NRA director expected to speak on school massacre

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The nation observes a moment of silence, and church bells will ring in many states


• The NRA is to speak on the Sandy Hook shooting Friday


• Adam Lanza's burial has been put off; his mother was interred Thursday


• Three 6-year-old victims were buried Thursday

(CNN) -- Across the nations Friday morning, church bells will toll. Flags will fly at half staff. Many websites will go offline. And office-workers and homemakers, students and nursing home residents, Americans in at least 28 states will stop whatever they're doing to remember the lives snatched when a gunman burst into a Connecticut elementary school exactly a week ago and rained hell.

Alaska, Massachusetts and South Carolina are among 28 states that have declared a moment of silence for 9:30 a.m., marking the hour one week ago that the gunman forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School then shot 20 students, 6 adults then himself dead on December 14 in Newtown.

Lanza had killed his mother before arriving at the school.

A little over an hour later, one group that has kept mum through all the calls for gun control will break its silence: the National Rifle Association.

Newtown funerals: A community says goodbye

HIDE CAPTION

<<

<

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

>

>>

The NRA press conference with executive director Wayne LaPierre will begin at 10:45 a.m.

The gun rights organization had initially deactivated its Facebook page, stopped tweeting on its Twitter account and had been issuing a "no comment" to any media outlet, including CNN, seeking a response.

But late Tuesday, the group broke that silence with a statement:

"The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters -- and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown," the group said. Both their Facebook and Twitter presences became active again.

Despite the relative silence early on from the powerful lobbying group's offices in Fairfax, Virginia, the organization is regrouping in anticipation of a massive legislative push for gun control legislation, said a gun policy expert.

Kristin Goss, an associate professor of public policy and political science at Duke University and author of "Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America," said that strategy is part of the organization's playbook after an incident such as this one.

After such a terrifying event, when there is a national outcry, the NRA typically lays low, Goss said.

"They're used to seeing this cycle express condolences and hope the attention will shift to a new issue."

Governors show support

But for now, the nation's attention still seems focused on Sandy Hook, where investigations into the crime are expected to continue for weeks to come.

The national outpouring of sympathy over the deaths continues, as three more victims are to be laid to rest Friday.

In a letter sent to other governors around the country, Malloy noted how the shooting in his state has resonated nationwide.

"Mourning this tragedy has extended beyond Newtown, beyond the borders of Connecticut, and has spread across the nation and the world," he said. "On behalf of the State of Connecticut, we appreciate the letters and calls of support that have been delivered to our state and to the family members during their hour of need."

Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma suggested residents wear green, Sandy Hook's school color, and in Alaska, the state capitol's bell will ring at 9:30 a.m. local time. The bell is a full-scale replica of the liberty bell.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have called for residents of their states to pause to reflect one week after the shooting rampage. Perry also asked that churches ring their bells 26 times in honor of the victims at the school.

The states honoring a moment of silence include Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Obama ordered flags to half-staff last Friday in the wake of the shooting. Flags will also fly at half staff on this Friday.

Some websites will go dark at the urging of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ron Conway, who came up with the idea at a Christmas party attended by Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was wounded in a 2011 shooting that killed six.

Obama starts gun control debate

President Barack Obama will take part in the moment of silence Friday, a White House spokesman said.

On Thursday the administration put into motion an effort to change U.S. gun laws, less than a week after the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings.

Vice President Joe Biden met with Cabinet members and law enforcement leaders at the White House to start formulating what Obama called "real reforms right now."

More than 195,000 people have signed an online White House petition supporting new gun-control legislation.

A slight majority of Americans favor major restrictions on guns: 52%, up 5 points from a survey taken in August after the July shooting inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people died, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Wednesday.

Carloads of teenagers from a Minnesota school that suffered a mass shooting in 2005 headed toward Newtown Thursday to offer their support.

Also Thursday, burials were held for three children and two teachers.

More than 2,200 miles west of Newtown, Ogden, Utah, the hometown of shooting victim Emilie Parker was festooned with pink ribbons as her parents brought her body back for burial.

"This sucks -- there's no reason for us to be here tonight," her father, Robbie Parker, told friends and well-wishers at a memorial service Thursday night. "And I'm so thankful for everybody that's here."

His voice trailed off as he struggled for composure. Seeing the pink -- his slain daughter's favorite color -- made him and his wife, Alissa, "feel like we were getting a big hug from everybody."

Also buried Thursday, at an undisclosed location, was Nancy Lanza, the shooter's mother, who he killed before the school rampage, said Donald Briggs, a friend of the family who grew up with her in Kingston, New Hampshire.

Plans had not been finalized for the burial of the gunman, her son, Adam.

Three 6-year-olds were among those buried Thursday: Allison Wyatt, who loved to draw and wanted to be an artist; Benjamin Wheeler, who loved the Beatles; and red-haired Catherine Hubbard, who loved animals.

Read More..

N. Korea: We've detained a U.S citizen

Updated 5:10 a.m. EST

PYONGYANG, North Korea North Korea said Friday it has detained an American citizen who has confessed to unspecified crimes.

State media said in a short dispatch that someone named Pae Jun Ho entered North Korea on Nov. 3 as a tourist but was detained because of crimes.

The North said the crimes were "proven through evidence," but didn't elaborate.

Pyongyang has detained and eventually released several Americans in recent years. Some have been journalists and others Christians accused of religious proselytizing.

In 2009, two journalists were detained after crossing into the North from China while on a reporting trip. They were later released .

South Korean activists have told local media in Seoul that the detained man is a Korean-American and was taken into custody after entering North Korea to guide tourists. He operates a tourism company that specializes in North Korea, the reports said.

The North Korean dispatch said officials from the Swedish Embassy met with the American on Friday, but there were no other details about the meeting.

Karl-Olof Andersson, Sweden's ambassador to North Korea, told The Associated Press he could not comment on the case and referred the matter to the U.S. State Department. Sweden represents the U.S. in diplomatic affairs in North Korea since Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations.

The detained American is undergoing "legal treatment," according to North Korea's criminal law, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.

Read More..

Fiscal Cliff 'Plan B' Is Dead: Now What?

Dec 20, 2012 11:00pm

The defeat of his Plan B — Republicans pulled it when it became clear it would be voted down — is a big defeat for Speaker of the House John Boehner.  It demonstrates definitively that there is no fiscal cliff deal that can pass the House on Republican votes alone.

Boehner could not even muster the votes to pass something that would only allow tax rates on those making more than $1 million to go up.

Boehner’s Plan B ran into opposition from conservative and tea party groups -including Heritage Action, Freedom Works and the Club for Growth – but it became impossible to pass it after Senate Democrats vowed not to take up the bill and the president threatened to veto it.  Conservative Republicans saw no reason to vote for a bill conservative activists opposed – especially if it had no hopes of going anywhere anyway.

Plan B is dead.

Now what?

House Republicans say it is now up to the Senate to act.  Senate Democrats say it is now up to Boehner to reach an agreement with President Obama.

Each side is saying the other must move.

The bottom line:  The only plausible solution is for President Obama and Speaker Boehner to do what they have failed repeatedly to do:  come up with a truly bi-partisan deal.

The prospects look grimmer than ever. It will be interesting to see if the markets react.

SHOWS: This Week

Read More..

Urban Byzantine monks gave in to temptation

WHO ate all the pies? In 6th-century Jerusalem, the Byzantine monks were greedy gobblers - despite strict rules that they should eat mainly bread and water.

Most early Byzantine monasteries were located in remote deserts, but St Stephen's monastery thrived in Jerusalem. Wondering how urban living affected the monks, Lesley Gregoricka at the University of South Alabama in Mobile took bone samples from 55 skeletons buried under the monastery.

The ratios of various isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the bones confirmed that the monks ate a lot of common cereals like wheat, as well as fruit and vegetables. But many bones were rich in the heavy isotope nitrogen-15, suggesting the monks ate lots of animal protein. That could mean meat, or dairy products such as cheese (Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, doi.org/jzt).

"The rules on issues such as poverty, chastity and obedience were certainly known and could not be easily ignored," says Peter Hatlie of the University of Dallas's Rome Program in Frattocchie, Italy. "Only fallen, weak, mad and demonic monks ate meat."

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Read More..

Stocks likely to continue being investors' favourite

SINGAPORE: Stocks may continue to be a favourite asset for investors next year.

Improving corporate earnings and attractive valuations are expected to drive stock prices higher.

Experts said investor sentiment may also get a lift on hopes of a recovery in the Chinese and US economies.

Equities are among the star performers in financial markets this year.

In the US, key stock indices like the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 15% and 9.3% respectively since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, the technology-laden Nasdaq rose 17.3% in the same period. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei rose 20.2%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index advanced 22.7% and Singapore's STI index gained 19.4% year to date.

Experts said this asset class may repeat its stellar performance again in 2013.

They added that a favourable macroeconomic outlook may also prompt some investors to switch out of bonds and back to investing in stocks.

"Valuations are not excessive at this juncture, liquidity is supportive of the equity markets," said Vasu Menon, vice president of wealth management in Singapore at OCBC Bank.

"Going forward, we could see some rotational money moving out of bond markets which have been favoured over the last two, three years into equity markets especially given the fact that economic growth is starting to pick up and we will see a modest recovery in the global economy in 2013."

Analysts are more upbeat of stock prospects in the North Asia region - particularly China.

They said companies there have stronger fundamentals, steady balance sheets and the stock markets have ample liquidity.

Experts added that they are positive on Chinese equities within this region, which have underperformed over the last three years - in view of a turnaround of the Chinese economy in the first half of 2013.

The Shanghai stock exchange composite index fell 1.7% year to date and the Shenzhen composite index decline 5.1% in the same period.

"The Chinese positioning is becoming more normalised from where we were before to something that is more sustainable going forward. On top of that, we've already seen the policies start to come through from the new regime, which is supportive to opening up China's market to foreign investors," said Jason Hughes, head of premium client management at IG Markets.

"We now have the stock market opened up to the institutional investors more so than before."

Among the sectors that may take the limelight next year are commodities and real estate investment trusts.

A pick up in global growth and the weaker US dollar will give commodities demand a boost , hence pushing gold prices higher.

Others expect property and financial names to lead the way like they did in 2012 - thanks to China's accommodating policies towards infrastructure and development of their own local economy.

Steve Brice, chief investment strategist at Standard Chartered Bank said: "One can make the case that REITs are overvalued and possibly, they are in a normalised environment. But we're not in a normalised environment, we have very low interest rates and that search for yield is still a very dominant theme and that should keep REITs very well supported going through at least the first half of 2013, and possibly into the second half."

Still, experts warn of looming risks such as the US fiscal cliff and the upcoming European elections that may dampen investor sentiment next year.

"Probably something more for the second half of 2013, is the risk of the fed withdrawing some of the monetary stimulus from markets," said Menon.

"If the economy of the US is growing at a faster than expected pace, and if unemployment starts falling below the 7% level then the markets will price in the possibility of the fed withdrawing the stimulus. The expectation of that alone may actually cause markets to pull back."

- CNA/xq

Read More..

Large portion of Midwest under blizzard warning

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: 156-mile stretch of freeway closed in Colorado


• 23-car pileup in Texas dust storm kills one, injures 17


• Heavy snow, high winds stretch from Colorado to Wisconsin in season's first blizzard


• Storm to crawl from Midwest to New England by Friday

(CNN) -- People traveling early for Christmas in the center of the country will be dashing through the snow and the rain and the wind.

The first major storm of the season has prompted the National Weather Service to issue a blizzard warning for a huge swath of the Midwest stretching from eastern Colorado to Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shoreline, including virtually all of Iowa. The declaration warns of snow accumulations of up to 12 inches, complemented by 25- to 35-mph winds that will occasionally gust to 45 to 50 mph.

A 156-mile stretch of Interstate Highway 70 between Denver and the Kansas state line was closed in both directions for a time Wednesday. The westbound side reopened about 7 p.m. MT, but the eastbound lanes remained closed.

Cheyenne Wells, in east-central Colorado, reported a 67-mph wind gust with zero visibility just after 2 p.m. MT, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said. U.S. Highway 385 was closed for 65 miles in the Cheyenne Wells region, Colorado's Department of Transportation reported.

"Most of the storm is on its way out across the state, except for the Eastern Plains, where there are still high winds, blizzard conditions, and highway closures," the department's Facebook page said.

"Whiteout conditions are likely and travel could become impossible" Wednesday night and into Thursday, the service's Omaha, Nebraska, office warned.

Is the storm hitting you? Send images to iReport

"Far southeast Nebraska and extreme southwest Iowa could see rain or a wintry mix for several hours yet this evening, so blizzard conditions may not develop over that area until mid-evening or later," the service said.

Airlines were reporting relatively few cancellations or delays in areas affected by the storm Wednesday night, but that could change overnight.

The storm will race into western Illinois, the weather service said. Rain will quickly change over to snow as the storm advances northeast, with the heaviest snow occurring overnight.

"Snow drifts several feet deep will be possible given the strong winds," the blizzard warning states.

At least 17 people were sent to hospitals near Lubbock, Texas, after a 23-vehicle chain-reaction crash on Interstate Highway 27 north of New Deal, Texas, state safety officials told CNN. There was at least one fatality, said Clinton Thetford, emergency management coordinator of Lubbock County. A stretch of the freeway in Lubbock County remains closed indefinitely.

Wrapping around the blizzard warning on the north, south and east is a winter storm warning, which will be no picnic either. The winds won't be quite as strong, but residents should expect a strong dose of rain, sleet and snow, with a few hail-packing thunderstorms thrown in for good measure.

A winter weather advisory is in effect for the Indiana-Ohio-Michigan tri-state area, as well as central Missouri and Kansas.

The "intense cyclone" will crawl across the Great Lakes region Thursday and slog into northern New England by Friday evening, the National Weather Service predicted.

Dodging the heavy precipitation but not the high winds is an area from western Texas and eastern New Mexico through the Oklahoma Panhandle and into southwest Kansas.

Much of the Southwest and Mississippi Valley is extremely dry, and the high winds have kicked up blinding dust near Lubbock, Texas.

CNN's Carma Hassan and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.

Read More..

Senate GOP proposes much smaller Sandy aid package

WASHINGTONSenate Republicans on Wednesday proposed a $24 billion emergency aid package for Superstorm Sandy victims, less than half of what Democrats hope to pass by Christmas.

The GOP alternative bill would provide more than enough money to pay for immediate recovery efforts through the spring.

Republicans complain that the $60.4 billion Democratic bill being debated in the Senate is larded with money for projects unrelated to damage from the late October storm, which battered the Atlantic coastline from North Carolina to Maine.

The Republican version does not include $13 billion Democrats want for projects to protect against future storms, including fortification of mass transit systems in the Northeast and protecting vulnerable seaside areas by building jetties against storm surges.

49 Photos

Sandy's devastation on Staten Island

Republicans said however worthy such projects may be, they are not urgently needed and should be considered by Congress in the usual appropriations process next year, not through emergency spending.

"We want to take care of urgent needs now," said Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, who put forward the bill. "We can look at other needs down the road when we have more time to look at them."

The GOP bill also scraps spending from the Democratic bill that is not directly related to Sandy damages, such as the $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for declared fisheries disasters in 2012 that could go to New England states, Alaska, New York and Mississippi.

The aid will help states rebuild public infrastructure like roads and tunnels and help thousands of people displaced from their homes. Sandy was the most costly natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and one of the worst storms ever in the Northeast.

More than $2 billion in federal funds has been spent on relief efforts so far for 11 states and the District of Columbia. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund still has about $4.8 billion, and officials have said that is enough to pay for recovery efforts into early spring.

Earlier this month, Govs. Chris Christie, R-N.J., Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., and Dannel Malloy, D-Conn., argued in an op-ed that "in times of crisis no region, state or single American should have to stand alone or be left to fend for themselves," pointing to the "hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses damaged or destroyed, thousands still left homeless or displaced, tens of billions of dollars in economic loss" as evidence that "It's time for Congress to stand with us."

The governors, while recognizing that "our nation faces significant fiscal challenges," strive to separate the disaster-relief needs of their region from the ongoing "fiscal cliff" negotiations consuming Capitol Hill, arguing that Congress must "not allow this much-needed aid to fall in to the ideological divide."

Read More..

Obama Invokes Newtown on 'Cliff' Deal

Invoking the somber aftermath of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., President Obama today appealed to congressional Republicans to embrace a standing "fair deal" on taxes and spending that would avert the fiscal cliff in 13 days.

"If there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important," Obama said at a midday news conference.

"I would like to think that members of that [Republican] caucus would say to themselves, 'You know what? We disagree with the president on a whole bunch of things,'" he said. "'But right now what the country needs is for us to compromise.'"

House Speaker John Boehner's response: "Get serious."

Boehner announced at a 52-second news conference that the House will vote Thursday to approve a "plan B" to a broad White House deal -- and authorize simply extending current tax rates for people earning less than $1 million a year and little more.

"Then, the president will have a decision to make," the Ohio Republican said. "He can call on Senate Democrats to pass that bill or he could be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history."

Fiscal Cliff Negotiations: Trying to Make a Deal Watch Video

House Speaker John Boehner Proposes 'Plan B' on Taxes Watch Video

'Fiscal Cliff' Negotiations: Deal Might Be Within Reach Watch Video

Unless Congress acts by Dec. 31, every American will face higher income tax rates and government programs will get hit with deep automatic cuts starting in 2013.

Obama and Boehner have been inching closer to a deal on tax hikes and spending cuts to help reduce the deficit. But they have not yet had a breakthrough on a deal.

Obama's latest plan would raise $1.2 trillion in new tax revenue over 10 years, largely through higher tax rates on incomes above $400,000. He also proposes roughly $930 billion in spending cuts, including new limits on entitlement spending, such as slower annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries.

Boehner has agreed to $1 trillion in new tax revenue, with a tax rate hike for households earning over $1 million. He is seeking more than $1 trillion in spending cuts, with significant changes to Medicare and Social Security.

The president said today that he remains "optimistic" about reaching a broad compromise by Christmas because both sides are "pretty close," a sentiment that has been publicly shared by Boehner.

But the speaker's backup plan has, at least temporarily, stymied talks, with no reported contact between the sides since Monday.

"The speaker should return to the negotiating table with the president because if he does I firmly believe we can have an agreement before Christmas," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a White House ally.

Schumer said Obama and Boehner are "not that far apart" in the negotiations.

"If they were to come to an agreement by Friday, they could write this stuff over the Christmas break and then we'd have to come back before the New Year and pass it," Schumer said.

Obama said he is "open to conversations" and planned to reach out to congressional leaders over the next few days to try to nudge Republicans to accept a "fair deal."

"At some point, there's got to be, I think, a recognition on the part of my Republican friends that -- you know, take the deal," he told reporters.

"They keep on finding ways to say no, as opposed to finding ways to say yes," Obama added. "At some point, you know, they've got take me out of it and think about their voters and think about what's best for the country."

Read More..

2013 Smart Guide: New maps to rein in cosmic inflation

Read more: "2013 Smart Guide: 10 ideas that will shape the year"

We're about to get a better grasp of one of the biggest ideas in the universe: inflation. The first maps of the cosmos from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite are due out in early 2013. They should help us to hone descriptions of how, after the big bang, the universe grew from smaller than a proton into a vast expanse in less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second.

The early universe was a featureless soup of hot plasma that somehow grew into the dense galaxy clusters and cosmic voids we know today. On a large scale, regions far apart from each other should look very different, according to the laws of thermodynamics. But studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - the first light to be released, some 300,000 years after the big bang - show that the universe still looks virtually the same in all directions.

To explain this unlikely sameness, physicists invoked inflation: since all points in the universe were once next-door neighbours, the idea is that they blew apart so quickly that they couldn't forget about each other. Data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), launched in 2001, bolstered a key prediction of inflation, that the universe's structure was seeded by quantum fluctuations in space-time.

Stephen Hawking recently told New Scientist that WMAP's evidence for inflation was the most exciting development in physics during his career. But a best-fit model for what drove the exponential expansion, when it began and how long it lasted, hasn't been agreed. The WMAP data also revealed some surprises, such as inexplicable patterns in the CMB. So cosmologists have been anxiously awaiting Planck's higher-resolution maps to set the record straight. The Planck team will release its first cosmological results from 15 months' worth of data in March.

In addition, the Planck results will help refine figures for how much dark energy, dark matter and normal matter make up the universe. Planck might also record the first direct signs of ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. Not bad for a probe that's already half dead - one of Planck's two detectors stopped working in January. The entire craft will be shuttered in August.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Read More..

Nature no excuse for cheating, says Chris Wang

SINGAPORE: Is it in men's nature to cheat?

Taiwan actor Chris Wang thinks so.

"The Fierce Wife" star said he came to this conclusion after reading up on the topic and observing similar cheating behaviour among males of other animal species, during his travels as the host of an adventure programme.

However, he stressed that this doesn't make it okay for men to betray their partners.

"I think this isn't a valid excuse. You have to respect her views, know her pain and the source of her tears.

"You can't be selfish," Wang told reporters, during a recent visit to Singapore with his "Love Me Or Leave Me" co-star Tiffany Hsu, to promote the drama.

Hsu, who plays a woman that hires another to test her lover's (played by Wang) fidelity in the drama, had rather different views on the topic.

"I don't think cheating is in men's nature," said the actress, pointing out that both men and women stray because "everyone wants new experiences".

"It's just that women can stay in a stale relationship for a longer time, but men really love to have lots of interactions with different people."

Hsu believed that both parties in a relationship need to work together to create new experiences for one another, in order to make it less likely that their partner will cheat.

-CNA/ha

Read More..