Noticias de Hoy

By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As lawmakers gathered in the U. S. Senate on Wednesday to vote on a plan to expand background checks for gun buyers, staffers in the office of Alaska Democratic Senator Mark Begich fielded a steady stream of calls urging him to break with his party and vote against the measure. Those callers got what they wanted: Begich voted no – one of four Democrats from gun-friendly states to do so – and the most ambitious gun-control push in two decades went down to defeat. . . .

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By Steve Holland, Matt Spetalnick and Gabriel Debenedetti WASHINGTON (Reuters) – 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. . . .

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By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, moving swiftly after the Senate rejected a measure to expand background checks for gun buyers, acted on Friday to patch holes in the existing database dealers use to ensure they are not selling weapons to criminals or the mentally ill. The Health and Human Services Department will issue a formal proposal on Friday to make sure one of its privacy laws does not prevent states from reporting information to the background check system. . . .

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After a ?rough? week across the country, House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi both addressed tragedy and strategy in their weekly news conferences today, offering their condolences to those affected by the Boston Marathon bombings and the West, Texas, explosion. ?Words alone. . .

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By John Whitesides and David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One day after suffering a crippling defeat on gun-control legislation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday set aside President Barack Obama’s plan to curb gun violence but promised to keep searching for a compromise. Reid said Democrats would keep negotiating on the proposals, even though the Senate rejected all the vital elements of the legislation prompted by the December massacre of 20 children and six adults at a school in Newtown, Connecticut. . . .

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By Dan Boyce HELENA, Montana (Reuters) – Montana’s governor on Thursday signed into law a bill that formally decriminalizes homosexual sex, a move gay rights activists in the state called a watershed moment in their battle for equality. The measure removed from the books a law classifying gay sex as a felony. It was struck down by the Montana Supreme Court 16 years ago and no longer enforced. "I am not going to speak too long," Democratic Governor Steve Bullock told the crowd packed into the expansive rotunda of the state capitol for a signing ceremony. . . .

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By David Ingram and Deborah Charles (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges on Thursday against a Mississippi man, who worked as an Elvis impersonator, for threatening to harm President Barack Obama by sending him a letter that initially tested positive for the deadly poison ricin. Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was believed to have sent three letters, all with identical wording and type-written on yellow paper, to Obama, U. S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Justice Court Judge Sadie Holland of Lee County, Mississippi. . . .

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By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate should proceed with a stand-alone bill to improve mental health treatment to help stem gun violence after key parts of President Barack Obama’s gun control agenda were defeated, a key senator involved in the effort said on Thursday. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who championed stronger background checks for gun purchases, said revisions to that proposal – and a better sales job – will be needed to give senators space to change their votes without appearing as "flip-floppers. . . .

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By Samuel P. Jacobs NEW YORK (Reuters) – In the end, nothing could persuade enough U. S. senators to approve the most significant gun legislation in two decades: Not the carnage from Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were massacred by a gunman in December, igniting a national debate on gun control. Not the impassioned pleas of Newtown survivors’ families, whose calls for expanded background checks for gun buyers so moved a pro-gun senator from West Virginia that he became their advocate. . . .

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday asked senators pressing for tougher sanctions over Iran’s nuclear ambitions to be patient, saying there is uncertainty in the Islamic republic two months before its June 14 election. "I think this is a moment for us to be a little patient," Kerry said at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I do think timing and the choice of when we might do something is critical. . . .

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