Today’s Times
- In addition to pens, pencils and rulers, school employees in South Dakota can now take guns to work every day, John Eligon reports.
- Want to get a rise â€" maybe even a filibuster â€" out of Senate Republicans Just mention federal judgeship appointments. The Republicans have blocked President Obama from filling any of the four vacancies on the nation’s important appeals courts, causing Democrats to say they might have justification to revisit Senate rules and claim new power to thwart filibusters, Carl Hulse writes.
- Mainstream civil liberties groups, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, conservative research groups, liberal activists and right-wing conspiracy theorists usually have littlein common, but Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky tapped into a common anxiety on Wednesday during a more than 12-hour filibuster about drones and the surveillance state, Scott Shane and Michael D. Shear report.
- “This is probably one of the most well-armed buildings in the state,†said one Texas lawmaker of the state’s Capitol campus. Legislators’ habit of wearing their weapons on the House and Senate floors reflects the normal nature of firearms throughout Texas, and it helps to illustrate why the gun debate has played out differently there than in some other parts of the country, Manny Fernandez writes.
- The Colorado Senate began a marathon session on Friday, debating a range of new firearms restrictions in a state with two mass shootings on the books, Jack Healy reports. But Republicans were united in opposition, signaling that they would spend hours and hours arguing against the bills.
Weekly Address
- President Obama started this week’s address by praising the latest jobs numbers, a rebounding stock market and a quickening pace for new home sales. “And we need to do everything we can to keep that momentum going,†he said. “At a time when our businesses are gaining a little more traction, the last thing we should do is allow Washington politics to get in the way.† After meeting with Republican senators on Wednesday and making plans to attend both the Democratic and Republican Party meetings in Congress next week, he is hoping to “untangle some of the gridlock†and continue discssions on fixing the so-called sequester. Though he acknowledged that progress won’t be easy, “I still believe we can come together to do big things.â€
 Happenings in Washington
- President Obama will speak at the annual dinner hosted by the Gridiron Club, a journalistic organization, on Saturday.
