President Barack Obama, under fire for security lapses at a U.S. mission in Libya, will in a speech on Thursday lay out his wide-ranging counter-terrorism policy, from the controversial use of drones to efforts to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Obama’s use of military drone aircraft to attack extremists has drawn fire and increased tensions in countries like Pakistan and been criticized by human rights activists in the United States.

His inability to follow through on a 2008 campaign pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay prison has been dramatized by a hunger strike among many of the terrorism suspects being held there.

And the resurgence in recent weeks of questions surrounding the deaths of U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in an attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, last year has put Obama on the defensive.

In his State of the Union speech early this year Obama pledged to work with Congress to make certain that the U.S. targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorism suspects was consistent with U.S. law.

A White House official said Obama would address these issues in a speech on Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington. He will say that al Qaeda has been significantly degraded but remains a threat, along with its affiliates, the official said on condition of anonymity.

“He will review the state of the threats we face, particularly as al Qaeda’s core has weakened but new dangers have emerged,” said the official.

Obama also will discuss the policy and legal framework under which the United States acts against terrorism threats, including the use of drones.

“He will review our detention policy and efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and he will frame the future of our efforts against al Qaeda, its affiliates and adherents,” the official said.

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President Barack Obama will stop in Midtown Manhattan this afternoon, which might mean traffic headaches.

The president, who met with British Prime Minister David Cameron this morning at the White House, will reportedly speak at three fundraisers.

One stop will include the Waldorf Astoria for a Democratic event.

The president’s entourage might signal traffic problems for the afternoon while he is here — his visit is estimated to last from about 3 p.m. until 10 p.m., according to the Daily News.

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President Barack Obama pledged on Friday that the United States will find out whether the two ethnic Chechen brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings received help, and he pleaded for Americans not to rush to judgment.

Obama appeared in the White House briefing room after police arrested the lone surviving suspect in the Boston suburb of Watertown, ending a dramatic manhunt. The other suspect was killed in a shootout overnight with police.

The U.S. leader watched the fast-paced developments on television in the White House residence, then returned to the Oval Office where he was briefed by FBI Director Robert Mueller. Relief swept the White House at the news of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s arrest but there was no sign of a celebration.

“Obviously tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them: why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and country resort to such violence? How did they plan and carry out these attacks, and did they receive any help?” Obama said.

The successful conclusion of the manhunt allowed Obama to tout a major law enforcement achievement in response to the worst attack on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Questions remain, however, over the FBI’s disclosure on Friday that it had interviewed one of the suspects in 2011 and found no evidence that he posed a security risk.

The president, looking somber and gripping the podium, said Americans are in debt to the people of Boston and Massachusetts for their resilience in responding to the twin blasts that killed three people and injured 176 others on Monday and enduring a wrenching week.

“We will determine what happened. We will investigate any association that these terrorists may have had and will continue to do whatever we have to do to keep our people safe,” Obama said.

In urging Americans to show tolerance, Obama may have been referring to the surviving suspect who is known to have posted links to Islamic websites calling for Chechen independence.

Obama appealed for Americans to avoid a rush to judgment, saying people should stay true to the “unity and diversity that makes us strong.”

“That’s why we have courts. That’s why we take care not to rush to judgment, not about the motivations of these individuals, certainly not about entire groups of people … We welcome people from all around the world, people of every faith, every ethnicity,” he said.

Obama spoke earlier in the day with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Boston bombings and the White House said he praised U.S.-Russian counter-terrorism cooperation including after Monday’s attack.

The end of the Boston manhunt capped an emotional and difficult week for Obama.

His legislation to tighten background checks on gun buyers, a response to the December massacre of 20 children and six adults at a school in Connecticut, went down in a bitter defeat in the U.S. Senate, prompting Obama to angrily denounce it as a “shameful day” in Washington.

And with the nation already on edge, authorities intercepted letters laced with ricin, a highly lethal poison, that were sent to Obama and Republican U.S. Senator Roger Wicker. Authorities have arrested a Mississippi man in the case.

Obama also attended a wrenching inter-faith service for the victims of the bombings in Boston on Thursday.

“All in all, this has been a tough week,” he said. “But we’ve seen the character of our country once more.”

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President Barack Obama on Thursday promised justice for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and sent a message to the perpetrators, who he described as “small, stunted individuals” who destroy instead of build: “we will find you.  And, yes, you will face justice.”

Obama joined local speakers, including Governor Deval Patrick, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley at The Cathedral of the Holy Cross in the South End for an interfaith gathering that brought together Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders for a healing service designed to let the community grieve and share support.

During his 20-minute speech, which often drew standing ovations and gospel-style shouts from the 2,000-plus crowd, Obama pleaded with Bostonians to summon their strength, and “finish the race.”

“If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us, to shake us from those values … that define us as Americans, it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it to. Not here in Boston,” Obama said, driving home the point that the city would not be intimidated by the twin blasts, which also injured 176 people in a crowd of thousands.

He also vowed to return to Boston next year to cheer on runners at the 118th Boston Marathon.

“We may be momentarily knocked off our feet, but we’ll pick ourselves up. We’ll keep going.  We will finish the race.”

Mayor Menino took the podium about 30 minutes before The President, delivering an emotional affirmation of Boston’s unity.

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  PHOTOS: Acts of kindness and heroism at the Boston Marathon

“This is Boston, a city with courage, compassion and strength that knows no bounds,” said Menino, who was rolled to the podium in a wheelchair but stood for his remarks despite breaking a leg over the weekend. “We love the brave ones who felt the blast and still raced through the smoke with ringing in his ears … to answer cries of those in need.”

The service comes the day after the FBI arrested a Mississippi man in connection with letters believed to contain the deadly poison ricin and sent to federal officials, including Obama.

The FBI said there was no indication of a connection between the ricin letters and the Boston bomb attacks, but they reminded Americans of anthrax mail attacks in the wake of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings 12 years ago.

“President Obama knows how important the city of Boston is to the nation and the world,” said 55-year-old John Snyder, who had joined the line before sunrise. “He is bringing his light to us for much-needed healing.”

Video search

Investigators believe the Boston bombs were fashioned out of pressure cookers and packed with shrapnel. Ten victims lost limbs, and emergency room doctors reported plucking nails and ball bearing from the wounded.

Police had considered making an appeal to the public for more information at a news conference on Wednesday, a U.S. government source said, but the FBI canceled it after a number of delays.

Boston police and FBI officials said on Thursday that they had not determined whether they would publicly release more details of the investigation.

The bombs in Boston killed an 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard; a 29-year-old woman, Krystle Campbell; and a Boston University graduate student and Chinese citizen, Lu Lingzi.

Ahead of his visit, Obama declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts, a move that makes federal funding available to the state as it copes with the aftermath of the bombing.

The crowded scene along the race course in central Boston on Monday was recorded by surveillance cameras and media outlets, providing investigators with significant video footage of the area before and after the two blasts.

Based on the shards of metal, fabric, wires and a battery recovered at the scene, the focus turned to whoever may have placed homemade bombs in pressure cooker pots and taken them in heavy black nylon bags to the finish line of the world-famous race.

Tens of thousands of people turn out to watch and run in the marathon, which comes on a state holiday and is one of New England’s best-attended sporting events.

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The federal budget cuts that started taking effect last week will hit the city for $800 million, the city’s budget director said at a council hearing on Monday.

Budget Director Mark Page said a revenue gap for the city is likely because the sequester cuts, an automatic $85 billion reduction in federal spending, were not taken into account in the mayor’s proposed budget for 2013-2014, The Daily News reports.

Local cuts could breakdown as follows:

• $500 million hit to Hurricane Sandy aid
• $75 million less for Medicaid funding for city hospitals
• $60 million in lost funding for city housing
• $200 million in cuts spread between other city agencies.

If lawmakers in Washington reach a deal to reduce the nationwide cuts, the impact on the city could be minimized, Page said.

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A prominent Washington journalist said in interviews on Wednesday a senior White House official warned him he would “regret” publishing a story challenging the White House’s account of how the idea for automatic spending cuts originated.

Bob Woodward said in interviews with Politico and CNN that when he informed the White House he was writing a story critical of the White House’s handling of a debate over the origin of the cuts, known as sequestration, the official reacted angrily.

The aide “yelled at me for about a half hour,” Woodward told Politico, and then followed up the tirade with an email.

“I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today,” the official wrote Woodward. “You’re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim.”

Politico reported that Woodward saw the statement as a veiled threat.

“I’ve tangled with lots of these people,” said the journalist, who established his reputation by breaking the story of the Watergate break-in under President Richard Nixon and has written a series of best selling books about Washington politics.

“But suppose there’s a young reporter who’s only had a couple of years — or 10 years’ — experience and the White House is sending him an email saying, ‘You’re going to regret this,’” Woodward said. “You know, tremble, tremble. I don’t think it’s the way to operate.”

Some $85 billion in spending cuts are due to go into effect Friday unless Congress acts, and with the deadline approaching there is practically no movement toward preventing them. President Barack Obama has scheduled a meeting with congressional leaders on Friday, but little is expected of the encounter.

The president has crisscrossed the country in recent weeks to draw attention to the inconveniences and problems from the cuts, which economists say could shave 0.6 percentage points off of already anemic U.S. growth.

While the president has been conducting that campaign, the spat over what Woodward calls the “paternity” of the sequester has proven a distracting sideshow to the fiscal battle.

The administration has sought to counter charges by Republicans that the sequestration cuts were proposed by Obama administration officials.

Woodward’s book “The Price of Politics” is a fly-on-the-wall account of the negotiations in 2011 that ended with a deal to raise the nation’s debt limit. As part of the deal, both sides agreed to make additional efforts to reduce the national budget deficit, and proposed the sequester as an alternative so unappealing that it would force the administration and congressional Republicans to find common ground.

That deal proved elusive and both sides are currently trading blame for the sequestration cuts.

TWITTER FUN

Woodward said in an article in the Washington Post on Friday that the president and his chief of staff at the time, current Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, were wrong in initially claiming last year that the sequester was the Republicans’ idea.

“Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and (Rob)Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,” Woodward said. “They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.” Nabors was then the White House’s chief liaison to Congress and is now deputy chief of staff.

The administration has argued that both sides agreed to the terms of the sequester and has pointed to comments at the time from House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, that he was for the most part satisfied with the deal that spawned the arrangement.

Woodward’s account of his recent testy exchange with the White House points to continued sensitivity over the issue of whose idea the sequester was.

A White House official said in an emailed response to Reuters that no threat was intended by the comment.

“The email from the aide was sent to apologize for voices being raised in their previous conversation,” the aide said. “The note suggested that Mr. Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more.”

The BuzzFeed news website identified the official who tangled with Woodward as Gene Sperling, head of the National Economic Council. The White House did not respond to a request to confirm the identity of the official.

News of the exchange drew instant reaction from Washington insiders on Twitter, much of poking fun at the war of words.

“My amateur advice: stop cooperating with Woodward in the first place,” wrote Neera Tanden, the president of the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress think tank and a former Obama campaign advisor.

“Hey, guess what? All of you will talk to Woodward for his next book, too,” wrote Tony Fratto of Hamilton Place Strategies and a former White House official under President George W. Bush.

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The Senate voted to confirm Chuck Hagel on Tuesday as President Barack Obama’s new secretary of defense.

Senators backed the nomination by a 57-41 vote, as voting continued, with only about four Republicans joining Democrats in support of Hagel, a Republican former U.S. senator from Nebraska.

Hagel needed only 51 votes to be confirmed as the new civilian leader at the Pentagon.

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A draft of a White House immigration proposal would allow illegal immigrants to become legal permanent residents within eight years, USA Today reported on Saturday.

The plan, obtained by the newspaper, also would provide for more security funding and require businesses to check the immigration status of new hires within four years. Illegal immigrants could also apply for a newly created “Lawful Prospective Immigrant” visa, under the draft bill, it said.

If approved, they could apply for the same provisional legal status for spouses or children living outside the country, according to the draft.

The White House has emphasized the importance of creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally. Many Republicans emphasize that the nation’s borders must be secured first.

Latinos favored President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney in the November 6 election by 71 percent to 27 percent, helping tilt politically divided states to the Democratic incumbent.

Members of Congress also are drafting their own immigration bills.

In the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, a bipartisan group has been negotiating an immigration proposal for years and is writing its own bill. Last month, four Republican senators joined with four Democratic senators to announce their agreement on the general outlines of an immigration plan.

One of those Republican senators, Marco Rubio of Florida, dismissed the leaked White House draft bill, however, as a seriously flawed rehash of failed immigration policies that would make the country’s immigration problems worse.

“If actually proposed, the president’s bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come,” Rubio, who is a Cuban-American, said in a statement on Saturday.

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President Barack Obama, marking a poignant moment in his push to curb gun violence, awarded presidential medals posthumously on Friday to six educators killed in the Newtown school massacre, saying they gave their lives to protect “the most innocent and helpless among us.”

Obama bestowed the honor, which recognizes citizens who have performed “exemplary deeds” of service, on four teachers and two administrators killed in the December 14 shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, a tragedy that sparked nationwide calls for tighter gun control laws.

In a White House ceremony, Presidential Citizens Medals, the nation’s second-highest civilian honor, were presented one-by-one to the slain women’s families, many of them in tears as Obama embraced and consoled them. Twenty first-graders were also killed in the attack by a lone gunman.

Obama said the educators came to school that morning with “no idea that evil was about to strike.”

“And when it did they could have taken shelter by themselves, they could have focused on their own safety, on their own well-being, but they didn’t,” he said.

“They gave their lives to protect the precious children in their care and gave all they had for the most innocent and helpless among us. That’s what we honor today.”

Obama, who has called the day of the mass shooting the worst of his presidency, is moving swiftly to try to build momentum for gun control legislation, using his otherwise policy-heavy State of the Union address on Tuesday to make an impassioned appeal.

But he faces an uphill battle against a powerful pro-gun lobby and a strong U.S. tradition of hunting and gun ownership. The right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Principal Dawn Hochsprung, school psychologist Mary Sherlach and teachers Rachel D’Avino, Lauren Rousseau, Anne Marie Murphy and Victoria Soto were killed in the attack carried out by the 20-year-old gunman, Adam Lanza.

Obama paid tribute to the slain educators in a ceremony that also honored a dozen other Americans in fields that included child development, gay rights, military veterans assistance, immigrant outreach and helping disabled women. They were selected from among nearly 6,000 nominations.

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“I have let President Obama know that I will not serve a second term as secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation,” LaHood said in a statement.

LaHood, a Republican and former Illinois congressman, brought a bipartisan element to the Democratic president’s team. LaHood said he would stay on until his successor is confirmed by the Senate.

Obama has been under pressure to bring more women and minorities into his Cabinet.

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Reflecting the growing clout of Hispanic voters, Obama will travel to Nevada little more than a week after his second inauguration and make the case for swift action by Congress to overhaul immigration laws.

Immigration reform could give Obama a landmark second-term legislative achievement, but he is expected to tread carefully in a speech in Las Vegas, just a day after a group of influential Senate Democrats and Republicans laid out a broad plan of their own.

Obama’s challenge is to help build public support for the senators’ framework, which is in line with many of his main ideas for a sweeping immigration overhaul, while not alienating his fiercest Republican foes who might resist anything with the Democratic president’s name on it.

While Obama is likely to use the bully pulpit of the presidency, backed up by a White House-organized grass-roots campaign, he will likely be more circumspect for now about how personally involved he becomes in congressional negotiations.

“The minute it becomes Obama’s plan, the Republicans kick automatically into opposition,” said Bill Schneider, a political scientist at George Mason University in Virginia. “The White House knows to back off for now.”

Scheduled to speak at a Las Vegas high school at 11:15 a.m. PST, Obama does not intend to unveil legislation of his own. He will instead urge lawmakers to press ahead with their efforts even as he restates the “blueprint” for reform he rolled out in 2011, which called for an “earned” path to citizenship, administration officials said.

The flurry of activity marks the first substantive drive in years to forge an agreement on fixing America’s flawed immigration system. Though the debate is likely to be contentious there is a growing consensus in Washington that the conditions are finally ripe for tackling the problem.

Obama and his fellow Democrats see their commitment to immigration reform as a way to solidify their hold on the growing Latino vote, which they won handily in the 2012 election. Nevada, for example, has a fast-growing Hispanic population that helped Obama carry the state in the November election.

Many Republicans, worried that their party has alienated Hispanics with anti-immigrant rhetoric, are suddenly open to cooperation on the issue as they seek to set a new tone.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS?

The eight-member Senate group includes John McCain, a Republican from the border state of Arizona; Charles Schumer, a centrist Democrat from New York; and Republican Marco Rubio of Florida, a Cuban-American favorite of the Tea Party movement who has helped garner support from influential conservatives.

Translating the aspirations expressed by the group into an inevitably lengthy and complicated bill will itself be a major challenge in Congress. At the same time, the White House wants to see further details before Obama will fully embrace the senators’ approach.

In an attempt to build support, the Senate proposal would couple immigration reform with enhanced border security efforts aimed at preventing illegal immigration and ensuring that those foreigners temporarily in the United States return home when their visas expire.

Under the proposal, undocumented immigrants would be allowed to register with the government, pay a fine, and then be given probationary legal status allowing them to work.

Ultimately, these immigrants would have to “go to the end of the line” and apply for permanent status. But while waiting to qualify for citizenship, they would no longer face the fear of deportation or harassment from law enforcers if they have steered clear of illegal activity.

Obama’s aides consider it a breakthrough that Republican members of the bipartisan group of senators have agreed to a path to citizenship, a concept that many in their party have long opposed as tantamount to amnesty for law-breakers.

The White House remains wary, however. The president’s aides have written up extensive legislative language for an immigration overhaul and will step in with their own formal proposals if the Senate effort falls apart, an administration official said.

Immigration reform, sidelined by economic issues and healthcare reform during Obama’s first term, is part of an ambitious liberal agenda he laid out in his second inaugural address. That agenda also includes gun control, gay rights and fighting climate change.

Last summer, Obama took executive action so that the federal government stopped seeking to deport illegal immigrants who had arrived in the United States as children – a dramatic change that was celebrated in the Hispanic community.

After winning the bitterly fought election, Obama promised to tackle the issue comprehensively early in his new term.

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The move comes as President Barack Obama will also ratchet up pressure with a policy speech on Tuesday in Nevada on immigration – a campaign promise he made last year to Hispanics when running for re-election.

Many important details still have to be worked out before the outlines can be translated into legislation. Here are the main elements of the Senate plan:

THE PLAYERS

Eight senators have been working for months to craft this plan. The Democrats are Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate who has a large Hispanic population in his state of Illinois; New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, who is of Cuban descent; Charles Schumer of New York, who, like Durbin, is a member of the Senate leadership and has a large immigrant constituency, and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet.

The Republicans are Senator John McCain, his party’s 2008 presidential candidate who has long been involved in immigration issues and is from the southwest border state of Arizona; freshman Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, a potential presidential candidate in 2016 who is making immigration reform one of his top priorities; Jeff Flake, also of Arizona, who joined the Senate this month, having previously served in the House; and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who also has been active in immigration reform but who could face a 2014 primary election challenge from the conservative wing of his party.

A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP

There are an estimated 11 million people living in the United States – many of them for decades – who arrived illegally. Most are from Mexico, Central American and South American countries.

The senators’ plan would require those here illegally to register with the federal government and pass a background check. They would have to pay a fine and back taxes to earn a “probationary legal status,” according to a document outlining the program.

Clearing these hurdles would give these illegal residents a legal status for the first time.

Those people earning the status would go to the back of the line of prospective immigrants who have applied through legal means to come to the United States. They also will have to learn English, continue to pay taxes and demonstrate a work history in the United States to apply for legal permanent residency.

Those who successfully do so would get a “green card” allowing them to live and work permanently in the United States. From there, they could apply for citizenship, like any other green card holder.

BORDER SECURITY MEASURES

Efforts to secure U.S. borders – mainly the southwestern border with Mexico – will be further enhanced. This would include increasing the number of unmanned aerial vehicles and other surveillance equipment and adding border law enforcement agents.

An entry-exit system would be completed to track whether everyone entering the United States on temporary visas via airports and seaports have left the country as required by law.

A commission of governors and other public officials and citizens living along the southwestern border would be created to monitor progress toward securing that border and make recommendations.

YOUNG ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Last summer, Obama gave a temporary reprieve from deportation to qualifying children who came to the United States with their parents.

Under the Senate proposal, this group would not be subjected to the same requirements for being put on a path to citizenship. It was not clear from the short outline exactly how this group would be treated, however.

Similarly, farm workers also would be treated differently through a new agricultural worker program.

HIGH-TECH WORKERS

The proposals would include means to keep and attract workers with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This would be aimed both at foreign students attending American universities where they are earning advanced degrees, and high-tech workers abroad. U.S. corporations have been lobbying for years for such a provision.

EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION SYSTEM

Improvements would be made in holding U.S. employers accountable for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and make it harder for illegal immigrants to falsify documents to get jobs. Meanwhile, the U.S. government would provide faster, more reliable methods to confirm whether new hires are in the United States legally.

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Obama’s ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol was filled with traditional pomp and pageantry, but it was a scaled-back inauguration compared to the historic start of his presidency in 2009 when he swept into office on a mantle of hope and change as America’s first black president

With second-term expectations tempered by lingering economic weakness and the political realities of a divided Washington, Obama acknowledged the difficult road ahead even as he sought to build momentum from his decisive November re-election victory.

“We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate,” Obama said as he stood in the wintry cold atop a giant makeshift platform on the Capitol steps overlooking the National Mall.

Looking out on a sea of flags, he spoke to a crowd of up to 700,000 people, less than half the record 1.8 million who assembled four years ago.

Obama arrived at his second inauguration on solid footing, with his poll numbers up, Republicans on the defensive and his first-term record boasting accomplishments such as a U.S. healthcare overhaul, ending the war in Iraq and the killing of Osama bin Laden.

But battles are looming over budgets, gun control and immigration, with Republicans ready to oppose him at almost every turn and Obama still seemingly at a loss over how to engage them in deal-making.

SECOND TIME TAKING OATH

When Obama raised his right hand and was sworn in by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, it was his second time taking the oath in 24 hours – but this time with tens of millions of people watching on television.

The president beamed as chants of “Obama, Obama!” rang out from the crowd.

Obama had a formal swearing-in on Sunday at the White House because of a constitutional requirement that the president take the oath on January 20. Rather than stage the full inauguration on a Sunday, the main public events were put off until Monday.

A second inauguration marked another milestone of political passage for Obama, the Hawaiian-born son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. An electrifying speech at the 2004 Democratic convention as a little-known Illinois state legislator lifted him to the national stage, putting him on a rapid trajectory to the U.S. Senate and a few years later the White House.

Obama, 51, his hair visibly grayed over the past four years, sought to reassure Americans at the mid-point of his presidency and encourage them to help him take care of unfinished business. His wide-ranging speech touched on a variety of issues, including climate change and Middle East democracy uprisings.

Obama, who won a second term by defeating Republican Mitt Romney after a bitter campaign, opened round two facing many of the same problems that dogged his first term: persistently high unemployment, crushing government debt and a deep partisan divide. The war in Afghanistan, which Obama is winding down, has dragged on for over a decade.

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“We were out from 4am to 6pm,” recalls Qiana Martin, a Chicago resident who attended the 2009 inauguration. “It was amazing to see the millions of people who came. Everyone was really excited, and it didn’t matter that it was freezing cold. It’s an event that you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren about.”

Barring dramatic circumstances (like the assassination of the sitting president), new presidents always take the oath of office here, in front of the Capitol, on the 20th of January (or the Monday after if the 20th is a Sunday, as is the case this year).

The presidential oath has remained the same since George Washington was sworn in as the United States’ first president. But the ceremony, which started as a small, private event, has evolved into a day-long mass spectacle.

“Mostly it’s just a big party,” explains Jonathan Krasno, a political scientist at Binghamton University in New York. “A lot of it is about the big money that goes into the presidential race. The inauguration is payback time for the donors.”

The pageantry of the inauguration symbolizes the importance of the presidency, which, of course, includes being both head of government and head of state.

“The U.S. began as a revolution, but the more we get away from our revolutionary roots, the more our presidents move towards the trappings of a monarch,” observes Barbara Perry, Senior Fellow in American politics at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “But they also like the populist air of having millions of people on the Mall.”

This year a crowd approaching the 2009 record of two million is expected to the Mall, the lawn that stretches from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. Notes Perry: “Most Americans are not monarchical, but they do view the President’s family as almost royal, and they’re patriotic.”

A Congressional committee organizes the event, which includes dozens of inaugural balls, but each president adds a personal touch. Jimmy Carter, for example, chose to walk to the White House following his inauguration, forgoing the presidential limousine. President Obama will participate on a National Day of Service on January 19, a tradition he started before his 2009 inauguration.

Elizabeth Stern, a 16-year-old in San Francisco, will watch the inauguration with special interest: she sang at Obama’s 2009 inauguration.

“You could tell that the day was really special, but the people were just like tiny dots, so I had to remind myself how historic this event was,” recalls Elizabeth, a singer in the San Francisco Girls Chorus. She still feels a special connection with the inauguration: “The moment the significance of the event really hit me was when Obama walked off the stage and we heard the applause. Now, every time I hear the words ‘Inauguration of Barack Obama’ I get a smile on my face.”

Obama oath mistakes

At the 2009 inauguration, Chief Justice John Roberts stumbled slightly over the words while administering the oath of office to Barack Obama. Since the President repeats the words said by the Chief Justice in the swearing-in ceremony, Obama repeated Roberts’s words with the mistakes.

A debate ensued, with some observers arguing that Obama had not been properly sworn in as President. In a slightly embarrassing move, Obama and Roberts had to repeat the official oath in a small event at the White House the following day. Their faux-pas pales in comparison with William Henry Harrison’s inauguration, where he caught pneumonia and soon died. But this time, Chief Justice Roberts has no doubt memorized his lines to perfection.

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Throughout its history, the National Rifle Association has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership.  Keeping our children and society safe remains our top priority.

The NRA will continue to focus on keeping our children safe and securing our schools, fixing our broken mental health system, and prosecuting violent criminals to the fullest extent of the law.  We look forward to working with Congress on a bi-partisan basis to find real solutions to protecting America’s most valuable asset – our children.

Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation.  Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.

Hours before President Barack Obama was due to unveil proposals on Wednesday to prevent mass shootings like the one in Newtown, Connecticut, last month, the National Rifle Association released an advertisement that referred to his two school-aged daughters.

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” a narrator says in the 35-second television and Internet spot. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security.”

Obama’s two children, who attend private school in Washington, D.C., receive Secret Service protection.

The White House condemned the ad.

“Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight. But to go so far as to make the safety of the president’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs, speaking earlier on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, said the ad was “disgusting on so many levels.”

Gun control activists and gun rights advocates have said in recent days that they could find common ground, particularly over the issue of expanding background checks for potential gun owners.

The NRA ad’s tone, however, and the personal nature of the attacks speaks to the cultural gulf that divides both sides.

The clip, called “Stand and Fight,” promotes the leading gun lobby’s proposal to put armed guards in schools. The idea has been at the center of the NRA’s response to the December 14 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, in which 20 children and 6 adults were killed.

The ad is airing on the Sportsman Channel, a cable network, but will likely receive a much larger viewership on news stations and through the Internet.

The NRA, which says it has about 4 million members, also announced earlier this week that it would produce a nightly one-hour cable talk show hosted by gun advocate Cam Edwards on the Sportsman Channel.

“I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools,” Obama said in a recent interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press. “And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”

In a survey released on Monday, the Pew Research Center found that people favor putting armed guards or police officers in more schools by a two-to-one margin, 64 percent to 32 percent.

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Rolling out a wide-ranging plan for executive and legislative action to curb gun violence, Obama set up a fierce clash with the powerful U.S. gun lobby and its supporters in Congress, who are expected to resist what they see as an encroachment on constitutionally protected gun rights.

Obama presented his agenda at a White House event in front of an audience that included children from around the country, a poignant reminder of the 20 first-graders who were killed along with six adults by a lone gunman on December 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“While reducing gun violence is a complicated challenge, protecting our children from harm shouldn’t be a divisive one,” Obama said.

Until now, Obama had done little to rein in America’s weapons culture during his first four years in office. But just days before his second inauguration, he appears determined to champion gun control in his next term with a concerted drive for tighter laws and other steps aimed at preventing further tragedies like the one at Newtown.

The proposals stem from a month-long review led by Vice President Joe Biden, who on orders from Obama met with advocates on both sides, including representatives from the weapons and entertainment industries.

Obama’s plan calls on Congress for a renewed prohibition on assault weapons sales that expired in 2004, a requirement for criminal background checks on all gun purchases, including closing a loophole for gun show sales, and a new federal gun trafficking law – long sought by big-city mayors to keep out-of-state guns off their streets.

He also announced 23 steps he intends to take immediately without congressional approval. These include improvements in the existing system for background checks, lifting the ban on federal research into gun violence, putting more counselors and “resource officers” in schools and improved access to mental health services.

The most politically contentious piece of the package is Obama’s call for a renewed ban on military-style assault weapons, a move that Republicans who control the House of Representatives are expected to oppose.

The Newtown gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, used a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle to shoot his victims, many of them 6- and 7-year-olds, before killing himself.

Underscoring the tough political fight ahead, the National Rifle Association, launching a scathing advertising campaign against Obama’s gun control effort and deployed its representatives in force on Capitol Hill.

The NRA, which says it has about 4 million members, took aim at Obama in a stinging TV and Internet spot, accusing him of being “just another elitist hypocrite” for accepting Secret Service protection for his two daughters but turning down the lobby group’s proposal to put armed guards in all schools.

Obama’s plan appears to tread cautiously on the question of whether violent movies and video games contribute to the gun violence, which would open up issues of freedom of expression.

A senior administration official said, however, that Obama would be asking for $10 million for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the root causes of gun violence, including any relationship to video games and media images.

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“My hope is that common sense prevails,” Obama said at a news conference.

Obama said it is possible that the Republican-led House of Representatives could vote against raising the debt ceiling.

If a government shutdown results, “It will damage our economy,” he said.

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Obama on Friday accepted the invitation from the top Republican lawmaker John Boehner to address a joint session of Congress, the White House said.

In his letter to Obama, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Boehner said Americans expected lawmakers and the White House to work together to find solutions.

The speech from the Democratic president will come in the middle of another set of difficult budget negotiations between Congress and the administration.

Lawmakers and Obama have locked horns over how to rein in the federal budget deficits, which have topped $1 trillion for the fourth consecutive year.

The most recent budget deal to avert the New Year’s day fiscal cliff of severe spending cuts and tax hikes established another set of crucial fiscal deadlines.

Obama is expected to use his speech to outline his legislative agenda, including tighter gun control after last month’s massacre at a Connecticut school.

But the president’s plans to restrict guns and advance immigration reforms will not be a priority in Congress until lawmakers and the White House resolve the next round of fiscal battles, including raising the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling.

In the latter half of February, the Treasury will no longer be able to shuffle funds around to make required government payments.

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If confirmed by the Senate, Lew will replace Timothy Geithner, the longest serving member of Obama’s original economic team, who has said he would step down after one term.

A source familiar with the matter said Lew, who had been widely expected to be tapped for the role, will be nominated on Thursday.

Lew served as budget director for Obama and for former President Bill Clinton.

A State Department deputy secretary early in Obama’s first term, he is a 57-year-old policy wonk. He will have to confront a host of tricky economic topics ranging from how best to scale back the government’s role in the housing market to how to respond to China’s economic heft.

But nothing will consume his time as much as the battle in Washington over how to rein in the growth of the nation’s debt and put the budget on a sustainable path.

Even though he is mistrusted by a number of Republicans, Lew has some bipartisan credentials that might help in budget struggles with Republicans in Congress.

The one-time Citigroup executive honed his political skills as a top policy adviser to Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill, who is touted as a symbol of bipartisanship because he worked with Republican President Ronald Reagan to change the tax code and the Social Security retirement program in the 1980s.

“Jack is more concerned about what’s fair than any personal attention or credit,” said Pamela Jackson, who worked with Lew when O’Neill was speaker. “He was an integral and important part of those (tax policy and Social Security) negotiations as a trusted adviser to the speaker,” she said.

Lew is an orthodox Jew and observes the Sabbath holiday, which requires him not to work, including answering phones, between Friday evenings and sunset on Saturday. During Obama’s re-election campaign, he campaigned for the president with Jewish constituents in Florida.

His nomination will leave the position of chief of staff open. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Denis McDonough, is considered the top candidate to take on that role.

LOOMING BUDGET DEADLINES

Three fiscal deadlines loom.

By the end of February, Congress must raise the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling on how much the Treasury can borrow or risk a damaging debt default.

On March 1, deep automatic spending cuts to defense and to a wide swath of domestic programs start to go into effect unless Congress acts.

And at the end of March, a stop-gap funding measure expires and the government could be forced to shut down if Congress does not approve another bill to fund federal operations.

Lew helped lead budget talks with Congress under Clinton and spearheaded the “Budget Control Act” negotiations under Obama.

Geithner, who survived calls for his resignation and bore the brunt of the criticism for how the Obama administration handled the financial crisis, managed to win over Republican lawmakers in his four years as treasury secretary.

Late last year, Obama picked Geithner over Lew to lead talks with Congress to avert the New Year’s day “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending cuts. Lew had angered key Republicans during budget negotiations in 2011.

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Obama’s decision to nominate Hagel – a Republican former senator who split with his party to oppose the Iraq war – as U.S. defense secretary came despite a public lobbying campaign against his candidacy in recent weeks by a host of critics, some of whom seized upon past remarks to argue he is anti-Israel.

Hagel’s supporters deny that, but are bracing for a tough confirmation battle in the Senate. Obama, as he announced the nomination, called Hagel the kind of leader U.S. forces deserve and pointed to his sacrifices in the Vietnam War, where he earned two Purple Hearts – the decoration for troops wounded in battle.

“Chuck knows that war is not an abstraction,” Obama said. “He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that’s something we only do when it’s absolutely necessary.”

Hagel, who would be the first Vietnam veteran to take the job, would succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, 74, who is retiring from public life after a more than four-decade career in government that included leading the CIA during the covert raid to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.

The blunt, 66-year-old Hagel will need to take over where Panetta leaves off, orchestrating a drawdown in U.S. forces in Afghanistan intended to bring the combat mission to a close by the end 2014. Hagel and Panetta were due to dine together on Monday night to discuss the transition.

The Afghan drawdown’s pace is an open question, as is the size of the residual force the United States will leave behind. Obama is again showing his readiness to veto the military brass, considering a lower range of options – keeping between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in Afghanistan – than his top commander in Afghanistan proposed, one U.S. official told Reuters.

Hagel has not yet commented on the matter, but Obama would likely not choose a Pentagon chief who fundamentally disagreed with him on that or other key issues.

Hagel, who fought alongside his own brother and suffered shrapnel wounds in Vietnam and burns to his face, has made no secret of his reservations about what the military can accomplish in Afghanistan.

“We can’t impose our will. The Russians found that out in Afghanistan. We’ve been involved in two very costly wars that have taught us a lesson once again,” Hagel told PBS’s “Tavis Smiley” show last year.

Unsurprisingly, he also is extremely cautious about what could be done in Syria. “I don’t think America wants to be in the lead on this,” he told Foreign Policy magazine in May.

‘THE GUY AT THE BOTTOM’

Hagel’s first-hand experience in war may win respect inside the Pentagon. He volunteered for the Vietnam War as an infantryman. He would become be the first defense secretary who started and ended his military career with an enlisted rank, as opposed to serving as an officer – an important distinction in wartime.

The enlisted ranks are “the ones who have the least say about where, when, and why we go to war, but bear the harshest consequences when we do,” Matt Pottinger, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and a former journalist, wrote in a piece on the “The Daily Beast” website applauding Hagel as a candidate to become defense chief.

Obama on Monday quoted Hagel saying: “My frame of reference … is geared towards the guy at the bottom who’s doing the fighting and the dying.”

Hagel’s comments on Middle East issues, including on Israel, are likely to complicate his Senate confirmation. House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said in a statement on Monday he is “profoundly concerned and disappointed” by Hagel’s nomination.

Critics including Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, a group devoted to fighting anti-Semitism, have raised questions about Hagel’s past comments, including one during a 2006 interview in which he was quoted as saying: “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.” Hagel also has faced criticism for urging direct talks with Iran.

Many foreign policy heavyweights have come to Hagel’s defense, including former national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served Republican and Democratic presidents respectively, and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq Ryan Crocker.

Questions remain about Hagel’s approach to the defense budget.

Panetta has said the U.S. military would be hollowed out if $487 billion in planned spending reductions over the next decade are doubled – something that would happen if Obama and Congress fail to agree by the end of February on a way to avert automatic cuts due to kick in.

But Hagel said in an interview last year with the Financial Times: “I think the military needs to be pared down. I don’t think the military has really looked at themselves strategically, critically in a long, long time.”

His position in favor of deficit reduction raises questions about possible cuts or schedule delays to big weapons systems like Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, according to Jim McAleese, a defense consultant.

McAleese also named as being at risk of cuts or delays the Army’s planned Ground Combat Vehicle, the V-22 Osprey built by Boeing Co and Bell Helicopter, a unit of Textron Inc, and the Navy’s early work on developing a new ballistic missile submarine. McAleese said final decisions would be up to Congress, where such programs enjoy strong support.

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The choice of Hagel, a maverick former Republican senator and decorated Vietnam veteran, had been widely tipped to replace Leon Panetta at the Pentagon. The move will likely set up a tough Senate confirmation battle against critics who have attacked his record on Israel and Iran.

Brennan, who formerly served at the CIA, will succeed retired general David Petraeus, who resigned amid a scandal over an extramarital affair with his biographer.

The addition of Hagel and Brennan, along with Senator John Kerry as nominee for secretary of state, would fill out the team Obama will rely upon as he faces daunting challenges of winding down the war in Afghanistan, dealing with the Iranian nuclear standoff and curbing Pentagon spending.

The announcements are expected to come later on Monday.

Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and former Nebraska senator who left the Senate in 2008, faces tough criticism from many Republicans over actions they see as opposing Israel’s interests, including votes against U.S. sanctions on Iran and remarks about what he called a “Jewish lobby” in Washington. Hagel has also been critical of the size of the U.S. military.

But the White House appears confident it can get overcome the criticism to win confirmation of Hagel in the Democratic-led Senate.

Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal, speaking on NBC’s “Today” program, said Hagel’s statements should not disqualify him.

“If President Obama trusts him, I think Senator Hagel has the experience. He’s certainly got the qualities as a person,” said McChrystal, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who resigned in 2010. “I think that level of trust and relationship between those people and with other members of the cabinet are the most important thing.

Brennan has served as Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser since 2008.

“John Brennan’s career of service and extraordinary record has prepared him to be an outstanding director of the CIA. … Brennan has the full trust and confidence of the president,” the senior admin official

“For four years, he has seen the president every day, and been by his side for some of his toughest decisions – including the decision to launch the bin Laden raid,” the official added.

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The race could pit a veteran Democratic Massachusetts congressmen or the state’s top federal prosecutor against Senator Scott Brown, a Republican who came to office in a 2010 special election but who last month lost a re-election bid to Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

The campaign promises to be a more spirited one than the state’s last special election, called to fill the vacancy created by the August 2009 death of Senator Edward Kennedy. With heavy support from the national Republican Party, Brown won the seat long held by the Democratic leader, handily beating state Attorney General Martha Coakley, who was criticized as running a lackluster campaign.

Brown has hinted he could consider another run, saying in his farewell speech on the Senate floor, “We may obviously meet again.”

Possible Democratic contenders include congressmen Edward Markey and Michael Capuano, as well as U.S. District Attorney Carmen Ortiz, observers and local media said.

A Democratic contender for the seat Kerry has held since 1985 could get a big boost from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who has authority to appoint an interim senator to serve from the time Kerry steps down to the special election about five months later.

That authority stems from a 2009 law passed in the wake of Kennedy’s death. At that time Patrick appointed Paul Kirk, a longtime Kennedy friend who said he would not run for the seat. But the governor does not have to nominate someone who does not intend to run for the seat.

“The real question is, does the governor appoint somebody who would be a coat-holder or someone who is going to run in the special election,” said Jeffrey Berry, a professor of political science at Tufts University. “That’s a crucial decision that the governor would make because if he appoints someone who is going to run, then that person gets a tremendous advantage a few months later in the election.”

Massachusetts law requires the special election to come on a Tuesday 145 to 160 days after Kerry submits his letter of resignation, with party primaries held four weeks before that.

The outcome of the race would not tip the balance of power in the Senate where Democrats currently enjoy a 55-45 majority.

But the departure of Kerry, 69, from a seat he had held for about 28 years will leave Massachusetts with two of the most junior members in the Senate.

Markey, 66, has held his seat in the House of Representatives since 1976 and is the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, while Capuano, 60, has served in the House since 1999.

Ortiz, 56, was named U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts in November 2009 and has overseen cases including the ongoing prosecution of accused Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Ortiz “has no plans to run for U.S. Senate,” a spokeswoman said on Friday.

Representatives of the other possible candidates did not return calls seeking comment on Friday.

The winner of the special election would serve until the end of Kerry’s current term, which extends into January 2015.

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With Newtown still in mourning from last Friday’s shooting, when a 20-year-old gunman shot dead 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School and then himself, Biden took the assignment to produce recommendations and report back to Obama in time for the president’s State of the Union address in late January.

Obama’s initiative addressed national outrage over the shootings in Connecticut, which have prompted longtime gun-rights supporters to reconsider their positions and a major private equity firm to put its gun-making business up for sale.

Funerals or wakes were held for four of Newtown’s children on Wednesday, as well as the school principal. Teacher Victoria Soto, who is credited with saving half her class of 6- and 7-year-olds by diverting the shooter and hiding the children in a closet, was also laid to rest.

“Vicki achieved in her 27 years what many of us will never achieve if we live to be a hundred,” the Reverend Meg Boxwell Williams told the funeral service. “Her last act was absolutely selfless, Christ-like, laying down her life for her children.”

Gunman Adam Lanza, 20, shot his mother at home and then killed 20 children and six adults at the school before shooting himself in the head, officials said.

Soto hid her students in a closet when she heard the shooting start early Friday morning, and when Lanza entered Soto’s classroom she tried to throw him off by telling him the students were at the other end of the school in an auditorium, the Hartford Courant reported, citing unnamed law-enforcement officials.

Lanza shot six of the children when they tried to run, and police later found the remaining seven students still hiding in the closet, the Courant said. Those children told law enforcement officials what had happened, the Courant reported.

The account provided Newtown with a positive story to cling to following the horrible events that left the nation stunned.

Soto’s death “mixed with the glad knowledge that her sacrifice saved so many children,” Williams said.

MOURNERS LINE THE STREETS

Some 30 police motorcycles from surrounding towns led the hearse carrying Soto’s body to the service in Stratford, Connecticut. About 200 mourners lined the streets outside the church, including a mother and daughter from Maryland who never met Soto but made the long drive because they were touched by her bravery in trying to protect the children in her class.

The family of the school’s slain principal, Dawn Hochsprung, invited mourners to visit a local funeral home on Wednesday. Her burial was due to be private at an undisclosed time.

Hundreds braved a bitter wind to pay their respects to the fallen principal, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

After the service for Daniel Barden, 7, a bagpiper played “America the Beautiful,” as hundreds of police officers and firefighters, some from New York City and distant towns, stood in formation outside.

The little boy loved his family, riding waves at the beach, playing drums, foosball, reading and making s’mores around a bonfire at his grandfather’s house, said an obituary in the Newtown Bee newspaper.

Funerals were also held for for Charlotte Bacon and Caroline Previdi, both 6, and a wake for Chase Kowalski, 7.

The massacre prompted some Republican lawmakers to open the door to a national debate about gun control.

That may give an opening to Obama, who said he hoped the National Rifle Association gun lobby would reflect on the tragedy as it awaits Biden’s recommendations.

“The vast majority of responsible law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war,” Obama said.

Connecticut’s U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal and Senator-elect Chris Murphy met on Wednesday evening with a group of about 40 Newtown residents who are pushing for strengthened gun control and calling themselves Newtown United.

Blumenthal said, as he asks people in town if there is anything he can do, they tell him: “Yes. Do something about guns.”

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Obama was not expected to unveil policy decisions but outline how his administration will proceed, White House aides said. The move could signal that he will make the issue a second-term priority and add momentum to a national debate over tighter gun control laws.

Obama has turned to Biden in the past to take a role in high-profile initiatives, including efforts on a deficit-reduction compromise with congressional Republicans in 2011. The vice president will join Obama for the announcement in the White House briefing room at 11:45 a.m. EST (1645 GMT).

Biden’s mission – to coordinate a strategy among government agencies in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings – comes days after the mass murder that has generated a national outcry for greater efforts to stem gun violence.

Friday’s massacre was the fourth shooting rampage to claim multiple lives in the United States this year.

The president demanded changes to the way the United States deals with gun violence at a memorial service in Newtown on Sunday. Obama said he would “use whatever power this office” holds to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Gun control has been a low priority for most U.S. politicians due to the widespread popularity of guns in America and the clout of the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun industry lobby.

The constitutional right to bear arms is seen by many Americans as set in stone, and even after mass shootings, politicians have tiptoed around specific steps to limit access to lethal weapons.

Even so, the horror of the Newtown killings, in which a 20-year-old man killed 6- and 7-year-old children and their teachers in their classrooms before taking his own life, has provoked an apparent change of heart in some politicians.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a longtime gun rights advocate, said he is now open to more regulation of military-style rifles like the one used in Newtown. Obama spoke with him on Tuesday, the White House said.

The White House spelled out some gun control measures on Tuesday that Obama would support.

Spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would back U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s effort to reinstate an assault weapons ban. The president also would favor any law to close a loophole related to gun-show sales, he said.

Efforts to limit high-capacity gun ammunition clips would be another option, Carney said.

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TIME editor Rick Stengel announced the choice on NBC’s “Today” program on Wednesday.

“He’s basically the beneficiary and the author of a kind new America – a new demographic, a new cultural America that he is now the symbol of,” he said.

“He won re-election despite a higher unemployment rate than anybody’s had to face in basically in 70 years. He’s the first Democrat to actually win two consecutive terms with over 50 percent of the vote. That’s something we haven’t seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” Stengel said, citing the president who served during the Great Depression and World War Two.

Obama edged out Malala Yousufzai, a Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating girls’ education, for the honor, Stengel said.

Other finalists included Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and scientist Fabiola Gianotti, he added.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are “being kept in the loop,” said an aide close to both Democratic leaders, ready to work out any details.

“The White House and Boehner have the most to work out, so they do the most talking,” the aide said on Friday.

Boehner scheduled a news conference for 11 a.m. EST/1500 GMT to discuss the “fiscal cliff” talks. “There’s been no progress,” a senior House Republican aide said.

After the Department of Labor reported the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7 percent in November as employment grew faster than expected, Boehner blamed Obama and Democrats for the prolonged uncertainty of the talks and said it was hurting the economy.

“The Democrats’ plan to slow-walk our economy to the edge of the ‘fiscal cliff’ instead of engaging in serious talks is a threat to our economy,” Boehner said in a statement.

Fundamental differences remain between the two sides. The president is demanding that tax cuts set to expire on December 31 be extended for middle-class taxpayers, but not for the more affluent.

If and when agreement is reached on that question, the two sides will try figure out a way to deal with the spending cuts, perhaps postponing or trimming them. They will also work toward a longer-term deficit-reduction package to be taken up after the newly elected Congress is sworn in next month.

“It’s going to require both leaders,” Obama senior adviser David Axelrod told MSNBC. “Each is going to have to make sacrifices in order to get this done. I think everybody recognizes the consequences of not getting it done.”

“In order to solve the problem and achieve the $4 trillion in savings, you’re going to have to do a balanced package, including all of these things,” he said, in answer to a question about the balance between tax hikes and entitlement reforms.

It’s no surprise that Boehner and Obama are the central players in the final weeks. That has been the pattern in previous showdowns over fiscal issues between the two parties.

Boehner will have a challenge selling whatever agreement he might reach to conservative Tea Party sympathizers in the House, some of whom are openly critical of the concessions the speaker has already made, particularly his openness to revenue increases of any kind.

But with polling showing that Americans will blame Republicans if the country goes off the “cliff,” more House Republicans have been urging Boehner to get an agreement quickly even if it means tax hikes for the wealthy.

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The two men sat down for their meal in a West Wing dining room and there were efforts to keep the visit low key. Romney was brought in through a heavily guarded side entryway and officials said only the two men would be present for the lunch. News photographers were not allowed in for pictures.

The lunch, which lasted a little more than an hour, appeared to be little more than a goodwill gesture aimed at salving wounds left open from a bitter campaign in which Obama accused Romney of being an out-of-touch, secretive, rich elitist and Romney said his opponent did not understand how to fix the U.S. economy.

They waged their battle in campaign speeches and toughly worded TV and radio ads that cost collectively hundreds of millions of dollars.

Obama is busily gearing up for his second term. The grandstand from which he will view his inaugural parade in January is being constructed on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.

Romney, who was said to have been shocked that his campaign fell short, has few apparent immediate plans. A week ago he was photographed visiting Disneyland in California with several grandchildren.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that Obama was interested in hearing some of Romney’s ideas and sharing campaign experiences with him. Obama said during his election victory speech that he wanted to sit down and talk to Romney.

“Without giving any specifics, this was a conversation the president wanted to have with Governor Romney as he mentioned the night of the election,” said Carney.

There was no job offer for Romney in the works, he said.

It was not immediately clear whether the two men discussed the top priority facing the president and Congress, the prospect of reaching a deal to avoid a year-end fiscal calamity when Bush-era tax cuts expire and a variety of budget cuts kick in.

Romney had campaigned on sharply cutting government spending, saying any program worth borrowing money from China to pay for would have to be justified. Obama has focused more on raising taxes on the wealthy. Both Democrats and Republicans are far apart on reaching a deal with a month to go.

While Republican leaders in Washington had whole-heartedly backed Romney’s candidacy, there have been no indications that he has been brought into the conversation over the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

“Romney has never been viewed as a Washington insider and is one that never really connected with those inside the Beltway. And he tried to capitalize on that during the campaign. He does not have close ties to Republicans inside of Washington, but he’s still respected as a very effective businessman,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean.

Indeed, Republican leaders have shown every sign of wanting to put Romney in the rear-view mirror, after he was quoted as telling donors in a conference call that Obama won because his administration had doled out “gifts” to blacks, Hispanics and young voters to encourage them to turn out for him.

Party leaders have largely disavowed the comments and have engaged in some soul-searching on what it will take to get in position to win the White House in 2016.

The White House visit for Romney was a chance to begin rebuilding his political stature after his party’s disappointing outcome in the November 6 election. He also paid a visit to his vice presidential nominee, Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and a potential 2016 Republican presidential contender.

Ryan said he remains grateful to Romney.

“I’m proud of the principles and ideas we advanced during the campaign and the commitment we share to expanding opportunity and promoting economic security for American families,” Ryan said in a statement.

Romney loyalists have been defending the honor of the former Massachusetts governor, who has remained largely out of sight since his loss.

“Losing is just losing,” Stuart Stevens, Romney’s top campaign strategist, said in a Washington Post opinion article this week. “It’s not a mandate to throw out every idea that the candidate championed, and I would hope it’s not seen as an excuse to show disrespect for a good man who fought hard for values we admire.”

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The encounter follows Obama’s promise, in the aftermath of the November 6 election, to consult the former Massachusetts governor before the end of the year. It also comes amid Obama’s efforts to work out with congressional leaders a way to avoid a looming “fiscal cliff” that could push the U.S. economy back into recession.

“Governor Romney will have a private lunch at the White House with President Obama in the private dining room,” the White House said of the meeting, which will be closed to the media. “It will be the first opportunity they have had to visit since the election.”

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Obama has sought to go on the offensive since his re-election on November 6 in the fight with Republicans over the “fiscal cliff” – a combination of tax increases and spending cuts that would go into effect next year if the two sides do not reach a deal to stop it.

As part of that effort, the White House released a report on Monday showing the impact that middle class tax increases would have on consumers and the retail industry.

On Tuesday, a White House official said, the president will meet with a group of small-business owners. On Wednesday he will host an event with “middle class Americans who would be impacted if Congress fails to act to extend the middle class tax cuts,” the official said. He will also hold a meeting with business leaders, something he has done previously.

On Friday, he will visit a manufacturing facility of The Rodon Group, a small business that is a manufacturer for K’NEX Brands, a toy company with products including Tinkertoy and Angry Bird Building Sets.

“The president will travel to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to continue making the public case for action by visiting a business that depends on middle class consumers during the holiday season, and could be impacted if taxes go up on 98 percent of Americans at the end of the year,” the official said.

Obama’s visit and his meetings at the White House are designed to put pressure on congressional Republicans to extend tax cuts for middle-income people while ending them for families who make more than $250,000 a year.

Gaining the support of the business community is a key part of Obama’s strategy. Reinforcing that, the White House released an analysis by its National Economic Council that said millions of small-business owners would suffer if the middle class taxes went up next year.

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“I am absolutely confident that all of you are going to do just amazing things in your lives,” Obama tells staff members at his Chicago headquarters on Wednesday following his victory over Republican Mitt Romney.

Obama says the campaign team is “so much better than I was” at meeting goals and in effectiveness than he had been as a young community organizer in Chicago.

Becoming emotional, Obama says his work in running for office has come “full circle.”

“Because what you guys have done means that the work I’m doing is important. And I’m really proud of that. I’m really proud of all of you,” Obama says, wiping away tears.

The workers respond with loud applause.

Obama also became emotional in his final rally on Monday night in Iowa, as his voice broke and he wiped tears from his eyes as he reflected on those who had helped his campaign.

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