National: The federal budget “sequester”, $85 billion in across the board cuts, begins today. Congress went home yesterday.

• Army Pfc. Bradley Manning  surprisingly admitted giving thousands of classified documents to the website Wikileaks and pleaded guilty to 10 criminal counts. The documents he released included diplomatic emails and videos of US airstrikes in which sometimes civilians were killed. He said he did it “to make the world a better place.” He could get up to 20 years in prison and still faces charges of violating the Espionage Act.
• The White House filed a legal brief joining the argument to end California’s ban on gay marriage known as Proposition 8. The administration says the ban on same-sex marriage is based on irrational prejudice.
• A Florida man is missing after a sinkhole opened under the bedroom of his home. The 36-year-old man’s brother said he heard a loud crash and screaming, but when he got there the bedroom and his brother were gone.

World: Two Tibetan monks in separate incidents have set themselves on fire and died to protest the Chinese occupation. The first such protest in modern memory occurred during the Vietnam War when Buddhist monks burned themselves in public streets to object to the South Vietnamese government. At least 106 Tibetan monks have self-immolated.

Ex Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI ended his reign yesterday. In an effort to allay fears that he will act as a shadow to the next pope he said, “I today declare my unconditional reverence and obedience.” Benedict’s time was rocked by the worldwide sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and he is the first pope to resign in 600 years.

Bottom Line: Stanley Snadowsky, co-founder with Allan Pepper of the historic Bottom Line music club in New York, has died in Las Vegas at age 70. Starting in 1974 and lasting 30 years, the club featured just about everybody who was anybody in music: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Miles Davis, Tito Puente, Joan Baez, Dizzy Gillespie, Lou Reed, The Cars. Name them, they played there. The club closed after failing to pay rent to the  landlord, New York University.

Next Stop: The man who plotted England’s notorious Great Train Robbery in 1963 is dead at age 81. Bruce Reynolds was leader of the capering crew of 15 that stopped the London mail train and made off with the British equivalent of about $7 million. Reynolds lived on the lam for about five years before he was caught and spent 10 years in prison.

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