India police deny they delayed helping rape victim

An Indian family lights candles in memory of a gang-rape victim in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013. Passers-by refused to stop to help a naked, bleeding gang-rape victim after she was dumped from a bus onto a New Delhi street, and police delayed taking her to a hospital for 30 minutes, the woman's male companion said in an interview. / AP Photo/Altaf Qadri

NEW DELHI Police in New Delhi on Saturday refuted the comments made by the male companion of a gang-rape victim that police officers debated jurisdiction for 30 minutes before taking the rape victim and her friend to a hospital.

The victim's male companion said in an interview broadcast on Friday on Indian TV station Zee News that police delayed taking her to a hospital after passers-by neglected to help her, even though she was naked and bleeding.

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Gang-rape sparks rage in India

Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police Vivek Gogia, however, denied the companion's assertion.

At a news conference on Saturday, Gogia said police vans reached the spot where the rape victim and her friend were dumped within three minutes of receiving the alert.

He said the police vans left the spot for hospital with the victims within 12 minutes and that time had spent in borrowing bed sheets from a neighboring hotel to cover the naked rape victim and her friend.

"Zebra 54 (Police response vehicle) left the spot along with the victims at 10:39 (pm) (1709 GMT). This time was utilized in placing the victim in the van, after organizing a bed sheet from a neighboring hotel to cover the victims. Zebra 54 brought the victims to Safdarjung Hospital at 10: 55 p.m.(1725 GMT). These findings have been ascertained through the logs generated by the multi-computer configuration global positioning system," he said.

Meanwhile, a senior opposition figure in the Indian government asked what kind of "teachings and training the government of India has given to its police in Delhi?"

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Deputy Leader of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) condemned the Delhi police for the alleged delay in helping the victims.

"Saving the life of critically injured people is more important, or fighting over jurisdiction is more important?" Prasad asked.

Also on Saturday, a court asked police to produce five men accused of raping the student for pre-trial proceedings on Monday.

Police have charged them with murder, rape and other crimes that could bring them the death penalty.

A sixth suspect, listed as a 17-year-old, is expected to be tried in a juvenile court, where the maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.

The 23-year-old woman died last weekend from massive internal injuries suffered during the attack.

The attack has sparked outrage and daily protests across India and led to calls for tougher rape legislation and reforms of a police culture that often blames rape victims and refuses to file charges against accused attackers.

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4 Dead After Aurora, Colo., SWAT Standoff

Four people were killed, including the gunman, during a hostage standoff this morning at a townhouse in Aurora, Colo., police said.

Police pumped tear gas into the home in an attempt to get the gunman to leave, and then went into the home and shot him, ABC News Denver affiliate KMGH-TV reported.

The three people found dead in the home are believed to be relatives of the shooter, Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson told KMGH. A fourth person was found unharmed, she said.

Officers responded to the home after the first reports of gunshots came in around 3 a.m.

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The suspected gunman was found dead inside the townhome at 9 a.m., but police were not sure when he had been shot by officers or killed himself, she said.

"We're just getting in there with our crime scene detectives, so obviously we'll have to determine if it was our rounds or his rounds," Carlson said. "This is a big investigation, and a lot is entailed."

Carlson said neighboring residences were evacuated while the SWAT team attempted to resolve the standoff.

"We've evacuated several residences in the neighboring townhomes and in the immediate area where we believed would be the most dangerous," Carlson told KMGH-TV earlier today.

The Colorado town was the site of a movie theater massacre last July. A gunman opened fire during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.

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Venezuela lawmakers elect Chavez ally as Assembly chief

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan lawmakers re-elected a staunch ally of Hugo Chavez to head the National Assembly on Saturday, putting him in line to be caretaker president if the socialist leader does not recover from cancer surgery.

By choosing the incumbent, Diosdado Cabello, the "Chavista"-dominated legislature cemented the combative ex-soldier's position as the third most powerful figure in the government, after Chavez and Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

"As a patriot ... I swear to be supremely loyal in everything I do, to defend the fatherland, its institutions, and this beautiful revolution led by our Comandante Hugo Chavez," Cabello said as he took the oath, his hand on the constitution.

He had earlier warned opposition politicians against attempting to use the National Assembly to "conspire" against the people, saying they would be "destroyed" if they tried.

Thousands of the president's red-clad supporters gathered outside parliament hours before the vote, many chanting: "We are all Chavez! Our comandante will be well! He will return!"

If Chavez had to step down, or died, Cabello would take over the running of the country as Assembly president and a new election would be organized within 30 days. Chavez's heir apparent, Maduro, would be the ruling Socialist Party candidate.

Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area in mid-2011, has not been seen in public nor heard from in more than three weeks.

Officials say the 58-year-old is in delicate condition and has suffered multiple complications since the December 11 surgery, including unexpected bleeding and severe respiratory problems.

Late on Friday, Maduro gave the clearest indication yet that the government was preparing to delay Chavez's inauguration for a new six-year term, which is scheduled for Thursday.

'CHAVEZ IS PRESIDENT'

Maduro said the ceremony was a "formality" and that Chavez could be sworn in by the Supreme Court at a later date.

The opposition says Chavez's absence would be just the latest sign that he is no longer fit to govern, and that new elections should be held in the South American OPEC nation.

Brandishing a copy of the constitution after his win in the Assembly, Cabello slammed opposition leaders for writing a letter to foreign embassies in which they accused the government of employing a "twisted reading" of the charter.

"Get this into your heads: Hugo Chavez was elected president and he will continue to be president beyond January 10. No one should have any doubt ... this is the constitutional route," he said as fellow Socialist Party lawmakers cheered.

The opposition sat stony-faced. One of their legislators had earlier told the session that it was not just the head of state who was ill, "the republic is sick."

Last year, Chavez staged what appeared to be a remarkable comeback from the disease to win re-election in October, despite being weakened by radiation therapy. He returned to Cuba for more treatment within weeks of his victory.

Should the president have to step down after 14 years in office, a new vote would probably pit Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver and union leader, against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state.

Capriles lost to Chavez in October's presidential election.

"I don't think Maduro would last many rounds in a presidential race. He's not fit for the responsibility they have given him," Capriles said after the vice president's appearance on state television.

Chavez's condition is being watched closely by leftist allies around Latin American who have benefited from his oil-funded generosity, as well as investors attracted by Venezuela's lucrative and widely traded debt.

The country boasts the world's biggest crude reserves. Despite the huge political upheaval Chavez's exit would cause, the oil industry is not likely to be affected much in the short term, with an extension of "Chavismo" keeping projects on track, while a change in parties could usher in more foreign capital.

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Algeria, Turkey renew gas deal for 10 years

ALGIERS: Algeria and Turkey have decided to renew for 10 years from 2014 an agreement for Algeria to deliver four billion cubic metres of gas annually to Turkey, Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi said on Saturday.

The official APS news agency said it was "decided to extend the agreement by 10 years, with the possibility of increasing the volume of gas exported."

Algeria and Turkey signed a 20-year agreement in 1988 on the sale and purchase of four billion cubic metres of gas annually, and which came into effect in 1994.

Speaking after a meeting in Algiers with visiting Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, Yousfi told reporters that Algeria's Sonatrach and Turkey's Botas have "already decided on the conditions and terms of the new agreement."

Turkey's rising gas needs are expected to quadruple over the next 10 years.

"We have said we wish to increase our imports to six billion cubic metres a year. Everything will depend on Algeria's export capacity," Yildiz said.

- AFP/de

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Views of a living Mars take the rouge off

This could have been Mars back before the dinosaurs built a super space ramp to our planet, at least according to software engineer and artist Kevin Gill.

(Credit:
Kevin Gill)

What if the Red Planet weren't always in that constant state of blushing? Kevin Gill, a software engineer who also re-engineers planets every now and then, imagines Mars might long ago have looked quite a bit more like the aqua-green marble we call home.

To create the above image, Gill used data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), picked an arbitrary sea level, and used a script to cover all the surfaces of Mars below that line with a nice shade of royal blue. From there, Gill writes on Google+ that it was a combination of some earthly textures borrowed from NASA and Gill's own imagination -- adhering of course to the kind of strict logic you'd expect from a career engineer... and an artist.

There is no scientific reasoning behind how I painted it; I tried to envision how the land would appear given certain features or the effects of likely atmospheric climate. For example, I didn't see much green taking hold within the area of Olympus Mons and the surrounding volcanoes, both due to the volcanic activity and the proximity to the equator (thus a more tropical climate). For these desert-like areas I mostly used textures taken from the Sahara in Africa and some of Australia. Likewise, as the terrain gets higher or lower in latitude I added darker flora along with tundra and glacial ice. These northern and southern areas' textures are largely taken from around northern Russia. Tropical and subtropical greens were based on the rainforests of South America and Africa.

Paint by number, you have met your match.

Of course, Gill points out that "this wasn't intended as an exhaustive scientific scenario" but hopes some of his assumptions will prove to be true. Here's hoping the Curiosity rover has a secret time machine built in that NASA hasn't told us about yet, so we can see just how close Gill is to the real deal.

Here are a few alternate views Gill cooked up:

A wet Mars with its own Atlantis adrift in a vast sea.

(Credit:
Kevin Gill)

Here's a closer view of the Martian land mass with added oceanic action:

(Via The Register)

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Congress passes $9.7B Sandy relief bill

Updated: 2:26 p.m. ET

The House and Senate today passed a bill approving more than $9 billion in aid for regions impacted by superstorm Sandy, the first of two Sandy relief measures making their way through Congress between now and the end of the month.

The measure, which allows FEMA to temporarily increase the National Flood Insurance program's borrowing limit by $9.7 billion, will now head to the White House for the president's signature.

On January 15, the first full day of legislative business on Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner is expected to bring up a vote for additional Sandy relief measures totaling the remaining $51 billion requested by President Obama.

The House was expected to vote on a Sandy relief package earlier this week, before the close of the 112th Congress. But after the House passed a Democrat-crafted deal to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" -- a deal many Republicans disliked due to a lack of spending cuts and an increase in tax rates -- Boehner pulled the Sandy legislation at the last minute.

His decision was met with outrage on both sides of the aisle, and Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie lashed out at the speaker in a press conference the following day. Several House Republicans also threatened to vote against Boehner's bid to be re-elected Speaker of the House.

In light of the backlash, Boehner quickly scheduled the $9.7 billion flood insurance package for today and pledged to conduct a vote on the remaining funds on January 15.

This first portion of Sandy aid was expected to pass, though there were objections among conservative Republicans. The Club for Growth sent out a press release urging House members to vote "no" on the bill, arguing that "Congress should not allow the federal government to be involved in the flood insurance industry in the first place, let alone expand the national flood insurance program's authority."

Republican Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., also expressed his opposition to the legislation, citing general objections to the national flood insurance program as well as a desire for the $9.7 billion to be offset by reductions elsewhere.

"There is no doubt that Hurricane Sandy rendered unspeakable damage to both lives and property on our East Coast," he said in remarks on the House floor. "The tragic reality [is] the national flood insurance program is broke. It is beyond broke... Emergency bills like this should not come to the floor without offsets to pay for it or structural reforms to ensure that taxpayer bailouts are never needed again. Regrettably, less than 24 hours into a new congress, there is simply not time for this."

Democrats fiercely defended the legislation, and continued to blast Republicans for stalling on the original vote.

"The victims of superstorm sandy can wait no longer. It's been 11 weeks," added Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., in remarks during debate over the bill. "Haven't they suffered and waited long enough?"

Following the bill's passage through the Senate, Christie and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., lauded what they called a "critical first step towards delivering aid to the people of New Jersey and New York." But they emphasized that Congress' work is not finished.

"While we are pleased with this progress, today was just a down payment and it is now time to go even further and pass the final and more complete, clean disaster aid bill," the governors said in a joint statement. "We are trusting Congress to act accordingly on January 15th and pass the final $51 billion instrumental for long-term rebuilding in order for New Jersey, New York and our people to recover after the severe devastation of Hurricane Sandy."

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Pharmacy Blames Cleaners in Meningitis Outbreak

Jan 4, 2013 11:41am

Credit: Minnesota Department of Health/AP Photo

The pharmacy at the heart of the fungal meningitis outbreak says a cleaning company it hired should share the blame for the tainted steroid injections that caused more than 600 illnesses in 19 states, killing 39 people.

Click here to read about the road to recovery for fungal meningitis victims.

The New England Compounding Pharmacy, which made the fungus-tainted drugs, sent a letter to UniFirst Corp., which provided once-a month cleaning services to the Framingham, Mass., lab, “demanding” it indemnify NECC for the meningitis outbreak, according to a UniFirst filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Based on its preliminary review of this matter, the company believes that NECC’s claims are without merit,” UniFirst wrote in its quarterly filing.

The New England Compounding Center recalled 17,000 vials of tainted steroid injections on Sept. 26 before recalling all drugs and shutting down on Oct. 6.

The Food and Drug Administration investigated NECC’s lab and found that a quarter of the steroid injections in one bin contained “greenish black foreign matter,” according to the report.  The FDA also identified several cleanrooms that had bacterial or mold overgrowths.

UniFirst’s UniClean business cleaned portions of the NECC cleanrooms to NECC’s specifications and using NECC’s cleansing solutions, UniFirst spokesman Adam Soreoff said in a statement. It provided two technicians once a month for about an hour and a half.

“UniClean was not in any way responsible for NECC’s day-to-day operations, its overall facility cleanliness, or the integrity of the products they produced,” Soreoff said. “Therefore, based on what we know, we believe any NECC claims against UniFirst or UniClean are unfounded and without merit. ”

Click here for our fungal meningitis outbreak timeline, “Anatomy of an Outbreak.”

NECC was not immediately available for comment.

The House of Representatives subpoenaed Barry Cadden, who owns NECC,  to a hearing in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 14. He declined to testify when members of Congress pressed him on his role in ensuring that the drugs his company produced were safe and sterile.

“On advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer on the basis of my constitutional rights and privileges including the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States,” he said at the hearing.

Members of Congress also questioned whether the FDA could have prevented the outbreak.

Compounding pharmacies, which are intended to tailor drugs to individuals with a single prescription from a single doctor, are typically overseen by state pharmacy boards rather than the FDA because they are so small. However, in 2006, the FDA issued a warning letter to NECC, accusing it of mass-producing a topical anesthetic cream, and jeopardizing another drug’s sterility by repackaging it.

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Abbas sees Palestinian unity as Fatah rallies in Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big Palestinian factions as his Fatah movement staged its first mass rally in Gaza with the blessing of Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave.

"Soon we will regain our unity," Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the 2007 civil war between the two factions, said in a televised address to hundreds of thousands of followers marching in Gaza on Friday, with yellow Fatah flags instead of the green of Hamas.

The hardline Hamas movement, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, expelled secular Fatah from Gaza during the war. It gave permission for the rally after the deadlock in peace talks between Abbas's administration and Israel narrowed the two factions' ideological differences.

The Palestinian rivals have drawn closer since Israel's assault on Gaza assault in November, in which Hamas, though battered, claimed victory.

Egypt has long tried to broker Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, but past efforts have foundered over questions of power-sharing, control of weaponry, and to what extent Israel and other powers would accept a Palestinian administration including Hamas.

An Egyptian official told Reuters Cairo was preparing to invite the factions for new negotiations within two weeks.

Israel fears grassroots support for Hamas could eventually topple Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.

"Hamas could seize control of the PA any day," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

The demonstration marked 48 years since Fatah's founding as the spearhead of the Palestinians' fight against Israel. Its longtime leader Yasser Arafat signed an interim 1993 peace accord that won Palestinians a measure of self rule.

Hamas, which rejected the 1993 deal, fought and won a Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006. It formed an uneasy coalition with Fatah until their violent split a year later.

Though shunned by the West, Hamas feels bolstered by electoral gains for Islamist movements in neighboring Egypt and elsewhere in the region - a confidence reflected in the fact Friday's Fatah demonstration was allowed to take place.

"The success of the rally is a success for Fatah, and for Hamas too," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "The positive atmosphere is a step on the way to regain national unity."

Fatah, meanwhile, has been riven by dissent about the credibility of Abbas's statesmanship, especially given Israel's continued settlement-building on West Bank land. The Israelis quit Gaza unilaterally in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.

"The message today is that Fatah cannot be wiped out," said Amal Hamad, a member of the group's ruling body, referring to the demonstration attended by several Abbas advisers. "Fatah lives, no one can exclude it and it seeks to end the division."

In his speech, Abbas promised to return to Gaza soon and said Palestinian unification would be "a step on the way to ending the (Israeli) occupation".

(Editing by Dan Williams, Alistair Lyon and Jason Webb)

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Westinghouse to show Roku Ready TV at CES

Westinghouse's UX60 will be certified Roku Ready.

(Credit:
Westinghouse)

Today Westinghouse announced a line of TVs designed to work with the Roku Streaming Stick, a USB-key-sized dongle that provides the functionality of a full-fledged Roku box--our Editors' Choice for streaming video--without having to connect additional wires.

The TVs have MHL (Mobile High Definition Link)-enabled HDMI inputs, into which the stick can be plugged. Numerous other MHL-equipped TVs will also be announced at
CES next week, theoretically allowing them to also work with the Stick, but many will likely have their own Smart TV suites built in, and few will be guaranteed such functionality by offering Roku Ready certification.

A Stick plugged into an Insignia TV's HDMI input.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

CNET spoke to Westinghouse VP of Marketing Rey Roque, who said the company will show a 60-inch, edge-lit
LED TV at CES that's bundled with the stick. The TV's remote will control both the set and the full Roku experience. Westinghouse will also sell smaller sizes (46, 50 and 55) that might also be bundled, as well as Roku Ready TVs that don't include the $99 stick.

Currently we know about a couple of other Streaming Stick Ready TVs, from Hitachi and Insignia. In our review of the latter the Stick worked well, replicating the full Roku experience, so we expect the same from these Westinghouse models.

The Stick is currently a niche product and most buyers would be better served with a standard Roku box, especially when paired with a good universal remote. But if more TVs like the Westinghouse come out, and especially if that $99 price drops, the future of streaming video could be on a stick.

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FTC: Google does not violate antitrust laws

Google hasn't violated any antitrust laws, the Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday, but it has agreed to make some changes in how it treats its rivals as part of a settlement to end the 19-month investigation into its business practices.

The FTC's investigation focused on allegations that Google has been abusing its dominance in Internet search. Google's rivals say the company has been highlighting its own services on its influential results page while burying the links to competing sites.

Google Inc. has fiercely defended its right to recommend the websites that it believes are the most relevant.

The FTC said it voted unanimously to close the investigation on whether Google's algorithm unfairly favored itself because there was no evidence that Google violated antitrust laws.

"Although some evidence suggested that Google was trying to eliminate competition, Google's primary reason for changing the look and feel of its search results to highlight its own products was to improve the user experience," FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said to reporters Thursday.

Google was also investigated for abusing patent protection against competitors like Apple. As part of the settlement, Google is agreeing to license patents deemed to be "essential" for rival mobile devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad, regulators said.

Regulators say Google is also promising that upon request, it will exclude snippets copied from other websites in its summaries of key information, even though the company had insisted the practice is legal under the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law.

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Sandy Hook Parents Cope With Students' Return

Sandy Hook parents put their children on school buses this morning and waved goodbye as the yellow bus rolled away, but this first day back since the pre-Christmas massacre is anything but normal for the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Erin Milgram, the mother of a first grader and a fourth grader at Sandy Hook, told "Good Morning America" that she was going to drive behind the bus and stay with her 7-year-old Lauren for the entire school day.

"I haven't gotten that far yet, about not being with them," Milgram said. "I just need to stay with them for a while."

Today is "Opening Day" for Sandy Hook Elementary School, which is re-opening about six miles away in the former Chalk Hill school in Monroe, Conn.

Lauren was in teacher Kaitlin Roig's first grade class on Dec. 14 when gunman Adam Lanza forced his way into the school and killed 20 students and six staffers.

Roig has been hailed a hero for barricading her students in a classroom bathroom and refusing to open the door until authorities could find a key to open the door.

The 20 students killed were first-graders and the Milgrams have struggled to explain to Lauren why so many of her friends will never return to school.

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"She knows her friends and she'll also see on the bus... there will be some missing on the bus," Milgram said. "We look at yearbook pictures. We try to focus on the happy times because we really don't know what we're doing."

"How could someone be so angry?" Lauren's father Eric Milgram wondered before a long pause. "We don't know."

The school has a lecture room available for parents to stay as long as they wish and they are also allowed to accompany their children to the classroom to help them adjust. Counselors will be available throughout the day for parents, staff and students, according to the school's website.

The first few days will be a delicate balancing act between assessing the children's needs and trying to get them back to a normal routine.

"We don't want to avoid memories of a trauma," Dr. Jamie Howard told "Good Morning America." "And so by getting back to school and by engaging in your routines, we're helping kids to do that, we're helping them to have a natural, healthy recovery to a trauma."

Security is paramount in everyone's mind. There is a police presence on campus and drivers of every vehicle that comes onto campus are being interviewed.

"Our goal is to make it a safe and secure learning environment for these kids to return to, and the teachers also," Monroe police Lt. Keith White said at a news conference on Wednesday.

A "state-of-the-art" security system is in place, but authorities will not go into detail about the system saying only that the school will probably be "the safest school in America."

White said at a news conference today that the security presence would be evaluated on a day-by-day and week-by-week basis moving forward.

"We are trying to keep a balance," he said. "We don't want them [the students] to think that this is a police state. This is a school and a school first."

Every adult in the school who is not immediately recognizable will be required to wear a badge as identification, parent and school volunteer Karen Dryer told ABCNews.com.

"They want to know exactly who you are at sight, whether or not you should be there," Dryer said.

Despite the precautions and preparations, parents will still be coping with the anxiety of parting with their children.

"Rationally, something like this is a very improbable event, but that still doesn't change the emotional side of the way you feel," Eric Milgram said.

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Syria rebels in push to capture air base

AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - Rebels battled on Thursday to seize an air base in northern Syria, part of a campaign to fight back against the air power that has given President Bashar al-Assad's forces free rein to bomb rebel-held towns.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the 21-month-old uprising and civil war, the United Nations said this week, sharply raising the death toll estimate in a conflict that shows no sign of ending.

After dramatic advances over the second half of 2012, the rebels now hold wide swathes of territory in the north and east, but are limited in exerting control because they cannot protect towns and villages from Assad's helicopters and jets.

Hundreds of fighters from rebel groups were attempting to storm the Taftanaz air base, near the northern highway that links Syria's two main cities, Aleppo and the capital Damascus.

Rebels have been besieging air bases across the north in recent weeks, in the hope this will reduce the government's power to carry out air strikes and resupply loyalist-held areas.

A rebel fighter speaking from near the Taftanaz base overnight said the base's main sections were still in loyalist hands but insurgents had managed to infiltrate and destroy a helicopter and a fighter jet on the ground.

The northern rebel Idlib Coordination Committee said the rebels had detonated a car bomb inside the base.

The government's SANA news agency said the base had not fallen and that the military had "strongly confronted an attempt by the terrorists to attack the airport from several axes, inflicting heavy losses among them and destroying their weapons and munitions".

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the opposition-aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict from Britain, said as many as 800 fighters were involved in the assault, including Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful group that Washington considers terrorists.

Taftanaz is mainly a helicopter base, used for missions to resupply army positions in the north, many of which are cut off by road because of rebel gains, as well as for dropping crude "barrel bombs" of explosives on rebel-controlled areas.

"WHAT IS THE FAULT OF THE CHILDREN?"

Near Minakh, another northern air base that rebels have surrounded, government forces have retaliated by regularly shelling and bombing nearby towns.

In the town of Azaz, where the bombardment has become a near nightly occurrence, shells hit a family house overnight. Zeinab Hammadi said her two wounded daughters, aged 10 and 12, had been rushed across the border to Turkey, one with her brain exposed.

"We were sleeping and it just landed on us in the blink of an eye," she said, weeping as she surveyed the damage.

Family members tried to salvage possessions from the wreckage, men lifting out furniture and children carrying out their belongings in tubs.

"He (Assad) wants revenge against the people," said Abu Hassan, 33, working at a garage near the destroyed house. "What is the fault of the children? Are they the ones fighting?"

Opposition activists said warplanes struck a residential building in another rebel-held northern town, Hayyan, killing at least eight civilians.

Video footage showed men carrying dismembered bodies of children and dozens of people searching for victims in the rubble of the destroyed building, shouting "God is greatest". The provenance of the video could not be independently confirmed.

In addition to their tenuous grip on the north, the rebels also hold a crescent of suburbs on the edge of Damascus, which have come under bombardment by government forces that control the center of the capital.

On Wednesday, according to opposition activists, dozens of people were incinerated in an inferno caused by an air strike on a petrol station in a Damascus suburb where residents were lining up for precious fuel.

The civil war in Syria has become the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts that rose out of uprisings across the Arab world in the past two years.

Assad's family has ruled for 42 years since his father seized power in a coup. The war pits rebels, mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, against a government supported by members of Assad's Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect and some members of other minorities who fear revenge if he falls.

The West, most Sunni-ruled Arab states and Turkey have called for Assad to leave power. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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Relief for Google as US ends monopoly probe

WASHINGTON: US regulators Thursday closed a lengthy antitrust probe into Google, saying there was not enough evidence to show the Internet giant manipulated its search results to harm its competitors.

The Federal Trade Commission said it lacked a legal basis to bring a monopoly abuse case against Google for "search bias," as alleged by some rivals, but won commitments from the tech titan to end its "most troubling" practices on search and advertising.

FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said the action concludes a year-and-a-half probe of the Internet giant, accused by rivals of abusing its market dominance.

Many of Google's critics "wanted the Commission to go further in this investigation and regulate the intricacies of Google's search engine algorithm," Leibowitz said.

The FTC "exhaustively investigated allegations that Google unfairly manipulated its search engine results to harm its competitors," but found the evidence did not support an enforcement action, he said.

"The facts weren't there under the law we apply," he Leibowitz added.

Even though some rivals dislike Google search, "it doesn't violate the American antitrust laws," he said.

Still, Google made "enforceable commitments" to change some practices criticised by rivals in a voluntary settlement.

Leibowitz said Google had "committed to stop the most troubling of its business practices related to Internet search and search advertising."

Google agreed to stop misappropriating or "scraping" the content of rivals that makes it appear as if it were from Google and to drop contractual restrictions that limited the ability of small businesses to advertise on competing search engines, he said.

In a separate patent case, Google agreed to an FTC order "to stop seeking to exclude competitors using essential patents," mainly from Motorola, which Google purchased, the FTC chief said.

The action in Washington leaves unclear the outcome of a similar probe by the European Commission into Google's alleged monopoly abuse.

The European Union said last month it was still seeking commitments from the US firm that it abused its dominant market position in Internet search.

Google's chief legal officer David Drummond said of the FTC decision: "The conclusion is clear: Google's services are good for users and good for competition."

Drummond added, "We've always accepted that with success comes regulatory scrutiny. But we're pleased that the FTC and the other authorities that have looked at Google's business practices... have concluded that we should be free to combine direct answers with Web results. So we head into 2013 excited about our ability to innovate for the benefit of users everywhere."

Leibowitz said Google's commitments are "binding" and "enforceable" because the company made a written pledge to the federal regulatory agency. Any violation of those promises could result in fines, he said.

"This is a major victory for Google," said Greg Sterling, an analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence who blogs at Search Engine Land.

"The search bias argument was always one of the hardest and most unconvincing parts of any potential case against Google -- though it's the issue competitors probably care most about."

Sterling said EU regulators "arguably have a stronger negotiating position than the FTC. The Europeans also seem more intent on exacting bigger concessions from Google than the FTC. Yet a full-blown antitrust action against the company in Europe is unlikely."

Google has close to 70 per cent of the search market in the United States, and more in some other markets.

According to the research firm eMarketer, Google had around 75 per cent of US Internet search advertising revenues and 93 per cent in the mobile search ad market.

- AFP/jc

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What Google's settlement with the FTC means for users

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz announces the Google agreement.

(Credit:
Screenshot by CNET)

The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it has completed a nearly two-year investigation into Google's business practices. Here are some of the key takeaways:

On the issue most important to Google, Google won. The most potentially damaging line of inquiry undertaken by the FTC concerned accusations that Google's search results were unfairly biased in favor of its own products. Some critics wanted to see mandated changes to Google algorithms. But after considering a number of approaches, FTC commissioners decided unanimously that Google was not violating any antitrust laws when it comes to search results. For Google, this is a major victory.

Search results are going to look more or less the same. A handful of companies may choose to stop showing their results inside Google products like Google+ Local, Google Shopping, and Hotels. But otherwise Google can continue operating as normal.

Competitors are upset with the decision.
FairSearch, which represented many of the Google competitors pressing for stronger action, was among those who predicted that the FTC's decision would allow Google to further consolidate its power. "The FTC's inaction on the core question of search bias will only embolden Google to act more aggressively to misuse its monopoly power to harm other innovators," the group said in a statement. Yelp, who has been among the company's most vocal critics, called it "a missed opportunity to protect innovation in the Internet economy, and the consumers and businesses that rely upon it."

Google will have to license some of the patents it acquired from Motorola more liberally. The FTC found that Google's use of some of the patents it acquired from Motorola to be anticompetitive. Google can no longer file injunctions against competitors that make use of those patents, which are needed for complying with technical standards. In the settlement's only binding agreement, Google agreed to allow competitors access to the patents, "on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms."

The victories won by Google's critics here are minor and technical. In response to the investigation, Google said it would allow creators of vertical search products like Yelp and travel-booking services to opt out of having their results "scraped" and displayed on certain Google results pages. To opt out, companies must fill out a Web-based notice form to be made available within 90 days. In a separate agreement, advertisers won a concession from Google on its AdWords platform; Google will modify the product to let advertisers more easily manage ad campaigns that run both on AdWords and competing platforms.

All eyes now turn to the European Commission, which has mounted a separate antitrust investigation into Google's business practices. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and the European Union antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia met last month in Brussels, Belgium. At the time, Almunia said he expected an offer from Google this month to settle its additional antitrust probe.

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Sandy Hook survivors welcomed at new school

A man waves to a child on a bus on the first day of classes after the holiday break, in Newtown, Conn.,Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. / AP Photo/Jessica Hill

Updated 1:21 p.m. ET

MONROE, Conn. The children who escaped last month's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown were welcomed Wednesday to a school in a neighboring town that was overhauled specially for them.

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Orientation day for Sandy Hook students

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Heroism of Sandy Hook teachers

The open house at the former Chalk Hill School in Monroe marks the students' first time in a formal classroom setting since the massacre on Dec. 14, when a gunman killed 20 of their fellow classmates and six educators. Classes are starting for the Sandy Hook students on Thursday.

The road leading to the school in a rural, largely residential neighborhood was lined with signs greeting the students, saying "Welcome Sandy Hook Elementary School" and "Welcome. You are in our prayers." Several police cars were parked outside the school.

Teams of workers, many of them volunteers, prepared the former Chalk Hill middle school with fresh paint and new furniture and even raised bathroom floors so the smaller elementary school students can reach the toilets. The students' desks, backpacks and other belongings that were left behind following the shooting were taken to the new school to make them feel at home. Superintendent Janet Robinson said the rooms may not look exactly the same, but the school has been renamed Sandy Hook Elemntary.

Monroe police officers said at a press conference Wednesday it was "the safest school" in the country.

Counselors say it's important for children to get back to a normal routine and for teachers and parents to offer sensitive reassurances.

When classes start on Thursday, Robinson said teachers will try to make it as normal a school day as possible for the children.

"We want to get back to teaching and learning," she said. "We will obviously take time out from the academics for any conversations that need to take place, and there will be a lot of support there. All in all, we want the kids to reconnect with their friends and classroom teachers, and I think that's going to be the healthiest thing."

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Lawmakers Furious at Boehner Over Sandy 'Betrayal'

Republican lawmakers from New York and New Jersey whose storm-ravaged residents are desperate for federal aid are fuming at their party's leaders for refusing to hold a vote on a $60 billion disaster relief package despite promises that help was on the way.

"This was a betrayal," Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., told ABC News.com. "It's just reprehensible. It's an indefensible error in judgment not have given relief to these people that are so devastated."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, called it a "dereliction of duty" in a joint statement with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.

"This failure to come to the aid of Americans following a severe and devastating natural disaster is unprecedented," the governors said.

Lawmakers were told by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that the relief bill would get a vote on Tuesday night following an eleventh hour vote on the fiscal cliff bill. But in an unexpected switch, Boehner refused to put the relief bill to a vote, leading to lawmakers from parties yelling on the floor of the House.

Congress historically has responded to natural disasters by promptly funding relief efforts. The Senate already passed its version of the bill that would replenish an emergency fund set to run out of cash next week and which will help repair subways and tunnels in New York City and rebuild parts of the New Jersey shore devastated by superstorm Sandy.

Time is particularly pressing, given that a new Congress will be sworn in Thursday. The Senate will therefore have to vote on the bill again before it comes to the House, which could be as late as February or March.

Boos as House Adjourns Without Hurricane Sandy Relief Watch Video

'Fiscal Cliff' Deal Passes House Despite GOP Holdouts Watch Video

Rep. Peter King, R- N.Y., took the floor of the House and to the airwaves and aimed his outrage squarely at Boehner, accusing him plunging "a cruel knife in the back" of storm-ravaged residents "who don't have shelter, don't have food," he said during a House session this morning.

"This is not the United States. This should not be the Republican Party. This shouldn't not be the Republican leadership," King said on the floor of the House.

He made no attempt to hide his anger, suggesting that residents in New York and New Jersey should stop sending money to Republicans and even questioning aloud whether he could remain a member of the party.

"Anyone who donates one cent to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee should have their head examined," King, a staunch conservative and Republican congressman for 10 years, told CNN.

"They have written off New York and New Jersey. They've written me off…. Party loyalty, I'm over that. When your people are literally freezing in the winter… Then why should I help the Republican Party?" he added.

He said that Boehner refused to talk to Republican members from New York and New Jersey when they tried to ask him about the vote Tuesday night.

"He just decided to sneak off in the dark of night," King said.

Democrats were also outraged.

"It is truly heartless that the House will not even allow the Sandy bill to come to the floor for a vote, and Speaker Boehner should reconsider his ill advised decision," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D- N.Y., said in a statement.

October's storm was the worst natural disaster ever to hit the region, causing billions in damage and leaving 120 people dead.

More than 130,000 people are expected to make claims to the federal government, but without a funding increase only about 12,000 people can be covered with existing funds.

"It doesn't make sense they wouldn't vote on this. There are truly people in need," said Steve Greenberg, whose home was flooded and damaged by fire in the hard-hit Breezy Point section of Queens. "Not of these people are fit to serve," he said.

Grimm said Boehner's decision fuels a perception that the Republican Party does not care about people.

"It buys into the ideology that Republicans don't care and are callous," he said. Grimm said there were enough votes to get the bill passed and that it makes fiscal sense, because the money would go to help spur small businesses.

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Central African Republic rebels halt advance, agree to peace talks

DAMARA, Central African Republic (Reuters) - Rebels in Central African Republic said they had halted their advance on the capital on Wednesday and agreed to start peace talks, averting a clash with regionally backed troops.

The Seleka rebels had pushed to within striking distance of Bangui after a three-week onslaught and threatened to oust President Francois Bozize, accusing him of reneging on a previous peace deal and cracking down on dissidents.

Their announcement on Wednesday gave the leader only a limited reprieve as the fighters told Reuters they might insist on his removal in the negotiations.

"I have asked our forces not to move their positions starting today because we want to enter talks in (Gabon's capital) Libreville for a political solution," said Seleka spokesman Eric Massi, speaking by telephone from Paris.

"I am in discussion with our partners to come up with proposals to end the crisis, but one solution could be a political transition that excludes Bozize," he said.

Bozize on Wednesday sacked his Army Chief of Staff and took over the defense minister's role from his son, Jean Francis Bozize, according to a decree read on national radio, a day after publicly criticizing the military for failing to repel the rebels.

The advance by Seleka, an alliance of mostly northeastern rebel groups, was the latest in a series of revolts in a country at the heart of one of Africa's most turbulent regions - and the most serious since the Chad-backed insurgency that swept Bozize to power in 2003.

Diplomatic sources have said talks organized by central African regional bloc ECCAS could start on January 10. The United States, the European Union and France have called on both sides to negotiate and spare civilians.

Central African Republic is one of the least developed countries in the world despite its deposits of gold, diamonds and other minerals. French nuclear energy group Areva mines the country's Bakouma uranium deposit - France's biggest commercial interest in its former colony.

RELIEF IN BANGUI

News of the rebel halt eased tension in Bangui, where residents had been stockpiling food and water and staying indoors after dark.

"They say they are no longer going to attack Bangui, and that's great news for us," said Jaqueline Loza in the crumbling riverside city.

ECCAS members Chad, Congo Republic, Gabon and Cameroon have sent hundreds of soldiers to reinforce CAR's army after a string of rebel victories since early December.

Gabonese General Jean Felix Akaga, commander of the regional force, said his troops were defending the town of Damara, 75 km (45 miles) north of Bangui and close to the rebel front.

"Damara is a red line not to be crossed ... Damara is in our control and Bangui is secure," he told Reuters. "If the rebellion decides to approach Damara, they know they will encounter a force that will react."

Soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs, rocket propelled grenade launchers and truck-mounted machineguns had taken up positions across the town, which was otherwise nearly-abandoned.

Some of the fighters wore turbans that covered their faces and had charms strung around their necks and arms meant to protect them against enemy bullets.

Chad's President Idriss Deby, one of Bozize's closest allies, had warned the rebels the regional force would confront them if they approached the town.

Chad provided training and equipment to the rebellion that brought Bozize to power by ousting then-president Ange Felix Patasse, who Chad accused of supporting Chadian dissidents.

Chad is also keen to keep a lid on instability in the territory close to its main oil export pipeline and has stepped in to defend Bozize against insurgents in the past.

A CAR government minister told Reuters the foreign troop presence strengthened Bozize's bargaining position ahead of the Libreville peace talks.

"The rebels are now in a position of weakness," the minister said, asking not to be named. "They should therefore stop imposing conditions like the departure of the president."

Central African Republic is one of a number of countries in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local soldiers track down the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group which has killed thousands of civilians across four nations.

France has a 600-strong force in CAR to defend about 1,200 of its citizens who live there.

Paris used air strikes to defend Bozize against a rebellion in 2006. But French President Francois Hollande turned down a request for more help, saying the days of intervening in other countries' affairs were over.

(Additional reporting by Paul-Marin Ngoupana in Bangui and Jon Herskovitz in Johannesburg; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Janet Lawrence)

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After Newtown, Colombia firm makes bullet-proof kid clothes

BOGOTA: Miguel Caballero has been making bullet-proof clothes for politicians and other bigwigs for 20 years, but not for kids. The latest US school massacre has changed that.

This year he plans a line for children -- T-shirts, vests, and combination backpack-vests -- and geared toward the US market.

Caballero has made good money in his 22-year-old business with a factory on the outskirts of Bogota. He sells around 50,000 garments a year that go for about US$2,000 a piece, but the US market had been tough to crack.

Then, after a lone and deranged gunman killed 20 small children and six staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month in Newtown, Connecticut, he started getting orders from very worried parents.

"We would answer that we do not make clothes for kids. But the emails kept coming," Caballero said.

So, in just a week, he designed garments and subjected them to ballistic tests. Now his factory is fitted to churn out a first lot of 1,800 bullet-proof garments for children and is waiting for firm orders.

Carolina Ballesteros, Caballero's director of research and development, said the impact of the Newtown shooting was huge because of the age of most of the victims: just six and seven.

Asked how you explain to a child that simply going to school can be so dangerous you have to wear a bullet proof vest, Ballesteros explained that her company's garments are not designed for everyday use.

Rather, they are for emergencies, to be handed out by teachers when needed.

The new line is tailored for kids aged 8 to 16, with prices ranging from US$200 to US$400, depending on the garment and its size.

Caballero's factory employs 235 people, and 95 per cent of its output is exported to 23 countries in the Middle East and Latin America.

The company makes uniforms for security forces and suits for public figures in many countries, she said.

"Three royal families in the Middle East are customers of ours. We made a bullet-proof kimono for the American actor Steven Seagal. Our experience is beyond question," Ballesteros said.

- AFP/jc

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Microsoft repeats YouTube gripe as Google probe winds down

Google has yet to address an alleged YouTube-Windows Phone compatibility issue, Microsoft says, despite the fact that Google is under antitrust scrutiny in the U.S. and abroad and the issue is allegedly more than a year old.

With this latest charge, Microsoft seems to be trying to get ahead of the expected slight wrist-slap Google could receive from the Federal Trade Commission this month -- if news reports about the likely outcome of a two-year-old Google antitrust investigation are correct, that is. (It's worth noting there's new evidence the FTC might be turning the screws on Google a bit tighter than originally anticipated.)

From a January 2 blog post by Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner:

You might think that Google would be on its best behavior given it's under the bright lights of regulatory scrutiny on two continents, particularly as it seeks to assure antitrust enforcers in the U.S. and Europe that it can be trusted on the basis of nonbinding assurances that it will not abuse its market position further.

However, as we enter 2013, that is not the case. Here's just one example: We continue to be dogged by an issue we had hoped would be resolved by now: Google continues to prevent Microsoft from offering consumers a fully featured YouTube app for the Windows Phone.

Microsoft raised this same argument in 2011. Then, as now, the Softies cited alleged YouTube-Windows Phone compatibility issues as evidence that Google needed to be reined in more tightly by antitrust authorities.

Google bought YouTube in 2006. Microsoft claims that since that time, Google "has put in place a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it for their search results." Microsoft officials claim Google has provided
Android phones and iPhones with access to YouTube metadata that enables search for video categories, location of favorites, the ability to see ratings, and other features that are blocked for Windows Phone users.

"As a result, Microsoft's YouTube 'app' on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube's mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones," said company officials in a blog post from 2011.

"Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone," Senior Vice President and General Counsel Brad Smith said in the 2011 post. "We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide."

Microsoft has been stepping up its anti-Google rhetoric as of late, a factor many attribute to Redmond's hiring of former political strategist Mark Penn last year. Predictably, Google's been doing its part to retaliate in the PR/marketing wars.

Not being much of an app person or a YouTube fan, I haven't been bothered by any YouTube-Windows Phone compatibility issues, myself. Anyone out there feel it's been a factor in deciding whether or not to "Bing it"?

This story originally appeared on ZDNet under the headline "Microsoft resurrects YouTube-Windows Phone compatibility complaint."

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The art of the "fiscal cliff" deal

Nobody said it would be easy.

Senators voted in the pre-dawn hours of New Year's Day to pass the long-sought agreement on the "fiscal cliff" and the House readies for its turn as soon as today, which, if the House passes it, would officially avert the tax hikes and spending cuts that technically took effect at midnight (the deal, when signed by the president, will make the new tax rates and spending retroactive to midnight).

Play Video

Biden advises not to predict outcome of "cliff" deal

How did the politicians involved get to their final agreement? Here's the rundown, according to officials familiar with the talks and with the White House's thinking:

Friday through Sunday: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's opening offer Friday night to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was a $750,000 income tax threshold and no jobless benefits and no extension of the earned-income tax credit and other low-income tax breaks, means-testing Medicare, and the Bush era estate tax rates. Offers bounced back and forth Saturday and on Sunday, Reid opted out and handed talks over to Vice President Joe Biden (at McConnell's suggestion). President Obama, Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were in tandem through the talks. Delaying the federal spending cuts, or sequester, fell out of the talks on Sunday but McConnell came down to $550,000 in income tax threshold and some estate tax concessions reflected in the final deal.

Sunday, 8 p.m. ET: Mr. Obama and senior staff met in the Oval Office to discuss their final counter-offer to McConnell. The president set the $400K and $450K income threshold with one-year of jobless benefits and some delay of the sequester. Biden and McConnell talked through the night. Their last call was at 12:45 a.m.

After that, Mr. Obama and Biden met in the Oval until 2 a.m. to go over final details. Mr. Obama sent his legislative liaison Rob Nabors to Capitol Hill at 2 a.m. to begin drafting a bill with Senate Democrats. Biden and McConnell spoke again at 6:45 a.m. The rest of Monday was devoted to resolving the sequester impasse.

Monday, 9 p.m. ET: Biden and McConnell sealed the deal by telephone (Biden spoke to McConnell after clearing final details with Mr. Obama). The president then called Reid and Pelosi for one final OK and the deal was announced/leaked/confirmed.

The officials also pointed out that to get to the final deal, moving Republicans from a position of no tax increases in debt ceiling debate to tax increases through tax reform after Mr. Obama's re-election to nothing more than $1 million in higher rates and now to $400,000 and $450,000 thresholds is a significant policy and political victory (worth $620 billion over 10 years).

When the big deal talks failed before Christmas, Mr. Obama's biggest goal was to get GOP buy-in on higher tax rates for the wealthy. It is regarded as one of the most significant policy victories in two decades, the officials said.

Compromising on the two-month sequester was difficult, the officials added. The White House wanted a full year of waiving the sequester but there was no time to negotiate the difficult policy details (the sequester talks took literally all of Monday).

As for the deal's effect on the deficit, it does not cut the deficit relative to what would have occurred if all the fiscal cliff tax cuts had been erased (meaning all Bush tax cuts expired) and the sequester kicked in full force. But, relative to a baseline that assumes all existing tax policy would have continued, the deal raises $620 billion in revenue. The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) fix is not counted by the WH, for example, because its extension was assumed in the existing policy baseline (that doesn't mean it won't cost anything; just that the White House doesn't count the cost).

The jobless benefit extension for one year cost $30 billion and that is not paid for. The Medicare "doc fix" is paid for by savings that will be taken from other provider payouts in Medicare. It costs $31 billion, meaning those provider cuts will pay for protecting doctors from a 27 percent automatic cut in premiums.

And $12 billion in new revenue comes from allowing 401Ks and other retirement instruments into Roth IRAs. This is the revenue that forms half of the offset of the two-month sequester delay. The other $12 billion will come from a 50-50 split of non-defense and defense cuts.

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New School for Sandy Hook Duplicated to the Crayons

The students and staff of Sandy Hook Elementary School will return to school on Thursday for the first time since the shooting rampage that left 20 young students and six adults dead. The students will be in a new building where their old classrooms have been completely recreated.

Instead of returning to the halls of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., they will be going to the building that used to be the Chalk Hill Middle School in Monroe, about six miles away.

Sandy Hook school was shut since Adam Lanza carried out his massacre shortly before Christmas.

Since principal Dawn Hochsprung was one of the victims of the shooting, the school will be led by interim principal Donna Page. Page was the school's prior principal who retired in 2010.

"Please know the inspiration you and your children have been to my staff and me as we connect with you at Chalk Hill," Page wrote in a letter posted on the school's website. "Be assured that the towns of Monroe and Newtown are working night and day to ensure the facility is safe, secure, and fully operational for our return," Page wrote.

The school will host a walk-through for families on Wednesday and "Opening Day" will be Thursday.

"I want to reassure you that we understand many parents may need to be near their children on their first day(s) of school and you will be welcome," Page wrote.

Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

Tragedy at Sandy Hook: The Search for Solutions Watch Video

Meteorites Stolen From Astronomical Research Institute Watch Video

The school is encouraging students to take the bus in order to help them return to familiar routines and said parents may come to the school's classrooms or auditorium throughout the day after the 9:07 a.m. opening. They are asking that no more than one adult family member accompany each child in order "to ensure a safe and secure environment."

In addition to a parental presence at the school, comfort dogs will be returning to brighten the day. Small armies of golden retrievers spread out all over Newtown in the days following the shooting to comfort mourners young and old.

Chicago's Lutheran Church Charities' K-9 Parish Comfort Dogs were in Newtown after the shooting and are traveling back to Connecticut today. Nine dogs and their handlers gathered at their building at 1 a.m. this morning to board a caravan of one RV and two vans heading to Connecticut.

"The community of Newtown will be going through the healing process for a very long time," the group wrote on their website. "The LCC K-9 Comfort dogs will be returning to Newtown...They will be there to greet children as they return to school."

The rest of the Newtown school district resumes classes on Wednesday.

Furniture and supplies from Sandy Hook were moved to Chalk Hill in order to recreate the classrooms just as they were.

Teachers photographed their classrooms at Sandy Hook in order to replicate everything about them, from the pictures on the walls to the crayons left on the students' desks. This is all part of an effort to make the students feel as comfortable as possible.

Workers completely retrofitted the former middle school to fit the needs of its young students, including tearing out bathrooms that were made for teenagers and rebuilding them for elementary-aged kids.

New security systems are being installed at Chalk Hill school, and Newtown Councilman Steve Vavrek told ABC News that the school will be "the safest school in America."

For a school that has gone through so much, moving forward does not mean forgetting.

"I want parents and families enduring the loss of their precious children to know their loved ones are foremost in our hearts and minds as we move forward," Page wrote. "Your strength and compassion has been, and will continue to be an inspiration to me and countless others as we work to honor the memory of your precious children and our beloved staff."

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At least 61 crushed to death in Ivory Coast stampede

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - At least 61 people were crushed to death in a stampede after a New Year's Eve fireworks display at a stadium in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan early on Tuesday, officials said.

Witnesses said police had tried to control crowds around the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium following the celebrations, triggering a panic in which scores were trampled.

"The estimate we can give right now is 49 people hospitalized ... and 61 people dead," said the chief of staff of Abidjan's fire department Issa Sacko.

Crying women searched for missing family members outside the stadium on Tuesday morning. The area was covered in patches of dried blood and abandoned shoes.

"My two children came here yesterday. I told them not to come but they didn't listen. They came when I was sleeping. What will I do?" said Assetou Toure, a cleaner.

Sanata Zoure, a market vendor injured in the incident, said New Year's revelers going home after watching the fireworks had been stopped by police near the stadium.

"We were walking with our children and we came upon barricades, and people started falling into each other. We were trampled with our children," she said.

Another witness said police arrived to control the crowd after a mob began chasing a pickpocket.

President Alassane Ouattara called the deaths a national tragedy and said an investigation was underway to find out what happened.

The country, once a stable economic hub for West Africa, is struggling to recover from a 2011 civil war in which more than 3,000 people were killed.

Ivory Coast's security forces were once among the best trained in the region, but a decade of political turmoil and the 2011 war has left them in disarray.

At least 18 people were killed in another stampede during a football match in an Abidjan stadium in 2010.

(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Alain Amontchi; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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60 dead in New Year's stampede in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN: At least 60 people died and dozens more were injured in Abidjan as crowds that had gathered for celebratory New Year's fireworks stampeded overnight, Ivory Coast rescue workers said on Tuesday.

An AFP journalist saw many injured children, while images broadcast by RTI television showed bodies stretched lifeless on the ground outside the city's main stadium.

Piles of abandoned shoes and clothing could also be seen at the stadium, where soldiers and police were deployed, along with UN peacekeepers.

"This is a real tragedy on this New Year's Day," President Alassane Ouattara said at the scene.

"We are all in shock," he added, saying a period of national mourning would be held.

The government said 60 people had died, with an average age of 18. Earlier, the head of military rescue workers, Lieutenant Colonel Issa Sako, told journalists that 61 had died.

"Forty-nine wounded were evacuated" by rescue workers, Sako said, adding that other injured victims had gone to hospital on their own. Another rescue official said at least 200 people had been wounded in all.

Sako said the flow of people at the stadium had caused a "very large crush" and that "in the crush, people were walked over and suffocated by the crowd".

Officials said around 50,000 people had gathered for the fireworks.

Witnesses said the stampede had broken out after the fireworks ended, though the cause remains unclear. It erupted near the stadium's main entrance, where security had set up tree trunks as crowd control barriers.

According to a police source, the crush occurred when two streams of spectators going in opposite directions crossed paths.

A security source added that rescue services "took some time to arrive".

Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said the "exact circumstances" of the tragedy are "under investigation by the security services".

Visibly shaken children were among the roughly 40 wounded taken to a hospital in the wealthy neighbourhood of Cocody, in the north of the economic capital.

A mother named Zeinab who had taken two of her children to the stadium found one of them in the hospital, a small boy who lay on a bed in a groggy state.

Zeinab said she "hurt all over" and showed a journalist the scratches on her body.

"I don't know what happened but I found myself lying on the ground with people stepping on me, pulling my hair or tearing my clothes," she said.

She said she had been knocked unconscious and that a young man had pulled her from the crowd.

The New Year's fireworks, the city's second in two years, had been touted as a symbol of national renewal under Ouattara after a violent post-election crisis that tore the country apart from December 2010 to April 2011, killing some 3,000 people.

The unrest began after Ouattara's long-time rival and former iron-fisted ruler Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down.

He was later arrested by forces loyal to Ouattara, with UN and French military backing, and transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he is accused of crimes against humanity.

Though the troubled west African nation -- the world's top cocoa producer -- is still recovering from the political and military crisis, Ouattara had struck a note of optimism in a New Year's message on Monday evening.

He said the former French colony had "possibilities like seldom before" ahead of it, promising it would soon reap the rewards of economic growth and development.

- AFP/jc

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Stephen Hawking sucks opera singer into black hole (in an ad)

Ha. Ha. Ha.

(Credit:
MrCharliesView/YouTube; screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Once you're famous, you get inundated with offers to appear in ads.

But which ones to choose? Should you peddle soap or Siri? Should you declare your love for Buick, while secretly pootling around in your Mercedes?

Stephen Hawking made an interesting choice to advertise auto insurance -- Go Compare's online auto-insurance comparison service, to be precise.

This U.K. brand's ad campaign has long featured Gio Compario, a portly opera singer urging people to, well go compare auto insurance rates.

You might not imagine that this would be an erudite scholar's first choice for an endorsement.

Ah, but in this ad, Hawking gets to suck the opera singer into a black hole.

And who doesn't know at least one authority figure, former lover, or plain annoying human being who might deserve such treatment?

For myself, the highlight of this quite joyous piece is the laugh that Hawking offers at the end.

There is something quite shivering about the coolly hawkish way Hawking offers: "Ha. Ha. Ha."

He told the Daily Mail: "I confess I am a fan of the Gocompare.com adverts, but I am also an opera fan, so I was delighted to be given the opportunity to help save the nation and silence Gio."

It's best not to get on Hawking's wrong side.

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Lovie Smith fired as Bears coach after 9 seasons

LAKE FOREST, Ill. The Chicago Bears fired coach Lovie Smith on Monday after the team missed the playoffs for the fifth time in six seasons.

Smith was informed of the decision by general manager Phil Emery on the day after the Bears beat Detroit to finish 10-6 but still didn't make the playoffs.

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NFL coaches, GMs sacked in firing frenzy

Smith led the Bears to a Super Bowl, but also saw his team collapse in the second half of the past two seasons. Hired in 2004, Smith led the Bears to three division titles, two NFC title games and a 2007 Super Bowl appearance in his nine seasons. His record is 81-63, and he leaves with one year left on his contract.

The Bears scheduled a news conference Tuesday to discuss the move.

Even though Chicago closed with a win, the Bears needed a loss by Minnesota to get into the playoffs. The Vikings, though, beat Green Bay to clinch a postseason spot, leaving Chicago as the second team since the postseason expanded to 12 teams to miss out after a 7-1 start. The other was Washington in 1996.

CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported Sunday that Smith's tenuous hold on his job "would be further imperiled should his team fail to get into the postseason."

But Smith, who had one year remaining on his current deal, shouldn't have any trouble finding work. League sources told La Canfora that Smith should land head-coaching interviews with other NFL teams.

Smith's record ranks third on the Bears' all-time list, behind George Halas and Mike Ditka.

The highlight of his tenure was the run to the title game that ended with a loss to the Indianapolis Colts. It was the first time two black coaches met for the championship, with Smith going against his mentor Tony Dungy.

The Bears made the playoffs just three times and posted three postseason victories under Smith. The 2010 team beat Seattle after the Seahawks won their division with a 7-9 record, but the Bears lost to Green Bay in the NFC title game at Soldier Field.

There was speculation Smith would be let go following the 2011 team's collapse, but he got one more year while general manager Jerry Angelo was fired.

Ultimately, the struggles on offense did him in.

Known for solid defenses, Smith oversaw a unit that was consistently effective and at times ranked among the league's best with stars such as Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs and later Julius Peppers. Smith emphasized taking the ball away from the opposition, and no team did it more than the Bears with 310 during his tenure.

But on the other side, it was a different story.

Smith went through four offensive coordinators in Terry Shea, Ron Turner, Mike Martz and Mike Tice. He never could find the right formula, even as the Bears acquired stars such as quarterback Jay Cutler and receiver Brandon Marshall over the years.

The offensive line has struggled in a big way over the past few seasons after age took its toll on a group that was a strength during the 2005 and 2006 playoff seasons. The Bears were never able to replenish, spending first-round picks on Chris Williams (2008) and Gabe Carimi (2011) that did not pan out.

Williams had his contract terminated in October, ending a disappointing run, and Carimi struggled this season after missing most of his rookie year with a knee injury.

While Angelo took the fall after last season, Smith was not without blame in the personnel issues over the years. He pushed to bring in former Rams offensive lineman Orlando Pace and safety Adam Archuleta, players who succeeded in St. Louis when Smith was the defensive coordinator there but were busts with the Bears.

He had no bigger supporter than team matriarch Virginia McCaskey, but the fans seemed split on him. To some, he was a picture of calm, a coach who never lost his composure and never criticized his players in public, the anti-Ditka if you will.

History suggests fans who are clamoring for a high-profile replacement such as Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden might be disappointed. The last time the Bears went with an experienced NFL head coach was when Halas returned to the sideline in 1958.

They might, however, go with an offensive-minded coach for the first time since Mike Ditka was fired after the 1992 season, given the issues in that area.

That the Bears would be in this spot seemed unthinkable after they ripped Tennessee 51-20 on Nov. 4. They were sailing along at 7-1 and eyeing a big playoff run after collapsing the previous season, with the defense taking the ball away and scoring at an eye-opening rate to compensate for a struggling offense, but the schedule took a tougher turn.

They dropped back-to-back games to Houston and San Francisco and five of six in all before closing out with wins at Arizona and Detroit. Injuries mounted along the way, and what looked like a playoff run slipped from their grasp, just as it did after a promising start in 2011.

That year, they won seven of their first 10 only to wind up at 8-8 after a monumental collapse sparked by a season-ending injury to Cutler.

While Angelo was fired, Smith got spared and Emery took the job with a mandate to keep the coach at least one more year.

He quickly went to work retooling the roster, landing Marshall in a blockbuster trade with Miami that reunited Cutler with his favorite target in Denver.

He also added depth in other areas, bringing in Jason Campbell as the backup quarterback after Caleb Hanie failed the previous season and teaming running back Michael Bush in the backfield with Matt Forte.

All those moves sent expectations soaring. The results were awfully familiar, though.

Now, Smith's out of a job.

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Time's Up: Sides Closing In on 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal

President Obama said an 11th-hour agreement to avert year-end tax hikes on 98 percent of Americans is "within sight" but not yet complete with just hours to go before the nation reaches the so-called fiscal cliff.

"There are still issues left to resolve but we're hopeful Congress can get it done," Obama said at a midday White House news conference. "But it's not done."

Congressional and White House negotiators have forged the contours of an agreement that would extend current tax rates for households making $450,000 or less; raise the estate tax from 35 to 40 percent for estates larger than $5 million; and prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers, sources said.

The deal would also extend for one year unemployment insurance benefits set to expire Tuesday, and avert a steep cut to Medicare payments for doctors.

"I can report that we've reached an agreement on the all the tax issues," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in an afternoon speech on the Senate floor.

Both sides remained at odds over what to do about the other significant piece of the "fiscal cliff" -- the more than $1 trillion of automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs set to begin tomorrow.

The White House has proposed a three-month delay of the cuts to allow more time to hash out details for deficit reduction, while many Senate Democrats want a flat one-year delay. Republicans insist that some spending cuts should be implemented now as part of any deal.

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'Fiscal Cliff': Lawmakers Scramble for Last-Minute Deal Watch Video

"In order to get the sequester moved, you're going to have to have real, concrete spending cuts," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said. "[Without that], I don't know how it passes the House."

Vice President Joe Biden and McConnell, R-Ky., have been locked in behind-the-scenes negotiations for much of the day, sources said, following several "good" conversations that stretched late into Sunday night.

"We are very, very close," McConnell said today. "We can do this. We must do this."

If a deal is reached between Biden and McConnell, members in both chambers would still need to review it and vote on it later today. Passage is far from guaranteed.

"This is one Democrat that doesn't agree with that at all," Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said of the tentative deal. "No deal is better than a bad deal, and this looks like a very bad deal the way this is shaping up."

"I don't see how you get something voted on today," Rogers said. "Even if they get a handshake deal today, you have to put the whole thing together and that's probably not going to happen before midnight. So it would make sense to roll into tomorrow to do that."

Failure of Congress to act on a tax measure by Tuesday morning would trigger income tax hikes on all Americans. The average family would pay an extra $3,446 in 2013 under the higher rates, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Regardless of the "cliff," virtually all workers are due to see less in their paychecks starting in January when the temporary 2 percent payroll tax cut will expire.

More than $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs will also begin to take effect later this week unless Congress delays or replaces them.

"It is absolutely inexcusable that all of us find ourselves in this place at this time," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday night on the Senate floor.

"Something has gone terribly wrong when the biggest threat to our American economy is our American Congress," he said, echoing a frustration shared by many Americans.

Both sides say the cost of failure is high.

"If we are not able to reach an agreement, it will be dire," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "Probably at least another million jobs lost, an unemployment rate over 9 percent, and putting us back into recession."

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