NBC’s Display of a 30-Shot Gun Magazine Prompts a Police Inquiry

NBC had asked the police for permission to use a high-capacity magazine and “was informed that possession of a high-capacity magazine is not permissible, and their request was denied,” said Officer Araz Alali, a police spokesman.

“This matter is currently being investigated,” he said. “I can’t get into any other specifics of this investigation.”

A spokeswoman for NBC declined to comment.

According to a federal law enforcement official, an NBC employee contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Friday to ask whether it would be legal for Mr. Gregory to show the magazine on television without the ammunition. The bureau, which does not enforce Washington’s gun laws, said it would be legal. That information, however, was incorrect, as it is illegal to have any empty magazine in Washington, the official said.

Mr. Gregory displayed the magazine, which rapidly feeds ammunition into the chamber of a gun, about 10 minutes into his interview with Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A. vice president. The host picked it up from the table in front of him and held it in the air as he questioned Mr. LaPierre.

“Let’s widen the argument out a little bit,” Mr. Gregory said. “So here is a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets. Now isn’t it possible that if we got rid of these, if we replaced them and said, ‘Well, you could only have a magazine that carries 5 bullets or 10 bullets,’ isn’t it just possible that we can reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?”

Mr. LaPierre said he did not believe it would have made a difference. “There are so many different ways to evade that, even if you had that,” he said.

In Washington, people who are caught in possession of the type of magazine that Mr. Gregory had can face up to a year in prison, said David Benowitz, a criminal defense lawyer.

“You would be arrested; you would most likely be charged with possession of an illegal magazine,” Mr. Benowitz said, adding that “depending on what time you were arrested, you would most likely be held overnight.”

Prosecutors and defense lawyers often work out a plea agreement in which defendants receive probation and have a misdemeanor charge on their criminal record, Mr. Benowitz said. If defendants have a prior criminal record or lose a jury trial, they could face a stiffer sentence.

Mr. Benowitz said the accusation from the police that NBC had asked for permission and then had gone ahead with showing the magazine “didn’t help Gregory’s case.”

NBC was the only network to have a televised interview on Sunday with Mr. LaPierre, who held a nationally televised news conference on Friday to address the issue of gun control after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

At several points during the interview, the word “Exclusive” appeared at the bottom of the screen.

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Inquiry Into Libya Attack Is Sharply Critical of State Department

The investigation into the attacks on the diplomatic mission and C.I.A. annex that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others also faulted State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests from officials at the American Embassy in Tripoli for more guards and safety upgrades to the diplomatic mission.

The panel also blamed the State Department for waiting for specific warnings of imminent attacks to act rather than adapting security procedures and protocols to a deteriorating security environment. By this spring, Benghazi, a hotbed of militant activity in eastern Libya, had experienced a string of assassinations and attacks, including one on a British envoy’s motorcade.

Finally, the report also blamed two major State Department bureaus — diplomatic security and Near Eastern affairs — for failing to coordinate and plan adequate security at the mission. The panel also determined that a number of officials had shown poor leadership.

In response to the panel’s findings, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a letter to Congress that she was accepting all 29 of the panel’s recommendations, several of which are classified.

Mrs. Clinton is taking specific steps to correct the problems, according to officials. They say the State Department is asking permission from Congress to transfer $1.3 billion from funds that had been allocated for spending in Iraq. This includes $553 million for additional Marine security guards; $130 million for diplomatic security personnel; and $691 million for improving security at installations abroad.

On Monday, an independent panel that was established to investigate the attack presented the report to the State Department. The panel, called an accountability review board, is led by Thomas R. Pickering, a veteran diplomat. It includes four other members, among them Mike Mullen, the retired admiral who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The board is authorized by a 1986 law intended to strengthen security at United States diplomatic missions.

The State Department sent a lengthy classified version of the report to Congress on Tuesday. Mr. Pickering and Admiral Mullen are scheduled to meet with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee in closed session on Wednesday.

On Thursday, William J. Burns and Thomas R. Nides, both deputy secretaries of state, will testify to both panels. Mrs. Clinton, who is still recovering from a concussion she suffered last week after fainting while sick from a stomach flu, is at home this week. The head of the House panel, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, however, has made clear that she planned to ask Mrs. Clinton to testify at a future time.

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U.S. Is Expected to Extend Google Antitrust Inquiry

The agency’s chairman, Jon Leibowitz, has consistently said that the commission was aiming to finish its inquiry by the end of 2012, and all signs have been pointing to an imminent settlement, including reports of a Google proposal to avoid formal punishment by promising to change some of its practices.

Two people who have been briefed on the investigation said that some commissioners had asked for more time to consider possible penalties after recent reports portrayed Google as having persuaded the F.T.C. to give the company little more than a slap on the wrist.

For almost two years, the F.T.C. has been studying whether Google’s dominant search engine intentionally produces search results that favor its own commerce and other services. Companies with competing search engines as well as commercial sites that specialize in airline ticket information or shopping have complained that Google has stifled competition by its actions.

Those competitors have reacted with outrage over the last week to reports that the F.T.C. planned not to file charges of antitrust violations or unfair competition. The commission was prepared to accept Google’s written assurances that it would alter some practices related to search, according to the reports. The F.T.C. could enforce compliance with such a written assurance.

Google’s competitors, which have been urging regulators to take action, stepped up their protests after the recent reports. That outrage has apparently reverberated in the halls of the commission, where displeasure has grown at the portrayals of the commission as having been cowed by the technology giant.

The people who have been briefed on the investigation said that the F.T.C. would most likely conclude its effort in early to mid-January.

The commission is also continuing its look at whether Google abused its control of certain patents concerning mobile phone technology.

Adam Kovacevich, a Google spokesman, said the company would “continue to work cooperatively with the Federal Trade Commission and are happy to answer any questions they may have.” An F.T.C. representative declined to comment.

Google will also apparently be extending into 2013 a parallel three-year inquiry in Europe, but with hope of avoiding a big fine or a finding of wrongdoing.

After meeting with Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, the European Union’s competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, said in a statement Tuesday that “we have substantially reduced our differences.”

“I now expect Google to come forward with a detailed commitment text in January 2013,” Mr. Almunia said.

Mr. Almunia is also focusing on whether Google’s search engine thwarted competition by favoring the company’s services in presenting results of search queries.

He said Tuesday that in their discussion, the company indicated it would change “the way in which Google’s vertical search services are displayed within general search results as compared to services of competitors.”

The other areas in which Mr. Almunia said he expected to reach a deal included how Google uses and displays content from other companies in its search tool, and the restrictions that Google places on advertising and advertisers. Any concessions Google offered would be tested in the marketplace to assess their acceptability to other companies, before becoming binding, Mr. Almunia said.

If there is a settlement, Google will avoid a possible fine of as much as 10 percent of its annual global revenue, about $37.9 billion last year. It would also avoid a guilty finding that could restrict its activities in Europe. “We continue to work cooperatively with the commission,” Al Verney, a Google spokesman in Brussels, said.

Exactly what concessions on search services Mr. Almunia can wring from Google remained an open question Tuesday, though antitrust specialists agreed that he had more leverage than his American counterparts.

While Google is the dominant search engine in the United States, it holds even greater sway in Europe, accounting for more than 90 percent of searches in a number of large markets. That is one factor giving the Europeans greater leverage in trying to set rules on how Google ranks competing services.

Another factor is European antitrust law, which has long given competitors more protection than United States law provides.

Antitrust law in Europe, and the commission’s approach to it, has shifted in recent years, raising the hurdles for complainants against dominant companies, said Emanuela Lecchi, an antitrust lawyer in London with Watson, Farley & Williams.

Even so, Ms. Lecchi said, Europe still offers rivals greater protection.

Edward Wyatt reported from Washington and James Kanter from Brussels. Steve Lohr contributed reporting from New York.

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