Break out the Martinelli’s.

Elizabeth Smart, whose kidnapping and survival story has captivated the state and nation, is engaged to be married.

And the nuptials of Utah’s semi-celebrity are likely to be the sparkling cider toast — and talk — of the town.

The 24-year-old Smart, a senior at BYU, plans to marry in the summer after becoming engaged last weekend, Chris Thomas of Intrepid Communications confirmed Friday.

Thomas declined to identify Smart’s fiance or provide details about how the two met, but wedding registries online at Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn list a July 1 wedding date for an Elizabeth Smart and Matthew Gilmour in Utah.

Gilmour is from Scotland. The two apparently met while Smart was serving an LDS mission in France last year.

Those clamoring for information on whether the blushing bride-to-be will wear her hair up or down, choose lilies or roses for her reception, and if she will say yes to a dress designed by Vera Wang, Monique Lhuillier or local designer Maggie Sottero may be disappointed.

Smart plans to keep her wedding plans close to the vest, Thomas said.

"While she plans to be very publicly involved with her public advocacy work, she has decided she wants to keep the details of her personal life private," Thomas said.

"She is going to be involved in child advocacy work for a long, long time and really decided that she wants to keep her husband and [future] children out of the public spotlight."

With Smart’s devotion to the Mormon faith, it’s a good guess that she and her fiance will likely be married in an LDS temple.

That means a modest wedding gown that won’t be strapless or sleeveless.

With the family’s penchant for privacy, the wedding celebration probably won’t be a big splash reminiscent of William and Kate’s royal affair. But it’s not likely the reception following the temple ceremony will take place in a ward gym, with crêpe paper flowing from the basketball hoops, either.

Smart has become increasingly visible as an advocate for crime victims following her nine-month kidnapping ordeal at the hands of Brian David Mitchell in 2002 and 2003.

In November, Smart held a press conference at the state Capitol in the wake of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal, suggesting the Penn State victims could have benefited from a program Smart would like to see implemented in elementary schools called radKIDS [Resist Aggression Defensively]. The program teaches children about calling 911 and making defensive moves against attackers.

Smart has also implored President Barack Obama to appropriate more resources into investigating sexual abuse crimes against children.

She sent a letter to Obama on Nov. 9 asking the president to provide more funding to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which investigates sexual exploitation of children on the Web. She also asked the president to declare a "national emergency" and allot resources for a "massive search and rescue operation" to help children trapped in abusive situations.

Smart has been increasingly visible in public discussions on how to prevent child abuse and help victims. She recently spoke at the 24th Conference on Child Abuse and Family Violence at the Davis Conference Center in Layton and said she traveled to New York and Washington, D.C., earlier this month to work on child abuse prevention initiatives.

At Mitchell’s trial in 2010, Smart testified that her kidnapper raped her almost daily during nine months of captivity, which included a journey to California and back to Utah. Smart was rescued — and Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, were arrested — after the three were spotted on a Sandy street in March 2003.

Mitchell, 57, is serving a life sentence in prison. Barzee is serving time in a Texas prison for her role in the crime.

Smart is working with her Elizabeth Smart Foundation, aimed at protecting children from abuse with a focus on prevention, education and promoting radKIDS.

In July, Smart signed on as a "contributor" to ABC News to help viewers "better understand missing-persons stories from the perspective of someone who really knows what the family experiences when a loved one goes missing," according to a network spokeswoman.

Smart told ABC News on Friday that she is excited about her engagement, according to the news organization’s website.

"We are looking forward to a bright future together," Smart told ABC.

Smart’s father, Ed Smart, said Friday his future son-in-law is a "fine young man." Ed Smart said he’s pleased for his daughter and hopes she has a happy life.

Thomas noted that Smart’s life is on the upswing.

"This is an exciting next chapter of her life," he said of her engagement. "It’s a banner year for her in many ways."

U.S. citizens Thursday are celebrating their annual Thanksgiving holiday, a centuries-old harvest time tradition.

For the day of feasting that usually kicks off the winter holiday season - and triggers one of the busiest travel weeks of the year - Americans take to the air, railways and roads to visit family and friends.

The AAA automobile and travel organization predicts that 42.5 million Americans will travel at least 80 kilometers from home in the coming days, 4 percent more than a year ago.  Most of them are traveling by car.

The Thanksgiving Day meal usually includes turkey or ham, vegetables, and pies made of fall-harvest fillings such as apple or pumpkin. The National Turkey Federation estimates that, overall, Americans consumed more than 46 million turkeys at Thanksgiving last year.

After the feast, some people engage in recreational activities such as watching or playing sports - although, after such a heavy meal, a Thanksgiving Day nap is also a well-established custom.

Some Americans spend at least part of the day doing charity work, such as helping serve a Thanksgiving meal at a homeless shelter.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama gave his annual "pardon" to the national Thanksgiving turkey and its alternate, an act that symbolically -- and humorously -- "saves" the birds from becoming part of a traditional Thanksgiving Day feast.

At the pardoning ceremony, Obama said people should be thankful for what they have and remember those who have less.  He also thanked members of the U.S. military for their service. 

His two daughters, Sasha and Malia, were with him at the event.

The turkeys, named "Liberty" and "Peace," will live near Washington, D.C. at the estate of the first U.S. president, George Washington, where they will be part of a Christmas program until January.

Later Wednesday, Obama and his family took two other turkeys to a Washington area food bank that helps feed those in need.  While there, the Obamas helped distribute food bags.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for the last Thursday of November to be observed as a day of thanksgiving.  The modern Thanksgiving holiday traces its roots to 1621, when English settlers in the Massachusetts Colony held a feast with a Native American tribe that taught the colonists how to grow food and hunt for game in their new surroundings.

Thanksgiving turkeys have been presented to presidents intermittently since the Lincoln administration.  President George H. W. Bush issued the first turkey pardon 20 years ago.

WASHINGTON — A man clad in black who was obsessed with President Barack Obama pulled his car within view of the White House at night and fired shots from an assault rifle, cracking a window of the first family's living quarters while the president was away, authorities said.

The U.S. Secret Service found two bullets had hit the White House and agents caught up with Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez in Pennsylvania on Wednesday after a four-day search. Police arrested the 21-year-old Idaho man at a hotel after a desk clerk recognized his picture. Ortega was scheduled to make his first appearance at 2 p.m. Thursday in federal court in Pittsburgh and many questions remained about his motive and background.

Authorities are investigating the man's mental health and say there are indications he believed attacking the White House was part of a personal mission from God, according to two different law enforcement officials who spoke with The Associated Press. There are also indications the man had become obsessed with Obama and the White House, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Shots were fired at the building Friday night. Agents discovered Tuesday that one of the two bullets hit the exterior and a second cracked a window on the second floor residential level, just behind the rounded portico visible from the south side of the White House.

That bullet was stopped by protective ballistic glass. The window that was hit is in front of the so-called Yellow Oval Room, which is in the middle of the family's living quarters.

Obama and his wife Michelle were on a trip to California and Hawaii at the time of the shooting. The president has since travelled on to Australia on a nine-day Asia-Pacific tour. The Obamas were in California without daughters Malia and Sasha, but the White House had no immediate comment on the shooting or who may have been home at the time.

Investigators believe Ortega fired the rifle from his vehicle Friday, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation. Gunshots were reported that night on Constitution Avenue about 9:30 p.m. Soon after, U.S. Park Police found an abandoned vehicle, the assault rifle inside it, near a bridge leading out of the nation's capital to Virginia. The car led investigators to Ortega, and they obtained a warrant for his arrest Sunday, officials said.

This is not the first time the White House has come under attack.

In the past 40 years, the landmark has faced threats ranging from a stolen helicopter that landed on the grounds in 1974 to a man who wielded a sawed-off shotgun on a sidewalk outside in 1984. In 1994 alone, there were five threats including a plane crash on the lawn and a suspected drive-by shooting. Another man fired at least 29 rounds from a semiautomatic weapon, with 11 striking the White House.

Dan Bongino is a former Secret Service agent who served on the presidential details for Obama and President George W. Bush. He said Friday's shooting would likely mean tighter security and co-ordination.

"They do an exhaustive review of their security procedures every time something like this happens," he said. "Nothing ever works perfectly. They will undress this completely and then they will find out when they rebuild the incident exactly what they could have done better."

Bongino, who recently left the Secret Service to run for U.S. Senate in Maryland, said it was doubtful that a gunman could strike a target such as the White House from a moving car at the distance investigators suspect he shot. It would require "an incredible amount of training to pull that off," he said, suggesting it was more likely Ortega stopped his car to fire.

China showed eagerness on Tuesday to shun a clash with the United States over trade and currency stands, straining that the World's two largest economies share a stake in steady ties.

Liu Zhenmin, Assistant Chinese Foreign Minister, did not openly speak to U.S. President Barack Obama's remarks in Hawaii on Sunday that the United States was unhappy with China's trade and currency practices.

"The sense of President Obama's remarks is a question that you should ask the White House and the State Department spokespeople," Liu told a press conference.

"China and the America are also economic associates each of which is significant to the other," Liu said at the conference about Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's attendance at local summits in Indonesia this week. Obama will meet Wen during the meetings.

"I think that in conjunction with the development of economic globalization, and the development of Asia-Pacific regional cooperation, China and the United States have largest potential to more strengthen business and trade collaboration."

China has wanted to put its business relationship with the United States back on path, careful that more disputing could make difficult a give up of higher posts amongst China's Communist Party leaders in 2012.

Utilizing some of his harder language yet against China, Obama, a day after face-to-face discussions with President Hu Jintao, called on China to retain the tasks of a "full-size" economy, stop "gaming the system" and make a level playing field for U.S. and other foreign businesses.

China, America's massive foreign creditor and its quicker-boosting large export market, shot back that it declined to follow worldwide economic regulations that it had no part in writing.

Tension had been building in the preface to the yearly Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum gathering over a planned U.S.-led free trade contracts that Washington desires as a offset to Chinese pressure but China sees as an effort to enforce it to play by U.S. regulations.

The currency quarrel between China and the United States has been at the heart of anxiety between the competitors.

Washington has long criticized that Beijing keeps its yuan currency unnaturally feeble to give its exporters a benefits. China contradicts that the yuan should rise only steadily to prevent damaging the economy and driving up joblessness, which would hurt international expansion.

At the APEC conference in Hawaii, Hu told Obama that even a large appreciation in the yuan against the dollar would not support U.S. trade and joblessness difficulties. But Obama later said the undervalued yuan provided Chinese commodities a 20-25% price benefit in international markets.

Liu said Wen would convene Obama during his tour to the Indonesian island of Bali for meetings with Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders and an East Asia Summit on November 19.

"China and the United States both have a largest crash on the Asia-Pacific area," Liu said. "For the two countries to accomplish collaboration and jointly advantage in Asia suits not only their interests, but also assists territorial peace and development."

U.S.-China cooperation has been overwhelmed by a sequence of disagreements, including disputes over China's trade and currency practices, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, China's military upsurge in the Pacific and its human rights record.

The East Asia Summit meets senior authorities or leaders from Southeast Asia, China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand.

US President Barack Obama may have a rope of anti-terrorism victory and made higher position from the people on foreign policy, but neither is probably to assist him grip the White House.

For his management, this re-election truth is an annoying base line.

When the first-term senator succeeded the presidency, queries hanged back about his willingness to tackle national security issues. Yet Obama has got broader appreciation for operations that have died terrorist chiefs, most remarkably Osama bin Laden in May, and Anwar al-Awlaki on Friday.

Al-Awlaki, an American national struck in the U.S. drone attack, was believed by the management as having a "crucial operational task" in terrorist plans. They included two nearly destructive assaults on U.S.-bound planes, an airliner on Christmas 2009 and cargo planes last year.

Obama also can say benefit for attacking Libyan activists in step downing Moammar Gadhafi, for helping other democratic movements in the Arab world, for drawing down the battle in Iraq and Afghanistan and for discussing a new nuclear arms reducing treaty with Russia.

But except for unpredicted mishaps, the nation's inflexibly higher joblessness rate and chaos in the financial markets mean people are far more probably to vote next November with the economy principal in their minds, not the president's history on foreign strategy and terrorism.

That's dreadful news for the management because people give Obama far greater support ratings on terrorism than on his tackling of the economy.

Indeed Obama's endorsement rating on terrorism was advanced than on any other matter, according to an Associated Press-GFK poll held in late August. It appeared that 60% of those reviewed endorsement of his tackling of terrorism. Only 36% supported of his tackling of the economy, an all-time poor for Obama.

Obama's on the whole support rating also chop down to an all-time low in the poll, 46%.

The re-election image obtains even gloomier given that 92% of those inquired said the economy was an tremendously or very key issue. By assessment 73% put the same importance on terrorism, but even they're separated over whether Obama should be re-elected.

It's also not clear whether the murdering of al-Awlaki will bring Obama any fresh political favor. The blistering American-born priest had a hand in many prestigious terror efforts on the U.S., but his name is barely as well-known to most Americans as bin Laden.

Obama's classifies for U.S. special forces to execute bin Laden during an attack on his Pakistani compound did give the president's endorsement rating a hit. But it established briefing, additional facts of the less important role of terrorism for voters.

"It's not 2004," said Rick Nelson, a leading fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This isn't the main issue facing the United States. The key issue is the economy and jobs. That matter is going to surpass anything we do overseas."

The joint CIA-U.S. military raid that aimed al-Awlaki and killed a second American citizen wasn't without disagreement.

The assault actually was the first time a U.S. citizen was tracked and accomplished based on secret intelligence and the president's say-so, elevating questions about the reach of presidents' authorities.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a GOP presidential nominee, called it a "murder" and said Americans should not carelessly acknowledge such aggression against U.S. nationals, even those with valid ties to terrorism.

But most other top Republicans contesting for Obama's job saw small disadvantage in admiring the president for his role.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry applauded president Obama, as well as the military and spy agencies, for "violent anti-terror policies." Ex- Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney criticized the president for his attempts to keep Americans secure and said al-Awlaki's killing was a "biggest victory" in the terrorism fight.

With the first nominating contests about three months away, foreign policy and terrorism have been virtually absent from the Republican race. When the issues have arisen, most GOP contenders have tried to portray the president as a weak leader. It's a sentiment they hope taps into voters' frustration with the economy.

Bruce Jones, an expert on transnational threats, said Obama's success against terrorist leaders may help counter that GOP strategy.

"At the very least, it takes away from the critics the idea that he can't lead, that he doesn't understand those kinds of issues," said Jones, also a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

Away from the antiterrorism attempts, Obama advisers say they consider the president will acquire credit come Election Day for his foreign policy successes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, in addition for his favor of other democratic movements in the whole the Arab world. They say the president has enhanced U.S. positioning in the world, making it easier to obtain international support for his strategies, sooner than having to go it alone.

But there is some worries amid Obama supporters that the one foreign policy matter most probably to locate a spot in the 2012 campaign is one that has got mild success: protecting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Republicans and some Jewish voters cover him as anti-Israel, while much of the world differs with his antagonism to Palestinian attempts to look for statehood acknowledgement at the United Nations.