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Syria tensions running high, Obama to showcase common global goals in brief visit to Sweden
• STOCKHOLM (AP) -- President Barack Obama is seeking to use a 24-hour visit to this Swedish capital to show a softer side of American diplomacy even as the world's gaze remains fixed anxiously on Syria.
• He intends to focus in the Nordic nation on climate change, trade and technology, a trio of issues on which there is broad consensus with European allies. The topics are a marked departure from the thorny, pressing matters he's facing back home on national security and the economy. He also plans to pay homage to a Holocaust-era hero whose name is commemorated on street signs from Paris to Tel Aviv.
• The president arrived Wednesday morning in Stockholm after an overnight flight from Washington, where lawmakers are weighing whether to approve Obama's request for a military strike against Syria. A day later, Obama was scheduled to travel to St. Petersburg, Russia, to meet with foreign leaders at the Group of 20 economic summit.
• Greeting Obama on a mild, sunny morning at the Stockholm-Arlanda International Airport were Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and leaders of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's center-right coalition government.
• Obama's trip to Sweden will mark the first bilateral visit by a sitting U.S. president to the northern European nation. While in Stockholm, Obama will meet with Reinfeldt and King Carl XVI Gustav and dine with Nordic leaders from Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark. He'll also stop at Sweden's premier technical university to call attention to Sweden's goal to phase out fossil fuels by 2050.
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Immigrant asks California Supreme Court for law license over US DOJ objections
• SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Sergio Garcia arrived in the U.S. illegally 20 years ago to pick almonds in the field with his father. But that was not all he wanted for his life.
• Working the fields and at a grocery store, he attended community college, studying to become a paralegal, and passed the California bar on the first try, a boast Gov. Jerry Brown, former Gov. Peter Wilson and nearly 50 percent of all first-time test takers can't make.
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