(Continued from page 36)

• There were no immediate claims of responsibility.
• Just three days ago, government officials announced security was being stepped up throughout the country, following a shooting which wounded a nuclear energy official and several threats or explosions of devices at offices of a tax collection agency.
• ___

• DENVER (AP) -- Minutes after President Barack Obama announced he supported gay marriage, the Democratic governor of Colorado choked back tears in Denver as he ordered state lawmakers to reconsider a civil-unions measure that Republicans had defeated the day before.
• In the week that followed, the debate over equal rights for same-sex couples consumed the state Capitol. And while Republicans ultimately succeeded in killing the measure, Republicans and Democrats alike acknowledge that the emotional standoff over the issue could help shape the White House campaign in this presidential battleground state this fall.
• "Go back to your communities, go back to your neighborhoods, go back to your churches and let them know that the fight continues," Republican House Speaker Frank McNulty implored gay-marriage opponents gathered outside the Capitol last Tuesday. He was looking to rally the state's huge number of religious conservatives who long have been the foot-soldiers in efforts to both oppose civil unions and elect Republicans.
• Democrats, in turn, predicted that their loyalists, as well as independents, will rally behind Obama in Colorado given his support of same-sex marriage. Obama planned to visit the state next Wednesday to deliver a commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, before attending fundraisers in Denver.
• "That will have a positive impact on the chances of the president being re-elected and winning Colorado in November," said Democratic Rep. Mark Ferrandino, a gay lawmaker who co-sponsored the civil unions legislation and said that its supporters would be "very active" in the fall on the issue.
• ___