Obama Clings to Shotgun in WH Photo

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

After a week of speculation over the authenticity of claims by President Obama that he regularly participated in skeet shooting at Camp David, the White House released a photograph today showing him firing a shotgun.

The photo shows Obama targeting clay pigeons at the presidential retreat last August, according to the White House. In an interview published Sunday the president said he shoots skeet “all the time” during stays at the compound. The comment was a response to a question of whether he had ever held a gun.

“Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations. And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake,” he said.

READ: Skeet-Shooter Obama Has ‘Respect’ for Hunters

But amid a White House-backed push for stronger gun-control in the U.S., some questioned whether the claim was an embellishment or even true. Politicians who regularly use firearms often advertise the fact to gun owners, but ABC News has not found a quote from Obama referencing his own use before the statement on Sunday.

“If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this?” asked Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. “Why have we not seen photos? Why has he not referenced it at any point in time as we have had this gun debate that is ongoing?”

PHOTOS: From 2009 to Now: Obama Since His First Inauguration

Appearing on CNN this week, the congresswoman challenged Obama to a skeet shooting contest.

The Associated Press reported in 2010 a second-hand reference to the activity. After a visit with the Texas Christian University rifle team, a student reportedly told the AP that Obama told her he’d practiced shooting with the Secret Service.

This is the only known image of Obama holding a gun.

Asked Monday about the president’s interview, Press Secretary Jay Carney responded to reporters about how often the president participates in shooting.

“I would refer you simply to his comments,” he said. “I don’t know how often. He does go to Camp David with some regularity, but I’m not sure how often he’s done that.”"

On Wednesday, Carney addressed the issue again, telling press that when the president travels to “Camp David, he goes to spend time with his family and friends and relax, not to produce photographs.”

White House officials and some Obama supporters have compared skeet-doubters to “skeeters” or “birthers,” the label fixed to those who deny Obama was born on U.S. soil in his home state of Hawaii, and therefore is ineligible for the Oval Office.

“Attn skeet birthers. Make our day — let the photoshop conspiracies begin!” senior adviser David Plouffe wrote on Twitter this morning, referencing the popular photo-editing software.

In January, Obama signed several executive orders strengthening gun regulation and revealed proposals that, if enacted, would include bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. The move began in response to the December mass-shooting of 20 first graders and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

INFOGRAPHIC: Guns in America: By The Numbers

A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found 53 percent of Americans viewed Obama’s gun control plan favorably, 41 percent unfavorably.

The photo’s release comes two days before Obama travels to Minneapolis for a speech continuing his push for tougher gun control, where he is expected to appear alongside local law enforcement officials.

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Turkey says tests confirm leftist bombed U.S. embassy

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A member of a Turkish leftist group that accuses Washington of using Turkey as its "slave" carried out a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy, the Ankara governor's office cited DNA tests as showing on Saturday.

Ecevit Sanli, a member of the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), blew himself up in a perimeter gatehouse on Friday as he tried to enter the embassy, also killing a Turkish security guard.

The DHKP-C, virulently anti-American and listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, claimed responsibility in a statement on the internet in which it said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was a U.S. "puppet".

"Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage," the statement on "The People's Cry" website said, next to a picture of Sanli wearing a black beret and military-style clothes and with an explosives belt around his waist.

It warned Erdogan that he too was a target.

Turkey is an important U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism. Leftist groups including the DHKP-C strongly oppose what they see as imperialist U.S. influence over their nation.

DNA tests confirmed that Sanli was the bomber, the Ankara governor's office said. It said he had fled Turkey a decade ago and was wanted by the authorities.

Born in 1973 in the Black Sea port city of Ordu, Sanli was jailed in 1997 for attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul, but his sentence was deferred after he fell sick during a hunger strike. He was never re-jailed.

Condemned to life in prison in 2002, he fled the country a year later, officials said. Interior Minister Muammer Guler said he had re-entered Turkey using false documents.

Erdogan, who said hours after the attack that the DHKP-C were responsible, met his interior and foreign ministers as well as the head of the army and state security service in Istanbul on Saturday to discuss the bombing.

Three people were detained in Istanbul and Ankara in connection with the attack, state broadcaster TRT said.

The White House condemned the bombing as an "act of terror", while the U.N. Security Council described it as a heinous act. U.S. officials said on Friday the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past.

SYRIA

The DHKP-C statement called on Washington to remove Patriot missiles, due to go operational on Monday as part of a NATO defense system, from Turkish soil.

The missiles are being deployed alongside systems from Germany and the Netherlands to guard Turkey, a NATO member, against a spillover of the war in neighboring Syria.

"Our action is for the independence of our country, which has become a new slave of America," the statement said.

Turkey has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the civil war in Syria and has become one of President Bashar al-Assad's harshest critics, a stance groups such as the DHKP-C view as submission to an imperialist agenda.

"Organizations of the sectarian sort like the DHKP-C have been gaining ground as a result of circumstances surrounding the Syrian civil war," security analyst Nihat Ali Ozcan wrote in a column in Turkey's Daily News.

The Ankara attack was the second on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an Islamist militant attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War, and it fired rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

It has been blamed for previous suicide attacks, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square. It has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

Friday's attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

(Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Football: Returning Carroll steers West Ham past Swansea

LONDON: On-loan striker Andy Carroll scored only his second goal of the season as West Ham United won 1-0 at home to Swansea City on Saturday to end a run of four Premier League games without victory.

West Ham were largely dominant at Upton Park but could find no way past Swansea's inspired goalkeeper Gerhard Tremmel until Carroll powered home a header from a corner with 13 minutes to play.

Victory lifted West Ham two places to 11th in the table, while League Cup finalists Swansea remain eighth after a first defeat in eight games.

Eager to prevent Swansea from settling into their usual passing rhythm, West Ham snapped into their tackles from the off and Ricardo Vaz Te was booked for a lunge at Wayne Routledge in the eighth minute.

Carroll, on loan from Liverpool, was making his first West Ham start since November 28 and the hosts looked for him at every opportunity as they began to impose themselves on the game.

Tremmel did brilliantly to prevent Kevin Nolan putting West Ham ahead from close range in the 21st minute after Joey O'Brien left Routledge for dead with a step-over on the right flank.

A second contest between Nolan and Tremmel in the 37th minute produced the same result, with the German saving superbly after the home skipper took aim from a Carroll knock-down.

Tremmel came to his side's rescue again shortly before half-time when he diverted a 25-yard shot from Vaz Te around the post.

The hosts remained on the front foot in the second period, with Tremmel repelling Vaz Te again and Carroll hoisting the ball wastefully over the Swansea crossbar from a Matt Jarvis cut-back.

Belatedly, Swansea reacted, Pablo Hernandez testing Jussi Jaaskelainen from a free-kick and top scorer Michu nodding a cross from Hernandez over the top.

Tremmel unleashed yet another fine save to thwart Carroll before the visitors' resistance finally subsided in the 77th minute.

Carroll cleverly shook off the attentions of Ashley Williams inside the Swansea box before planting a header past Tremmel from a corner.

In response, Jaaskelainen saved from Ki Sung-Yueng and then sprang to his feet to block Ben Davies' follow-up effort, while the hosts also survived a desperate scramble inside their own area in the dying stages.

English Premier League results:
Arsenal 1 Stoke 0
Everton 3 Aston Villa 3
Fulham 0 Manchester Utd 1
Newcastle 3 Chelsea 2
QPR 0 Norwich 0
Reading 2 Sunderland 1
West Ham 1 Swansea 0
Wigan 2 Southampton 2

- AFP/de

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Rural job plan can start green revolution II: Sonia

NEW DELHI : Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said UPA's flagship rural employment guarantee programme has the potential to set off a second green revolution as it can boost agricultural production.

Speaking at a conference on the Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee act here, she said "I am of the belief that MNREGA has tremendous potential to increase agriculture production, which we have not been able to tap fully till date."

Sonia said that "There are many possibilities not only for creating community assets in villages but also providing irrigation facilities to small and marginalised farmers, developing land and promoting farming."

Although the MNREGA scheme has been found to suffer from implementation problems, the Congress chief saw the programme being overall beneficial to the farmers.

"Manifold increase in the produce of farmers can be made by connecting this scheme with the use of modern technologies in agriculture. There is no doubt that MNREGA can play a big role in fulfilling our dreams of second green revolution," she said.

At the same conference, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said use of Information Technology in at many levels has helped making governance better and increase accountability and transparency in government work. He said the act has increased financial inclusion.

Singh called on the rural development ministry to work with states to ensure panchayats are provided full technical assistance.

"This will help prepare the labour budget truly as per the local development plan and will facilitate the inclusion of all possible resources. Besides, this will also strengthen the Panchyati Raj institutions and increase people's participation in development works," Singh said.

The Congress president also said, "there is also a need to think how to make implementation better. How to bring momentum in the empowerment of Panchayati Raj institutions."

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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Ala. Hostage Suspect Has 'No Regard for Human Life'

A neighbor of the retired Alabama trucker who is holed up in an underground bunker with a young autistic boy as a hostage says that Jimmy Lee Dykes is menacing person who has been preparing for this standoff for a while and has threatened to shoot anyone who came near his property.

"I cannot even fathom the whys or anything like that," Ronda Wilbur told ABCNews.com today. "I know that he has totally and completely no regard for human life, or any sort of life."

Wilber, 55, lives across the dirty road from Dykes.

Dykes, 65, has been holed up in a 6 by 8 foot bunker 4 feet underground with his 5-year-old hostage named Ethan near Midland City, Ala. The standoff began when Dykes boarded a school bus and asked for two 6 to 8 year old boys. School bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was shot several times by Dykes, and died trying to protect the children.

Wilbur said she thinks his plan to hold out in his subterranean bunker has been brewing for a while.

PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations

"I think that he was obviously been planning something for a long time," she said. "I had always figured he was more or less a wacko survivalist, but it's obvious that he had this very well thought out and arranged, and it explains as to why he did so much work in the dark."

Wilbur said that she would often see him with a gun patrolling his property when she would return home from work. Sometimes he would be patrolling as late as midnight. She also said that within the last three months that a cargo container showed up on his property, but it soon disappeared.

Julie Bennett/al.com via AP

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Boy, 5, Held Captive in Bunker Watch Video

Alabama 5-year-old Hostage: Negotiations Continue Watch Video

Alabama Child Hostage Situation: School Bus Driver Killed Watch Video

"He's been digging. He moves dirt shovel by shovel. He made tiers. He moved cinder blocks from place to place to place, to however he wants to shape the land," she said.

Dykes' home is what Wilbur described as a travel trailer on land purchased from another neighbor approximately two years ago. She described him at 5-feet-8 and "exceedingly thin," and "unhealthy" looking. His introduction to the neighborhood came when he replaced a neighbor's mailbox with his own, she said. Soon he was threatening to shoot anyone or any animal that entered his property.

"He was very verbal that he hates all animals, and he didn't want any animals or people anywhere near his land," she said. "He told us flat out he would shoot any dogs that came onto his property."

Last year Dykes, who Wilbur refers to as "Mean Man," beat her 120-pound dog Max with a lead pipe when it entered what he perceived as "his side of the road," she said. Max died a week later.

Another neighbor, Claudia Davis, told The Associated Press that he had yelled at her and fired his gun at her, her son James Davis, Jr. and her baby grandson after he claimed their truck caused damage to a speed bump in the dirt road near his property. No one was hurt, but Davis, Jr. told the AP that he believes the shooting and kidnapping are connected to a court hearing concerning the incident.

"I believe he thought I was going to be in court and he was going to get more charges than the menacing, which he deserved, and he had a bunch of stuff to hide and that's why he did it," Davis said.

Police said that they do not think that Dykes had any connection to Ethan, and that SWAT teams and police are negotiating with Dykes.

Davis said that he has seen the bunker, which contains a television, and where Dykes has been known to hunker down for up to eight days.

"He's got steps made out of cinder blocks going down to it," Davis said. "It's lined with those red bricks all in it."

Police say Dykes may have enough supplies to last him weeks.

Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper pleaded Thursday for Dykes to release the boy.

"That's an innocent kid. Let him go back to his parents, he's crying for his parents and his grandparents and he does not know what's going on," he told ABC News. "Let this kid go."

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Suicide bomber kills guard at U.S. embassy in Turkey

ANKARA (Reuters) - A far-leftist suicide bomber killed a Turkish security guard at the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday, officials said, blowing open an entrance and sending debris flying through the air.

The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body after entering an embassy gatehouse. The blast could be heard a mile away. A lower leg and other human remains lay on the street.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the bomber was a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a far-left group which is virulently anti-U.S. and anti-NATO and is listed as a terrorist organization by Washington.

The White House said the suicide attack was an "act of terror" but that the motivation was unclear. U.S. officials said the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. There was no claim of responsibility.

"The suicide bomber was ripped apart and one or two citizens from the special security team passed away," said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

"This event shows that we need to fight together everywhere in the world against these terrorist elements," he said.

Turkish media reports identified the bomber as DHKP-C member Ecevit Sanli, who was involved in attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul in 1997.

KEY ALLY

Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Around 400 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Turkey over the past few weeks to operate Patriot anti-missile batteries meant to defend against any spillover of Syria's civil war, part of a NATO deployment due to be fully operational in the coming days.

The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War and launched rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

Deemed a terrorist organization by both the United States and Turkey, the DHKP-C has been blamed for suicide attacks in the past, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square.

The group, formed in 1978, has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

The attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

"HUGE EXPLOSION"

U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone emerged through the main gate of the embassy shortly after the explosion to address reporters, flanked by a security detail as a Turkish police helicopter hovered overhead.

"We're very sad of course that we lost one of our Turkish guards at the gate," Ricciardone said, describing the victim as a "hero" and thanking Turkish authorities for a prompt response.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned the attack on the checkpoint on the perimeter of the embassy and said several U.S. and Turkish staff were injured by debris.

"The level of security protection at our facility in Ankara ensured that there were not significantly more deaths and injuries than there could have been," she told reporters.

It was the second attack on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The attack in Benghazi, blamed on al Qaeda-affiliated militants, sparked a political furor in Washington over accusations that U.S. missions were not adequately safeguarded.

A well-known Turkish journalist, Didem Tuncay, who was on her way in to the embassy to meet Ricciardone when the attack took place, was in a critical condition in hospital.

"It was a huge explosion. I was sitting in my shop when it happened. I saw what looked like a body part on the ground," said travel agent Kamiyar Barnos, whose shop window was shattered around 100 meters away from the blast.

CALL FOR VIGILANCE

The U.S. consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens to be vigilant and to avoid large gatherings, while the British mission in Istanbul called on British businesses to tighten security after what it called a "suspected terrorist attack".

In 2008, Turkish gunmen with suspected links to al Qaeda, opened fire on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, killing three Turkish policemen. The gunmen died in the subsequent firefight.

The most serious bombings in Turkey occurred in November 2003, when car bombs shattered two synagogues, killing 30 people and wounding 146. Part of the HSBC Bank headquarters was destroyed and the British consulate was damaged in two more explosions that killed 32 people less than a week later. Authorities said those attacks bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul, Mohammed Arshad and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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US manufacturing picks up in January

WASHINGTON: US manufacturing activity expanded for a second straight month in January as new orders and inventories picked up, the ISM monthly survey showed Monday.

The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing sector index rose to 53.1 from 50.2 in December.

Until January the index had hovered around the 50 break-even line between growth and contraction for about six months. The overall economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to official data, underpinned by little change in the manufacturing sector.

January's rebound included an 8.0 per cent surge in the inventories sub-index and a 3.6 per cent gain for new orders.

But customer inventories were still contracting, as were manufacturers' order backlogs.

Thirteen of 18 manufacturing industries covered in the ISM survey reported growth in the month, compared with only seven in December.

But manufacturers polled in the survey suggested they remained worried about the tentative direction of the economy.

"Slowing interest in high-dollar purchases reflects continuing economic uncertainty," said one.

- AFP/jc

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Ordinance on sexual crimes: Women activists angry, criticize ‘key’ omissions

NEW DELHI: No sooner had the Union Cabinet cleared an ordinance to sharpen laws on sexual assault than some women activists questioned the "unseemly haste" in promulgating an ordinance when Parliament is convening only 20 days later. A bipartisan sanction to tougher laws against sex crimes, they said, would carry greater force. Some of them went so far as to say that they would urge the President to not sign the ordinance.

Additional solicitor general, Indira Jaising felt that ordinances should be brought only in an emergency situation that brooked no delay. In this instance there was no such pressing emergency. In fact, greater deliberation would only help to enact a set of stronger — and if need be, more nuanced — laws.

The non-inclusion of marital rape as a crime, even in the period leading up to separation, has come in for sharp criticism from activists.

Jaising said she was disappointed that the Cabinet had not waived government sanction for police to take up cases of rape by armed forces personnel. "While this need for sanction is understandable in the case of encounter deaths, as that might have happened in the course of duty, how can rape be committed in the course of duty?" she said.

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Obama offers faith groups new birth control rule

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a wave of lawsuits over what government can tell religious groups to do, the Obama administration on Friday proposed a compromise for faith-based nonprofits that object to covering birth control in their employee health plans.

Some of the lawsuits appear headed for the Supreme Court, threatening another divisive legal battle over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, which requires most employers to cover birth control free of charge to female workers as a preventive service. The law exempted churches and other houses of worship, but religious charities, universities, hospitals and even some for-profit businesses have objected.

The government's new offer, in a proposed regulation, has two parts.

Administration officials said it would more simply define the religious organizations that are exempt from the requirement altogether. For example, a mosque whose food pantry serves the whole community would not have to comply.

For other religious employers, the proposal attempts to create a buffer between them and contraception coverage. Female employees would still have free access through insurers or a third party, but the employer would not have to arrange for the coverage or pay for it. Insurers would be reimbursed for any costs by a credit against fees owed the government.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the plan would satisfy the objections of Roman Catholic charities and other faith-affiliated nonprofits nationwide challenging the requirement.

Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing religious nonprofits and businesses in lawsuits, said many of his clients will still have serious concerns.

"This is a moral decision for them," Duncan said. "Why doesn't the government just exempt them?"

Neither the Catholic Health Association, a trade group for hospitals, nor the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had an immediate reaction, saying the regulations were still being studied.

Some women's advocates were pleased.

"The important thing for us is that women employees can count on getting insurance that meets their needs, even if they're working for a religiously affiliated employer," said Cindy Pearson, executive director of the National Women's Health Network.

Policy analyst Sarah Lipton-Lubet of the American Civil Liberties Union said the rule appeared to meet the ACLU's goal of providing "seamless coverage."

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that the compromise would provide "women across the nation with coverage of recommended preventive care at no cost, while respecting religious concerns."

The birth-control rule, first introduced a year ago, became an election issue, with some advocates for women praising the mandate as a victory but some religious leaders decrying it as an attack on faith groups.

The health care law requires most employers, including faith-affiliated hospitals and nonprofits, to provide preventive care at no charge to employees. Scientific advisers to the government recommended that artificial contraception, including sterilization, be included in a group of services for women. The goal, in part, is to help women space out pregnancies to promote health.

Under the original rule, only those religious groups that primarily employ and serve people of their own faith — such as churches — were exempt. But other religiously affiliated groups, such as church-affiliated universities, Catholic Charities and hospitals, were told they had to comply.

Catholic bishops, evangelicals and some religious leaders who have generally been supportive of Obama's policies lobbied fiercely for a broader exemption. The Catholic Church prohibits the use of artificial contraception. Evangelicals generally accept the use of birth control, but some object to specific methods such as the morning-after contraceptive pill, which they argue is tantamount to abortion, and is covered by the policy.

Obama had promised to change the birth control requirement so insurance companies — and not faith-affiliated employers — would pay for the coverage, but religious leaders said more changes were needed to make the plan work.

Since then, more than 40 lawsuits have been filed by religious nonprofits and secular for-profit businesses contending the mandate violates their religious beliefs. As expected, this latest regulation does not provide any accommodation for individual business owners who have religious objections to the rule.

Questions remain about how the services ultimately will be funded. The Health and Human Services Department has not tallied an overall cost for the plan, according to Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, an HHS deputy policy director.

However, in its new version of the rule, the department argues that the change won't impose new costs on insurers because it will save them money "from improvements in women's health and fewer child births."

The latest version of the mandate is now subject to a 60-day public comment period. The overall mandate is to take effect for religious nonprofits in August.

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Zoll reported from New York. Associated Press writer David Crary in New York contributed.

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