Obama's announcement, made through an email and video sent to supporters, set in motion a plan to tap donors and raise as much as $1 billion, which would shatter the $750 million campaign finance record he set in 2008.

Five months after his Democrats were routed by Republicans in November congressional elections, Obama looks in fairly good shape for re-election when paired against any of a group of potential Republican challengers.

It is early yet. The economic recovery has picked up pace in recent weeks but could be slowed by rising gasoline prices or any number of unpredictable events in the next 18 months, such as an unexpected expansion of the Libya conflict.

The stubbornly high jobless rate was the leading factor in Republican victories last November and Americans weigh the state of their pocketbooks far more than anything else when they vote. The jobless rate has dropped a full percentage point to 8.8 percent in the last five months.



"If the economy does chug along the way it is now a lot of people may be more comfortable going with Obama," said Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Missouri.

Obama urged supporters in a phone call on Monday evening to work to preserve his administration's policy initiatives, and he promised to work on issues such as energy and immigration reform over the next year.

"We can't go backwards," he said. "We have to preserve the progress that we've made and take it to the next level, and that means that we're going to have to mobilize."

Obama became the first black U.S. president in 2009, and scored big legislative victories when Congress approved reforms of healthcare and financial regulation laws last year. But the economy has been slow to recover from recession despite a stimulus package of more than $800 billion.

Obama's path to re-election will depend greatly on how he fares with independent voters, who were crucial to his 2008 victory but who abandoned Democrats last November.

The president has adopted a more centrist tone in recent months in response to that midterm election loss, emphasizing his desire to work with both Democrats and Republicans.

While the president is publicly trying to distance himself from politicking, his every move now will be viewed through a re-election prism, such as two trips he is taking this week to states that he won in 2008 and will need in 2012: Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Obama said in an email to supporters that he was filing papers to start his re-election bid in a formal way.

"So even though I'm focused on the job you elected me to do, and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start today," he said in the email.

"WE AREN'T FINISHED"

He has been sounding the themes of his campaign in fund-raising speeches, telling Democratic loyalists, "the promise that we made to the American people has been kept. But we aren't finished. We've got more work to do."

Republicans acknowledge it will be a difficult task to defeat an incumbent Democratic president. Only two incumbents have been defeated in the last 30 years -- Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.

"Obama's the favorite, but 18 months in advance, you'd be foolish to call anybody a lock," said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia.

Several Republicans are willing to try, including former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, both of whom are planning campaigns.

Reacting to Obama's announcement, Pawlenty released a 35-second video of his own highlighting high unemployment, weakness in the housing market and surging federal debt.

"How can America win the future, when we're losing the present?" Pawlenty asks in the video. "In order for America to take a new direction, it's going to take a new president."

The Republican field is off to a slow start as potential candidates work quietly to build networks of donors and supporters and visit early voting states. By holding off on campaign announcements, they are saving money that will be needed in the months ahead.

Early polls show Obama leading potential Republican rivals. The first scheduled debate of the Republican nominating race was postponed last week from May until September because of a lack of candidates.

Events taking place now in Washington may play a role in the campaign battle to come. Republicans elected on pledges to cut government spending are attempting significant reductions that Democrats oppose.

If the two parties cannot find common ground, it could force a government shutdown that the White House says could hurt the nascent economic recovery.

Terry Jones: How his Quran burning helps the Taliban

Many Afghans do not realize that US pastor Terry Jones, who held a Quran burning last month, heads a small church whose beliefs are not widely shared, thus fueling anti-foreigner sentiment that benefits the Taliban.

An Afghan protestor (r.) hits the burning effigy of the American pastor, Terry Jones during a demonstration in Shinwar, Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday, April. 4. Protests erupted in Afghanistan again Monday against a Florida pastor's burning of the Quran, making four straight days of demonstrations some deadly against the destruction of Islam's holy book in a country struggling to beat back an insurgency led by Taliban religious extremists.

Rahmat Gul/AP

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 9/11 Co-Conspirators to Go to Military Commission Trial

The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S. will be referred to the Defense Department for trial, three sources familiar with the case told Fox News on Monday.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006, after being captured in Pakistan in 2003, and five alleged Sept. 11 co-conspirators will face prosecution by a military commission in Guantanamo, a Justice Department official said.

A formal announcement is expected by Attorney General Eric Holder later in the day. The decision is a turn-around after Holder said in November 2009 that he had decided the conspirators -- Mohammed, Walid Muhammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi -- should be prosecuted in civilian court.

At the time, President Obama said he left the decision to Holder. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the decision to reverse himself remained with Holder, but he didn't want to get ahead of the announcement.

"The president's primary concern here is that the perpetrators ... of that terrible attack on the American people be brought to justice as swiftly as possible and as fairly as possible," he said.

Debra Burlingame, head of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, said the group is "relieved" Obama "abandoned his plan" to bring the conspirators to U.S. soil.

"We are grateful to the president for reversing his decision, conveyed to the families just last month, to go forward with civilian trials and seek repeal of congressional legislation that stripped funding for that effort," said Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which was forced into the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

"We have great confidence in the military commissions legal framework which is fair, lawful, effective and consistent with our tradition and values as a nation," she said. 

Tantalizing Hints of Windows 8 Hit the Internet

Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer gives his Keynote speech
at the Consumer Electronics Show, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2011 in Las Vegas.

Haven't upgraded to Windows 7 yet? Brace yourself: Work on Windows 8 is well under way.

A pre-release version of Microsoft's next operating system -- which isn't officially scheduled to launch until 2012 -- reportedly leaked onto the Internet over the weekend, leading to an explosion of speculation among Microsoft watchers about what new versions and features the company may be developing.

Chief among the features pinpointed is the widespread implementation of the Ribbon interface, a dynamic, icon-filled replacement for traditional menus unveiled with Microsoft Office 2007. Though controversial, the interface garnered rave reviews and became a love-it-or-leave-it reason to upgrade to the latest productivity suite.

The leaked Windows 8 screenshots suggest Microsoft intends to add the Ribbon interface to the basic operating system itself, wrote enthusiasts Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott.

"In Windows 8, Ribbon usage is accelerating again, and Microsoft’s next major OS will include this UI in the most visible of all possible places, Windows Explorer," the pair blogged on the site Within Windows. They called the new interface "only half-finished and, frankly, of dubious value," arguing that the inconsistent implementation of the new look and feel suggest it is controversial within Microsoft, as well.

Other notable features include a sync functionality built into the operating system and new logon and user switching functions, enthusiasts wrote. But the biggest change will be under the hood; Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced in January that the next version of the operating system will support the chips that power cell phones and tablets, not just the traditional Intel and AMD chips that power computers.

"Whatever device you use, now or in the future, Windows will be there," Ballmer said.

Another ‘men eater’ arrested in Bhakkar

Police arrested a second accused of ‘men eater’ here in Bhakkar on Monday.

The police has arrested four accused on a tip in Bhakkar, who were used to eat dead bodies. Police said that the investigation is underway.

On Sunday, Darya Khan Police had raided a house in Union Council Kahawar Kalan in Bhakkar and arrested a 3-member family including a woman while one of them succeed to flee from the site.

A leg-broken dead body of 19 years old girl and a big bowl having curry was also recovered from the house.

The arrested accused confessed that they are used to eat human dead bodies and dead dogs. Adding that they dig graves and bring out bodies who have buried in the graveyard.