Breaking news updates - Obama's New Dog Bo - Its moving day for Bo

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and his family have welcomed their new dog Bo to the White House, and they're showing him off around the grounds.

The 6-month-old Portuguese water dog made his debut Tuesday afternoon in front of reporters and photographers. And the Obamas even walked him over near the fence on the White House South Lawn.

Said the president: "He's got star quality."

First lady Michelle Obama did most of the walking, with Bo on a leash. But daughter Malia took a turn, too, as Bo took off running.

Obama had promised his two daughters a puppy during the presidential campaign.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information.

Bo the Portuguese water dog makes his official move into the White House on Tuesday, and how President Barack Obama and his family introduce him to his new home — and the world — will say much about their skills as novice dog owners.

The White House will be the puppy's fourth home in his six months of life. He was born in Texas, then moved to his first owner's home in Washington, D.C., then spent nearly a month with Sen. Edward Kennedy's dog trainer in Virginia, and now is moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

A dog can become disoriented when moving to a new home, said Cesar Millan, host of the National Geographic Channel's "The Dog Whisperer" and co-founder with his wife of a nonprofit foundation to help abused and abandoned dogs.

"Being disoriented can lead an animal to become anxious, to become nervous, to become fearful," Millan said. "In some situations they get really excited. So, regardless which state of mind the dog might go into, that's not going to be good for the dog."

Among Millan's top tips: "Day one or day two or day three, there should be a lot of walking involved. And before the dog eats, he should be very hungry, because that helps him to understand that the humans are helping him to work for food and water." Focus on establishing a routine to help the dog calm down, rather than comforting him and using his name a lot when he's upset, Millan said.

Bo was given up by his first owner because things weren't working out with the family's other dog. Kennedy and his wife Victoria, who had two Portuguese water dogs from Bo's breeder and acquired a third from Bo's litter, thought Bo would be perfect for the Obamas, and gave the dog to the Obama daughters, Malia and Sasha, as a gift, the dog's breeder and a spokeswoman for Michelle Obama said.

At 6 months, Bo is still very much a "goofy puppy" and like many Portuguese water dogs, may still be that way up to age 2 or even 4, said Stu Freeman, president of the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America. "A puppy is a puppy and these are very active puppies," he said.

"The dogs are intelligent, they need to work and be kept busy," Freeman said. "If you can't keep them active and amused, they will find something to do."

Bo's official American Kennel Club-registered name is Amigo's New Hope, and his first owner called him Charlie. His new name could present some special training challenges, AKC spokeswoman Daisy Okas said.

"Since `Bo' sounds like `no' we would recommend that they work with a trainer to consult on the best commands to give the dog. So the trainer may recommend either hand signals for `no' or perhaps saying `stop' instead," Okas said. "The dog could become very confused if it thinks its name is being called when it's actually being told to stop a certain behavior."

Also, at least in the early days, the Obamas should set and carry out the dog's routine themselves, "Dog Whisperer" Millan said.

"It's all about gaining trust and respect, day one," Millan said. "It's very important that everybody — the girls, Michelle, the president — to play, all of them together, the pack leader role."

Obama's Dog Bo - What about adoption?

Just looking at him makes you want to break out in baby talk. He’s so cuuuuuuute. Little happy puppy wuppy schluppy duppy.

In case you missed the news because of other priorities on Sunday (like Easter or the Masters), the Obama family has a new member. The new First Dog, Bo.

Leak

Word of the newest family member leaked on Saturday with a mysterious new web site called FirstDogCharlie breaking the news. TMZ spotted it and linked to it, causing the rest of the Internet to play catch-up.

Now that the dust has settled, we know that Bo is a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog, a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy.

The dog should be thrilled. He’ll have the run of the White House, not to mention the North Lawn, the South Lawn, a swimming pool, plenty of trees, and perhaps his own website (like Barney used to have.).

Obama’s daughters Sasha and Malia are reportedly very happy too.

Grumble

Not everyone’s elated though — because although Ted Kennedy is a Washington institution, he’s not an animal shelter. And the president promised to adopt the First Dog.

He originally made this promise to Dr. Jana Kohl, the author of “A Rare Breed of Love” — a book about a three-legged rescue dog and puppy mill survivor named Baby.

So touched was he by Baby’s story that then-Senator Obama agreed to appear in Kohl’s book holding the dog. This photo then became the cover for American Dog magazine in January.

Big deal

And the promise is not an asterisk to those who really care about animal welfare. With an estimated three million dogs and cats euthanized every year, every dog purchased by a breeder is a death sentence for those in rescue centers, they say.

That’s why Vice President Joe Biden got in hot water when he chose a breeder to get his dog. Animal rights activists were furious. This led Biden to announce that he was getting a second dog from a shelter. So far this hasn’t happened.

Shade of gray

Now like anything in politics, there’s a technicality. One of those “definitions of what the word ‘is’ is” type things.

The White House isn’t Bo’s first home. He originally lived with another family but didn’t get along with the other dogs. So he was given back to the Kennedy clan.

“They were looking at shelters, but in the end the Kennedys learned of this litter mate of their dog who needed a home and they wanted to give the girls a gift — and here we are!” an Obama spokeswoman told the Chicago Sun Times.

So, technically, he’s a second-chance dog. This could be why the Humane Society didn’t tear into the president as it did with the veep.

Reaction

“Clearly our best hope was that he (the president) would go to a shelter or a breed-rescue group,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. “He didn’t do that, but he also didn’t go to a pet store or puppy mill either. It’s a gray area.”

Abbie Moore of Adopt-a-Pet.com isn’t as forgiving. “This is truly a missed opportunity to set a pet-adoption trend among Americans. “If Obama had adopted a pet from a shelter, it could have been the turning point for the pet-overpopulation problem in this country. With pet relinquishment up 20 to 30 percent due to the poor economy, pets in shelters can use all the help they can get.”

While Dog magazine’s Ryan O’Meara says this is just more of the same. “When he was resoundingly elected to office we were promised change. But, it seems, true to type the new American president is a politician at heart so should we really have expected anything different?”

To make up for it, the president will donate to the D.C. humane society.

The First Dog will be formally introduced to the public on Tuesday.

Junior President - Bo Obama

The Washington Post broke Puppygate over the holiday weekend.

According to breaking news, the D.C.-based paper managed to get (hey, they broke Watergate too) their paws on the first photos of the Obamas' new dog.

The Obamas have reportedly named the little guy Bo. As in Bo Obama. Or Bo Diddly?

A top secret meet-and greet session with the puppy and the family at the White House happened a few weeks ago.

According to the Post, it was a surprise for the girls. Bo demonstrated skills learned in training. He sat when the girls sat, stood when the girls stood. He made no toilet errors and did not gnaw on the furniture. Bo has been learning good behavior from the Kennedys' dog trainers at a secret, undisclosed location outside Washington.

Word is that when the president walked, Bo followed obediently.

Wish Congress could be this well trained. Maybe we should send those folks to the Kennedys' training camp.

This is quite a big event for the Obama girls. Sasha and Malia have never had pets. And neither the first lady nor the president had dogs when they were young.

Keep reading to find out about that rescue-dog-versus-reputable-breeder scandal!

The Kennedys have released a statement: "We couldn't be happier to see the joy that Bo is bringing to Malia and Sasha. We love our Portuguese water dogs and know that the girls -- and their parents -- will love theirs, too."

Now about the shelter dog. The Obamas have long said they were considering a rescue dog. But there was never a pledge or promise.

And it was essential to get a dog that would not make the girls' allergies worse.

Bo had been living with another family, but for whatever reason, it didn't work out. So the Kennedys re-homed him and then gave him to the Obamas.

And the Obamas are going to make a sizable donation to the D.C. Humane Society.

Enjoy your new puppy, girls.

Despite Risks Obama to Push Immigration Reform Bill

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, according to breaking news, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system,” said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Mr. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May, administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.

Some White House officials said that immigration would not take precedence over the health care and energy proposals that Mr. Obama has identified as priorities. But the timetable is consistent with pledges Mr. Obama made to Hispanic groups in last year’s campaign.

He said then that comprehensive immigration legislation, including a plan to make legal status possible for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, would be a priority in his first year in office. Latino voters turned out strongly for Mr. Obama in the election.

“He intends to start the debate this year,” Ms. Muñoz said.

But with the economy seriously ailing, advocates on different sides of the debate said that immigration could become a polarizing issue for Mr. Obama in a year when he has many other major battles to fight.

Opponents, mainly Republicans, say they will seek to mobilize popular outrage against any effort to legalize unauthorized immigrant workers while so many Americans are out of jobs.

Democratic legislative aides said that opening a full-fledged debate this year on immigration, particularly with health care as a looming priority, could weigh down the president’s domestic agenda.

Debate is still under way among administration officials about the precise timing and strategy. For example, it is unclear who will take up the Obama initiative in Congress.

No serious legislative talks on the issue are expected until after some of Mr. Obama’s other priorities have been debated, Congressional aides said.

Just last month, Mr. Obama openly recognized that immigration is a potential minefield.

"I know this is an emotional issue; I know it’s a controversial issue,” he told an audience at a town meeting on March 18 in Costa Mesa, Calif. “I know that the people get real riled up politically about this."

But, he said, immigrants who are long-time residents but lack legal status “have to have some mechanism over time to get out of the shadows.”

The White House is calculating that public support for fixing the immigration system, which is widely acknowledged to be broken, will outweigh opposition from voters who argue that immigrants take jobs from Americans. A groundswell among voters opposed to legal status for illegal immigrants led to the defeat in 2007 of a bipartisan immigration bill that was strongly supported by President George W. Bush.

Administration officials said that Mr. Obama’s plan would not add new workers to the American work force, but that it would recognize millions of illegal immigrants who have already been working here. Despite the deep recession, there is no evidence of any wholesale exodus of illegal immigrant workers, independent studies of census data show.

Opponents of legalization legislation were incredulous at the idea that Mr. Obama would take on immigration when economic pain for Americans is so widespread.

“It just doesn’t seem rational that any political leader would say, let’s give millions of foreign workers permanent access to U.S. jobs when we have millions of Americans looking for jobs,” said Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, a group that favors reduced immigration. Mr. Beck predicted that Mr. Obama would face “an explosion” if he proceeded this year.

“It’s going to be, ‘You’re letting them keep that job, when I could have that job,’ ” he said.

In broad outlines, officials said, the Obama administration favors legislation that would bring illegal immigrants into the legal system by recognizing that they violated the law, and imposing fines and other penalties to fit the offense. The legislation would seek to prevent future illegal immigration by strengthening border enforcement and cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, while creating a national system for verifying the legal immigration status of new workers.

But administration officials emphasized that many details remained to be debated.

Opponents of a legalization effort said that if the Obama administration maintained the enforcement pressure initiated by Mr. Bush, the recession would force many illegal immigrants to return home. Dan Stein, the president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said it would be “politically disastrous” for Mr. Obama to begin an immigration initiative at this time.

Anticipating opposition, Mr. Obama has sought to shift some of the political burden to advocates for immigrants, by encouraging them to build support among voters for when his proposal goes to Congress.

That is why Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, a Democrat from Mr. Obama’s hometown, Chicago, has been on the road most weekends since last December, traveling far outside his district to meetings in Hispanic churches, hoping to generate something like a civil rights movement in favor of broad immigration legislation.

Mr. Gutierrez was in Philadelphia on Saturday at the Iglesia Internacional, a big Hispanic evangelical church in a former warehouse, the 17th meeting in a tour that has included cities as far flung as Providence, R.I.; Atlanta; Miami; and San Francisco. Greeted with cheers and amens by a full house of about 350 people, Mr. Gutierrez, shifting fluidly between Spanish and English, called for immigration policies to preserve family unity, the strategic theme of his campaign.

At each meeting, speakers from the community, mainly citizens, tell stories of loved ones who were deported or of delays and setbacks in the immigration system. Illegal immigrants have not been invited to speak.

Mr. Gutierrez’s meetings have all been held in churches, both evangelical and Roman Catholic, with clergy members from various denominations, including in several places Muslim imams. At one meeting in Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, officiated.

One speaker on Saturday, Jill Flores, said that her husband, Felix, an immigrant from Mexico who crossed the border illegally, had applied for legal status five years ago but had not been able to gain it even though she is an American citizen, as are their two children. Now, Ms. Flores said, she fears that her husband will have to leave for Mexico and will not be permitted to return for many years.

In an interview, Mr. Gutierrez rejected the idea that the timing is bad for an immigration debate. “There is never a wrong time for us,” he said. “Families are being divided and destroyed, and they need help now.”

Breaking News - Court reduces sentence for Iraqi shoe thrower

BAGHDAD - As per breaking news, Iraq's highest court on Tuesday reduced the prison sentence for an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at former President George W. Bush from three years to one, a court spokesman said.

Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar, the spokesman, said the decision was taken because the journalist had no prior criminal history.

The defense appealed the original ruling to the Federal Appeals Court citing an Iraqi law stipulating a maximum sentence of only two years for publicly insulting a visiting foreign leader.

The decision came as Barack Obama made his first official visit to Iraq as U.S. president.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi was sentenced to three years in March after pleading not guilty to a charge of assaulting a foreign leader. He described his action as a "natural response to the occupation."

The journalist's act during Bush's last visit to Iraq as president turned the 30-year-old reporter into a folk hero across the Arab world, where the former U.S. president is reviled for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Defense attorneys have long argued that al-Zeidi's act was an expression of freedom and not a crime, and his lawyer on Tuesday said he should be freed immediately.

"We think al-Zeidi does not deserve to be imprisoned even for one day," al-Zeidi's chief defense attorney, Diaa al-Saadi, told The Associated Press. "What he has done falls in the category of freedom of expression and he was trying to express his anti-occupation feelings,"

Another al-Zeidi attorney, Yahya al-Ittabi, however, welcomed the court's decision, saying it did not bow to government pressure and reflected "the independence and the integrity of the Iraqi judiciary system."

But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has had little sympathy for the journalist, saying the incident was more than just an insult. He described it as an assault on a visiting head of state.

Karim al-Shujairi, one of al-Zeidi's attorneys, said the appeal was filed about a week ago.

Al-Zeidi has been in Iraqi custody since he hurled shoes at Bush during a joint news conference with al-Maliki in December 2008.

Though al-Zeidi is scheduled to be released in December 2009, al-Saadi said he could be free within five months with credit for good behavior.

The news came as a surprise to al-Zeidi's family, who called it "a victory for the Iraqi people."

"We did not expect that my brother would be released before the three years," al-Zeidi's brother, Dargham, told The AP.

In this Dec. 14, 2008 file photo, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi throws a shoe at President George W. Bush during a new conference with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraq's highest court reduced the prison sentence Tuesday April 7, 2009 for an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at former President George W. Bush from three years to one, a court spokesman said. The decision came as Barack Obama made his first official visit to Iraq as U.S. president.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

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