LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY “How far the shift in attitudes will go
on gun-violence prevention remains
to be seen, in part
because there are
other competing initiatives that
the president is pursuing.”Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
Article, 1A Gunman wounds 1 at school, himself
ST. LOUIS - A gunman walked into a business school in downtown St. Louis on Tuesday and shot an administrator in the chest before shooting himself, police said.
Police Chief Sam Dotson said the shooting happened about 2 p.m. at the Stevens Institute of Business and Arts. The administrator was shot in his office.
Dotson said the gunman was a student at the school who had no history of threatening behavior, and the motive wasn’t clear. Both the administrator and the gunman were in surgery. Dotson didn’t know whether their wounds were life-threatening.
Police arrived within a minute of the call about the shooting. Students were huddled under desks and in closets. The administrator had made it to an elevator; the gunman was found injured in a stairwell.
Officers escorted out students and the staff and then made sure no other gunmen were inside, Dotson said.
The school, with about 180 students, is located in a historic building in the downtown’s loft district. It began as Patricia Stevens College in 1947 and offers classes in business administration, tourism and hospitality, paralegal studies, fashion, and retail and interior design.
Geithner initiates
debt-limit tactic
WASHINGTON - U.S.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he was suspending reinvestment of the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System as one of the measures to avoid exceeding the $16.4 trillion debt limit.
“Federal retirees and employees will be unaffected by this action,” Geithner said Tuesday in a letter to congressional leaders.
Using this measure frees up $156 billion, according to the Treasury Department, which estimates that all the emergency measures will run out as early as mid-February. After that, the U.S. may no longer be able to meet its obligations, such as Social Security or Medicare payments, causing “irreparable harm to the American economy,” Geithner said in a separate letter Monday.
Tuesday’s step leaves the Treasury Department with one final extraordinary measure it can still tap, suspending reinvestment of the Exchange Stabilization Fund.
Bill that targets Kony, others inked
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama signed legislation into law Tuesday that expands the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program aimed at capturing the world’s most serious human-rights abusers.
African warlord Joseph Kony is the program’s top target.
The legislation passed Congress with bipartisan support and was strongly backed by the State Department, which sees financial rewards as a key method for tracking down elusive offenders.
Obama said the law will enhance the government’s ability to offer reward money for information leading to the arrest or conviction of such individuals as Kony and other leaders of his Lord’s Resistance Army, as well as certain commanders of the M23 rebel group in Congo and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 01/16/2013