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 unity.
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 separate the two.
The eventual occupant of the presidential Blue House will face numerous challenges, including a belligerent North Korea, a slowing economy and soaring welfare costs in one of the world's most rapidly ageing societies.
Polling booths opened at 6:00 am (2100 GMT Tuesday) and were scheduled to close at 6:00 pm with a national holiday declared to allow maximum turnout among the 40 million-plus registered voters.
Park, 60, is looking to make history by becoming the first female president of a still male-dominated nation, and the first to be related to a former leader.
She is the daughter of one of modern Korea's most polarising figures, the late dictator Park Chung-Hee, who is both admired for dragging the country out of poverty and reviled for his ruthless suppression of dissent during 18 years of autocratic rule.
He was shot dead by his spy chief in 1979. Park's mother had been killed five years earlier by a pro-North Korea gunman aiming for her father.
Moon, who was chief of staff to the late left-wing president Roh Moo-Hyun, is a former human rights lawyer who was once jailed for protesting against the Park Chung-Hee regime.
After locking in the support of their respective conservative and liberal bases, the two candidates put a lot of campaign effort into wooing crucial centrist voters, resulting in significant policy overlap.
Both have talked of "economic democratisation" -- a campaign buzzword about reducing the social disparities caused by rapid economic growth -- and promised to create new jobs and increase welfare spending.
Moon has been more aggressive in his proposals for reining in the power of the giant family-run conglomerates, or "chaebol" that dominate the economy and there are significant differences on North Korea.
While both have signalled a desire for greater engagement with Pyongyang, Park's approach is far more cautious than Moon's promise to resume aid without preconditions and seek an early summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
Although North Korea has not been a major campaign issue, its long-range rocket launch last week -- seen by critics as a disguised ballistic missile test -- was a reminder of the unpredictable threat from across the border.
Pyongyang has made no effort to conceal its election preference, having spent months attacking Park's New Frontier Party (NFP) and outgoing President Lee Myung-Bak, whose five-year term was marked by a freeze in inter-Korean contacts.
On Tuesday, North newspapers urged voters to reject the NFP as "a group of gangsters bereft of elementary ethics and morality" and warned that Park was "hell-bent" on confrontation with Pyongyang.
The never-married Park has promised a strong, maternal style of leadership that would steer the country through the challenges of global economic troubles.
"I have no family to take care of and no children to pass wealth to. You, the people, are my family and your happiness is the reason that I stay in politics," Park said in a televised press conference on Tuesday.
"Like a mother who dedicates her life to her family, I will become the president who takes care of the lives of each one of you," she said.
A female president would be a big change for a country that the World Economic Forum recently ranked 108th out of 135 countries in terms of gender equality -- one place below the United Arab Emirates and just above Kuwait.
Moon has stressed the need for a change after what he described as five years of a corrupt and incompetent NFP presidency.
"If you spare them punishment, past wrongs will be extended," he said on the last day of campaigning.
Turnout is expected to be crucial.
Older Koreans, who generally favour Park, are seen as more dependable voters and Moon's camp has pushed hard to ensure the younger demographic that make up his support base actually cast their ballots.
- AFP/fa
According to the chargesheet, all the communication equipment recovered from Maoists have made-in-China marks, while arms recovered from PLA members too belonged to Chinese brands. It is, however, yet to be established conclusively whether they came from China and were routed via Myanamar or were pilfered out of Myanmar or some other source.
The chargesheet has been filed against Maoist leaders Pallab Borborah, Indranil Chanda and PLA's external affairs chief Asem Ibotombi Singh alias Angou, who were all arrested this year from Assam, Kolkata and Odisha, respectively. The accused are alleged have played a significant role in training of Maoists by PLA in Jharkhand's Saranda forests apart from procurement of arms and communication equipment.
Earlier, NIA had filed a chargesheet against three top PLA leaders — N Dilip Singh alias Wangba, Senjam Dhiren Singha alias Raghu and Kh Arnold Singh alias Becon.
One of the main evidence against the accused in the chargesheet is the email that PLA members had exchanged among themselves, and their Myanmar-based bosses. The emails exposed the nexus, helping agencies to sniff them out. "Maoists use very little modern technology. They rely on human couriers. But PLA members regularly wrote e-mails to their bosses in Myanmar. This exposed them," said an official privy to the probe.
The emails also mentioned aliases of Borborah and Chanda whose real identity was later established following statements of former PLA and Maoist members and are part of the chargesheet.
The chargesheet says the nexus was initiated by then PLA external affairs chief Gypsy Sharma in 2006. Later, Becon was appointed as the liaison officer and sent to Kolkata to coordinate the operation, where he met Chanda. However, for the first two years no deal could be struck save for PLA gifting some arms and communication equipment to conduct tests.
In 2008, when Wangba replaced Gypsy Sharma in the PLA, he took one CPI (Maoist) central committee member to Myanmar, where Maoists and PLA signed a joint declaration against the Indian state and mooted the idea of forming a United Strategic Front.
The first payment to procure arms was made in 2009. A deal was struck to procure arms and communication equipment worth Rs 50 lakh. A total of Rs 33 lakh in three installments was paid before the accused were arrested.
Photograph courtesy Jack Fusco
A Geminid meteor streaks across the sky above the beach in Ocean City, New Jersey, in a picture taken December 14. The piles come from sand blown onto city streets during Hurricane Sandy.
The annual Geminid meteor shower, which peaked last weekend, usually produces dozens of shooting stars per hour—making it one of the strongest and most reliable celestial shows around.
(Related: "Sky-watchers Get Set for Cosmic Fireworks Show.")
Published December 18, 2012
Photograph by Wally Pacholka, TWAN
Ten meteors on seven different frames combined to show the radiant—the point in the sky from which the Geminid meteors appear to originate.
The picture was taken December 14 in Yosemite Valley, California.
Published December 18, 2012
Photograph by Jeffrey Phelps, AP
A Geminid meteor zooms over a barn in Saukville, Wisconsin, on December 14.
Historically the Geminids were overlooked by most amateur astronomers simply because the annual event occurs so close to the busy holiday season and frigid winter nights—but that's beginning to change thanks to its rising intensity over the past few decades.
Published December 18, 2012
Photograph by Abir Sultan, European Pressphoto Agency
Israelis relax in a hot spring near the Dead Sea during the peak of the Geminid meteor shower in a long-exposure photograph taken December 14.
Since Geminids hit the atmosphere at about 20 miles per second (32 kilometers per second)—slower than other meteor showers—they create beautiful long arcs across the sky that can last for a second or two.
Published December 18, 2012
Photograph by Tom Cuccio, Your Shot
Geminids slice the sky over a glittering Aspen, Colorado, in a picture taken December 14.
Geminid meteors appear to radiate from the shower's namesake constellation, Gemini, the twins from Greek legend.
Published December 18, 2012
Photograph by Jay Cassario, My Shot
A Geminid shoots over the Hurricane Sandy-damaged remains of the 59th Street Pier in Ocean City, New Jersey, on December 14.
Most annual meteor showers happen when Earth passes through clouds of debris left behind by passing comets, causing tons of dust to rain down on the planet in short periods of time.
The Geminids are unusual, though, because they're thought to be the only annual meteor shower created by an asteroid-like object: 3200 Phaethon.
Published December 18, 2012
Photograph by Sunna Gautadottir, Your Shot
Geminid meteors light the sky over Borgarnes, Iceland, on December 15.
"There were so many of them," said photographer Sunna Gautadottir, "and it was just way too beautiful to describe in words."
Published December 18, 2012
Photograph courtesy Dennis di Cicco, Sky & Telescope
Published December 18, 2012
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 crimes unit was working in conjunction with a forensics laboratory to "dissect" any evidence relevant to the case, but he declined to comment further on what type of evidence was involved and in what condition it was in. Later that day, law enforcement officials told ABC News that police recovered a badly damaged computer from Lanza's home that appeared to have been attacked by a hammer or screwdriver.
Sources said if they can still read the computer's hard drive, they hope to find critical clues that may help explain Lanza's motives in the killing.
Former FBI forensic experts told ABC News that in cases similar to this one, damage to the computer does not necessarily mean the computer files cannot be accessed.
"If he took a hammer to the outside, smashed the screen, dented the box, it's more than likely the hard drive is still intact," said Al Johnson, a retired FBI special agent who now works privately examining digital evidence and computer data. "And even if the hard drive itself is damaged, there are still steps that can be taken to recover everything."
Brett Harrison, a former FBI computer forensics expert who now works with a D.C. consulting firm, said that authorities have a great deal of technology at their disposal to retrieve that data. How much is recovered, he said, will depend entirely on how much damage was done to the well-insulated "platters" -- discs lodged deep inside the machine -- where Lanza's every digital footstep was recorded.
It is likely, he said, that Lanza's computer has been moved to a "clean room" where, if the discs are intact, they could be removed and then carefully re-inserted in a fresh hard drive. If the calibrations are done correctly, investigators would still be able to unlock the clues on the discs.
If the discs aren't in perfect condition, Harrison said, "There is equipment they can use to read the data off a record even if a portion of it is damaged."
Johnson said it is tedious work done in a clean environment because the tolerances of the discs is so precise – even a particle of dust could destroy crucial evidence.
"We're talking about a tolerance of less than a human hair," said Johnson, who now does computer forensics for a South Carolina-based investigative firm.
Police have not said exactly what they expect to find on the computer's hard drive, but the former FBI experts said typically there could be record of visits to violent web sites, or to online stores that sell ammunition, or to email that might reveal if Lanza shared any hints of his plans with others.
"I'm not big on speculation," Harrison said, "but you're talking about potentially finding all the normal things that people do with their computer – Facebook pages, internet activity, email, you name it."
For now, the FBI is keeping mum on what kind of computer forensic help it could be offering in the case.
"At this time, in deference to the ongoing investigation being conducted by the CSP, the FBI is not releasing information regarding operational or forensic assistance provided in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting," an FBI spokesperson said.
Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.
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 estimates to company analysts.
At the same time, those estimate revisions, made just days before the initial public offering closed, were not shared with all investors as Morgan Stanley set a high issue price and increased the number of shares on sale.
Facebook shares collapsed after the first day of trade on May 18, eventually falling to half the $38 IPO price, as institutional investors dumped the shares worried about lowered earnings potential.
The share price fall angered many institutional and retail investors who said they had been misinformed about the company's earnings forecasts.
The Massachusetts state secretary William Galvin said Morgan Stanley had violated securities industry rules against unethical and dishonest conduct.
Morgan Stanley agreed to the civil penalty without either admitting or denying the charges.
- AFP/fa
Indian officials belatedly realized that they were taken for a ride when they examined documents given to them on Saeed by the delegation led by Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik that was recently in India.
"We had been given to understand by the interior minister of Pakistan that Mr Hafiz Saeed had been arrested on the charges of being a part of the conspiracy for the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks," home minister Sushilkumar Shinde told Parliament on Monday.
"From the papers given to us, it is clear that the detentions of Shri Hafiz Saeed in the aforesaid cases were for other reasons and not for his role as a conspirator in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Therefore, I can only say that Rehman Malik appears to have been misinformed in the matter," Shinde added.
The home minister, incidentally, referred to Saeed in Parliament using honorifics like 'Mr' and 'Shri' that prompted BJP leaders to object to the courtesies being shown to a terror accused.
The documents -- including FIRs against Saeed and Pakistani court orders exonerating him -- show the Lashkar chief was arrested once in 2002 and twice in 2009. Even the two FIRs against him registered post-26/11 do not mention anything in connection with the Mumbai terror attacks.
The two FIRs were registered in Faisalabad when the UN Security Council passed a resolution banning the Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa after categorizing it as a terror organization. The cases were dismissed by the Lahore High Court because the Punjab (Pakistan) assembly did not ratify the UN resolution. The court went by the Punjab assembly's stand.
The documents, shared for the first time with India, also show that the court took note of local media reports saying LeT did not exist in 2002 as evidence in dismissing the case against Saeed. The Pakistan government did not take a stand on any of the three cases and did not appeal the orders. The first time, Saeed was taken into preventive custody while there was no follow-up action on his second arrest. In the third arrest, he was let off by court which found faults in the FIR.
The portion nailing Pakistan's lie over Saeed was originally not part of Shinde's statement which was prepared on Sunday night. Rajya Sabha MPs got the additional page only after the home minister read it. Usually, papers comprising a written statement are distributed to MPs while the minister is either reading it or is about to read.
Officials in the home ministry said the Pakistani delegation handed over documents on Saeed to them only before it headed for Delhi airport for its return journey on Sunday evening. After examining the papers on Monday morning, officials realized how they had been misled by Islamabad.
The fudge is not surprising as Saeed is feted by Pakistan's military establishment and the government is not inclined to act against him.
Shinde also said, "During my talks with him (Malik), he stated that if we desire, he will give us the FIRs and the judgments pertaining to the three occasions when Hafiz Saeed was arrested and let off by the courts. When we pursued this matter, they have given us papers pertaining to the detentions of Saeed in 2002 and 2009."
Officials believe misrepresenting facts on earlier occasions might have been done by Pakistan deliberately as it does not want to appear to be taking action against Saeed who is a key figure in the country's ISI-LeT nexus for waging proxy war against India.
They said Malik gave "lame excuses" for not acting against Saeed and the Indian side believes the LeT boss will continue to roam free in Pakistan and indulge in anti-India rhetoric. The visiting delegation had also contended that there was a court ruling on a petition by Saeed's wife Memoona who had submitted that he had left LeT in 2001.
"Pakistan's intention is clear. They do not want to take action against Saeed. This is the impression that we got during talks," an official said.
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 efforts to exploit it for evidence.
Officials have "seized significant evidence at [Lanza's] residence," said Connecticut State Police spokesman Paul Vance, adding that the process of sifting through that much forensic evidence would be a lengthy and "painstaking process."
Authorities also told ABC News that the weapons used in Friday's rampage at Sandyhook Elementary School, which left dead 20 children and seven adults including Lanza's mother Nancy, were purchased by his mother between 2010 and 2012.
According to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Lanza visited shooting ranges several times in recent years, and went at least one time with his mother.
The first funeral for a child killed in the massacre was held today in Fairfield, Conn., where mourners gathered to remember the too-short life of first-grader Noah Pozner.
Authorities also revealed this morning that two adult women shot during the rampage survived and their accounts will likely be integral to the investigation.
"Investigators will, in fact, speak with them when it's medically appropriate and they will shed a great deal of light on the facts and circumstances of this tragic investigation," Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said at a news conference today.
Both survivors are women and are now home from the hospital after being shot, police said. Officials had previously mentioned just one adult survivor. The women have not been identified and police did not give details on their injuries.
READ MORE: School nurse hid from gunman.
Both adults, Vance said, were wounded in the "lower extremities," but did not indicate where in the building they were when they were injured.
Moving trucks were seen outside Sandy Hook Elementary School this morning, as school officials prepare to move furniture and supplies to a vacant school in neighboring Monroe.
Sandy Hook itself will remain a secure crime scene "indefinitely," said Vance.
CLICK HERE for complete coverage of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.
Police say Adam Lanza, 20, forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, spraying bullets on students and faculty. Lanza killed 20 children and six adults before turning the gun on himself.
Lanza also killed his mother Nancy Lanza at the home they shared before going to school.
"There are many, many witnesses that need to be interviewed," Vance said. "We will not stop until we have interviewed every last one of them."
Vance said the investigation could take weeks or months to complete. "It's not something done in 60 minutes like you see on T.V."
Some of the other key witnesses will be children who survived the shooting spree by playing dead, hiding in closets and bathrooms and being rescued by dedicated teachers.
"Any interviews with any children will be done with professionals...as appropriate," Vance said. "We'll handle that extremely delicately when the time arises."
CLICK HERE for a tribute to the shooting victims.
The first funerals for victims of the shooting are today, beginning with 6-year-olds Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto.
Officials said today that the Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the shooting took place, will be closed "indefinitely."
Both the school and the home where shootings took place are being held by police as crime scenes and Vance predicted authorities would spend "months" investigating the elementary school.
All Newtown schools are closed today to give residents more time to cope. Every school except for Sandy Hook is expected to re-open Tuesday.
The town of Monroe has offered to open to Sandy Hook students the Chalk Hill School, a former middle school that currently houses the town's EMS and recreational departments.
Officials in Monroe, less than 10 miles from Newtown, say the building could be ready for students by the end of the week, but have not yet set a date to resume classes.
Nearly 100 volunteers are working to ensure the building complies with fire and security regulations and are working to retorfit the school with bathroom facilities for young children.
"We're working to make the school safe and secure for students," said Monroe Police Department spokesman Lt. Brian H. McCauley.
The neighboring community's school is expected to be ready to accommodate students in the next few days, though an exact schedule has not yet been published.
While the families grieve, federal and state authorities are working around the clock to answer the question on so many minds: "Why?"
ABC News has learned that investigators have seized computers belonging to Adam Lanza from the home he shared with his mother. Three weapons were found at the school scene and a fourth was recovered from Lanza's car. Lanza had hundreds of rounds and used multiple high-capacity magazines when he went on the rampage, according to Connecticut State Police.
Vance said that every single electronic device, weapon and round will be thoroughly examined and investigated as well as every aspect of Lanza's life going "back to the date of birth."
ABC News has learned that both the shooter and his mother spent time at an area gun range; however it was not yet known whether they had shot there.
Scientists have found a new culprit in spreading the disease that's been driving the world's frogs to the brink of extinction: crayfish.
In the last few decades, the disease caused by the chytrid fungus has been a disaster for frogs and other amphibians. More than 300 species are nearly extinct because of it. Many probably have gone extinct, but it can be difficult to know for sure when a tiny, rare species disappears from the face of the Earth. (Related photos: "Ten Most Wanted 'Extinct' Amphibians.")
"This pathogen is bad news. It's worse news than any other pathogen in the history of life on Earth as far as we know it," says Vance Vredenburg, a conservation biologist at San Francisco State University who studies frogs but did not work on the new study.
The chytrid fungus was only discovered in the late 1990s. Since then, scientists have been scrambling to figure out how it spreads and how it works.
One of the biggest mysteries is how chytrid can persist in a frogless pond. Researchers saw it happen many times and were perplexed: If all of a pond's amphibians were wiped out, and a few frogs or salamanders came back and recolonized the pond, they would also die—even though there were no amphibians in the pond to harbor the disease. (Learn about vanishing amphibians.)
One possible reason is that chytrid infects other animals. For a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Taegan McMahon, a graduate student in ecology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, looked at some possible suspects and focused on crayfish, those lobsterlike crustaceans living in freshwater. They seemed like a good possibility because they're widespread and because their bodies have a lot of keratin, a protein the fungus attacks.
In the lab, McMahon exposed crayfish to the disease and they got sick. More than a third died within seven weeks, and most of the survivors were carrying the fungus. She also put infected crayfish in the water with tadpoles—separated by mesh, so the crustaceans wouldn't eat the baby frogs—and the tadpoles got infected. When McMahon and her colleagues checked out wetlands in Louisiana and Colorado, they also found infected crayfish.
That means crayfish can probably act as a reservoir for the disease. The fungus seems to be able to dine on crayfish then leap back to amphibians when it gets a chance. No one knows for sure where the fungus originally came from or why it's been such a problem in recent decades, but this research suggests one way that it could have been spread. Crayfish are sometimes moved from pond to pond as fish bait and are sold around the world as food and aquarium pets. (Related photos: "New Giant 'Bearded' Crayfish Species.")
The study doesn't answer every last question about the disease. For one thing, crayfish are common, but they aren't everywhere; there are no crayfish in some of the places where frogs have been hardest hit, Vredenburg says. But, he says, the new research shows that "we need to start looking a little more broadly at other potential hosts."
NEWTOWN, Conn. — The gunman who stormed into an elementary school here Friday carried “numerous” high-capacity ammunition magazines for his semiautomatic rifle, as well as multiple magazines for two other guns, police said Sunday afternoon.
In all, 20 year-0ld Adam Lanza had hundreds of bullets with him when he shot out a pane of glass and entered Sandy Hook elementary school at 9:30 a.m. Friday. Police said that Lanza had used one gun--a “Bushmaster” brand rifle, whose design can be traced the M-16 weapon developed for U.S. troops in Vietnam--to kill 20 children and six adults inside.
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