Soon after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced an assault weapons ban would not be part of a gun control bill, a new CBS News poll shows support for stricter gun control laws overall has dropped since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Currently, support for stricter gun control laws stands at 47 percent today, down from a high of 57 percent just after the shootings. Thirty-nine percent want those laws kept as they are, and another 11 percent want them made less strict.

Women (55 percent) are more likely than men (39 percent) to want stricter laws, as are those living in the Northeast. Only 44 percent in the Midwest and South want stricter laws; 47 percent in the West.

52 percent of Republicans want the laws kept as they are, while 66 percent of Democrats want stricter laws (down from 78 percent in February).

Libya is completing an arrangement to deposit $2 billion in the Egyptian central bank, the Libyan ambassador to Cairo told Turkey’s Anatolia news agency on Sunday, in an apparent quid pro quo days after Egypt decided to extradite a cousin of Muammar Qaddafi.

The deposit, which is equivalent to an open loan, allows Egypt to temporarily boost its currency supply after its reserves fell below $15 billion from a previous amount of $36 billion before the revolution.

The announcement by Libya’s ambassador to Cairo Mohamed Fayez Jibril came after Egypt’s state prosecutor decided Sunday to eradicate former Libyan regime figures who fled to Cairo during the Libyan uprising. One of these figures is Ahmed Qadhaf al-Dam, the cousin of Muammar Qaddafi and former intelligence official.

He was arrested on March 19 in his home in Cairo’s upscale district of Zamalek after several hours of siege. The state prosecutor ordered him detained for one month pending investigations into unknown charges. The state MENA news agency reported that he would be handed over to the Libyan authorities.

Ali Maria, the former Libyan ambassador to Cairo and Mohammed Ibrahim, the brother of senior Qaddafi-era official Ahmed Ibrahim, were also arrested.

The chief commander and founder of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) lost his leg after an alleged bomb that was planted in his car exploded in the early morning hours of Monday morning. The incident took place in the town of Miadeen, near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.

A video showed Riad Al-Assaad being taken to hospital on a stretcher. The almost unconscious commander was crying out “I want to die.” Assaad was later transferred to Turkey for medical care, Al Arabiya reported. Turkey has long supported opposition fighters and was where the commander had his base when forming the FSA, to receive medical care.

FSA spokesman Louay Almokdad said in a video statement that Assaad survived the attack but lost his leg and is receiving medical treatment. In earlier statements to Al Arabiya, Almokdad accused the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of masterminding the assassination attempt, saying: “the atempt to kill Riad al-Assaad was to punish the eastern areas, such as al-Reqqa and Deir Ezzor, held by rebels.”

A man and a woman seen in cell phone video in a weekend road rage case in Carteret County have turned themselves in at the Lenoir County Courthouse.

WITN's Dan Yesenosky says shortly after 4:00 p.m. Bradley and Christy Turner walked into the Lenoir County Sheriff's Office in Kinston.

The La Grange couple are facing charges for yesterday afternoon's case of road rage, part of which was caught by a cell phone camera.

Turner, who first walked into the courthouse, is sporting a black left eye. His wife followed him inside.

Bradley Turner is charged with discharging a weapon into property, two counts of assault by pointing a gun, going armed to the terror of the people, injury to personal property, and assault.

His wife is charged with two counts of assault by pointing a gun.
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Bringing a gun to a fist fight gets them both charged.

Strange wording: for one charge "going armed to the terror of the people" I assume most places call that brandishing.

The Communications Center received a 911 call from a resident in the 1300 block of North Pine Street at 4:29 a.m. Thursday reporting that someone was trying to force entry into his home, Police Spokeswoman Sherry Bowers said.

One dispatcher stayed on the line with the resident while the other dispatcher sent officers to the home. The resident updated the dispatcher with information as it occurred. Just before officers arrived at 4:30 a.m., the caller reported that the intruder made entry and was shot three times.

The Maine Department of Corrections is investigating to determine how the press obtained video and documents about a captain's treatment of an inmate last year.

The video and related documents recount how Capt. Shawn Welch, an official at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, used pepper spray on an inmate who was bound in a restraint chair, then left him in distress for more than 20 minutes. A story about the incident appeared in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram.

Scott Burnheimer, superintendent of the medium- and minimum-security prison, fired Welch over the incident, but that decision was overruled by Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte, who gave Welch a 30-day suspension, according to the documents and interviews.

The newspaper story and video posted on the paper's website led the chairmen of the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee to seek a review of the incident.

A vial containing a potentially harmful virus has gone missing from a laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, officials said.

The missing vial, which contains less than a quarter of a teaspoon of an infectious disease, had been stored in a locked freezer designed to handle biological material safely in the Galveston National Laboratory on UTMB's campus, officials said.

During a routine internal inspection last week, UTMB officials realized one vial of a virus called Guanarito was not accounted for at the facility.

Scott Weaver, the laboratory's scientific director, said Guanarito is an emerging disease that has caused deadly outbreaks in Venezuela.

In an extraordinarily emotive visit here aimed at rallying Israel’s current and future leaders to seize the chance for peace, U.S. President Barack Obama doubled down on U.S. security support with a new agreement to extend annual military aid through 2027.

The pending 10-year military aid package would commit Washington to provide up to $40 billion in additional Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grant assistance to Israel, sources here say. It would automatically kick in at the conclusion of the current 10-year, $30 billion agreement signed in 2007 under President George W. Bush and would bind Obama’s successor to continued military aid to Israel.

The current agreement elevated Israel’s annual grant aid from $2.4 billion to $3.1 billion, and Israeli officials expect the follow-on package to provide incremental boosts to nearly $4 billion per year.

At a joint March 20 news conference here with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama reiterated Washington’s “solemn obligation” to safeguard Israel’s “non-negotiable” security.

In what is believed to be the first time since the 1940s, the entire British defense staff will be here March 25 to discuss long-range strategy and the impact of budget cuts with their U.S. counterparts, according to U.S. and British sources.

The meeting is reminiscent of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, when British and American military leaders joined forces during World War II. Both nations are undergoing significant budgetary reductions and will continue to rely on each other in future years for support. Understanding what capabilities will survive and won’t is essential to long-term strategic planning.

“The relationship military to military is very strong. We have common interest in how we meet the financial constraints placed on both nations, but also on issues like how we manage the drawdown in Afghanistan and also how we reconfigure post Afghanistan,” said Sir Gerald Howarth, a member of parliament and the ex-defense minister responsible for international security affairs from 2010 to 2012.

U.S. and British military leaders regularly discuss ongoing issues. What’s different about this series of meetings is they will focus not on immediate budget, program or operational issues, but the strategic future of the Anglo-American alliance, including deepening cooperation.

Republican strategist Karl Rove said Sunday it’s conceivable that the next Republican presidential candidate might support gay marriage.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Rove was asked if he could “imagine the next presidential campaign, a Republican candidate saying flat out, I am for gay marriage.”

“I could,” Rove responded.

Support for same-sex marriage has since picked up steam in some quarters of the Republican Party. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who was, at one time, viewed as a potential vice presidential candidate to Mitt Romney, publicly endorsed gay marriage this month after learning two years ago his son was gay.