Trying to drive home the message of his proposed Buffett Rule, President Obama has found a new secretary to serve as his model for tax reform: his own.   In a preening release of the president’s tax returns yesterday, the White House confirmed that Obama pays a slightly lower tax rate than his personal aide, Anita Decker Breckenridge. She earned $95,000 last year, according to annual staff salary information that the White House reports to Congress.   The president and first lady Michelle Obama reported a combined adjusted gross income of $789,674 last year, with $400,000 of the couple’s income coming from the president’s salary and the rest from book royalties. The Obamas paid $162,074 in federal taxes — a 20.5 percent rate — and donated $172,130 to charity.   “The president’s secretary pays a slightly higher rate this year than the president on her substantially lower income,” said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage, “which is exactly why we need to reform our tax code and ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share.”   Mitt Romney, meanwhile, filed an extension, with his campaign announcing he will publicly release his taxes sometime before the November election. In his estimated tax return released in January, Romney earned $20.9 million and payed $3.2 million in taxes — an effective rate of 15.4 percent. He paid a rate of 13.9 percent on $21.7 million in 2010.   A Gallup poll released yesterday showed 60 percent of Americans in support of the president’s plan requiring those who make over $1 million to pay at least 30 percent in federal taxes.   With yesterday’s release, the president has now revealed his tax returns dating back 12 years. His campaign took the opportunity to challenge Romney to provide a similar span of stubs, from his tenure as Massachusetts governor and during his prosperous years running Bain Capital.   Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, criticized Romney for being in “defiance of decades of precedent,” while Romney press secretary Andrea Saul responded by saying that the president was trying to “distract Americans” from his economic record.   Saul said Romney would release his full 2011 return when it is filed next week, but gave no indication whether he would provide any more beyond that. Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, a former Romney adviser, joined other GOP operatives in encouraging the candidate not to take the bait.   “First, your opponent will always ask for more,” Castellanos told The Daily. “You can’t run your campaign to please your adversary. But most importantly, voters don’t care about Mitt Romney’s money. They care about their own money. Mitt Romney’s tax returns aren’t an issue. Taxpayers’ tax returns are.”   Back in January, the Romney campaign fumbled badly amid pressure to release the candidate’s tax returns prior to the South Carolina primary. At first declining to make them available, Romney was criticized by his GOP opponents and even admonished by supporters, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. The moment marked one of his lowest points during the race, culminating in a distant second-place showing in the Palmetto State.

The everyday guy that everyone knew began changing slowly, bit by bit. James Holmes was smart and a little shy, but not mean or weird — at least not until just weeks ago.   A Phi Beta Kappa, the budding neuroscientist stopped studying and decided to drop out of graduate school. Then, he dyed his brown hair a garish orange. And he started buying guns — four of them.   Now, the 24-year-old Holmes is accused of yesterday’s movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., what authorities describe as one of the bloodiest mass shootings in U.S. history.   Holmes slipped into the midnight premiere showing of the “The Dark Knight Rises,” the latest Batman film, and opened fire — aiming at everyone and no one, according to police and witnesses.   “He looked like an assassin ready to go to war,” said Jordan Crofter, who was unhurt in the attack.   Last night, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates refused to speculate on what could have caused Holmes to turn violent, but his decision to transform his looks suggests he wanted to draw connections between himself and Batman’s archenemy, who had red hair in the last film in the series. The California native told officers who captured him that he was “the Joker,” according to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who was briefed by Oates.   After surrendering, Holmes pointed police toward his apartment, which was booby-trapped with explosives, Oates said. Officers evacuated the building and four others in the area; they are hoping to go inside sometime today.   “It’s not something I’ve ever seen before,” Oates said.   In consoling grief-stricken Colorado residents last night, Gov. John Hickenlooper described Holmes as a “very deranged mind.”   “He is an individual clearly disturbed,” Hickenlooper told reporters.   Those who knew Holmes growing up, though, remember him as just an everyday guy, smart but not that different from anyone else. He grew up in San Diego, in a tile-roofed stucco home in a well-to-do subdivision called Rancho Peñasquitos. Neighbors described Holmes and his parents as quiet and active in their Presbyterian church.   “They’re just a nice, normal, middle-income family, enjoying San Diego,” neighbor John Couris told The Daily. “I wasn’t even aware they had a son, never saw him.”   Classmates described Holmes as smart and somewhat reserved. Dan Kim went to middle school with Holmes and remembers a kid who loaded up on Advanced Placement classes and was tight with just a few equally bright friends.   “He didn’t seem like a troublemaker at all,” Kim, 23, told the Los Angeles Times. “He just seemed like he wanted to get in and out, and go to college.”   Holmes was an athlete as well as an academic, going out at least one year for the cross-country team at Westview High School.   “He was very quiet,” recalled teammate Tori Burton, 24. “He was a nice guy when you did occasionally talk to him. But he was definitely more introverted.”   Holmes enrolled at the University of California at Riverside right after he finished high school in 2006. It was only a 90-minute drive from home. He majored in neuroscience and excelled, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 2010.   “Academically, he was the top of the top,” Timothy White, the university’s chancellor, told the Denver Post.   If Holmes seemed quirky, his dorm mates dismissed his behavior as a consequence of intelligence.   “I thought he was a little weird,” Jessica Cade told San Gabriel Valley Tribune. “But when someone is that smart, it isn’t strange for them to be weird.”   Last year, Holmes enrolled in a graduate-level neuroscience program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, where his behavior grew stranger. When a faculty member heard that one of his students had been involved in a shooting, he immediately suspected Holmes.   The instructor described Holmes as “very quiet, strangely quiet in class,” and “socially off.” Holmes scored badly on his comprehensive exams last semester, the instructor told the Washington Post, and was on the verge of being placed on academic probation.   Holmes, though, acted before the school could, opting to withdraw from the program. The university confirmed Holmes’ status in a terse statement yesterday.   At the same time Holmes was struggling in class, he was amassing weapons. He bought each of the four guns found in his possession yesterday from retailers in the last two months, according to a federal law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.   Holmes bought a Glock pistol in Aurora on May 22. Six days later, he picked up a Remington shotgun in Denver. About two weeks later, he bought a .223-caliber Smith & Wesson AR-15 assault rifle in Thornton, Colo., and then another Glock in Denver on July 6 — 13 days before the shooting, the official said. A high-volume drum magazine was attached to the rifle, an assault weapon, the official said.   A representative of the Arapaho County Sheriff’s Office declined to say if Holmes holds a concealed weapons permit.   Hours before the shooting, a neighbor saw Holmes outside his apartment building — loading suspicious, oddly shaped packages into his car.   “I saw him put two packages, long boxes, into his car,” said Yi Zhang, 34. “His car was already filled with packages.”   Holmes had no known presence on major online social networks, but according to TMZ.com, a person identifying himself as “James Holmes” from Aurora, Colo., maintained a profile on the dating site Adult Friend Finder and used a photo resembling the orange-haired suspect. On it he described himself as “a nice guy” and “looking for a fling or casual sex” – and admitted that his “male endowment” is “short/average.”   The person last logged into the site three days before the shooting, when he left a message, “Will you visit me in prison?”

Ever since Edwin De Leon moved to University Heights in the Bronx four years ago, he no longer walks to school in fear of bullies.   "I feel safe and nobody is gonna come up to me and start problems," said Edwin, 14, who now attends All Hallows High School in Grand Concourse.   The American-born Dominican teen is part of an escalating trend of Dominicans moving from Washington Heights to the Bronx in search of lower rents and a better quality of life.   Dominicans are the fastest-growing population in the Bronx, according to the American Community Survey, and this Bronx community is the largest Dominican enclave in the country.   The Bronx has attracted Domnican families because they feel that it is a safer place, says Liz De Carmen, a coordinator of Building with Books, a community program for high school students.   "There's a lot of drug dealing going on; a lot of illegal things that happen in Washington Heights. So a lot of people think that moving out of Manhattan and moving into another borough like the Bronx would be better for their kids," she said. "The Bronx is becoming a safer community," said Borough President Adolfo Carrión. "People's perception of the Bronx has changed." He also said that the affordability of the Bronx is a big reason for people moving.   "Most Dominicans are going to the Bronx because their rent is increasing" in Manhattan, said Renee Saldana, a coordinator from the Dominican Women Development Center. The median rent in Manhattan is almost twice as much as in the Bronx. Many Dominican kids felt that the benefits of living in the Bronx outweigh the adjustments of moving.   "In Manhattan there were no parks close by," said Mike Heniques, 10. "In the Bronx, there are more libraries and more parks."   Edwin is now in a private high school that offers a wider range of courses than the public school he was at in Washington Heights. "I get more subjects like music, art and more gym," he said. He also felt safer in school because there are more security guards and cameras. "There are not that many fights," he said.   While lower rents and safer neighborhoods attract many Dominicans, there can be downsides for these newcomers. "In Washington Heights, there are more programs created by [and for] Dominicans, like Alianza Dominicana," De Carmen said about the nonprofit organization, which caters to Dominican youth. "They don't have that in the Bronx.   "They are going to feel that they have to make new friends and new classmates," she said. "And sometimes they feel depressed and stressed because of that."   Yioscar Nunez, 14, moved to the Bronx from Washington Heights four years ago. "I isolate myself in the Bronx from going outside," he said. "Whenever I hang out with people, I go to Manhattan. I don't hang out in the Bronx." Despite the inconvenience of adjusting to a different setting, Edwin says that the move to the Bronx has reaped benefits for both him and his family. "My mom has a better job," Edwin said. "She can afford to pay the rent, and now I get a bigger allowance."