Daily News Digest

 Quote of the day.
"Mass shootings … are the tragedies that capture the public''s attention. But every day, 33 Americans are being killed, mostly with handguns and distressingly often, by a family member or intimate partner." Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
(USA Today)

Quote of the day.
"Typically, over the last couple of decades, when Americans moved, they moved to improve their lives. This is the shock: For the first time, Americans are moving for downward economic mobility. Either they lost their house or can't afford where they're renting currently or needed to save money.” Michael Stoll, chairman of UCLA's public policy department and author of a new report on changes in American society.
(USA Today)

1. With cutbacks days away, Obama tries to pressure G.O.P.
Days away from another fiscal crisis and with Congress on vacation, President Obama began marshaling the powers of the presidency on Tuesday to try to shame Republicans into a compromise that could avoid further self-inflicted job losses and damage to the fragile recovery.
(New York Times)

2. Choices loom for Obama on climate change.
President Barack Obama is talking about climate change like it was 2009. The president, who rarely uttered the words "climate change" or "global warming" during the second half of his first term and during the re-election campaign, has re-inserted it boldly back into his lexicon.
(Associated Press)

3. Justices to hear appeal of individual donation limits.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to consider taking another step toward dismantling campaign finance laws, potentially freeing wealthy donors to give as much as they want in any election cycle and raising the possibility that it could overturn limits that apply to individual candidates as well.
(Los Angeles Times)

4. Obama reaches out to Republican senators on immigration.
Facing criticism for failing to reach out to Republicans negotiating an immigration overhaul, President Obama placed phone calls Tuesday afternoon to three GOP senators involved in an eight-member bipartisan group working on the issue.
(Washington Post)

5. U.S. Catholics urge cardinal to skip papal vote.
A U.S. Catholic group has called for an American cardinal accused of covering up sexual abuse by priests not to take part in electing a new pope, saying he would taint the new pontiff with the same scandal that dogged Pope Benedict XVI.
(Al Jazeera)

6. Georgia inmate granted stay of execution 30 minutes before lethal injection.
Warren Hill, an intellectually disabled prisoner, had been spared the death chamber just 30 minutes before he was due to die by lethal injection in Georgia despite a U.S. supreme court ban on executions of people with learning difficulties.
(Guardian)

7. U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan rose sharply last year.
The number of U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan rose sharply last year compared with 2011, the United Nations said Tuesday. The increase was a sign that drones are taking a greater role as Americans try to streamline the fight against insurgents while preparing to withdraw combat forces in less than two years.
(Guardian)

8. Palestinians in prisons refuse meals in protest.
Hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails refused meals on Tuesday in solidarity with four hunger-striking detainees, and supporters held protests in the West Bank, as the Palestinians sought to pressure Israel before President Obama’s visit to the region next month.
(New York Times)

9. Greeks strike, march in protest against austerity.
Tens of thousands of anti-austerity demonstrators took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday as unions staged a general strike to protest government spending cuts and tax hikes, which some predict will push unemployment to an alarming 30 percent.
(Associated Press)

10. Russia warns of 'mutual destruction' in Syria.
Russia has urged the warring sides in Syria to halt their almost two-year conflict and start talks, warning that both sides risk "mutual destruction." Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said on Wednesday that Moscow was working to encourage dialogue between the rebels and the regime of president Bashar al-Assad.
(Al Jazeera)

Quote of the day.
“All I ever wanted to see was a movement of people to stop climate change and now I’ve seen it.” Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, speaking to an estimated 35,000 people in Washington, DC protesting the Keystone XL pipeline.
(Politico)

1. Obama offering immigration plan as backup.
The White House is downplaying its draft proposal as merely a backup plan if lawmakers don't come up with an immigration overhaul of their own. It won't be necessary, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are telling the Obama administration.
(Associated Press)

2. States worry about rate shock during shift to new health law.
Less than a year before Americans will be required to have insurance under President Obama's healthcare law, many of its backers are growing increasingly anxious that premiums could jump, driven up by the legislation itself.
(Los Angeles Times)

3. Gun shops running short of ammo.
Gun shops are running low on ammunition from a run by customers fearful of potential gun-control legislation, according to gun retailers and customers.
(USA Today)

4. Voting Rights Act challenged as cure the South has outgrown.
An Alabama county contends that a main provision of the law that requires it to get permission before making changes that affect voting, has outlived its purpose of protecting minorities.
(New York Times)

5. Fiscal trouble ahead for most future retirees.
For the first time since the New Deal, a majority of Americans are headed toward a retirement in which they will be financially worse off than their parents, jeopardizing a long era of improved living standards for the nation’s elderly, according to a growing consensus of new research.
(Washington Post)

6. NATO can work within Afghan air strike ban.
The top American commander in Afghanistan said Sunday that he believes the U.S.-led NATO coalition can operate effectively despite the Afghan president's decision to ban Afghan security forces from requesting air strikes in residential areas.
(Guardian/AP)

7. Renewed push for Afghans to make peace with Taliban.
Frozen for months last year as another fighting season raged in Afghanistan, and as election-year politics consumed American attention, diplomats and political leaders from eight countries are now mounting the most concerted campaign to date to bring the Afghan government and its Taliban foes together to negotiate a peace deal.
(New York Times)

8. UN: Both sides committing war crimes in Syria.
Syrians in "leadership positions" who may be responsible for war crimes have been identified, along with units accused of perpetrating them, U.N. investigators say. Both government forces and armed rebels are committing war crimes, including killings and torture, spreading terror among civilians in a nearly two-year-old conflict.
(Al Jazeera)

9. Shia Hazaras refuse to bury Pakistan bomb dead.
Ethnic Hazara women in the Pakistani city of Quetta are refusing to bury the bodies of scores of people killed by a huge bomb in a Shia commercial area. Shia Muslim Hazaras are furious at what they see as a lack of protection from local and national forces.
(BBC)

10. As Africa rises, Europe loses grip on Catholic power base.
After the resignation of Pope Benedict, African and Latin American cardinals could emerge as candidates to succeed him. Catholicism's European power base is under threat and the election of a new pope could be a historic moment for the church.
(Guardian)

Quote of the day.
“I would like a pope who has had direct experience working with a diversity of people and who understands the joys and challenges of ordinary Catholics trying to live the Gospel in the midst of chaotic family lives and stressful job situations.” Sister Florence Deacon, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, on what she hopes for in the next pope. 
(The Daily Beast)

1. Activists arrested at White House protesting Keystone pipeline.
But that controversial project — which ranks as one of the top climate decisions the president will have to make this year — took center stage Wednesday as 48 activists engaged in civil disobedience at the gates of the White House.
(Washington Post)

2. Border security 'never stronger,' Napolitano tells senators.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who sits at the center of the nation's immigration debate, pushed back Wednesday against congressional demands to tighten border security further before creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
(Los Angeles Times)

3. Senate Democrats try to force Hagel vote.
Accusing Republicans of a new level of obstruction, Senate Democrats moved on Wednesday to force a vote on President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense.
(New York Times)

4. Senators delay a vote on Brennan.
A Senate confirmation vote on John O. Brennan as CIA director has been postponed for at least two weeks as lawmakers step up pressure on the Obama administration to provide more information about its drone campaign against terrorism suspects.
(Washington Post)

5. In U.S., big strides in reducing domestic violence.
The rate of partner-to-partner violence dropped 64 percent between 1994 and 2010, a Justice Department report has found. The trend, almost unnoticed, stems from a broad shift in attitude toward domestic violence. 
(Christian Science Monitor)

6. 100th self-immolation reported inside Tibet.
A former Tibetan Buddhist monk protested Chinese rule by killing himself through self-immolation this month, becoming the 100th person to do so inside Chinese-governed Tibet, according to reports on Wednesday by Tibet advocacy groups.
(New York Times)

7. Agencies warn Congress not to use humanitarian aid as tool against Assad.
Humanitarian groups are lobbying hard against a proposal by several U.S. senators that would turn over the delivery of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to a Syrian opposition council that’s criticized as too weak and too political to handle the responsibility.
(McClatchy News)

8. Anger is growing among Iraq's Sunnis.
In recent weeks, Sunnis by the thousands have carried out a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience, closing off the main roads to Fallouja and Ramadi in the west and mounting demonstrations in Samarra, Baghdad, and Mosul.
(Chicago Tribune/Los Angeles Times)

9. Journalism under attack across the globe imperils press freedom.
An unprecedented rise in the number of journalists killed and imprisoned in the past year, coupled with restrictive legislation and state censorship, is jeopardising independent reporting in many countries, according to a report issued today.
(Guardian)

10. Analysis: Arabs mired in messy transitions two years after heady uprisings.
Gritty political transitions are under way in nations where "revolution" has triumphed, ushering in contests over power, identity, and religion, continued economic and social malaise, new opportunities for Islamist radicals, lawlessness, and a surge in sexual violence against women that has gained publicity.
(Reuters)