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• "I voted for him last time just to see the change," Allen says of Obama, "and there was no change."
• For Lashawn Williams, the excitement she felt from Obama's first run is still there in spite of an economy in the doldrums. The 39-year-old bank employee is volunteering for the re-election campaign -- and telling those who are frustrated with the president that the blame is misplaced.
• "People say, 'Oh, well, he's in there and he's not changing anything and blah, blah, blah.' But he can't do it by himself," Williams says during her lunch break in downtown Jacksonville. "Everything he's tried to do he's gotten resistance from the Republican Party."
• The Obama campaign targeted the Jacksonville area with surprising success in 2008, nearly equaling Republican John McCain in Duval County votes as Obama carried the state. Whether Obama can do as well again may determine if he takes Florida a second time -- and with it a second term.
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Verdict expected in Vatican trial of pope's butler accused of leaking papal documents
• VATICAN CITY (AP) -- A verdict in the case of the pope's butler accused of leaking papal documents may help close one of the most damaging scandals of Pope Benedict XVI's papacy. But even after Paolo Gabriele's fate is decided by a Vatican tribunal Saturday, a core question will remain: Did he really act alone in exposing one of the most secretive institutions in the world?
• Gabriele faces up to four years in prison if he's convicted of aggravated theft, accused of stealing the pope's private correspondence and passing it onto journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose book revealed the intrigue, petty infighting and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons that plague the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. It has been the gravest security breach of the papal entourage in recent memory.
• In his testimony this week, Gabriele insisted "in the most absolute way" that he had no accomplices.
• But in earlier statements to prosecutors, he named a half-dozen people who "suggested" he take action, among them Vatican cardinals and monsignors. He even identified one layman as the source of a segment of Nuzzi's book "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers" detailing some conflicts of interest of some Vatican police officers.
• Gabriele distanced himself from such statements during the trial, saying he didn't (Continued on page 29)
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