(Reuters) – Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic went on trial for genocide on Wednesday, accused of leading the slaughter of 8,000 unarmed Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica in 1995, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two.

Mladic, now 70, appeared confident, flashing a thumbs-up and clapping his hands as he entered the courtroom in The Hague. Wearing a dark suit and tie, he sat, spectacles in hand, listening intently as prosecutors made their opening remarks.

Prosecutor Dermot Groome said Mladic and other Bosnian Serbs had divided the territory of the former Yugoslavia along ethnic lines and implemented a common plan to exterminate non-Serbs.

“The prosecution will present evidence that will show beyond a reasonable doubt the hand of Mr. Mladic in each of these crimes,” he said.

Mladic is the last of the main protagonists in the Balkan wars of the 1990s to go on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

He is accused of orchestrating not only the week-long massacre in Srebrenica, at the time a U.N. “safe haven”, but also the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, in which more than 10,000 people were killed by snipers, machineguns and heavy artillery.

The list of charges stemming from his actions as the Serb military commander in the Bosnian war of 1992-95 ranges from genocide to murder, acts of terror and other crimes against humanity.

But Mladic, who was arrested last May after 16 years on the run, has dismissed the charges as “monstrous” and says he is too ill to stand trial. The court entered a “not guilty” plea on his behalf.

The case has inevitably stirred up violent emotions in the Balkans. Survivors watching earlier proceedings from the court gallery have shouted “Murderer!” and “Killer!” at a man nicknamed the “Butcher of Bosnia”.

Mladic has been angry and defiant during pre-trial hearings, heckling the judge, shouting and interrupting the proceedings.

“The whole world knows who I am,” he told a hearing last year. “I am General Ratko Mladic. I defended my people, my country … now I am defending myself.”

Mladic was in charge of the Bosnian Serb army when, over several days in July 1995, Serb fighters overran the Srebrenica enclave in eastern Bosnia, theoretically under the protection of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers.

Video footage shot at the time showed Mladic mingling with Muslim prisoners.

Shortly afterwards, the men and boys were separated from the women, stripped of identification, and shot.

BULLDOZED INTO GRAVES

The dead were bulldozed into mass graves, then later dug up with excavators and hauled away in trucks to be better hidden from the world, in dozens of remote mass graves.

Prosecutors say Mladic was part of a “joint criminal enterprise to eliminate the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by killing the men and boys … and forcibly removing the women, young children and some elderly men”.

Mladic is also held responsible for the siege and bombardment of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which prosecutors said was intended to “spread terror among the civilian population”.

The horrors of the siege, together with the Srebrenica massacre, eventually galvanized world opinion in support of the campaign of Western air strikes on Bosnian Serb targets that brought the conflict to an end shortly after.

Mladic was indicted in 1995 along with Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serbs’ political leader.

Yet both remained free in Serbia for more than a decade before being tracked down and sent to The Hague. Karadzic’s trial is already under way.

Defense lawyers say they have not had have enough time to review the huge case file prepared by prosecutors and asked for the trial to be postponed, but the request was denied.

Serge Brammertz, the court’s chief prosecutor, has dismissed Mladic’s assertion that he is too frail to sit through a 200-hour prosecution case involving testimony from 411 witnesses.

His appearance in The Hague is testament to the work of the tribunal, which has defied skeptics by managing, in the course of 19 years, to arrest all its 161 indictees.

But some victims still fear that Mladic, who has received physical therapy for a possible stroke, could escape judgment by dying in mid-trial.

Mladic’s mentor, former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, the architect of the Balkan wars, died in detention in 2006, a few months before a verdict in his trial for genocide and other war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

(www.latimes.com) – LONDON — Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of News International and confidant of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is to be charged with obstructing justice in the phone-hacking scandal that has rocked Britain.

Prosecutors announced Tuesday that Brooks would be charged with three counts of “conspiracy to pervert the course of justice,” all of them stemming from alleged attempts to conceal or remove evidence relating to the police probe into phone hacking and corruption at the News of the World and the Sun tabloids.

The charges are the most serious to be filed so far as a result of the investigation, and represent a stunning reversal of fortune for Brooks, once of Britain’s most influential women, who oversaw all of Murdoch’s newspapers in this country.

In addition, Brooks’ husband, Charlie, is also to be charged with two counts of obstructing justice.

Last July, in the days after the phone-hacking scandal broke wide open, a guard at the London apartment building where the Brooks maintain a flat discovered a laptop computer and various documents stuffed into a garbage bag and tossed into a trash can. The guard handed the items over to the police, from whom Charlie Brooks tried unsuccessfully to reclaim them, saying he had thrown them out by mistake in a mix-up with a colleague.

The couple issued a statement calling the decision to charge them “weak and unjust,” according to Britain’s Press Association. They accused prosecutors of “unprecedented posturing.”

Besides Rebekah and Charlie Brooks, prosecutors have also decided to press charges of obstructing justice against four other people, including Rebekah Brooks’ former personal assistant and her chauffeur.

The charges against all six suspects relate to their actions during the first two weeks after the hacking scandal exploded last summer amid allegations that the News of the World had illegally tapped into the voicemails of a kidnapped teenager who was later found slain.

In one of the charges, Brooks and her assistant, Cheryl Carter, are alleged to have tried to remove seven boxes of material from the archive of News International, the British subsidiary of Murdoch’s giant News Corp.

“There is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction,” prosecutor Alison Levitt said of the charges.

She added that no charges would be filed against an unnamed seventh person who had also been under investigation.

(chron.com) – MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Police found 49 mutilated bodies scattered in a pool of blood near the border with the U.S., a region where Mexico’s two dominant drug cartels are trying to outdo each other in bloodshed while warring over smuggling routes.

The bodies of 43 men and six women with their heads, hands and feet chopped off were dumped at the entrance to the town of San Juan, on a highway that connects the industrial city of Monterrey with Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas.

At the spot where authorities discovered the bodies before dawn Sunday, a white stone arch that normally welcomes visitors to the town was spray-painted with “100% Zeta” in black letters — an apparent reference to the fearsome Zetas drug cartel that was founded by deserters from the Mexican army’s special forces.

The bodies, some of them in plastic garbage bags, were most likely brought to the spot and dropped from the back of a dump truck, Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said.

Domene said the dead would be hard to identify because of the lack of heads, hands and feet. The remains were taken to a Monterrey auditorium for DNA tests.

The victims could have been killed as long as two days ago at another location, then transported to San Juan, a town in the municipality of Cadereyta, about 105 miles (175 kilometers) west-southwest of McAllen, Texas, and 75 miles (125 kilometers) southwest of the Roma, Texas, border crossing, state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said.

Only one couple looking for their missing daughter visited the morgue in Monterrey where autopsies were being performed Sunday, a state police investigator said.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case, said none of the six female bodies matched the missing daughter’s description. He said some of the bodies were badly decomposed and some had their whole arms or lower legs missing.

De la Garza said he did not rule out the possibility that the victims were U.S.-bound migrants.

But it seemed more likely that the killings were the latest salvo in a gruesome game of tit-for-tat in fighting between the Zetas and the powerful Sinaloa Cartel.

Mass body dumpings have increased around Mexico in the last six months of escalating fighting between the Zetas and Sinaloa, which is led by fugitive drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and its allies, the federal Attorney General’s Office said in statement late Sunday.

The two cartels have committed “irrational acts of inhumane and inadmissible violence in their dispute,” the office said, reiterating it is offering $2 million rewards for information leading to the arrests of Guzman, Ismael Zambada, another Sinaloa cartel leader, and Zetas’ leaders Heriberto Lazacano Lazcano and Miguel Trevino.

Under President Felipe Calderon’s nearly six-year offensive against organized crime, the two cartels have emerged as Mexico’s two most powerful gangs and are battling over strategic transport routes and territory, including along the northern border with the U.S. and in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

In less than a month, the mutilated bodies of 14 men were left in a van in downtown Nuevo Laredo, 23 people were found hanged or decapitated in the same border city and 18 dismembered bodied were left near Mexico’s second-largest city, Guadalajara. Nuevo Laredo, like Monterrey, is considered Zeta territory, while Guadalajara has long been controlled by gangs loyal to Sinaloa.

“This is the most definitive of all the cartel wars,” said Raul Benitez Manaut, a security expert at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

The Zetas are a transient gang without real territory or a secure stream of income, unlike Sinaloa with its lucrative cocaine trade and control of smuggling routes and territory, Benitez said. But the Zetas are heavily armed while Sinaloa has a weak enforcement arm, he said.

The government’s success in killing or arresting cartel leaders has fractured other once big cartels into weaker, quarreling bands that in many cases are lining up with either the Zetas or Sinaloa. At least one of those two cartels is present in nearly all of Mexico’s 32 states.

A year ago this month, more than two dozen people — most of them Zetas — were killed when they tried to infiltrate the Sinaloa’s territory in the Pacific Coast state of Nayarit.

But their war started in earnest last fall in Veracruz, a strategic smuggling state with a giant Gulf port.

A drug gang allied with Sinaloa left 35 bodies on a main boulevard in the city of Veracruz in September, and police found 32 other bodies, apparently killed by the same gang, a few days after that. The goal apparently was to take over territory that had been dominated by the Zetas.

Twenty-six bodies were found in November in Guadalajara, another territory being disputed by the Zetas and Sinaloa.

Drug violence has killed more than 47,500 people since Calderon launched a stepped-up offensive when he took office in December 2006.

Mexico is now in the midst of presidential race to replace Calderon, who by law can’t run for re-election. Drug violence seems to be escalating, but none of the major candidates has referred directly to mass killings. All say they will stop the violence and make Mexico a more secure place, but offer few details on how their plans would differ from Calderon’s.

Benitez said the wave of violence has nothing to do with the presidential election.

“It has the dynamic of a war between cartels,” he said.

(tampabay.com)

TAMPA — Despite having a full four months until their season opener, the Bucs suffered their first major injury of 2012 on Thursday.

Da’Quan Bowers, the projected starting left defensive end who had been hoping to build on a strong finish to his rookie season last year, tore his right Achilles tendon, the team announced.

Bowers was scheduled for surgery today, after which more information about the extent of the injury and recovery time might be known.

The Bucs said only Bowers was hurt while working with their strength and conditioning staff. Under NFL rules, the team is not permitted to engage in football activities until next week, when offseason team activities begin.

Bowers didn’t return calls seeking comment.

He said on Twitter he would play this season: “2013?? Get real. I’m playing THIS year, 2012.”

He called the injury “just a little hurdle on the track.”

Recovery from torn Achilles tendons can take roughly six months, but many variables are involved, a sports medicine doctor says.

“For this type of injury and this type of player, six months would be the average, maybe even better than average,” said David McAllister, chief of sports medicine at UCLA.

“It’s conceivable (Bowers) could return to play this season. But the question becomes how confident is he in his leg and how strong is his leg? Those are usually the things that take the longest. The muscles in that area become very weak, and that’s the biggest problem.”

Bowers sustaining the injury during conditioning drills is no surprise, McAllister said. “This happens all the time. It’s usually a noncontact injury.”

Bowers can perhaps draw inspiration from a teammate.

Long snapper Andrew Economos tore an Achilles tendon during training in April 2011. After spending the first six-plus weeks of last season on the physically unable to perform list, Economos returned in November and played the final nine games.

However long it takes, the Bucs will have to compensate for the loss.

Bowers was coming into his own late last season, starting the final six games. His most memorable game was Dec. 4 against Carolina. He had eight tackles (seven solo), 11/2 sacks and a pass deflection.

Without Bowers, Michael Bennett likely will play a wider role.

Bennett, entering his fourth season, started the first 10 games of 2011 before giving way to Bowers because of an ankle injury. Bennett, who also can play tackle on passing downs, had four sacks and was among the team’s most consistent defensive linemen.

Bowers’ injury changed the Bucs’ plan on a roster move.

They opted to keep defensive lineman Myles Wade a few hours after announcing he would be released to make room for newly signed receiver Tiquan Underwood.

Former LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson, who was signed after a tryout last weekend, was waived instead.

The Bucs are at the 90-man offseason roster maximum.

Stephen F. Holder can be reached at sholder@tampabay.com. Follow him on Twitter at @HolderStephen.

Yet another injury

The Bucs drafted two defensive linemen in 2010 — tackles Gerald McCoy and Brian Price at Nos. 3 and 35 overall, respectively — and two in 2011 — ends Adrian Clayborn and Da’Quan Bowers at Nos. 20 and 51, respectively. Only Clayborn hasn’t been hurt.

The pick: Price

Injuries: Pelvic fracture and hamstring (2010), ankle (2011)

The pick: McCoy

Injuries: Torn left biceps (2010), torn right biceps (2011).

The pick: Bowers (right)

Injury: Torn right Achilles (2012)

President says he had already made the decision to publicly support gay marriage before the Democratic National Convention in September

(nydailynews.com) No hard feelings, Joe!

Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks on gay marriage forced President Obama to move up his announcement in support of same-sex couples’ rights. But the President insists he’s not angry.

Obama told ABC’s “Good Morning America” he had already made the decision to publicly support gay marriage before the Democratic National Convention in September.

But Biden jumped the gun on Sunday when he said he was “absolutely comfortable” with married same-sex couples being granted the same rights as heterosexuals.

“He probably got out a little over his skis, but out of generosity of spirit,” Obama told the network in an interview that aired Thursday.

“Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way on my own terms without, I think, there being a lot of notice to everybody? Of course,” he said. “But all’s well that ends well.”

Obama became the first occupant of the White House to publicly back gay marriage on Wednesday. It came a day after North Carolina voters cast ballots in favor of adopting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples tying the knot in the state.

Now, 30 states have constitutional amendments or statutes prohibiting gay marriage.

When Obama ran for President four years ago, he said he backed civil unions but wouldn’t support same-sex marriage.

During the ABC News interview, Obama stressed he believes the decision to legalize gay marriage should be up to individual states, which are “arriving at different conclusions at different times.”

He also acknowledged that the politics of his announcement remained unclear.

Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney said Wednesday he believes “marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman” and that he will continue to hold “the same view on marriage that I had when I was a governor and I’ve stated many times.”

“I think it’d be hard to argue somehow this is something I’d be doing for political advantage, because, frankly, the politics — it’s not clear how they cut,” said Obama.

“But I’m not going to be spending most of my time talking about this because frankly my job as President right now, my biggest priority, is growing the economy and making sure we put people back to work,” he added.

(wtsp.com) Tampa, Florida – Former 10 News political analyst Bill Ratliff has died. He was 63.

Before joining 10 News, Ratliff spent more than 27 years at WFLA-TV in Tampa as news anchor/reporter and Managing Editor of Morning News coverage. As a reporter, his specialty was covering politics.

In a statement released by WFLA Tuesday afternoon, a family spokesman says Ratliff passed away after complications from surgery. Details of funeral arrangements are not immediately available.

Ratliff received numerous awards for his anchoring and reporting including a Florida Emmy nomination, national recognition from Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, the “Communicator of the Year” award from the Tampa chapter of Toastmasters International, and various awards from the Associated Press and United Press International.

A 42-year broadcasting veteran, Ratliff came to Tampa from WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas, where worked as a news anchor/reporter and as a co-host and field producer for the highly successful “PM Magazine.” Prior to that, Ratliff was a news anchor/reporter and host of daily talk show at WDIV-TV in Detroit. He also has worked as a news anchor/reporter at WKYT-TV in Lexington, Kentucky and held on-air positions at WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ratliff began his broadcasting career in radio, working at stations in Cincinnati and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ratliff received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, with a major in Broadcasting, from the University of Cincinnati.

During his time in Tampa, Ratliff was active in various civic groups and organizations in the community. He has served on the Executive Board of the Tampa/Hillsborough County Youth Council, the Board of Trustees of the Academy of the Holy Names and the Jesuit High School Foundation. He also has been president of two Little Leagues, and a Little League coach, as well. He was also an avid golfer.

Bill’s surviving family include his wife Linda, his son Chet and daughter Shannon, and one grandchild.

(tampabay.com) TAMPA — It’s just the first of many difficult steps in fulfilling his NFL dream, but Jordan Jefferson isn’t going anywhere yet.

The quarterback, who went 24-8 as a starter for LSU, signed a contract with the Bucs on Sunday after impressing coaches during the weekend’s rookie minicamp.

Jefferson is among several players who will be added to the roster, coach Greg Schiano said. He said the team could have “22 to 29″ transactions involving some of the 14 rookie free agents it signed last week and those to whom it gave camp tryouts. That amounts to a major shakeup of the bottom of the roster even with the 90-man limit enacted by the NFL last month.

Jefferson entered camp without assurances beyond meals and a place to sleep. As a tryout candidate, he had four practices to prove he was worth keeping. After not being drafted or signed, the odds in favor of his being kept around appeared slim.

But Schiano said the Bucs are intrigued.

“He’s an athletic guy who has a strong arm,” Schiano said. “We wanted to gauge his development as a quarterback. I thought he made consistent improvement all weekend. There’s a lot of upside there, so I think we would like to have a chance to work with him.”

The Bucs already had four quarterbacks on the roster:

• Josh Freeman, the starter entering his fourth season.

• Dan Orlovsky, the expected No. 2, who has appeared in 21 games and started 12 for four teams since entering the league in 2005.

• Brett Ratliff, who has been with six teams but appeared in no games since entering the league in 2007.

• Zach Collaros, who went undrafted out of Cincinnati last month.

Jefferson — suspended for four games last season after being accused of participating in a bar fight (a hearing on a misdemeanor charge of simple battery is scheduled for Thursday in Baton Rouge, La.) — is not seen as a polished quarterback and faces long odds.

Still, he relishes the opportunity.

“I just want to prove that I’m a very talented player,” he said.

“I played at LSU for a large (number) of games. I had a very strong winning percentage there. At the same time, I’m not where I want to be. But I’m a competitor, and I can be the pro style quarterback that Tampa Bay wants me to be.”

Jefferson could appeal to the Bucs as a short-yardage and goal-line option given his running ability and athleticism; the Jets are expected to use Tim Tebow in a similar role. But the focus has been on evaluating Jefferson’s traditional skills.

One thing Jefferson has done is win.

“That’s definitely my strong (point),” he said. “But at the same time, I still have a lot of work to do.

“Those 24 games that I did win probably weren’t my best performances, but it was good enough for us to win.”

Meanwhile, Schiano repeatedly emphasized turnover will be extensive. Even the rookie free agents aren’t guaranteed spots, he said; the coaching staff re-evaluated all participants of the camp.

“We look at it like we evaluate (the players) regardless of what has been done,” Schiano said.

The Bucs decided not to conduct a practice Sunday morning after the staff met Saturday evening, discussed its evaluations and agreed it had seen enough Friday and Saturday.

Another player among the keepers is cornerback Derrick Roberson, who played at Rutgers under Schiano. Roberson appeared in six games for the Bucs in 2009 but has been out of the NFL since 2010. He has sought another shot since recovering from a severe tear of his abductor muscle.

But his background with Schiano didn’t ensure him a shot. He had to maximize his weekend opportunities.

“One thing I knew was I couldn’t take me and Coach Schiano’s relationship for granted,” Roberson said. “I knew I was going to have to come in here and prove myself.

The Bucs also signed tryout candidate Hilee Taylor, a defensive end and 2008 seventh-round pick of the Panthers who hasn’t played since 2010.

He was claimed off waivers by the Lions in August after his release from Carolina but did not report. His agent told the Detroit Free Press he was retiring to pursue other opportunities in his life.

It wasn’t clear what changed.

Junior Seau’s brain will be donated by his family for research into football-related head injuries.

San Diego Chargers chaplain Shawn Mitchell said he didn’t know where the brain will be sent.

“The Seau family really has, almost like Junior, a philanthropic approach, where they always desire to help others,” Mitchell said in a phone interview Friday. “The purpose is not initially to discover anything about their son and what led to these tragic circumstances, but rather the betterment of other people and athletes down the road through anything that can be learned through the study.”

He said the family was not speculating as to whether concussions were a factor in Seau’s suicide.

Garrett Webster, the administrator and player liaison for the Brain Injury Research Institute, said his group has requested that the family donate the brain but hasn’t heard back.

“I don’t want this to sound too crass, but we’ve sort of made our pitch,” said Webster, the son of the late Hall of Fame center Mike Webster of the Pittsburgh Steelers. “We hope the family choses us, but the important thing is somebody’s going to get it and it’s going to get looked into. Junior Seau was a wonderful man and we’re all aware of his work with charities. I wish it never happened. The important thing is, in some way, this will continue his legacy on giving back to the community and helping people.”

Officials at Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy did not return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment Friday on whether researchers there had reached out to the Seau family. The Boston University center has analyzed the brains of dozens of former athletes, including that of former Chicago player Dave Duerson, who shot himself in the chest last year.

Duerson’s family has filed a wrongful death suit against the NFL, claiming the league didn’t do enough to prevent or treat concussions that severely damaged Duerson’s brain before he died in in February 2011.

Another ex-player, former Atlanta Falcons safety Ray Easterling, who had joined in a concussion-related lawsuit against the league – one of dozens filed in the last year – shot himself last month at age 62. His wife has said he suffered from depression and dementia after taking years of hits.

Seau, a star at Southern California before playing for his hometown Chargers for 13 seasons, was found dead Wednesday at his Oceanside home. An autopsy concluded he shot himself in the chest.

There’s been no medical evidence that brain injuries from football may have played a role in his death.

Seau’s ex-wife, Gina, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he sustained concussions during his 20-year NFL career, during which he also played for Miami and New England.

Mitchell said he never heard Seau complain about dizziness or headaches.

“With Junior, that would be so outside of his nature because he had an amazing threshold for pain,” Mitchell said.

Family members and friends have said they weren’t aware of any issues that may have led to Seau’s suicide. Police said no suicide note was found.

“This is not anything I thought he would ever do,” former San Diego Chargers safety Miles McPherson said.

A few weeks ago, a smiling Seau was videotaped playing a ukulele and singing while attending the spring game at Southern California, where he starred before being drafted by the Chargers in 1990.

Mitchell said that friends of Seau’s who were at his charity golf tournament a month ago said his “spirits were great.”

(politico.com) MANCHESTER, N.H. — With the primary campaign essentially over, Mitt Romney has landed on a new strategy to keep him in the headlines: getting in President Barack Obama’s face at every opportunity.

Taking the fight to Obama wherever and whenever he can will help the presumptive Republican nominee, who swept the five northeastern states that voted Tuesday, stay relevant during this awkward moment between the primary and general election when he has the distinct disadvantage of facing an incumbent president.

But Romney’s team also hopes to use this lull before the fall storm to begin to peel away support from Obama’s core constituencies, accelerate a concentrated assault on the president’s record and to start making strategic choices about which states are truly competitive and on what issues Obama is most vulnerable.

That will be hard.

Since Rick Santorum left the race, Team Romney has turned up the heat on Obama and that effort will only increase. The campaign has asked some surrogates to reprise their roles bird-dogging Obama campaign events — though the scale and security of presidential rallies makes it unlikely that Romney aides and supporters who so tortured Santorum and Newt Gingrich will be as effective in distracting the president.

Similarly, the aggressive outreach to groups that propelled Obama to victory in 2008, and who polls indicate form his base this cycle, will ratchet up. The Romney campaign – and Ann Romney in particular – had already begun courting women voters and, young people are another key focus.

The bedrock strategy for this post-primary Romney is to be aggressive. “This new phase of the campaign is marked by more direct engagement with President Obama and his campaign,” a senior Romney aide told reporters Tuesday. “Some of the exchanges we’ve had over the past seven to 10 days confirm that the general election campaign has begun. What is clear to nearly everyone is that our party is united behind Mitt Romney and we are now in a position to take our argument directly to President Obama.”

It’s unclear to which states Romney will next travel, a subject the campaign has always held close to the vest.

Ted Kanavas, Romney’s state chairman in Wisconsin, said he’s received no indication that the candidate will return there to stump for Gov. Scott Walker, a man Romney referred to as his “hero,” who faces a June 5 recall.

“Romney was here in 2010 for him, he was here in 2011 for him physically and raised money for him, I wouldn’t see why he wouldn’t come here,” Kanavas said Tuesday. “But right now what they’re doing is melding the RNC stuff and the Romney stuff. I don’t think they’ve even turned the mental page to what we are doing at the end of May.”

As he leaves primary challengers behind, Romney will focus much more of his efforts on fundraising while his staff spends more energy building ground organizations in key states such as Virgina, Ohio and Colorado for the general election.

The protracted GOP primary, showcasing hard-fought battles in states like Michigan and Florida, is a double-edged sword for Romney: while it served to prime his operations in such swing states, it also forced him to tack right in places where he needs to win independent voters. But unlike Obama’s ‘08 campaign, Romney’s operation moved its staffers from state to state and hasn’t used the primary to build local operations.

On both the organizational and cash fronts, the campaign’s effort to join forces with the Republican National Committee has only just begun. The senior aide said the Boston headquarters is “engaged in a rapid build-out” of staff across the country.

“They have to go out and get state directors engaged,” one campaign source said of the high command. “That’s taken (Campaign Manager Matt) Rhoades and those guys time. They have to get an organization in place. They would have liked to have done that a month ago but now they can do it.”

Meanwhile, Romney himself will seek to exploit the suddenly strong market for Republican dollars now that he is the presumptive nominee. To that end, Romney is spending Wednesday and Thursday holding six fundraisers in New York and New Jersey. Together with the RNC, the Romney campaign hopes to raise a staggering $800 million by November, the New York Times reported.

And while Romney’s campaign has been quiet on the airwaves since Santorum left the race, the former Massachusetts governor and his advisers have their eyes squarely on the key general election swing states.

On Monday in South Park Township, Pa., Romney flicked to the next day’s primary contest before making what had to that point been a rare general election plea.

“I want you to work over the summer to get your friends to think about voting, convince them that we need to have a president who understands the economy,” he said. “I need your help for Nov. 6. So you need to get your friends to vote. You need to pull them out. Convince them to get on our team. Come join us in this effort.”

Romney’s will continue his direct appeals to women, young voters and Latinos hoping to carve into the massive polling leads Obama has over Romney with those constituencies.

Even before Democratic operative Hilary Rosen transformed Ann Romney’s biography as a stay-at-home mom into a Republican talking point, the campaign held event after event at women-owned businesses. In Chester Township, Pa., Monday, Romney and Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio were introduced by Stephanie Fleetman, who hosted the event at the the trucking company she started.

And while Romney had at times expressed confusion over why young people would support an incumbent who, in his telling, is responsible for a lagging economy, Monday marked a turn toward targeting young voters, another demographic Obama won with 66 percent of the vote four years ago.

“We are not conceding anything to them,” a Romney adviser said. “And we are going directly at a segment of the electorate that was central to their win.”

While the outreach to women could not have gone better, the campaign has not yet generated a similar moment related to young voters.

Romney sought one Monday when he, without being asked, pronounced himself in favor of extending low-interest student loan rates, a day before Obama held an entire rally devoted to the issue.

But surrogates on a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters were unable to cite anything in Romney’s policy platform aimed specifically at young voters beyond former Sen. Hank Brown suggesting the 65-year-old Romney will appeal because he is a “younger, more dynamic Republican candidate” than past GOP nominees.

On the same call, Rep. Aaron Schock – a 30-year-old Romney surrogate during the Illinois primary – said his generation doesn’t need a youth-specific agenda.

“The issue of the day for young people is going to be the economy,” Schock said. “It’s going to be the jobs prospects for them coming out of college.”

Romney also needs to shore up support among Hispanic voters, who he may have alienated during the primary with his tough talk on immigration and opposition to the DREAM Act. A recent Hispanic roundtable in Arizona and the Rubio events illustrated Romney’s difficulties with Hispanics — from his disembrace of Arizona’s illegal immigration law to the daylight between his proposals and Rubio’s – but the effort has begun.