(Continued from page 25)

• President Barack Obama's party now carries the burden not just of finding strong challengers, which is proving difficult, but also of trying to figure out how to take down governors who aren't as vulnerable as they had anticipated -- Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Ohio's John Kasich, Michigan's Rick Snyder and Iowa's Terry Bran

stad.
• They won elections as part of the GOP's banner 2010. Republicans prevailed in 23 out of 37 gubernatorial elections that year, taking control of 11 states where Democrats had held the office. Now, there are 30 Republican governors. And of those, 20 are up for re-election in 2014 -- many in states that Obama carried last fall.
• ___

• JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Oscar Pistorius will be back in the glare of public scrutiny for the first time in months when he appears at a court hearing Tuesday ahead of his murder trial, the next chapter of a sensational case that transformed the double-amputee Olympian from a smiling global inspiration to a sobbing suspect facing a life sentence in prison if convicted.
• There have been just two reported sightings of Pistorius since he was granted bail on Feb. 22. Millions were stunned by the defining images of him leaving a police station on Valentine's Day -- his head hooded and bowed, hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets and guarded by officers -- after he had been arrested and charged for shooting dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
• Forced out of his self-imposed isolation, Pistorius will emerge briefly for an appearance Tuesday at the same Pretoria Magistrate's Court where he was granted bail, the first step toward the trial that will eventually decide if the 26-year-old Pistorius spends a minimum of 25 years in jail.
• Pistorius will defend himself against a charge of premeditated murder by arguing he believed he was acting lawfully and in self-defense when he fired four shots through a bathroom door in his home with his licensed 9mm handgun, criminal and firearm law experts say. The Olympic athlete insists that he made a deadly error when he fired into the closed toilet stall, thinking an intruder was behind the door when it was really Steenkamp.
• Pistorius also will be expected to explain his justification for those tragic actions in minute detail by taking the stand and testifying at his trial, which has no start date

(Continued on page 27)