AP News in Brief
Biden seeks video game industry input on gun violence after NRA rejects gun control proposals
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Looking for broader remedies to gun violence, Vice President Joe Biden is reaching out to the video game industry for ideas as the White House seeks to assemble proposals in response to last month's massacre at a Connecticut elementary school.
• Biden is scheduled to meet with video game representatives Friday as the White House explores cultural factors that may contribute to violent behavior.
• The vice president, who is leading a task force that will present recommendations to President Barack Obama on Tuesday, met with other representatives from the entertainment industry, including Comcast Corp. and the Motion Picture Association of America, on Thursday.
• Friday's meeting comes a day after the National Rifle Association rejected Obama administration proposals to limit high-capacity ammunition magazines and dug in on its opposition to an assault weapons ban, which Obama has previously said he will propose to Congress. The NRA was one of the pro-gun rights groups that met with Biden during the day.
• In previewing the meeting with the video game industry, Biden recalled the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who lamented during crime bill negotiations in the 1980s that the country was "defining deviancy down."
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Obama, Karzai to discuss Afghanistan war's future; no decision on troop withdrawal expected
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Charting the course for a war's end, President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai meet Friday at the White House to discuss the future of the U.S. role in Afghanistan and the 66,000 American troops in harm's way.
• The two leaders plan a joint afternoon news conference. White House officials said, however, that Obama will not announce any decisions on the next phase of troop withdrawals or whether any U.S. forces will stay behind in Afghanistan after the war formally ends in 2014.
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