Here’s a running transcript of President Obama’s remarks on the status of the fiscal cliff negotiations after meeting with congressional leaders during the afternoon on Dec. 28, 2012. Remarks are being updated as they unfold.
More Coverage: Senate leaders pledge to work through weekend to avert ‘cliff,’
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon everybody. For the past few months, I’ve been working with the leaders of both parties....
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NEW YORK: US stocks sank for a fifth straight day Friday, showing more doubts that politicians will be able to agree a deal to fix the fiscal cliff with only days before the year-end deadline.
Shares were cautiously lower for most of the day after President Barack Obama returned from his vacation early to try to broker a deal with Democrat and Republican congressional leaders in the White House.
But without any positive signs late in the day and the weekend looming, traders gave up and sold off at a stronger pace in the last half hour.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished off 158.20 points (1.21 percent) at 12,938.11.
The broad-market S&P 500 lost 15.67 (1.10 percent) to 1,402.43, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite shed 25.60 points (0.86 percent) to 2,960.31.
"In the end, fiscal-cliff concerns dominated. No deal meant more worry, and we sold off," said Ryan Detrick of Schaeffer's Investment Research.
All 30 Dow blue chips were in the red, led by Hewlett-Packard (-2.6 percent), which was pushed lower after the SEC said it was looking into its subsidiary Autonomy.
In November, HP accused Autonomy of fraudulent accounting that was uncovered only after its $10 billion purchase of the British software firm in 2011.
Also on the Dow, Exxon lost 2.0 percent and Chevron 1.9 percent.
A rare gainer for the day was embattled bookseller Barnes & Noble, which although reporting that its Nook e-reader had disappointing Christmas sales, got a 4.3 percent boost on the announcement that British publisher Pearson would take a five percent stake in its Nook unit for $89.5 million.
Herbalife, under attack for weeks from short-selling hedge funds, bounced back with a 3.9 percent gain.
Facebook, which opened more than 2.5 percent lower on a report by audience tracker AppData.com that some 3.5 million people had stopped using its photo-sharing app Instagram daily over the past week, regained ground to finish with a loss of just 0.5 percent.
Facebook acquired Instagram earlier this year. The original price was pegged at $1 billion but the final value was less because of a decline in the social network's share price.
Bond prices rose. The 10-year US Treasury yield slipped to 1.71 from 1.72 percent late Thursday, while the 30-year edged lower to 2.88 percent from 2.89 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.
-AFP/ac
* In November this year, Chhattisgarh police and CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) rescued two minor tribal girls who were allegedly gang-raped by Maoists in Bijapur, Bastar district.
* In July 2004, the rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama Devi in Imphal by Assam Rifles personnel had rocked the nation with several women's groups in Manipur coming out naked in the streets to protest. A few days back, Imphal witnessed mob violence over government's inaction on molestation of an actress by an NSCN (IM) cadre.
* On the night of February 23 and 24, 1991, personnel of the 4 Rajputana Rifles had raped about 30 women in Kunan Poshpora village in the border district of Kupwara in north Kashmir.
*A young girl in Jharkhand's insurgency-hit Khunti district had to flee a separatist camp after she was forced to sleep with five Naxalites every night, according to Baidyanath Kumar of the NGO Diya Seva Sansthan that had rescued her.
Even as the Delhi bus gang-rape case simmers, women in India's insurgency-hit areas —Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand or the North East — continue to be exploited sexually both by separatists and the security forces. Often, women endure sexual abuse in return for life of their families. Women in villages of border districts of Rajouri or Poonch in Jammu and Kupwara and Uri in Kashmir are known to submit to sexual exploitation by militants from across the border, besides giving them food and shelter, in return for the safety of their families. In fact, sources reveal that soldier husbands inform their wives in advance of their arrival on holidays so that the terrorists can move out of their homes in time.
In Naxalite-hit areas, many women end up being recruited in the cadres, where they are exploited sexually. Says Baidyanath Kumar, "The Naxals induct women by force for dual purpose. They serve as sex slaves and cook for them too." Shambhu Kumar, Ranchi ASP (Operations), adds, "99% of women Naxals, whether arrested or those who have surrendered complain of sexual harassment in the camps." Often, women are left with no choice — they either give into the state-sponsored vigilantes, Salwa Judum, or tag along with Maoist cadres.
Most often, cases of sexual crimes go unreported either due to remoteness of the location or victims choosing to stay silent out of fear or social stigma attached to such exploitation. Babloo Loitongbam, director of Imphal-based Human Rights' Alert, says, "In a conflict zone, targeting women's honour becomes a contest between the warring parties. And the reported cases of rape by army or the para-military forces in Manipur are just the tip of the iceberg. We have documented over 20 rape cases in the last few years but most go unreported." Even if the victim reports the crime, most of these cases remain unsolved and justice remains elusive.
Anjuman Ara Begum, a Guwahati-based law researcher, says that sexual crimes in armed conflicts are always treated with a 'forget and forgive' policy. "Security forces enjoy immunity as prior sanctions are required for initiating legal cases against them under Afspa (Armed Forces Special (Powers Act), 1958) and CrPC." Many states in the North East are under the Afspa.
— Reporting by Joseph John in Raipur, Oinam Sunil in Guwahati, M Saleem Pandit in Srinagar and Alok K N Mishra in Ranchi.
For centuries, William Shakespeare seemed to have the last word. His Richard III glowered and leered from the stage, a monster in human form and a character so repugnant "that dogs bark at me as I halt by them." In Shakespeare's famous play, the hunchbacked king claws his way to the throne and methodically murders most of his immediate family—his wife, older brother, and two young nephews—until he suffers defeat and death on the battlefield at the hands of a young Tudor hero, Henry VII.
(Related: "Shakespeare's Coined Words Now Common Currency.")
To shed new light on the long vilified king, a British scientific team has tracked down and excavated his reputed burial spot and exhumed skeletal remains that may well belong to the long-lost monarch. The team is conducting a CSI-style investigation of the body in hopes of conclusively identifying Richard III, a medieval king who ruled England for two brief years before perishing at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Results on the investigation are expected in January.
But the much maligned monarch is not the only historical heavyweight to be exhumed. Since the 1980s, forensic experts have dug up the remains of many famous people—from Christopher Columbus (video) and Simón Bolívar to Jesse James, Marie Curie, Lee Harvey Oswald, Nicolae Ceausescu, and Bobby Fischer. Just last month, researchers in Ramallah (map) disinterred the body of Yasser Arafat, hoping to new glean clues to his death in 2004. Rumors long suggested that Israeli agents poisoned the Palestinian leader with a fatal dose of radioactive polonium-210.
(Read more about poisoning from National Geographic magazine's "Pick Your Poison—12 Toxic Tales.")
Indeed, forensic experts have disinterred the legendary dead for a wide range of reasons—including to move their remains to grander tombs befitting their growing fame, collect DNA samples for legal cases, and obtain data on the medical conditions that afflicted them. Such exhumations, says anatomist Frank Rühli at the Centre for Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, always raise delicate ethical issues. But in the case of early historical figures, scientists can learn much that is of value to society. "Research on ancient samples provides enormous potential for understanding [questions concerning our] cultural heritage and the evolution of disease," Rühli notes in an emailed response.
Franciscan Resting Place?
Archaeologists from the University of Leicester began actively searching for the burial place of Richard III this past August. According to historical accounts, Tudor troops carried Richard's battered corpse from the Bosworth battlefield and displayed it in the nearby town of Leicester before local Franciscan fathers buried the body in their friary choir. With clues from historic maps, the archaeological team located foundations of the now vanished friary beneath a modern parking lot, and during excavation, the team discovered the skeleton of an adult male interred under the choir floor—exactly where Richard III was reportedly buried.
The newly discovered skeleton has scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that may have resulted in a slightly lopsided appearance, and this may have inspired Shakespeare's exaggerated depiction of Richard as a Quasimodo-like figure. Moreover, the body bears clear signs of battle trauma, including a fractured skull and a barbed metal arrowhead embedded in the vertebrae. And even the burial place points strongly to Richard. English armies at the time simply left their dead on the field of battle, but someone carted this body off and interred it in a place of honor.
Taken together, these early clues, says Jo Appleby, the University of Leicester bioarchaeologist studying the remains, strongly suggest that the team has found the legendary king. Otherwise, she observes, "I think we'd have a hard time explaining how a skeleton with those characteristics got buried there."
But much work remains to clinch the case. Geneticists are now comparing DNA sequences from the skeleton to those obtained from a modern-day Londoner, Michael Ibsen, who is believed to be a descendant of Richard III's sister. In addition, forensic pathologists and medieval-weapons scholars are poring over signs of trauma on the skeleton to determine cause of death, while a radiocarbon-dating lab is helping to pin down the date. And at the University of Dundee in Scotland, craniofacial identification expert Caroline Wilkinson is now working on a reconstruction of the dead man's face for a possible match with historic portraits of Richard III. All this, says Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the project, "will help us put flesh on the bones, so to speak."
Digging Up History
Elsewhere, teams digging up the historic dead have contented themselves with more modest goals. In Texas, for example, forensic experts opened the grave of Lee Harvey Oswald in October 1981 to identify beyond doubt the man who shot President John F. Kennedy. A British lawyer and author had claimed that a Soviet agent impersonated Oswald and assassinated the American president. To clarify the situation, the forensic experts compared dental x-rays taken during Oswald's stint in the United States Marine Corps to a record they made of the body's teeth. The two matched well, prompting the team to announce publicly that "the remains in the grave marked as Lee Harvey Oswald are indeed Lee Harvey Oswald."
More recently, in 2010, Iceland's supreme court ordered forensic experts to exhume the body of the late world chess champion Bobby Fischer from his grave in Iceland in order to obtain DNA samples to determine whether Fischer was the father of one of the claimants to his estate. (The tests ruled this out.) And that same year, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez ordered forensic experts to open the casket of Simón Bolívar, the renowned 19th century Venezuelan military leader who fought for the independence of Spanish America from colonial rule. Chavez believes that Bolívar died not from tuberculosis, as historians have long maintained, but of arsenic poisoning, and has launched an investigation into the cause of his death.
For some researchers, this recent spate of exhumations has raised a key question: Who should have a say in the decision to disinter or not? In the view of Guido Lombardi, a paleopathologist at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, investigators should make every effort to consult descendants or family members before proceeding. "Although each case should be addressed individually," notes Lombardi by email. "I think the surviving relatives of a historical figure should approve any studies first."
But tracking down the descendants of someone who died many centuries ago is no easy matter. Back in Leicester, research on the remains found beneath the friary floor is proceeding. If all goes according to plan, the team hopes to announce the results sometime in January. And if the ancient remains prove to be those of Richard III, the city of Leicester could be in for a major royal event in 2013: The British government has signalled its intention to inter the long-maligned king in Leicester Cathedral.
Authorities have charged a woman for allegedly providing a convicted killer with the Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle he used when he ambushed four volunteer firefighters and an off-duty cop at a fire scene in upstate New York on Christmas Eve, federal prosecutors said.
Dawn Nguyen, 24, was arrested today after allegedly making an illegal purchase of the weapon used by William Spengler, 62, who set a house and car on fire in Webster, N.Y., the morning of Dec. 24, then shot dead two firemen and himself.
Nguyen is facing federal and state charges for acting as a "straw purchaser," buying the Bushmaster assault weapon as well as a shotgun with the intention of giving it to someone who cannot legally purchase it himself, said U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul.
Authorities accuse Nguyen of lying about being the sole owner of the weapons when making the purchase, a violation of federal law.
As an ex-convict, Spengler could not have legally owned or purchased the weapons himself.
"Dawn Nguyen told the seller of these weapons that she was to be true owner and buyer of these guns," said Hochul. "It is absolutely against federal law to provide any materially false information" on a firearms application.
As Hochul announced the charges, Nguyen was in a nearby court. It was unknown whether she entered a plea, and her lawyer could not be immediately contacted.
In addition to the rifle and shotgun, Spengler was found with a pistol, which authorities believe he used to kill himself by shooting himself in the head.
After apparently setting the fires, Spengler began shooting at emergency responders, officials have said. The attack left two firefighters and the gunman dead, and two other firefighters hospitalized.
Police officer John Ritter recieved shrapnel injuries at the scene but was discharged quickly from the hospital.
In a typewritten note found at the scene, Spengler revealed that he obtained the weapons from Nguyen, who for a time lived next door to him in Webster, Hochul said.
In that same note, Spengler pledged to see "how much of the neighborhood I can burn down." He said he wanted to "do what I like doing best, killing people."
Police said Spengler set a "trap" in order to ambush the first responders.
Firefighters Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka were gunned down. Two other firefighters, Joseph Hofsetter and Theodore Scardino, remained in guarded condition at a Rochester, N.Y. hospital.
NEW YORK: US stocks dipped Thursday in the absence of a deal to avert a "fiscal cliff" crisis as an end-of-year deadline crept closer.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the session down 18.28 points (0.14 percent) at 13,096.31.
The broad-market S&P 500 slipped 1.73 points (0.12 percent) at 1,418.10 while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite shed 4.25 points (0.14 percent) at 2,985.91.
Washington has until the end of the month to reach a compromise on how to avert a crisis that could lead to steep tax hikes and stringent budget cuts. But with the clock ticking, a deal has yet to take shape.
Experts say a fall over the so-called "fiscal cliff" could take the world's biggest economy back into recession.
Still, markets appeared to be bolstered by word that the House of Representatives would reconvene on Sunday, raising hopes of an 11th-hour compromise.
President Barack Obama cut short his family Christmas break in Hawaii and returned to the capital, and the Senate was also in session Thursday.
"News that the House will reconvene for a session Sunday night propelled stocks to end well off the lows of the day, erasing an earlier double-digit loss on the Dow that came courtesy of discouraging remarks from Senator Harry Reid and a fall in Consumer Confidence," said analysts with Charles Schwab & Co.
Traders were also digesting a sharp drop in consumer confidence in December, traditionally a key driver of the US economy.
In its monthly survey, the Conference Board said the index now stands at 65.1, compared to the downwardly revised 71.5 in November.
Stocks in focus included US auto giant Ford, which said Thursday it would invest $773 million to expand factories across its home state of Michigan, generating 2,350 new jobs, part of a plan to add 12,000 jobs by 2015. It fell 0.23 percent.
Microsoft edged 0.4 percent higher after announcing it would open six new stores in the United States in 2013.
US-listed shares of Toyota Motor Corporation climbed 2.4 percent. The Japanese automaker said Wednesday that it had agreed to pay about $1.1 billion to settle a class action lawsuit launched by US vehicle owners affected by a series of mass recalls.
Marvell Technology Group dropped 3.5 percent after a jury on Wednesday hit it with a billion-dollar verdict, ruling that the US chip maker "willfully" infringed on patents held by Carnegie Mellon University.
Bond prices rose. The 10-year US Treasury yield fell to 1.72 percent from 1.76 percent late Wednesday, while the 30-year slipped to 2.9 percent from 2.93 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.
-AFP/ac
Singh said Nirbhaya was "as stable as she was in Delhi" which is an "achievement", raising hopes amid grim signals over what the future holds for the tenacious girl.
He underwent kidney transplant at the famous Singapore hospital in 2009. His prolonged stay there, followed by the presence of the who's who of industry, Bollywood and politics, put it on the A-list of the country's VIPs. Since then, megastar Rajnikanth has been treated there.
The surprise decision to shift Nirbhaya out of Safdarjung Hospital in a critical state has raised many questions, with the choice of hospital intriguing many. But Singh, once close to Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amitabh Bachchan, vouched for it.
"It is the best hospital for organ transplant and more importantly, it is very good for post-operative care," Singh said.
Intestinal problem ties Nirbhaya to the Singapore hospital's first Indian star patient. Singh had his intestines cut up after an ailment was callously assumed as malignant. A large part of his bowels were removed before he realized that it was a medical mess-up. Then, a famous surgeon from a top Mumbai hospital suggested the Singapore medical centre.
Since then, movie icon Rajnikanth has come here, putting the hospital in the spotlight for situations like Nirbhaya's crisis.
"Singapore is the nearest destination to bring her to in her state of criticality. It is only five hours from India," Singh said.
Cento di questi giorni. May you have a hundred birthdays, the Italians say, and some of them do.
So do other people in various spots around the world—in Blue Zones, so named by National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner for the blue ink that outlines these special areas on maps developed over more than a decade. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)
In his second edition of his book The Blue Zones, Buettner writes about a newly identified Blue Zone: the Greek island of Ikaria (map). National Geographic magazine Editor at Large Cathy Newman interviewed him about the art of living long and well. (Watch Buettner talk about how to live to a hundred.)
Q. You've written about Blue Zones in Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; Nicoa, Costa Rica and Okinawa, Japan. How did you find your way to Ikaria?
A. Michel Poulain, a demographer on the project, and I are always on the lookout for new Blue Zones. This one popped up in 2008. We got a lead from a Greek foundation looking for biological markers in aging people. The census data showed clusters of villages there with a striking proportion of people 85 or older. (Also see blog: "Secrets of the Happiest Places on Earth.")
In the course of your quest you've been introduced to remarkable individuals like 100-year-old Marge Jetton of Loma Linda, California, who starts the day with a mile-long [0.6-kilometer] walk, 6 to 8 miles [10 to 13 kilometers] on a stationary bike, and weight lifting. Who is the most memorable Blue Zoner you've met?
Without question it's Stamatis Moraitis, who lives in Ikaria. I believe he's 102. He's famous for partying. He makes 400 liters [100 gallons] of wine from his vineyards each year, which he drinks with his friends. His house is the social hot spot of the island. (See "Longevity Genes Found; Predict Chances of Reaching 100.")
He's also the Ikarian who emigrated to the United States, was diagnosed with lung cancer in his 60s, given less then a year to live, and who returned to Ikaria to die. Instead, he recovered.
Yes, he never went through chemotherapy or treatment. He just moved back to Ikaria.
Did anyone figure out how he survived?
Nope. He told me he returned to the U.S. ten years after he left to see if the American doctors could explain it. I asked him what happened. "My doctors were all dead," he said.
One of the common factors that seem to link all Blue Zone people you've spoken with is a life of hard work—and sometimes hardship. Your thoughts?
I think we live in a culture that relentlessly pursues comfort. Ease is related to disease. We shouldn't always be fleeing hardship. Hardship also brings people together. We should welcome it.
Sounds like another version of the fable of the grasshopper and the ant?
You rarely get satisfaction sitting in an easy chair. If you work in a garden on the other hand, and it yields beautiful tomatoes, that's a good feeling.
Can you talk about diet? Not all of us have access to goat milk, for example, which you say is typically part of an Ikarian breakfast.
There is nothing exotic about their diet, which is a version of a Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes vegetables, beans, fruit, olive oil, and moderate amounts of alcohol. (Read more about Buettner's work in Ikaria in National Geographic Adventure.)
All things in moderation?
Not all things. Socializing is something we should not do in moderation. The happiest Americans socialize six hours a day.
The people you hang out with help you hang on to life?
Yes, you have to pay attention to your friends. Health habits are contagious. Hanging out with unhappy people who drink and smoke is hazardous to your health.
So how has what you've learned influenced your own lifestyle?
One of the big things I've learned is that there's an advantage to regular low-intensity activity. My previous life was setting records on my bike. [Buettner holds three world records in distance cycling.] Now I use my bike to commute. I only eat meat once a week, and I always keep nuts in my office: Those who eat nuts live two to three more years than those who don't.
You also write about having a purpose in life.
Purpose is huge. I know exactly what my values are and what I love to do. That's worth additional years right there. I say no to a lot of stuff that would be easy money but deviates from my meaning of life.
The Japanese you met in Okinawa have a word for that?
Yes. Ikigai: "The reason for which I wake in the morning."
Do you have a non-longevity-enhancing guilty pleasure?
Tequila is my weakness.
And how long would you like to live?
I'd like to live to be 200.
The perception of schools as sanctuaries from violence has been "blown up" by recent events and some believe it's time for educators to literally take the situation into their own hands and carry guns.
"We've had this unwritten code, even among criminals, that schools are off limits. Those are our kids. You don't mess with that," Utah Shooting Sports Council (USSC) Chairman Clark Aposhian told ABCNews.com today.
"That perception has been blown away now," he said. "It's been shattered and if there's one thing that parents across the country are united on, it's that they are committed to and serious about protecting their kids."
Aposhian spoke shortly before opening a weapons training class for teachers and school employees that drew more than 200 Utah educators organized by the USSC, a leading gun lobby group that believes that teachers should be able to fight back when faced with an armed intruder.
"One firearm in the hands of one teacher could have made the difference at Sandy Hook or Columbine, but they weren't allowed to carry in those schools," Aposhian said.
The USSC is waiving its normal $50 training fee today for teachers who wish to attend. Aposhian said the 200 person course was filled to capacity and said he plans on holding another session for people he may have to turn away today.
INFOGRAPHIC: Gun in America: By The Numbers
"We trust these teachers to be with our kids for 8 to 10 hours a day every day," Aposhian said. "I don't think it's a far reach to think that we could think that they would act responsibly and with decorum in protecting their own lives and the lives of the kids under their care."
The idea of armed teachers has been part of a fiery debate on gun control following the rampage at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six adults dead on Dec. 14.
Utah is one of only a handful of states, including Oregon, Hawaii and New Hampshire, that allow people to carry licensed concealed weapons into public schools. It is not known how many Utah teachers carry guns in public schools because the records are not public.
But Aposhian said that he tells detractors that Utah has not had any school shootings or accidental shootings in the approximately 12 years the law has been in effect.
In Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Association is launching a pilot armed teacher training program in which 24 teachers will be selected to attend a three-day training class.
Arizona's Attorney General Tom Horne has proposed a state law amendment that would allow one educator in each school to carry a gun.
During today's six-hour training session, the educators will be taught about gun safety, loading and unloading, manipulating the firearm, how to clear malfunctions, use of force laws and state and federal firearm laws.
The training sessions normally draw about 15 to 20 people, Aposhian said, but many of the teachers who have signed up for today have expressed strong feelings about attending the class.
"I think it runs the gamut from passive desire to get a permit because they thought about it here and there to a fervor given the recent events," Aposhian said. "Perhaps they've had an epiphany of sorts and realized that that sanctuary they work in, or at least the perceived sanctuary, isn't all that safe."
The Utah State Board of Education Chair Debra Roberts released the following statement today on the matter:
"The Utah State Board of Education expresses sympathy to all involved in the recent school shooting in Connecticut. In the face of this terrible tragedy, as schools move forward in taking measures to ensure the safety of students and school personnel, we urge caution and thoughtful consideration."
The statement noted that its schools have emergency plans to handle such situations.
Carol Lear, the board's director of school law and legislation, was more blunt about Aposhian's gun training, telling the Associated Press, "It's a terrible idea...It's a horrible, no-good, rotten idea."
The U.S. government will hit the $16.4 trillion federal debt limit on Monday and turn to “extraordinary measures” to continue borrowing, the Treasury Department said Wednesday, beginning a countdown until Congress either passes legislation to allow for more borrowing or the government defaults on its debt.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in a letter to senior lawmakers that the Treasury would begin to undertake “extraordinary measures” in order to forestall default. Geithner said the measures could create about $200 billion in additional funding available to the government – giving Congress two months before it must raise the debt limit.
To begin conserving money, Treasury will suspend a program on Friday that helps states and localities manage their borrowing. In subsequent weeks, Treasury will start to tap the federal worker pension fund for additional financial resources. (The pension fund will be made whole once the debt limit impasse is resolved.) Geithner added that the resolution of the fiscal cliff could affect these estimates. In particular, he wrote, “the expiring tax provisions and automatic spending cuts, as well as the attendant delays in filing of tax returns, would have the effect of adding some additional time to the duration of the extraordinary measures.”
President Obama has insisted that the debt limit be taken off the table in negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over the fiscal cliff. But Republicans have insisted that the debt limit provides an important point of leverage to force spending cuts.
NEW YORK: US stocks fell Wednesday amid uncertainty about whether a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" could be reached by an end-of-year deadline.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 24.49 points (0.19 percent) to finish the session at 13,114.59.
The broad-market S&P 500 lost 6.83 points (0.48 percent) at 1,419.83, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite shed 22.44 points (0.74 percent) at 2,990.16.
"Investors in the US returned to business in the midst of the omnipresent tick-tick-ticking of the fiscal cliff clock," said analysts with Charles Schwab & Co.
The White House and Congress have until the end of the month to reach a compromise on how to avert a year-end crisis that could lead to stiff tax hikes and drastic budget cuts.
Experts say a dive over the so-called "fiscal cliff" could drive the world's biggest economy back into recession.
Obama was to head back to the capital late Wednesday from a shortened family Christmas break in Hawaii, and lawmakers are also expected back in Washington on Thursday.
Stocks in focus during the midweek session included those of online video giant Netflix, which gained 0.47 percent in the wake of an outage of its online film streaming service on Christmas Eve. On Wednesday, Netflix blamed Amazon for the incident, which rents out computing power in datacenters in the Internet "cloud." Amazon dropped 3.86 percent.
US commodities and derivatives market InterContinentalExchange (ICE) and its transatlantic peer NYSE Euronext were down 0.03 percent and up 0.09 percent respectively, after at least one shareholder complaint was filed to contest their planned fusion, announced last week.
Shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion meanwhile soared 11.5 percent, recovering after a plunge on Friday on investor fears that its new smartphone platform will thin the ranks paying for its service.
Tech heavyweight Apple meanwhile lost 1.4 percent.
Bond prices rose. The 10-year US Treasury yield fell to 1.76 percent from 1.77 percent late Monday, while the 30-year dipped to 2.93 percent from 2.94 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely. Markets were closed Tuesday in observance of Christmas Day.
-AFP/ac
He emphasized that the bilateral relationship between the two countries is of immense importance to ensure peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world. He also noted that the rapid growth in the bilateral economic engagement (through trade, investment and flagship projects) has brought rich dividends to both the countries.
Singh expressed confidence that Japan's economy will further prosper and Japan will play an important role in the world affairs under his leadership and emphasized on working with him for further strengthening India's relations with Japan.
Image courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASA
Another glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings has been captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, as seen in a picture released December 18.
On October 17, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn's shadow, "a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet," according to NASA.
(Related: "Ten Best Pictures From NASA's Cassini Probe—Saturn, More.")
Published December 26, 2012
Photograph by Wally Pacholka, TWAN
The Milky Way glitters over Yosemite, California, in a picture taken December 14 and submitted to the astronomy-education project The World at Night (TWAN).
Our galaxy is far larger, brighter, and more massive than most other galaxies. From end to end, the Milky Way's starry disk, observable with the naked eye and through optical telescopes, spans 120,000 light-years.
(See Milky Way pictures inNational Geographic magazine.)
Published December 26, 2012
Image courtesy G. Bacon, STScI/ESA/NASA
The Hubble Space Telescope has spied a nearby planetary nebula that resembles a holiday ornament wrapped in a ribbon, as seen in a picture released December 18.
Planetary nebulae such as NGC 5189 represent the final brief stage in the life of a medium-size star like our sun.
(See more nebula pictures.)
Published December 26, 2012
Photograph by Shamil Zhumatov, Reuters
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carries U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to the International Space Station on December 19.
While floating some 240 miles (390 kilometers) above Earth's surface, the space station has hosted a rotating international crew since November 2000.
(See our space-exploration timeline.)
Published December 26, 2012
Image courtesy Caltech/NASA
Still not home for the holidays, NASA's Mars rover Opportunity keeps plugging away on the red planet's surface.
Here, the rover's hazard camera scans a target called Onaping at the base of Copper Cliff in the Endeavor crater. At least Opportunity calls home.
(See "Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds.")
Published December 26, 2012
Photograph by Rolf Olsen, Your Shot
A star cluster named Jewel Box sparkles in a picture submitted to the Your Shot photo community on December 18.
Visible as a faint smudge with the naked eye under dark skies, the Jewel Box is located 6,440 light-years away towards the constellation Crux, or the Southern Cross. The bright orange star in the centre of the cluster is known as Kappa Crucis.
(See another picture of Jewel Box.)
Published December 26, 2012
Image courtesy Caltech/NASA
The giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is having a "shocking" effect on surrounding dust clouds in this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, released on December 18.
Stellar winds flowing out from this fast-moving star are making ripples in the dust, creating a bow shock seen as glowing gossamer threads only visible in infrared.
Published December 26, 2012
Image courtesy Jesse Allen, EO-1/USGS/NASA
Published December 26, 2012
With only days to come up with a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, the White House said “congressional stupidity” was damaging the economy but an agreement can be reached if Republican leaders don’t get in the way.
President Obama cut his Hawaiian vacation short and headed back to Washington today while the Senate is scheduled to reconvene on Thursday. House Speaker John Boehner said previously that he would give House members a 48 hour notice of any upcoming vote, which means that the soonest the House could consider a bill would be Saturday — just two days before a deadline to make a deal or trigger a rise in taxes and steep budget cuts.
Boehner, R-Ohio, and other GOP leaders issued a statement today following a conference call saying, “The House has acted on two bills which collectively would avert the entire fiscal cliff if enacted. Those bills await action by the Senate. If the Senate will not approve and send them to the president to be signed into law in their current form, they must be amended and returned to the House.”
While Boehner put the onus on the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a White House official used testy language to put the responsibility back on Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“What we need is for the Senate Minority Leader not to block a vote and for Boehner to allow a vote,” a White House official told ABC News. “The hits from our economy are not coming from outside factors they’re coming from Congressional stupidity.”
Reid’s plan would serve as a Democratic counterpart to Boehner’s plan B, which failed to gain enough support for a vote last week. Boehner left the ball in the Senate’s court after withdrawing his plan Thursday.
Any plan from Reid is expected to include extending the Bush tax cuts for Americans making $250,000 or less.
Related: What if Bush tax cuts expire?
This has been a sticking point for the left and the right throughout discussions. Democrats believe that lower- and middle-class families should keep the tax cut, while letting it expire for households making more than $250,000. Republicans counter that no Americans should be forced to pay higher taxes come Jan. 1, though Boehner’s plan would have required those making more than $1 million to lose the cut.
Reid could also propose cuts to tax deductions to generate more federal revenue.
Related: Can the mortgage deduction survive the fiscal cliff?
Michael Ettlinger, vice president for economic policy at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, said that would make his plan very similar to Obama’s.
“I think this is likely to go smaller more than bigger as they try to gather votes in the Senate,” Ettlinger told ABC News Wednesday. “The Democratic vision of things is fairly clear. Where the Senate Republicans are willing to go is less so. That’s going to be the issue.”
Dan Holler of conservative policy advocacy group Heritage Action for America expects the plan to include an extension of unemployment benefits, something he says would be “extremely counterproductive for the economy.”
Democrats “see it as one of the most stimulative things you can do,” Holler told ABC News Wednesday. “Heritage has great research to go ahead and say this doesn’t really help.”
Related: Fiscal Cliff negotiators search for cuts without sacrifice.
In addition to an immediate measure to stop taxes from going up, Holler suggested there would be a mechanism to compel leaders to do more further down the road, a method he said has not historically been effective at reducing the deficit.
“I think Republicans are going to look at the entire package skeptically,” Holler said of Reid’s expected plan.
Boehner press secretary Michael Steel told ABC News the speaker’s office “will take a look” at Reid’s proposal once he brings it up for a vote or shares his ideas with the House.
Garnering consensus among both parties will be difficult for any plan now. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is trying to bring D.C. politicians together with every coffee cup sold in the District.
Critics have called into question Boehner’s ability to bring his own party together.
“It seems that, in the House now, Boehner has no control over his extreme right-wing faction,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said on MSNBC Wednesday. “You have, over in the House, a situation where the Republicans are saying, ‘Hey, we don’t think billionaires should pay a nickel more in taxes, but we do think there should be devastating cuts in programs that are impacting working families who are already hurting as a result of the recession.’ So that’s the problem that we have.”
Federal employees have been skeptical for months that the biggest cuts to government spending in history could really happen. But with the “fiscal cliff” a week away, workers are now growing increasingly alarmed that their jobs and their missions could be on the line.
President Obama and members of Congress headed out of town late last week for a Christmas break without reaching a deal to avoid $110 billion in automatic across-the-board spending cuts, which would hamstring operations ranging from weather forecasting and air traffic control to the purchase of spare parts for weapons systems. So civil servants are bracing for the blow, wondering whether their work will be upended — and whether they may be forced to take unpaid days off.
“This could change day by day,” said Antonio Webb, 25, who works in the mail service that handles correspondence for the Department of Homeland Security. “You could come into work and the next day they say, ‘We don’t need you because we have to cut so much.’ ”
Many federal workers have become jaded after a two-year pay freeze and congressional fights over spending that keep agencies lurching from one stopgap budget to another. Until recently, few employees thought it could come to this: Budget cuts of 8 to 10 percent divided equally between military and domestic agencies. Only a few programs, like Social Security, veterans benefits and some services for the poor, are exempted.
“Sure, we continue to do our jobs,” said Carl Eichenwald, who works in enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency. “But all of this uncertainty is disruptive for our mission. A lot of time gets spent spinning wheels. We won’t know whether we can do inspections. Do we have 100 percent of our budget, or 85 percent?”
Top congressional aides said Monday that discussions of how to avert the fiscal cliff had come to a virtual standstill. Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) had not spoken since Friday.
Each side in the negotiations urged the other to come up with a way around the impasse. A senior Democratic aide said Boehner needs to return from the holiday with a “cleared head and a readiness to deal.” The aide said that there is no time for Democrats to unilaterally advance a bill in the Senate, adding that they can press forward with legislation only if they are assured by Republican leaders of GOP support.
A senior Senate Republican aide insisted, however, that it is now up to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and his fellow Democrats to figure out what they can pass in the Senate without worrying about the Republican-controlled House.
As the year-end deadline approaches, federal employees have been told very little by their bosses about how their agencies are preparing to carry out huge spending reductions.
“It seemed like we were almost immune to thinking that something real was going to come of it,” said Fernando Cutz, an analyst for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Then came an e-mailed memo on Thursday from agency heads to employees. The cuts would be “significant and harmful to our collective mission.” Furloughs “or other personnel actions” — layoffs — remain a real possibility.
TOKYO: Japan's conservative leader Shinzo Abe is to be named as the country's new prime minister Wednesday, after he swept to power on a hawkish platform of getting tough on diplomacy while fixing the economy.
The powerful lower house will name the 58-year-old as leader in an extraordinary session Wednesday afternoon, following a resounding national election victory for his Liberal Democratic Party earlier this month.
As Japan's seventh premier in less than seven years, Abe will replace outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda whose Democratic Party of Japan suffered a stinging defeat at the polls.
The party, which came to power in 2009, was seen as being punished for policy flip-flops and its clumsy handling of last year's atomic disaster at Fukushima.
Noda's cabinet is to resign en masse Wednesday morning before the LDP-controlled lower house names Abe as Japan's leader.
Abe, who previously served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007, is expected to form a new cabinet later in the day as he rushes to draft an extra budget to spur the nation's flagging economy.
Japanese media have suggested Abe was likely to tap close associates and senior party members for key posts.
Taro Aso, another former prime minister in Japan's revolving-door political system, was widely expected to be named as both Abe's deputy and also finance minister, the reports said.
Japan's new foreign minister was likely to be Fumio Kishida, 55, who served as a state minister in charge of Okinawan affairs under Abe's previous tenure.
The expected appointment was seen as a reflection of Abe's desire for progress on the relocation of US military bases in the southern island chain.
Sadakazu Tanigaki, the head of the LDP when the party was in opposition after ruling Japan for most of the past six decades, is tipped to become the country's justice minister, the reports said.
Abe won conservative support with nationalistic pronouncements on diplomacy in the midst of a territorial row with Beijing over a group of East China Sea islands, saying Japan would stand firm on its claim to the chain.
But he quickly toned down the campaign rhetoric and has said he wants improved ties with China, Japan's biggest trading partner.
Abe called for a solution through what he described as "patient exchanges".
The new leader, whose key campaign platform was reviving the world's third-largest economy, has also said he would look at revising Japan's post-war pacifist constitution, alarming officials in China and South Korea.
He vowed to pressure the Bank of Japan for further easing measures to boost growth, while also promising big government spending to spur the economy.
Analysts said Abe was likely to hold off drastic policy measures ahead of upper house elections next year, while the LDP's moderate junior coalition partner New Komeito could balance his right-leaning instincts.
-AFP/ac
Activists and opposition leaders argue that the response of the government to a swiftly developing situation like the one that unfolded in Delhi over the past week shows that the Centre announced a slew of measures only after being brought under intense pressure.
Although the government appeared to be reactive rather than proactive, it has had to respond in a manner that its predecessors did not consider necessary. The trigger for this was the toll the protests took of government's credibility.
Aam Aadmi Party member Yogendra Yadav hit out at the government accusing it of lacking political skills to respond to the public's anger and disappointment. "The government has shown itself to be particularly short-sighted. The people in the political establishment lack political skills. They should have anticipated the people's emotion much earlier and responded to it," he said.
I&B minister Manish Tewari defended the government, saying, "We understand the anguish and concern of the protestors. However, violence is neither a solution nor an end in itself. It is indeed unfortunate that a law enforcement officer succumbed to the depredations of the protest. The government has taken a series of measures for the quick prosecution of the crime which no civilized society countenances or tolerates as well as measures to address the systemic problem of the security and safety of women."
Yadav also found PM Manmohan Singh's speech wanting on several fronts. "If you say on Day 1 that you have three daughters, it has some meaning. But to say it Day 8, it is just a joke. The government has state power and they have used it to put down a peaceful protest," he added.
CPM leader Brinda Karat said the incident had only demonstrated the lack of political will on the part of the government. "There is total drift and lack of political direction on the part of the government whether it is PM's ineffectual speech or home minister's remarks," she said.
Karat, who led a delegation of women's groups to meet President Pranab Mukherjee a day earlier, said there were small but critical steps like taking action against buses with tinted glasses that the government had not done so far. "This was an occasion when the top cop should have taken responsibility," she added.
Photograph by Chris Elmenhurst, Surf the Spot Photography
“Strandings have been taking place with increased frequency along the west coast over the past ten years,” noted NOAA’s Field, “as this population of squid seems to be expanding its range—likely a consequence of climate change—and can be very abundant at times.” (Learn about other jumbo squid strandings.)
Humboldt squid are typically found in warmer waters farther south in theGulf of California (map) and off the coast ofPeru. “[But] we find them up north here during warmer water time periods,” said ocean sciences researcherKenneth Bruland with the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).
Coastal upwelling—when winds blowing south drive ocean circulation to bring cold, nutrient-rich waters up from the deep—ceases during the fall and winter and warmer water is found closer to shore. Bruland noted that climate change, and the resulting areas of low oxygen, “could be a major factor” in drawing jumbo squid north.
Published December 24, 2012
A convicted killer, who shot dead two firefighters with a Bushmaster assault rifle after leading them into an ambush when they responded to a house fire he set in Western New York, left behind a typewritten note saying he wanted to "do what I like doing best, killing people," police said.
William Spengler, 62, set his home and a car on fire early Monday morning with the intention of setting a trap to kill firefighters and to see "how much of the neighborhood I can burn down," according to the note he wrote and which police found at the scene. The note did not give a reason for his actions.
Spengler, who served 18 years in prison for beating his 92-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer in 1981, hid Monday morning in a small ditch beside a tree overlooking the sleepy lakeside street in Webster, N.Y., where he lived with his sister, police said today in a news conference.
Police said they found remains in the house, believed to be that of the sister, Cheryl Spengler, 67.
As firefighters arrived on the scene after a 5:30 a.m. 911 call on the morning of Christmas Eve, Spengler opened fire on them with the Bushmaster, the same semi-automatic, military-style weapon used in the Dec. 14 rampage killing of 20 children in Newtown, Conn.
"This was a clear ambush on first responders… Spengler had armed himself heavily and taken area of cover," said Gerald Pickering, the chief of the Webster Police Department.
Armed with a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver, a Mossman 12-gauge shotgun, and the Bushmaster, Spengler killed two firefighters, and injured two more as well as an off-duty police officer at the scene.
As a convicted felon, Spengler could not legally own a firearm and police are investigating how he obtained the weapons.
One firefighter tried to take cover in his fire engine and was killed with a gunshot through the windshield, Pickering said.
Responding police engaged in a gunfight with Spengler, who ultimately died, likely by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
As police engaged the gunman, more houses along Lake Ontario were engulfed, ultimately razing seven of them. Some 33 people in adjoining homes were displaced by the fire.
SWAT teams were forced to evacuate residents using armored vehicles.
Police identified the two slain firefighter as Lt. Michael Chiapperini, a 20-year veteran of the Webster Police Department and "lifetime firefighter," according to Pickering, and Tomasz Kaczowka, who also worked as a 911 dispatcher.
Two other firefighters were wounded and remain the intensive care unit at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y.
Joseph Hofsetter was shot once. He sustained an injury to his pelvis and has "a long road to recovery," said Dr. Nicole A. Stassen, a trauma physician.
The second firefighter, Theodore Scardino, was shot twice and received injuries to his left shoulder and left lung, as well as a knee.
WASHINGTON: A son of late political icon Edward Kennedy said Monday he will not run for the US Senate in Massachusetts -- the same state his father represented for nearly five decades -- US media reported.
Edward Kennedy Jr's brother, former US representative Patrick Kennedy, had said over the weekend that the health care lawyer was seriously considering running for the US Senate seat that John Kerry will vacate if he is confirmed as secretary of state.
But Kennedy Jr, who lives in neighboring Connecticut, denied in a statement that he was seeking public office in Massachusetts.
"Although I have a strong desire to serve in public office, I consider Connecticut to be my home, and I hope to have the honor to serve at another point in my future," the 51-year-old said in the text cited by CNN.
Kennedy, who also owns a house at his family's compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, said he was "extremely grateful for all the offers of support" of a potential run, and left the door open to running "at another point in my future."
A source familiar with his decision said Kennedy had ruled out a run because he did not want to uproot his family, did not feel right about moving from Connecticut to Massachusetts to run for the seat and Connecticut officials have urged him to stay for a later political campaign there, according to the Globe.
"He really wants to run," an unnamed family friend told CNN. "He just thinks this isn't the way to do it. Uprooting his family right now doesn't make sense."
If Kennedy had run, he likely would have had to face outgoing Republican Senator Scott Brown, who was defeated last month in his bid to be re-elected to the seat left vacant when the late Edward Kennedy died in 2009.
Just six weeks after Democratic consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren defeated Brown in the November election, President Barack Obama nominated Kerry on Friday to be his secretary of state.
If Kerry is confirmed in the post, Brown is expected to vie for his Senate seat. Among Democrats, US Representatives Michael Capuano and Ed Markey have hinted at a possible run.
-AFP/ac
The responsibility for the job has been vested in National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC), the nodal agency to coordinate cyber security operations for critical infrastructures across the country. NCIIPC has prepared a five-year plan to completely revamp and integrate the cyber security apparatus of all critical infrastructure such as power, transportation, water, telecommunication and defence.
The agency, which is soon to be notified, further plans to set up sectoral Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) that will be connected to it. It will install sensors on all critical systems to give real-time information to its command and control centre about any cyber attack to formulate quick response.
The government has also defined clear mandates for NCIIPC and CERT-IN, which is also engaged in cyber security of national infrastructure. NCIIPC will only look after absolutely critical sectors that have high threat perception coupled with greater dependence on computer and information technology (CIT), while other sectors will be with CERT-IN. These sectors (with NCIIPC) have been identified as energy (power, coal, oil and natural gas), transportation (railways and civil aviation), banking and finance, telecom, defence, space, law enforcement and security.
Functioning under the aegis of National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), NCIIPC last Monday also organized the first national conference of chief information security officers (CISO) of critical sectors of the government.
Sources said this is part of the step to first create awareness and ensure setting up of a robust security system in all critical government agencies at their own level. The task has been divided into five phases. Once agencies set up their security infrastructure, it will be connected to NCIIPC.
"There are plans to open a Cyber Security Operation Centre, a 24/7 control room for real-time information and response and a National Institute of Critical Information Infrastructure Protection for training of CISOs. We will also issue daily cyber alerts," said NCIIPC director Muktesh Chander in a presentation.
Sources said this infrastructure will ensure that NCIIPC gets real-time information as soon as a cyber attack happens on any network, can quickly analyze different attacks and provide immediate response. "If the same virus attacks different systems, we will not have to analyze them separately and formulate different responses," said an official.
National security advisor Shivshankar Menon, who addressed the gathering, stressed on participation of the private sector and said, "The NCIIPC is setting up a joint working group with representatives of industry associations to bring out guidelines for protection of critical information infrastructure in India."
Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute
Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.
Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.
"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.
For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.
The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.
The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.
Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."
Published December 21, 2012
A man who served nearly 17 years in jail for killing his grandmother set a house and car on fire this morning in upstate New York and then began shooting at emergency personnel who showed up, killing two firefighters, police said.
In all, William Spengler, 62, shot four firefighters, killing two and severely injuring two more after setting his "trap," police said.
An off-duty police officer from Greece, N.Y., who responded to the scene early in the morning of Christmas Eve also was injured today.
"It was a trap," said Webster, N.Y., Police Chief Gerald L. Pickering, "set by Mr. Spengler who laid in wait and shot first responders."
Spengler, who was released from prison in 1998, was found dead at the scene following a shootout with police. He was believed to have killed himself with a bullet to the head.
As a convicted felon, Spengler would not have been allowed to own guns legally. Police were working to determine the types of weapons he used and how he obtained them, Pickering said.
Spengler was convicted of manslaughter in 1981 for "beating his 92-year-old grandmother with a hammer," according to state prison documents.
Several weapons were used, Pickering said, and, "probably a rifle was used to inflict wounds of the first responders.
"I know many people are going to be asking if they were assault rifles," Pickering said
There has been a week-long national debate about such weapons after one was used in a tragic school shooting in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14.
Four firefighters, two on a ladder truck and two more in their own vehicles, responded to 911 calls around 5:30 a.m. Monday morning. Spengler is believed to have hidden behind an elevated berm, shooting down on the firefighters and later police.
"Upon arrival, all [the firefighters] drew fire. All four were shot on the scene," Pickering said. "One was able to flee the scene. The other three were pinned down."
Police believe Spengler's sister may have been inside the home, and that he set it on fire.
The blaze spread, engulfing three nearby homes and damaging three more on a sleepy street next to Lake Ontario that police described as a quiet vacation community. The fire was not put under control until late this afternoon.
SWAT team officers used an armored personnel carrier to evacuate 33 residents from homes in the area.
Among the dead firefighters was Lt. Michael Chiapperini, a 20-year veteran of the Webster Police Department and "lifetime firefighter," according to Pickering. Chiapperini was a spokesman for the police department, ABC News affiliate WHAM reported.
Police identified the other firefighter killed as Tomasz Kaczowka, who also worked as a 911 dispatcher.
The chief, choking up, called the incident that shattered the quiet before 6 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning "terrible."
"People get up in the middle of the night to fight fires," he said. "They don't expect to get shot and killed."
Two surviving firefighters were in the intensive care unit at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. Both men were awake and breathing on their own after surgery and were in what doctors are calling "guarded condition."
Joseph Hofsetter was shot once. He sustained an injury to his pelvis and has "a long road to recovery," said Dr. Nicole A. Stassen, a trauma physician.
The second firefighter, Theodore Scardino, was shot twice and received injuries to his left shoulder and left lung, as well as a knee.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo released a statement calling the attack a "senseless act of violence" and the first responders "true heroes."
It takes a calculator and perhaps the rigor of Sherlock Holmes to cut through the partisan rhetoric about President Obama’s first-term record on judicial nominations. But the bottom line is clear enough.
There are more vacancies on the federal courts now than when Obama took office nearly four years ago. And he is the first president in generations to fail to put a nominee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the second most influential court in the land and traditionally a training ground for Supreme Court justices.
Obama has, of course, left his mark on the high court by nominating Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Their confirmations leave those two seats for decades in liberal hands, and marked a historic diversification of the court.
But, depending on what the Senate does in these final days,Obama’s record on the rest of the federal judiciary will show one more opening on the nation’s powerful 13 courts of appeal than when he took office, and more than a dozen additional vacant district court judgeships.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) blames Senate Republicans for foot-dragging on nominees that he says are utterly uncontroversial.
“These delays mean that the Senate will, again, be needlessly forced to devote the first several months of next year confirming judges who could and should have been confirmed the previous year,” Leahy said earlier this month.
He added that the increase in vacancies “is bad for our federal courts and for the American people who depend on them for justice.”
Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s ranking Republican, responds that the Senate has confirmed at least as many as were approved during President George W. Bush’s first term. “The continued complaints we hear about how unfairly this president has been treated are unfounded,” he said.
Russell Wheeler, a judicial scholar at the Brookings Institution, has taken a more detached look at the process. “There is so much propaganda out there,” Wheeler says. “It’s almost as if they are speaking different languages.”
Wheeler’s conclusion: “The contentiousness that affected President William Clinton’s and President George W. Bush’s efforts to appoint judges to the courts of appeals did not appear to worsen during Obama’s first term, but battles have heated up over district nominations.”
Drastically increased delays in confirming district court judges are part of the reason for the higher vacancy rates, Wheeler said, but the Obama administration is responsible for sending up fewer nominees and taking longer to do it.
District judges are at the first tier of the federal judiciary; they decide individual cases and their decisions do not create precedent for other judges. In the past, confirmation of district judges was seen as somewhat routine.
But that has changed, Wheeler said, with longer wait times and more contested votes. The average time from nomination to confirmation for a Clinton district judge was about three months. That grew to 154 days for a Bush nominee, Wheeler said, compared to 223 days for Obama’s choices.
JERUSALEM: Israel's ex-foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, who quit this month after being charged with breach of trust five weeks ahead of a general election, may have the charges against him toughened, the justice ministry said Sunday.
Media reports said police will question Lieberman, head of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, this week in an inquiry relating to the promotion of Zeev Ben Arieh, Israel's former ambassador to Belarus.
"The media have published testimony by several anonymous sources on the process in the heart of the nominations committee of the foreign ministry," the justice ministry said in a statement.
"From the testimony, it is possible that Lieberman is implicated in promoting the ambassador to a level higher than that cited on the charge sheet," it said.
Israel's attorney general charged Lieberman on December 13 with fraud and breach of trust, but dropped more serious allegations.
"Before any final decision is taken on the charge, it has been decided to allow Mr Lieberman to respond to the new information that has been collected," the ministry statement added.
Lieberman, 54, stepped down on December 14, saying he would fight the charges and could return to the political scene in time for the January 22 election.
Yisrael Beitenu is fighting the general election on a joint list with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party.
The latest polls put the joint list far ahead of the opposition, and the question is not whether Netanyahu will lead the next parliament, but how many seats the joint list will ultimately win.
Lieberman has faced several investigations since 1996 on a number of fraud and corruption allegations but has never been convicted over them.
The Soviet-born former bouncer has courted controversy with his hardline stance on Israel's Arab minority, with critics accusing him of racism.
- AFP/jc
Mayawati also demanded passage of the bill on quota in promotions for SCs/STs in the same session.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the BSP chief sought a special session to amend laws relating to crime against women to provide for stringent punishment.
As public outrage over Nirbhaya grew, BJP asked the government to convene an all-party meeting and also reiterated its demand for a special session of Parliament.
BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said she had urged home minister Sushilkumar Shinde to convene an all-party meet to "resolve the current situation" that has arisen after the brutal rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus last week. Shinde, however, ruled out Swaraj's demand for a special session.
Swaraj had on Saturday urged the PM to convene Parliament to amend the existing law to provide death sentence for heinous crimes against women.
Referring to Nirbhaya's case, Mayawati said such incidents were on the rise across the country, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi. She targeted the Akhilesh Yadav government, blaming the SP regime for the poor law and order situation in UP. "There have been 1,500 cases of rape in UP in the last nine months," she said.
Seeking protection of women, Mayawati recalled that several leaders had supported amending the existing laws dealing with crime against women to make them more stringent.
Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute
Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.
Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.
"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.
For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.
The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.
The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.
Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."
Published December 21, 2012
National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre fired back at his critics today, defending his proposal to put armed guards in every school in the country as a way to prevent future tragedies like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that took the lives of 20 children and six adults.
"If it's crazy to call for armed officers in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," the head of the powerful gun lobby said today on NBC's "Meet the Press."
LaPierre and the NRA came under harsh criticism this week for their response to the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.
After keeping silent for a week, except for a release announcing that the organization would make "meaningful contributions" to the search for answers to the problem of gun violence, LaPierre held what critics described as a "tone deaf" press conference in which he blamed the media, video games and Hollywood for the recent shootings, and suggested that the answer to gun violence was more guns.
Gun control advocates argue that a federal assault weapons ban is necessary to curbing gun violence. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who helped pass an assault weapons ban in 1996 is renewing efforts to pass similar legislation as the original ban expired in 2004.
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images
"I think that is a phony piece of legislation and I do not believe it will pass for this reason: it's all built on lies," LaPierre said today.
LaPierre and many pro-gun advocates like him argue that assault weapons bans aren't effective and that violent criminals are solely to blame.
INFOGRAPHIC: Guns in America: By The Numbers
In today's interview, LaPierre pointed out that the Columbine High School shooting occurred after the assault weapons ban passed, but he failed to mention that the shooters obtained the guns they used illegally though a gun show.
He also did not discuss the fact that there was an armed guard on duty at the school when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people there before killing themselves.
Several senators watching LaPierre's interview had strong reactions.
"He says the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. What about stopping the bad guy from getting the gun in the first place?" said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was also on the show, said that he open to discussing increased school security but warned against a quick rush to ban assault weapons.
"I don't suggest we ban every movie with a gun in it and every video that's violent and I don't suggest that you take my right buy an AR-15 away from me because I don't think it will work," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he didn't think having armed guards in schools was a good idea, though the Republican said he was "not commenting on the NRA proposal in particular."
"I am not someone who believes that having multiple, armed guards, in every school, is something that will enhance the learning environment, and that is our first responsibility inside a school, is the learning environment, you don't want to make this an armed camp for kids, I don't think that is a positive example for children," he said. "We should be able to figure out some other ways to enhance safety."
Earlier this week protesters from the group "Code Pink" snuck into the NRA press conference and held up a sign that read "NRA Blood on Your Hand."
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