U.S. 'needs tougher child labor rules'

Cristina Traina says in his second term, Obama must address weaknesses in child farm labor standards

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Cristina Traina: Obama should strengthen child farm labor standards


• She says Labor Dept. rules allow kids to work long hours for little pay on commercial farms


• She says Obama administration scrapped Labor Dept. chief's proposal for tightening rules


• She says Labor Dept. must fix lax standards for kid labor on farmers; OSHA must enforce them

Editor's note: Cristina L.H. Traina is a Public Voices Op Ed fellow and professor at Northwestern University, where she is a scholar of social ethics.

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama should use the breathing space provided by the fiscal-cliff compromise to address some of the issues that he shelved during his last term. One of the most urgent is child farm labor. Perhaps the least protected, underpaid work force in American labor, children are often the go-to workers for farms looking to cut costs.

It's easy to see why. The Department of Labor permits farms to pay employees under 20 as little as $4.25 per hour. (By comparison, the federal minimum wage is $7.25.) And unlike their counterparts in retail and service, child farm laborers can legally work unlimited hours at any hour of day or night.

The numbers are hard to estimate, but between direct hiring, hiring through labor contractors, and off-the-books work beside parents or for cash, perhaps 400,000 children, some as young as 6, weed and harvest for commercial farms. A Human Rights Watch 2010 study shows that children laboring for hire on farms routinely work more than 10 hours per day.

As if this were not bad enough, few labor safety regulations apply. Children 14 and older can work long hours at all but the most dangerous farm jobs without their parents' consent, if they do not miss school. Children 12 and older can too, as long as their parents agree. Unlike teen retail and service workers, agricultural laborers 16 and older are permitted to operate hazardous machinery and to work even during school hours.

In addition, Human Rights Watch reports that child farm laborers are exposed to dangerous pesticides; have inadequate access to water and bathrooms; fall ill from heat stroke; suffer sexual harassment; experience repetitive-motion injuries; rarely receive protective equipment like gloves and boots; and usually earn less than the minimum wage. Sometimes they earn nothing.

Little is being done to guarantee their safety. In 2011 Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis proposed more stringent agricultural labor rules for children under 16, but Obama scrapped them just eight months later.

Adoption of the new rules would be no guarantee of enforcement, however. According to the 2010 Human Rights Watch report, the Department of Labor employees were spread so thin that, despite widespread reports of infractions they found only 36 child labor violations and two child hazardous order violations in agriculture nationwide.

This lack of oversight has dire, sometimes fatal, consequences. Last July, for instance, 15-year-old Curvin Kropf, an employee at a small family farm near Deer Grove, Illinois, died when he fell off the piece of heavy farm equipment he was operating, and it crushed him. According to the Bureau County Republican, he was the fifth child in fewer than two years to die at work on Sauk Valley farms.

If this year follows trends, Curvin will be only one of at least 100 children below the age of 18 killed on American farms, not to mention the 23,000 who will be injured badly enough to require hospital admission. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries. It is the most dangerous for children, accounting for about half of child worker deaths annually.

The United States has a long tradition of training children in the craft of farming on family farms. At least 500,000 children help to work their families' farms today.

Farm parents, their children, and the American Farm Bureau objected strenuously to the proposed new rules. Although children working on their parents' farms would specifically have been exempted from them, it was partly in response to worries about government interference in families and loss of opportunities for children to learn agricultural skills that the Obama administration shelved them.

Whatever you think of family farms, however, many child agricultural workers don't work for their parents or acquaintances. Despite exposure to all the hazards, these children never learn the craft of farming, nor do most of them have the legal right to the minimum wage. And until the economy stabilizes, the savings farms realize by hiring children makes it likely that even more of them will be subject to the dangers of farm work.

We have a responsibility for their safety. As one of the first acts of his new term, Obama should reopen the child agricultural labor proposal he shelved in spring of 2012. Surely, farm labor standards for children can be strengthened without killing off 4-H or Future Farmers of America.

Second, the Department of Labor must institute age, wage, hour and safety regulations that meet the standards set by retail and service industry rules. Children in agriculture should not be exposed to more risks, longer hours, and lower wages at younger ages than children in other jobs.

Finally, the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration must allocate the funds necessary for meaningful enforcement of child labor violations. Unenforced rules won't protect the nearly million other children who work on farms.

Agriculture is a great American tradition. Let's make sure it's not one our children have to die for.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Cristina Traina.

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Floods ease in Jakarta, at least 11 dead

JAKARTA: Floods in Indonesia's capital Jakarta which have killed at least 11 people and left two missing eased on Friday, authorities said, warning however of more torrential rains which could hamper relief efforts.

The capital's worst floods in five years have forced 18,000 people from their homes, the nation's disaster agency said, with many ferried to temporary shelters on rafts.

"Since January 15, 11 people have died, five of which from electrocution," said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

Among the dead were two children aged two and 13, said Nugroho, adding that eight percent of the capital was still inundated on Friday morning and a city-wide state of emergency would apply until January 27.

By afternoon though, floodwaters had receded in central Jakarta and traffic was back to normal.

Jakarta police spokesman Rikwanto, who goes by one name, said that two men had been trapped since Thursday morning in a flooded parking lot in the capital's business district.

"Rescuers are still struggling to search for them," he said, adding that 2,781 police had been deployed to help assist victims from the floods.

At least four scuba divers were also helping to locate the missing, according to an AFP correspondent.

Authorities raised the flood alert to its highest level on Thursday, warning that the torrential rains would not subside until the end of the week.

"Based on weather forecast, heavy rains will continue pouring down until Saturday," the agency's spokesman Nugroho said.

Authorities rushed against time on Friday to fix a dike which collapsed due to floods near one of Jakarta business areas. Two excavators were seen and dozens of military personnel joined efforts to repair it.

The flooding caused chaos in the morning in Jakarta's upmarket downtown district, causing hours-long traffic jams as motorists struggled to get to work. Drivers could be seen standing miserably in raincoats, waiting for their flooded cars to be towed away. Other vehicles lay abandoned by the side of the road.

At the landmark Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, surrounded by office towers and five-star hotels, the brown floodwaters continued to swirl, forcing the nearby British, German and French embassies to remain shut.

As the waters receded, the area around the Grand Hyatt and upmarket shopping centres was left caked in mud.

A spokeswoman for the Mandarin Oriental said that despite the flooding, the hotel had seen a surge in demand for rooms from well-to-do clientele prevented from going home by the waters.

Greater Jakarta, home to 20 million people, is notorious for its traffic-clogged streets, but the floods brought a new dimension to the commute.

"It took me two hours to get to work," said Shinta Maharani, whose home is just seven kilometres (four miles) from her office. "I had to abandon the motorbike taxi and walk for 40 minutes because the road ahead was submerged."

Many train and bus routes serving the city centre were also suspended.

In one of worst hit areas in East Jakarta, a man in his early forties told AFP that the government's inability to mitigate annual flooding was causing him to lose hope.

"The government can only talk and talk...every year the condition is like this. All furniture, all of them in my bedroom, my television are broken," he said in his flooded neighbourhood.

Television footage showed a large monitor lizard and a three-metre long snake moving through the floodwaters in residential areas of the capital.

The floods were the worst to hit the capital since 2007, when about 50 people were killed and more than 300,000 were displaced.

Even the presidential palace was inundated by the waters on Thursday, with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pictured in the grounds in rolled-up trousers.

- AFP/xq

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Lie, spin, repeat: Armstrong admits drug use 'too late'

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Critics say Armstrong's confession is not the whole truth


• "I was a bully," he says about retaliating against people who accused him of doping


• Armstrong says he regrets fighting the USADA, when the agency claimed he had doped


• "I will spend the rest of my life ... trying to earn back trust and apologize," Armstrong says

Share your thoughts on the downfall of Lance Armstrong at CNN iReport, Facebook or Twitter.

(CNN) -- After years of tenacious spin that he was innocent, Lance Armstrong has backpedaled in a confessional interview with Oprah Winfrey.

He admitted unequivocally to using performance enhancing drugs in his seven Tour de France wins.

But his critics say he is still spinning the story.

Armstrong has, in the past, persistently and angrily denied the allegations -- even under oath.

And he has persecuted former close associates who went public against him. "We sued so many people," Armstrong told Winfrey -- people who were telling the truth.

Lance Armstrong over the years

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12 telling quotes over the years from Armstrong

Did he use the blood enhancing hormone EPO? Testosterone? Cortisone? Human growth hormone? Illegal blood transfusions and other blood doping?

Armstrong answered "yes" on all counts in the first installment of a two-part interview that aired Thursday night. Part two airs Friday on Winfrey's OWN channel and online.

The disgraced cyclist, who has been stripped of his Tour de France titles and an Olympic bronze medal, blamed no one but himself for his doping decisions, careful not to implicate others.

Armstrong: I was "a bully"

Armstrong described himself as "deeply flawed" and "arrogant," and spoke often of how so much was his "fault."

"I was a bully," he told Winfrey of how he treated others who might expose him.

But Armstrong was not telling the whole story, author David Coyle, who wrote a book about doping and the Tour de France, told CNN's Anderson Cooper Thursday night.

"A partial confession is sort of the pattern here," he said. "Maybe this is Armstrong's partial, and more will come out later."

iReport: Tell us your take on the first part of the interview

The cyclist denied pushing teammates to dope, an assertion Coyle countered.

"Tyler Hamilton gets a phone call: be on a plane tomorrow. We're flying to Valencia to do a blood transfusion. That's what happens," Coyle said.

Armstrong told Winfrey that doping was widespread at the time and just as much "part of the job" as water bottles and tire pumps. This attitude prompted Winfrey to ask again if he really didn't coerce other teammates to dope.

Bill Strickland, an editor for Bicycling Magazine, praised Armstrong for the confessions he did make.

"I think it's clear what we're seeing here is someone learning to tell the truth," he said.

Both men described the interview as a "therapy session."

Appearing tense but sometimes cathartic, Armstrong told Winfrey it was a happy day for him to be there with her.

He described his years of denial as "one big lie that I repeated a lot of times." He had races to win and a fairy tale image to keep up.

Armstrong reminisced on his storied past of being a hero who overcame cancer winning the Tour repeatedly, having a happy marriage, children. "It's just this mythic, perfect story, and it isn't true," he said.

It was impossible to live up to it, he said, and it fell apart.

Bleacher Report: Twitter erupts Thursday night

The lies and aggressive pursuit of those debunking them was about controlling the narrative. "If I didn't like what somebody said...I tried to control that and said that's a lie; they're liars," Armstrong said. It's a tac tic he has followed his entire life, he said.

"Now the story is so bad and so toxic, and a lot of it is true," Armstrong said.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which tests Olympic athletes for performance enhancing drugs, praised the interview as a "small step in the right direction."

But it seemed to share Coyle's skepticism about whether Armstrong was exposing the whole truth.

"If he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities," said USADA CEO Travis Tygart.

Years of success and defiance, then a rapid fall

The scandal has tarred the cancer charity Livestrong that he founded and blown his endorsement deals.

Those who suffered for speaking out now feel vindicated.

They include Betsy Andreu, wife of fellow cyclist Frankie Andreu, who said she overheard Armstrong acknowledge to a doctor treating him for cancer in 1996 that he had used performance-enhancing drugs.

"This was a guy who used to be my friend, who decimated me," Andreu told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday night. "He could have come clean. He owed it to me. He owes it to the sport that he destroyed."

The former athletic icon conceded he'd let down many fans "who believed in me and supported me."

"I will spend the rest of my life ... trying to earn back trust and apologize to people."

After winning various legs of the Tour de France, Armstrong's sporting career ground to a halt in 1996, when he was diagnosed with cancer. He was 25.

He told Winfrey that he then developed a "ruthless and relentless" attitude that helped him survive. But he carried it with him into his sports career, "and that's bad," he said.

He returned to the cycling world, however. His breakthrough came in 1999, and he didn't stop as he reeled off seven straight wins in his sport's most prestigious race. Allegations of doping began during this time, as did Armstrong's vehement defiance.

He left the sport after his last win, in 2005, only to return to the tour in 2009.

Armstrong still insists he was clean when he finished third that year, but that comeback led to his downfall.

"We wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't come back," he told Winfrey.

In 2011, Armstrong retired once more from cycling. But his fight to maintain his clean reputation continued. Federal prosecutors launched a criminal investigation, but it was dropped in February.

In April, the USADA notified Armstrong of an investigation into new doping charges. In response, the cyclist accused the organization of trying to "dredge up discredited" allegations and filed a lawsuit in federal court trying to halt the case.

The USADA found "overwhelming" evidence that Armstrong was involved in "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program."

Armstrong objected to the claim to Winfrey, saying that although it was "professional," it did not compare to doping programs in former communist East Germany.

Armstrong told Winfrey that the unraveling of his career is the second time in his life that he could not control his life's narrative -- the last time was when he had cancer.

Livestrong: Tell the truth about doping

CNN's Carol Cratty, Joseph Netto and George Howell contributed to this report.

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Inauguration weekend: Washington gets ready to party

"I like a good party," President Obama insisted this week, defending his social relationships with members of Congress.

That said, the president argued that business ultimately gets done in Washington when the American people demand it. "And that will be true whether I'm the life of the party or a stick in the mud," he said.

That may in part explain why, at a time when Americans are expecting lawmakers to address serious issues like the debt ceiling and gun control, the Presidential Inaugural Committee is celebrating the president's second-term swearing in with just two official balls, compared to the 10 held in 2009. To be sure, those two parties will be impressive -- tens of thousands of people are expected to attend, and they may get a glimpse of the president as they elbow their way to the front of the bar.

But for the Washingtonians who are serious about partying, there are more than 100 other events happening over inaugural weekend. These events aren't affiliated with the Presidential Inaugural Committee; independent groups are simply taking advantage of the celebratory weekend to party -- often with lawmakers. There are parties, balls, brunches and receptions planned for the weekend, where Obama administration officials, members of Congress and their staffers will mingle over cocktails with anyone who has the cash to get in.

Usually, the people willing to put up the cash for a swanky party have an agenda to push. And in spite of the president's lofty views of governance, many in Washington realize that having a party is a good way to win over lawmakers.

"It's a different way to get a message across -- with a drink in your hand, sitting in a nice setting -- as opposed to hammering things out over a table," said Doug Durante of the Clean Fuels Foundation. His organization is helping to organize the Environmental and Clean Energy Inaugural Ball, billed as a classy event where, for $200 a ticket, those interested in the environment and the clean energy industry can mingle with lawmakers while enjoying an open bar, a full dinner buffet and a live band.

"No one's really talking serious business, but the overall message is quite clear," Durante said. "It's got a different and to some degree lasting effect [than a business meeting] because it's a good time -- people don't remember bad meetings."

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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

Lance Armstrong Admits Using Performance-Enhancing Drugs Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Oprah Confession: The Consequences Watch Video

The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present

PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012

Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

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Did Scientology ad cross line?

The Church of Scientology is also at fault for thinking the advertorial would survive The Atlantic readers' scrutiny, Ian Schafer says.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The Atlantic published and pulled a sponsored Scientology "story"


• Ian Schafer: On several levels, the ad was a mistake


• He says the content was heavy-handed and comments were being moderated


• Schafer: Experimenting to raise revenue makes sense, but standards should be clear

Editor's note: Ian Schafer is the founder and CEO of a digital advertising agency, Deep Focus, and the alter ego of @invisibleobama. You can read his rants on his blog at ianschafer.com.

(CNN) -- "The Atlantic is America's leading destination for brave thinking and bold ideas that matter. The Atlantic engages its print, online, and live audiences with breakthrough insights into the worlds of politics, business, the arts, and culture. With exceptional talent deployed against the world's most important and intriguing topics, The Atlantic is the source of opinion, commentary, and analysis for America's most influential individuals who wish to be challenged, informed, and entertained." -- The Atlantic 2013 media kit for advertisers

On Monday, The Atlantic published -- and then pulled -- a story titled "David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year." This "story" went on to feature the growth of Scientology in 2012.

Ian Schafer

Any regular reader of The Atlantic's content would immediately do a double-take upon seeing that kind of headline, much less the heavy-handed text below it, shamelessly plugging how well Scientology's "ecclesiastical leader" Miscavige has done in "leading a renaissance for the religion."

This "story" is one of several "advertorials" (a portmanteau of "advertising" and "editorials") that The Atlantic has published online, clearly designated as "Sponsor Content." In other words, "stories" like these aren't real stories. They are ads with a lot of words, which advertisers have paid publications to run on their behalf for decades. You may have seen them in magazines and newspapers as "special advertising sections."

The hope is that because you are already reading the publication, hey, maybe you'll read what the advertiser has to say, too -- instead of the "traditional" ad that they may have otherwise placed on the page that you probably won't remember, or worse, will ignore.

There's nothing wrong with this tactic, ethically, when clearly labeled as "sponsored" or "advertising." But many took umbrage with The Atlantic in this particular case; so many, that The Atlantic responded by pulling the story from its site -- which was the right thing to do -- and by apologizing.

At face value, The Atlantic did the right thing for its business model, which depends upon advertising sales. It sold what they call a "native" ad to a paying advertiser, clearly labeled it as such, without the intention of misleading readers into thinking this was a piece of journalism.

But it still failed on several levels.

The Atlantic defines its readers as "America's most influential individuals who wish to be challenged, informed, and entertained." By that very definition, it is selling "advertorials" to people who are the least likely to take them seriously, especially when heavy-handed. There is a fine line between advertorial and outright advertising copywriting, and this piece crossed it. The Church of Scientology is just as much at fault for thinking this piece would survive The Atlantic readers' intellectual scrutiny. But this isn't even the real issue.

Bad advertising is all around us. And readers' intellectual scrutiny would surely have let the advertorial piece slide without complaints (though snark would be inevitable), as they have in the past, or yes, even possibly ignored it. But here's where The Atlantic crossed another line -- it seemed clear it was moderating the comments beneath the advertorial.

As The Washington Post reported, The Atlantic marketing team was carefully pruning the comments, ensuring that they were predominantly positive, even though many readers were leaving negative comments. So while The Atlantic was publishing clearly labeled advertiser-written content, it was also un-publishing content created by its readers -- the very folks it exists to serve.

It's understandable that The Atlantic would inevitably touch a third rail with any "new" ad format. But what it calls "native advertising" is actually "advertorial." It's not new at all. Touching the third rail in this case is unacceptable.

So what should The Atlantic have done in this situation before it became a situation? For starters, it should have worked more closely with the Church of Scientology to help create a piece of content that wasn't so clearly written as an ad. If the Church of Scientology was not willing to compromise its advertising to be better content, then The Atlantic should not have accepted the advertising. But this is a quality-control issue.

The real failure here was that comments should never have been enabled beneath this sponsored content unless the advertiser was prepared to let them be there, regardless of sentiment.

It's not like Scientology has avoided controversy in the past. The sheer, obvious reason for this advertorial in the first place was to dispel beliefs that Scientology wasn't a recognized religion (hence "ecclesiastical").

Whether The Atlantic felt it was acting in its advertiser's best interest, or the advertiser specifically asked for this to happen, letting it happen at all was a huge mistake, and a betrayal of an implicit contract that should exist between a publication of The Atlantic's stature and its readership.

No matter how laughably "sales-y" a piece of sponsored content might be, the censoring of readership should be the true "third rail," never to be touched.

Going forward, The Atlantic (and any other publication that chooses to run sponsored content) should adopt and clearly communicate an explicit ethics statement regarding advertorials and their corresponding comments. This statement should guide the decisions it makes when working with advertisers, and serve as a filter for the sponsored content it chooses to publish, and what it recommends advertisers submit. It should also prevent readers from being silenced if given a platform at all.

As an advertising professional, I sincerely hope this doesn't spook The Atlantic or any other publication from experimenting with ways to make money. But as a reader, I hope it leads to better ads that reward me for paying attention, rather than muzzle my voice should I choose to interact with the content.

After all, what more could a publication or advertiser ask for than for content to be so interesting that someone actually would want to comment on (or better, share) it?

(Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said native advertising accounts for 59% of the Atlantic's ad revenue. Digital advertising, of which native advertising is a part, accounts for 59% of The Atlantic's overall revenue, according to the company.)

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ian Schafer.

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SDA, RP candidates outline their 5-year plans for Punggol East

SINGAPORE: Candidates for the Punggol East by-election from the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) and Reform Party (RP) outlined their five-year plans on Thursday.

RP's secretary-general, Kenneth Jeyaretnam said his plan won't cost a lot of money while SDA's secretary-general, Desmond Lim said he wants to set up a residents' cooperative to build a hawker centre.

Mr Lim said his five year plan had been announced during the General Election in 2011.

It includes building a hawker centre, bicycle tracks, childcare centres and coffee corners.

He explained the plan can be funded by the town council as it has the operating and sinking funds.

For programmes that can't be funded by the town council, Mr Lim said he intends to invite interested parties to invest in joint-ventures with the residents.

One such idea is to establish a residents' cooperative for a hawker centre.

Mr Lim said: "They manage the place, give low rental and rent out the stall to their own residents to operate and run. Residents within this constituency can patronise and have a discount rate. For outsiders, of course it is normal rates."

Mr Jeyaretnam was also busy reaching out to residents.

He will be discussing his five-year plan for the ward with his grassroots team on setting up a legal clinic to help those in debt, as well as a tuition club.

He added that several residents of Punggol East are in the team as his primary advisers in this by-election.

The RP chief remains undeterred about some views that the by-election will be a two-horse race between the Workers' Party and the ruling People's Action Party.

Mr Jeyaretnam said: "People have got to be given the right to choose. It is like the idea that it is better to have one or two brands in the supermarket because it might confuse consumers."

Mr Jeyaretnam added he will not hold more than two rallies and that the first will probably be held this weekend.

- CNA/fa

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Gun bills may be a long shot

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Obama's proposed assault weapon ban isn't likely to survive the House, analyst says


• Vulnerable Democrats may not support legislation in the Senate, either


• But supporters say December's killings in Connecticut changed the equation

(CNN) -- Despite supporters' hopes that this time it's different, President Barack Obama's new call for restricting some semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines will face deeply entrenched resistance in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and could be a long shot even in the Democratic-led Senate.

Any gun legislation sent to the House "is going to have to pass with most Democrats and a few Republicans," said Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. "This would be an even more high-profile bill."

And Obama's call for Congress to reinstate the federal ban on military-style rifles that expired in 2004 "is a further reach than some of the other proposals that are being tossed around," Gonzales said.

"There is no way that it is going to pass with a majority of Republican support," he said. "That is just the reality of the situation. It is going to take virtually all the Democrats, and all the Democrats won't vote for that."

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden laid out a package of measures aimed at reducing gun violence Wednesday, just over a month after the December massacre at a Connecticut elementary school. The killings of 26 people there followed a July rampage in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, that left 12 dead and the August attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that killed another six.

"The world has changed, and it's demanding action," said Biden, who led a White House task force on gun violence after the Connecticut slayings.

But before the announcement, local officials in at least three states vowed to resist any new gun controls. And Second Amendment fans have poured out their vituperation online, some floridly warning of a power grab by the Obama administration.

Texas state Rep. Steve Toth told CNN on Wednesday that he'll introduce legislation that would make it illegal to enforce a federal gun ban.

"We're going to do everything we can to call people back to the belief and the understanding that we're a constitutional republic and that our rights do not come from Congress," he said. "Our rights come from God and are enumerated in the Constitution."

And in a video that spread virally across the Internet, the head of a Tennessee gun training and accessory company warned "all you patriots" to "get ready to fight" if the Obama administration took steps to restrict firearms.

"I am not letting my country be ruled by a dictator. I'm not letting anybody take my guns. If it goes one inch further, I'm gonna start killing people," Tactical Response CEO James Yeager vowed. In a later video, in which he's accompanied by his attorney, Yeager apologized "for letting my anger get the better of me" and cautioned viewers, "It's not time for any type of violent action."

Opinion: NRA's paranoid fantasy

Obama on Wednesday signed 23 orders that don't require congressional approval that he said would stiffen background checks on gun buyers and expand safety programs in schools. And he called on Congress to restrict ammunition magazines to no more than 10 rounds and to require a background check for anyone buying a gun, whether at a store or in a private sale or gun show.

The steps that require legislative action are likely to bump up against the often-visceral opposition of lawmakers from conservative districts -- and some of their more outspoken constituents.

Most Republicans in the House of Representatives have top rankings from the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun-rights lobby, which quickly criticized the White House plans.

But it's not just Republicans: Many Democrats, particularly in the conservative South and rural West, are vocal gun-rights supporters as well.

"Guns have been one of the key issues that more moderate Democrats have used to express their independence from the Democratic Party, and this gun talk is putting a strain on that independence," Gonzales said. Though they might be willing to support proposals such as a ban on large-capacity magazines, they're unlikely to vote to ban "an actual gun," he said.

"You can just see the ads -- 'They are taking guns away' -- where with these other items it is different," Gonzales said.

Even in the Senate, where Democrats control the chamber, Democratic leadership sources told CNN that passing any new legislation will be extremely difficult. More than a dozen vulnerable Democrats from conservative states will likely resist much of what the president is pushing, the sources said.

Those sources say they have no intention of putting their members in politically vulnerable position on a gun measure unless they are sure it can reach the president's desk. That means not only getting enough red-state Democrats on board, but getting enough Republicans to break a possible GOP filibuster.

But Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-New York, said the tide appears to have shifted in favor of gun control after the Connecticut killings.

A CNN/Time magazine/ORC International poll released Wednesday found 55% of Americans generally favor stricter gun control laws, with 56% saying that it's currently too easy to buy guns in this country -- but only 39% say that stricter gun controls would reduce gun violence all by themselves.

McCarthy said Senate approval "might even give some members of Congress the spine to do the right thing."

"You know, the NRA is not in line with an awful lot of their members, and that is something we're counting on to go forward," said McCarthy, whose husband was among the six killed when a deranged gunman opened fire on a Long Island commuter train in 1993

December's killings have "gone to the heart of every mother, father, grandparent thinking about their children, grandchildren. We have to do something," she added.

CNN's Dan Merica contributed to this report.

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Manti Te'o says he's the victim of "girlfriend" hoax

Updated 11:20 p.m. ET

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Notre Dame said a story that star Manti Te'o's girlfriend had died of leukemia — a loss he said inspired him all season and helped him lead the Irish to the BCS title game — turned out to be a hoax apparently perpetrated against the linebacker.

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Manti Te'o

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick held a press conference late Wednesday about the apparent hoax Wednesday after Deadspin.com said it could find no record that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

"This was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax perpetrated for reasons we can't fully understand," Swarbrick said.

CBS News and its morning program, "CBS This Morning," were among the many news outlets that reported on the "hoax" girlfriend's death. "CBS This Morning" will have an update on the report Thursday.

The Notre Dame athletic director insisted "several things" led him to believe Te'o did not create the girlfriend himself after the university's investigation into the situation, led by a private investigative firm.

"Manti was the victim of that hoax. He has to carry that with him for a while. In many ways, Manti was the perfect mark because he's the guy who was so willing to believe in others," Swarbrick said. "The pain was real. The grieving was real. The affection was real."

By Te'o's own account, she was an "online" girlfriend.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her," he said in statement.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating."

"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."

The linebacker's father, Brian Te'o, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in early October that he and his wife had never met Kekua, saying they were hoping to meet her at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick at a press conference on Jan. 16, 2013.

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CBS News

Swarbrick likened the situation to the 2010 movie "Catfish," in which "young filmmakers document their colleague's budding online friendship" with an allegedly young woman that turns out also to be a hoax.

The university said its coaches were informed by Te'o and his parents on Dec. 26 that Te'o had been the victim of what appeared to be a hoax.

Someone using a fictitious name "apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia," the school said.

Swarbrick said the investigation revealed "several" perpetrators, although the exact number is unclear. He said the university became convinced of the hoax based on "the joy they were taking...referring to what they accomplished and what they had done."

Te'o talked freely about the relationship after her supposed death and how much she meant to him.

In a story that appeared in the South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12, Manti's father, Brian, recounted a story about how his son and Kekua met after Notre Dame had played at Stanford in 2009. Brian Te'o also told the newspaper that Kekua had visited Hawaii and the met with his son. Brian Te'o told the AP in an interview in October that he and his wife had never met Manti's girlfriend but they had hoped to at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

The Tribune released a statement saying: "At the Tribune, we are as stunned by these revelations as everyone else. Indeed, this season we reported the story of this fake girlfriend and her death as details were given to us by Te'o, members of his family and his coaches at Notre Dame."

The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters when asked that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. Te'o didn't miss the game. He said Kekua had told him not to miss a game if she died. Te'o turned in one of his best performances of the season in the 20-3 victory in East Lansing, and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season.

"My family and my girlfriend's family have received so much love and support from the Notre Dame family," he said after that game. "Michigan State fans showed some love. And it goes to show that people understand that football is just a game, and it's a game that we play, and we have fun doing it. But at the end of the day, what matters is the people who are around you, and family. I appreciate all the love and support that everybody's given my family and my girlfriend's family."

Manti Te'o #5 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish reacts after beating the Michigan State Spartans 20-3 at Spartan Stadium Stadium on September 15, 2012, in East Lansing, Michigan.

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Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

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2013 BCS National Championship

Te'o went on the become a Heisman Trophy finalist, finishing second in the voting, and leading Notre Dame to its first appearance in the BCS championship.

He was asked again about his girlfriend on Jan. 3 prior to the BCS title game, saying: "This team is very special to me, and the guys on it have always been there for me, through the good times and the bad times. I rarely have a quiet time to myself because I always have somebody calling me, asking, `Do you want to go to the movies?' Coach is always calling me asking me, `Are you OK? Do you need anything?'"

Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.

Four days ago Te'o posted on his Twitter account: "Can't wait to start training with the guys! Workin to be the best! The grind continues! (hash)Future"

Te'o's statement also said: "It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."

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Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.

Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.

The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.

Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

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Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.

Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.

Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.

Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.

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