White House Press Secretary Jay Carney acknowledged on Wednesday that he has seen reports of new arrests in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation, but told reporters that he doesn't have any additional information on the matter. "I have to refer you to the FBI and local law enforcement," Carney said. 

Carney said he doesn't know whether Obama has been briefed on the arrests, adding that the President is updated regularly on the investigation. 

While investigators have not yet publicly revealed the alleged conduct of the three new suspects arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings, they are focusing on whether the three aided accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, according to NBC News' Pete Williams.

Williams reported on Wednesday that the suspects were roomates of Tsarnaev. Two of the roommates were already in custody related to immigration violations and the third was arrested Wednesday morning, according to Williams.

"The question is whether they helped to take things out of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's dorm room after the bombing," Williams said on-air, according to a rush transcript. "Now, no one is saying at this point that they have knowledge of the bombing in advance. That's been the big question. We'll probably learn more about the answer to that question later today when these charges are made public."

CBS News reported that the suspects were arrested for allegedly "harboring or aiding the two brothers" after the bombing. According to CBS, federal charges are pending.

This post has been updated.

The Boston Police Department just announced via Twitter that three additional suspects have been taken into custody in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation.

Three additional suspects taken into custody in Marathon bombing case. Details to follow.

— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) May 1, 2013

Massachusetts Republican Senate nominee Gabriel Gomez said Wednesday on MSNBC that he would have voted in favor of expanding background checks for gun purchases had he been in the Senate at the time. 

MSNBC host Chuck Todd asked how Gomez would vote on issues like a ban on assault weapons or limits on high-capacity magazines. Gomez said he is not sold on those issues. 

"Chuck, I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment," Gomez said. "And I think I have a pretty unique perspective having been a SEAL and firing all these weapons, and I don't believe that we need an assault weapons ban or to limit rounds in a high capacity magazine."

Gomez reiterated his support for expanding background checks, as proposed by Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV). 

The senate voted down the bill in mid-April. Since then, senators who opposed the legislation have seen their poll numbers plummet.  

Watch the video: 

The father of one of the men featured on the New York Post's infamous "Bag Men" front page, which painted the men as persons of interest in the Boston Marathon bombing, is considering his legal options, according to the Washington Post.

On April 18, the New York Post's front page showed two men carrying bags under the headline, "BAG MEN." A smaller headline read, "Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon."

"A lot of people, they tell me that’s your right to sue them,” El Houssein Barhoum, the father of Salah Barhoum, told the Post in an article published on Tuesday. “I will give him my case and he will study it.”

According to Barhoum, the publication of the paper's front page has taken a toll on his son:

Should the family file a civil complaint, it’ll surely address the upheaval that the New York Post has helped bring to the Barhoum household. The son in the photo, Salah Barhoum, a 16-year-old track athlete (other accounts say he’s 17), sleeps one or two hours per night these days, says El Houssein Barhoum, and sometimes “refuses to go to school.” “He says, ‘I don’t want people to ask me a lot of questions,’ ” the father reports.

Read the rest here.

After making a hostile debut in the U.S. Senate, Ted Cruz (R-TX) has set his sights on a higher office, according to National Review's Robert Costa. 

Citing "friends and confidants," National Review reported on Wednesday that Cruz is considering a run for president:

Cruz won’t talk about it publicly, and even privately he’s cagey about revealing too much of his thought process or intentions. But his interest is undeniable.

The senator is never quoted in the piece, but a number of supporters spoke enthusiastically of his prospects.

Cruz has recently been in the headlines for going after his own party. After taking heat from GOP colleagues over his gun control filibuster threat, the conservative firebrand called Republicans "squishes." The line prompted conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin to call on the senator to apologize to his fellow Republicans.

Read more on Cruz's presidential prospects here.

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's re-election campaign has released its first TV ad of the cycle. The ad, released on Wednesday and titled "Jersey Proud," talks up the Republican governor's bipartisan bonafides.

Christie works with Democrats and Republicans, a narrator in the ad says, and has proved that "as long as you stick to your principles, compromise isn't a dirty word." Finally, the ad concludes, "the most important thing (Christie) did has little to do with numbers, statistics or even politics: he made us proud to say we're from New Jersey."

According to Politico, the ad will cost the Christie campaign $1.2 million. The ad is set to run through May 12 in New York and Philadelphia media markets. 

Watch the ad:

Correction: This post originally reported that the ad would cost the Christie campaign $1.5 million. 

Jon Stewart on Monday had more than a little fun with the ricin-tainted letters case in Mississippi, a story complete with an Elvis impersonator being cleared of charges and subsequently singing country on cable news and a karate instructor who is also reportedly a Wayne Newton impersonator.

"The latest developments in the ricin investigation can be summed up with what is possibly my favorite sentence ever uttered in relation to a possible deadly terrorist incident," Stewart said, referring to an ABC story. "Authorities have switched their focus from the Elvis impersonator to a karate instructor," the story reported.

The New York Times pushed back on Tuesday against New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's accusation that the paper is racially biased in its coverage of violence. 

During a speech on Tuesday at city police headquarters, Bloomberg levied criticism against the Times for denouncing the city's stop-and-frisk program but not reporting on the recent murder of a young black man from the Bronx, according to the New York Post.

Bloomberg told the story of Alphonza Bryant, a 17-year-old Bronx resident who was shot and killed last week. Then the mayor pointed his criticism at civil liberties groups and the New York Times. 

"He was just a victim of too many guns on our streets," Bloomberg said. "But after his murder there was no outrage from the Center for Constitutional Rights or the NYCLU. There was not even a mention of his murder in our papers, our paper of record, the New York Times. 'All the news that's fit to print' did not include the murder of 17-year-old Alphonza Bryant. Do you think that if a white, 17-year-old prep student from Manhattan had been murdered, the Times would have ignored it? Me neither."

A spokeswoman for Times called Bloomberg's claim of bias "absurd."

"Mayor Bloomberg is trying to deflect criticism of the City’s stop-and-frisk practice by accusing The New York Times of bias," said Danielle Rhoades Ha, the Times' communications director, in a written statement. "Among those critical of the practice is The New York Times editorial board, which is separate from the news side of the newspaper. The Times aggressively covers violence in the city's neighborhoods, and to select one murder as evidence to the contrary is disingenuous. His claim of racial bias is absurd.”

The New York Daily News covered the shooting in an article published on April 23. And Capital New York pointed out that Times columnist Joe Nocera mentioned the shooting in a blog post. The post linked to the Daily News' report on the shooting, which a Bloomberg adviser wrote on Twitter "doesn't exactly cut it."

See video of Bloomberg's remarks over at New York magazine. 

Sen. Rand Paul has endorsed former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) in the state's special congressional election, USA Today reported on Tuesday.

"More than anything, Washington needs strong and consistent voices for fiscal responsibility and liberty," Paul said in a statement. "Mark has proven during his time in office that watching out for taxpayers and holding the line on spending are his top priorities."

The tea party group FreedomWorks on Tuesday also endorsed Sanford. And according to USA Today, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Rand's father, endorsed the former governor last week. 

Sanford and his opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, met for a debate on Tuesday, which got personal when Colbert Busch called out Sanford for his 2009 affair.