In Today's Times
- President Obama traveled to Newtown, Conn., on Sunday to offer words of solace to the bereaved town, and to chide the nation for not having done enough to prevent mass shootings like the one that left 28 people there dead, 20 of them children, Mark Landler and Peter Baker report.
- Much of the groundwork for the quick victory of Michigan's “right-to-work†legislation, which bans mandatory union payments, was laid in the months and years before it passed. A loose network of donors, strategists and conservative political groups bet that the dollars invested in local elections would yield concrete policy victories that could not be had in Washington, Nicholas Confessore and Monica Davey r eport.
- Mr. Obama is leaning strongly toward naming Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, David E. Sanger reports. But the announcement will be delayed because of the Connecticut school shooting and what one official called “some discomfort†with the idea of Mr. Obama's announcing a national security team in which the top posts are almost exclusively held by white men.
- The Democratic Party in California now holds a supermajority in the Legislature, giving it a chance to lock in long-term control, but also raising concerns that legislative overreach could make the party's reign brief, Adam Nagourney writes.
- Mr. Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner expressed new optimism on Sunday that a deal to avert the fiscal crisis could be reached this week, Jonathan Weisman and Jackie Calmes write. Mr. Boehner's latest offer to allow tax rates to rise on incomes over $1 million signaled that both teams could put aside their philosophical arguments and begin wrangling over price.
Around the Web
- Ron Weiser, the finance chairman for the Republican National Committee, was caught on video mocking voters in Detroit, The Associated Press reports.
Happenings in Washington
- Â Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will conduct a live Virtual Office Hours session on Twitter at 3:30 p.m.
- A special performance f rom the musical “Wicked†will mark the donation and display of the Elphaba costume at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
