WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is inviting law enforcement, labor and business leaders to the White House to show they support an immigration overhaul.
The White House says Obama will speak Tuesday about the economic and national security benefits of a bipartisan bill. The first votes in the full Senate are scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
Obama is highlighting the disparate groups that are backing the bill even though they've opposed each other on immigration in the past.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tom Donahue will join Obama, as will AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Democratic Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio and Bush-era Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez also will be on hand. Faith leaders will be represented as well.
The bill creates a path to citizenship for 11 million people in the U.S. illegally.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Edward Snowden used the code name "Verax," truth-teller in Latin, as he made his cautious approach to Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman about disclosing some dramatic state secrets on intelligence gathering.
The 29-year-old intelligence contractor said he knew the great risks he was taking in exposing a phone records monitoring program and an Internet scouring program designed by the U.S. government to monitor for threats of terrorism. In their communications, he referred to Gellman as "Brassbanner."
A series of indirect contacts preceded the first direct exchange May 16 between Snowden and Gellman. Snowden was not ready to give his name, but he said he was certain to be exposed, the Post reported Sunday night.
"I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end," he wrote in early May, before making his first direct contact. He warned that even journalists who pursued his story were at risk until they published.
The U.S. intelligence community, he wrote, "will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information."
To effect his plan, Snowden asked for a guarantee that The Washington Post would publish — within 72 hours — the full text of a PowerPoint presentation describing PRISM, a top-secret surveillance program that gathered intelligence from Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other Silicon Valley companies. He also asked that The Post publish online a cryptographic key that he could use to prove to a foreign embassy that he was the document's source.
Gellman told him the Post would not make any guarantee about what the Post published or when. The Post broke the story two weeks later, on Thursday. The Post sought the views of government officials about the potential harm to national security prior to publication and decided to reproduce only four of the 41 slides, Gellman wrote in his story about their communications.
Snowden replied succinctly, "I regret that we weren't able to keep this project unilateral." Snowden also made contact with Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian newspaper.
When Snowden was asked about national security concerns, he responded:
We managed to survive greater threats in our history ... than a few disorganized terrorist groups and rogue states without resorting to these sorts of programs," he wrote. "It is not that I do not value intelligence, but that I oppose ... omniscient, automatic, mass surveillance .... That seems to me a greater threat to the institutions of free society than missed intelligence reports, and unworthy of the costs."
On Sunday afternoon, as his name was released to the world, Snowden communicated with Gellman from a Hong Kong hotel room, not far from a CIA base in the U.S. consulate.
"There's no precedent in my life for this kind of thing," he wrote. "I've been a spy for almost all of my adult life — I don't like being in the spotlight."
The 29-year-old intelligence contractor said he knew the great risks he was taking in exposing a phone records monitoring program and an Internet scouring program designed by the U.S. government to monitor for threats of terrorism. In their communications, he referred to Gellman as "Brassbanner."
A series of indirect contacts preceded the first direct exchange May 16 between Snowden and Gellman. Snowden was not ready to give his name, but he said he was certain to be exposed, the Post reported Sunday night.
"I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end," he wrote in early May, before making his first direct contact. He warned that even journalists who pursued his story were at risk until they published.
The U.S. intelligence community, he wrote, "will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information."
To effect his plan, Snowden asked for a guarantee that The Washington Post would publish — within 72 hours — the full text of a PowerPoint presentation describing PRISM, a top-secret surveillance program that gathered intelligence from Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other Silicon Valley companies. He also asked that The Post publish online a cryptographic key that he could use to prove to a foreign embassy that he was the document's source.
Gellman told him the Post would not make any guarantee about what the Post published or when. The Post broke the story two weeks later, on Thursday. The Post sought the views of government officials about the potential harm to national security prior to publication and decided to reproduce only four of the 41 slides, Gellman wrote in his story about their communications.
Snowden replied succinctly, "I regret that we weren't able to keep this project unilateral." Snowden also made contact with Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian newspaper.
When Snowden was asked about national security concerns, he responded:
We managed to survive greater threats in our history ... than a few disorganized terrorist groups and rogue states without resorting to these sorts of programs," he wrote. "It is not that I do not value intelligence, but that I oppose ... omniscient, automatic, mass surveillance .... That seems to me a greater threat to the institutions of free society than missed intelligence reports, and unworthy of the costs."
On Sunday afternoon, as his name was released to the world, Snowden communicated with Gellman from a Hong Kong hotel room, not far from a CIA base in the U.S. consulate.
"There's no precedent in my life for this kind of thing," he wrote. "I've been a spy for almost all of my adult life — I don't like being in the spotlight."
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Former President Nelson Mandela's condition remained serious but stable on Monday, his third day in a Pretoria hospital, the South African government said.
"His condition is unchanged," the office of President Jacob Zuma said in a brief statement. It urged South Africans to pray for Mandela and his family.
Mandela, who is 94 years old, was taken to a hospital in the capital early Saturday to be treated for a recurring lung infection. At that time, Zuma's office described the anti-apartheid leader's condition as "serious but stable."
On Sunday, members of Mandela's family were seen visiting the hospital where the anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate is believed to be staying.
The African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, dismissed as false a report in Monday's edition of The Star newspaper that Mandela's family had barred senior party leaders and government officials from visiting the hospital.
"We have spoken to the family about this report and they deny that they issued such an instruction or (have) spoken to the media on barring the ANC and government from visiting Madiba," the party said in a statement, using Mandela's clan name.
"What we know is that given the pressure associated with the admission of President Mandela, there are general restrictions that permit only relevant people to have access," the party said. "As the ANC, we have deferred this responsibility to President Zuma to liaise with the family and the hospital."
On April 29, state television broadcast footage of a visit to Mandela's home by Zuma and other ANC leaders. Zuma said then that Mandela was in good shape, but the footage - the first public images of Mandela in nearly a year - showed him silent and unresponsive, even when Zuma tried to hold his hand.
Some South Africans said that showing images of a clearly ailing Mandela was inappropriate and appeared to reflect an attempt by the ruling party to benefit politically from its association with Mandela, a former ANC head, in the runup to national elections next year. The party denied the accusation.
Mandela has been hospitalized several times in recent months. During a hospital stay that ended April 6, doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia and drained fluid from his chest.
Mandela has been particularly vulnerable to respiratory problems since contracting tuberculosis during 27 years as the prisoner of the white racist government. The bulk of that period was spent on Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town where Mandela and other prisoners spent part of the time toiling in a stone quarry.
Mandela was freed in 1990 and won election to the presidency in the country's first all-race elections in 1994. He was seen by many around the world as a symbol of resolve and reconciliation for his sacrifice in confinement as well as his peacemaking efforts during the tense transition that saw the demise of the apartheid system.
The former leader retired from public life years ago and had received medical care at his Johannesburg home until his latest transfer to a hospital.
"His condition is unchanged," the office of President Jacob Zuma said in a brief statement. It urged South Africans to pray for Mandela and his family.
Mandela, who is 94 years old, was taken to a hospital in the capital early Saturday to be treated for a recurring lung infection. At that time, Zuma's office described the anti-apartheid leader's condition as "serious but stable."
On Sunday, members of Mandela's family were seen visiting the hospital where the anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate is believed to be staying.
The African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, dismissed as false a report in Monday's edition of The Star newspaper that Mandela's family had barred senior party leaders and government officials from visiting the hospital.
"We have spoken to the family about this report and they deny that they issued such an instruction or (have) spoken to the media on barring the ANC and government from visiting Madiba," the party said in a statement, using Mandela's clan name.
"What we know is that given the pressure associated with the admission of President Mandela, there are general restrictions that permit only relevant people to have access," the party said. "As the ANC, we have deferred this responsibility to President Zuma to liaise with the family and the hospital."
On April 29, state television broadcast footage of a visit to Mandela's home by Zuma and other ANC leaders. Zuma said then that Mandela was in good shape, but the footage - the first public images of Mandela in nearly a year - showed him silent and unresponsive, even when Zuma tried to hold his hand.
Some South Africans said that showing images of a clearly ailing Mandela was inappropriate and appeared to reflect an attempt by the ruling party to benefit politically from its association with Mandela, a former ANC head, in the runup to national elections next year. The party denied the accusation.
Mandela has been hospitalized several times in recent months. During a hospital stay that ended April 6, doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia and drained fluid from his chest.
Mandela has been particularly vulnerable to respiratory problems since contracting tuberculosis during 27 years as the prisoner of the white racist government. The bulk of that period was spent on Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town where Mandela and other prisoners spent part of the time toiling in a stone quarry.
Mandela was freed in 1990 and won election to the presidency in the country's first all-race elections in 1994. He was seen by many around the world as a symbol of resolve and reconciliation for his sacrifice in confinement as well as his peacemaking efforts during the tense transition that saw the demise of the apartheid system.
The former leader retired from public life years ago and had received medical care at his Johannesburg home until his latest transfer to a hospital.
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