A new $12 million television ad campaign from Mayors Against Illegal Guns will push senators in key states to back gun control efforts, including comprehensive background checks.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the ad buy Saturday — just days after Senate Democrats touted stronger background checks while acknowledging insufficient support to restore a ban on assault-style weapons to federal gun control legislation.

"These ads bring the voices of Americans — who overwhelmingly support comprehensive and enforceable background checks — into the discussion to move senators to immediately take action to prevent gun violence," Bloomberg said in a statement issued by the group he co-founded in 2006.

The two ads posted on the group's website, called "Responsible" and "Family," show a gun owner holding a rifle while sitting on the back of a pickup truck.

In one ad, the man says he'll defend the Second Amendment but adds "with rights come responsibilities." The ad then urges viewers to tell Congress to support background checks.

In the other ad, the man, a hunter, says "background checks have nothing to do with taking guns away from anyone." The man then says closing loopholes will stop criminals and the mentally ill from obtaining weapons.

The Senate is scheduled to debate federal gun control legislation next month. On March 28, the group plans for more than 100 events nationwide in support of passing gun control legislation that includes background checks.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns and other gun-control advocates frequently cite a mid-1990s study that suggests about 40 percent of U.S. gun transfers were conducted by private sellers not subject to federal background checks. Based on 2011 FBI data, the group estimates 6.6 million firearms transfers are made without a background check for the receiver.

A spokesman for Bloomberg could not immediately say if the $12 million was coming from Bloomberg or the mayor's political action committee, Independence USA. The New York Times, which first reported the ad campaign Saturday night, said Bloomberg was bankrolling the ad buy.

A spokesman for the National Rifle Association blasted Bloomberg and the new ads, saying NRA members and supporters would be calling senators directly and urging them to vote against proposed gun control legislation.

"What Michael Bloomberg is trying to do is ... intimidate senators into not listening to constituents and instead pledge their allegiance to him and his money," said spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.

 A New York City man whose murder conviction was overturned after 23 years in prison has suffered a heart attack on his second day of freedom.

David Ranta's lawyer tells The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/102uUVo ) the former inmate had a serious heart attack Friday night and is being treated at a New York hospital.

Ranta walked out of jail Thursday after a judge threw out his conviction in the 1990 killing of a Brooklyn rabbi.

Brooklyn prosecutors had recently concluded Ranta's prosecution in the death of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger was fatally flawed.

Werzberger was killed by a bandit fleeing a botched robbery. One witness said a police lineup that helped convict Ranta had been rigged.

Ranta is 58. He told reporters Thursday that his new freedom was emotionally overwhelming.

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Information from: The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com

Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival 2012 - Vanessa Hudgens

 Remember the CNN broadcast a few days ago, when Candy Crowley and friends bemoaned the fates of the Steubenville rapists? That didn't go over well, and nearly a quarter million people want the network to do something about it. In the two days since the verdict was read, a Change.org petition asking for CNN to make an on-air apology — okay, several on-air apologies —  has gained over 215,000 signatures and looked to be on track to reach the self-assigned goal of 300,000 in a matter of hours. In other words, a lot of people are not happy with how CNN covered the Steubenville trial, and they're not going to forget about it any time soon.

If you're just catching up on CNN's Steubenville coverage, you've come to the right place. We've been following the Steubenville rape case closely for a months now and know all too well how divisive its been. The trial and immediate (and ongoing) aftermath turned nothing short of nasty at times, which is precisely why many news organization handled the verdict with kid gloves. The formula for fair coverage was pretty simple. Step one: stick to the facts. Step two: don't sympathize with convicted rapists. Step three: definitely, absolutely, don't even think about revealing the identity of the victim on national television.

As we pointed out the night of the verdict on Sunday, CNN didn't do so well with those simple steps. Fact-wise, few had complaints about CNN telling the truth. It was how they told it that's stirred nationwide anger. In correspondent Poppy Harlow's report from Steubenville (above), she waxed compassionate in speaking about how the convicted rapists "that had promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart." The whole segment more or less follows that vein of reasoning with the other two on-air personalities saying similar things, and the Internet was not happy about that. Then CNN revealed the name of the victim on air, with MSNBC and Fox News to follow.

So now people want CNN to formally apologize. A lot of people want this. The petition's stated request — "apologize on-air, several times over the course of the next week, at the start of every hour" — is a little extreme. At a basic level, however, it's hard to understand why CNN wouldn't feel compelled to address the backlash. Then again, CNN doesn't do everything right, well, ever.

With a report in the New York Times today confirming the network has promised Jimmy Fallon that he will succeed Jay Leno as the next host of the iconic late-night program, fans of talk-show intrigue will doubtless tune in to see if Leno has a reaction tonight.

Though we’re told the host did not directly address the Fallon news in Wednesday’s taping, he did once again take a shot at NBC’s low ratings. “According to several reports, scientists say they are getting closer and closer to being able to do Jurassic Park-style cloning of extinct species,” Leno told his audience. “Imagine that. Things that were once thought to be extinct could be brought back from the dead. So there’s hope for NBC. It could turn around.”

On Monday, he compared his NBC bosses to “snakes.” While on Tuesday night, he took a swipe at the ratings.  Guests tonight include Vanessa Hudgens and Chris O’Dowd with musical guest Gary Clark Jr.

NBC plans to move The Tonight Show from Burbank, Calif. to New York, where Fallon currently tapes his Late Night show. There is also talk of Tonight returning to a 90-minute format. It’s unclear when an official announcement will take place (NBC “categorically” denied an initial report about the decision). For now, NBC is only confirming that it is building a brand new set for Fallon.

 No one knows better than Alex and Donna Voutsinas that it’s a small world after all.

Thirty years ago, when they lived in separate countries long before they met and married, a family shot of little Donna at Walt Disney World captured Alex in a stroller in the background.

“It just blew our minds when we realized,” Alex Voutsinas, a 32-year-old transplanted Montrealer told the Star Thursday from south Florida.

That fateful realization came just one week before their wedding eight years ago. Alex and Donna had been going through old family snapshots. There, in the blurry background of a picture of 5-year-old Donna was 3-year-old Alex being pushed down Main Street at the same moment in 1980 by his father. The senior Voutsinas’s distinctive jet-black hair with its white tuft caught his eye.

“My mother pulled out albums from the same trip. My dad is wearing exactly the same outfit.”

Other pictures from that trip showed Alex on his dad’s shoulders. The boy in the background of Donna’s picture and the boy in those pictures were the same.

A blow-up of the famous frame hangs on their living room wall in Boynton Beach, Fla., but Alex’s mother keeps the original in a safe.

“It’s like gold to her.”

It wasn’t until the couple joined Facebook recently and posted the picture that the world got wind of the staggering twist of fate with which they’d entertained family and friends for years.

Alex, who is a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen, and his family of hoteliers had moved to Florida when he was 10.

He and Donna met 15 years ago when they worked at the same hotel in Boca Raton shortly after she’d moved south from Long Island, N.Y. They dated for six years, married and had three sons, who they take to Disney World regularly.

“We’ve taken pictures of the kids,” he said, “and they say they’re looking for their future wives in the background.”