Behind the scenes, the White House readied a campaign-style effort to get healthy young people to sign up for the insurance "exchanges" in order to keep premium costs from skyrocketing. On Capitol Hill, House Republicans are planning yet another vote to try to try to repeal the law.

The insurance exchanges are the centerpiece of the landmark overhaul of the nation's health insurance system and the White House mobilization is crucial to the success of the health care law and, by extension, to Obama's place in history as the first president in decades to expand health care coverage.

"There's a lot that this law is already doing for Americans with insurance," Obama said during a Mother's Day-themed event at the White House. "There's a lot more that's going to happen for folks who don't have insurance."

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The president will specifically target women and young people, groups that backed him overwhelmingly during his presidential campaigns. During a Mother's Day-themed event at the White House on Friday, Obama will promote the benefits of the law for women, including free cancer screenings and contraceptives, and ask moms to urge their uninsured adult children to sign up for the health insurance "exchanges" that open this fall.

The exchanges are the centerpiece of the landmark overhaul of the nation's health insurance system. Three years after it became law, the measure widely known as "Obamacare" remains controversial, with GOP lawmakers resolving anew to overturn it and many Americans unsure how they'll be affected.

White House advisers acknowledge they struggled in explaining the complex law to the public when it passed in 2010. Now, with the final components being implemented, Obama allies see a fresh opportunity to sell the American people on the merits of measures that will be central to the president's legacy.

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In a White House news conference, Obama appealed for patience, saying he needs more conclusive evidence about how and when chemical weapons detected by U.S. intelligence agencies were used and who deployed them. If those questions can be answered, Obama said he would consider potential actions the Pentagon and intelligence community have readied for him in the event Syria has crossed his chemical weapons "red line."

"There are options that are available to me that are on the shelf right now that we have not deployed," he told reporters packed into the White House briefing room. Those options include setting up a protective "no-fly zone" over Syria, creating a humanitarian corridor at the Turkish border or providing weapons directly to the rebels.

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The information, which has been known to the administration and some members of Congress for weeks, isn't solid enough to warrant quick U.S. involvement in the 2-year-old conflict, the White House said. Officials said the assessments were made with "varying degrees of confidence" given the difficulty of information gathering in Syria, though there appeared to be little question within the intelligence community.

As recently as Tuesday, when an Israeli general added to the growing chorus that Assad had used chemical weapons, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration was continuing to monitor and investigate but had "not come to the conclusion that there has been that use."

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However, officials also said more definitive proof was needed and the U.S. was not ready to escalate its involvement in Syria. That response appeared to be an effort to bide time, given President Barack Obama's repeated public assertions that Syria's use of chemical weapons, or the transfer of its stockpiles to a terrorist group, would cross a "red line."

The White House disclosed the new intelligence Thursday in letters to two senators, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, traveling in Abu Dhabi, also discussed it with reporters.

"Our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin," the White House said in its letter, which was signed by Obama's legislative director, Miguel Rodriguez.

Shortly after the letters was made public, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Capitol Hill that there were two instances of chemical weapons use.

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Americans also will be looking to the president to offer reassurances about the nation's safety as investigators scramble to answer key questions about an attack with origins that are yet unknown.

The president was to speak Thursday at an interfaith service in Boston honoring the three people killed and 170 injured when a pair of bombs ripped through the crowd gathered Monday afternoon near the finish line of the famous race. Investigators have an image of a potential suspect, though much about what happened remains a mystery, keeping tensions high in Boston and elsewhere around the country.

Compounding the nation's jitters were letters sent to Washington officials that contained suspicious substances, including ones addressed to Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., that showed traces of poisonous ricin in initial tests. The letters evoked eerie parallels to the anthrax attacks that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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In his second public statement in less than 24 hours since the explosions, the president said, "Clearly we are at the beginning of our investigation." He urged anyone with information relating to the events to contact authorities.

Obama said investigators "don't have a sense of motivation yet" as they begin to evaluate the attack in which three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy, and more than 170 were wounded.

Despite the loss of life and limb, Obama declared, "The American people refuse to be terrorized."

As he had on Monday, he said those responsible for the attacks would be brought to justice.

The president had avoided labeling the incident a terrorist attack when he stood at the same White House lectern shortly after the explosions, but lawmakers quickly said that's what it was. White House officials had said the FBI was investigating the attack as a terror incident.

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Speaking from the White House just three hours after the explosions, Obama was cautious in his remarks, stopping short of calling the incident an act of terror.

Obama said the explosions were the act of an individual or group, but vowed to hold those responsible accountable.

"We will find out who did this. We'll find out why they did this," Obama said in his brief, three-minute statement. "Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice."

The White House official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

The president said the government would increase security around the United States "as necessary" but did not say whether his administration thought the incident was part of a larger plot.

Obama did not offer specific details on deaths or injuries, saying only that multiple people had been wounded, some of them gravely.

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After a visit to Israel's national museum - where he inspected the Dead Sea Scrolls, which highlight the Jewish people's ancient connection to the land that is now Israel - Obama headed to the West Bank to tell the Palestinians that the creation of a Palestinian state remains a priority for his administration.

He is not bringing a new plan to relaunch peace talks, but in meetings with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and a speech to Israeli students later in the day, he will appeal to both sides to halt unilateral actions that make negotiations more difficult.

Those troublesome actions include continued construction of Jewish housing settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians and repeated Palestinian efforts to achieve recognition at the United Nations in the absence of a peace agreement.

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Obama arrived Wednesday in Tel Aviv, joking to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he was "getting away from Congress."

Israeli President Shimon Peres welcomed Obama, declaring that "A world without America's leadership, without her moral voice, would be a darker world. A world without your friendship, would invite aggression against Israel."

Obama called the U.S. Israel's "strongest ally and your greatest friend."

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Gay rights supporters are pressing the administration to file a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to overturn California's gay marriage ban. Obama is not required to file a brief, though he raised expectations in his second inaugural address when he declared that gays and lesbians must be "treated like anyone else under the law."

An administration brief would not be legally binding. But it could offer the clearest insight into Obama's views on gay marriage, which he supports but has said should be governed by the states.

Ahead of Thursday's deadline, dozens of prominent Republicans signed a friend of the court brief asking the justices to declare California's Proposition 8 ballot measure unconstitutional. Among them are former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman and Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

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President Barack Obama raised expectations among opponents of the Proposition 8 ban when he declared last month in his inaugural address that gays and lesbians must be "treated like anyone else under the law." The administration has until Feb. 28 to intervene by filing a "friend of the court" brief.

California voters approved the ballot initiative in 2008. It overturned a state Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage.

Twenty-nine other states have constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, while nine states and Washington, D.C., recognize same-sex marriages.

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"We didn't complete the journey, but we'll get there," Kennedy wrote in 2007 following the collapse of bipartisan efforts to overhaul the nation's fractured immigration system.

For Munoz, a veteran of that fight and many earlier ones, completing the journey has never felt more possible. As head of the White House Domestic Policy Council, it's Munoz leading Obama's effort to break through years of partisan gridlock and provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of people living illegally in the United States.

"There is a definite lift in her step," said Valerie Jarrett, Obama's senior adviser. "But she's not taking anything for granted."

Sharp shifts in the political landscape have put an immigration overhaul tantalizingly close for Munoz and the president. Hispanics made up 10 percent of the electorate in the November election, and Obama won two-thirds of their votes, in part because of the conservative immigration positions staked out by Republicans during their nominating contest.

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Obama will pitch his proposals to stem gun violence Monday in Minnesota, a Democratic-leaning state where officials have been studying ways to reduce gun-related attacks and accidents for several years. His visit to the Minneapolis Police Department's Special Operations Center will mark the first time Obama has campaigned on his controversial proposals outside of Washington.

Ahead of the trip, the White House released a photo of the president skeet shooting at Camp David, the presidential retreat. Obama cited skeet shooting when asked in a recent interview whether he had ever shot a gun.

The president unveiled his sweeping package of proposals for curbing gun violence last month in response to the horrific mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He vowed to use the full weight of his office to fight for the proposals, many of which face tough opposition from congressional lawmakers and the powerful National Rifle Association.

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Salazar has run the Interior Department throughout President Barack Obama's first term. Before joining the Cabinet, he served as a senator from Colorado. Salazar began his tenure with a pledge to help reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. He told his confirmation hearing he would seek to expand renewable energy on public lands and promote the "wise use" of traditional energy sources.

He is the latest Cabinet secretary to leave the administration as Obama heads into his second term. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis are also leaving.

The administration official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement of Salazar's departure has not been made.

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Vice President Joe Biden, wrapping up three days of wide-ranging talks on gun violence prevention, said the meeting was an effort to understand whether the U.S. was undergoing a "coarsening of our culture."

"I come to this meeting with no judgment. You all know the judgments other people have made," Biden said at the opening of a two-hour discussion. "We're looking for help."

The gaming industry says that violent crime, particularly among the young, has fallen since the early 1990s while video games have increased in popularity.

There are conflicting studies on the impact of video games and other screen violence. Some conclude that video games can desensitize people to real-world violence or temporarily quiet part of the brain that governs impulse control. Other studies have concluded there is no lasting effect.

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Obama, appearing in the East Room of the White House with Karzai at his side, said accelerating the transition to Afghan security control this spring would set the stage for further withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces, although he did not say how quickly a U.S. drawdown would be carried out this year and next. There are now 66,000 U.S. troops there.

"Starting this spring, our troops will have a different mission: training, advising and assisting Afghan forces," Obama said. "It will be a historic moment."

He added later that even in a backup role he could not rule out that U.S. troops could be drawn into combat. But he emphasized that their main role would be support, such as training and advising.

Karzai said he was pleased by the agreement, in part because it means that by spring there will be no foreign troops in Afghan villages.

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Biden is scheduled to meet with video game representatives Friday as the White House explores cultural factors that may contribute to violent behavior.

The vice president, who is leading a task force that will present recommendations to President Barack Obama on Tuesday, met with other representatives from the entertainment industry, including Comcast Corp. and the Motion Picture Association of America, on Thursday.

Friday's meeting comes a day after the National Rifle Association rejected Obama administration proposals to limit high-capacity ammunition magazines and dug in on its opposition to an assault weapons ban, which Obama has previously said he will propose to Congress. The NRA was one of the pro-gun rights groups that met with Biden during the day.

NRA president David Keene, asked Friday if the NRA has enough support in Congress to fend off legislation to ban sales of assault weapons, indicated it does. "I do not think that there's going to be a ban on so-called assault weapons passed by the Congress," he said on NBC's "Today."

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Hagel, even before being nominated, has faced tough criticism from congressional Republicans who say the former GOP senator is anti-Israel and soft on Iran. And Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran, withdrew from consideration for the spy agency's top job in 2008 amid questions about his connection to harsh interrogation techniques used during the George W. Bush administration.

Administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Obama will announce both nominations at a White House event Monday afternoon. Along with secretary of state nominee Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Hagel and Brennan would play key roles implementing and shaping Obama's national security priorities in a second term. All three men must be confirmed by the Senate.

In nominating Hagel, Obama signaled he is willing to take on a tough confirmation fight. Once Hagel emerged as Obama's likely nominee, GOP lawmakers began sharply questioning his commitment to Israel and his willingness to take a hard line with Iran over its disputed nuclear program.

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Kerry's nomination marks Obama's first move in a sweeping overhaul of his national security team heading into a second term.

If confirmed, Kerry will take the helm at the State Department from outgoing Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Massachusetts senator is expected to be easily approved for the Cabinet post by his longtime Capitol Hill colleagues.

Kerry leapt to the front of Obama's list for the State Department job after U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration last week.

The official requested anonymity in order to discuss the announcement ahead of Obama.

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