NST Online Top Stories - Google News
NST Online Top Stories - Google News |
| Newtown mom fills in for Obama in radio address, president says message for ... - Fox News Posted: 13 Apr 2013 08:49 AM PDT
President Obama is allowing the mother of a 6-year-old killed in the Connecticut school shootings to take his place for the weekly presidential radio address – as debates begin next week on Senate gun-control legislation. The speech by Francine Wheeler marks the first time that somebody besides Vice President Biden has delivered the weekly radio and Internet address since Obama took office in 2009. Wheeler's son Ben was among the 20 first-graders and six adults killed in the Dec. 14 attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. "It's a message that every American should hear," the president said in explaining when he asked Wheeler to take his place. He also said the efforts of Wheeler and others persuaded the Senate to take "a step forward" and that American after listening to her also should speak out "to make our country safer." "Thousands of other families across the United States are also drowning in our grief," says Wheeler says in the roughly 4-minute speech broadcast Saturday. "Please help us do something before our tragedy becomes your tragedy." Her husband, David Wheeler, sat silently next to Wheeler as she made the recording in the White House Library. Both wore the small green pins that have become a symbol of the shooting. The White House said Wheeler and her husband wrote the remarks. "Sometimes, I close my eyes and all I can remember is that awful day waiting at the Sandy Hook Volunteer Firehouse for the boy who would never come home -- the same firehouse that was home to Ben's Tiger Scout Den 6," Wheeler said. "But other times, I feel Ben's presence filling me with courage for what I have to do, for him and all the others taken from us so violently and too soon." Some of the Sandy Hook families, with Obama's blessing, have launched a stepped-up effort to push a gun control bill through Congress. Obama traveled Monday to Hartford, Conn., about an hour's drive from Newtown, to make his case for action. On the return trip to Washington, he brought back 12 of the victims' family members, who have been meeting with senators. The Senate is considering a Democratic bill backed by Obama that would expand background checks, strengthen laws against illegal gun trafficking and slightly increase school security aid. The bill passed its first hurdle on Thursday, and senators will vote on amendments to the legislation in the coming week. Its fate in the Republican-controlled House is uncertain. Shortly after the vote Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the voices of the Newtown families may have been the decisive factor. "But we've got a lot of work to do before Congress finishes the job," Obama acknowledged Saturday. In the Republicans' weekly address, freshman Rep. Jackie Walorski of Indiana criticized the tax increases Obama proposed in the $3.8 trillion budget blueprint he unveiled Wednesday, calling it "a blank check for more spending and more debt." Although she acknowledged that Obama's budget "offers signs of common ground" in the form of entitlement reforms the GOP has previously requested, she said it's wrongheaded for Obama to insist he'll only agree to those reforms if Congress also agrees to higher taxes. The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
| All Aboard Rescued After Plane Skids Into Water at Bali Airport - New York Times Posted: 13 Apr 2013 09:21 AM PDT By GERRY MULLANYPublished: April 13, 2013HONG KONG — A plane with more than 100 people onboard skidded off the runway while trying to land on the resort island of Bali on Saturday, and officials said rescuers pulled all passengers and crew to safety from the jet after it came to rest in shallow waters. The Lion Air plane was landing at Ngurah Rai airport in Bali when it overshot the runway and skidded into the water. Bali's police chief, Arif Wahyunadi, told Indonesian television that the plane originated in the city of Bandung, the capital of West Java Province in Indonesia. A spokesman for the airline, Edward Sirait, told Reuters that 101 passengers and 7 crew members were onboard. Earlier reports had put the number on board at 172. Mr. Wahyunadi said the passengers and crew were taken to the airport terminal for treatment. Reports on the number of injured varied, with Reuters saying that at least 16 people were taken to hospital for injuries and shock. "There was no sign at all it would fall but then suddenly it dropped into the water," a passenger Tantri Widiastuti, 60, told Indonesian TV. "I saw holes in the floor of the plane," she said, "We were evacuated quickly." Lion Air is on a list of carriers banned from operating in the European Union because of lax safety standards, and its planes have been in several episodes over the last decade, including a fatal crash in 2004. Bali Ngurah Rai, also known as Denpasar International Airport, is Indonesia's third-busiest international airport. Its runway is 9,842 feet long, and it juts into the sea that separates Bali from Indonesia's main island, Java. Photographs of the accident showed the jet lying in the water with helicopters circling overhead and rescue craft surrounding the plane. Lion Air is Indonesia's largest privately run airline. Its 72 destinations are mostly in Indonesia, and the furthest it flies is to Saudi Arabia — a route frequented by domestic workers and construction laborers. In the 2004 episode, a Lion Air jet crashed in Solo City, Indonesia, killing 25 people. And two years later, a Lion Air plane crashed at Juanda International Airport, also in Indonesia, but no one was killed. The carrier has grown rapidly in recent years, trying to take advantage of the boom in jet travel in Asia, and just last month it reached a deal to buy 234 jets from Airbus. But some critics say that such rapid growth of Asian carriers has come at the expense of air safety in the region. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Top Stories - Google News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
