History of gun control is cautionary tale for those seeking regulations after Conn. shooting

At 3 a.m. on July 2, 1993, Steve Sposato sat down in his darkened living room to write, by hand, a letter to the president of the United States. His life had just been shattered. Hours earlier, in the afternoon, a deranged man armed with semi-automatic weapons went on a rampage, slaughtering eight people at an office building in downtown San Francisco. The gunman’s motive would remain...

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Iran fighting 'smart economic war': Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN: Iran is engaged in a "smart economic war" with Western powers whose sanctions against its nuclear programme are hurting some Iranians, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday."Targeted sanctions, which the enemies say are supposed to be crippling, have led to a drop in our oil" sales, Ahmadinejad said in a live interview on state television, referring to an oil embargo imposed...

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Village in Veerappan country says no to caste in marriages

COIMBATORE: The only access to Kalithimbam, a village inside the Sathyamangalam Wildlife Sanctuary in western Tamil Nadu, from the nearby Thalavadi town in Erode district is a dirt track that runs through a green patch frequented by elephants and tigers. Few people other than members of the Oorali tribe, who lives here, would risk the walk until a decade ago, since sandalwood smuggler Veerappan...

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Urban Advocates Say New Gun Control Talk Overdue

For years, voices have cried in the urban wilderness: We need to talk about gun control.Yet the guns blazed on.It took a small-town slaughter for gun control to become a political priority. Now, decades' worth of big-city arguments against easy access to guns are finally being heard, because an unstable young man invaded an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., with a military-style...

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Deadly winter storm snarls US holiday travel

CHICAGO: A deadly winter storm blanketed a huge swath of the United States Friday, grounding flights, turning highways into ice rinks and knocking out power to tens of thousands preparing for the Christmas holiday.At least eight people in five states were killed by the dangerous road conditions since the storm formed near the Rocky Mountains and moved slowly eastward.The powerful system...

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DGCA violates own rule on pilots

NEW DELHI: In a gross violation of its own rules, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has senior management pilots from airlines working for it as seconded flight operations inspectors (FOIs). This makes a mockery of a civil aviation requirement of the DGCA (Section 8, Series A, Part III, 6.1) which states that an FOI "shall have no management responsibilities in his airline nor in...

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The Healing Power of Dogs

One boy confided in the gentle-faced golden retriever about exactly what happened in his classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School that day—which his parents said was more than he'd been able to share with them. A little girl who hadn't spoken since the shootings finally started talking to her mother again after petting one of the "comfort dogs." Groups of teenagers began to open up and...

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Former River Valley High principal linked to woman

SINGAPORE: Former River Valley High School Principal Mr Steven Koh Yong Chiah, 58, who is assisting investigations by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), has been linked to a woman in the educational services industry. According to Lianhe Wanbao, the woman is said to be running several businesses, most of them providing education-related services to schools, such as organising...

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Nitish will have a keen eye on Modi’s rise

NEW DELHI: With "Modi-for-PM" chants growing, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar must be closely watching BJP leadership's response to the pressure from within to anoint the resurgent Gujarat chief minister as the party's prime ministerial choice. Nitish has made it clear that he will walk out of the NDA if the BJP declares Modi to be its choice for the coveted job and, according to sources, is...

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Manhunt Heats Up for Two Escaped Bank Robbers

The manhunt for two bank robbers who escaped from a downtown Chicago prison this week intensified overnight, with police chasing multiple leads as new footage shows the men getting into a taxi minutes after their brazen escape.Investigators say surveillance cameras captured Joseph "Jose" Banks, 37, and Kenneth Conley, 38, getting into a taxi minutes after their early Tuesday...

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Detecting Rabid Bats Before They Bite

A picture is worth a thousand words—or in the case of bats, a rabies diagnosis. A new study reveals that rabid bats have cooler faces compared to uninfected colony-mates. And researchers are hopeful that thermal scans of bat faces could improve rabies surveillance in wild colonies, preventing outbreaks that introduce infections into other animals—including humans.Bats are a major reservoir...

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US to open military ties soon with Myanmar

WASHINGTON: The United States is poised to take "nascent steps" to open up military ties with Myanmar as a way of bolstering political reforms undertaken by the former state, a senior US defence official said on Wednesday.The Pentagon said the cooperation likely would take the form of "non-lethal" training for Myanmar officers focusing on humanitarian assistance, military medicine and...

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WHO suggests raising liquor price to curb violence against women

NEW DELHI: Even as the national Capital remains shell shocked over the gruesome rape of the 23-year-old, the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested clamping down on alcohol availability and raising liquor price to reduce its consumption as an important intervention to reduce violence — both sexual and physical — against women. International studies conducted by the global health watchdog have...

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Obama Launches Gun-Violence Task Force

Five days after deadliest elementary school shooting in U.S. history, President Obama said his administration plans immediate action early next year on proposals to curb an "epidemic of gun violence."At a morning news conference, Obama announced the formation of a task force to be headed by Vice President Joe Biden that will formulate a package of policy recommendations by January."The...

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Grabbing Water From Future Generations

This piece is part of Water Grabbers: A Global Rush on Freshwater, a special National Geographic Freshwater News series on how grabbing land—and water—from poor people, desperate governments, and future generations threatens global food security, environmental sustainability, and local cultures.Suresh Ponnusami sat back on his porch by the road south of the Indian textile town of...

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Eric Cantor plays loyal lieutenant to Boehner

House Republicans, chastened by November election results and jittery about the weakened hand they have to play in the fiscal cliff negotiations with President Obama, gathered for their weekly closed-door meeting in the bowels of the Capitol last week. When it was his turn, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, their second-in-command, took the opportunity to plead for discipline and uni...

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South Koreans vote in presidential election

SEOUL: South Koreans went to the polls Wednesday to choose a new president in a close and potentially historic election that could result in Asia's fourth-largest economy getting its first female leader.Voters face a clear choice between the ruling conservative party candidate Park Geun-Hye and her liberal rival from the main opposition party, Moon Jae-In, with opinion polls unable to...

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Manipur rebels supplying arms to Maoists, says NIA

NEW DELHI: Left wing extremists (LWE) had been procuring Chinese arms and communication equipment from banned Manipuri outfit, People's Liberation Army (PLA), via Myanmar and routing it to Kolkata through Guwahati between 2006 and 2011, a supplementary chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the CPI (Maoist)-PLA nexus case has revealed. According to the chargesheet, all the...

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Pictures: "Beautiful" Geminid Meteor Showers Grace Skies

Over the Dunes Photograph courtesy Jack FuscoA Geminid meteor streaks across the sky above the beach in Ocean City, New Jersey, in a picture taken December 14. The piles come...

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Can Cops Read Shooter's Sabotaged Computer?

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza may have tried to sabotage his own computer before going on a murderous rampage that claimed the lives of 20 children, but experienced investigators said today that law enforcement forensic experts could still recover critical evidence from the damaged drives.Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance revealed Monday that a computer...

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Morgan Stanley fined over Facebook IPO

WASHINGTON: Morgan Stanley agreed Monday to pay a $5 million fine to settle charges that it improperly handled crucial information on Facebook's earnings ahead of the company's disastrous IPO.The securities regulator of the state of Massachusetts had charged that Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter for the $16 billion stock issue in May, coached Facebook on how to present lowered earnings...

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Shinde nails Pak lie on Hafiz Saeed's arrest in 26/11 case

NEW DELHI: Pakistan's claim that it had "arrested" 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed in connection with the Mumbai terror attacks has turned to be incorrect as the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief was picked up for unrelated cases and Islamabad hoodwinked India by concealing these facts. Indian officials belatedly realized that they were taken for a ride when they examined documents given to them on Saeed by...

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Gunman's Computer Damaged, Drive Possibly Ruined

A computer at the Connecticut home where Newtown, Conn., school shooter Adam Lanza lived with his mother was badly damaged, perhaps smashed with a hammer, said police who hope the machine might still yield clues to the gunman's motive.The computer's hard drive appeared to have been badly damaged with a hammer or screw driver, law enforcement authorities told ABC News, complicating...

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