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“This is about trying to create a climate in which our children can grow up free of fear.” Education Secretary Arne Duncan, at a Washington, D.C., rally for gun control Article, this pageHundreds visit McGovern estate sale

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Hundreds of people braved the cold Saturday for a chance to buy books, furniture and other items once owned by three-time presidential candidate George McGovern.

A two-day estate sale at the U.S. senator’s Sioux Falls home started at 9 a.m. Saturday. McGovern, who lost the 1972 presidential race to Richard Nixon in a historic landslide, died in October at age 90.

People began lining up for the sale as early as 4 a.m., and with only 20 to 30 visitors allowed in the house at a time, others also had to wait in line for hours for their chance to get a glimpse of McGovern’s items.

McGovern’s daughter Ann McGovern said earlier that the family decided to hold an estate sale over an auction with the hope that people with a connection to the former senator would be able to buy the items.

Hacker group targets agency’s site

WASHINGTON - The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. The FBI is investigating.

The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago “a line was crossed.”

The hackers say they’ve infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public.

Family and friends of Swartz, who helped create the website Reddit and content-delivery system RSS, say he killed himself after he was hounded by federal prosecutors. Officials say he helped post millions of court documents for free online and that he illegally downloaded millions of academic articles from an online clearinghouse.

Mississippi abortion clinic faces review

JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi’s only abortion clinic said it received notice Friday that the state Health Department intends to revoke its operating license.

However, the clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is not expected to close anytime soon.

Under a state administrative procedures law, the clinic can remain open while it awaits a hearing by the department. That could be more than a month away.

Clinic owner Diane Derzis said last week that she expected the notice about a possible license revocation.

Health Department workers inspected the facility Jan. 16 to see if it had complied with a 2012 state law that requires anyone doing abortions at the clinic to be an OB-GYN with hospital admitting privileges.

Derzis said local hospitals would not issue privileges to out-of-state physicians, who do most of the abortions at the clinic.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, who signed the 2012 law, has said repeatedly that he wants Mississippi to be abortion-free and that he’d shut the clinic if he had the power to do it.

Obama praises Clinton in joint interview

President Barack Obama said in an interview shown Friday night that Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination five years ago, “will go down as one of the finest secretary of states we’ve had” and added that he would “miss her” once she steps down in the coming days.

In a rare joint interview with Clinton that he initiated, Obama piled on the praise, leading some observers to wonder if he were effectively blessing her presumed bid to succeed him in 2016 even as Vice President Joe Biden has been positioning himself for a possible run. Aides said the interview was about her service for the past four years, not what happens three years from now.

“I just wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you, because I think Hillary will go down as one of the finest secretary of states we’ve had,” Obama told Steve Kroft of CBS News with Clinton sitting beside him. “It has been a great collaboration over the last four years. I’m going to miss her. Wish she was sticking around. But she has logged in so many miles, I can’t begrudge her taking it easy for a little bit.”

Excerpts of the interview were shown Friday night on the CBS Evening News, and a fuller version will be broadcast today on 60 Minutes.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 01/27/2013

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