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WASHINGTON (AP) — A Virginia man suspected of shooting and wounding a security guard at the Washington headquarters of a social conservative lobbying group on Wednesday made a negative reference about the organization's work before opening fire, a law enforcement official said.

Police said the man, identified as Floyd Lee Corkins II, entered the front lobby of the Family Research Council in downtown Washington around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, began arguing with a security guard and then shot him in the arm. Corkins, 28, was restrained by the wounded guard and others and was being held Wednesday night on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, the FBI said.

Authorities were interviewing Corkins to determine a reason for the shooting and were canvassing his neighborhood in Herndon, Va., outside Washington. TV news footage showed the suspect, a large man with a shaved head in an unbuttoned striped shirt, being led to a car in hand restraints.

Though authorities did not publicly reveal a motive, advocacy groups across the ideological spectrum condemned the violence, with some casting it as a hate crime. President Barack Obama was concerned about the wellbeing of the guard, a White House spokesman said, and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also said he was appalled.

"Today's attack is the clearest sign we've seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as 'hateful' must end," Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, said in a statement.

The Family Research Council, headquartered in a busy downtown tourist district, strongly opposes gay marriage and abortion and says it advocates "faith, family and freedom in public policy and public opinion." The conservative group maintains a powerful lobbying presence on those causes, testifying before Congress and reviewing legislation. Its president, Tony Perkins, said the group's main concern was with the wounded guard.

Corkins who had been volunteering recently at a community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, made a negative comment about the organization's activity before the shooting, but the reference was not specific, one of the law enforcement officials said. Two law enforcement officials said Corkins was carrying sandwiches from Chick-fil-A, a fast-food chain whose president's opposition to same sex marriage recently placed the restaurant at the center of a national cultural debate.

James McJunkin, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office, said soon after the shooting that authorities didn't yet know enough about the gunman and his state to mind to know what inspired the attack.

The guard, Leo Johnson, was conscious and breathing after the shooting and was being interviewed and treated at a hospital. Authorities credited him for thwarting a shooting they said could have been much worse.

"The security guard here is a hero, as far as I'm concerned," said D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier.

Corkins had been volunteering for about the past six months at The DC Center for the LGBT Community, said David Mariner, executive director of the community center, which is in Northwest Washington. He usually staffed the center's front desk on Saturdays, and his most recent shift was about two weeks ago.

"He always struck me as a kind, gentle and unassuming young man. I'm very surprised that he could be involved in something like this," Mariner said.

Authorities seized Corkins' car at a northern Virginia Metro station, and were going door-to-door speaking with neighbors, several of whom spoke highly of the family.

"They were always so sweet and so nice," said Stephanie Meyer, who lives a few doors down. "They are awesome people. We never had any issues."

According to a U.S. Defense Department official, Corkins is not a member of the Air Force, but he may have lived at Andrews Air Force base in some other capacity in the past, possibly as a dependent or family member.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to provide personal information.

Amy Biondi and her husband Steve were visiting Washington from Long Island with their daughter and a friend and tried to ask officers for help with a parking meter when they were told there was a situation they had to deal with. The door to the FRC was opened, and an officer could be heard repeatedly shouting, "Put the gun down, put the gun down."

"Next thing you know there are police officers swarming the area," said Biondi, 45, a massage therapist from St. James, N.Y.

The family didn't get a close look inside, but they said the man that officers were talking to seemed to comply immediately.

Groups aligned with conservative causes lambasted the shooting, but so did a coalition of more than two dozen organizations promoting gay, lesbian and transgender rights, which said it rejected and condemned the attack.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president, who was traveling in Iowa Wednesday, was informed of the shooting shortly after 1 p.m.

"The president expressed his concern for the individual injured in the shooting and his strong belief that this type of violence has no place in our society," Carney said.

Romney said in a statement that he was appalled. "There is no place for such violence in our society," he said. "My prayers go out to the wounded security guard and his family, as well as all the people at the Family Research Council whose sense of security has been shattered by today's horrific events."

The headquarters of the FRC is in the city's bustling Chinatown neighborhood, near the Verizon Center, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and several museums, restaurants and shops.

In the past month, the FRC had forcefully defended Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy for his remarks in opposition to gay marriage, which brought the fast-food chain to the forefront of the nation's culture wars.

Mariner said he did not know Corkins well or have any conversations with him about the Chick-fil-A controversy or other political issues of interest to the gay community.

"I really only talked to him about volunteering, so I couldn't say anything about anything else," Mariner said.

Associated Press writers Ben Nuckols and Lolita Baldor in Washington and Matthew Barakat in Herndon, Va., contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of a conservative lobbying group where a security guard was shot is calling for an end to "reckless rhetoric" he blames for the attack.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins says the suspect was "given a license" to shoot an unarmed man by organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center. The center describes the council as a hate group and says it defames gays and lesbian.

The suspect, Floyd Lee Corkins II, is charged with assault with intent to kill and bringing firearms across state lines. Authorities say he walked into the council's lobby Wednesday and criticized its politics before shooting and wounding the guard.

Corkins appeared Thursday in federal court. A judge ordered him held without bond.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats controlling the Senate pressed Monday for an immediate infusion of money to repair the iconic dome of the U.S. Capitol, which has fallen into disrepair and has at least 1,300 cracks in it.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., says $61 million to fix the leaky Capitol Dome should be added to an upcoming stopgap spending bill to keep the government running into next year. That measure generally won't contain money for new initiatives and will instead freeze spending at current levels for almost every government program.

Schumer's statement came in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., are negotiating through staff aides on the stopgap funding measure, which is needed to avert a partial shutdown of the government when the current budget year ends on Sept. 30.

Schumer says it would be a "national embarrassment" for the dome to continue to decay and that the money is needed to patch leaks that threaten its fresco and prevent passersby from being hit by ornamental fixtures that have been loosened by the elements.

"There is a time and a place to debate federal spending and the proper role of government, but most Americans believe that when your house has a leaky roof, you pay to fix the roof," Schumer said. "Postponing these repairs by another six months will only increase the project's price tag down the road."

Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith responded: "The Speaker is confident we can work together to fix the Capitol Dome without more political posturing from Senator Schumer."

The project would ordinarily be funded in the annual $4 billion-plus spending bill that sets Capitol Hill's budget. But the House-passed measure doesn't include funding for the project, while the Senate measure, which does contain the money, hasn't been called up for a vote.

NEW YORK (AP) — Millions of people from Maine to the Carolinas awoke Tuesday without electricity, and an eerily quiet New York City was all but closed off by car, train and air as superstorm Sandy steamed inland, still delivering punishing wind and rain. The U.S. death toll climbed to 38, many of the victims killed by falling trees.

The full extent of the damage in New Jersey, where the storm roared ashore Monday night with hurricane-force winds of 80 mph, was unclear. Police and fire officials, some with their own departments flooded, fanned out to rescue hundreds.

"We are in the midst of urban search and rescue. Our teams are moving as fast as they can," Gov. Chris Christie said. "The devastation on the Jersey Shore is some of the worst we've ever seen. The cost of the storm is incalculable at this point."

More than 8.2 million people across the East were without power. Airlines canceled more than 15,000 flights around the world, and it could be days before the mess is untangled and passengers can get where they're going.

The storm also disrupted the presidential campaign with just a week to go before Election Day.

President Barack Obama canceled a third straight day of campaigning, scratching events scheduled for Wednesday in swing state Ohio. Republican Mitt Romney resumed his campaign, but with plans to turn a political rally in Ohio into a "storm relief event."

Sandy will end up causing about $20 billion in property damage and $10 billion to $30 billion more in lost business, making it one of the costliest natural disasters on record in the U.S., according to IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm.

Lower Manhattan, which includes Wall Street, was among the hardest-hit areas after the storm sent a nearly 14-foot surge of seawater, a record, coursing over its seawalls and highways.

Water cascaded into the gaping, unfinished construction pit at the World Trade Center, and the New York Stock Exchange was closed for a second day, the first time that has happened because of weather since the Blizzard of 1888. The NYSE said it will reopen on Wednesday.

A huge fire destroyed as many as 100 houses in a flooded beachfront neighborhood in Queens on Tuesday, forcing firefighters to undertake daring rescues. Three people were injured.

New York University's Tisch Hospital evacuated 200 patients after its backup generator failed. About 20 babies from the neonatal intensive care unit were carried down staircases and were given battery-powered respirators.

A construction crane that collapsed in the high winds on Monday still dangled precariously 74 floors above the streets of midtown Manhattan, and hundreds of people were evacuated as a precaution. And on Staten Island, a tanker ship wound up beached on the shore.

Most major tunnels and bridges in New York were closed, as were schools, Broadway theaters and the metropolitan area's three main airports, LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark.

With water standing in two major commuter tunnels and seven subway tunnels under the East River, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was unclear when the nation's largest transit system would be rolling again. It shut down Sunday night ahead of the storm.

Joseph Lhota, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the damage was the worst in the 108-year history of the New York subway.

Similarly, Consolidated Edison said it could take at least a week to restore electricity to the last of the nearly 800,000 customers in and around New York City who lost power.

Millions of more fortunate New Yorkers surveyed the damage as dawn broke, their city brought to an extraordinary standstill.

"Oh, Jesus. Oh, no," Faye Schwartz said she looked over her neighborhood in Brooklyn, where cars were scattered like leaves.

Reggie Thomas, a maintenance supervisor at a prison near the overflowing Hudson River, emerged from an overnight shift, a toothbrush in his front pocket, to find his Honda with its windows down and a foot of water inside. The windows automatically go down when the car is submerged to free drivers.

"It's totaled," Thomas said with a shrug. "You would have needed a boat last night."

Around midday, Sandy was about 120 miles east of Pittsburgh, pushing westward with winds of 45 mph, and was expected to make a turn into New York State on Tuesday night. Although weakening as it goes, the storm will continue to bring heavy rain and flooding, said Daniel Brown of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

In a measure of the storm's immense size and power, waves on southern Lake Michigan rose to a record-tying 20.3 feet. High winds spinning off Sandy's edges clobbered the Cleveland area early Tuesday, uprooting trees, cutting power to hundreds of thousands, closing schools and flooding major roads along Lake Erie.

In Portland, Maine, gusts topping 60 mph scared away several cruise ships and prompted officials to close the port.

Sandy also brought blizzard conditions to parts of West Virginia and neighboring Appalachian states, with more than 2 feet of snow expected in some places. A snowstorm in western Maryland caused a pileup of tractor-trailers that blocked part of Interstate 68 on slippery Big Savage Mountain.

"It's like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs up here," said Bill Wiltson, a Maryland State Police dispatcher.

The death toll climbed rapidly, and included 17 victims in New York State — 10 of them in New York City — along with five dead in Pennsylvania and four in New Jersey. Sandy also killed 69 people in the Caribbean before making its way up the Eastern Seaboard.

In New Jersey, Sandy cut off barrier islands, swept houses from their foundations and washed amusement pier rides into the ocean. It also wrecked several boardwalks up and down the coast, tearing away a section of Atlantic City's world-famous promenade. Atlantic City's 12 waterfront casinos came through largely unscathed.

Jersey City was closed to cars because traffic lights were out, and Hoboken, just over the Hudson River from Manhattan, was hit with major flooding.

A huge swell of water swept over the small New Jersey town of Moonachie, near the Hackensack River, and authorities struggled to rescue about 800 people, some living in a trailer park. And in neighboring Little Ferry, water suddenly started gushing out of storm drains overnight, submerging a road under 4 feet of water and swamping houses.

Police and fire officials used boats and trucks to reach the stranded.

"I looked out and the next thing you know, the water just came up through the grates. It came up so quickly you couldn't do anything about it. If you wanted to move your car to higher ground you didn't have enough time," said Little Ferry resident Leo Quigley, who with his wife was taken to higher ground by boat.

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Hays reported from New York and Breed reported from Raleigh, N.C.; AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington. Associated Press writers David Dishneau in Delaware City, Del., Katie Zezima in Atlantic City, Emery P. Dalesio in Elizabeth City, N.C., and Erika Niedowski in Cranston, R.I., also contributed.