World Nation Briefs April 4, 2013

Sheriff's office on lookout for 2 men of prison gang

DENVER - Authorities investigating the death of Colorado's prisons chief are telling law enforcement officers to watch out for two men associated with a white supremacist prison gang.

El Paso County sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer says deputies are seeking 47-year-old James Lohr and 31-year-old Thomas Guolee in connection with the death of Tom Clements.

Kramer says they aren't suspects, but their names surfaced during the investigation. They could possibly be headed to Nevada or Texas but aren't necessarily together.

Kramer said Wednesday that both men are associates of the 211 Crew. That's the same gang whose members included Evan Ebel, who is suspected of fatally shootings Clements on March 19 and a pizza delivery driver two days earlier.

Ebel was killed in a shootout with Texas authorities after their deaths.

N. Korea says military cleared to attack with nukes

PAJU, South Korea - North Korea warned early Thursday that its military has been cleared to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear" weapons, while the U.S. said it was strengthening protection in the region and seeking to defuse the situation.

Despite the intense rhetoric, analysts do not expect a nuclear attack by North Korea, which knows the move could trigger a destructive, suicidal war that no one in the region wants. It's not believed to have the ability to launch nuclear-tipped missiles, but its other nuclear capabilities aren't fully known.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Washington was doing all it can to defuse the situation. The Pentagon also will deploy a missile defense system to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam to strengthen regional protection against a possible attack.

The strident warning from Pyongyang is the latest escalating threats from North Korea, which has railed against joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises taking place in South Korea and has expressed anger over tightened sanctions for its February nuclear test.

Obama to return 5 percent of his salary

WASHINGTON - Sharing a bit of budget pain, President Barack Obama will return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury in a show of solidarity with federal workers smarting from government-wide spending cuts.

Obama's decision grew out of a desire to share in the sacrifice that government employees are making, a White House official said Wednesday. Hundreds of thousands of workers could be forced to take unpaid leave - known as furloughs - if Congress does not reach an agreement soon to undo the cuts.

The president is demonstrating that he will be paying a price, too, as the White House warns of dire economic consequences from the $85 billion in cuts - called a sequester - that started to hit federal programs last month after Congress failed to stop them. In the weeks since, the administration has faced repeated questions about how the White House itself will be affected. The cancellation of White House tours in particular has drawn mixed reactions.

A 5 percent cut from the president's salary of $400,000 per year amounts to $20,000.

Conn. Senate approves gun control bill

HARTFORD, Conn. - Connecticut's Senate on Wednesday approved sweeping new restrictions on weapons and large-capacity magazines, a response to last year's deadly Newtown elementary school shooting that would give the state some of the country's tightest gun control laws.

The December massacre of 26 people inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, which reignited a national debate on gun control, set the stage for changes in the state that may have been impossible elsewhere: The governor, who personally informed parents that their children had been killed that day, championed the cause, and legislative leaders, keenly aware of the attention on the state, struck a bipartisan agreement they want to serve as a national model.

"The tragedy in Newtown demands a powerful response, demands a response that transcends politics," said Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., a Democrat. "It is the strongest and most comprehensive bill in the country."

The bill passed the Senate in a bipartisan 26-10 vote following a respectful and at times somber six-hour debate Wednesday evening. The House of Representatives then debated the bill and was expected to vote later in the night. Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has said he would sign it into law.

Cruise ship secured to Ala. terminal

MOBILE, Ala. - The crippled cruise ship whose sewage-filled breakdown in the Gulf of Mexico subjected thousands to horrendous conditions tore loose Wednesday from the dock where it's being repaired, lumbered downriver and crunched into a cargo ship.

Wind gusts near hurricane strength shoved the 900-foot Carnival Triumph free from its mooring in downtown Mobile, Ala., where the ship was brought in a five-day ordeal that began when an engine fire stranded it off Mexico in February. Hours later, four tug boats used several mooring lines to secure the ship to the cruise terminal.

- The Associated Press