The Morning Report -- Tuesday February 5, 2013

Alabama Bunker Standoff Over -- Boy Scouts Consider Allowing Gays -- Obama Presses For Gun Control -- Army Sniper Killer Claims PTSD -- Superbowl Power Outage Questions -- The Obama Budget -- Romney For Senate? -- iPhone 5, iOS 6.1 Jailbreak Released

AUTHORITIES STORM ALABAMA BUNKER, RESCUE BOY

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) — Law enforcement officers stormed an underground bunker Monday in southeastern Alabama, freeing a 5-year-old boy and shooting his captor to death after they became convinced the child was in imminent danger, officials said.

Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, of Midland City had taken the child off a school bus after fatally shooting the driver on Jan 29. He had remained holed up in the bunker with the child ever since, communicating with authorities through a ventilation pipe into the shelter.

Dykes had been seen with a gun, and officers concluded the boy was in imminent danger after nearly a week of negotiations, said Steve Richardson of the FBI's office in Mobile.

BOY SCOUTS MEETING TO CONSIDER BAN ON GAY MEMBERS

AP

Former Boy Scout leaders and activists on Monday delivered a petition with 1.4 million signatures to the Irving, Texas, headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America, urging the organization to end its ban on gay members and leaders.

Scouting executives said they were considering dropping the national ban during a three-day meeting that began Monday. A decision, if there is one, is likely Wednesday, the organization said.

One of the people delivering petitions was Eric Andresen of Moraga, Calif., whose son, Ryan, was denied an Eagle Scout badge last year because he's openly gay.

OBAMA PRESSES FOR GUN MEASURES

EPA

MINNEAPOLIS — President Obama declared Monday on his first trip outside Washington to promote gun control that a consensus is emerging for universal background checks for purchasers, though he conceded a tough road lay ahead to pass an assault weapons ban over formidable opposition in Congress.

‘‘We should restore the ban on military-style assault weapons and a 10-round limit for magazines,’’ Obama said in a brief speech in Minneapolis, standing firm on the gun-control measures he favors despite long odds.

Such a ban ‘‘deserves a vote in Congress because weapons of war have no place on our streets or in our schools or threatening our law enforcement officers,’’ he said.

The president spoke from a special police operations center in a city once known to some as ‘‘Murderapolis’’ but where gun violence has dropped amid a push to address it from city leaders. Police officers stood behind him.

SUSPECT IN 'AMERICAN SNIPER' SHOOTING CLAIMS PTSD

The former Marine and Iraq War veteran charged in the killings of a former Navy SEAL sniper and his friend on a Texas shooting range had been taken to a mental hospital twice in the past five months and told authorities he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, law enforcement records show.

Eddie Ray Routh, 25, also told his sister and brother-in-law after the shootings that he "traded his soul for a new truck," according to an Erath County arrest warrant affidavit obtained by WFAA-TV. Police said Routh was driving the truck of one of the victims, former Navy SEAL and American Sniper co-author Chris Kyle, at the time of his arrest.

Erath County authorities have not given a motive for the fatal shootings Saturday of Kyle, 38, and Chad Littlefield, 35, at the Rough Creek Lodge west of Glen Rose.

SUPERDOME OFFICIALS WORRIED OF POWER OUTAGE BEFORE THE SUPER BOWL

GETTY IMAGES

The cause of a 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl remains under investigation, but public records released Monday show that Superdome officials were worried about a power outage several months before the big game.

An Oct. 15 memo released by the Louisiana Stadium & Exposition District, which oversees the Superdome, says tests on the dome's electrical feeders showed they had "some decay and a chance of failure."

Entergy New Orleans, the company that supplies the stadium with power, and the structure's engineering staff "had concerns regarding the reliability of the Dome service from Entergy's connection point to the Dome," the memo says. Those concerns were due in part to "circumstances that have previously occurred with the electrical service regarding transient spikes and loads."

BOEHNER, GOP PRESSURES OBAMA TO BALANCE BUDGET

As President Obama misses a deadline today to submit a budget proposal to Congress, Republicans are working to advance techniques that not only pressure the president to present a budget plan, but also to rein in federal spending.

By law, the president is required to submit a budget request to Congress for the upcoming fiscal year by the first Monday of February. The only time Obama met the deadline during his presidency was in 2011.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, delivered remarks on the House floor this afternoon, declaring that by ignoring the deadline imposed by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, Obama “missed a great opportunity” to help the U.S. economy.

GOP'S TAGG ROMNEY, OTHERS WON'T RUN FOR KERRY SENATE SEAT

GLOBE STAFF

Tagg Romney, son of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, said today he would not run for the Massachusetts US Senate seat opening up because of the departure of John F. Kerry to be secretary of state.

Former governor William F. Weld and former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey also said they would not run, leaving few strong options for Bay State Republicans hoping for a victory in the June 25 special election in the traditionally blue state.

“I love my home state and admit it would be an honor to represent the citizens of our great Commonwealth. However, I am currently committed to my business and to spending as much time as I can with my wife and children,” Romney said this afternoon in an e-mailed statement, while noting that he was humbled by the “outreach” he had received over the weekend encouraging him to run.

EVASI0N HACKERS RELEASE iPHONE 5, iOS 6.1 JAILBREAK

A jailbreak tool for the latest iOS 6.1 software for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices has been released, just shy of a week after Apple let loose the latest mobile software.

@planetbeing made good on a promise that the software would be made available by today. The download links for the latest jailbreak software—available for Windows, OS X and Linux machines—went live today.