President Obama, so often cool and unemotional, struggled to maintain his composure Friday as he addressed a nation reeling from a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.
“The majority of those who died today were children — beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old,” Obama said partway into a four-minute statement.
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Saturday called for Americans to "come together" to prevent tragedies like the school massacre that killed 20 young children and six adults, one of the worst mass shootings in US history.
"This weekend, Michelle and I are doing what I know every parent is doing -- holding our children as close as we can and reminding them how much we love them," said Obama, father of Sasha, 10, and Malia, 14.
"There are families in Connecticut who can't do that today. And they need all of us now," he added, in his weekly address.
Twenty-seven people, including the shooter, were killed on Friday morning at an elementary school in Connecticut. US media reported that a 28th victim, found at a residence in the town, was the shooter's mother.
"While nothing can take the place of a lost child or loved one, all of us can extend a hand to those in need -- to remind them that we are there for them; that we are praying for them; and that the love they felt for those they lost endures not just in their own memories, but also in their community, and their country," he continued.
"Every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt," Obama said. On Friday, he fought tears in an emotional address about the tragic incident.
"We grieve for the families of those we lost. And we keep in our prayers the parents of those who survived. Because as blessed as they are to have their children home, they know that their child's innocence has been torn away far too early," the president said.
Obama said the tragedy was all too familiar, after similar deadly shootings at a shopping mall in Oregon, at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and at a movie theatre in Colorado earlier this year.
"Any of these neighbourhoods could be our own. So we have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this. Regardless of the politics," the president said, echoing his message from the day before.
Obama did not give details, but some US politicians called for a serious look at gun control laws, a subject which Obama, re-elected on November 6, did not tackle strongly in his first term.
- AFP/xq
"I enjoyed my time in India thoroughly from beginning to end, particularly impressed by the Air Force Pilots who flew me back. They are the kind of professional military men I like to see," said the 67-year-old Suu Kyi who was placed under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years on different occasions.
She added: "They (IAF) are very very sweet. So very soldierly in the best kind of way, officers and gentlemen."
During her visit to India last month, Suu Kyi was flown in and out of Yagon by IAF pilots in military planes.
After a 40-minute meeting with Salman Khurshid, a beaming Burmese leader also so praised the kind of reception she received from the Indian government and Indian people during her visit.
"It is an experience I wish to repeat," she said.
Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic
The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.
A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.
After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)
Published December 14, 2012
The FBI is in at least three states interviewing relatives and friends of the elementary school gunman who killed 20 children, seven adults and himself, trying to put together a better picture of the shooter and uncover any possible explanation for the massacre, ABC News has learned.
The authorities have fanned out to New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts to interview relatives of Adam Lanza, 20, and his mother, who was one of Lanza's shooting victims.
The victims died Friday when Lanza invaded Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and sprayed staff and students with bullets, officials said. Lanza also was found dead in the school.
Lt. Paul Vance said 18 children died in the school and two more died later in a hospital.
Six adults also were slain, bringing the total to 26. Among them was the school's principal, Dawn Hochsprung, multiple sources told ABC News. Another adult victim was teacher Vicki Soto, her cousin confirmed.
In addition to the casualties at the school, Lanza's mother, Nancy Lanza, was killed in her home, federal and state sources told ABC News.
According to sources, Lanza shot his mother in the face, then left his house armed with at least two semi-automatic handguns, a Glock and a Sig Sauer, and a semi-automatic rifle. He was also wearing a bulletproof vest.
READ: Connecticut Shooter Adam Lanza: 'Obviously Not Well'
Lanza then drove to the elementary school and continued his rampage, authorities said.
It appeared that Lanza died from what was believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The rifle was found in his car.
"Evil visited this community today," Gov. Dan Malloy said at a news conference Friday evening.
CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.
In the early confusion surrounding the investigation, federal sources initially identified the suspect as Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24. Identification belonging to Ryan Lanza was found at the shooting scene, federal sources told ABC News.
Ryan Lanza soon took to Facebook to say he was alive and not responsible for the shooting. He later was questioned by police.
During the rampage, first-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, 29, locked her 14 students in a class bathroom and listened to "tons of shooting" until police came to help.
"It was horrific," Roig said. "I thought we were going to die."
She said that the terrified kids were saying, "I just want Christmas. ... I don't want to die. I just want to have Christmas."
A tearful President Obama said Friday that there was "not a parent in America who doesn't feel the overwhelming grief that I do."
The president had to pause to compose himself after saying these were "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10."
As he continued with his statement, Obama wiped away tears from each eye. He has ordered flags flown as half staff.
It is the second worst mass shooting in U.S. history, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 when 32 were killed before the shooter turned the gun on himself. The carnage in Connecticut exceeded the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in which 13 died and 24 were injured.
Friday's shooting came three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts opened fire in a busy Oregon mall, killing two before turning the gun on himself.
The Connecticut shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which includes 450 students in grades K-4. The town is located about 12 miles east of Danbury, Conn.
The massacre prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said.
SINGAPORE: The National Solidarity Party (NSP) has said it appreciates the open and responsible way that the PAP has handled the discovery of the extra-marital affairs of former Speaker of Parliament Michael Palmer.
In a media statement, NSP's Secretary-General Hazel Poa said "regardless of his or her position, each person should be responsible and accountable for his/her actions." And "this is a principle we must uphold."
Ms Poa said the NSP noted with concern the rise in the number of high-profile cases of marital infidelities, and "urged the MCYS to study if these are signs of a rising social problem, and if so, the underlying causes."
She said the impact of a social breakdown to a person's quality of life can never be compensated by economic achievements.
On the possibility of a by-election at Punggol East, Ms Poa said the NSP has decided not to create a multi-cornered fight by contesting, "in the interest of furthering the opposition cause".
The Workers' Party contested in the Punggol East single-member constituency (SMC) at the last election and has indicated its desire to do so again in the event of a by-election.
- CNA/de
JAMMU: Trikuta hills housing the cave shrine of Mata Vaishnodevi today received the season's first snowfall even as pilgrims continued their journey to pay obeisance.
Trikuta hills and nearby areas received 4 inches of season's first snow, shrine board officials said.
Despite the snowfall, over 15,000 pilgrims are on their way to the cave shrine to pay their obeisance, they said.
Braving the chill, pilgrims were seen shouting hymns and moving towards the Bhawan from Katra, the base camp of the shrine, they said.
If the world's entire population went in for a collective checkup, would the doctor's prognosis be good or bad? Both, according to new studies published in The Lancet medical journal.
The vast collaborative effort, called the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010, includes papers by nearly 500 authors in 50 countries. Spanning four decades of data, it represents the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken of health problems around the world.
It reveals that, globally, we're living longer but coping with more illness as adults. In 1990, "childhood underweight"—a condition associated with malnutrition, measles, malaria, and other infectious diseases—was the world's biggest health problem. Now the top causes of global disease are adult ailments: high blood pressure (associated with 9.4 million deaths in 2010), tobacco smoking (6.2 million), and alcohol use (4.9 million).
First, the good news:
We're living longer. Average life expectancy has risen globally since 1970 and has increased in all but eight of the world's countries within the past decade.
Both men and women are gaining years. From 1970 to 2010, the average lifespan rose from 56.4 years to 67.5 years for men, and from 61.2 years to 73.3 years for women.
Efforts to combat childhood diseases and malnutrition have been very successful. Deaths in children under five years old declined almost 60 percent in the past four decades.
Developing countries have made huge strides in public health. In the Maldives, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran, and Peru, life expectancy has increased by more than 20 years since 1970. Within the past two decades, gains of 12 to 15 years have occurred in Angola, Ethiopia, Niger, and Rwanda, an indication of successful strategies for curbing HIV, malaria, and nutritional deficiencies.
We're beating many communicable diseases. Thanks to improvements in sanitation and vaccination, the death rate for diarrheal diseases, lower respiratory infections, meningitis, and other common infectious diseases has dropped by 42 percent since 1990.
And the bad:
Non-infectious diseases are on the rise, accounting for two of every three deaths globally in 2010. Heart disease and stroke are the primary culprits.
Young adults aren't doing as well as others. Deaths in the 15 to 49 age bracket have increased globally in the past 20 years. The reasons vary by region, but diabetes, smoking, alcohol, HIV/AIDS, and malaria all play a role.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is taking a toll in sub-Saharan Africa. Life expectancy has declined overall by one to seven years in Zimbabwe and Lesotho, and young adult deaths have surged by more than 500 percent since 1970 in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
We drink too much. Alcohol overconsumption is a growing problem in the developed world, especially in Eastern Europe, where it accounts for almost a quarter of the total disease burden. Worldwide, it has become the top risk factor for people ages 15 to 49.
We eat too much, and not the right things. Deaths attributable to obesity are on the rise, with 3.4 million in 2010 compared to 2 million in 1990. Similarly, deaths attributable to dietary risk factors and physical inactivity have increased by 50 percent (4 million) in the past 20 years. Overall, we're consuming too much sodium, trans fat, processed meat, and sugar-sweetened beverages, and not enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fiber, calcium, and omega-3 fatty acids.
Smoking is a lingering problem. Tobacco smoking, including second-hand smoke, is still the top risk factor for disease in North America and Western Europe, just as it was in 1990. Globally, it's risen in rank from the third to second leading cause of disease.
To find out more and see related charts and graphics, see the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which led the collaboration.
United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice removed herself from possible consideration as secretary of state after becoming yet another player in the divide between the left and right.
Rice, who withdrew her name Thursday, has faced months of criticism over how she characterized the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. She also has come under fire for her approach to dealing with African strongmen.
Rice became a target for conservatives when she went on Sunday morning current affairs shows such as ABC News' "This Week" following the Benghazi attack and failed to characterize it as a pre-meditated act of terror. Instead, she said it was a spontaneous response to an anti-Islam film produced in the United States and cited in the region as an example of anti-Islamicism in the West.
After it became clear that Rice's assertions were untrue and elements of the Obama administration may have known that to be the case, Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Kelly Ayotte said they would do whatever they could to block Rice's possible nomination to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
"This is about the role she played around four dead Americans when it seems to be that the story coming out of the administration -- and she's the point person -- is so disconnected to reality, I don't trust her," Graham said. "And the reason I don't trust her is because I think she knew better. And if she didn't know better, she shouldn't be the voice of America."
Members of the administration defended Rice. At his testimony before Congress, Gen. David Petraeus, the former CIA director, said Rice was speaking from unclassified talking points given to her by the CIA.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., reiterated what Petraeus said outside his closed-door hearing before the Senate.
"The key is that they were unclassified talking points at a very early stage. And I don't think she should be pilloried for this. She did what I would have done or anyone else would have done that was going on a weekend show," Feinstein said. "To say that she is unqualified to be secretary of state, I think, is a mistake. And the way it keeps going, it's almost as if the intent is to assassinate her character."
Minutes after she announced her withdrawal from the process, Graham tweeted, "I respect Ambassador Rice's decision."
McCain's office released a paper statement saying, "Senator McCain thanks Ambassador Rice for her service to the country and wishes her well. He will continue to seek all the facts surrounding the attack on our consulate in Benghazi that killed four brave Americans."
Over the last few weeks, criticism of Rice had grown beyond her response to Benghazi to include a closer scrutiny of her work in Africa, where she had influence over U.S. policy during the Clinton administration.
Critics of her Africa dealings were not partisan -- but included human rights workers, journalists and some Africans themselves.
Among the most serious critiques was the accusation that she actively protected Rwandan President Paul Kagame and senior members of his government from being sanctioned for funding and supporting the rebels that caused Eastern Congo's recent violence.
Here it is, ladies and gentlemen — your Rep. Loretta Sanchez Christmas card for 2012!
(Courtesy of the Office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez)
Over the past decade, the California Democrat’s wacky holiday greetings have drawn a cult following. “I’ve seen them being sold on eBay,” the congresswoman told us.
Nice topical theme this year! “The ‘fiscal cliff’ is a very serious situation, so we didn’t want to make light of it,” she said. “But sometimes a chuckle makes things a lot easier.” (Last year’s card tipped a hat to Occupy Wall Street and all that 99 percent talk: “May the joy of the holidays occupy 100 percent of your heart.”)
(Courtesy of the Office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez)
That’s husband Jack Einwechter dancing with her. Sanchez’s late beloved cat Gretzky, the star of so many cards over the years, is represented inside the card, a halo over his furry head. “Of course — Angel Gretzky,” she said. “We keep Gretzky every year because he has so many followers.”
Earlier:
Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ parody, with summer interns, 7/2/12
Last year:
Rep. Loretta Sanchez carries on holiday card tradition, without beloved cat Gretzky, 12/9/11
Loretta Sanchez’s 2011 Christmas card, 12/16/11
Also in The Reliable Source:
Jenna Bush Hager announces pregnancy on ‘Today’
Hey, isn’t that. . .?: Steve Harvey; Max Baucus and Tim Geithner
Quoted: Marco Rubio on his hair loss
D.C. power players appear in new video portrait — but is it art?
Elizabeth Kucinich becomes a real-estate agent; will keep public-affairs job, too
Albert Small buys George Washington letter for $290,000 — but don’t tell his wife
ALBUQUERQUE: New Mexico police believe Canadian singer Justin Bieber may have been the target of a bizarre plot to kill as well as castrate him and his bodyguard, US media reports said.
According to a police affidavit, Dana Martin, a man who is serving two consecutive life sentences in New Mexico for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in 2000, had hatched a plot to kill Bieber and his bodyguard at the star's New York concert, along with two other victims in Vermont.
Martin had convinced fellow inmate Mark Staake to do the killing.
Upon his release in November, Staake in turn recruited his nephew Tanner Ruane to be his partner in crime.
New Mexico police said the murder plot apparently involved strangulation with a paisley tie, as well as castration.
Interestingly, it was Martin, an obsessive Bieber fan who has the star's name tattooed on his leg, that foiled his own plot.
Ruane contacted Martin about the plot after Staake was arrested in Vermont on November 19, for outstanding arrest warrants in New Mexico.
Martin inexplicably decided to go to the police the next day, and told them about the entire plan.
Ruane was eventually arrested by New York police at a truck stop in Rotterdam on November 26, reportedly with a pair of pruning shears in his car, just days before Bieber's November 28 concert in New York.
-CNA/ha
Abroo, daughter of Nisar Ahmad Chak of Manzgam village, along with her parents and three siblings, fell unconscious after consuming the noodles, which had expired in the year 2007, on Tuesday evening, superintendent of police, Kulgam, Muhammad Shafi Mir told PTI.
The pack of noodles had been brought from the family's own shop owned by Chak and his brother Gulzar Ahmad Chak, Shafi said.
The entire family was immediately rushed to a hospital in Kulgam where they were given a 'gastric lavage' (stomach wash), afterwards which they were referred to Srinagar for further treatment, he said.
Abroo died on the way to Srinagar, he said, adding that the other members of the family are being treated in two different hospitals of Srinagar.
The parents are under treatment at SMHS hospital, while the children were admitted to G B Pant hospital here.
The SP said the noodle wrapper and other samples have been taken by the police for evidence and a detailed report is awaited.
Police has registered a case under section 174 of CRPC and investigations are on, Shafi said.
The Hubble space telescope has discovered seven primitive galaxies formed in the earliest days of the cosmos, including one believed to be the oldest ever detected.
The discovery, announced Wednesday, is part of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign to determine how and when galaxies first assembled following the Big Bang.
"This 'cosmic dawn' was not a single, dramatic event," said astrophysicist Richard Ellis with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Rather, galaxies appear to have been formed over hundreds of millions of years.
Ellis led a team that used Hubble to look at one small section of the sky for a hundred hours. The grainy images of faint galaxies include one researchers determined to be from a period 380 million years after the onset of the universe—the closest in time to the Big Bang ever observed.
The cosmos is about 13.7 billion years old, so the newly discovered galaxy was present when the universe was 4 percent of its current age. The other six galaxies were sending out light from between 380 million and 600 million years after the Big Bang. (See pictures of "Hubble's Top Ten Discoveries.")
Baby Pictures
The images are "like the first ultrasounds of [an] infant," said Abraham Loeb, a specialist in the early cosmos at Harvard University. "These are the building blocks of the galaxies we now have."
These early galaxies were a thousand times denser than galaxies are now and were much closer together as well, Ellis said. But they were also less luminous than later galaxies.
The team used a set of four filters to analyze the near infrared wavelengths captured by Hubble Wide Field Camera 3, and estimated the galaxies' distances from Earth by studying their colors. At a NASA teleconference, team members said they had pushed Hubble's detection capabilities about as far as they could go and would most likely not be able to identify galaxies from further back in time until the James Webb Space Telescope launches toward the end of the decade. (Learn about the Hubble telescope.)
"Although we may have reached back as far as Hubble will see, Hubble has set the stage for Webb," said team member Anton Koekemoer of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Our work indicates there is a rich field of even earlier galaxies that Webb will be able to study."
North Korea's successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile hit its target: it bolstered the standing of its young tyrant Kim Jong Un and raised the specter of being able to eventually strike the U.S. with a nuclear weapon.
The pride in the success of the launch -- after several failures -- is a huge boost for Kim Jong Un, 29, who took power one year ago. He has been trying to cement his authority and win the hearts of the people with soft social and economic reforms, like allowing women to wear pants or more small businesses to operate based on profit.
But the rocket launch was on a different scale. A North Korean female announcer in a pink and dark grey national costume excitedly read an announcement of the missile's success and national TV aired interviews with people jumping and cheering on the news.
There had been reservations within and outside of North Korea when Kim Jong Un took power after his father's death on Dec. 17 last year as to whether the young Kim could lead a nuclear state. Looking determined at his first official appearance earlier this year, he had pledged to fulfill the legacy of his father Kim Jong Il to become a "self-sufficient strong nation" with space rocket technology.
The missile is believed to have a range of 6,212 miles, enough distance to reach the west coast of the United States. Its existence, along with a small North Korean nuclear arsenal, is an alarming possibility for many.
PHOTOS: An Inside Look At North Korea
North Korea, however, says it was simply putting a satellite in orbit.
"Picking on our launch (and not others) accusing that ours is a long-range missile and a provocative act causing instability comes from seeing us from a hostile point of view," said North Korea's foreign ministry in an official statement. "We do not want this to be overblown into something that none of us intended to be and hope all related nations act with reason and calmness."
But North Korean denials carry little credibility.
This evidence that North Korea has mastered the long-range missile technology does not mean there will be an imminent nuclear threat.
"They haven't figured out how to weaponize a nuclear (bomb) that will fit in a missile, nor do they have accurate guidance at long ranges," said Stephen Ganyard, ABC News consultant and former deputy assistant secretary of state.
Another crucial technology North Korea is yet to achieve is a proper heat shielding required to protect the warhead while re-entering the earth's atmosphere.
"This is a big leap for Pyongyang. They have been a threat with potential capability. But now a new era begins as a threat with possible capability," said Hwee-Rhak Park, professor of political leadership at Kookmin University in Seoul.
There was obvious alarm, however, as the international community condemned the launch, as North Korea is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions.
South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak convened an emergency national security meeting. Japan's envoy to the United Nations called for consultations on the launch within the U.N. Security Council. Russian Foreign Ministry said it "has caused us deep regret," and even China "expressed regret," a significant notch up in condemnation from previous statements on North Korea, its traditional ally.
That international attention, analysts in Seoul say, is exactly what North Korea wanted.
Chris Matthews: “Who got all this money? Nobody got it — not even him {Karl Rove]. It was just wasted.”
Rick Tyler: “So he said. Do you really believe Karl Rove got no money?”
Matthews: “Well, he said he volunteered.”
Tyler: “Well, fine. Show us your K-1s and your tax returns and we’ll see if you got any money. I don’t believe it.”
— exchange on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Nov. 30, 2012
It is an axiom of Washington that when politicians spend money, lots of people are getting a piece of the action. So when the Super PAC American Crossroads spent some $300 million in 2012 on behalf of Republican candidates, with rather mixed results, some speculated that nevertheless Republican strategist Karl Rove, who co-founded the group, certainly earned a pretty penny.
Rove has denied he earned anything from his work with Crossroads, saying he was simply a volunteer. But that has not stopped the chatter.
After the election, US News ran an article titled “Why We May Never Know How Much Money Karl Rove Made Running Crossroads.” (The magazine later issued a long mea culpa, acknowledging “there is no credible basis to believe that Karl Rove earned any compensation, either directly or indirectly, from these outside groups.”)
Rick Tyler, a GOP consultant who is close to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, also publicly expressed his deep skepticism on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” Tyler has also been a senior adviser to failed Senate candidate Todd Akin of Missouri, and during the campaign he publicly scolded Crossroads for not backing his candidate. “They would rather win television commissions than win the Senate,” he claimed.
But others have also assumed Rove ended up with a chunk of the millions of dollars raised by Crossroads. Bill Moyers in July said protesters “marched at the DC offices of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, which is the right wing money mills run by the mastermind of much of this massive fundraising, Karl Rove. He’s making a bundle himself, buying and selling free speech.”
Meanwhile, New York magazine columnist Frank Rich, on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, declared this week: “I'm sure he [Rove] gets a lovely salary from American Crossroads, too.”
In an exchange of e-mails, Tyler initially defended his comments, noting he was responding to Rove’s assertion of being merely a volunteer.
“I've not made a claim. He has. I simply don't believe his claim,” Tyler wrote. “I have no way of knowing if his assertion is true. Only Rove knows and given the responsibility he had with resources under his stewardship and that he was presented as an honest broker both on Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, he should provide some assurances that his assertion is true. We know that media buying precipitates commissions (kickbacks). Who got that money or where was it spent and why was it not disclosed?”
Rove is certainly a controversial figure, but we’re interested in the facts. Let’s look deeper at what the records show.
The Facts
American Crossroads was created after the 2008 elections, in an effort to create a conservative counterpoint to the alliance of labor and liberal interest groups that work on behalf of Democrats. As a tax-exempt organization subject to Section 527 of the tax code, the Super PAC is required to disclose its funding and its salaries, but a spin-off 501 (c)(4) nonprofit group known as Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (Crossroads GPS) does not have to disclose donor information.
In an interview with our colleague Karen Tumulty, Rove explained why he decided not to take any salary — or even submit travel expenses.
As they talked to potential donors, Rove said, they realized “there was just a generalized sense that too much of this kind of activity was basically of, by and for the consultants. Donors said, ‘Consultants set these things up, pay a commission to fundraisers, hire themselves to do the work and pay themselves too much.’ ”
“Major donors said, ‘We write checks to these groups, but we’re not enthusiastic, given how they are going about their business,’ ” Rove said.
He [Rove] noted it [American Crossroads] has a relatively small staff of 19 and said it pays its ad makers only 3 percent of the amount spent, the bottom in an industry where 10 and 15 percent fees used to be common. Ninety-five cents out of every dollar that Crossroads spends “goes onto the target,” he said.
None of Crossroads’s public filings — the numerous forms filed with the Federal Election Commission for American Crossroads or the 990 forms filed by Crossroads GPS in 2010 and 2011 with the Internal Revenue Service — show any evidence of Rove receiving any disbursements.
We consulted with campaign finance experts to see if there was anything we were missing — some way that Rove could disguise payments, such as through vendors.
Several experts noted that Rove could be a part-owner of one of the media or fundraising companies that were paid by Crossroads — what Tyler had called “kickbacks.” For instance, one company loosely linked to Rove’s old Texas firm received money from Crossroads, but we can find no financial connection between Rove and that firm today.
After our queries, we received a statement from American Crossroads that exceeded any previous comments on this matter.
“Mr. Rove receives no financial benefit either directly or indirectly from American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS or any of its vendors or subvendors,” said spokesman Jonathan Collegio. “He also pays his travel expenses out of his own pocket.”
Campaign finance experts agreed the sweeping statement covered all of the bases, leaving little wiggle room, and was fairly compelling without actually examining Rove’s personal financial records.
Given that Rove’s selling point for American Crossroads is precisely that it does not waste money on consultant commissions, he is certainly putting his credibility on the line if this statement ever turned out to be misleading.
After we sent Tyler the statement, he responded: “Well then, I withdraw my assertion and concede that he is paid exactly what he is worth.”
Meow!
The Pinocchio Test
We originally viewed Tyler’s statement as being in the same category as Harry Reid’s infamous claim that Mitt Romney never paid taxes — a claim based on no evidence, random phone calls and Reid’s own gut. Reid earned Four Pinocchios — and never took back that claim.
Tyler argued that he was not making a claim, but that Rove was. In any case, he has now withdrawn it.
The rumors and innuendos persist, perhaps because it seems inconceivable that anyone in Washington would do something for free. Rove has been placed in the position of having to prove a negative, when in fact the people making this charge have the responsibility to provide the evidence. Otherwise, it is simply McCarthyism.
So we are making a prospective ruling — to anyone who makes this claim in the future.
Four Pinocchios
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HONG KONG: Thousands of couples in Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore flocked Wednesday to tie the knot on 12/12/12, seeking good fortune for marriages begun on the century's last repeating date.
Authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively said 696 and 540 couples were scheduled to attend marriage registries, continuing a trend which has seen couples flocking to marry on 11/11/11 and 10/10/10 in both cities.
The figure is a near-fourfold increase compared to the daily average in Hong Kong and about an eightfold spike for non-Muslim weddings in Singapore, which is three-quarters ethnic Chinese.
Couples also queued to marry in many mainland Chinese cities, on the basis that 12/12/12 sounded like "Will love/will love/will love" in Chinese, the official news agency Xinhua reported.
The atmosphere was abuzz with hundreds of people crowding one of Hong Kong's five marriage registries, taking photos of brides and grooms in full wedding regalia as they congratulated the newlyweds.
"Today's date is very special and we can get married before doomsday as well," joked 34-year-old groom Raymond Ip.
Some doomsayers believe December 21 could be the date the world ends.
"There won't be a 13/13/13," Ip said, adding that he had booked the day half-a-year in advance to secure a spot.
Groom Terance Fung, 29, agreed. "Today is the last day of the century with the same date numbers, so it is quite special," he said.
In Singapore, hundreds of couples and family members trooped in batches to the marriage registry despite pouring rain.
12/12/12 was, however, a less popular day to tie the knot than previous sequential dates.
Hong Kong saw 1,002 weddings on November 11, 2011, which signified "Eternal love", and 859 weddings on October 10, 2010 which represented "Perfection".
Singapore had 553 and 724 marriages respectively on the same dates. The all-time high for a single day there was on February 14, 1995, when 1,082 couples were married because the western and Chinese Valentine's Day coincided.
Extra staff were deployed at the marriage registry at Changchun, in China's northeastern province of Jilin, where 2,000 couples were expected.
But the office director Wang Zhe played down the significance of so-called lucky dates.
"Every day is a lucky day to get married and it will be the most unforgettable day of their lives," Wang was quoted as saying.
- AFP/lp
Minister of state for personnel and public grievance V Narayanasamy said in a written reply that the government has been emphasising the use of modern technology to bring about transparency and accountability in all state organisations.
He said the CVC has recommended adoption of e-payments and other measures for reduction of person-to-person interface while making payments.
"The use of computers in the railways and in the income tax department are good examples of the salutary effects modern technology has had on reducing corruption in both the organisations" he said.
To a question on use of technology to minimise corruption in day to day life, the Minister said the use of modern information and communication technology can reduce direct contact between citizens and public servants and thus reduce the scope of corruption.
Photograph courtesy Tunç Tezel, APOY/Royal Observatory
This image of the Milky Way's vast star fields hanging over a valley of human-made light was recognized in the 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by the U.K.’s Royal Observatory Greenwich.
To get the shot, photographer Tunç Tezel trekked to Uludag National Park near his hometown of Bursa, Turkey. He intended to watch the moon and evening planets, then take in the Perseids meteor shower.
"We live in a spiral arm of the Milky Way, so when we gaze through the thickness of our galaxy, we see it as a band of dense star fields encircling the sky," said Marek Kukula, the Royal Observatory's public astronomer and a contest judge.
Full story>>
Why We Love It
"I like the way this view of the Milky Way also shows us a compelling foreground landscape. It also hints at the astronomy problems caused by light pollution."—Chris Combs, news photo editor
Published December 11, 2012
A masked gunman who opened fire in the crowded Clackamas Town Center mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two individuals and seriously injuring a third before killing himself, has been "tentatively" identified by police, though they have not yet released his name.
The shooter, wearing a white hockey mask, black clothing, and a bullet proof vest, tore through the mall around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, entering through a Macy's store and proceeding to the food court and public areas spraying bullets, according to witness reports.
Police have not released the names of the deceased. Clackamas County Sheriff's Department Lt. James Rhodes said authorities are in the process of notifying victims' families.
The injured victim has been transported to a local hospital, according to Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.
PHOTOS: Oregon Mall Shooting
Nadia Telguz, who said she was a friend of the injured victim, told ABC News affiliate KATU-TV in Portland that the woman was expected to recover.
"My friend's sister got shot," Teleguz told KATU. "She's on her way to (Oregon Health and Science University hospital). They're saying she got shot in her side and so it's not life-threatening, so she'll be OK."
Witnesses from the shooting rampage said that a young man who appeared to be a teenager ran through the upper level of Macy's to the mall food court, firing multiple shots, one right after the other, with what is believed to be a black, semi-automatic rifle.
Christopher Onstott/Pamplen Media Group/Portland Tribune
More than 10,000 shoppers were at the mall during the day, police said. Roberts said that officers responded to the scene of the shooting within minutes, and four SWAT teams swept the 1.4 million-square-foot building searching for the shooter. He was eventually found dead, an apparent suicide.
"I can confirm the shooter is dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," Rhodes said. "By all accounts there were no rounds fired by law enforcement today in the mall."
Roberts said more than 100 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting, and at least four local agencies were working on the investigation, including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is working to trace the shooter's weapon.
READ: Guns in America: A Statistical Look
"For all of us, the mall is supposed to be a place where we can take our families, especially during the holiday season," Roberts said. "Things like this are not supposed to happen."
Roberts also said that shoppers, including two emergency room nurses and one physician who happened to be at the mall, provided medical assistance to victims who had been shot. Other shoppers helped escort individuals out of the mall and out of harm's way, he said.
"There were a huge amount of people running in different directions, and it was chaos for a lot of citizens, but true heroes were stepping up in this time of high stress," Roberts said. "E.R. nurses on the scene were providing medical care to those injured, a physician on the scene was helping provide care to the wounded."
Mall shopper Daniel Martinez told KATU that he had just sat down at a Jamba Juice inside the mall when he heard rapid gunfire. He turned and saw the masked gunman, dressed in all black, about 10 feet away from him.
"I just saw him (the gunman) and thought, 'I need to go somewhere,'" Martinez said. "It was so fast, and at that time, everyone was moving around."
Martinez said he ran to the nearest clothing store. As he ran, he motioned for another woman to follow; several others ran to the store as well, hiding in a fitting room. They stayed there for an hour and a half until SWAT teams told them it was safe to leave the mall.
Our peculiar habits can sometimes confound out-of-town guests.
CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.
(Saul Loeb - AFP/Getty Images)
Take, for example, U.S. District Court Judge Frederick Scullin Jr., normally of the Northern District of New York, but spending a little time here as a visiting judge.
He was presiding last week over a case involving a former CIA deep cover operative who alleges that unknown agency personnel bad-mouthed him to a defense contractor, costing him a job.
Marcia Sowles, a Justice Department lawyer for the CIA, argued that the agency never said anything publicly about the man, known as Peter B in court pleadings.
Scullin asked Peter B’s lawyer, Mark S. Zaid, to lay out the material facts the plaintiff believes are at issue so the judge could decide if limited discovery is warranted. He gave Zaid a week.
No problem preparing the filing in a week, Zaid said, but he couldn’t submit it to the court. He would first have to give it to the CIA for review to see if it contained classified information.
But there is no need to include any classified information, Scullin said.
Agreed, said Zaid, but the agency still has to get it first. Sowles and CIA lawyer Anthony Moses concurred: Everything must be reviewed in Langley.
Scullin seemed a tad irritated by this seemingly redundant requirement. Impatient to move along a case that has been stalled for years, Scullin asked Moses how long the review might take.
The CIA lawyer couldn’t predict.
Scullin, an Army infantry commander in Vietnam and Bush I appointee, ordered him to get it done in a week.
“If there’s an issue,” he said, “have your boss call me.”
TOKYO: A heated election campaign is underway all over Japan as more than 1,500 candidates vie for 480 seats in the lower house of parliament.
This election will also see an unprecedented 12 political parties taking part.
Hundreds of people, sometimes even thousands, gather to listen to election speeches -- especially if they are by prominent lawmakers like Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
The 'celebrity' status of a politician can also help newcomers in their party.
"Today I want our party's new face Miki Yamada, Miki Yamada to win. With that hope I have come to greet you all in Shinjuku ward," said Nobuteru Ishihara, the former secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party to a crowd.
"I'm hearing from many wishing the Liberal Democratic Party to do well. I'm receiving calls of 'debutant do well'," said Miki Yamada, the Liberal Democratic Party's candidate for Tokyo's 1st district.
For others with a lower profile, the campaign trail can be a lonely one.
Taro Kosai is running for a lower house seat for the first time.
He is a former assembly member of Minato ward in Tokyo who hopes to reform the fundamentals of the country.
"We have to set a new goal that will replace the typical economic growth target to catch up and surpass US and Europe. That has not been done," he said.
According to public opinion polls, what the public wants to hear the most is how each candidate will handle the Japanese economy.
Japan's economy has been facing a slowdown with its GDP in the July-September quarter showing a contraction. A contraction is expected this quarter as well.
It is a tough task that has not stopped the 1,500 candidates from battling for votes.
In Tokyo's 1st district alone, there are nine candidates running for a seat.
Japan will go the polls on 16 December.
- CNA/jc
Gouranga Chatterjee, a CPM MLA who received head injuries was taken to hospital as also two TMC MLAs Mahmuda Begum who was hit in the chest and Pulok Roy who was injured in the leg.
Tempers ran high after Left members who tried to bring an adjournment motion on the mushrooming of chit funds in the state rushed to Speaker Biman Banerjee's podium and started shouting slogans.
Senior ministers Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim shielded the Speaker as Left members continued to shout slogans.
Subsequently a section of TMC and Left MLAs rushed to to the well and came face to face, with Chatterjee and Hakim trying to separate them.
There was pandemonium as CPM member Nazmul Haque snatched away the microphone of the Speaker who adjourned the House till 1:30pm.
Congress members who were asked to join in the protests by the Left, did not did so.
Trouble broke out again after the House reassembled. Parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee demanded that action be taken against Left legislators who insulted the Speaker and snatched away his microphone.
The Speaker thereafter suspended three Left MLAs Nazmul Haque, Sushanta Besra and Amjad Hussain.
One Left member, the lone Jharkhand Party MLA Deblina Hembram and a TMC member were seen engaged in a heated verbal exchange.
Subsequently, a free for all ensued in the House with members of TMC and Left coming to blows.
Thomas K. Grose in London
The starting gun has sounded for the United Kingdom's "dash for gas," as the media here have dubbed it.
As early as this week, a moratorium on shale gas production is expected to be lifted. And plans to streamline and speed the regulatory process through a new Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil were unveiled last week in the annual autumn budget statement by the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne.
In the U.K., where all underground mineral rights concerning fossil fuels belong to the crown, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could unlock a new stream of government revenue as well as fuel. But it also means that there is no natural constituency of fracking supporters as there is in the United States, birthplace of the technology. In the U.S., concerns over land and water impact have held back fracking in some places, like New York, but production has advanced rapidly in shale basins from Texas to Pennsylvania, with support of private landowners who earn royalties from leasing to gas companies. (Related: "Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania")
A taste of the fight ahead in the U.K. came ahead of Osborne's speech last weekend, when several hundred protesters gathered outside of Parliament with a mock 23-foot (7-meter) drilling rig. In a letter they delivered to Prime Minister David Cameron, they called fracking "an unpredictable, unregulatable process" that was potentially toxic to the environment.
Giving shale gas a green light "would be a costly mistake," said Andy Atkins, executive director of the U.K.'s Friends of the Earth, in a statement. "People up and down the U.K. will be rightly alarmed about being guinea pigs in Osborne's fracking experiment. It's unnecessary, unwanted and unsafe."
The government has countered that natural gas-fired power plants would produce half the carbon dioxide emissions of the coal plants that still provide about 30 percent of the U.K.'s electricity. London Mayor Boris Johnson, viewed as a potential future prime minister, weighed in Monday with a blistering cry for Britain to "get fracking" to boost cleaner, cheaper energy and jobs. "In their mad denunciations of fracking, the Greens and the eco-warriors betray the mindset of people who cannot bear a piece of unadulterated good news," he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Natural Gas")
Energy Secretary Edward Davey, who is expected this week to lift the U.K.'s year-and-a-half-old moratorium on shale gas exploration, said gas "will ensure we can keep the lights on as increasing amounts of wind and nuclear come online through the 2020s."
A Big Role for Gas
If the fracking plan advances, it will not be the first "dash for gas" in the U.K. In the 1980s, while Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher battled with mining unions, she undercut their clout by moving the nation toward generating a greater share of its electricity from natural gas and less from coal. So natural gas already is the largest electricity fuel in Britain, providing 40 percent of electricity. (Related Interactive: "World Electricity Mix")
The United Kingdom gets about 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and has plans to expand its role. But Davey has stressed the usefulness of gas-fired plants long-term as a flexible backup source to the intermittent electricity generated from wind and solar power. Johnson, on the other hand, offered an acerbic critique of renewables, including the "satanic white mills" he said were popping up on Britain's landscape. "Wave power, solar power, biomass—their collective oomph wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding," he wrote.
As recently as 2000, Great Britain was self-sufficient in natural gas because of conventional gas production in the North Sea. But that source is quickly drying up. North Sea production peaked in 2000 at 1,260 terawatt-hours (TWH); last year it totaled just 526 TWh.
Because of the North Sea, the U.K. is still one of the world's top 20 producers of gas, accounting for 1.5 percent of total global production. But Britain has been a net importer of gas since 2004. Last year, gas imports—mainly from Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands—accounted for more than 40 percent of domestic demand.
The government hopes to revive domestic natural gas production with the technology that has transformed the energy picture in the United States—horizontal drilling into deep underground shale, and high-pressure injection of water, sand, and chemicals to create fissures in the rock to release the gas. (Related Interactive: "Breaking Fuel From the Rock")
A Tougher Road
But for a number of reasons, the political landscape is far different in the United Kingdom. Britain made a foray into shale gas early last year, with a will drilled near Blackpool in northwest England. The operator, Cuadrilla, said that that area alone could contain 200 trillion cubic feet of gas, which is more than the known reserves of Iraq. But the project was halted after drilling, by the company's own admission, caused two small earthquakes. (Related: "Tracing Links Between Fracking and Earthquakes" and "Report Links Energy Activities To Higher Quake Risk") The April 2011 incident triggered the moratorium that government now appears to be ready to lift. Cuadrilla has argued that modifications to its procedures would mitigate the seismic risk, including lower injection rates and lesser fluid and sand volumes. The company said it will abandon the U.K. unless the moratorium is soon lifted.
A few days ahead of Osborne's speech, the Independent newspaper reported that maps created for Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showed that 32,000 square miles, or 64 percent of the U.K. countryside, could hold shale gas reserves and thus be open for exploration. But a DECC spokeswoman said "things are not quite what it [the Independent story] suggests." Theoretically, she said, those gas deposits do exist, but "it is too soon to predict the scale of exploration here." She said many other issues, ranging from local planning permission to environmental impact, would mean that some tracts would be off limits, no matter how much reserve they held. DECC has commissioned the British Geological Survey to map the extent of Britain's reserves.
Professor Paul Stevens, a fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said the U.K. is clearly interested in trying to replicate America's shale gas revolution. "That's an important part of the story," he said, but trying to use the American playbook won't be easy. "It's a totally different ballgame." In addition to the fact that mineral rights belong to the crown, large expanses of private land that are commonplace in America don't exist in England. Just as important, there is no oil- and gas-service industry in place in Britain to quickly begin shale gas operations here. "We don't have the infrastructure set up," said Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University, adding that it would take years to build it.
Shale gas production would also likely ignite bigger and louder protests in the U.K. and Europe. "It's much more of a big deal in Europe," Stevens said. "There are more green [nongovernmental organizations] opposed to it, and a lot more local opposition."
In any case, the U.K. government plans to move ahead. Osborne said he'll soon begin consultations on possible tax breaks for the shale gas industry. He also announced that Britain would build up to 30 new natural gas-fired power plants with 26 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. The new gas plants would largely replace decommissioned coal and nuclear power plants, though they would ultimately add 5GW of additional power to the U.K. grid. The coalition government's plan, however, leaves open the possibility of increasing the amount of gas-generated electricity to 37GW, or around half of total U.K. demand.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that Europe may have as much as 600 trillion cubic feet of shale gas that could be recovered. But Stevens said no European country is ready to emulate the United States in producing massive amounts of unconventional gas. They all lack the necessary service industry, he said, and geological differences will require different technologies. And governments aren't funding the research and development needed to develop them.
Globally, the track record for efforts to produce shale gas is mixed:
This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.
Closing "corporate tax loopholes" sure sounds good to the average, non-corporate American -- so good, in fact, that politicians talk about it all the time.
House Speaker John Boehner's fiscal-cliff proposal purports to raise $1.6 trillion in revenue by "clos[ing] special-interest loopholes and deductions while lowering rates."
The White House, meanwhile, has complained that Boehner hasn't offered specific loopholes to cut.
On the other side of the aisle, House Democrats have repeatedly offered up "closing overseas tax loopholes" as a means to pay for spending bills -- a plan Republicans routinely reject. In the last two and a half years, President Obama has often been heard griping about writeoffs for corporate jets.
For both Republicans and Democrats, "corporate tax loopholes" are an old saw. But, like most things in politics, raising revenue from "loopholes" gets a bit stickier when the specifics are hashed out.
A misconception about tax "loopholes," some experts say, is that they're loopholes -- gaps in the tax law that corporations have exploited against the law's intent.
Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo
"Most of these proposals were not 'loopholes,' these were incentives," said Eric Toder, co-director of the left-leaning Tax Policy Center.
For example, take the research-and-development tax credit. During the campaign, both Obama and Mitt Romney suggested making it permanent.
"One wouldn't call the research credit a loophole," Toder said.
Cashing in by closing the biggest "loopholes" could be a politically fraught endeavor. To generate meaningful revenue, House Republicans would have to sign off on measures that raised it from taxing the overseas profits of multinational corporations, from ending immediate writeoffs of equipment purchases, or from ending a credit for domestic manufacturing.
When the Joint Committee on Taxation scored some of these provisions, as part of a tax-reform bill pushed by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and then-GOP-senator Judd Gregg, it found the government could save significantly:
Savings Over 10 Years: 2011-2021
Taxing Overseas Profits of Multinational Corps: $582.7 billion. In other words, the "overseas tax loophole" Democrats are fond of trashing. While most countries with large economies tax only profits made at home, the U.S. code taxes all income everywhere. To offset the different, U.S. multinational corporations receive credits to prevent double taxing. They also can defer paying any tax on foreign income, until they transfer the money back to the United States.
Taxing that profit could generate significant revenue. But this could be controversial, and large corporations would fight it. A senior aide to one business lobbying group said ending foreign-income deferral would amount to double-taxing U.S. companies and put them at a disadvantage to foreign competitors; one supporter of ending deferral suggested U.S. companies have been able to hide profits overseas, avoiding taxes altogether.
SINGAPORE: The low-interest environment is driving investors to seek higher returns as global economic conditions improve.
Flushed with liquidity from major central banks' monetary easing, most analysts agreed that there is little upside left on safe assets like sovereign government debts.
Instead, analysts are seeing more investors investing in high yield bonds often classified as distressed that offer returns of over 6 percent per annum.
With the US Presidential election and China's leadership change out of the way, Asian investors are working up an appetite for riskier assets.
But this time, they are putting their money in fixed income products instead of Asian equities, which offer far better returns than bonds.
Thailand and Philippines stock indices have showed a over 30 percent return so far this year, while, bigger market like Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained some over 20 percent.
Schroder Investment Management's head of Asian Fixed Income, Rajeev De Mello, said: "Interest rates are going to remain close to zero. So for a lot of investors who need returns, they don't have too much choice -- it is either they buy bonds or buy equities.
"But for many types of investors, equities may be just too riskier and they may need a more predictable revenue stream."
In recent months, Asia has seen a growing number of corporate debt issues, which are oversubscribed.
Some investors are even drawn to beaten-down corporate bonds.
CreditSights' senior credit analyst, Sandra Chow, said: "In the past couple of weeks, we've seen a big shift into the high yield sector. A lot of bonds which was previously traded at double-digit yield are now coming to single-digit or even lower yields."
The credit quality of corporate bonds may not be improving, but analysts said bond funds face growing pressure from clients to deliver better-than-market returns of 9 to 10 percent.
Apart from market liquidity, French bank, Credit Agricole says wealthy individuals in Asia are also on the lookout for steady returns for their growing wealth.
Based on an estimated rate of growth 8 percent a year, China alone is expected to generate some US$560 billion of net new wealth every year.
- CNA/lp
Stepping up the Congress campaign in Gujarat, Singh had told an election rally there on Sunday that minorities, including some government officials, felt insecure under the Modi government.
"Election campaign is going on in the state. It is true that there are serious reservation in the minds of minorities concerning Narendra Modi. There is no doubt about it and he (PM) has utilised it as a Congress leader during the election campaign," Janata Dal (United) leader Shivanand Tiwari told reporters outside Parliament House.
BJP had on Sunday rubbished the Prime Minister's comments that minorities were feeling "insecure" in the BJP-ruled state and said Congress will be in a minority in Gujarat after the assembly elections.
On the issue of reservation in promotion of SC/ST employees, Tiwari said, "We are supporting the promotion in reservation in Bihar."
Asked whether his party would support it at the national level, he said, "We will examine it and then decide."
When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.
Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")
Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.
"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)
The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.
Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.
Root Growth
Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.
"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.
Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.
"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.
The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.
"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")
The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.
UPDATED: Multiple reports, including one from Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, Mexico's Secretary of Communications and Transports, confirm that the remains of the private jet carrying Jenni Rivera have been found, with no survivors. Rivera, 43, was one of seven passengers.
Rivera's father, Pedro, confirmed the news of his daughter's passing to reporters stationed outside of his home in Lakewood, Calif., where several family members are gathered, including Rivera's mother Rosa and her eldest daughter Chiquis, who has still not made any statements. Rivera's father reportedly received the news via telephone from his son, singer Lupillo Rivera, who was in Mexico at the time of the jet's disappearance. "This is the first tragedy of this kind that we suffer as a family," Rivera's father told reporters on Sunday evening. "I hope people remember her as she was - someone who was straight with the world."
Celebrity reactions on Twitter have poured in since news of the disappearance of Rivera's jet, including Paulina Rubio (who was set to co-host the Mexican edition of The Voice with Rivera) William Levy, Joan Sebastian, Ricky Martin, and others.
See also: Jenni Rivera Immortalized in new Track 'La Misma Gran Señora
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, file
Mexican officials have confirmed the disappearance of a private jet carrying regional Mexican music superstar Jenni Rivera that took off from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey at 3:15 a.m. local time on Sunday and fell off the radar 10 minutes (or 62 miles) after take-off.
The Learjet 25 jet, which dates back to 1969, is believed to have been carrying seven people – five passengers and two pilots. It was headed for Toluca International Aiport, located outside of Mexico City, where it was meant to arrive at 4:40 a.m. An official search for the jet was initiated at sunrise.
Rivera's publicist Arturo Rivera and her make-up artist Jacob Yebale are believed to have been on that flight. Their most recent tweets are of photos from Rivera's concert in Monterrey on Saturday night.
The Mexican American singer's most recent tweet is a re-tweet of what appears to be a fan's message.
Rivera was due in Toluca this evening for the taping of a Mexican TV show, La Voz. Televisa has canceled tonight's show given Rivera's disappearance.
Known as La Diva de la Banda and beloved by fans on both sides of the border, Rivera, 43, has had a groundbreaking career in regional Mexican music, selling some 15 million records. Among her many feats in a male-dominated genre, she made history in September 2011 when she sold out the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the first female regional Mexican artist to do so. Her reality show on mun2, I Love Jenni, is one of the network's highest rated shows. Rivera made her film debut at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in the indie family drama Filly Brown, due in theaters in January 2013.
See Also: 'Filly Brown Gives Jenni Rivera a Chance to Grow and Gina Rodriguez a Chance to Shine
The Long Beach, Calif.-born singer's personal life has often called for as much attention as her career. A mother of five, Rivera had filed for divorce from baseball player Esteban Loaiza in October after two years of marriage, citing "irreconcilable differences." Soon after, rumors of an affair between Loaiza and Rivera's own daughter Chiquis surfaced, which Chiquis addressed on Twitter in October by saying, "I would NEVER do that, Ever! That's a horrible accusation."
CARACAS: Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez admitted a relapse of his cancer late Saturday and designated vice president Nicolas Maduro as his heir apparent in case "something happened" to him.
Speaking on national television, an emotional Chavez said a return of cancer cells was detected during his most recent visit to Cuba for a medical examination, and he will return to the communist-ruled island as early as Sunday for another round of surgery.
"During this thorough examination, they again detected some malignant cells in the same area as before," Chavez said.
He did not offer details, but his cancer was first detected in the pelvic area. Neither the Venezuelan leader, nor his Cuban doctors have ever disclosed what kind of cancer that was.
He admitted he was suffering "somewhat strong" pain and was taking tranquilizers as part of preparation for his upcoming surgery.
Chavez acknowledged that his Cuban medical team had conveyed to him a sense of urgency about the operation, which he said was now "absolutely necessary."
"The doctor recommended that I undergo surgery yesterday (Friday) at the latest, or this weekend," he noted. "But I did not agree and came back home."
Chavez returned from Havana on Friday after a 10-day stay in Cuba. He had not been seen in public for three weeks.
The Venezuelan leader also said that in the event "something happened" and he were incapacitated, vice president Nicolas Maduro would step in and assume control of the government for the rest of the 2013-2019 term, as required by the constitution.
But in what appeared like a presentation of his final will, the president also indicated he would like Maduro to take over the reins of power in a post-Chavez period, urging Venezuelans to vote for him in the next presidential elections.
"You choose Maduro as president of the republic," said Chavez told the nation. "I am asking you this from all my heart."
Maduro, who has been serving as Venezuela's foreign minister for the past six years, was appointed vice president in the wake of the October presidential elections. He has held both portfolios since.
Firebrand leader Chavez made his latest announcement despite frequent assurances on the campaign trail before his re-election in October that he had been cured of cancer.
Recurring bouts of the disease have dogged Chavez's presidency for the past couple of years, requiring him to spend weeks at a time being treated in Cuba.
He had a cancerous tumor removed from near his pelvic area last year.
The Venezuelan leader, 58, has repeatedly claimed to have beaten the cancer that was diagnosed in 2011 and shrugged off his illness to see off a unified opposition and secure another six-year term on October 7.
In Cuba last week, the official newspaper Granma explained that Chavez's treatment consisted of oxygenation.
The American Cancer Society says there is no evidence that this oxygen treatment -- in which a patient gets inside a pressurized chamber and breathes pure oxygen for an hour -- works against cancer.
But the society says it can serve as treatment for ailments stemming from radiation treatment.
Chavez, who has been in power since 1999 and gained global prominence as an anti-American firebrand, appeared weak and subdued during the presidential campaign, but still managed to win another term that extends to 2019.
Prior to Saturday's surprise announcement, he had last been seen in public on November 15, and two weeks later he went to Cuba for treatment.
Over the past year and a half, Chavez has missed practically every regional meeting he was to have attended, such as the Summit of the Americas in Colombia, the Mercosur summit in Brazil and last month's Ibero-American summit in Cadiz, Spain.
- AFP/xq
MUMBAI: A good half-hour into the discussion on 'India, China and the World', historian Ramachandra Guha issued a disclaimer—all the three members on the panel had been to China only once. "We should learn their language, promote quality research, and have a panel on China driven by Chinese scholars," he said. And that was the general tenor of the debate—that the Indian attitude to China was influenced by a mix of ignorance, cautious optimism about partnerships and a whole lot of misguided paranoia. "Don't demonise the Chinese, please," Guha finally said in response to a question.
"China has existed in our imaginations," observed Sunil Khilnani, professor of politics and author of The Idea Of India. "There's been very little sustained engagement with the reality of China and very little of our own produced knowledge about China." It was after the events of 1962 ('war' in the popular imagination, 'skirmish' to the scholars participating in the discussion), explained Khilnani, that a miffed India "withdrew". It's the 50th anniversary of that exchange this year, and "what we haven't been able to do is learn from the defeat", observed Khilnani. Both could have benefited from greater engagement. "China has had a very clear focus on primary education and achieved high levels of literacy before its economic rise. It has also addressed the issue of land reform," said Khilnani. Guha added that China could learn from the "religious, cultural and linguistic pluralism" in India.
But China and India weren't always so out of sync with each other. Srinath Raghavan, a scholar of military history, got both Guha and Khilnani to talk about pre-1962 relations between the two when the picture was rosier. Tagore was interested in China and so was Gandhi. Both were very large countries with large populations and shared what Guha calls a "lack of cultural inferiority". "They were both," he continued, "also heavily dependent on peasant communities." Nehru was appreciative of China's will to modernize and industrialize and its adoption of technology to achieve those ends. In turn, Chinese politicians argued for Indian independence.
Things soured more, feel both Khilnani and Guha, after the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. "He was welcomed here as a spiritual leader but the intensification of the conflict dates to the Dalai Lama's flight," said Guha. Both Guha and Khilnani argued that Nehru's decision to not react aggressively to China's occupation of Tibet was, in the long run, the right one and prevented further "militarization" of the region. An audience member wondered if that didn't make India "China's puppet". Guha disagreed. "If there's a Tibetan culture alive today," he said, "it's not because of Richard Gere. Don't believe in the hypocrisy of the Western countries. Will they give them land, employment, dignified refuge? The Tibetans is one of the few cases in which our record is honorable."
But the difference in levels of development and the lopsided trade relations between the two countries have only fuelled the suspicions many Indians seem to harbour about China. People were worried, said Guha, even about cricket balls made in China. Audience questions reflected those worries. A member asked about China's "strategy to conquer the world" and its likely impact on India. Guha cautioned against stereotypes; Khilnani explained, "History is littered with the debris of states that have tried to dominate the world. What we're doing may be more long-lasting."
When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.
Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")
Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.
"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)
The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.
Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.
Root Growth
Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.
"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.
Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.
"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.
The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.
"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")
The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.
The Supreme Court's announcement that it would hear two cases challenging laws prohibiting same-sex marriage has reinvigorated one of the most hotly contentious social debates in American history, a debate that has been fueled by a dramatic change in attitudes.
With some states taking significant steps towards legalizing gay marriage, the hearings come at a critical moment.
This week in Washington State, hundreds of same-sex couples lined up to collect marriage licenses after Gov. Christine Gregoire announced the passing of a voter-approved law legalizing gay marriage.
"For the past 20 years we've been saying just one more step. Just one more fight. Just one more law. But now we can stop saying 'Just one more.' This is it. We are here. We did it," Gregoire told a group of Referendum 74 supporters during the law's certification.
Washington is just the most recent of several states to pass legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, signifying a significant departure from previous thinking on the controversial subject.
READ: Court to Take Up Same-Sex Marriage
A study by the Pew Research Center on changing attitudes on gay marriage showed that in 2001 57 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, while 35 percent of Americans supported it.
The same poll shows that today opinions have greatly shifted to reflect slightly more support for same-sex marriage than opposition -- with 48 percent of Americans in favor and 43 percent opposed.
In fact, just two years ago, 48 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage while only 42 percent supported it -- indicating that opinions have changed dramatically in the last couple of years alone.
David Paul Morris/Getty Images
Check Out Same-Sex Marriage Status in the U.S. State By State
It's hard to imagine that only 16 years ago, the fervent gay marriage debate led to the conception of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union solely held between a man and a woman.
While debating the Defense of Marriage Act in September 1996, former Sen. Robert Byrd said: "If same-sex marriage is accepted, then the announcement will be official: America will have said that children do not need a mother and a father. Two mothers or two fathers will be OK. It'll be just as good. This would be a catastrophe."
Even a few short years ago a newly-elected President Obama did not support the legalization of gay marriage. It wasn't until earlier this year, at the end of hiss first term and with the impending election in sight, that the president told ABC's Robin Roberts the he'd "been going through an evolution on this issue."
Obama went on to attribute his shift in stance to the influence of his daughters.
"You know, Malia and Sasha, they've got friends whose parents are same-sex couples. It wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently," he said. "That's the kind of thing that prompts -- a change in perspective."
Obama isn't the only one to experience an evolution in thinking on the matter of gay marriage. Attitudes towards same-sex marriage have shifted dramatically over the past decade across the board, particularly in the past few years.
Gone are the days when a majority of people opposed same-sex marriage; the days when gay politicians and supporters of same-sex marriage could not get elected.
Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com
Today, nine states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex unions -- a number likely considered inconceivable just a few short years ago. And yet, the same-sex marriage debate still begs for the answering of a question: Will this newfound public opinion, largely driven by young people, women and Democrats, have an effect on the Supreme Court's ultimate decision on the matter?
"I think (gay marriage is) just not a big deal for a lot of young people," Elizabeth Wydra of the Constitutional Accountability Center says. "The justices are human beings so they're not completely immune to public opinion. ... I think the real question for them is going to be do they want to be on the wrong side of history?"
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