Oath

Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel took the oath of office Monday to become Chicago's 46th mayor, and then laid out the challenges ahead: improving schools, ending gun violence and downsizing a city government taxpayers can no longer afford. He asked Chicagoans, the City Council and the business community to help him. "Our problems are large, but so is our capacity to solve them -- only if all those who profess a love for this City of Big Shoulders are willing to bear the responsibility for keeping it strong," Emanuel told a crowd of several thousand at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.

A federal prosecutor told jurors in the Barry Bonds perjury trial Thursday that the former San Francisco Giant lied under oath to protect a "powerful secret," but Bonds' lawyers countered that the government relentlessly pursued the home run king because he refused to be intimidated and "subservient. " After several hours of closing arguments, a jury of eight women and four men received the case. Jurors met briefly and then decided to return for deliberations at 8:30 a.m. Friday.

Reporting from San Francisco -- Attorneys for former Giants slugger Barry Bonds rested Wednesday without calling a single witness, clearing the way for jurors to start deliberating whether baseball's all-time home run king lied under oath when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, with the support of the prosecution, dropped one of five felony counts against Bonds because of a lack of evidence. Bonds, 46, now faces a charge of obstruction of justice and three counts of lying under oath in his testimony before a grand jury in December 2003.

A day after conducting the first-ever reading of the U.S. Constitution on the House floor, the chamber's lawmakers voted Friday to clean up a procedural mess caused by two Republicans who violated the Constitution on their first day in the new Congress. A series of early votes cast by Reps. Pete Sessions of Texas and Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania will be scratched from the record, according to the resolution passed Friday morning on a largely party-line vote. Other actions, including the convening of a committee to consider the bill to repeal the healthcare law, will stand.

Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. was sworn in as California's 39th governor Monday ? 36 years after first taking the same oath ? warning of shared sacrifice and hard choices ahead to help the state out of its financial crisis. Striking a serious tone but with a strong undercurrent of optimism, Brown read, uncharacteristically, from prepared remarks. In a 17-minute address, the Democrat spoke of the coming austerity and of overcoming adversity. But he also said he hoped to restore people's faith in government.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a wide-ranging investigation of Bell's sale of more than $70 million in bond issues, the latest agency to probe the scandal-plagued city. The investigation comes after state auditors last month were highly critical over how the bond money was being used in Bell, including funds involving a sports park that has yet to be built. Among the documents the federal agency has requested are those involving nine current and former Bell leaders, the firm that audited the city's financial statements and underwriters and financial advisors in the bond sales, according to the subpoena, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.

The Israeli government moved Sunday to adopt a controversial loyalty oath that would require Palestinians and other non-Jewish prospective citizens to swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state. " Supporters said the proposed amendment to Israel's citizenship law, approved Sunday by the Cabinet and expected to be adopted by the Knesset, would strengthen Israel's identity as the homeland of the Jewish people. But critics called the measure anti-democratic and discriminatory because it would not apply to Jewish immigrants seeking Israeli citizenship and it appeared to be chiefly aimed at Palestinians applying for Israeli citizenship after marrying Arab Israelis.

A federal grand jury Thursday indicted former baseball pitching ace Roger Clemens on charges of lying to Congress when he repeatedly denied under oath that he had used anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. According to the indictment, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner "well knew" that he was trying to hide the truth from a House oversight committee in 2008 when he said: "Let me be clear. I have never taken steroids or HGH" — human growth hormone, another banned drug.

Elena Kagan was sworn in as the 112th justice of the Supreme Court on Saturday, opening the first era in U.S. history with three women serving on the nation's premier judicial bench. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. administered the oath at the Supreme Court just two days after the Senate's 63-37 vote Thursday to confirm her nomination and one day after President Obama hosted a White House reception in Kagan's honor. She is not expected to dramatically change the ideological balance of the court because she replaces retired Justice John Paul Stevens, a fellow liberal jurist.