News From NPR

Maybe Barack Obama would be happier as a governor.

It's early days in his second term, but the president's agenda doesn't appear to have a whole lot of momentum. His budget last week was greeted with more criticism than applause from Democrats and Republicans alike.

Here's a fresh headline that may be welcome to those who oppose the bipartisan plan to extend background checks of gun purchasers to sales made at gun shows and over the Internet:

Since President George W. Bush left office in 2009, The Dallas Morning News writes, he has been "a punching bag for [President] Obama, Democrats and even some Republicans."

But while Bush told the Morning News during an interview for a long story posted over the weekend that "nobody likes to be criticized all the time," he also indicated that the criticism hasn't caused him to question his decisions:

"I'm comfortable with what I did," he said. "I'm comfortable with who I am."

Satellite TV distributor Dish Network has offered to buy telecom giant Sprint Nextel Corp. in a $25.5 billion deal, a move that could derail a similar offer by the Japanese phone company SoftBank.

Dish says that it has offered $17.3 billion in cash and $8.2 billion in stock for Sprint. After the news was announced on Monday, Sprint's stock jumped 15 percent in pre-market trading, according to The Associated Press.