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President Barack Obama returned to the grieving Army post Wednesday where he first took on the job as the nation's comforter five years ago, mourning with families and uniformed comrades of those killed during last week's Fort Hood shooting spree. "We somehow bear what seems unbearable," he declared.

It was yet another sad observance for a president who has had to deliver words of consolation across the country many times. At Fort Hood, the ceremony was made more poignant as a remembrance for soldiers who didn't die in wars abroad but in the safety of their own compound.

"They were members of a generation that has borne the burden of our security for more than a decade of war," Obama said on a breezy, sun washed day in central Texas.

Three soldiers died and 16 others were wounded in the rampage last Wednesday by another soldier, who killed himself.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived late Wednesday morning at Fort Hood, where the camouflage fatigues of troops standing to salute his passing motorcade almost blended in with a patch of desert-like terrain. Flags were lowered to half-staff at the sprawling Army post, where Obama met with victims' relatives before offering his public condolences.

The memorial took place at the same spot where Obama eulogized victims of another mass shooting in 2009.

Three battle crosses, helmet-topped rifles above combat boots, stood in front of the speakers' platform, representing the three soldiers shot and killed Sgt. Carlos Lazaney-Rodriguez, Sgt. Timothy Owens, Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Ferguson.

Officials say they died following a shooting rampage by Army Spc. Ivan Lopez, who took his own life. Four of those shot remain in hospitals, officials said.

Obama praised Ferguson for keeping the gunman from pushing into a room where others could have been killed. "Danny held the door shut, saving the lives of others while sacrificing his own," he said. Owens was known for counseling fellow soldiers, the president said, and "gave his life walking toward the gunman, trying to calm him down."

Obama was the only speaker to mention that four soldiers were lost, including Lopez. As the president finished an address in which he repeated the phrase "love never ends," one soldier in the audience brushed away tears. The president exited the stage with his head down.

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Obama Offers Solace to Nation at Fort Hood

In a concerted election-year push to draw attention to women's wages, President Barack Obama signed directives Tuesday to make it easier for workers of federal contractors to get information about workplace compensation. He seasoned his move with a sharp rebuke of Republicans whom he accused of "gumming up the works" on workplace fairness.

Obama made a clear partisan appeal to women as he issued an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay. He also directed the Labor Department to write rules requiring federal contractors to provide compensation data by race and gender.

"This is about Republicans seemingly opposing any efforts to even the playing field for working families," Obama said at a White House signing ceremony, surrounded by women advocates and accompanied by Lilly Ledbetter, a woman whose namesake legislation on pay equity was the first bill Obama signed into law in 2009.

Obama's actions focused exclusively on federal contractors but they dovetailed with the start of Senate debate on broader legislation to make it easier for workers to sue any company for paying women less because of their gender. That legislation is expected to fail, as it has in the past, due to Republican opposition.

The Senate legislation, like Obama's narrower executive order, would forbid companies from punishing workers who share salary information and would allow punitive and compensatory damages in lawsuits. It would make it harder for companies to prove disparities in pay are not gender based and would make it easier to file class action lawsuits.

Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska said she would offer an amendment to narrow the measure, mostly by banning employer retaliation against workers who share salary information. She and several other Republican senators said they would likely vote to block debate on the overall bill on Wednesday unless Democrats allow votes on GOP amendments.

Fischer said the Democratic bill would harm merit pay, allow unlimited damage claims in lawsuits against employers, and hinder people from accepting lower pay in exchange for more flexible work hours.

Nearly a dozen Democratic women senators took to the chamber's floor Tuesday to support the legislation.

"We believe that women need a fair shot to get equal pay for equal work," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the measure's sponsor. "And we want it in our law books and we want it in our checkbooks."

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate's No. 3 Democratic leader, said equalizing pay for men and women was a popular issue and warned Republicans opposing the measure, "We're going to come back to this issue several times this year."

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Obama Signs Actions Taking Aim at Gender Pay Gap

President Barack Obama's aunt Zeituni Onyango, who was denied asylum in the United States but stayed illegally for years, died Tuesday at age 61.

Onyango, whose immigration status was reported by The Associated Press days before Obama's election in 2008, had been treated in recent months for cancer and respiratory problems, Cleveland attorney Margaret Wong said. She died in a Boston rehabilitation center, said Wong, who represented her in her immigration case.

Onyango, a half-sister of Obama's late father, moved from Kenya to the U.S. in 2000 and was denied asylum by an immigration judge in 2004. She remained in the country illegally, living in Boston public housing.

She finally was granted asylum in 2010 by a judge who said she could be in danger if she returned to Kenya because of her relationship with Obama.

Onyango was born in Kenya in May 1952 under a mango tree and was delivered by a midwife, Wong said. She raised a family in Kenya and worked in the computer department of Kenya Breweries, she said.

"She was an awesome, funny, shrewd, smart lady born at the wrong place at the wrong time," Wong said. "If she was only born in America or born in more Western open society instead of being bogged down by tribes, lineage and being a woman in Kenya, she could have been anything she wanted to be."

Wong said Onyango had become ill in January and died early Tuesday morning in her sleep.

The White House, which had no immediate reaction to Onyango's death on Tuesday, had said previously that Obama did not intervene in her immigration case.

Obama, in his memoir "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," affectionately referred to Onyango as Auntie Zeituni and described meeting her during his 1988 trip to Kenya. She helped care for his half-brothers and sister while living with his father, Barack Obama Sr., in Kenya.

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Obama Aunt Who Stayed in US Illegally Dies at 61

Apr 8, 2014 1:38pm

With midterm elections on the horizon, President Obama today took aim at the countrys persistent gender wage gap an issue Democrats see as key to winning-over women voters.

Obama signed an executive order that forces federal contractors to allow employees to discuss their pay with each other. He also signed a presidential memorandum requiring contractors to report pay data based on sex and race to the Labor Department. White House officials said both actions will encourage transparency.

(Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

Pay secrecy fosters discrimination, and we should not tolerate it, not in federal contracting or anywhere else, Obama said.

There are great employers out there who do the right thing, and there are plenty of employers out there who are absolutely certain that theres no pay discrimination happening in their offices, but then sometimes when the datas laid out, it paints a different picture, Obama said. We want to encourage them to fix these problems, if they exist, by making sure that the datas out there.

The latest U.S. Census statistics show that, on average, full-time working women earn 77 cents to every dollar earned by men nationwide a gap that has held fairly steady during Obamas presidency.

By other measures, such as comparing men and women in a single type of job or accounting for factors like education and family status, the pay gap is much smaller.

While secrecy has been a factor in some pay discrimination, experts say the biggest culprit behind the 77-cent figure is a broader social disparity between women and men in the roles they assume types of occupations they pursue and income levels they achieve in certain professional fields.

The dynamic is even evident on the White House staff where, according to a recent study by the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute whose findings are not disputed by the White House, women earn on average 88 cents to the dollar men make. Administration officials have say women happen to hold more lower-paying jobs in the administration, but deny a disparity in pay for the same work. All federal salaries are public information, and men and women performing the same jobs are paid exactly the same.

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Obama Vows Zero Tolerance on Gender Wage Gap

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Check out the full version of a new animation on Howard TV called #39;Wanda Obama #39; made by animator Sam Chen. . howard stern ,howard stern 2014,howard ste...

By: ali cancan

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HOWARD STERN: A cool new animation called 'Wanda & Obama' - Video