President Barack Obama on Sunday stressed the importance of personal responsibility and “what it means to be a man” in his commencement address at historically-black Morehouse College in Atlanta.

In the midst of a driving rain, Obama told graduates at the all-male private college that they have obligations to “those still left behind” to be role models for the entire African-American community, both personally and professionally.  

“My whole life, I’ve tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father wasn’t for my mother and me,” Obama said, referring to his own dad who left his family when the president was just a baby. “I want to break that cycle where a father’s not at home, where a father’s not helping to raise that son and daughter. I want to be a better father, a better husband, a better man.”

The speech was strikingly more personal than the commencement he delivered two weeks early at The Ohio State University when he called on graduates to be engaged citizens. On Sunday, Obama emphasized to the some 500 graduating men of Moreouse to “keep setting an example for what it means to be a man,” praising students who worked multiple jobs to earn a degree while also supporting a family.

He celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Morehouse alumnus, whose legacy has opened doors for graduates that have never before existed.

“Laws and hearts and minds have been changed to the point where someone who looks just like you can somehow come to serve as president of these Unites States of America,” he said.

Though opportunities exist now that never have before for black men, the president warned that the legacy of discrimination is still an issue the college graduates will need to overcome.

“Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency sometimes to make excuses for me not doing the right thing,” Obama said.

“But there is no longer any room for excuses,” he added.

The day before, First Lady Michelle Obama took to the commencement circuit, speaking to outgoing seniors at Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School in Tennessee on Saturday.

“Do not waste a minute living someone else’s dream…It takes a lot of work, a lot of real work to discover what brings you joy,” she told graduates.  “It just doesn’t happen; it requires you spending some time.  And you won’t find what you love simply by checking boxes or padding your GPA.”

A week earlier she told graduates at Eastern Kentucky University to get outside their comfort zones and spend time with those who have opposing views.

The president has one more upcoming commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy on Saturday.

Lauren Wood/Reuters

Everett Dutschke speaks to the media as federal officials search his property in Tupelo, Mississippi, on April 23.

The FBI found traces of ricin in the former studio of a Mississippi martial arts instructor accused of sending poisoned letters to President Obama and other officials, and on a dust mask he chucked in a trash bin while agents were watching him, court documents show.

An affidavit unsealed Tuesday also revealed that the suspect, James Everett Dutschke, ordered castor beans -- which are used to make ricin – on eBay last November and December.

Other evidence outlined in the documents include documents from Dutschke’s home that appear to come from the same printer as the ricin-laced letters, computer records that show ricin-related downloads and text messages with his wife about “burning” and disposing of paperwork.

Dutschke, 41, is being held without bond in the case – which originally focused on an Elvis impersonator with whom he’s been feuding for years.

That man, Paul Kevin Curtis, was arrested two weeks ago but charges were later dropped. He has said he believes he was framed by Dutschke.

A surveillance team was watching Dutschke when he entered his former dojo, Tupelo Taekwondo Plus, on April 22, removed a bunch of things and tossed them into a garbage bin on the street, the affidavit said.

Authorities retrieved the items: a coffee grinder they said could be used for processing castor beans, latex gloves and a dust mask. The mask tested positive for ricin, as did swabs from the dojo, investigators said.

“Because public safety is always the FBI's first priority in any investigation, that location was immediately sealed off and appropriate public health authorities were notified,” the FBI said in a statement.

Ricin can be lethal, but an FBI agent testified in court that the variety found in the letters sent to Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Judge Sadie Holland of Lee County, Miss. Wasn’t very potent.

Dutschke, 41, has denied being the culprit.

“I wouldn’t recognize ricin if I saw it,” he told reporters last week. “Would you?”

The FBI said that when they interviewed Dutschke, he denied ever buying castor beans, said he had not been back to his dojo and never threw away anything from the studio.

When he was confronted with evidence to the contrary, “Dutschke attempted to change the subject, and he ended the interview,” the affidavit said.

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 30, 2013 5:23 PM EDT

David Goldman / AP

A passenger sits at right in the international terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, Friday, April 26, 2013, in Atlanta.

The Federal Aviation Administration will suspend all employee furloughs and return air traffic facilities to their regular staffing levels by Sunday evening, according to a statement released on Saturday.

Travelers across the nation faced delays while the FAA grappled with cuts to air traffic controllers this week forced by the sequester, the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that took effect on March 1.

The FAA was forced to furlough 13,000 air traffic controllers among its 47,000 employees.

A bill to give the FAA flexibility in defraying its spending cuts was passed by the House of Representatives on Friday. White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Friday that President Obama would sign the legislation when it arrives on his desk.

A few typos have delayed the delivery of the bill to the president for a day or two, however, NBC News’ Chuck Todd reported on Saturday. The president may not sign the bill until Monday.

Related:

• FAA warns of 'wide-ranging delays' from furloughs
• House passes fixes for FAA furloughs
• Senate votes unanimously to fix FAA furloughs

Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images

Roger Ailes, president of Fox News Channel, is the subject of a new biography in which he's quoted as saying President Obama is "lazy."

Fox News chief Roger Ailes doesn't mince words in a new biography: President Obama is "lazy" and Vice President Joe Biden is "dumb as an ashtray."

But it's not just Democrats who get withering reviews from the conservative media icon. Ailes suggests that Sen. Marco Rubio is too soft and Newt Gingrich is a "sore loser" and an unprintable reference to male anatomy.

The blunt characterizations appear in Vanity Fair's adapted excerpt of "Roger Ailes: Off Camera," by Zev Chafets. Ailes cooperated with the book, which will be published March 19.

Michael Reynolds / EPA

Fox News chief Roger Ailes is quoted in a new biography as saying he likes Joe Biden but thinks the vice president is "dumb as an ashtray."

The comment about Obama was reportedly made during last year's presidential primary season as Ailes was briefed about Democratic operative Hilary Rosen's remark that Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life.

“Obama’s the one who never worked a day in his life. He never earned a penny that wasn’t public money. How many fund-raisers does he attend every week? How often does he play basketball and golf? I wish I had that kind of time," Ailes said, according to the excerpt.

"He’s lazy, but the media won’t report that,” he said, then added that Obama had admitted being lazy in an interview with Barbara Walters.

In a 2011 interview with Walters, Obama said, "There is a deep down, underneath all the work I do, I think there’s a laziness in me," adding, "It’s probably from, you know, growing up in Hawaii, and it’s sunny outside and sitting on the beach.’”

During the briefing on Rosen, Ailes also was told that Gingrich -- a former Fox commentator -- complained the network's support for Mitt Romney had hurt his chances.

"Brush him back," Ailes told his spokesman, according to Vanity Fair. "He's a sore loser and if he had won, he would have been a sore winner." Then he followed up with an off-color five-letter insult.

At a Fox Latino staff meeting, Ailes revealed he liked Rubio but didn't know if he was vice-presidential material.

"He's a nice guy and that role requires kicking the crap out of your opponents," he said.

"I have a soft spot for Joe Biden," he added. "I like him. But he's dumb as an ashtray."

Asked whether Ailes stands by the remarks, Fox News issued a statement: "Vanity Fair excerpts a fraction of a 272-page book so it would be impractical to comment without having read the entire body of work in context.”

The book says Ailes, 72, revels in his role as a free-wheeling tough guy but also has a fatalistic streak and think's he'll be dead within a decade.

Chafets wrote that he asked Ailes what he thinks heaven will be like.

“I’m pretty sure that God’s got a sense of humor,” he said. “I think he gets a laugh out of me from time to time, so I suppose things will be all right.”

Asked what would happen if God was a liberal, Ailes replied, “Well, hell, if God’s a liberal, that’s his business...But I doubt very much that he is. He’s got a good heart.” 

The National Rifle Association’s CEO on Thursday accused President Barack Obama of orchestrating a “charade” to dismantle gun rights in his State of the Union address this week.

Wayne LaPierre, the gun lobby group’s executive vice president and CEO, used a speech at a National Wild Turkey Federation conference in Nashville to decry the push for stricter gun laws made by Obama at the conclusion of his annual policy address on Tuesday.

“For our Second Amendment freedoms, Mr. President, we will stand and fight throughout this country as Americans for our freedoms,” LaPierre said to applause. “We promise you that.”

The gun rights advocate complained that “the words ‘school safety’ were nowhere to be found” in Obama’s address and renewed his call for funding to put an armed guard in every school in America. (Obama did speak of the need to “protect our most precious resource:  our children.”)

“It was only a few weeks ago that they were marketing their anti-gun agenda as a way of protecting schoolchildren from harm,” LaPierre said.  “That charade ended at the State of the Union, when the president himself exposed their fraudulent intentions. It’s not about keeping kids safe in school.… They only care about their decades-long, decades-old gun control agenda.”

Obama closed the speech by referencing victims of gun violence and victims’ families in attendance at his speech, forcefully repeating that those victims at least “deserve a vote” on the gun control measures proposed by the administration in the wake of the deadly December shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

"Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote," Obama said to sustained applause. "The families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence –- they deserve a simple vote."

LaPierre has been as dogged as ever, though, in resisting those proposals, taking to conservative media in recent days to make his point. Writing Wednesday for the Daily Caller, LaPierre evoked a dystopian vision of a world without guns in the aftermath of last year’s Hurricane Sandy in New York.

“After Hurricane Sandy, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia,” LaPierre wrote. “Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.”

However, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the time there were no murders committed during the storm or its very immediate aftermath.

During the whirlwind weekend to mark the end of the his first term and the start of his second, President Obama, joined by first lady Michelle Obama, began Saturday's National Day of Service participating in an elementary school makeover project in Washington, D.C., along with approximately 500 volunteers.

Obama said the turnout across the country for the day's events, leading up to a national holiday to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., indicated a "huge hunger on the part of young people to get involved and to get engaged."

“This is really what America is about, this is what we celebrate," Obama said while speaking at Burrville Elementary. "This inauguration, it’s a symbol of how our democracy works and how we peacefully transfer power, but it should also be an affirmation that we’re all in this together, and we’ve got to look out for each other, and we’ve got to work hard on behalf of each other.”

Michelle Obama said the National Day of Service should be a symbol of the kind of work that needs to be done for the next four years and beyond.

“For all the young people and we’ve got a lot of young people…we’re passing the baton onto you all, so the goal is that as you make your way through life, who are you pulling up behind you? And as long as you’re pulling somebody up behind you you’re doing the right thing.”

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, were also on hand to serve.

“Those who serve our men and women in uniform, our wounded warriors, our veterans and our first responders – they give so much of themselves – and for us, it’s our obligation to give back,” Jill Biden said Saturday in a tent on the National Mall. “I hope this is just the first of many of the days that you all volunteer this year and serve your community and our country is something we can do every day all the time for the rest of our lives.”

Pool via NBC News

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama paint a bookshelf at Burrville Elementary School in Washington, D.C., on the National Day of Service on Saturday, January 19 2013.

Also participating in the day's events were celebrities, musicians and television personalities, including Ben Folds, Star Jones, Chelsea Clinton and Eva Longoria.

Obama started the day of service in 2009 and said he hopes his initiative will become a tradition for future presidents.

“America’s never been about what can be done for us; it’s about what can be done by us together,” Obama said on Jan. 4, in a White House press release.

“Inaugurations are about more than just celebrating, they’re about coming together to make our country a better place,” Obama said in a video message encouraging people to sign up to serve their communities on Saturday.

Thousands of volunteers in all 50 states are slated to participate this year.

• In Washington, D.C., volunteers will prepare more than 10,000 care packages for soldiers, veterans and first responders.
• In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city agencies will be engaging in service projects in communities affected by Superstorm Sandy.
• Volunteers who signed up in California will give food and winter coats to the homeless.
• In Chicago, service members will gather at Navy Pier to write letters and put together care packages for service members overseas.
• Sixty-two AmeriCorps members in Oklahoma will travel to a neighborhood once segregated by Jim Crow laws to repair homes for low-income families.  

Steve Kerrigan, president and CEO of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, said the day of service makes the inauguration “truly a national celebration.”

The president will officially be sworn in for his second term at noon on Sunday in a private ceremony at the White House, shortly after Biden. He’ll take the oath of office again on Monday before hundreds of thousands of onlookers on the National Mall, followed by a parade and formal balls in Washington.

Mike Groll / AP

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs New York's Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act into law.

If there’s one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it’s that mentally ill people should not have access to firearms.

But as lawmakers rush to restrict that access in the wake of recent mass shootings, mental health experts warn of unintended consequences: from gun owners avoiding mental health treatment to therapists feeling compelled to report every patient who expresses a violent thought.

“Many patients express some idea of harm to other people, everything from, ‘I wish I could rip my boss limb from limb,’ to, ‘I have a gun and want to blow that guy away,’” said Paul Applebaum, director of the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry at Columbia University.

Therapists usually interpret this sort of talk as part of the treatment process, experts say. But under a new law in New York, one of the strongest to be passed to date, therapists may feel compelled to report every instance of violent talk, lest they face legal consequences if something happens. And some say ordinary patients may wind up suffering the most.

“There’s one group of people who are gun owners who may reasonably or unreasonably think, ‘I’m not going anywhere near a mental health person, because if they misinterpret something I say as an indication I’m going to hurt myself or someone else, they’re going to report me and take away my guns,’” Applebaum said.

Several polls conducted since the shooting in Newtown, Conn., have found widespread support for new legislation that would restrict the possession of firearms by the mentally ill, as well as for increased government spending on mental health.

Federal law already bars the sale or transfer of firearms to a person who is known or thought to have been “adjudicated as a mental defective.” In addition, at least 44 states currently have their own laws regulating possession of firearm by mentally ill individuals, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But not enough states report their mental health data to the federal government, rendering the federal law largely toothless.

'Not taking any chances'
New York’s expanded gun law signed by Cuomo on January 15 goes further than most state laws in that it requires mental health professionals to report any person considered “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others” to local health officials. Those officials would be authorized to report that person to law enforcement, which could seize the person’s firearms.

Previously, New York judges could compel seriously mentally ill people thought to be dangerous to receive involuntary outpatient treatment.

“I see it very frequently,” Steven Dubovsky, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Buffalo, said of patients expressing violent fantasies. “You see people who struggle with anger or have violent thoughts, and if I thought they were going to act on it right away, I would stop them.”

“Now if you’re mistaken, you’re wrong about this, and you don’t report it, you could face criminal sanctions. I’m not taking any chances at that point,” Dubovsky said. That could encourage therapists to over-report, he said.

There have been cases where better enforcement of laws already on the books might have helped avoid bloodshed, said Richard J. Bonnie, a professor at University of Virginia’s law school. Bonnie headed a state commission on mental health law in the wake of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech.

Shooter Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people and then himself at the university in 2007, should have been adjudicated as mentally defective following a special justice’s order issued two years before the shooting, Bonnie said. Such a designation, properly reported, would have disqualified him from owning a gun under existing federal law.

But that message never got passed on to the feds or Virginia Tech, Bonnie said.

Shoring up the flaws in mental health reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System – something Obama addressed in his proposals – would help prevent future mistakes, Bonnie said. Obama also called for background checks to be required on all firearm purchases – currently only 7 states account for 98 percent of the names prohibited for reasons of mental illness in the NICS database, according to Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

According to DJ Jaffe, executive director of the Mental Illness Policy Org, which advocates on behalf of the seriously mentally ill, all the talk of mental health and gun violence obscures a bigger issue – a nationwide struggle with how to care for the mentally ill.

“Most of the things they’re discussing are totally irrelevant to helping people with serious mental illness,” Jaffe said. “No one wants responsibility for the seriously mentally ill.”

With assault weapons firmly in the crosshairs of state and federal lawmakers, gun-rights groups say they are not willing to give an inch when it comes to restricting access to the weapon of choice in recent mass shootings.

From arguments over what exactly defines an assault weapon to enthusiasts who say the guns are just plain fun to shoot, defenders of assault weapons say the White House and others are misguided in their focus on banning them.

“I can’t possibly imagine what logic people are following that somehow another law, just one more law, will solve these issues,” said Keith Morgan, president of the West Virginia Citizens Defense League, a pro-gun group.

“People are killed in greater number by cars, bats, hammers, hands, and feet,” he added. “Examining the tool and attempting to ban the tool will have absolutely no effect. We’re dealing with a people problem. We’ve got to find a people solution.”

President Obama on Wednesday called for a renewed ban on "military-style" assault weapons, among the most popular guns in America. They were used by both accused Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes and Connecticut gunman Adam Lanza. But gun-rights advocates like Morgan argue that despite the guns’ roles in high-profile mass killings, they are used in a relatively small number of homicides.

First Read: Obama set to go big on guns

According to the FBI’s Unified Crime Report for 2011, handguns were used 6,220 of the 12,664 homicides reported. Rifles accounted for 323 homicides, with knives and other unnamed firearms making up most of the rest.

Julie Jacobson / AP

Sig Sauer representative Adam Painchaud explains one of the company's newest products, the MPX 9mm pistol caliber submachine gun, at the 35th annual SHOT Show, Jan. 15, in Las Vegas.

Other gun-rights advocates are willing to entertain a conversation about assault weapons, but they remain dubious.

“If someone can show me how it can save lives, we’ll look at anything,” said Jim Irvine, chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association. He remains unconvinced, however, that an assault weapons ban would have done anything to prevent mass shootings like that in Newtown, Conn.

“I don’t like a bunch of dead kids, so I don’t see why we waste time on stale policies,” Irvine said.

The debate about what works will play out in the halls of Congress as well as state capitals, but also in American living rooms.

A survey released this week by the Pew Research Center found generous support among most Americans for at least some new controls on guns. The poll found that a majority of the public – 55 percent – would favor a ban on assault weapons. That support broke somewhat along party lines, with 69 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of Republicans favoring a legislation restricting assault weapons.

California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York already place some prohibitions on assault weapons.

Support soars for tougher gun laws, surveys show

In California, which has some of the nation’s toughest regulations on assault weapons, the law lists 75 assault weapon types by name, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. California is also one of three states that employ a “one-feature” test to identify assault weapons, banning all weapons that have one military-style feature, such as a pistol grip or telescoping stock.

Some pro-gun activists, like Paul Valone of Grass Roots North Carolina, dismiss the category of assault weapons entirely.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

A Rock River Arms AR-15 rifle.

“It’s relatively easy to circumvent a firearms ban based on cosmetic features. A pistol grip does not change the function of the firearm,” Valone said. “None of these things make any difference whatsoever.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law on Tuesday that tightened the state’s existing ban on assault weapons by applying the one-feature test.

The last federal ban on assault weapons lapsed in 2004. It was criticized by gun control proponents for allowing gun makers to easily circumvent restrictions may making small changes to existing models of rifles. That law required guns to have two military-style features to be considered assault weapons.

Ross Meyer, a manager at Gun World and Archery, a Nevada gun store, said some of his customers buy AR-style weapons for defense – but many also simply enjoy shooting the guns.

Gun-rights groups: Our 'backs are against the wall'

“A lot of them, it’s just kind of fun to go out and shoot,” said Meyer. His store sold out of the 150 AR-style weapons it had in stock within three days of the shooting in Newtown. “And then also the high-capacity magazine, that’s fun to have.”

“Semi-autos are just one of the most fun to go out and shoot when it comes to the recreation of it,” Meyer said.

Activists contend that there’s no political gain for them in sitting down at the table to discuss restrictions on assault weapons.

“As a strategic measure, it would be a horrific mistake for Republicans to play this game again,” said Michael Hammond, legislative consultant for Gun Owners of America, a national pro-gun rights group that claims 300,000 members.

Longtime conservative activist Larry Hunter is a co-organizer of Gun Appreciation Day. The day, which Hunter said is intended to promote Second Amendment rights, is scheduled for January 19. Hunter sees any ban on assault weapons as an encroachment on American’s constitutional rights.

“I hope it’s a non-starter,” Hunter said of any new ban on assault weapons. “But I think the world has changed so dramatically since it was first enacted and then allowed to expire, we have to take very seriously the possibility that they will do something.”

A pastor chosen by President Obama to deliver the inaugural benediction later this month has withdrawn amid controversy over anti-gay remarks he made more than a decade ago.

In a mid-1990s sermon, Rev. Louie Giglio, an Atlanta minister and founder of the Passion Conferences, a group dedicated to uniting students in worship and prayer, advocated for "ex-gay" therapy and urged listeners to prevent the “homosexual lifestyle” from becoming accepted.

He also invoked a biblical passage often interpreted to require gay people to be executed and argued that homosexuals choose to be gay.

“People aren’t born gay – but even if they are, it’s still a choice like giving into alcoholism, addiction and overeating,” Giglio said in a 54-minute sermon called “In Search of a Standard – Christian Response to Homosexuality.”

The Presidential Inaugural Committee issued a statement in response to Giglio's withdrawal.

“We were not aware of Pastor Giglio’s past comments at the time of his selection and they don’t reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this Inaugural,” Addie Whisenant, a spokesperson for the committee, said. “As we now work to select someone to deliver the benediction, we will ensure their beliefs reflect this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.”

In a statement, Giglio said he was withdrawing from the inaugural because staying in would not best serve his core message.

“Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation and the prayer I would offer will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration,” Giglio said. “Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past fifteen years. Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ.”

Whisenant said that even though the committee vets a number of people to deliver the benediction, they were only recently made aware of his comments when they surfaced on ThinkProgress, a left-leaning political blog. He stressed that it was Giglio’s decision to withdraw his name. 

Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, lauded Giglio’s removal.

"It was the right decision,” Griffen wrote in an email Thursday. “Participants in the Inaugural festivities should unite rather than divide. Choosing an affirming and fair-minded voice as his replacement would be in keeping with the tone the president wants to set for his Inaugural."