Police say one person is dead and two people are in custody after a shooting on a crowded Boston bus.

BOSTON (AP) — Police say one person is dead and two people are in custody after a shooting on a crowded Boston bus.

The shooting occurred at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday on an MBTA bus near the Dudley Square station.

The victim, described only as a man in his 20s, was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The two suspects trying to flee on foot were quickly taken into custody by police working near the station. Police also recovered two weapons. The names of the suspects were not immediately made public.

No possible motive was disclosed.

More than a third of U.S. workers have experienced workplace bullying, the repeated mistreatment by a boss or co-workers, which includes verbal abuse, threatening conduct, intimidation, harassment or social exclusion, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute.

More than a third of U.S. workers have experienced workplace bullying, the repeated mistreatment by a boss or co-workers, which includes verbal abuse, threatening conduct, intimidation, harassment or social exclusion, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute. Targets of on-the-job bullying often suffer increased fear, anxiety, helplessness or anger.

Many victims of workplace bullying never report the incidents because they fear retaliation or lack confidence that their employer will address to the problem. Human resource experts say it's important to speak up and resolve the issue before it results in physical or mental harm.

Some other tips:

—Consult your company's employee handbook to see if it has a policy prohibiting harassment or other workplace bullying behavior. Many organizations define acceptable standards of office behavior and have a process for filing complaints and punishing misconduct.

—Keep detailed notes of the bully's actions, including the date, time and circumstances of what took place. The information is essential for filing an internal complaint or, possibly, a lawsuit.

—Talk to the person who has been bullying you. Sometimes, a boss or co-worker doesn't realize words or actions have been hurtful. Talking it over in a professional way may resolve the problem. But don't get caught in a war of words or make threats that could escalate the confrontation. Bring in a third party if talking privately makes you feel uncomfortable.

—If talking it over doesn't help, it's time to talk to the human resources department or the bully's supervisor. If the bully is a senior manager or CEO, approach another senior official or someone close to the bully and urge that person to help defuse the situation.

—Keep doing your job well to show managers that you are a valuable employee. Make it in the company's interest to keep you happy.

—If you've worked through channels inside the office and there's still no resolution, it may be time to part ways with your employer.

After almost three years in custody, the Army private accused in the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history said he did it because he wanted the public to know how the American military was fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with little regard for human life.

In this June 25, 2012 file photo, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, right, is escorted out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md. The Army private charged in the largest leak of classified material in U.S. history says he sent the material to WikiLeaks to enlighten the public about American foreign and military policy on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) The Associated Press  

By BEN NUCKOLS, Associated Press

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — Bradley Manning, 25, pleaded guilty Thursday at a military hearing at Fort Meade, Md., to 10 charges that could carry a maximum sentence of 20 years. Prosecutors plan to pursue 12 more charges against him at court-martial, including a charge of aiding the enemy that carries a potential life sentence.

"I began to become depressed at the situation we found ourselves mired in year after year. In attempting counterinsurgency operations, we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists," the former intelligence analyst in Baghdad told a military judge.

He added: "I wanted the public to know that not everyone living in Iraq were targets to be neutralized."

It was the first time Manning directly admitted leaking the material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and detailed the frustrations that led him to do it.

The slightly built soldier from Crescent, Okla., read from a 35-page statement through his wire-rimmed glasses for more than an hour. He spoke quickly and evenly, showing little emotion even when he described how troubled he was by what he had seen.

The judge, Col. Denise Lind, accepted his plea to 10 charges involving illegal possession or distribution of classified material. Manning was allowed to plead guilty under military regulations instead of federal espionage law, which knocked the potential sentence down from 92 years.

He will not be sentenced until his court-martial on the other charges is over.

Manning admitted sending hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, State Department diplomatic cables, other classified records and two battlefield video clips to WikiLeaks in 2009 and 2010. WikiLeaks posted some of the material, embarrassing the U.S. and its allies.

He said he was disturbed by the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the way American troops treated the populace. He said he did not believe the release of the information he downloaded onto a thumb drive would harm the U.S.

"I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information ... this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general," Manning said.

Manning said he was appalled by 2007 combat video of an assault by a U.S. helicopter that killed 11 men, including a Reuters news photographer. The Pentagon concluded the troops mistook the camera equipment for weapons.

"The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the seemingly delightful bloodlust the aerial weapons team happened to have," Manning said, adding that the soldiers' actions "seemed similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass."

As for the State Department cables, he said they "documented backdoor deals and criminality that didn't reflect the so-called leader of the free world."

"I thought these cables were a prime example of the need for a more open diplomacy," Manning said. "I believed that these cables would not damage the United States. However, I believed these cables would be embarrassing."

The battlefield reports were the first documents Manning decided to leak. He said he sent them to WikiLeaks after contacting The Washington Post and The New York Times. He said he felt a reporter at the Post didn't take him seriously, and a message he left for news tips at the Times was not returned.

Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said Thursday of the purported phone call: "This is news to us."

The Obama administration has said the release of the documents threatened valuable military and diplomatic sources and strained America's relations with other governments. The administration has aggressively pursued people accused of leaking classified material, and Manning's is the highest-profile case.

Manning has been embraced by some left-leaning activists as a whistle-blowing hero whose actions exposed war crimes and helped trigger the Middle Eastern pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring in 2010. He has spent more than 1,000 days in custody.

The soldier told the court that he corresponded online with someone he believed to be WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange but never confirmed the person's identity.

WikiLeaks has been careful never to confirm or deny Manning was the source of the documents.

Reached by telephone in Britain on Thursday, Assange would not say whether he had any dealings with Manning but called him a political prisoner and said his prosecution was part of an effort by the U.S. to clamp down on criticism of its military and foreign policy.

Assange himself remains under investigation by the U.S. and has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for the better part of a year to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex-crimes allegations.

___

Associated Press Writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

The Obama administration wants the Supreme Court to overturn California's gay marriage ban, outlining a broad legal argument that could ultimately be applied to other state prohibitions across the country.

By JULIE PACE and MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration wants the Supreme Court to overturn California's gay marriage ban, outlining a broad legal argument that could ultimately be applied to other state prohibitions across the country.

The administration's friend-of-the-court brief, filed Thursday evening, unequivocally calls on the justices to strike down California's Proposition 8 ballot measure, although it stops short of the soaring rhetoric on marriage equality President Barack Obama expressed in his inaugural address in January. Still, it marks the first time a U.S. president has urged the high court to expand the right of gays and lesbians to wed.

The brief is not legally binding, though the government's opinion could carry weight with the Supreme Court when it hears oral arguments on Proposition 8 in late March.

California is one of eight states that give gay couples all the benefits of marriage through civil unions or domestic partnership but don't allow them to wed. The brief argues that in granting same-sex couples those rights, California has already acknowledged that gay relationships bear the same hallmarks as straight ones.

"They establish homes and lives together, support each other financially, share the joys and burdens of raising children, and provide care through illness and comfort at the moment of death," the administration wrote.

The brief marks the president's most expansive view of gay marriage and signals that he is moving away from his previous assertion that states should determine their own marriage laws. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, signed off on the administration's legal argument last week following lengthy discussions with Attorney General Eric Holder and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.

In a statement following the filing, Holder said "the government seeks to vindicate the defining constitutional ideal of equal treatment under the law."

Obama's position, if adopted by the court, would likely result in gay marriage becoming legal in the seven other states: Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island.

In the longer term, the administration urges the justices to subject laws that discriminate on sexual orientation to more rigorous review than usual, as is the case for claims that laws discriminate on the basis of race, sex and other factors.

The Supreme Court has never given gay Americans the special protection it has afforded women and minorities. If it endorses such an approach in the gay marriage cases, same-sex marriage bans around the country could be imperiled.

Despite the potentially wide-ranging implications of the administration's brief, it still falls short of what gay rights advocates and the attorneys who will argue against Proposition 8 had hoped for. Those parties had pressed the president to urge the Supreme Court to not only overturn California's ban, but also declare all gay marriage bans unconstitutional.

Still, marriage equality advocates publicly welcomed the president's legal positioning.

"Obama again asserted a bold claim of full equality for gay Americans, this time in a legal brief," said Richard Socarides, an attorney and advocate. "If its full weight and reasoning are accepted by the Supreme Court, all anti-gay marriage state constitutional amendments will fall, and quickly."

The National Organization for Marriage, a leading supporter of the California ban, rejected Obama's arguments. Spokesman Thomas Peters said he expects the Supreme Court to uphold the votes of more than 7 million Californians to protect marriage, spokesman Thomas Peters said.

The president raised expectations that he would back a broad brief during his inaugural address on Jan. 21. He said the nation's journey "is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law."

"For if we are truly created equal, than surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," he added.

Obama has a complicated history on gay marriage. As a presidential candidate in 2008, he opposed the California ban but didn't endorse gay marriage. He later said his personal views on gay marriage were "evolving."

When he ran for re-election last year, Obama announced his personal support for same-sex marriage but said marriage was an issue that states, not the federal government, should decide.

Public opinion has shifted in support of gay marriage in recent years.

In May 2008, Gallup found that 56 percent of Americans felt same-sex marriages should not be recognized by the law as valid. By last November, 53 percent felt they should be legally recognized.

Gay marriage supporters see the Supreme Court's hearing of Proposition 8, as well as a related case on the Defense of Marriage Act, as a potential watershed moment for same-sex unions.

In a well-coordinated effort, opponents of the California ban flooded the justices with friend-of-the-court briefs in recent days.

Among those filing briefs were 13 states, including four that do not now permit gay couples to wed, and more than 100 prominent Republicans, including GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman and Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Two professional football players who have been outspoken gay rights advocates also filed a brief in the California case. Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo urged the court to rule in favor of same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court has several options to decide the case that would be narrower than what the administration is asking. The justices also could uphold the California provision, as opponents of gay marriage are urging.

One day after the Supreme Court hears the California case, the justices will hear arguments on provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits.

The administration abandoned its defense of the act in 2011, but the measure will continue to be federal law unless it is struck down or repealed.

In a brief filed last week, the government said Section 3 of the act "violates the fundamental constitutional guarantee of equal protection" because it denies legally married same-sex couples many federal benefits that are available only to legally married heterosexual couples.

A grieving Oregon mother who battled Facebook for full access to her deceased son's account has been pushing for years for something that would prevent others from losing photos, messages and other memories — as she did.

In this Feb. 16, 2013 photo, Karen Williams poses with a photo of her deceased son, Loren, in Beaverton, Ore. Williams, who battled Facebook over the right to view Loren’s Facebook page, has been urging lawmakers for years to do something to prevent others from losing photos, messages and other memories that otherwise could be accessed at the click of a mouse. This year the Oregon Legislature took up the cause, only to be turned back by pressure from the tech industry, which says they must abide by a 1986 federal law that prevents them from sharing such information. (AP Photo/Lauren Gambino) The Associated Press  

By LAUREN GAMBINO, Associated Press

BEAVERTON, Ore. (AP) — A grieving Oregon mother who battled Facebook for full access to her deceased son's account has been pushing for years for something that would prevent others from losing photos, messages and other memories — as she did.

"Everybody's going to face this kind of a situation at some point in their lives," says Karen Williams, whose 22-year-old son died in a 2005 motorcycle accident.

The Oregon Legislature responded and took up the cause recently with a proposal that would have made it easier for loved ones to access the "digital assets" of the deceased, only to be turned back by pressure from the tech industry, which argued that both a 1986 federal law and voluntary terms of service agreements prohibit companies from sharing a person's information — even if such a request were included in a last will and testament.

Lobbyists agree the Stored Communications Act is woefully out of date but say that until it's changed, laws passed at the state level could be unconstitutional.

"Everybody wants to do the right thing, but the hard legal reality is the federal communications act," said Jim Hawley, a vice president at TechNet, an industry group that represents companies such as Google and Microsoft.

Oregon lawmakers moved ahead anyway with a proposal that would have given "digital assets" — everything from photos and messages stored online to intellectual property and banking information — the same treatment as material property for estate purposes.

"I think it's time for us to really look at what we can do now," said Democratic Sen. Floyd Prozanski after hearing Williams testify about her loss last month.

Two weeks later, however, language in the bill that would have covered social media accounts, from Facebook to Flikr, was stripped as tech lobbyists said the federal law and company privacy policies trumped anything that the bill would have included.

"I recognize the emotional toll these types of decisions can have on a family who's lost a loved one," Prozanski said Thursday. "But some of these issues may have to be addressed when we have more information than we currently have."

Still, the problem persists and discussions on the issue are gaining momentum. As unlikely as such a case might be, even if a person willingly gives over login and password information to someone whom they authorize to access a given digital account, it would violate most terms of service agreements and both people could be charged with cybercrimes and face civil action from Internet companies under current law.

Currently, five states have digital assets laws, which vary widely. This group includes Oklahoma, which passed a law two years ago allowing estate lawyers to access digital assets, even social media accounts. That measure did not face the opposition that has emerged in Oregon.

"There is some question if laws like the one we passed in Oklahoma, would stand up to a challenge by Facebook and Gmail saying their terms of service agreements supersede laws like this one and the one being discussed in Oregon," said Ryan Kiesel, a former Oklahoma legislator who wrote the law.

"That's a question that remains to be answered," he added.

Several other states, including Nebraska — guided in part by the story of Williams' 22-year-old son, Loren — are also considering proposals. And the Uniform Law Commission, a non-profit, non-partisan group that writes model legislation for states to help standardize laws around the nation, is examining the issue.

"This law is a real need as we have moved into a digital world," said Lane Shetterly, an Oregon attorney and a representative on the commission's drafting committee. The group is responsible for standardizing a range of legislation, including commercial transaction regulations and child custody laws.

Proponents say the need is clear. Without clarity or direction, the digital information left behind by a deceased person can spark emotional legal battles, pitting big business against devastated families. And as more and more memories are being stored online, new tools are necessary to make sure loved ones can easily access personal details that could be lost forever.

"If this were a box of letters under his bed, no one would have thought twice," Williams said.

Months after the death of her first-born son, who was away at college in Arizona, Williams found comfort in his Facebook page. There, she was able to click through photos and letters that helped ease the pain of her loss — for two hours.

She learned of the page from his friends and wanted access to his memories to keep them from being deleted, which was Facebook's policy at the time. Unaware of Internet privacy regulations, she reached out to Facebook for help. As she waited for a response, one of his friends provided a tip that helped her discover his password. "It was like a gift," she said.

Shortly after, however, the site's administrators changed the password, citing company policy in denying her. Williams sued and won, but she never received the full access she sought. Eventually, the account was taken down. In the end, she gained little more than a symbolic victory and a role as champion of a cause that didn't exist before the digital age.

Kiesel, the former Oklahoma lawmaker, says the various attempts at legislation have sparked a long overdue conversation about estate planning for digital assets.

"I think that, because of the wide prevalence of online accounts and digital property, the federal government will ultimately need to pass some legislation that provides greater uniformity," he said.

Congress, however, has no current plans to take up the matter. U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat who heads the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, is not planning to introduce any digital assets proposals and has not heard any come up, his press secretary said. Also, a bill aimed at modernizing the Stored Communications Act failed in the House Judiciary Committee last year.

"This is not going to happen overnight," said Greg Nojeim, of The Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, public policy group. He said changes to the Stored Communications Act were being discussed by industry groups, "but none that would help these families."

Under current law, Internet companies that provide storage for digital assets are prohibited from disclosing account information, even to families, without a court order, which can be costly and difficult to obtain.

Even then, there are no guarantees. Facebook, for example, citing its terms of service agreement won't provide access, even if a judge orders them to do so. Facebook will not comment on pending legislation or specific cases other than to defer to their service agreement, which states, in part, "We may access, preserve and share your information in response to a legal request (like a search warrant, court order or subpoena) if we have a good faith belief that the law requires us to do so."

Along these lines, TechNet, one of several groups in opposition to the Oregon measure, provided written testimony arguing that legislation requiring online companies to provide access could subject them to federal criminal penalties.

"We just want to make sure that whatever comes out doesn't put a company in a position where they have to choose between state and federal law," said Hawley.

The pending Oregon legislation now covers only digital assets of commercial or financial value such as online banking information.

"It's absolutely devastating," Williams said.

Since she began her quiet crusade after her 2007 court victory yielded limited, temporary access to her son's account, the social media landscape has changed considerably, but there is still no industry standard. Where Facebook once deleted the accounts of deceased users, for example, pages can now be memorialized for public view.

Many predict the problem will grow as long as there are no estate laws in place to determine what happens to virtual property left behind by the deceased.

Without a clear law, estate managers can be charged with cybercrimes for attempting to access clients' digital accounts, said Victoria Blachly, a Portland attorney who helped draft the initial Oregon proposal.

Estate planning attorney James Lamm writes about the issue on his blog "Digital Passing." He advises clients to include explicit instructions in their wills stating exactly how digital assets should be handled — even if there is no guarantee those wishes will be carried out.

"It's good to come up with a thoughtful plan for what happens to all of your property," he said. "Your physical properties, and your digital properties."

A Massachusetts woman says in a lawsuit against FedEx the company erroneously sent her a package containing seven pounds of marijuana, then gave her address to the intended recipients who later showed up at her door.

In this Wednesday, May 16, 2012, file photo, a FedEx delivery truck is seen at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File  

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts woman says in a lawsuit against FedEx the company erroneously sent her a package containing seven pounds of marijuana, then gave her address to the intended recipients who later showed up at her door.

Maryangela Tobin of Plymouth says in the suit filed Feb. 12 the company violated state privacy laws by disclosing her address and put her and her children in danger.

She says as soon as she opened the package, which she thought was a birthday present for her daughter, she called police.

Soon after, a stranger knocked and repeatedly asked if she had his package. She slammed and bolted her door.

Police made an arrest, but Tobin says she's scared of retribution from drug dealers.

Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx says it doesn't comment on pending lawsuits.

A fiscal deadline all but blown, President Barack Obama says he once again wants to seek a big fiscal deal that would raise taxes and trim billions from expensive and ever growing entitlement programs.

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A fiscal deadline all but blown, President Barack Obama says he once again wants to seek a big fiscal deal that would raise taxes and trim billions from expensive and ever growing entitlement programs. But with automatic federal spending cuts ready to start taking their toll, the path toward that grand bargain Obama campaigned on last year has significantly narrowed.

The president has summoned the top bipartisan congressional leadership to the White House, a meeting designed to give all sides a chance to stake out their fiscal positions with a new threat of a government shutdown less than four weeks away. There were no expectations of a breakthrough.

But for Obama, Friday's session would be his first opportunity to spell out his 10-year, $1.5 trillion deficit reduction plan in a face-to-face meeting with congressional allies and adversaries.

His chances are squeezed by anti-tax conservatives, by liberals unwilling to cut into Medicare and Social Security, and by a Republican leadership that has dug in against any new revenue after ceding to Obama's demands two months ago for a higher tax rate for top income earners.

On Thursday, two ill-fated proposals aimed at blunting the blame over the cuts — one Democratic and the other Republican — failed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate. Obama placed the responsibility on Republicans.

"They voted to let the entire burden of deficit reduction fall squarely on the middle class," he said.

The White House is still betting that once the public begins to experience the effects of the $85 billion in across-the-board cuts the pain will be unbearable enough to force lawmakers to reconsider and negotiate. But the consequences of the cuts —the so called sequester — will likely be a slow boil. Obama this week said the effect "is not a cliff, but it is a tumble downward."

Indeed, much of the impact won't be felt for weeks or more than a month; others, like possible teacher layoffs, wouldn't take place until the new school year in the fall.

And yet, the next likely showdown — the expiration of a six-month spending bill on March 27, with its built-in threat of a government shutdown — will loom before that, meaning that the leverage the White House would hope to have won't materialize until late.

Polls also show that the public is not as engaged in this showdown as it has been in past fiscal confrontations and an NBC-Wall Street Journal Post survey indicates that Obama has lost some ground with the public in his handling of the economy.

Still, White House officials also say they believe Republicans will once again give way to additional tax revenue in part to avoid drastic cuts and in part to win reductions in Medicare and Social Security spending from Obama that they have been unable to get from Democrats before.

"I am prepared to make some tough decisions, some of which will garner some significant frustration on the part of members of my party, but I think it's the right thing to do," Obama told top business executives this week.

Given Washington's entrenched partisanship, Obama's effort could be dismissed as either another failed attempt at negotiations or as simply an effort to lay blame on Republicans for blocking compromise.

The odds aren't with the president.

Many conservatives are willing to accept the automatic cuts as the only way to reduce government spending, even though the budget knife cuts into cherished defense programs. Likewise, many liberals are beginning to embrace the cuts as a way to protect revered big benefit programs that have long been identified with the Democratic Party.

Moreover, many programs for low-income Americans are protected from the immediate cuts while the Pentagon — whose budget has long been a target of the left — faces across the board cuts of 8 percent and up to 13 percent in some of its accounts.

More than 20 Democrats in Congress, including veteran Rep. Ed Markey, a candidates for the Senate from Massachusetts, have signed a letter pledging not to cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits in efforts to reduce the deficit.

Obama's plan calls for $580 billion in new revenue over 10 years by limiting the value of itemized deductions and certain tax exclusions to no more than 28 percent. That means taxpayers with a tax rate greater than 28 percent would face a tax increase.

While Obama also regularly talks about closing loopholes to gain more revenue, his tax plan would close many corporate loopholes to lower corporate tax rates, not to generate more revenue. He aims to drop corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 28 percent for most corporations and down to 25 percent for manufacturers.

In exchange for new tax revenue and a tax overhaul, Obama has offered to reduce spending in health care programs such as Medicare by $400 billion over 10 years, change an inflation formula for government benefits that would result in lower cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other programs, and reduce other spending for total reductions of $900 billion over 10 years.

Those cuts, together with about $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction already achieved over the last two years through spending cuts and a year-end tax increase on taxpayers making more than $400,000 would achieve a $4 trillion deficit reduction target.

Republicans though are unimpressed, and House Speaker John Boehner rejected it when Obama first offered it in December.

"Last year we proposed generating new revenue through tax reform," Boehner said Thursday. "We did that as an alternative to the president's demand for higher tax rates. Ultimately, the president got his revenues and he got it his way through higher rates. Given those facts, the revenue issue is now closed."

At the other end of the spectrum, liberals are seeking to silence White House talk about cutting entitlements.

"They're almost on a daily basis talking about (reducing) Social Security benefits," said Adam Green, founder of the liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "There's no rational or political reason to do so, except some ill-conceived idea that Americans would value a grand bargain, even one that robs their grandparents of thousands of dollars."

The code enforcement and planning and economic development offices are urging the mayor not to cut their staff.

Steven Desilets, Springfield's building commissioner, speaks with reporters following the gas explosion in downtown Springfield in November. Mark M. Murray / The Republican file  

SPRINGFIELD – City department heads continued to raise concerns this week regarding a potential 10 percent cut in their budgets next fiscal year, including building commissioner Steven T. Desilets, saying that his staff inspections are critical as a matter of public health, safety and quality of life.

Desilets was among department heads and officials who have urged Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and his finance team to spare their departments from significant cuts during ongoing budget hearings. “We really are a life-safety department,” Desilets said, during a hearing this week at City Hall. “It is a skeleton crew.”

The city's code enforcement department, with budgets totaling $1.9 million, has five building inspectors and one vacancy, and five housing inspectors, and 10 more inspectors in plumbing, electrical, zoning, and weights and measures, he said. There is also his job, a deputy commissioner and four clerical employees, he said.

The inspections of housing and buildings range from emergency inspections for blighted and unsafe properties to regular inspections for building and housing projects to ensure compliance with codes and regulations, Desilets said. The inspections and related reports are critical for fire prevention and detection, to ensure structural safety and code compliance, he said.

Sarno, in response, said he knows that the department brings in significant revenues from building permit fees. Many fees increased last year with the understanding that the increases would help bring timely inspections on building projects.

Sarno, however, has asked departments to prepare budgets reflecting a 10 percent cut for the fiscal year beginning July 1 due to a continuing trend of increased costs and reduced revenues. In a letter this week to state legislative leaders, Sarno urged the Legislature to adopt a proposal by Gov. Deval L. Patrick to increase local aid and provide other relief.

Sarno said the city is facing a sixth consecutive year of “pared down” budgets in which the municipal work force, not including the schools, has shrunk from 1,589 employees to fewer than than 1,200. About 800 employees are with the police and fire divisions, he said.

Kevin E. Kennedy, the city’s chief development officer, who oversees various departments, including Planning and Economic Development, also spoke of the importance of his staff in its mission to promote economic development. Those projects, both small and large, bring in tax revenue, he said.

The planning and economic development annual budget is approximately $1.3 million, with 13 full-time employees.

Cuts to his staff would be “counterproductive to our mission, which is to increase economic development and tax revenue,” Kennedy said following the budget hearing.

Councilor Kateri B. Walsh, among councilors attending the meeting, said many residents believe there is a lot of “fat” to cut from the budget. In fact, potential budget cuts being discussed “would be cutting services people expect,” Walsh said.

Councilors John Lysak and Timothy Rooke also attended the budget hearings with Desilets and Kennedy, among other city department officials.

Beyond the effort to bring an estimated $800 million casino project to Springfield, Kennedy said his office has a wide range of projects ranging from plans to redevelop Union Station and the former Mason Square fire station to smaller projects. His office is also working on projects ranging from an increase in lighting downtown to efforts to bring a supermarket to the Mason Square area, he said.

The former Republican presidential candidate is re-emerging after nearly four months in seclusion at his Southern California home.

In this Nov. 7, 2012, file photo, Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waves to supporters at an election night rally in Boston, where he conceded the race to President Barack Obama. Romney has emerged from nearly four months in seclusion for an interview with Fox News. He'€™s also scheduled to deliver his first postelection speech this month at Washington's Conservative Political Action Conference. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)  

BOSTON (AP) — Mitt Romney is back, if only briefly.

The former Republican presidential candidate is re-emerging after nearly four months in seclusion at his Southern California home.

Former aides describe his burst of activity this month — a national broadcast interview, a speech at a gathering of conservatives — as a thank-you tour of sorts designed to close out a lengthy political career.

His party isn't exactly clamoring for his return.

In his first public comments in months, Romney used a Fox News interview to criticize President Barack Obama's leadership. The former Massachusetts governor said Obama has been "flying around the country and berating Republicans and blaming and pointing" instead of preventing Washington's latest budget crisis.

In about two weeks, Romney is to deliver his first postelection speech, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

A few Republican governors who aggressively supported Romney's presidential bid last fall offered lukewarm responses in recent days to the question of Romney's future role in the GOP. Conservative leaders suggest they're ready for a new era without a prominent Romney role.

"He has every right to be involved. And certainly he gave a lot for the cause," said Tim Phillips, president of the national conservative group Americans for Prosperity. "But most of the movement is wanting to look forward. They want to look forward to the next generation of leaders."

Without a public office or a prominent position in the private sector, Romney lacks a ready platform.

Before Romney, the previous two losing nominees, Republican John McCain in 2008 and Democrat John Kerry in 2004, eased their way back into national politics through the Senate seats they retained after the elections.

After his loss in 2000, former Vice President Al Gore appeared in a documentary film about climate change and became an outspoken advocate for environmental protections.

But almost immediately after his defeat, Romney retreated to the privacy of his California home. He surfaced in the national media in recent months only in photographs such as those showing him pumping gas, enjoying a day out with his family at Disneyland and shopping at Costco.

In his goodbye message to staffers at his Boston headquarters last November, Romney promised to remain an active voice in the party. Four months later, former aides say that he's more likely to play a quieter role focused on fundraising, while using his status to help elevate issues from time to time.

"We were on a roller coaster, exciting and thrilling, ups and downs. But the ride ends. And then you get off," Romney told "Fox News Sunday" in an interview taped Thursday in California. "And it's not like, 'Oh, can't we be on a roller coaster the rest of our life?' It's like, 'No, the ride's over.'"

Several Republican governors, already jockeying to fill a leadership vacuum in an evolving GOP, offered reserved responses when asked during last weekend's meeting of the National Governors Association about Romney's re-emergence.

"We need as many voices for conservative reform and leadership as possible," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, among those Republicans thought to be weighing a 2016 presidential bid. "I welcome Gov. Romney and anybody else who will help to make that message and help to take that fight."

Another possible GOP presidential contender, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, said "the jury's out" as to what role Romney could play.

Gov. Nikki Haley, R-S.C., was more enthusiastic. She said Romney has "a power in his voice that we want to see continue."

There is little updated polling on Romney's popularity, but a Bloomberg poll last December found that just 30 percent of those surveyed rated him as excellent or good to help the Republican Party figure out how to win more races, including the presidency.

Some Republicans suggest that Romney's greatest value to his party may be his vast fundraising network. His last presidential campaign raised more than $446 million.

The change would begin the process to remove about 140 Granby residents in the area of Rt. 116 who also pay taxes to South Hadley for fire protection, according to Granby selectman Mark L. Bail. He writes about the issue at Granby Select Board Blog, http://granbyselectboard.wordpress.com/

 

GRANBY – Voters are scheduled to decide whether to alter a long-standing arrangement with South Hadley involving fire protection services in Fire District 2 at a special town meeting on Monday.

The change would begin the process to remove about 140 Granby residents in the area of Route 116 who also pay taxes to South Hadley for fire protection, according to Granby Selectman Mark L. Bail. He writes about the issue at Granby Select Board blog.

Deliberation on the eight-article Town Meeting warrant begins at 7 p.m. at the Granby Junior-Senior High School located on East State Street.

Voters will decide whether Granby should begin the process to change the town’s treasurer from an elected position to appointed. The article does not specify which board or entity would make the appointment. Should Town Meeting say yes, the matter then goes before voters during the annual town election.

There are spending requests totaling $185,339, including $30,000 “for the purpose of hiring a consultant to conduct a Zoning/Land Use Analysis and develop a plan for the purposes of encouraging mixed use and economic development through the integration and implementation of Economic Development tools and principles,” the article states.

Route 202 and New Ludlow Road from South Hadley to South Street are the projected areas for study.

There is a $59,368 request “for the purpose of funding the Police Department Personal Services budget for FY2013.”

President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans refused Saturday to concede any culpability for failing to stave off what both parties acknowledged was a foolhardy way to slash $85 billion in federal spending.

President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks to reporters in the White House briefing room in Washington, Friday, March 1, 2013, following a meeting with congressional leaders regarding the automatic spending cuts. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)  

WASHINGTON (AP) — Severe spending cuts now the law of the land, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans refused Saturday to concede any culpability for failing to stave off what both parties acknowledged was a foolhardy way to slash $85 billion in federal spending.

The still-fragile economy braced itself for the gradual but potentially grave impact of the across-the-board cuts, which took effect Friday night at the stroke of Obama's pen. Hours earlier, he and congressional leaders emerged from a White House meeting no closer to an agreement.

Even as they pledged a renewed effort to retroactively undo the spending cuts, both parties said the blame rests squarely on the other for any damage the cuts might inflict. There were no indications that either side was wavering from entrenched positions that for weeks had prevented progress on a deal to find a way out: Republicans refusing any deal with more tax revenue and Democrats snubbing any deal without it.

"None of this is necessary," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "It's happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit."

The president said the cuts would cause "a ripple effect across the economy" that would worsen the longer they stay in place, eventually costing more than 750,000 jobs and disrupting the lives of middle-class families.

In the Republican-controlled House, GOP lawmakers washed their hands of the mess, arguing that bills they passed in the last Congress to avert the cuts absolved them of any responsibility. Those bills passed with little to no Democratic support and were never taken up by the Senate.

"We've done the work and shown that these choices can be made in a responsible, thoughtful way," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington in the GOP address.

Obama was holding out hope that as Americans start feeling the effects of the sequester — the term used for the automatic spending cuts — public pressure will force lawmakers back to the table. Ever wary that such fiscal fiascos could jeopardize the rest of his second-term agenda, Obama vowed in his weekly address to keep pushing reforms on immigration, preschool, gun violence and transportation.

But attention was already turning to the next major budget hurdles, with less than a month to negotiate a plan to fund the government beyond March 27 and a debt-ceiling clash coming in May.

Hopes that a measure to undo the spending cuts could be wrapped into a March deal to keep the government running dimmed Friday when both Obama and House Speaker John Boehner said they'd prefer to keep the two issues separate.

"I'm hopeful that we won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown while we're dealing with the sequester at the same time," Boehner said.

While he wouldn't elaborate on the details of the investigation, Stawasz said campus police ultimately deemed the report unfounded and turned the results of the investigation over to Student Affairs.

This is an update to a story posted on Friday at 10:54 p.m.

SPRINGFIELD - A spokesman for Western New England University on Saturday said a report of a student being slashed in the face by an unknown attacker Friday evening was false.

Campus police determined that while there was an injury to a student, there was no attacker, according to spokesman David Stawasz. A warning went out last night through the campus alert system about an alleged attempted robbery and attack that occurred around 9 p.m. while the student was walking across the West lot.

The student reported that a male in a black hooded sweatshirt stopped him to ask for money, and when the student responded that he didn't have any, the alleged attacker slashed him across the face with either a razor or box cutter.

While he wouldn't elaborate on the details of the investigation, Stawasz said campus police ultimately deemed the report unfounded and turned the results of the investigation over to Student Affairs.

"Their review will cover two main areas: one is to work with the student involved and provide any supports that we can and the second is to determine appropriate disciplinary action," Stawasz said.

The student's name has not been released.

Engineers worked gingerly Saturday morning to find out more about a slowly growing sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man in his bedroom, believing the entire house could eventually succumb to the unstable ground.

Jeremy Bush on Saturday places flowers and a stuffed animal at a makeshift memorial in front of a home where a sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom late Thursday evening and swallowed his brother Jeffrey in Seffner, Fla. Jeffrey Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy.  

By TAMARA LUSH

SEFFNER, Fla. — Engineers worked gingerly Saturday morning to find out more about a slowly growing sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man in his bedroom, believing the entire house could eventually succumb to the unstable ground.

Jeff Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy.

Engineers began doing more tests at 7 a.m. Saturday. Crews with equipment were at the home next door, one of two that has been evacuated. By 10 a.m., officials moved media crews farther away from the Bush house so experts could perform tests on the home across the street. It's unclear how large the sinkhole is, or whether it leads to other caverns and chasms throughout the neighborhood. Experts say the underground of West Central Florida looks similar to Swiss cheese, with the geography lending itself to sinkholes.

Experts spent the previous day on the property, taking soil samples and running various tests — while acknowledging that the entire lot where Bush lay entombed was dangerous. No one was allowed in the home.

"I cannot tell you why it has not collapsed yet," Bill Bracken, the owner of an engineering company called to assess the sinkhole, said of the home. He described the earth below as a "very large, very fluid mass."

"This is not your typical sinkhole," said Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrill. "This is a chasm. For that reason, we're being very deliberate."

Officials delicately addressed another sad reality: Bush was likely dead and the family wanted his body. Merrill, though, said they didn't want to jeopardize any more lives.

"They would like us to go in quickly and locate Mr. Bush," Merrill said. Officials added Saturday morning that a fund had been set up to help the families affected by the sinkhole.

On Saturday, Jeremy Bush — who tried to rescue his brother when the earth opened — lay flowers and a stuffed lamb near the house and wept.

Hillsborough County Fire Chief Ron Roger called the situation "very complex."

"It's continuing to evolve, and the ground is continuing to collapse," he said.

Sinkholes are so common in Florida that state law requires home insurers to provide coverage against the danger. While some cars, homes and other buildings have been devoured, it's extremely rare for them to swallow a person.

Florida is highly prone to sinkholes because there are caverns below ground of limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water.

"You can almost envision a piece of Swiss cheese," Taylor Yarkosky, a sinkhole expert from Brooksville, Fla., said while gesturing to the ground and the sky blue home where the earth opened in Seffner. "Any house in Florida could be in that same situation."

A sinkhole near Orlando grew to 400 feet across in 1981 and devoured five sports cars, most of two businesses, a three-bedroom house and the deep end of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in Hillsborough County alone since the government started keeping track in 1954, according to the state's environmental agency.

The sinkhole, estimated at 20 feet across and 20 feet deep, caused the home's concrete floor to cave in around 11 p.m. Thursday as everyone in the Tampa-area house was turning in for the night. It gave way with a loud crash that sounded like a car hitting the house and brought Bush's brother running.

Jeremy Bush said he jumped into the hole but couldn't see his brother and had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy who reached out and pulled him to safety as the ground crumbled around him.

"The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn't care. I wanted to save my brother," Jeremy Bush said through tears Friday in a neighbor's yard. "But I just couldn't do nothing."

He added: "I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him."

A dresser and the TV set had vanished down the hole, along with most of Bush's bed.

A sheriff's deputy who was the first to respond to a frantic 911 call said when he arrived, he saw Jeremy Bush.

Deputy Douglas Duvall said he reached down as if he was "sticking his hand into the floor" to help Jeremy Bush. Duvall said he didn't see anyone else in the hole.

As he pulled Bush out, "everything was sinking," Duvall said.

Engineers said they may have to demolish the small house, even though from the outside there appeared to be nothing wrong with the four-bedroom, concrete-wall structure, built in 1974.

Jeremy Bush said someone came out to the home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other things, apparently for insurance purposes.

"He said there was nothing wrong with the house. Nothing. And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said.

Online: http://www.dep.state.fl.us/geology/feedback/faq.htm17#Fla. sinkhole that swallowed man grows deeper
TAMARA LUSH,Associated Press

SEFFNER, Fla. (AP) — Engineers worked gingerly Saturday morning to find out more about a slowly growing sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man in his bedroom, believing the entire house could eventually succumb to the unstable ground.

Jeff Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy.

Engineers began doing more tests at 7 a.m. Saturday. Crews with equipment were at the home next door, one of two that has been evacuated. By 10 a.m., officials moved media crews farther away from the Bush house so experts could perform tests on the home across the street. It's unclear how large the sinkhole is, or whether it leads to other caverns and chasms throughout the neighborhood. Experts say the underground of West Central Florida looks similar to Swiss cheese, with the geography lending itself to sinkholes.

Experts spent the previous day on the property, taking soil samples and running various tests — while acknowledging that the entire lot where Bush lay entombed was dangerous. No one was allowed in the home.

"I cannot tell you why it has not collapsed yet," Bill Bracken, the owner of an engineering company called to assess the sinkhole, said of the home. He described the earth below as a "very large, very fluid mass."

"This is not your typical sinkhole," said Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrill. "This is a chasm. For that reason, we're being very deliberate."

Officials delicately addressed another sad reality: Bush was likely dead and the family wanted his body. Merrill, though, said they didn't want to jeopardize any more lives.

"They would like us to go in quickly and locate Mr. Bush," Merrill said. Officials added Saturday morning that a fund had been set up to help the families affected by the sinkhole.

On Saturday, Jeremy Bush — who tried to rescue his brother when the earth opened — lay flowers and a stuffed lamb near the house and wept.

Hillsborough County Fire Chief Ron Roger called the situation "very complex."

"It's continuing to evolve, and the ground is continuing to collapse," he said.

Sinkholes are so common in Florida that state law requires home insurers to provide coverage against the danger. While some cars, homes and other buildings have been devoured, it's extremely rare for them to swallow a person.

Florida is highly prone to sinkholes because there are caverns below ground of limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water.

"You can almost envision a piece of Swiss cheese," Taylor Yarkosky, a sinkhole expert from Brooksville, Fla., said while gesturing to the ground and the sky blue home where the earth opened in Seffner. "Any house in Florida could be in that same situation."

A sinkhole near Orlando grew to 400 feet across in 1981 and devoured five sports cars, most of two businesses, a three-bedroom house and the deep end of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in Hillsborough County alone since the government started keeping track in 1954, according to the state's environmental agency.

The sinkhole, estimated at 20 feet across and 20 feet deep, caused the home's concrete floor to cave in around 11 p.m. Thursday as everyone in the Tampa-area house was turning in for the night. It gave way with a loud crash that sounded like a car hitting the house and brought Bush's brother running.

Jeremy Bush said he jumped into the hole but couldn't see his brother and had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy who reached out and pulled him to safety as the ground crumbled around him.

"The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn't care. I wanted to save my brother," Jeremy Bush said through tears Friday in a neighbor's yard. "But I just couldn't do nothing."

He added: "I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him."

A dresser and the TV set had vanished down the hole, along with most of Bush's bed.

A sheriff's deputy who was the first to respond to a frantic 911 call said when he arrived, he saw Jeremy Bush.

Deputy Douglas Duvall said he reached down as if he was "sticking his hand into the floor" to help Jeremy Bush. Duvall said he didn't see anyone else in the hole.

As he pulled Bush out, "everything was sinking," Duvall said.

Engineers said they may have to demolish the small house, even though from the outside there appeared to be nothing wrong with the four-bedroom, concrete-wall structure, built in 1974.

Jeremy Bush said someone came out to the home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other things, apparently for insurance purposes.

"He said there was nothing wrong with the house. Nothing. And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said.

Online: http://www.dep.state.fl.us/geology/feedback/faq.htm#17

www.firefighter-relief.com

The superintendent will make $140,000 to $170,000 a year.

The candidates for superintendent of schools in Holyoke are, clockwise from top left, Natalie Dunning, Sergio Paez and Kimberly Wells.  

HOLYOKE — The School Committee is scheduled to appoint a new superintendent from a field of three finalists Wednesday.

"It's the most important decision we will make," committee Vice Chairman Devin M. Sheehan said this week.

The finalists are:

• Natalie B. Dunning, senior administrator of Common Core standards in the Springfield School Department. She is 44 and lives in Chepachet, R.I.

• Sergio Paez, manager of supplemental support services for the Worcester public schools. He is 46 and lives in Leominster.

• Kimberly A. Wells, assistant Holyoke superintendent. She is 40 and lives in Springfield.

Selection of a leader for the school system of 5,800 students and 1,400 employees would cap a nearly seven-month search that began soon after Superintendent David L. Dupont announced in August he would retire when the school year ends in June.

The committee will do public interviews of the finalists on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

After the last interview Wednesday, the committee will vote to fill the job set to pay $140,000 to $170,000 a year. Dupont’s yearly salary is $144,000.

The next superintendent must become a resident here.

All interviews will begin at 6 p.m. in the cafeteria at Dean Technical High School, 1045 Main St., Sheehan said.

Wells will be interviewed Monday, Paez Tuesday and Dunning Wednesday, he said.

A public meet-and-greet time with each candidate will be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m. the day of their interview, he said.

A screening committee of school employees and people from the community, appointed by the School Committee in December, reviewed 12 applicants and submitted Dunning, Paez and Wells as finalists Feb. 4.

The interviews and appointment come as the search process has been criticized. Some in the community have said parents were excluded.

Hazel Rosario, mother of triplets at Dean, told the School Committee during a public comment period Wednesday she hopes the next superintendent maintains contact with parents.

"We've been working really hard for the well-being of all the children in Holyoke," Rosario said.

Others wanted the School Committee to be considering five finalists instead of only three, and felt that Paul Hyry-Dermith, principal of Peck Full Service Community School, should have been a finalist.

But others said that the schools did try to get parents and others involved and that the screening committee heeded the order of the School Committee, which requested three to five finalists.

Obituaries from The Republican.

Jean Wheeler  

Jean L. (Rowland) Wheeler, 77, of East Longmeadow, passed away on Wednesday. Born and raised in East Longmeadow, in her early years she worked in the Assessor's Office for the Town of East Longmeadow and Longueil Transportation. She later worked with Springfield Transit Management, from which she retired, and most recently at Satco Transportation in Holyoke.

Obituaries from The Republican:

• 
  Anderson, Robert G.
  



• 
  Arnold, Calvin J.
  



• 
  Baker Sr., Ronald
  



• 
  Beaumier, Arthur A.
  



• 
  Belisle, George L.
  



• 
  Benton, Ben
  



• 
  Bourque, Gerald A.
  



• 
  Crooker, Jennie S.
  



• 
  DeSimone, Albert A.
  



• 
  Dunson, Shawn O.
  



• 
  Forgue, Laure Lee
  



• 
  Gagne, Sophie P.
  



• 
  Hill, Susan C.
  



• 
  Howes, Arlene
  



• 
  Johnson, Roy E.
  



• 
  Jordan, Richard A.
  



• 
  Savel, Natalie
  



• 
  Twarog, Mildred V.
  



• 
  Wheeler, Jean L.
  



• 
  Williams, Sandra G.
  

Kerry arrived in Cairo, the latest stop on his first overseas trip as a member of President Barack Obama's second-term Cabinet, intending to press all sides to come to a basic agreement on Egypt's direction ahead of parliamentary elections that begin next month.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr, center, enters a news conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to speak to the media at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, Egypt. Cairo is the sixth leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip and begins the Middle East portion of his nine-day journey. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool  

By AYA BATRAWY and MATTHEW LEE

CAIRO — Egypt's bickering government and opposition need to create "a sense of political and economic viability," giving businesses confidence and setting the stage for a vital international aid deal, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday.

Kerry stressed to business leaders the importance of Egyptians coming together around human rights, freedom and speech and religious tolerance. Equally essential, he said, is uniting "to meet the economic challenge of this particular moment."

Several hundred people protested outside the government offices where Kerry later met with Foreign Minister Amr Kamel. They burned Kerry's pictures and chanted that Washington was siding with President Mohammed Morsi's ruling Muslim Brotherhood.

Kerry arrived in Cairo, the latest stop on his first overseas trip as a member of President Barack Obama's second-term Cabinet, intending to press all sides to come to a basic agreement on Egypt's direction ahead of parliamentary elections that begin next month. A meeting with Morsi was set for Sunday.

Of great concern, too, is the ability of Egypt to undertake the reforms necessary to qualify for a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan package. Steps could include increasing tax collections and curbing energy subsidies.

Agreement with the IMF, contingent on ending the political chaos that has ensued since Morsi's election, would unlock significant U.S. assistance, including portions of Obama's $1 billion pledge last April.

"It is paramount, essential, urgent," Kerry told business leaders, "that the Egyptian economy gets stronger, gets back on its feet and it's very clear that there is a circle of connections in how that can happen.

"To attract capital, to bring money back here, to give business the confidence to move forward, there has to be sense of security, there has to be a sense of political and economic viability."

After meeting with Kamel, Kerry spoke about how Egypt can surmount its challenges and become a strong and stable democracy, with a stable economy.

"I say with both humility and with a great deal of respect that getting there requires a genuine give-and-take among Egypt's political leaders and civil society groups just as we are continuing to struggle with that in our own country," Kerry told reporters.

"There must be a willingness on all sides to make meaningful compromises on the issues that matter most to all of the Egyptian people."

Earlier, Kerry said he would tell Morsi in their meeting that U.S. assistance would depend on Egyptian reforms and the IMF agreement.

"It is clear to us that the IMF arrangement needs to be reached and we need to give the market place some confidence," Kerry said.

The political turmoil has scared away tourists and foreign investors, eroding Egypt's foreign reserves by nearly two-thirds of what it was before the uprising. Those reserves, which stand at less than $14 billion, are needed to pay for subsidies that millions of poor Egyptians rely on for survival.

Kerry met with opposition figures before a round-table discussion with members of the business community. He described the first session as "very, very spirited."

According to the U.S. State Department, Kerry also spoke by telephone with Mohammed ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate who heads the National Salvation Front, an opposition coalition calling for an election boycott.

Kerry met with Amr Moussa, a former minister under ex-President Hosni Mubarak who's now aligned with the Salvation Front. Moussa, an ex-Arab League head, ran for president last summer.

A statement from Moussa's office said the two talked about how the U.S. could support Egypt economically.

Kerry's talks with the league's current leader, Nabil Elaraby, covered the uprising in Syria, where 70,000 people have died in fighting over nearly two years.

The Salvation Front says it could consider participating in elections if parts of a new constitution are changed, police stop using excessive force against protesters and if an inclusive government of the Christian minority, women, and liberals is formed.

They say now is not the time for elections that will further polarize the country while violent clashes continue to take place between protesters and security forces, further shaking the faltering economy.

They accuse Morsi and the Brotherhood of dominating power in Egypt, effectively stepping in to the same role as Mubarak and failing to carry out reforms while also seeking to instill a more religiously conservative system.

Morsi's administration and the Brotherhood say their opponents, who have trailed significantly behind Islamists in all elections since the uprising, are running away from the challenge of the ballot box and are trying to overturn democratic gains.

Egypt has been locked in political crisis for months amid successive waves of protests against Morsi that have turned into deadly clashes and rioting.

As Kerry was meeting with opposition figures, including some who have joined the election boycott, activists in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura say a 35-year-old protester was killed when an armored police vehicle crushed him to death during violent anti-Morsi protests before dawn on Saturday.

A 14-year-old boy was reported to be shot in the head and critically wounded.

In the restive Suez Canal city of Port Said, a police vehicle ran over five people Saturday after protesters marching along a main street refused to allow the car through.

Kerry's visit to Egypt is the sixth leg of a nine-nation trip through Europe and the Middle East.

There was a time when Newtown Creek was the city's industrial mecca. The Rockefellers operated the nation's first modern refineries on its banks in the late 1800s. Others quickly sprang up.

In this file photo Phillip Musegaas, an environmental lawyer for Riverkeeper, leads a boat tour of Newtown Creek in New York. Just across the East River from Manhattan, within sight of the United Nations and shimmering midtown skyscrapers, tens of millions of gallons of pollution are awaiting cleanup in a neighborhood where working-class families have lived for generations and wealthier ones are moving in. Newtown Creek straddling Brooklyn and Queens is home to a federal Superfund site the size of 55 football fields. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer  

By VERENA DOBNIK

NEW YORK — Just across the East River from midtown Manhattan's shimmering skyscrapers sits one of the nation's most polluted neighborhoods, fouled by generations of industrial waste, overflow from the city's sewage system and an underground oil leak bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill.

It's easy to see — and smell — the filth in and around Newtown Creek, which runs through an area of working-class homes, warehouses and industrial lots straddling Brooklyn and Queens. The odor of petroleum mixes with the smell of sewage, particularly on rainy days when the city's treatment plants can't handle the volume and municipal pipes send trash and human waste straight into the creek.

Oily, rainbow-slicked water is filled with soda cans, plastic bottles, raw sewage and decaying food. Ditched vehicles are stuck in the mud on the banks. And what was once a creek teeming with fish, surrounded by marshland, is now a dull gray waterway that cannot sustain life.

"It's the byproduct of our society," says environmentalist John Lipscomb of the Riverkeeper clean-water advocacy group. "What was originally a watershed is now a sewage shed."

After generations of neglect, the first, small steps are being taken in a multi-pronged cleanup that could take at least a dozen years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But even the most hopeful officials acknowledge the watershed may never be clear of all pollutants.

There was a time when Newtown Creek was the city's industrial mecca. The Rockefellers operated the nation's first modern refineries on its banks in the late 1800s. Others quickly sprang up.

For much of the 20th century, the neighborhood teemed with commercial vessels and factories that made products as varied as fertilizers, chemicals, lumber and glue. Their oil and other hazardous waste was either dumped or leaked into the creek, bit by bit, accumulating at the bottom.

The first sign of the looming ecological disaster came on Oct. 5, 1950, when petroleum gases from the hidden spill seeped into the sewer and caught fire, causing an explosion that blew dozens of manhole covers three stories into the air, shattering windows in hundreds of buildings and ripping a street open. Three people were injured.

But decades would pass before the creek got any real attention.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared Newtown Creek a Superfund site in 2010 — "one of the most polluted urban water bodies in the country," according to EPA regional administrator Judith Enck.

Today, the creek's bottom is lined with a 15-foot-thick layer of petroleum-based pollutants that scientists have dubbed "black mayonnaise." The ooze penetrated the shoreline and now sits on top of the water table dozens of feet under Brooklyn's gentrifying Greenpoint neighborhood. More than 300,000 people still live within a mile of the creek.

Scientists are using sonar to probe the muck in the 3.5-mile waterway in hopes of determining the best way to conduct the cleanup, which will be financed by six entities that inherited the pollution: Exxon Mobil, Texaco Inc., the Phelps Dodge Refining Corp., BP Products North America Inc., National Grid NY and the city of New York.

One method used at other Superfund sites is to dredge the sediment from barges carrying cranes with scoopers, then capping the bottom to block any residue of oil, pesticides, chemicals and other pollutants.

"The mud is so heavily saturated with oil you can smell it," says Phillip Musegaas, a Riverkeeper attorney who spearheaded several lawsuits linked to the pollution. "I've never seen anything like it."

A separate cleanup targets the Greenpoint underground oil spill, which covers the equivalent of about 55 football fields. By some estimates, the oil spilled there amounted to as much as 30 million gallons, dwarfing the 11 million gallons released by the Exxon Valdez tanker in Alaska in 1989.

Exactly how so much oil spread through the ground is still a question, but one thing is certain, according to the EPA: The sources of the spill were dozens of oil refineries and storage tanks built along the banks of Newtown Creek starting in the 1860s. Their petroleum and waste discharges leaked or were dumped into both the soil and the water at a time when there was little regulation or oversight. Some may have come from ships carrying the oil.

Under terms of a 2010 settlement with then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and a related agreement with Riverkeeper, Exxon Mobil agreed to pay $19.5 million for projects to benefit the area's environment. The question of who will pay for the creek's entire cleanup will be answered after preliminary EPA studies are done.

So far, 12 million gallons of oil have been extracted using pumps inserted into dozens of wells.

When the two cleanups are done — on separate timetables — there's still "the icing on the cupcake," as Musegaas calls about 1½ billion gallons of wastewater that flows into Newtown Creek each year from the city's combined sewage and storm drain pipes.

The city is working to reduce stormwater flow into the sewer system, with a plan to gradually divert it to porous street pavements, green rooftops and rain harvesting equipment. Now, the rainwater pouring into street drains ends up in antiquated pipes that receive both wastewater and sewage, overwhelming treatment plants. The overflow goes into city rivers and creeks like Newtown.

"It's never going to be pristine, the way it was 500 years ago," says Walter Mugdan, an EPA official overseeing the Superfund site. "But we can make it dramatically cleaner than it is now."

On the creek, nature survives — just barely, with egrets perched along the bulkheads and grass pushing up from defunct docks.

The cries of seagulls fill the air as they swoop over a junkyard that sells scrap metal to China. There's a lumber yard nearby, plus warehouses storing fruit and produce that feeds the city.

On the Queens side, an immigrant Vietnamese family just opened a small Asian restaurant called The Bunker, where they've installed air- and water-purifying devices "to create a healthy haven here, an oasis from the pollution in the neighborhood," says chef Jimmy Tu.

Until the 1990s, the gritty neighborhood was filled with Polish, Russian and Italian immigrants and their families.

With Manhattan property prices skyrocketing, a luxury waterfront community called Greenpoint Landing will start rising this summer near the East River mouth of Newtown Creek, 10 residential towers with 5,000 apartments, a marina, a retail complex and a prime view of the city.

A short walk away is a hulking brick building where rope was once braided for ships. It's been turned into space for entrepreneurs and artists who are among a new breed of locals.

Newtown Creek is the story of New York's rich and poor — and the changing times, says Karl LaRocca, a 39-year-old printmaker.

When the oil refineries were booming, "the rich people were all living farther away and using this for their industry," he says. "Now we've had this reversal where the waterfront is this desirable property, and that's why they're cleaning up."

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Online:

EPA Superfund: http://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/newtowncreek

Newtown Creek Alliance: http://www.newtowncreekalliance.org

Belmoktar, an Algerian, is believed to be in his 40s, and like his sometimes partner and sometimes rival, Abou Zeid, he began on the path to terrorism after Algeria's secular government voided the 1991 election won by an Islamic party.

This image taken from video provided by the SITE Intel Group made available Thursday Jan. 17, 2013, purports to show militant militia leader Moktar Belmoktar. The head of Chad's military has announced on state television that Chadian troops deployed in northern Mali have killed Moktar Belmoktar, the international terrorist responsible for the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that resulted in the death of dozens of foreigners. The French military, which is leading the offensive in northern Mali, says it cannot confirm the information. AP Photo/SITE Intel Group  

By DANY PADIRE and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI

N'DJAMENA, Chad — Chad's military chief announced late Saturday that his troops deployed in northern Mali had killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist who orchestrated the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that left 36 foreigners dead.

The French military, which is leading the offensive against al-Qaida-linked rebels in Mali, said they could not immediately confirm the information.

Local officials in Kidal, the northern town that is being used as the base for the military operation, cast doubt on the assertion, saying Chadian officials are attempting to score a PR victory to make up for the significant losses they have suffered in recent days.

Known as the "one-eyed," Belmoktar's profile soared after the mid-January attack and mass hostage-taking on a huge Algerian gas plant. His purported death comes a day after Chad's president said his troops had killed Abou Zeid, the other main al-Qaida commander operating in northern Mali.

If both deaths are confirmed, it would mean that the international intervention in Mali had succeeded in decapitating two of the pillars of al-Qaida in the Sahara.

"Chad's armed forces in Mali have completely destroyed a base used by jihadists and narcotraffickers in the Adrar and Ifoghas mountains" of northern Mali, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Zakaria Ngobongue said in a televised statement on state-owned National Chadian Television. "The provisional toll is as follows: Several terrorists killed, including Moktar Belmoktar."

The French military moved into Mali on Jan. 11 to push back militants linked to Belmoktar and Abou Zeid and other extremist groups who had imposed harsh Islamic rule in the north of the vast country and who were seen as an international terrorist threat.

France is trying to rally other African troops to help in the military campaign, since Mali's military is weak and poor. Chadian troops have offered the most robust reinforcement.

In Paris, French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said that he had "no information" on the possibility that Belmoktar was dead. The Foreign Ministry refused to confirm or deny the report.

A spokesman for Chad's presidential palace did not immediately return a request for comment.

In Kidal in northern Mali, an elected official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that he did not believe that Belmoktar was dead and waved off the claim as an attempt by Chad to explain the loss of dozens of their troops to a grieving nation.

"These last few weeks, the Chadians have lost a significant number of soldiers in combat. (Claiming that they killed Belmoktar) is a way to give some importance to their intervention in Mali," said the official, who keeps in close contact with both French and Malian commanders in the field.

Belmoktar, an Algerian, is believed to be in his 40s, and like his sometimes partner and sometimes rival, Abou Zeid, he began on the path to terrorism after Algeria's secular government voided the 1991 election won by an Islamic party.

Both men joined the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, and later its offshoot, the GSPC, a group that carried out suicide bombings on Algerian government targets.

Around 2003, both men crossed into Mali, where they began a lucrative kidnapping business, snatching European tourists, aid workers, government employees and even diplomats and holding them for multimillion-dollar ransoms.

The Algerian terror cell amassed a significant war chest, and joined the al-Qaida fold in 2006, renaming itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Belmoktar claims he trained in Afghanistan in the 1990s, including in one of Osama Bin Laden's camps. It was there that he reportedly lost an eye, earning him the nickname "Laaouar," Arabic for "one-eyed."

Until last December, Belmoktar and Abou Zeid headed separate brigades under the flag of al-Qaida's chapter in the Sahara. But after months of reports of infighting between the two, Belmoktar peeled off, announcing the creation of his own terror unit, still loyal to the al-Qaida ideology but separate from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

It was this group that launched the fatal attack on a BP-operated natural gas plant in southeastern Algeria in retaliation for the French-led military intervention in Mali.

In the attack and in the subsequent rescue attempt, 37 people, all but one of them foreigners, were killed inside the complex. Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the attack within hours, immediately catapulting him into the ranks of international terrorists.

In addition to the alleged killing of Belmoktar, Ngobongue said that Chad's military had also nabbed 60 of the jihadists' cars, electronic equipment and weapons. "The raid is still ongoing," he said.

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Mohegan Sun officials are expected to discuss their casino proposal for Palmer on Monday at 7 p.m. at Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School, 240 Sykes St.

This is a rendering of Mohegan Sun's proposed "world-class destination resort" casino and hotel complex, which would rise on more than 152 wooded acres bordering Route 32 in Palmer. Mohegan Sun  

PALMER — When officials from Mohegan Sun roll into town Monday to talk up their casino plan, it will be a much-anticipated chance for citizens to learn more about a $600 million project that could spark an economic transformation for Palmer and the region.

It's also a chance for casino supporters to remind Mohegan Sun why the company chose Palmer for its proposed luxury hotel, resort and gaming facility, according to Town Councilor Paul E. Burns. The 7 p.m. public forum at Pathfinder Regional Technical Vocational High School "is an opportunity for Palmer to put its best foot forward," said the at-large councilor, who strongly supports bringing a casino to Palmer.

Burns said Mohegan Sun can once again take the lead in the contest to win the state's lone casino license for Western Massachusetts. "I look forward to hearing more detailed information on how Mohegan Sun will present the 'biggest and best' proposal that the Gaming Commission indicates it is seeking," he said.

The public forum is expected to draw a crowd hungry for details about Mohegan's proposal to build a "world-class destination resort" on 152 wooded acres off Route 32 near Exit 8 of the Massachusetts Turnpike. Town Manager Charles T. Blanchard said casino officials are expected to reveal more about the scope of the project at Monday's event at Pathfinder, located at 240 Sykes St. in Palmer.

Palmer Town Councilor Paul Burns The Republican  

The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority was among the earliest casino operators to put forward a large-scale proposal for Western Massachusetts, but details have been slow to emerge.

"I urge all in Palmer who support this project to attend the forum Monday night to demonstrate our commitment to supporting the 'biggest and best' casino proposal in Western Mass," Burns said.

Casino officials say their plan could create as many as 3,000 permanent jobs, up to 1,200 construction jobs, and more than 2,500 indirect jobs. The 152½-acre casino site – comprised of four parcels owned by Northeast Realty Associates LLC that are worth $3.7 million – is bounded on the west and north by Thorndike Street, on the east by Breckenridge Street, and on the south by a large undeveloped parcel. Northeast Realty is leasing the land to the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, which is paying the tax bill for the properties.

The proposed location of the casino is something Mohegan officials will likely continue to play up as regional competition heats up in Springfield and West Springfield, communities where rival casino proposals have been pitched.

"We chose our site here in Palmer – the best resort casino location in Massachusetts – for very specific reasons: The access and proximity to markets will make the facility attractive to a variety of visitors from across New England," Mohegan officials wrote in a September 2012 Palmer Community News bulletin posted on the company's website.

Other Palmer selling points cited by Mohegan officials include a "talented and eager" local and regional workforce and a level of community support that's "unprecedented and unequaled."

The current plan calls for developing about 152 acres, but additional available acreage makes the Palmer site larger and more desirable than rival sites in other municipalities, according to Burns. "I look forward as well to hearing how Mohegan Sun will maximize the advantages unique to Palmer, especially those of the largest site in the state and a unique opportunity to foster development in the largest potential area in both Central and Western (Massachusetts)," he said.

Markey will attend a grassroots organizing meeting and the 2013 Holyoke Winter Carnival.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey arrives at the Student Prince restaurant in Springfield on Feb. 2, 2013 as he campaigns for the United States Senate. (Staff photo by Dave Roback)  

U.S. Rep. Edward Markey will hobnob with local voters in Holyoke on Sunday.

Markey, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is planning to meet with organizers, local activists and volunteers at a Western Massachusetts grassroots organizing meeting at 3:30 p.m. at Gateway City Arts in Holyoke. State Treasurer Steve Grossman, who is considering a run for governor in 2014, and State Rep. Aron Vega also plan to attend.

At 4:15 p.m., Markey will stop at the 2013 Holyoke Winter Carnival at The Elks Lodge in Holyoke.

Markey appears to be ramping up his campaign’s organizing efforts in Western Massachusetts, one of the most liberal parts of the state. Next weekend, his campaign plans to launch a phone bank and canvassing program in Western Massachusetts.

Markey is facing U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch in the Democratic primary on April 30.