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French President Emmanuel Macron walks pas Helmut Kohl's coffin during an homage ceremony for former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Saturday July... (Associated Press)

 French President Emmanuel Macron walks pas Helmut Kohl's coffin during an homage ceremony for former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Saturday July... (Associated Press)

 PARIS (AP) — French authorities say a man has been given preliminary terrorism charges for plotting a possible attack on President Emmanuel Macron or minority groups.

 Paris prosecutor's office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said Monday that the 23-year-old suspect's plans were vague and not yet finalized, and that he appeared to be acting alone.

 She said the man was arrested in the Argenteuil suburb Thursday, and told police of a possible plan to attack Macron on Bastille Day on July 14 and expressed nationalist views. The man was given preliminary charges Saturday of individual terrorist activity.

 Macron will oversee a military parade in Paris on Bastille Day alongside President Donald Trump. Macron then heads to Nice to mark the anniversary of the Islamic extremist truck attack that killed 86 people in the southeastern city. ||||| Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Mr Macron was to be targeted on the Champs-Elysées avenue in Paris, investigators said

 A suspected far-right extremist has been charged with plotting to kill French President Emmanuel Macron at the Bastille Day parade later this month.

 The 23-year-old was arrested in a Paris suburb last Wednesday after police were alerted by users of a videogame chat room where he allegedly said he wanted to buy a gun.

 He also said he wanted to attack minorities, a judicial source told AFP.

 Mr Macron has been giving a state-of-the-nation-style address in Versailles.

 He has been outlining his priorities in the speech, taking place during a special session of both houses of parliament at the Palace of Versailles.

 However the French president is facing criticism over the address, with far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélénchon accusing him of behaving like a "pharoah".

 'Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals'

 Investigators found three kitchen knives in the plot suspect's vehicle and analysis of his computer revealed he had conducted internet searches on possible targets.

 After his arrest, he told police he wanted to attack "Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals", AFP said.

 The suspect was convicted last year of condoning terrorism after praising Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in July 2011.

 He was jailed for three years with half the sentence suspended.

 Image copyright EPA Image caption Mr Macron has been giving an address in the Palace of Versailles

 Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption But some have accused him of acting like a "pharaoh"

 The Bastille Day parade on 14 July commemorates the start of the French Revolution and takes place on the Champs-Elysées avenue in Paris.

 In 2002, then-President Jacques Chirac was the subject of a Bastille Day assassination attempt when a man with far-right links took out a rifle and fired a shot before being overpowered.

 This year the Champs-Elysées has seen two attacks on police.

 Last month a man rammed a vehicle containing guns and gas canisters into a police van. In April a gunman shot dead police officer Xavier Jugelé using a Kalashnikov assault rifle. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– French authorities say a man has been hit with preliminary terrorism charges for plotting an attack on President Emmanuel Macron—at a time when President Trump would be visiting. A Paris prosecutor's office spokeswoman says that the 23-year-old suspect's plans were vague and that he appeared to be acting alone. She said the man was arrested in the Argenteuil suburb Thursday, and told police of a plan to attack Macron on Bastille Day on July 14. Macron will oversee a military parade in Paris that day alongside Trump, per the AP. It wasn't clear whether Trump's presence was a factor in the alleged plot. The suspect was given preliminary charges Saturday of individual terrorist activity. Police found three kitchen knives in his vehicle and said he'd been looking up potential targets on the internet. Police say he also expressed nationalist views, voicing a desire to attack "Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals," per AFP. The man previously spent time in prison for condoning terrorism by praising the 2011 attack by Norwegian Anders Breivik that left 77 people dead.


Write an article based on this summary:

– Its mission had a rocky start, but China's Jade Rabbit moon rover is now sending back some nifty high-resolution images of the lunar surface, reports CNN. China has made them available to download here, though Business Insider finds the process "frustratingly complicated." Luckily, it adds, Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society has done much of the heavy lifting, so head here if you'd like to see many, many more.

More than two years after China’s lunar rover got away to a wonky start on the surface of the moon, the country’s National Space Administration has released the stunning hi-def pictures it took.

 On December 14, 2013, Yutu, or “Jade Rabbit” became the third unmanned spacecraft to land on the moon. But within a month, the rover started having some problems preparing for the lunar nights, and was losing its precious solar power supplies.

 It stopped moving on January 25, 42 days into a three-month mission.

 By mid-February, Chinese officials had to face the fact that Jade Rabbit wasn’t going anywhere further but remarkably, it kept transmitting information until the end of October last year.

 Despite the fact it had been immobile and transmitting exactly the same observation for nearly 20 months, Jade Rabbit still technically claimed the record for the longest operational period of a rover on the moon, surpassing that of the Soviet Lunakhod rover.

 Nevertheless, while it never quite managed to traverse the three square kilometres intended, Jade Rabbit still took load of snaps. Up until now, the agency has only released a handful, but now there’s hundreds publicly available, and they’re in spectacular HD. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Story highlights China makes public high-resolution photos taken by its lunar lander and rover

 They show the moon's crust in vivid detail

 It's a show of openness for the country's usually secretive space program

 Beijing (CNN) China has released hundreds of high-resolution photos taken by its Chang'e-3 lunar lander and rover, showing the moon's surface in vivid detail.

 The China National Space Administration made the images, video clips and scientific data available on its website in a rare show of openness for the country's usually secretive space program.

 China sent its first unmanned lunar probe, the Yutu, or "Jade Rabbit," to the moon in 2013 as part of its Chang'e-3 mission, becoming only the third nation after the United States and Russia to land on the moon's surface.

 Despite a shaky start to its mission, the Jade Rabbit is still working and sending images and data back to earth.

 Read More |||||


Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Surprise: America’s wealthy like warm weather and low taxes. That’s the takeaway from IRS data, analyzed by Forbes, on moves between counties. We looked for counties that the rich are moving to in big numbers.

 Topping the list: Collier County, Fla., which includes the city of Naples. Tax returns accounting for 15,150 people showed moves to Collier County from other parts of the country in 2008, the latest year for which IRS data is available. Their average reported income: $76,161 per person–equivalent to $304,644 for a family of four. Although slightly more taxpayers moved out of Collier County than into it, the departing residents’ average income came out to just $26,128 per person.

 Interactive Map: Where Americans Are Moving

 Slide Show: Where America’s Rich Are Going (And Leaving)

 Households that moved to Collier County principally came from other parts of Florida, with Lee, Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Orange counties leading the list. Big northern cities also sent lots of migrants: Cook County, Ill. (home to Chicago); Oakland County, Mich. (near Detroit); and Suffolk County, N.Y. (on Long Island) each sent more than 100 people to Collier County during 2008.

 In second place is Greene County, Ga., with a population of just 15,743 at the Census Bureau’s last estimate. The IRS data show that in 2008, 788 people moved to the county, about 75 miles east of Atlanta.

 Rounding out the top five: Nassau County, Fla., near Jacksonville; Llano County, Texas, 70 miles northwest of Austin; and Walton County, Fla., 80 miles east of Pensacola.

 The dominance of the list by Florida and Texas–the former has eight of the top 20 counties, the latter four– makes sense to Robert Shrum, manager of state affairs at the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., since neither state has an income tax. “If you’re a high-income earner, then that, from a tax perspective, is going to be a driving decider if you’re going to move to one of those two states,” Shrum says.

 After accounting for property taxes, Shrum’s analysis shows that Texas has the fourth-lowest personal tax burden in the country, and Florida has the eighth lowest. Shrum also points to eight states that have targeted wealthy households with extra-high tax brackets: California, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Hawaii, Oregon, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Six of the top 10 counties the rich are fleeing are located in those states.

 Pitkin County, Colo., home to the pricey Aspen ski community, where home listings average more than $3.5 million, saw an exodus of rich people in 2008 as the economy began to contract. The 962 tax filers and dependents who left Pitkin had an average income of $71,473 per capita, while the equivalent figure for those moving to the county was $30,000 lower. Of those leaving Pitkin County, 224 moved to neighboring Garfield County where, according to real estate information service Trulia, homes list for 75% less than those in Pitkin County. IRS data also show movement from the resort area to cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

 Behind the Numbers

 To find places the rich are moving, Forbes used IRS data on household moves broken down by county and income. We included counties where arriving households are richer than households that didn’t move and departing households are poorer than households that didn’t move. The final ranking orders counties by the difference in per-capita income between incoming households and those that didn’t move.

 Our ranking of places the rich are fleeing essentially reverses these criteria, looking for counties where departing households are wealthier than the population as a whole and where incoming households are poorer.

 In order to find patterns among the wealthy, we restricted the lists to counties where departing or arriving households had per-capita incomes of $35,000 or more. That figure is equivalent to an annual income of $140,000 for a family of four–a very high income for any large subset of the American population (of 3,142 counties with IRS data, only 130 have average incomes above this level). And in order to avoid statistical anomalies, we only included counties with at least 500 people listed as arriving or departing.

 This technique essentially finds new hot spots–places that aren’t necessarily wealthy now but where wealthy people are moving. Some upscale places like Westchester County, N.Y., and Teton County, Wy., don’t make the list because people moving into those counties aren’t as rich as the people who already live there.

 The IRS warns that these counts are only approximations; because they don’t include households that don’t file income tax returns, poor and elderly people are underrepresented. These counts also don’t include returns filed after late-September 2009–a small fraction of total returns that tends to include some very rich people with complex returns who file for extensions.

 Slide Show: Where America’s Rich Are Going (And Leaving) |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Wealthy Americans are on the move, largely to the low-income-tax havens of the Sunbelt. A new Forbes analysis of IRS data from 2008 shows Collier County, Fla., at the head of the pack, picking up 15,150 new residents with an average income of $76,161—compared to $26,128 for the people moving away. A nifty feature on the Forbes website illustrates the migration and breaks it down by average income, county-to-county. For instance, click on New Orleans (Orleans Parish, La.) and you see graphics showing not just migration in and out but the number of people moving and their average income: to Seattle (King County, Wash.), 56 people, $36,200; from Seattle, 41 people, $25,000. To get the details on migration in and out of the county of your choice—fair warning: it's addictive—click here. To see a slideshow breaking down the most popular destinations, click here.


Summarize this article:

A top Tea Party leader derided Barack Obama as “our half white, racist president” in an email to colleagues.

 Mark Williams, the conservative talk radio host who has become a prominent spokesman for the Tea Party Express, sent an email in September — obtained by TPMmuckraker — to other leaders of the group, in which he appeared to be responding to charges of racism against himself.

 Wrote Williams:

 CNN went over more than seven thousand articles on my site; likely they also listened to the shows archived there too. No doubt they did a Lexis Nexis on me and found thirty years of work by and about me. The best that they could do as a result was string together three quotes, out of context, and throw in a false allegation of me calling Obama a “Nazi”. I was in the streets marching for civil rights while asshole southern sheriffs were swinging nail studded baseball bats at black’s heads, and stood between black kids and even more fucked up northern assholes were throwing rocks and gas bombs at school buses in my hometown during forced busing for deseg. Two things you can always count on: I will defend my record on race to no one (sic), under any circumstances and, I will call out any racist, any time without regard to who they are … and that includes our half white, racist president.

 The Sacramento-based Williams has made frequent media appearances as a spokesman and leader of the Tea Party Express, which was created last year by a GOP consulting firm. He has written in the past that President Obama is “an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief.”

 Late Update: Williams declined to comment to TPMmuckraker. ||||| Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

 Last September Mark Williams, a tour partner with the Tea Party Express, referred to President Obama as "our half white, racist president."

 In a September email obtained by Talking Points Memo, Williams angrily responded to what he calls a "false allegation" by CNN that he called President Obama a Nazi. In an apparent attempt to demonstrate he is not racist, Williams claimed to have a strong record on civil rights. He spoke of "marching for civil rights while asshole southern sheriffs were swinging nail-studded bats at blacks's heads..."

 On September 14, 2009, Mark Williams admitted to CNN's Anderson Cooper that he referred to "Mubarak Hussein Obama" as a Nazi:

 COOPER: But wait Mark, you're actually the one who called President Obama Nazi. WILLIAMS: I didn't call Barack Obama a Nazi. COOPER: Yes, he's on your list, on your Web site of like 21st century Nazis. You have his name. WILLIAMS: We've got the philosophy of fascism and national socialism at work here. Of course we do. COOPER: No, no but you have the president's name, although it's a derivation that's not his actually name, it's a name it's kind of a negative. WILLIAMS: Mubarak Hussein Obama. COOPER: Right, that's what's you call him on your Website. You're the one who's using the term Nazi.

 Tea Party Express, a series of nationwide anti-Obama bus tours, is frequently decried as "astroturf", or fake grassroots, by other aspects of the Tea Party movement, notably the Tea Party Patriots, due to its associations with Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which is run out of the Republican strategy firm Russo Marsh.

 Williams acts as a spokesman for Tea Party Express.

 Robin Stublen, a leader of the Tea Party Patriots, told HuffPost in an email, "Mark Williams is not someone I would want being my spokesman. He comes off as an arrogant, self promoting, egotistical jerk. In politics, people like Mark Williams are a dime a dozen, even when you factor in inflation."

 Williams concluded his September email by inexplicably refusing to defend himself: |||||

– Leading Tea Partier Martin Williams labeled President Obama a "half-white" racist in an email to other Tea Party Express leaders unearthed by TPM. Williams appears to be responding to accusations of racism himself in the email, which refers to a CNN interview in which Anderson Cooper made "false allegations" that he had called Obama a Nazi. In the email, Williams claims to have a strong civil rights record and, apparently jumbling his words, writes: "I will defend my record on race to no one under any circumstances." Williams' Tea Party Express branch has been slammed as "astroturf" by other factions of the movement. "Williams is not someone I would want being my spokesman," a leader of the Tea Party Patriots wrote to the Huffington Post. "He comes off as an arrogant, self promoting, egotistical jerk."


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 / Updated By Jonathan Allen

 NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — In his first public remarks since last week's deadly shooting at a high school in Florida, Wayne LaPierre, leader of the National Rifle Association, told a conservative convention on Thursday that gun control advocates care more about destroying liberty than protecting kids.

 "Opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain," LaPierre, executive vice president of the nation's most prominent gun-rights lobbying organization, said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

 In a wide-ranging speech stocked with red meat for conservatives and attacks on Democrats, LaPierre called for increased school security, repeatedly ripped the "rogue" leadership of the FBI and blasted the left for promoting a "socialist" agenda.

 Name-checking a long list of prospective Democratic 2020 presidential candidates and lawmakers like Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a leading advocate for gun control measures, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, along with the "national media," LaPierre condemned those he said were "eager to smear" the NRA.

 "For them, it's not a safety issue," he said of protecting students. "It's a political issue."

 Schumer quickly fired back on Twitter.

 "The NRA is once again spewing pathetic, out of touch ideas, blaming everything but guns," Schumer said.

 The NRA is once again spewing pathetic, out of touch ideas, blaming everything but guns. In the past, even after horrible shootings and empathetic words, President Trump and Congressional Republicans have toed the NRA line. 1/2 — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 22, 2018

 LaPierre's remarks came the day after President Donald Trump and his aides outlined plans to combat mass shootings: Tighten the national background-check system, raise the age for buying semi-automatic weapons to 21, and allow some teachers and school officials to carry firearms on campuses.

 Calling schools "wide open, soft targets for anyone bent on mass murder," LaPierre said that banks, jewelry stores, movie stars and politicians are "all more protected than our children."

 "We must immediately harden our schools," he said.

 But the NRA chief didn't limit himself to guns or their potential effect on school safety. LaPierre went after the FBI for failing to prevent the shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week, and blasted "corruption" within the bureau's ranks.

 Those advocating for gun control in the wake of the shooting want "to sweep right under the carpet the failure of school security, the failure of family, the failure of America's mental health system, and even the unbelievable failure of the FBI," he said.

 A top FBI official admitted Thursday the bureau made a mistake in not properly handling a report it had received about the Florida shooter before he attack the school. Acting FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said that while it was "a tragedy" that a tip about the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was never passed along to local investigators, the FBI is determined to fix the problem.

 Shortly before LaPierre took the stage, Trump praised him and NRA staff as "Great People and Great American Patriots" on Twitter.

 NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, a favorite of Tea Party activists, spoke before LaPierre and said major media organizations cover mass shootings based on race and ratings.

 "Many in legacy media love mass shootings," Loesch said. "You love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold."

 She went on to say that the media ignore the shooting deaths of people of color in Chicago.

 LaPierre said the NRA's critics are interested only in eliminating liberty for Americans — not preventing more shootings.

 "They hate the NRA. They hate the Second Amendment. They hate individual freedom," he said.

 "To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun," LaPierre added.

 Speaking shortly after LaPierre, Vice President Mike Pence struck a more conciliatory tone, saying Americans "mourn with those who mourn and grieve with those who grieve."

 Where LaPierre warned gun control was a subversive liberal plot to enable authoritarianism, Pence praised Trump's recent call for Congress to strengthen background checks and his call to government regulators to restrict bump stocks that can speed up semi-automatic weapon fire.

 Pence said he would "pray for God's wisdom that all of us in positions of authority might find a way to come together with American solutions to confront and end this evil in our time." He lamented that the aftermath of the shooting had brought "a time of too much division and too much anger in America."

 Pence did not address Trump’s proposal, reiterated on Twitter Thursday morning, to train and arm teachers around the country in order to deter a "sicko shooter" from firing on students. ||||| After a week of media silence following the school shooting in Florida, the National Rifle Association has gone on the offensive in its first public response to the massacre, pushing back against law enforcement officials, the media, gun-control advocates and calls for stricter gun laws from the teenage survivors of the attack.

 The gun rights group — a powerful force in American politics — used speeches and videos to try to blunt an emotionally charged wave of calls for new gun restrictions since a gunman armed with an AR-15 rifle killed 17 people at a Parkland, Fla., high school. As the teens who escaped the bloodshed have passionately campaigned for new laws, it appears the politics around the fraught issue of gun control are shifting, with President Trump and some conservative lawmakers expressing a willingness to consider at least modest measures.

 While the NRA initially held back from the fray, that changed as a spokeswoman debated survivors of the attack during a heated town hall and then Wayne LaPierre, the group’s chief executive, forcefully decried gun-control advocates and the media for its coverage of the shooting.

 [Florida high school students demand change to gun laws at boisterous rally]

 “They don’t care about our schoolchildren,” LaPierre said Thursday morning near the start of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md. “They want to make all of us less free.”

 LaPierre also restated his belief that more armed security would stop school shootings, echoing Trump, while calling on parents and local authorities to beef up security on campuses. Later in the day, the Broward County Sheriff acknowledged that an armed and uniformed deputy who was assigned to the Florida school did not enter the building while the attack was happening last week, taking a defensive position outside; the deputy, who was suspended, has since resigned.

 “Evil walks among us,” LaPierre said. “And God help us if we don’t harden our schools and protect our kids.”

 LaPierre’s speech came on the heels of the NRA releasing a video claiming that “the mainstream media love mass shootings.” The video argued that members of the media benefit from covering mass shootings and use them “to juice their ratings and push their agenda.”

 [Teachers: What do you think of President Trump’s proposal to arm some teachers in the classroom?]

 Since the rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, media coverage has been dominated by the attack’s survivors, who responded with a push of furious activism unseen after previous mass shootings. Teenagers who hid in closets and ran for their lives quickly began calling for increased gun control, assailing the NRA and organizing around their message.

 The survivors called for new gun restrictions in a rally Wednesday in Tallahassee, the Florida capital, and then reiterated the pleas that night at a town hall hosted by CNN and attended by lawmakers and Dana Loesch, an NRA spokeswoman.

 Loesch, speaking Thursday before LaPierre, echoed the NRA’s advertisement and castigated the news media with racially charged remarks.

 “Many in legacy media love mass shootings,” Loesch said. “I’m not saying that you love the tragedy. But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold.”

 [Dana Loesch, the NRA’s brash spokeswoman, dials back the rage at CNN town hall]

 Loesch questioned why there was a nationally televised town hall after one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern American history but no similar event for “thousands of grieving black mothers in Chicago every weekend.”

 During her appearance the previous night, Loesch sought to direct the discussion toward who should be able to obtain firearms, highlighting numerous red flags in the alleged gunman’s past, including concerns from school officials and a warning ignored by the FBI.

 Israel — who has said his agency is reviewing its prior interactions with the shooter as well as its response to the attack — said more armed officers alone would not solve the problems revealed by the Douglas shooting, but he announced plans to send deputies with rifles to police the county’s schools.

 The alleged shooter had no criminal record and was able to purchase his guns legally, officials said. Loesch sharply questioned how law enforcement had handled warnings about the suspect and criticized what she called “flawed” background check systems.

 “I don’t believe that this insane monster should have ever been able to obtain a firearm,” Loesch said during the forum Wednesday night. “This individual was nuts.”

 Speaking the following morning, Loesch also said she condemned those at the FBI who fumbled warnings about the shooter. “The government has proven it cannot keep you safe,” she said.

 David Bowdich, acting deputy director of the FBI, said Thursday that he was concerned about his agency’s public standing.

 “When I look through the prism of risk for our organization, I find the number one risk for our organization is losing the faith and confidence of the American people,” Bowdich said in response to a question about attacks on the bureau, including those by the NRA.

 Critics of the NRA dismissed its comments, which Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called “pathetic, out of touch ideas.” Some gun-control groups also questioned why the NRA was being given such a prominent platform in the debate, both by CNN and in Trump’s remarks.

 “I am so outraged that the NRA is being given a seat at the table, whether its by the media or by the president,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, an advocacy group seeking gun-control changes. “We’re acting as though lobbyists have a right to have a say, or to help us write our nation’s gun policies. They don’t.”

 She also attributed the NRA’s push to put more guns in schools as a way to increase firearms sales, noting that gun sales have fallen under Trump. Under Obama, amid fears that his administration would seek more gun restrictions, these sales reached record highs.

 Much like Loesch’s remarks, LaPierre’s speech went beyond the gun debate to touch on other politically charged issues. LaPierre, whose confrontational remarks have become a CPAC tradition, mentioned “rogue leadership” at the FBI, warned of “European socialists” in the Democratic Party, invoked illegal immigration and referenced the opioid epidemic.

 LaPierre said he was “horrified” by the Parkland tragedy, criticizing what he called “opportunists” who would “exploit tragedy for political gain.” He invoked his own comment following the 2012 massacre of 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., saying Thursday that “to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.”

 During his speech, LaPierre decried schools as “gun-free zones,” though Douglas had an armed officer on the campus at the time of the attack — who Israel has said did not enter the building or confront the shooter as people were being killed. LaPierre questioned why more armed protection was afforded to everything from banks and jewelry stores to movie stars, professional sports games and politicians.

 Shortly before LaPierre spoke, Trump tweeted a message of support for him and others at the NRA as “Great People and Great American Patriots” who he said would “do the right thing.”

 What many people don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris and the folks who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

 Trump has also echoed the NRA in calling for more armed security at schools and emphasized the idea of arming teachers as a way to deter future attacks. Trump has publicly and privately floated actions that would be at odds with some positions of the NRA — a group that heavily backed him during his campaign for the presidency — including suggesting that the age for purchasing assault rifles be raised from 18 to 21.

 “Legislative proposals that prevent law-abiding adults aged 18-20 years old from acquiring rifles and shotguns effectively prohibits them for purchasing any firearm, thus depriving them of their constitutional right to self-protection,” Jennifer Baker, a spokeswoman for the group, said in a statement.

 The alleged shooter in South Florida had purchased at least 10 guns, all rifles and shotguns, including the AR-15 used in the massacre, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the probe.

 Grover Norquist, a member of the NRA’s board, said he supports gun-purchase restrictions on those who are adjudicated as dangers to themselves and those who are violent felons, but he said he opposes raining the gun ownership age.

 “I am opposed to infantalizing teenagers,” Norquist said. “The guys on the left believe that treating people as children who are eligible to vote and join the military makes sense. I take the view that restricting people as children who are 18, 19, 20 years old is not helpful. I think it is a bad idea to treat adults as children.”

 In Florida, a day after high school students swamped the state capital to rally for new gun restrictions, Republican lawmakers were expected to release legislative language Thursday or Friday with proposals responding to Parkland. The bills are expected to include at least one provision increasing in the minimum age for purchasing semiautomatic rifles to 21.

 Republican Sen. Bill Galvano, the next Senate president who has long supported the NRA’s legislative priorities, is leading the effort in his body, and he said the NRA’s opposition to raising the age limit was unlikely to defeat the bill.

 “It doesn’t complicate my efforts,” he said Thursday. “I think the desire to act and do something meaningful right now seems to be what’s going to win the day.”

 Michael Scherer, in Tallahassee, and Matt Zapotosky and Tom Hamburger contributed to this report, which has been updated.

 Further reading:

 How a survivor of the Florida school shooting became the victim of an online conspiracy

 The NRA once believed in gun control and had a leader who pushed for it ||||| National Harbor, Maryland (CNN) The head of the biggest gun lobby in the US has accused Democrats of pushing a "socialist" agenda to deprive gun owners of their weapons, in an uncompromising speech just a week after 17 people died in the Florida school shooting.

 Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, made no attempt to moderate his message a day after survivors of the Parkland shooting faced down lawmakers in a CNN debate and the President at the White House. Instead, he told conservative activists that voters should be "frightened" of any future Democrat election victories, and accused Democrats of exploiting the deaths in an effort to destroy the Second Amendment.

 "Socialism is a movement that loves a smear," he said.

 Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of conservatives outside Washington, LaPierre warned Democrats would use the tragedy to push an agenda that went beyond gun control. "What they want is more restrictions on the law-abiding," LaPierre said. "They want to sweep right under the carpet the failure of school security."

 Staring out into the audience, LaPierre told them "you should be anxious and you should be frightened" about the potential of another Democratic takeover of the House, Senate and White House.

 "If they seize power ... our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever," he said. "The first to go will be the Second Amendment."

 LaPierre spent a significant portion of his remarks warning against the expansion of socialist political ideas, despite the fact that Republicans control both chambers in Congress and the White House, and the suggestion by President Donald Trump Thursday morning that he's open to gun reforms opposed by the NRA

 He called out rising-star Democratic lawmakers -- many of them potential candidates for the 2020 presidential election -- by name. He criticized independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren and other high-profile Democrats, whom he accused of backing European style socialism as well creating new victimized groups and hurling insults at conservatives.

 Polarizing figure

 In the aftermath of a high school shooting that left 17 dead, the country has found itself once again balancing the scope of the Second Amendment with its desire to protect children in schools. LaPierre has been a deeply polarizing figure as an outspoken and consistent advocate for gun rights , who has previously been among the public figures to voice the NRA's position in the wake of mass shootings.

 Once again LaPierre repeated his calls for schools to increase security, even arming schoolteachers, a controversial proposal that even some Republicans have rejected.

 NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington.

 LaPierre said the NRA will provide support and guidance on how schools can protect themselves free of charge. He argued that was "more" than the Democratic Party or news organizations were doing.

 "We share a goal of safe schools, safe neighborhoods and a safe country," LaPierre said, and warned that "evil walks among us."

 He also returned to an oft-used NRA slogan, one LaPierre invoked following the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 students and six adults dead,"To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun."

 Contrast with Rubio

 LaPierre's speech comes just a day after Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who has an A+ rating from the NRA, announced he was opposed to arming teachers and was in favor of raising the age limit from 18 to 21 on individuals purchasing semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15. Rubio also told the audience he was reconsidering his past opposition to limiting the size of large gun magazines.

 "I absolutely believe that in this country if you are 18 years of age, you should not be able to buy a rifle, and I will support a law that takes that right away," Rubio said, making the comments during a CNN town hall in Florida.

 Limiting the size of gun magazines and raising the age limit on buying rifles, including guns like AR-15 style rifles, are both positions that the NRA opposes.

 The NRA was represented at the town hall Wednesday night by the organization's national spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, who faced sharply critical comments from Parkland shooting survivors and family members of shooting victims.

 On Wednesday, President Donald Trump hosted students and parents at the White House for a raw, televised listening session . By Thursday morning, Trump tweeted he was committed to pushing for comprehensive background checks and limiting the age of those buying assault-style weapons.

 "I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!"

 A cornerstone of LaPierre's speech centered around the fact that the NRA says they've worked to try and fix the country's background check system by encouraging lawmakers to fight to incentivize states to enter records into the National Criminal Background Checks system.

 "When you hear politicians who won't fix the broken system talk about expanding it, don't buy it," LaPierre said in a pre-recorded video.

 The comment came after Trump suggested on Twitter he wanted to overhaul the background checks system.

 LaPierre didn't directly address Trump's tweets or positions in his speech.

 Just minutes before LaPierre was scheduled to speak, however, Trump defended the NRA.

 "What many people don't understand, or don't want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris and the folks who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Trump tweeted.

 This story has been updated. |||||
A summary of this is?

– "Many in legacy media love mass shootings," NBC News quotes NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch as saying Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "You love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold." A week after 17 people were killed at a school shooting in Florida, the NRA went on the defensive in speeches, videos, and statements targeting gun-control advocates, Democrats, the media, and even some ideas put forth by President Trump, the Washington Post reports. In his own speech at CPAC, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre warned citizens to be "frightened" of any Democratic election victory. "What they want is more restrictions on the law-abiding," CNN quotes LaPierre as saying. "If they seize power ... our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever." Following in Trump's footsteps, LaPierre called for more armed security in schools, including arming teachers. "Evil walks among us," he said, adding, "God help us if we don’t harden our schools." However, the president has also suggested increasing the age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21 in opposition to the NRA. An NRA spokesperson says such a law would deprive young people "of their constitutional right to self-protection." LaPierre spent most of his time at CPAC railing against what he says is a "socialist" agenda pushed by Democrats in the wake of the Parkland shooting. "Opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain," he said. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer responded: "The NRA is once again spewing pathetic, out of touch ideas, blaming everything but guns."


– Oscar Pistorius' defense team is launching its case, and yet again, the testimony seems to have been too much for the athlete to take. Pistorius threw up multiple times—now a frequent occurrence—into a bucket as a forensic pathologist discussed the bullet wounds that killed Reeva Steenkamp, Reuters reports. The pathologist, Jannie Botha, agreed with the state pathologist regarding the sequence of shots that hit Steenkamp. A sobbing Pistorius and others in the court couldn't bear to look at graphic photos displayed, NBC News notes. Next, Pistorius himself took the witness stand and began by apologizing to Steenkamp's family. "There is not a moment and there hasn't been a moment since this tragedy happened that I haven't thought about your family," he said, struggling to speak clearly through emotion. Other noteworthy moments, via the Guardian: Pistorius said he has trouble sleeping. "I have terrible nightmares about what happened that night. I wake up and I can smell blood." He often calls his sister for help, once doing so from inside a cupboard, he said. He added that he never wanted to touch a gun again. He discussed his close relationship with his mother and her sudden death when he was a teenager. As for his physical abilities without his prosthetics, a question central to the shooting: "I don't have balance on my stumps. I can stand on my stumps. I can't stand still on my stumps."

Expand this summary.

Double-amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius got emotional in the dock on Monday as more graphic images of the night he killed his girlfriend were shown in court.

 Earlier, his defense called pathologist Jan Botha to the stand. The athlete admits shooting Reeva Steenkamp, 29, but maintains it was a case of mistaken identity.

 Pistorius sobs as Botha tells court "death ensued fairly quickly after sustaining the head injury" -Rohit Kachroo (@RohitKachrooITV) April 7, 2014

 #OscarPistorius head in hands, retching. His family member wipes away tears. -Aliza Nadi (@alizanadi) April 7, 2014

 Pistorius leans forward and covers head as, once again, the court is shown an image of his blood-covered toilet. -Rohit Kachroo (@RohitKachrooITV) April 7, 2014

 Pistorius looks tormented - but he is likely to be the next witness to testify. -Rohit Kachroo (@RohitKachrooITV) April 7, 2014

 Reeva Steenkamp was shot at Oscar Pistorius' home in Pretoria, South Africa, on Feb 14, 2013. Mike Holmes / Gallo via Getty Images, file

 Court shown a close up image of one of Reeva's wounds. Pistorius cannot look. Nor can some of Reeva's friends and family -Rohit Kachroo (@RohitKachrooITV) April 7, 2014

 Court adjourns. The extreme close up of Reeva's wound still on the screen. -Rohit Kachroo (@RohitKachrooITV) April 7, 2014

 Pistorius, 27, is accused of the premeditated killing of the model and law graduate. The sprinter insists he thought she was an intruder when he opened fire through a bathroom door on Feb. 14, 2013.

 The trial continues. ||||| 1.51pm BST

 With the hearing over for the day, it's time for a closing summary. This will be very similar to the lunchtime summary, as we only had about 45 minutes of evidence in the afternoon:

 • Oscar Pistorius has taken to the witness stand to begin giving evidence in his murder trial. He began with a tearful, broken-voiced apology to the family and friends of Reeva Steenkamp, his girlfriend who he shot in February last year, believing – he says – she was an intruder.

 • Pistorius said there is "not a moment" when he does not think about her family, and prays for them daily. He added: "I've tried to put my words on paper many times to write to you but no words would ever suffice"

 • Pistorius said he had taken anti-depressants and sleeping pills since the shooting, often waking with "terrible nightmares" in which he dreamed he could smell blood. He said he often calls his sister to sit with him during the night. On one occasion he climbed into a cupboard to call her.

 • He said his religious faith was the only thing to sustain him over the past year: "There have been times when I've just been struggling a lot. My God is a God of refuge."

 • Pistorius spoke at length about his fear about, and experience of, crime. He said his his mother was worried about intruders and kept a pistol under her pillow

 • Pistorius said a speedboat accident in 2009 which almost killed him left him fearful and withdrawn.

 • Earlier, the first defence witness was a pathologist, Prof Jan Botha, who questioned prosecution evidence that Steenkamp must have eaten about two hours before her death at 3am, something which runs counter to Pistorius's statement that they went to bed at 10pm.

 • Botha was questioned aggressively and at length by the prosecution counsel, Gerrie Nel, giving a taste of the likely cross-examination Pistorius will face.

 • While this evidence was heard, including details of Steenkamp's injuries and photos of wounds and blood, Pistorius spent much of the time with his hands over his face, also retching. |||||


Article:

JOURNALISM

 Public service: Los Angeles Times

 Breaking news reporting: No award

 Investigative reporting: Paige St. John of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune

 Explanatory reporting: Mark Johnson, Kathleen Gallagher, Gary Porter, Lou Saldivar and Alison Sherwood of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

 Local reporting: Frank Main, Mark Konkol and John J. Kim of the Chicago Sun-Times

 National reporting: Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of ProPublica

 International reporting: Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry of The New York Times

 Feature writing: Amy Ellis Nutt of The Star-Ledger, Newark, New Jersey.

 Commentary: David Leonhardt of The New York Times

 Criticism: Sebastian Smee of The Boston Globe

 Editorial writing: Joseph Rago of The Wall Street Journal

 Editorial cartooning: Mike Keefe of The Denver Post

 Breaking news photography: Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti of The Washington Post

 Feature photography: Barbara Davidson of the Los Angeles Times

 ___

 ARTS

 Fiction: "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf)

 Drama: "Clybourne Park" by Bruce Norris

 History: "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery" by Eric Foner (W.W. Norton & Co.)

 Biography: "Washington: A Life" by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press)

 Poetry: "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems" by Kay Ryan (Grove Press)

 General nonfiction: "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)

 Music: "Madame White Snake" by Zhou Long, premiered Feb. 26, 2010, by the Boston Opera at the Cutler Majestic Theatre ||||| The Los Angeles Times was awarded the Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service for revealing official corruption in Bell and the feature photography award for Barbara Davidson's images of victims struggling to recover in the aftermath of gang violence.In a series of articles beginning last summer, a team of 20 reporters and editors, led by staff writers Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, revealed that Bell officials secretly enriched themselves with extravagant salaries and benefits while illegally raising taxes on the city's residents, who are among the poorest in Los Angeles County.As a result, criminal charges were filed against former Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo, who received an $800,000 salary and hundreds of thousands of dollars more in perks. He and seven other former city officials have been charged with multiple felonies. The revelations also led to millions of dollars in rebates of illegal taxes for Bell residents and tough new disclosure laws for cities and counties in California."The Bell coverage was a classic exercise in gang tackling executed by a newsroom that does this better than anybody," said Times Editor Russ Stanton after the awards were announced Monday.Davidson spent two years photographing victims of violent crime in South Los Angeles, Compton and Watts. Her work, the judges said, told an "intimate story of innocent victims trapped in the city's crossfire of deadly gang violence." Her images — including a uniformed mother visiting the gravesite of her son who was killed while she served in Iraq — illustrated the human cost of crime, even at a time when the violent crime rate is dropping.The Bell coverage also received the Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting from USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the American Society of News Editors' distinguished writing award for local accountability reporting, the Investigative Reporters and Editors' top honor and the George Polk Award for local reporting."The real victors in this are the people of Bell who were able to get rid of — the only way to describe it — a repressive regime and have a real City Council," said Gottlieb, who took a swig from a bottle of champagne as his newsroom colleagues celebrated around him. In March, citizens in the southeast Los Angeles County city voted in a new City Council.Gottlieb, 57, recounted the moment he and Vives discovered Rizzo's inflated salary. They were sitting in a community room in Bell's Little Bear Park, with Rizzo and nine other Bell officials."I said to Rizzo, 'So how much money do you make?' And he coughed out, '$700,000.' And I wasn't sure I heard him right, and I said, 'How much?' And he said, '$700,000.' And Ruben goes, 'Jesus Christ!' "Vives, 32, who has been a reporter for three years, added: "At a time when people say that newspapers are dying, this is a day that I think we can say, no not really. I mean, we gave a small town … the opportunity to speak out. And that's what newspapers do."Davidson, 36, said she was "totally stunned." She thanked the families she photographed "for sharing their private pain and sorrow," and said she was "humbled by the honor" and hoped it would "raise awareness of the issue of gang violence and its impact on innocent victims."The Times has won 41 Pulitzer Prizes. Six of those are public service medals, more than any other newspaper. The New York Times also won two prizes this year. Ellen Barry and Clifford J. Levy won in international reporting for what the Pulitzer judges called their "dogged reporting that put a human face on the faltering justice system in Russia." Economics columnist David Leonhardt won the commentary prize for his "graceful penetration of America's complicated economic questions." The Washington Post was awarded the prize for breaking news photography for its Haiti earthquake coverage. Times photographer Carolyn Cole, a Pulitzer winner in 2004, was a finalist for her "often haunting images" of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The nonprofit investigative news site ProPublica earned the national reporting prize for coverage of the nation's economic meltdown by reporters Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein. It was the first Pulitzer given for reporting that appeared only online, not in print.The Boston Globe's art critic, Sebastian Smee, won the criticism prize for what the judges called his "vivid and exuberant writing about art." Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly, who won the category in 2007 for his eclectic restaurant reviews, was a finalist.Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal earned the editorial writing prize for his "well-crafted, against-the-grain" editorials challenging President Obama's healthcare reform legislation. It was the first Pulitzer Prize for the Journal since it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch 's News Corp. in 2007.Several newspapers had multiple finalists. The New York Times had five, and the Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune each had four.The Pulitzer board did not give an award in the breaking news category."After serious consideration, no entry received the necessary majority [of votes] required for the prize," said prize administrator Sig Gissler, who announced the awards at Columbia University In the letters, drama and music categories, Jennifer Egan's "A Visit from the Goon Squad" won for fiction. Siddhartha Mukherjee won in general nonfiction for "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer." Eric Foner won for history for "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery." Ron Chernow won for biography for "Washington: A Life." Kay Ryan won for poetry for "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems." Bruce Norris' "Clybourne Park" won for drama. Zhou Long won in the music category for "Madame White Snake." ||||| Judge rejects former Bell police chief's bid to double pension Randy Adams was seeking a pension of $510,000 a year. The judge says the Bell City Council never approved his $457,000 annual salary.

 Former Bell police chief takes the Fifth 20 times Randy Adams, who is asking the state retirement system to double his pension to reflect his huge salary in Bell, was on the witness stand at a hearing on the request.

 Judge questions why Bell's former police chief isn't facing corruption charges Deputy district attorney says his office could not build a case against Randy Adams, whose pay is an issue in the case against Rizzo and others.

 Calpers Cutting Top-end Pension Benefits The Bell scandal has prompted the state retirement system to look again at some officials' payouts.

 Robert Rizzo, aide accused of conspiracy in Bell corruption scandal Former city administrator and his assistant conducted an elaborate plan to conceal benefits and bypass state law by hiding their true pensions, an indictment says.

 Money missing after deal in Bell The city paid top dollar for property but got back $425,000 from escrow that is now unaccounted for.

 Bell voters cast out the old and opt for the new Residents of the scandal-racked city recall four council members and elect five.

 Bell City Council candidate dies Miguel Sanchez, 34, a special-ed teacher's aide, had flu-like symptoms last week and was admitted to the hospital early Friday morning. Fellow activists said the campaign had been causing him great stress.

 Bell's voters have a real choice this time, thanks to the scandal On March 8 the city's voters will have something they haven't had in years: candidates not hand-picked by former City Administrator Robert Rizzo ¿ 18 of them.

 How Bell hit bottom Robert Rizzo seemed right for the town -- until he became an 'unaccountable czar.'

 Audits of Bell were 'rubber-stamp,' state controller says Chiang's office finds that an accounting firm that gave Bell clean audits failed to comply with auditing standards.

 Bell collected hefty fines in numerous code-enforcement cases Legal experts point to a lack of due process and judicial oversight in hundreds of 'civil compromises,' in which plumbers, carpet cleaners and bottle-gatherers paid up to $1,000 for alleged code violations.

 Bell demanded extra fees from some businesses The city collected tens of thousands of dollars annually. Some of the revenue helped pay unusually high municipal salaries. Experts say the practice may be illegal.

 Bell councilman an accidental hero by staying clear of corruption scandal Lorenzo Velez knows he owes the acclaim mostly to serendipity. He never got his colleagues' $100,000 salary because it wasn't offered.

 Former Bell police chief had a lucrative tax angle for retirement Randy Adams had himself declared disabled even as he was hired for the job, a move that could make him millions in tax-free pension income when he retires, according to records and interviews.

 Bell doubled public service taxes and funneled $1 million to Rizzo, audit finds The doubling of sewer, trash and other service taxes occurred without voter approval. State auditors have spent weeks reviewing the city's financial records.

 Bell leaders hauled off in cuffs Eight are held in scandal the D.A. calls 'corruption on steroids'

 Audit finds Rizzo got Bell funds Draft report alleges that $95,000 in city money was put in Robert Rizzo's retirement accounts to repay loans he had made to himself. An expert says the allegations could amount to federal wire fraud.

 Bell's Rizzo hid true salary Ex-Bell official said his pay was lower than it was. Some experts say his actions could invalidate his contracts and require that he repay money he earned.

 Federal probe targets possible civil rights violations in Bell The Justice Department is looking into whether the city violated the civil rights of Latino residents by aggressively towing cars and charging people exorbitant fees to get them back.

 Auditors find 3rd instance of illegal Bell taxes Business license taxes were illegally raised over the last decade, bringing to $5.6 million the amount owed back to taxpayers -- more than a third of the city's general fund.

 Impounded cars boost Bell's coffers Police say they were pushed to find cars to tow. Authorities say the practice discourages gangs but will be changed.

 Bell assessed illegal sewer fees Property owners overpaid $621,737 in levies that were raised in 2007, California controller says. The finding comes several weeks after auditors found taxpayers were overcharged $2.9 million for a 'retirement tax.'

 Bell council was paid for boards that seldom met Records show one panel hasn't convened since early 2005, yet members were each paid $1,575 per month

 Rizzo's horse had come in Some who worked with him in Bell and elsewhere over the years came to know him as a calculating risk-taker.

 City of Bell lent employees, elected officials nearly $900,000 Former assistant city manager received at least $200,000. Experts say such a city loan program for employees is unusual.

 Benefits push Bell ex-manager's compensation to more than $1.5 million Robert Rizzo's vacation and sick time totaled more than 28 weeks a year, the city discloses.

 Bell salaries raise more concerns about CalPERS The state's embattled pension system did not act four years ago when it learned about the city's runaway salaries. The state attorney general and auditors express shock that nothing was done.

 Voters in Bell tell of possible fraud Several residents report incidents involving absentee ballots to D.A., who is probing city elections.

 Other cities stuck with the tab for Bell officials' massive pensions Under the state's arcane, convoluted public pension system, Bell will pay a fraction of the city manager and police chief's pensions. Former employers and other cities will bear the brunt of the cost.

 Bell's business ties to officials probed L.A. County D.A. examines the city's $4.6-million purchase tied to a former politician.

 Bell property tax rate second-highest in L.A. County Homes of the same value in richer cities are taxed at a much lower rate, county tax records show. Residents are already angry about excessive salaries paid to officials.

 As top Bell officials earned massive salaries, city workers were laid off The city cut more than $800,000 from public safety and community services the same year that it gave City Manager Robert Rizzo an $82,000 raise.

 Bell council used little-noticed ballot measure to skirt state salary limits The city asked voters to back conversion to charter status in 2005, the year the California Legislature limited the pay of council members statewide. Only 400 people in a city of 40,000 voted on the measure.

 Bell scandal may spur a civic shift In nearby cities, residents rose up to oust corrupt officials with mixed results.

 Is a city manager worth $800,000? Bell isn't a big town, or a wealthy one. But some of its top officials are paid double or triple the salaries of their counterparts elsewhere.

 D.A. investigating why Bell council members get nearly $100,000 a year for a part-time job The district attorney's review of city records finds that each member in the working-class community of slightly less than 40,000 people gets $8,083 per month. A $400 monthly stipend was expected. |||||
What is a summary?

– The Los Angeles Times took home the coveted public service Pulitzer Prize this afternoon for its exposé of widepsread corruption in the city of Bell, Calif. The piece eventually led to the arrests of eight city officials, including the city administrator, who was pulling down $800,000 a year. The Times took home a second Pulizter for feature photography. A look at some of the other winners: Investigative reporting: Paige St. John of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune Explanatory reporting: Mark Johnson, Kathleen Gallagher, Gary Porter, Lou Saldivar, and Alison Sherwood of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel National reporting: Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of ProPublica International reporting: Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry of the New York Times Commentary: David Leonhardt of the New York Times Criticism: Sebastian Smee of the Boston Globe Editorial writing: Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal Editorial cartooning: Mike Keefe of the Denver Post Breaking news photography: Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn, and Ricky Carioti of the Washington Post Look through the gallery for more winners, or click for the complete list of Pulitzer Prize winners.