Week In The News: Guns, Immigration, North Korea

Maybe a gun deal.  Maybe an immigration deal.  And who knows on North Korea?  Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

The unusual sound of Congress groaning to life this week.  And over the Korean peninsula, big unsettling question marks about what’s just theater and what could be theater of war.  North Korea talks “sea of flame” for the US again.  Secretary of State John Kerry says they won’t be accepted as a nuclear power.  Pentagon intelligence says they’re already there.

A filibuster avoided on guns in the US Senate.  Now comes the big wrangle.  An immigration deal emerging.  Big budget talk.  Annette Funicello passes on.

This hour, On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-Tom Ashbrook

Major Garrett, chief White House correspondent for CBS News and correspondent-at-large with the National Journal (@MajorCBS)

Jonathan Chait, writer for New York Magazine (@jonathanchait)

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

New York Times "The White House’s budget request for the 2014 fiscal year drew headlines for its proposed changes to how entitlement benefits are calculated in a compromise effort to cut the budget. But how would other departments and programs be affected? While Congress almost never enacts the president’s budget as proposed and Republicans oppose many of the specifics, the budget offers a window on Mr. Obama’s priorities at the beginning of his second term. Times reporters provided analysis."

CBS News "A bipartisan group of senators appears to be inching ever closer to a deal for overhauling the nation's immigration system, and having made recent progress on one of the issue's key sticking points, negotiators say they expect to present a version of the legislation by the end of this week."

ABC News "The South Korean military is on high alert today preparing for North Korea's possible mid-range missile test 'anytime soon,' while Pyongyang seeks to grab international attention and build an image at home of Kim Jong Un as a formidable leader."