Suspect in shooting near White House arrested

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man with an apparent obsession with President Barack Obama has been arrested in Pennsylvania after the Secret Service discovered two bullets struck the White House while the president was away, authorities said Wednesday.

One bullet smashed into a window of the living quarters of the executive mansion but was stopped by ballistic glass.

The arrest of Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, 21, came days after reports of shots fired on Friday night near the White House while Obama and his wife Michelle were on a trip to California and Hawaii. The president has since traveled on to Australia, second stop on a nine-day Asia-Pacific tour, and the White House had no comment on the unfolding events.

The U.S. Secret Service said it discovered Tuesday that the two bullets hit the White House. U.S. Park Police had earlier linked Ortega, a 21-year-old man from Idaho Falls, Idaho, to the reports of gunfire.

A U.S. Park Police crime bulletin issued before Ortega's arrest said he is known to have mental health issues, adding "Ortega should be considered unstable with violent tendencies."

Authorities are investigating his mental health and say there are indications he believed his attack on the White House was part of a personal mission from God, according to a law enforcement official. There are also indications the man had become obsessed with Obama and the White House, according to two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

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Obama to backers: Everything on the line in 2012

KAPOLEI, Hawaii (AP) — Politicking in his boyhood home, President Barack Obama told supporters Monday that everything they worked for and that the country stands for is on the line in his 2012 re-election bid, warning of a bleak America should a Republican win.

At ease in Hawaii, where he was born and vacations each year, Obama sprinkled his standard campaign speech with personal memories and called himself the "hometown kid." But his message turned urgent in trying to get his backers to think of the next election as a choice between a vision of a big country of opportunity or one where regular people lose their voice.

"You kept up the fight for change long after the election was over, and that should make you proud," Obama said inside a lush resort on the western side of Oahu. "It should make you hopeful. But it can't make you satisfied."

He added: "Everything we fought for in the last election is now at stake in the next election. The very core of what this country stands for is on the line."

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Obama caps summit diplomacy in Hawaiian home state

KAPOLEI, Hawaii (AP) — President Barack Obama on Sunday tied the hopes of a faster American economic recovery to the booming Pacific Rim region, saying "we're not going to be able to put our folks back to work" unless the Asia-Pacific region is successful as an engine for the world.

"We consider it a top priority," Obama said of the region where his administration is pouring in time and political capital to expand exports and business ties.

The president spoke as he dove into a day of summit diplomacy, proudly using his home state of Hawaii as the American foothold to the Pacific. He gathered with leaders of 20 other nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, whose nations span from Chile to China and account for roughly half the world's trade and economic output.

In the midst of a hard re-election bid, Obama kept his message on jobs, even as he privately lobbied for help on containing the Iranian nuclear threat.

He was to cap the summit with a solo news conference in which topics on and off his scripted agenda were likely to emerge.

Born in Hawaii, Obama reveled in having the world stage on his home turf, while back east the Republicans seeking to oust him from the White House assailed his foreign policy record.

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