements.

Senate Republicans prodded their counterparts in the House to beat a retreat on tax hikes, in a fashion that would allow Obama’s proposal to pass the Republican-controlled House while allowing Republicans to cast a face-saving vote against it.

Republicans could then shift the debate onto territory they consider more favorable to them, cutting government spending to reduce the deficit.

“Just about everyone is throwing stuff on the wall to see if anything sticks,” one Republican aide said in reference to various proposals being discussed on how to proceed.

Alluding to public opinion polls, the aide added: “We know if there is no deal, we will get blamed.”

“We could win the argument on spending cuts,” said a Republican senator who asked not to be identified. “We aren’t winning the argument on taxes.”

However, Republican leaders in both chambers are leery about seeming to cave on taxes. “There’s concern that if we did that, Obama would simply declare victory and walk away and not address spending,” said one aide. “We don’t trust these guys.”

‘A BALANCED PLAN’

Some of the prodding was coming from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Don Stewart, a McConnell spokesman, said the minority leader in the Democratic-controlled Senate hasn’t embraced any single plan, but has discussed and circulated measures offered by fellow Senate Republicans.

“Senator McConnell does not advocate raising taxes on anybody or anything,” Stewart said.

“We’re focused on getting a balanced plan from the White House that will begin to solve the problem of our debt and deficit to improve the economy and create American jobs,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

“Right now, all the president is offering is massive tax hikes with little or no spending cuts and reforms,” Steel said.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor scheduled “possible legislation related to expiring provisions of law,” a reference to the expiring tax cuts, for the end of the week, portending a weekend session.

Cantor has said the House would meet through the Christmas holidays and beyond.

Hopes expressed after the November 6 general election of some “grand bargain” on deficit reduction have all but disappeared, at least for this year.

This is partly because time is running out and partly the result of growing warnings from Democrats in Congress that they would not support big changes in the Medicare program, the government-run health insurance program for seniors that is a major contributor to the government’s debt.

House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California ruled out one frequently mentioned proposal – raising the age of eligibility for Medicare, in a December 12 CBS television interview.

Asked if she was drawing a “red line” around that idea, Pelosi said her comments were “something that says, ‘don’t go there,’ because it doesn’t produce money.

(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro, Richard Cowan and Kim Dixon; Editing by Fred Barbash and Todd Eastham)

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Nigeria governor, 5 others die in helicopter crash

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A navy helicopter crashed Saturday in the country’s oil-rich southern delta, killing a state governor and five other people, in the latest air disaster to hit Africa’s most populous nation, officials said.

Nigeria‘s ruling party said in a statement that the governor of the central Nigerian state of Kaduna, Patrick Yakowa, died in the helicopter crash in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta. The People’s Democratic Party’s statement described Yakowa’s death as a “colossal loss.”

The statement said the former national security adviser, General Andrew Azazi, also died in the crash. Azazi was fired in June amid growing sectarian violence in Nigeria, but maintained close ties with the government.

Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said four other bodies had been found, but he could not immediately give their identities.

The crash occurred at about 3:30 p.m. after the navy helicopter took off from the village of Okoroba in Bayelsa state where officials had gathered to attend the burial of the father of a presidential aide, said Commodore Kabir Aliyu. He said that the helicopter was headed for Nigeria’s oil capital of Port Harcourt when it crashed in the Nembe area of Bayelsa state.

Aviation disasters remain common in Nigeria, despite efforts in recent years to improve air safety.

In October, a plane made a crash landing in central Nigeria. A state governor and five others sustained injuries but survived.

In June, a Dana Air MD-83 passenger plane crashed into a neighborhood in the commercial capital of Lagos, killing 153 people onboard and at least 10 people on the ground. It was Nigeria’s worst air crash in nearly two decades.

In March, a police helicopter carrying a high-ranking police official crashed in the central Nigerian city of Jos, killing four people.

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'Evil visited this community today': 20 children killed in shooting

Twenty children died today when a heavily armed man invaded a Newtown,
Conn., elementary school and sprayed staff and students with bullets.

The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, was found dead in the school.

Lt. Paul Vance said 18 children died in the school and two more died
later in a hospital. Six adults were also slain, bringing the total to
26.

In addition to the casualties at the school, Lanza's mother Nancy Lanza
was killed in her home, federal and state sources told ABC News.

According to sources, Lanza shot his mother in the face, then left his
house armed with at least two semi automatic handguns, a Glock and a Sig
Sauer, and a semi automatic rifle. He was also wearing a bullet proof
vest.

Lanza drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School and continued his rampage,
killing 26 people, authorities said. He was found dead at the school. It
appears that he died from what is believed to be a self inflicted
gunshot wound. The rifle was found in his car.

In the early confusion surrounding the investigation, federal sources
initially identified the suspect as Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24.
He is being questioned by police.

LIVE UPDATES: Newtown, Conn., School Shooting

"Evil visited this community today," Gov. Dan Malloy said at a news conference this evening.

First grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, 29, locked her 14 students in a class bathroom and listened to "tons of shooting" until police came to help.

"It was horrific," Roig said. "I thought we were going to die."

She said that the terrified kids were saying, "I just want Christmas…I don't want to die. I just want to have Christmas."

A tearful President Obama said there's "not a parent in America who doesn't feel the overwhelming grief that I do."

The president had to pause to compose himself after saying these were
"beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10." As he continued
with his statement, Obama wiped away tears from each eye.

He has ordered flags flown as half staff.

CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.

The alert at the school ended when Vance announced, "The shooter is deceased inside the building. The public is not in danger."

The massacre prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all its schools
and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today. Authorities
initially believed that there were two gunmen and were searching cars
around the school, but authorities do not appear to be looking for
another gunman.

It is the second worst mass shooting in U.S. history, exceeded only by
the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 when 32 were killed before the
shooter turned the gun on himself. Today's carnage exceeds the 1999
Columbine High School shooting in which 13 died and 24 were injured.

The Newtown shooting comes three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts
opened fire in a busy Oregon mall, killing two before turning the gun
on himself.

Today's shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which
includes 450 students in grades K-4. The town is located about 12 miles
east of Danbury.

State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41 a.m. and immediately
began sending emergency units from the western part of the state.
Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a
classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State
Police source.

Lt. Paul Vance said that on-duty and off-duty officers swarmed to the
school and quickly checked "every door, every crack, every crevice" in
the building looking for the gunman and evacuating children.

A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.

Three patients have been taken to Danbury Hospital, which is also on lockdown, according to the hospital's Facebook page.

"Out of abundance of caution and not because of any direct threat
Danbury Hospital is under lockdown," the statement said. "This allows us
simply to focus on the important work at hand."

Newtown Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June
said in a statement that the district's schools were locked down because
of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive
measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety
of all students and staff," she said.

State police sent SWAT team units to Newtown.

All public and private schools in the town were on lockdown.

"We have increased our police presence at all Danbury Public Schools due
to the events in Newtown. Pray for the victims," Newtown Mayor Boughton
tweeted.

State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.

A message on the school district website says that all afternoon
kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no midday bus runs.

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Owner of Rivera plane being investigated by DEA

PHOENIX (AP) — The company that owns a luxury jet that crashed and killed Latin music star Jenni Rivera is under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the agency seized two of its planes earlier this year as part of the ongoing probe.

DEA spokeswoman Lisa Webb Johnson confirmed Thursday the planes owned by Las Vegas-based Starwood Management were seized in Texas and Arizona, but she declined to discuss details of the case. The agency also has subpoenaed all the company’s records, including any correspondence it has had with a former Tijuana mayor who U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected has ties to organized crime.

The man widely believed to be behind the aviation company is an ex-convict named Christian Esquino, 50, who has a long and checkered legal past. Corporate records list his sister-in-law as the company’s only officer, but insurance companies that cover some of the firm’s planes say in court documents that the woman is merely a front and that Esquino is the one in charge.

Esquino’s legal woes date back decades. He pleaded guilty to a fraud charge that stemmed from a major drug investigation in Florida in the early 1990s and most recently was sentenced to two years in federal prison in a California aviation fraud case. Esquino, a Mexican citizen, was deported upon his release. Esquino and various other companies he has either been involved with or owns have also been sued for failing to pay millions of dollars in loans, according to court records.

The 43-year-old California-born Rivera died at the peak of her career when the plane she was traveling in nose-dived into the ground while flying from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey to the central city of Toluca early Sunday morning. She was perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated Mexico regional style, and had branched out into acting and reality television.

It remained unclear Thursday exactly what caused the crash and why Rivera was on Esquino’s plane. The 78-year-old pilot and five other people were also killed. Esquino was not on the plane.

The late singer’s brother, Pedro Rivera Jr., said that he didn’t know anything about the owner or why or how she ended up in his plane.

Esquino told the Los Angeles Times in a telephone interview from Mexico City earlier this week that the singer was considering buying the aircraft from Starwood for $ 250,000 and the flight was offered as a test ride. He disputed reports that he owns Starwood, maintaining that he is merely the company’s operations manager “with the expertise.”

In response to an email from The Associated Press, Esquino said he did not want to comment. Calls to various phone numbers associated with him rang unanswered.

Esquino is no stranger to tangles with the law. He was indicted in the early 1990s along with 12 other defendants in a major federal drug investigation that claimed the suspects planned to sell more than 480 kilograms of cocaine, according to court records. He eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal money from the IRS and was sentenced to five years in prison, but much of the term was suspended for reasons that weren’t immediately clear.

He served about five months in prison before being released.

Cynthia Hawkins, a former assistant U.S. attorney who handled the case and is now in private practice in Orlando, remembered the investigation well.

“It was huge,” Hawkins said Thursday. “This was an international smuggling group.”

She said the case began with the arrest of Robert Castoro, who was at the time considered one of the most prolific smugglers of marijuana and cocaine into Florida from direct ties to Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s. Castoro was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to life in prison, but he then began cooperating with authorities, leading to his sentence being reduced to just 10 years, Hawkins said.

“Castoro cooperated for years,” she said. “We put hundreds of people in jail.”

He eventually gave up another smuggler, Damian Tedone, who was indicted in the early 1990s along with Esquino and 11 others in a conspiracy involving drug smuggling in Florida in the 1980s at a time when the state was the epicenter of the nation’s cocaine trade.

Tedone also cooperated with authorities and has since been released from prison. Telephone messages left Thursday for both Tedone and Castoro were not returned.

Esquino eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of concealing money from the IRS.

Joseph Milchen, Esquino’s attorney at the time, said Thursday the case eventually revolved around his client “bringing money into the United States without declaring it.”

However, Milchen acknowledged that a plane purchased by Esquino was “used to smuggle drugs.”

He denied his former client has ever had anything to do with illegal narcotics.

“The only thing he has ever done is with airplanes,” Milchen said.

Court filings also indicate Esquino was sentenced to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to committing fraud involving aircraft he purchased in Mexico, then falsified the planes’ log books and re-sold them in the United States.

Also in 2004, a federal judge ordered him and one of his companies to pay a creditor $ 6.2 million after being accused of failing to pay debts to a bank.

As the years passed, Esquino’s troubles only grew.

In February this year, a Gulfstream G-1159A plane the government valued at $ 500,000 was seized by the U.S. Marshals Service on behalf of the DEA after landing in Tucson on a flight that originated in Mexico

Four months later, the DEA subpoenaed all of Starwood’s records dating to Dec. 13, 2007, including federal and state income tax documents, bank deposit information, records on all company assets and sales, and the entity’s relationship with Esquino and more than a dozen companies and individuals, including former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank-Rhon, a gambling mogul and a member of one of Mexico’s most powerful families. U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected Hank-Rhon is tied to organized crime but no allegations have been proven. He has consistently denied any criminal involvement.

He was arrested in Mexico last year on weapons charges and on suspicion of ordering the murder of his son’s former girlfriend. He was later freed for lack of evidence.

The subpoena was obtained by the U-T San Diego newspaper.

A Starwood attorney listed on the subpoena, Jeremy Schuster, declined Thursday to provide details.

“We don’t comment on matters involving clients,” he said.

In September, the DEA seized another Starwood plane — a 1977 Hawker 700 with an insured value of $ 1 million — after it landed in McAllen, Texas, from a flight from Mexico.

Insurers of both aircraft have since filed complaints in federal court in Nevada seeking to have the Starwood policies nullified, in part, because they say Esquino lied in the application process when he noted he had never been indicted on drug-related criminal charges. Both companies said they would not have issued the policies had he been truthful.

Another attorney for Starwood has not responded to phone and email messages seeking comment, and no one was at the address listed at its Las Vegas headquarters. The address is a post office box in a shipping and mailing store located between a tuxedo rental shop and a supermarket in a shopping center several miles west of the Las Vegas Strip.

___

Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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How to talk to your children about a school shooting

(Reuters) – When parents ask how they can comfort and reassure their children after a tragedy that receives extensive news coverage, the usual advice is to be supportive and reassuring but don’t offer false assurance, experts say.

“Children want to know they’re safe and will stay safe. Parents can convey that by what they say and how they behave,” said Dr. Victor Fornari, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at North Shore-LIJ Health System in New Hyde Park, New York.

But after a school shooting – especially one as horrific as that in Newtown, Connecticut, on Friday – the challenge of helping kids cope is enormously greater than after, say, a tornado wipes out a distant town. It also poses a much greater risk that children who hear about it will suffer a traumatic reaction.

“Schools are supposed to be safe and nurturing environments for children,” said Fornari. “This shatters that belief. Restoring the sense of security in school will take time.”

The way to do that isn’t to offer false assurances, experts say.

“I wouldn’t lie, because your credibility is very, very important,” said Dr. Michael Brody, a child psychiatrist and chairman of the Television and Media Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “To say this would never happen to you, I don’t think that is reasonable.”

But while parents need to be honest, they should also make clear that such tragedies are exceedingly rare.

“Parents can say emphatically, ‘your school is a very safe place,’” said David Finkelhor, professor of sociology and director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. “It’s a vanishingly rare occurrence, and schools are still the safest places kids can hang out in terms of violence.”

Parents should not let young children watch news coverage of the shootings, and might warn older children and teenagers away from looking for news and disturbing video of the tragedy on Twitter, Facebook and other sites they can access via smartphones.

AVOID UPSETTING DETAILS

As parents talk to their children about Newtown, they should avoid dwelling on upsetting details, such as exactly what the gunman did where and to whom. Younger children should be reassured that the shooting is over. With older children, parents might talk about their school’s safety protocols and emergency plans.

If a teenager argues that school wasn’t safe for Newtown’s children, parents can offer statistics. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that school homicides have fallen in the last 20 years from about 30 a year in the 1990s to 17 in 2010, the last year with complete data.

If the child has questions, parents should answer directly and in a straightforward way, said Dr. Joshua Kellman, clinical associate of psychiatry at the University of Chicago Medicine, matching the level of the response to the level of the child. If an 8 year old asks how someone could open fire on little kids sitting at their school desks, simply explaining that “sometimes something goes wrong with people and they are not thinking right,” should suffice, he said.

It can also be helpful to show children that normalcy prevails. The best way to do that is by sticking to standard weekend activities, said child psychologist Dr. Harold Koplewicz, president of Child Mind Institute, a nonprofit treatment, research and education organization in New York City. “Go Christmas shopping, go to church or synagogue, play a game, watch a video.”

Parents should keep in mind that grief, distress, anxiety and worse are normal human reactions to news that little children have been gunned down in their classroom, not signs of psychological illness. In other words, don’t assume that children who become clingy or withdrawn, who demand more parental attention, stop doing schoolwork, have trouble sleeping or regress (parents can expect young children to ask to sleep in their beds, said Fornari) need counseling.

“If their reactions do not seriously interfere with their lives, you shouldn’t necessarily seek out professional help,” said Fornari. “Children are resilient. Most will be able to cope with this traumatic event and be fine.”

The children who will have the hardest time coping are the 10 percent or so who already suffer from anxiety, typically as a result of an earlier trauma such as witnessing violence or losing a close relative, said Fornari. “Parents know if this describes their child, and should expect stronger reactions.”

That, of course, holds especially true for the survivors of the shooting. These children — and adults — are more likely to be psychologically traumatized, suffering flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive thoughts, re-living the sounds of gunshots and the chaos of being rushed out of their classrooms by police officers.

For them, said Fornari, “their lives will forever be marked as before and after December 14.”

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen and Sharon Begley; Editing by Julian Mincer and Lisa Shumaker)

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Microsoft, Motorola file to keep patent case details private

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp and Google Inc‘s Motorola Mobility unit have requested a federal judge in Seattle to keep secret from the public various details from their recent trial concerning the value of technology patents and the two companies’ attempts at a settlement.

Microsoft and Motorola, acquired by Google earlier this year, are preparing post-trial briefs to present to a judge as he decides the outcome of a week-long trial last month to establish what rates Microsoft should pay Motorola for use of standard, essential wireless technology used in its Xbox game console and other products.

The case is just one strand of litigation in an industry-wide dispute over ownership of the underlying technology and the design of smartphones, which has drawn in Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Nokia and others.

In a filing with the Western District of Washington federal court in Seattle on Friday, Microsoft and Motorola asked the judge to allow them to file certain parts of their post-trial submissions under seal and redact those details in the public record.

The details concern terms of Motorola‘s licenses with third parties and Microsoft‘s business and marketing plans for future products. During the trial, which ran from November 13-20, U.S. District Judge James Robart cleared the court when such sensitive or trade secret details were discussed.

“For the same compelling reasons that the court sealed this evidence for purposes of trial, it would be consistent and appropriate to take the same approach in connection with the parties’ post-trial submissions,” the two companies argued in the court filing.

The judge has so far been understanding of the companies’ desire to keep private details of their patent royalties and future plans, although that has perplexed some spectators who believe trials in public courts should be fully open to the public.

In addition, Motorola asked the judge to seal some documents relating to settlement negotiations between the two companies, arguing that keeping those details secret would encourage openness in future talks and make a settlement more likely.

Judge Robart is not expected to rule on the case until the new year.

The case in U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington is Microsoft Corp. vs. Motorola Inc., 10-cv-1823.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Richard Chang)

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NKorea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country’s young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.

Wednesday’s rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father’s death.

The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans, packed into snowy Kim Il Sung Square, clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.

Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country’s international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea’s military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim’s rule.

The launch’s success, 14 years after North Korea’s first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.

“North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader” who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.

The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.

Top officials followed Kim in shrugging off international condemnation.

Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that “hostile forces” had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the “cunning” critics.

North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star” — the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.

Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, so to North Koreans, the successful launch is a tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to “Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il.”

But it is the son who will bask in the glory, and face the international censure that may follow.

Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.

“It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space,” Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday’s ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.

“The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again,” she told The Associated Press. “And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation is in our near future.”

Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.

Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions. The United Nations says North Korea already has a serious hunger problem.

“Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige,” according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Noland, however, also mentioned the “Machiavellian argument” that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military — “the only real threat to his rule.”

Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.

The launch success consolidates his image as heir to his father’s legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea’s political and economic isolation, he said.

On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse. U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.

Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.

North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.

The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang — and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, the North conducted an atomic explosion just weeks after a rocket launch.

Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently that North Korea‘s nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang.

If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation, “it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger,” Snyder said.

____

Jon Chol Jin in Pyongyang, and Foster Klug and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow Jean H. Lee on Twitter: (at)newsjean.

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With Rice withdrawing, Kerry may get call

WASHINGTON (AP) — Susan Rice, the embattled U.N. ambassador, abruptly withdrew from consideration to be the next secretary of state on Thursday after a bitter, weekslong standoff with Republican senators who declared they would fight to defeat her nomination.

The reluctant announcement makes Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry the likely choice to be the nation's next top diplomat when Hillary Rodham Clinton departs soon. Rice withdrew when it became clear her political troubles were not going away, and support inside the White House for her potential nomination had been waning in recent days, administration officials said.

In another major part of the upcoming Cabinet shake-up for President Barack Obama's second term, former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska now is seen as the front-runner to be defense secretary, with official word expected as soon as next week.

For the newly re-elected president, Rice's withdrawal was a sharp political setback and a sign of the difficulties Obama faces in a time of divided and divisive government. Already, he had been privately weighing whether picking Rice would cost him political capital he would need on later votes.

When Rice ended the embarrassment by stepping aside, Obama used the occasion to criticize Republicans who were adamantly opposed to her possible nomination.

"While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character," he said.

"I am saddened we have reached this point," Rice said.

Obama made clear she would remain in his inner circle, saying he was grateful she would stay as "our ambassador at the United Nations and a key member of my Cabinet and national security team." Rice, too, said in her letter she would be staying.

Clinton, in a brief statement, said that Rice had "been an indispensable partner over the past four years" and that she was confident "that she will continue to represent the United States with strength and skill."

Rice had become the face of the bungled administration account of what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012 when four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were killed in what is now known to have been a terrorist attack.

Obama had defiantly declared he would chose her for secretary of state regardless of the political criticism, if he wanted, but such a choice could have gotten his second term off to a turbulent start with Capitol Hill.

In a letter to Obama, Rice said she was convinced the confirmation process would be "lengthy, disruptive and costly." The letter was part of a media rollout aimed at upholding her reputation. It included an NBC News interview in which she said her withdrawal "was the best thing for our country."

"Those of you who know me know that I'm a fighter, but not at the cost of what's right for our country," she tweeted later.

Rice may end up close to Obama's side in another way, as his national security adviser should Tom Donilon move on to another position, though that is not expected imminently. The security adviser position would not require Senate confirmation.

Rice would have faced strong opposition from Senate Republicans who challenged her much-maligned televised comments about the cause of the deadly raid on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Her efforts to satisfy Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte and Susan Collins in unusual, private sessions on Capitol Hill fell short. The Republicans emerged from the meetings still expressing doubts about her qualifications.

"The position of secretary of state should never be politicized," Rice said. "As someone who grew up in an era of comparative bipartisanship and as a sitting U.S national security official who has served in two U.S. administrations, I am saddened that we have reached this point."

Attention now shifts to Kerry, who came close to winning the presidency in 2004 and has been seen as desiring the State job. In a statement, he made no mention of his own candidacy but praised Rice, who was an adviser to him his in his presidential bid.

Kerry was an early backer of Obama and was under consideration to become his first secretary of state. Obama has dispatched Kerry to foreign hot spots on his behalf. Kerry played the role of Republican Mitt Romney during Obama's presidential debate preparations this year.

The longtime senator would be almost certain to be easily confirmed by his colleagues on Capitol Hill.

If Obama taps Kerry for State, the president will create a potential problem for Democrats by opening a Senate seat — one that recently defeated Republican Sen. Scott Brown is eyeing. Brown had been elected as Massachusetts' other senator in January 2010 after Democrat Ted Kennedy died, stunning the political world as he took the seat held by Kennedy for decades. Brown lost that seat in the November election.

House Democratic women had cast the criticism of Rice as sexist and racist — she is African-American — and some expressed disappointment with the news.

"If judged fairly based solely on her qualifications for the job, she would've made an extraordinary secretary of state," said Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Rice did not have a strong relationship with members of the Senate. Graham, who is the top Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee that handles foreign aid and the State Department, said he barely knew her.

In a brief statement, a spokesman for McCain said the senator "thanks Ambassador Rice for her service to the country and wishes her well. He will continue to seek all the facts surrounding the attack on our consulate in Benghazi."

Rice's decision comes ahead of the anticipated release next week of a report by an Accountability Review Board into the attack on the Benghazi mission. The report ordered by Clinton, focuses on the run-up to and the actual attack and is not expected to mention Rice's role in its aftermath.

Clinton is to testify about the report before Congress next Thursday.

At issue is the explanation Rice offered in a series of talk show appearances five days after the attack in Libya.

Rice has conceded in private meetings with lawmakers that her initial account — that a spontaneous demonstration over an anti-Muslim video produced in the U.S. triggered the attack — was wrong, but she has insisted she was not trying to mislead the American people. Information for her account was provided by intelligence officials.

She reasserted that position in an opinion piece published late Thursday on The Washington Post's website, adding, "In recent weeks, new lines of attack have been raised to malign my character and my career. Even before I was nominated for any new position, a steady drip of manufactured charges painted a wholly false picture of me. This has interfered increasingly with my work on behalf of the United States at the United Nations and with America's agenda."

Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, is a Vietnam veteran, served two terms in the Senate and was a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Obama and Hagel became close while they served in the Senate and traveled overseas together. Hagel has been critical of his party since leaving the Senate in 2008, saying the GOP had moved too far right.

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Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Ken Thomas, Matthew Lee and Matthew Daly contributed to this story.

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One Direction named MTV’s 2012 Artist of the Year

NEW YORK (AP) — They’re platinum. They’re fascinating. And now One Direction is MTV‘s 2012 Artist of the Year.

MTV says the fivesome is “the clear choice for the top spot” after a year that included two No. 1 albums, hits such as “What Makes You Beautiful” and a sold-out world tour.

One Direction’s Louis (LOO’-ee) Tomlinson calls Thursday’s honor “the icing on the cake.”

MTV’s team of music staffers chose Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Call Me Maybe” as song as the year.

One Direction placed third on the U.K. version of “The X Factor” in 2010 and made their U.S. debut in March with the No. 1 album “Up All Night.” Their sophomore album, “Take Me Home,” was the year’s third-highest debut.

The group also made Barbara Walters’ most fascinating people of 2012 list.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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