U.S. President Barack Obama speaks from the briefing room of the White House in Washington February 5, 2013.

WASHINGTON | Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:55pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is drafting a backup immigration reform plan in case a bipartisan congressional committee working on a bill fails, an Obama Administration official said on Sunday, though a key Republican said the president's plan would be "dead on arrival" on Capitol Hill.

White House Chief of staff Denis McDonough said the administration hoped that bipartisan efforts would deliver a broadly acceptable package, but wanted a plan B.

"We're doing exactly what the president said we would do last month ... which is we're preparing. We're going to be ready," he said on ABC's "This Week' program, confirming a published report on Saturday disclosing the White House effort.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are anxious to tackle immigration reform, after the increasingly influential Latino vote turned out heavily in favor of President Barack Obama and his Democrats in the November 2012 election.

USA Today said on Saturday that a draft of a White House immigration proposal would allow illegal immigrants to become legal permanent residents within eight years.

The plan, obtained by the newspaper, also would provide for more security funding and require businesses to check the immigration status of new hires within four years.

McDonough gave no details of White House's plan, but said it was important that immigration reform passed this year and made clear the administration hoped bipartisan efforts on Capitol Hill bore fruit.

"So let's make sure they get this thing done, and they're up there working on it right now. We have to make progress on immigration reform, we should enact it this year and the president will continue to work with the team to make sure that happens."

Obama emphasized in last week's State of the Union address the importance of creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally. Many Republicans stress that the nation's borders must be secured first.

Latinos favored Obama over Republican Mitt Romney in the November 6 election by 71 percent to 27 percent, helping tilt politically divided states to the Democratic incumbent.

Republicans want to show Latinos they understand their concerns on immigration, but must also be mindful of conservative members of their own party who worry about encouraging even more illegal immigration in the future.

Senator Marco Rubio, the key Republican on the issue and one of the eight senators on the committee crafting the legislation, dismissed the White House draft as a seriously flawed rehash of failed immigration policies that would make the country's immigration problems worse.

"If actually proposed, the president's bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come," Rubio, who is a Cuban-American from Florida, said in a statement on Saturday.

SECURE BORDERS FIRST

According to USA Today, illegal immigrants could also apply for a newly created "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa, under the White House's draft bill. If approved, they could apply for the same provisional legal status for spouses or children living outside the country, according to the draft.

Conservative Republicans like Senator Rand Paul want borders to be first secured before they can endorse any immigration reform.

"I will support it on one condition: That we have a report that says the borders are being secured ... (it has to be) a report and comes back and is voted on in Congress," Paul said on "Fox News Sunday."

"I won't do it on a promise from President Obama, that he will secure the borders," Paul, from Kentucky, added.

Paul Ryan, the Republican vice president candidate in last year's elections, suggested the White House plan was leaked intentionally.

"By putting these details out ... that tells us he is looking for partisan advantage and not a bipartisan solution. This particular move is counter productive," Ryan said on ABC's "This Week" program.

A White House official denied it was leaked.

"This was not the administration floating anything. ... We were surprised to learn what appeared to be draft language had been given to the press, thought it was unfortunate, and reached out to senate offices on both sides of the aisle on Saturday evening to make that clear."

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull, Steve Holland and Paul Simao; Editing by Philip Barbara)

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1 of 6. U.S. President Barack Obama announces his nomination of White House chief of staff and budget expert Jack Lew (R) as his next treasury secretary, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, January 10, 2013.

WASHINGTON | Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:22pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first black U.S. president is coming under fire from some of his own Democratic Party for naming a stream of white men to key cabinet and leadership posts in his second administration.

President Barack Obama on Thursday named Jack Lew as his Treasury secretary, the fourth white male he has named to the most prized cabinet posts in recent weeks.

Lew's nomination follows Obama's pick of Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. He has also named former Senator Chuck Hagel to be defense Secretary and John Brennan to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Against this, he lost the first Hispanic woman in the cabinet when Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced her resignation on Wednesday. And last month Lisa Jackson, who is black, announced she was stepping down as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

"It's embarrassing as hell," New York Democrat Charles Rangel, one of the most senior black members of Congress, said of the Obama appointments.

New Hampshire Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, whose state has the only all-female delegation in Congress, described the appointments as "disappointing."

"We need a government that looks like America so we can address the concerns that we hear from across the spectrum," she said.

Republicans joined in the criticism with former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee accusing Obama of waging a "war on women," using the same words Democrats coined to criticize Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the election campaign last year.

"Now a lot of those females who supported Barack Obama are scratching their heads, and they're saying, ‘Whoa! How come there is so much testosterone in the Obama Cabinet and so little estrogen?'" the former Arkansas governor said on his radio show.

Obama beat Romney 55 percent to 43 percent among women, according to Reuters/Ipsos exit polling on Election Day. He also won large majorities of the African-American and Hispanic vote.

DIVERSITY AND DEMOGRAPHICS

Diversity in the United States is usually defined as including women and racial minorities, especially Hispanics and African-Americans. U.S. political pundits parse polling data of women, Hispanics, African Americans and other groups for signs of voting patterns.

They track the "gender gap," which is the percentage difference between Democratic and Republican support among women. Since Obama's re-election in November, many analysts have noted the rising percentage of U.S. ethnic minorities and described his victory as a reflection of changing demography.

The criticism of Obama is surprising because Republicans usually are the party accused of insensitivity to diversity.

Former President George W. Bush deflected this by pointing to the two secretaries of state during his eight years in office -- African-Americans Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. They were followed by Hillary Clinton.

If confirmed by the Senate, Kerry will be the first white male to hold the top U.S. diplomatic post in more than a decade.

Almost overlooked in the criticism is that the White House announced this week that Attorney General Eric Holder, who is black, will stay on as the nation's senior legal officer.

Obama also was widely reported to be considering an African-American woman, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice as Secretary of State. She pulled her name from consideration because of Republican objections to her statements about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

White House spokesman Jay Carney urged critics on Wednesday to make their judgments only after Obama had completed his team.

"Women are well represented in the president's senior staff," he told reporters, noting that his team included Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers University's Center for American Women in Politics, which tracks women in elective office, said Obama's choices were a missed opportunity to put women into powerful jobs such as heading the Pentagon.

"A case could be made that Barack Obama won on the strength of the support that he had with women, given the gender gap," she told Reuters.

With women filling 36 percent of Cabinet posts in his first term, Obama had the highest percentage of women in top jobs of any president other than fellow Democrat Bill Clinton, she said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Greg McCune)

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A Christmas wreath is covered with snow on West 4th Street in Waterloo, Iowa, December 20, 2012.

BUFFALO, New York | Sat Dec 22, 2012 4:56pm EST

BUFFALO, New York (Reuters) - Powerful winds and snow whipped parts of the eastern United States on Saturday, carrying the promise of a white Christmas while threatening to cause problems for the many Americans traveling for the holidays, meteorologists said.

The storm moving in from the Midwest was sending strong winds into the mid-Atlantic states and southern New England. It buried parts of Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin in more than a foot of snow earlier this week.

The high winds threatened to delay flights at busy airports in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, meteorologists said.

Due to the winds, departing flights were delayed at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and at Washington Dulles International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

More than 87 million Americans are expected to travel 50 miles or more away from home over the holidays, the travel and auto group AAA has forecast. Nearly nine out of 10 will be on the roads, it said.

Residents in and around Buffalo, New York, awoke on Saturday to 4 to 6 inches of snow - the season's first significant accumulation in the notoriously snowbound region.

Typically, the area would have roughly a foot of snow by the Christmas holidays, but there has been little or nothing this year.

"There was something missing," Mayor Rob Ortt of North Tonawanda, New York, just north of Buffalo, said of judging the city's holiday lighting contest in the past week. "I think this was the first year there was no snow, not even a dusting."

"Everyone thinks of us as a place where snow is, and you relish it at Christmas time," he said, adding, "When we have snow around St. Patrick's Day, that's when people get annoyed."

The National Weather Service predicted a few more inches of snow for the Buffalo region on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

A new storm could bring snow as well to the central Appalachians, northern mid-Atlantic and southern New England on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, Accuweather.com said.

Residents of Harrisburg and Scranton, Pennsylvania eastward to Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston could expect a white Christmas, it said.

"It could be a white Christmas after all in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, New England and other areas across the nation," said Alex Sosnowski, Accuweather senior meteorologist.

New York City is likely to see a mix of snow and rain, he said.

RELIEF FOR SKI RESORT OPERATORS

Several inches of snow fell on Saturday in parts of western Pennsylvania. In central New York, snowfall of up to an inch an hour at times was predicted by the National Weather Service.

Ski resort operators in western New York greeted the snow with relief and said the cold air was making conditions ideal for snowmaking.

"It hurts not to be open yet," said Andy Minier, ski racing coordinator at Kissing Bridge ski area, about 30 miles south of Buffalo.

On Saturday, high winds were buffeting the New York City metropolitan area, eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, the National Weather Service said.

It predicted hazardous conditions due to winds for upstate New York, northwestern Connecticut, southern Vermont and western Massachusetts.

Wintry air blowing off the eastern Great Lakes was causing icy conditions in western and northern Pennsylvania, upstate New York and West Virginia as well, Accuweather said.

On the Gulf Coast, meteorologists say, dangerous thunderstorms and tornadoes are expected on Christmas Day.

The affected areas are likely to be southeastern Texas, central and southern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, Accuweather said. Cities in those areas include Houston; Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Louisiana; Gulfport, Mississippi; Montgomery and Mobile in Alabama; and Pensacola, Florida; it said.

(Additional Reporting and writing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 20, 2012 6:05pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday came to the defense of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel against critics who have attacked his record on Israel and Iran in a bid to head off his possible nomination as President Barack Obama's next Pentagon chief.

With Hagel considered a leading choice for defense secretary, the administration joined allies rallying to support him against the onslaught, led by some pro-Israel groups and neo-conservatives, but also including former colleagues on Capitol Hill.

It was the second time since Obama's re-election last month that the White House has found itself forced to defend a Cabinet candidate who has yet to be nominated for anything, a source of frustration for the president's advisers.

Obama's aides have been preparing for a realignment of his national security team, possibly by Friday, sources familiar with the process have said. But with Obama focused on the "fiscal cliff" standoff and the Hagel controversy also fueling concerns, an announcement could easily be delayed.

Some American Jewish leaders contend Hagel, who left the Senate in 2008, at times opposed Israel's interests, voting several times against U.S. sanctions on Iran, and made disparaging remarks about the influence of what he called a "Jewish lobby" in Washington.

White House spokesman Jay Carney made clear Obama's faith in the former lawmaker, who is a decorated Vietnam war veteran.

"Senator Hagel fought and bled for his country. He served his country well. He was an excellent senator," Carney said, without acknowledging that Hagel was under consideration to succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. He did not address any of the specific criticisms aimed at Hagel.

The controversy over Hagel's possible nomination comes after U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew from consideration for secretary of state last week amid withering attacks from Republicans over her role in initial explanations of the deadly September assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

"We've been through this before with Ambassador Rice where there's an effort to go after somebody," Carney said.

The drumbeat of criticism against Hagel could prompt Obama to reconsider whether it would be worth the likely Senate confirmation battle. But the White House has given no sign of dropping him the president's short list.

Obama himself has been criticized by some Jewish leaders for his approach to close U.S. ally Israel, especially given his strained relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

BATTLE LINES DRAWN

Some of the attacks on Hagel stem from comments he made to former U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller for his 2008 book, "The Much Too Promised Land," in which Hagel was quoted as saying, "The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here."

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said earlier this week that Hagel would "have to answer for that comment" if he is nominated.

William Kristol of the conservative Weekly Standard wrote in a recent column that Hagel "has anti-Israel, pro-appeasement-of-Iran bona fides."

Hagel's supporters have started firing back, insisting he has shown himself supportive of Israel and tough on Iran.

"His views are strong, solid on American foreign policy. I'm amazed at the turnout of the neo-cons and so on," Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under President George H.W. Bush, told Reuters.

He was referring to the neo-conservatives, a loose group of right-wing foreign policy thinkers who gained ascendancy during the tenure of Obama's Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.

And Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal American Jewish group, denounced what he said was a "smear campaign" against Hagel.

Democratic presidents have sometimes turned to Republicans to fill key national security posts. Former President Bill Clinton chose former Senator William Cohen to lead the Defense Department, and Obama kept Robert Gates, former President George W. Bush's last defense secretary, on board for part of his term.

QUESTIONS ON CUBA

Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio's office said he also would have questions about Hagel's record on Cuba, and raised the possibility of putting a hold on his nomination. Hagel has voiced doubts about the wisdom and effectiveness of maintaining the decades-old U.S. trade embargo on communist Cuba.

"Promoting democracy in Latin America is a priority for Senator Rubio, and he's put holds on other administration nominees over the issue," said Rubio spokesman Alex Conant.

"If President Obama were to nominate Senator Hagel for a cabinet position, I'm sure we would have questions about Cuba positions." Rubio is Cuban-American.

Adding to the sense of battle lines drawn, Hagel's critics and allies are circulating dueling fact-sheets on Capitol Hill.

Many Republicans consider Hagel suspect. He was an early dissenter on the Iraq war - an issue that helped Obama rise to prominence - and crossed the aisle to endorse the president in his successful re-election bid this year.

Since leaving the Senate after two terms, he has also been a vocal critic of his own party's fiscal policies.

Obama is said to feel comfortable with Hagel. The two traveled together to the Middle East during the 2008 campaign. Hagel currently co-chairs Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Warren Strobel; editing by Todd Eastham)

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Pablo Picasso's ''The Charnel House'' Paris 1944-45; dated 1945, an oil and charcoal on canvas is seen in this undated handout photo released to Reuters on October 4, 2012.

NEW YORK | Thu Oct 4, 2012 5:53pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pablo Picasso may be best known for his Blue and Rose Periods and Cubism but the Spanish artist also used black and white in his works, many of which will be shown in a new exhibition opening on Friday at New York's Guggenheim Museum.

"Picasso Black and White," which runs through January 23 and includes 118 paintings, sculptures and works on paper from 1904 to 1971, focuses on Picasso's exploration of the use of the two colors.

"This is the first exhibition that examines his continuous use of the black and white palette throughout his career, therefore we think it is a ground-breaking exhibition," said Richard Armstrong, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation.

"We think this offers new insights into his creative character," he added.

From "La Repasseuse" a stark, somber 1904 oil on canvas painting of an angular woman ironing to "The Kiss," a work in dark gray and black that was completed decades later, the exhibition runs in chronological order up the curving ramps of the museum.

It includes works that have never been seen in public before and more than 30 will be on view in the United States for the first time.

Carmen Gimenez, the curator of the exhibition, said the minimal use of color in Picasso's works in the exhibition showed his focus on line, form, drawings and tones, which is evident in "The Kitchen," a 1948 painting of angles, circles, curves, and varying shades of gray.

"His interest in on drawing and on the line," she explained in an interview.

Even in his Blue and Rose periods, Gimenez said black, white and gray is a recurrent motif. The lack of color, she added, enabled Picasso to manage complicated paintings such as his black and white masterpiece "The Milliner's Workshop," which is on loan for the exhibition from the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

"The Charnel House," a jumble of corpses with a primitive quality, which was reportedly inspired by newspaper photographs of war, is another major work in the show, along with "The Maids of Honor," the largest of his 44 variations of Diego Velazquez's "Las Meninas" which Picasso painted in California.

"Black and white tended to be used in ambitious and complicated compositions," Gimenez explained.

She added that Picasso's monochromatic tones are rooted in Paleolithic cave drawings and were used to explore the works of other great Spanish artists such as Velazques, El Greco and Francisco de Goya, who also used black and gray.

"Gray was an essential part of the classical tradition," she said.

"Head of a Horse, Sketch for Guernica" is another work of art featured in the show. It is a study for arguably Picasso's most famous painting "Guernica," his reaction to the massive air raid by the Germans in 1937 on the Basque town of Guernica.

After its run at the Guggenheim, the show will move to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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Locals run as an unusual snowfall hits some parts of Johannesburg, August 7, 2012.

JOHANNESBURG | Wed Aug 8, 2012 12:18pm EDT

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African couple married this week after a bout of unusually cold weather allowed them to fulfill a light-hearted promise to tie the knot the next time Johannesburg was covered in snow.

Portuguese emigre Rui Moca and Monique Joubert had planned to wed next year, but when South Africa's biggest city was shrouded in a rare blanket of snow on Tuesday, Joubert's sister called Jacaranda FM to tell them about the couple's dream of a "real" white wedding.

The radio station leapt into action, organizing a minister, lawyer, photographer, flowers, cake and limousine, and the couple were married on air in the studio in the early evening - with Moca's family listening in from Europe over the Internet.

"The entire wedding with all the bells and whistles was organized in just three hours," Jacaranda DJ Martin Bester said.

The snowfall was the first in Johannesburg in five years and the heaviest since 1981. Newspapers ran front-page photographs of snow-clad palm trees and a lion sitting disconsolately in its enclosure at Johannesburg zoo with snow gathering in its mane.

The cold snap also disrupted travel in Africa's biggest economy, with drifting snow and sub-zero temperatures shutting the motorway between the main port of Durban and the economic hub of Johannesburg for at least 24 hours.

(Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Roger Atwood)

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