SAN FRANCISCO – Deep inside millions of computers is a digital Fort Knox, a special chip with the locks to highly guarded secrets, including classified government reports and confidential business plans. Now a former U.S. Army computer-security specialist has devised a way to break those locks.

The attack can force heavily secured computers to spill documents that likely were presumed to be safe. This discovery shows one way that spies and other richly financed attackers can acquire military and trade secrets, and comes as worries about state-sponsored computer espionage intensify, underscored by recent hacking attacks on Google Inc.

The new attack discovered by Christopher Tarnovsky is difficult to pull off, partly because it requires physical access to a computer. But laptops and smart phones get lost and stolen all the time. And the data that the most dangerous computer criminals would seek likely would be worth the expense of an elaborate espionage operation.

Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat security conference and a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's advisory council, called Tarnovsky's finding "amazing."

WASHINGTON – Shock and awe. That's what survivors of the Clinton-era health care collapse are feeling as President Barack Obama's overhaul legislation wobbles in Congress.

Aides who shaped Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's 1990s plan to cover all Americans, then labored in vain to pass it into law, are adamant that the Democrats can't afford another health care disaster. But they're divided on whether scaling down Obama's plan would be an acceptable solution.

The Clintonistas — now in think tanks, universities, serving in the Obama administration or lobbying — are a potent voice in the furious debate within the Democratic Party over how to salvage health care. Listened to because they're the veterans of the last health care policy war, they carry the scars of intense striving reduced to utter futility.

"If Bill Clinton couldn't get it done, and Barack Obama can't do it, no Democrat will ever try again," said economist Len Nichols, health policy director at the New America Foundation. A Clinton White House health budget aide, Nichols has been operating as an unofficial adviser to lawmakers and administration officials wrestling with details of the current legislation.

NEW ORLEANS – Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu has been elected mayor of New Orleans, replacing term-limited Ray Nagin and becoming the majority-black city's first white mayor since 1979.

Landrieu is a 49-year-old moderate Democrat who won Saturday in a landslide over a field of 10 opponents in a campaign that focused on the city's slow recovery from Hurricane Katrina, violent crime and slumping city finances. The city's last white mayor was Landrieu's father, Moon Landrieu.

Voting came amid Carnival celebrations and preparations for Sunday's New Orleans Saints' appearance in the Super Bowl.

As returns came in, jubilation spread through the Landrieu headquarters in a hotel ballroom — festooned with black and gold balloons in a nod to the Saints. A brass band played Mardi Gras music and meandered through the room.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama told fellow Democrats on Saturday this is no time to "lick our wounds and try to hang on" and vowed instead to press ahead with financial regulatory and healthcare reforms.

With his legislative agenda in limbo, Obama sought to rally Democratic activists still reeling from the loss of a pivotal Senate seat last month and now scrambling to head off a Republican challenge in the November congressional elections.

Obama came out swinging at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee, accusing Republicans of caring more about "scoring political points" than solving the country's pressing problems like high unemployment.

But Obama presented no new ideas on how the Democrats could overcome obstacles that have stalled his domestic priorities.

WASHINGTON – A blizzard battered the Mid-Atlantic region Saturday, with emergency crews struggling to keep pace with the heavy, wet snow that has piled up on roadways, toppled trees and left thousands without electricity.

Officials urged people to huddle at home and out of the way of emergency crews. Forecasters said the storm could be the biggest for the nation's capital in modern history.

A record 2 1/2 feet or more was predicted for Washington. As of early Saturday, 10 inches of snow was reported at the White House, while parts of Maryland and West Virginia were buried under more than 20 inches. Forecasters expected snowfall rates to increase, up to 2 inches per hour through Saturday morning.

Blizzard warnings were issued for the District of Columbia, Baltimore, parts of New Jersey and Delaware, and some areas west of the Chesapeake Bay..

The American Red Cross is accepting donations through their International Response Fund. Donations can be sent to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington D.C. 20013 or made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or online at www.redcross.org