American leaders unveiled a statue of Rosa Parks on Wednesday, briefly setting aside political differences to honor the civil rights heroine, who became the first black woman to have a monument inside the U.S. Capitol.
Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a segregated Alabama bus for a white passenger in 1955 sparked a boycott that galvanized the movement for equal rights for blacks in Montgomery and nationwide.
Black men and women stayed off the buses, walking or arranging other rides to work for more than a year to fight for desegregation.
READ ON: U.S. leaders honor civil rights activist Rosa Parks with statue
North Korea’s missile tests and menacing rhetoric have disappointed U.S. expectations that young leader Kim Jong-un would be different than his father but Washington still hopes to persuade Pyongyang to change course, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday.
“With a new young leader we all expected something different,” Clinton said in a town hall-style session put together by the State Department and broadcast worldwide. “We expected him to focus on improving the lives of the North Korea people, not just the elite, but everyone.
“Instead he has engaged in very provocative rhetoric and behavior,” she said of Kim, who took over his impoverished, isolated Northeast Asian nation when his father, Kim Jong-il, died in December 2011.
“I’ll be probably calling around, looking for somebody to play cards with me or something, because I’m getting kind of lonely in this big house. So maybe — maybe a whole bunch of members of the House Republican caucus want to come over and socialize more.”
READ ON: “Lonely” Obama eyes second-term strategy with Congress
Forget Homeland and Downton Abbey, the hottest TV in the coming weeks is going to be the double bill of confirmation hearings in which the twin Vietnam vets (Chuck) Hagel and John Kerry face torrid cross-examination from their old pals in the Senate.
NBC News anchor David Gregory is under investigation by police after displaying what he said was a high-capacity gun clip on Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press,” a spokeswoman for Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday.
Gregory held up the 30-round gun magazine - barred under Washington municipal code - during a nationally broadcast interview Sunday morning with National Rifle Association Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre.
“Here is a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets,” Gregory said as he held aloft the black cartridge, according to video posted on the network’s website.
“Now isn’t it possible that, if we got rid of these, if we replaced them and said ‘Well, you could only have a magazine that carries five bullets or ten bullets,’ isn’t it just possible that we can reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?” Gregory asked LaPierre.
“I don’t think it’s what will work,” LaPierre responded.
The incident is “being investigated as a violation of D.C. code,” said Washington Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Tisha Gant. She declined to elaborate.
READ ON: Police investigate NBC anchor for displaying gun clip on air
Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration as U.S. secretary of state on Thursday in the face of what promised to be a difficult Senate confirmation battle.
Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a close confidante of President Barack Obama, said she was withdrawing from the process to avoid a lengthy, costly and disruptive confirmation battle.
“That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country,” she wrote in a letter to Obama.
READ ON: Susan Rice withdraws as secretary of state candidate
Legal weed in states sets up fight with feds — Decoder
Colorado and Washington this week voted to decriminalize recreational marijuana but the drug is still illegal under federal law, raising chances of a showdown between states’ rights and the Department of Justice.
Ecuador is ready to negotiate over the fate of Julian Assange if Britain withdraws a threat to raid its embassy in London where the WikiLeaks founder has sought refuge, President Rafael Correa said on Tuesday.
Ecuador was incensed by a veiled British threat to enter the embassy to arrest the 41-year-old former computer hacker, who is trying to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault.
Correa has offered Assange asylum and told Britain to let him leave the embassy and fly to the South American country. The leftist leader said Assange, who has been in the building for nine weeks, was welcome to stay there “indefinitely,” but also said he was open to discussions.
“Despite that rude, impertinent and unacceptable remark we’re still open to dialogue,” Correa told reporters in the coastal city of Guayaquil.
“We don’t expect an apology, but of course we expect Britain to retract the extremely serious mistake they made when they issued the threat that they could violate our diplomatic mission to arrest Mr. Julian Assange.”
![Visitors to the National Gallery of Art pass between the East and West Buildings via Multiverse, the largest and most complex light sculpture created by American artist Leo Villareal, in Washington, D.C. July 10, 2012.
The work features approximately 41,000 computer-programmed LED nodes. [REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m706vq8jrq1qmaoalo1_1280.jpg)
Visitors to the National Gallery of Art pass between the East and West Buildings via Multiverse, the largest and most complex light sculpture created by American artist Leo Villareal, in Washington, D.C. July 10, 2012.
The work features approximately 41,000 computer-programmed LED nodes. [REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque]
