As I?ve done for the past seven years, I?ll wish all Lines and Colors readers a Happy New Year with more Saturday Evening Post covers by J.C. Leyendecker, the great American illustrator who originated the modern tradition of representing the new year as a baby.
My your new year be filled with beautiful art!
Source: http://www.linesandcolors.com/2012/12/31/happy-leyendecker-baby-new-year-2013/
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FILE - In this June 10, 2011 file photo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton waves as the arrives at Lusaka International Airport in Lusaka, Zambia. Clinton has been admitted to a New York hospital after the discovery of a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month. Spokesman Philippe Reines says her doctors discovered the clot during a follow-up exam Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool, File)
FILE - In this June 10, 2011 file photo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton waves as the arrives at Lusaka International Airport in Lusaka, Zambia. Clinton has been admitted to a New York hospital after the discovery of a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month. Spokesman Philippe Reines says her doctors discovered the clot during a follow-up exam Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was admitted to a New York hospital Sunday after the discovery of a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month.
Clinton's doctors discovered the clot Sunday while performing a follow-up exam, her spokesman, Philippe Reines, said. He would not elaborate on the location of the clot but said Clinton is being treated with anti-coagulants and would remain at New York-Presbyterian Hospital for at least the next 48 hours so doctors can monitor the medication.
"Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion," Reines said in a statement. "They will determine if any further action is required."
Clinton, 65, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from a stomach virus that left her severely dehydrated. The concussion was diagnosed Dec. 13 and Clinton was forced to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East that had been planned for the next week.
The seriousness of a blood clot "depends on where it is," said Dr. Gholam Motamedi, a neurologist at Georgetown University Medical Center who was not involved in Clinton's care.
Clots in the legs are a common risk after someone has been bedridden, as Clinton may have been for a time after her concussion. Those are "no big deal" and are treated with six months of blood thinners to allow them to dissolve on their own and to prevent further clots from forming, he said.
A clot in a lung or the brain is more serious. Lung clots, called pulmonary embolisms, can be deadly, and a clot in the brain can cause a stroke, Motamedi said.
Keeping Clinton in the hospital for a couple of days could allow doctors to perform more tests to determine why the clot formed, and to rule out a heart problem or other condition that may have led to it, he said.
Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center, said blood can pool on the surface of the brain or in other areas of the brain after a concussion, but those would not be treated with blood thinners, as Clinton's aide described.
Clinton was forced to cancel Dec. 20 testimony before Congress about a scathing report into the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The report found that serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed.
Some conservative commentators suggested Clinton was faking the seriousness of her illness and concussion to avoid testifying, although State Department officials vehemently denied that was the case.
Lawmakers at the hearings ? including Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed Clinton ? offered her their best wishes.
Last Thursday, before the discovery of the blood clot, Reines said Clinton was expected to return to work this week.
The former first lady and senator, who had always planned to step down as America's top diplomat in January, is known for her grueling travel schedule. She is the most traveled secretary of state in history, having visited 112 countries while in the job.
Clinton is considered a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, although she has not announced plans to run.
___
AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
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LA GRANDE, Ore. (AP) ? A tour bus crash crashed Sunday on an icy stretch of interstate in Oregon, killing five people and injuring about 20 others, authorities said.
Police say the bus lost control around 10:30 a.m. on the snow- and ice-covered lanes of Interstate 84 in eastern Oregon. The bus crashed through a guardrail and went down an embankment a few hundred feet.
Rescue workers were using ropes to help retrieve people from the crash scene. State police said the charter bus was carrying about 40 people, but they did not say where the vehicle was traveling to or from.
The bus crash was the second fatal accident in Oregon on Sunday morning due to icy conditions. A 69-year-old man died in a rollover accident
State police have not released information on the company that owns the bus.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/5-killed-oregon-tour-bus-crash-84-215107655.html
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Their article on running team workshops caught our eye today. It includes some great tips on designing workshops and guides for team-building games or activities.
Here is a general synopsis but please read the article yourself for clarification.
Workshops combine training, development, team-building, communications, motivation and planning. Participation and involvement of staff increases the sense of ownership and empowerment, and facilitates the development of organisations and individuals. Workshops are effective in managing change and achieving improvement, and particularly the creation of initiatives, plans, process and actions to achieve particular business and organisational aims. Workshops are also great for breaking down barriers, improving communications inside and outside of departments, and integrating staff after acquisition or merger?
Workshops are an extremely flexible and effective method for training, learning, development, change management, team building and problem solving, and virtually any organizational challenge. You can actually run any sort of workshop you want ? your options are as wide as your imagination and certainly not limited to off-the-shelf or tried and tested formats?
? Read about Fun Team Building Activities
Source: http://www.itsaknockouthire.co.uk/workshops-team-building-motivation-performance
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HTC's HD2 may have begun life as just another Windows Mobile 6.5 handset, but its surprisingly hardy internals enable it to run almost any mobile OS going. The latest software to appear on the three-year-old device is Windows RT, which was jammed onto the system by a developer called Cotulla -- who previously put Windows Phone 7 on the same unit. While we imagine it's not that comfortable to use on the HD2's 4.3-inch screen, we can imagine some superheroes are now scouring eBay for a similarly immortal smartphone.
[Image Credit: Cotulla]
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Microsoft, HTC
Via: GSM Arena
Source: Cotulla (Twitter), (2), (3)
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/yTW2UD_ul5Y/
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Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=53753
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In his speech at the memorial service for the Newtown victims, President Barack Obama included mental health in calling for a national response to the massacre, a conversation that so far has focused on gun control. "I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens -- from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators -- in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this," the president said.
Lat week, White House spokesman Jay Carney pointed to the federal health law as evidence that the administration has already started to tackle the issue. Mental health issues are "clearly a factor that needs to be addressed in some of these cases of horrific violence," Carney said.?"Obamacare, if you will, has ensured that mental health services are a part of the services" provided under the health law.
Insurance coverage for mental health treatment has long been spotty. More than a?quarter of U.S. adults have a diagnosable mental health problem in any given year, but?fewer than half receive treatment. While the Affordable Care Act, along with the Mental Health Parity Act of 2008, goes a long way toward assuring coverage for most Americans, some gaps persist.?There are questions, for example, about just what counts as equivalent treatment under the parity law, and whether it's being fully enforced.?
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about mental health coverage:
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, signed into law in 2008,?made a big dent in the problem of mental health coverage.
Under that law, employers with more than 50 workers that include mental health services in their insurance plans were barred from covering them at a lower level than other medical conditions. That means that the plans could not provide fewer inpatient hospital days or require higher out-of-pocket costs, more cost sharing or separate deductibles for mental health conditions.
An estimated 140 million Americans were expected to benefit from the changes. But Paul N. Samuels, director and president of the Legal Action Center, says that some people still aren't receiving equal coverage, and the law is not always enforced. "That's a problem we're really concerned about," he says.
And while the law guaranteed parity for employees of companies that chose to offer mental health coverage, the law didn't require employers to offer such coverage. Even so, in 2012, 85 percent of employers offered some form of mental health benefits, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
Mental health coverage under small business and individual market plans was not included in the Parity Act. In short, whether you have mental health coverage in an employer-sponsored insurance plan depends on where you work.
Employers with 50 or more workers can continue to not offer the benefits. But small group and individual plans?will be required to offer the coverage in 2014 through online exchanges created under the law.
All plans sold in the exchanges will be required to provide coverage for mental health and substance abuse as one of 10 essential benefit categories. That coverage must also comply with the?parity laws already required for large employers. The exchanges will be open to individuals and small businesses.
The same rules will apply to small group and individual plans purchased outside of the exchange.
This means that beginning in 2014, if you, or your small employer, are purchasing any new insurance plan, coverage will include mental health benefits on par with any other medical condition. It?s not clear what exactly will be covered ? for example, group home and residential treatment outside of a hospital.
If you earn less than?138 percent of the?federal poverty level (about $32,809 for a family of four), you may be newly eligible for Medicaid coverage in 2014. Like people who purchase coverage through the exchange, new Medicaid beneficiaries will receive mental health benefits on par with other medical or surgical needs.
That coverage is less robust than the current traditional Medicaid coverage offered by states, says Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. That's because most states offer mental health benefits for Medicaid recipients that are more generous than the coverage offered by commercial insurance plans. But the new Medicaid benefits will be modeled on and measured against private insurance purchased by small businesses now.
Mathis says, however, that it will likely be difficult for states to maintain two parallel Medicaid programs, one for current beneficiaries and a second for the newly eligible. She hopes that most will choose to offer all Medicaid recipients the more robust benefits instead.
The ACA has several other provisions that will affect mental health coverage and treatment.
The Prevention and Public Health Fund created by the law, for example, includes $35 million to integrate primary care and mental health care, $10 million to train and recruit mental health professionals, and an additional $53 million in mental health screening, surveillance, and suicide prevention funds.
The ACA?also requires that plans offer depression screening for adults without a copayment, co-insurance or a deductible.
While the ACA "provides enormous potential and opportunity to make sure than many millions more Americans obtain the services they need," says Samuels, "that will only happen if the implementation of those reforms is effective." Samuels worries that the rules from HHS will not be clear or strong enough to make the parity laws meaningful. He also worries about getting everyone who is eligible for coverage enrolled, particularly those with severe mental health disorders who be may homeless or living on the fringes of society.
In addition, governors in several Republican states have said that they will not expand Medicaid, leeway they were given by the Supreme Court's health law decision in June. That could leave many Americans without any form of insurance coverage, including mental health benefits.
Access to treatment will likely also remain a serious stumbling block. States have cut $4.35 billion in public mental health spending from 2009? to 2012, a trend that is likely to continue over the next several years, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. At the same time, the system has seen nearly a 10 percent increase in usage.
As many as 30 million people are expected to gain insurance coverage beginning in 2014. Of those, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration?estimates that 6 to 10 million will have untreated mental illnesses or addiction, adding additional demands to a system that is already overwhelmed. Patients may experience long wait times to see a psychiatrist, for example, and may require additional investments to expand the mental health workforce.
"I think there will be initial period where you may see folks with mental health coverage waiting longer than they'd like to get care," says Joel Miller, senior director of policy and health care reform at the state mental health program directors group.
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HONG KONG (Reuters) - The discovery that a protein which triggers milk production in women may also be responsible for making breast cancers aggressive could open up new opportunities for treatment of the most common and deadliest form of cancer among women.
Found in all breast cells, the protein ELF5 tries to activate milk production even in breast cancer cells, which does not work and then makes the cancer more aggressive, according to scientists in Australia and Britain.
"The discovery opens up new avenues for therapy and for designing new markers that can predict response to therapy," said lead author Professor Chris Ormandy from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney.
In 2008, Ormandy's work linked ELF5 to milk production.
The latest research by Ormandy and his team, published in the journal PLOS Biology on Friday, went a step further to find the link between ELF5 and breast cancer.
"Cancer cells can't respond properly (to ELF5), so they ... acquire some characteristics ... that make the disease more aggressive and more refractory (resistant) to treatment with existing therapies," Ormandy said by telephone.
Ormandy and his team grew human breast cancer tissues, genetically manipulated to contain high amounts of ELF5, in petri dishes and saw how the protein proliferated aggressively.
FINDINGS MAY HELP TARGETED THERAPY
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the top cause of cancer death among women, accounting for 23 percent of total cancer cases and 14 percent of cancer deaths in women.
To decide on treatment, doctors normally need to find out if the cancer has receptors for the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which, in the case of breast cancer patients, promote growth in their tumors.
Two-thirds of breast cancers are usually positive for estrogen receptors, which then require anti-hormonal therapies that lower estrogen levels in the patient or block estrogen from supporting the growth of the cancer.
For the remaining one-third of patients, their cancers do not have receptors, which means they won't benefit from hormonal therapies. Such patients are usually given other treatments, such as chemotherapy.
Ormandy's team found that cancers with these receptors had low levels of ELF5, while those without receptors had significantly higher levels of the protein.
"What we have shown in this paper is high ELF5 tumors are dependent on ELF5 for their proliferation and if we block ELF5 in high ELF5 tumors, we will block proliferation and that will treat the tumor," Ormandy said.
"If we can develop a drug that targets ELF5, it will be very useful for that group of women," he said.
(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Paul Tait)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/study-links-milk-producing-protein-aggressive-breast-cancer-061438626.html
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Hear the heartwarming story behind Barack and Michelle's famous photo.
On election night, the image of Barack and Michelle Obama embracing after his victory warmed hearts across the country. After the president tweeted it, the viral hug became the most shared photo in Facebook and Twitter history.
Now the first couple is sharing the story behind one of the most iconic, love-filled images of 2012, along with the secrets to their successful marriage, in an interview with Barbara Walters.?
More from YourTango: RIP Jack Klugman: 3 Love Lessons From 'The Odd Couple'
Watch the president and First Lady dish on their love in this video at Huffington Post Good News:?Barack, Michelle Obama Describe The Hug Shared Around The World On Election Night.
More from Huffington Post Good News:
?
Source: http://www.yourtango.com/2012169034/obamas-share-story-behind-hug
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Your child?s success in life has a lot to do with you, but it also has to do with the school he or she attended. Private schools and public, were usually the main option from which most people thought they could choose. Today, some may choose an independent school as well, which is a college prep style of school.
The school you choose for your children is ultimately up to you. You know your children best, so you might know what type of school might be the best fit. If your child struggles academically, then a public school might be an option for them if the school you are considering has a special education program. Some private schools may also help a child who is behind more than most. A college prep school however, may not be the best choice. The focus of this type of school is on a child preparing for college. Although children with special needs can go to college, another school might be more of an encouragement in that direction.
Private schools come in all shapes and sizes. Some are parochial and are a school that is attached and associated with a local church. Others might simply be a school that is not funded by the state. It does not have to have any religious associations.
A privately run school may not offer financial aid. That is one of the differences between an independent school and one that is privately run. One that is independent may have the resources to get financial aid for your child to attend the school. Other significant differences may be in the academic goals; although they may also agree in this area. It will really depend on the school.
If your child struggles in the public school for various reasons and is looking for a smaller setting, then private schools might be that solution. Before making a decision on one school, you should include your kids in the decision. Take a trip to the various places and have the kids sit for the day in each one. By the end, they should know their preference. If you are allowed, you may want to observe a few classes as well.
School has changed a great deal over the years. What was once mostly academic has now become a multi-faceted culture that includes academics, athletics, and social situations. There is nothing wrong with teaching through real-life experiences, but it is important to be balanced in the right direction. Private schools may offer that balance that your child needs.
Interested in learning more about private schools in Florida? If so, please visit http://www.steds.org for more information.
Source: http://www.articlesrx.com/looking-at-private-schools-for-your-children/10124
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A new type of machine could rival quantum computers in exceeding the power of classical computers, researchers say.
Quantum computers?rely on the bizarre properties of atoms and the other construction blocks of the universe. The world is a fuzzy place at its very smallest levels ? in this realm where?quantum physics?dominates, things can seemingly exist in two places at once or spin in opposite directions at the same time.
The new computers rely on "boson" particles, and resemble quantum computers, which differ from traditional computers in important ways. Normal computers represent data as ones and zeroes, binary digits known as bits that are expressed by flicking switch-like transistors on or off. Quantum computers, however, use quantum bits, or qubits (pronouced "cue-bits"), that can be on and off at the same time, a state known as "superposition."
This allows the machines to carry out two calculations simultaneously. Quantum physics permits such behavior because it allows for particles that can exist in two places at once or spin in opposite directions at the same time.?[Experiment Demonstrates Possibility of Quantum Internet]
Flash interactive: How quantum computers work
In principle, quantum computers could solve certain problems much faster than can?classical computers, because the quantum machines could run through every possible combination at once. A quantum computer with 300 qubits could run more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the universe.
However, keeping qubits in superposition is challenging, and the problem grows more difficult as more qubits are involved. As such, building quantum computers that are more powerful than classical computers has proven very difficult.
Now, though, two independent teams of scientists have built a novel kind of device known as a boson-sampling computer. Described as a bridge between classical and quantum computers, these machines also make use of the bizarre nature of quantum physics. Although boson-sampling computers theoretically offer less power than quantum computers are capable of producing, the machines should still, in principle, out-perform classical computers in certain problems.
In addition, a boson-sampling computer does not require qubits. As such, "it's technologically far simpler to create than building a full-scale quantum computer," said researcher Matthew Broome, a quantum physicist at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Boson-sampling computers are actually a specialized kind of quantum computer (which is known more formally as a universal quantum computer).
"The main difference between boson-sampling computers and universal quantum computers is that boson-sampling quantum computers can't solve a universal set of problems like universal quantum computers can," Broome said. "But they are still conjectured to be able to solve problems that would be massively intractable for classical computers. Boson sampling computers are an intermediate model of a quantum computer."
Boson-sampling computers are not based on qubits, but on particles called?bosons. "In our case, we use photons," said researcher Ian Walmsley, a quantum physicist at the University of Oxford in England. Photons are the packets of energy that make up light, and are one type of boson.
Gallery: What the heck is a boson?
Broome and Walmsley were in separate groups that each devised a boson-sampling computer, based off concepts first described by theoretical computer scientist Scott Aaronson at MIT. The computers involve multiple devices that can each generate single photons. The photons are inserted into a network where they can interact with one another. They emerge from outputs equipped with sensors to analyze the particles.
The task of calculating which outputs these photons will emerge from, an operation known as boson sampling, grows well beyond the capabilities of classical computers the more photons are involved. The new computers accurately resolved what paths the photons would take ? three photons with Broome and his colleagues' machine and four in Walmsley and his collaborators' device.
Since boson-sampling computing is in its infancy, it remains uncertain whether these computers can solve problems beyond boson sampling. Still, this research suggests that computers based on quantum physics could indeed tackle problems beyond the reach of classical computers.
Year in Science: Higgs boson takes the prize
Previously, there was nothing to say "that anything you can do on a quantum computer you can't do on a normal computer, which leaves in question the necessity for quantum computers," Broome said. "Now, with boson sampling, we're coming up with machines based on quantum physics that can attack problems strongly believed to be intractable for classical computers."
In the future, "it would be great to push these computers toward more photons to tackle problems that would be challenging to simulate on normal computers," study coauthor Walmsley added. Using about 20 to 30 photons would?be a problem?beyond the capabilities of classical computers.
Both research teams detailed their findings online Dec. 20 in the journal Science.
Copyright 2012?InnovationNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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In this image made from video broadcast on Al Arabiya TV late Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012, Syrian Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Jassem al-Shallal makes remarks saying he is joining "the people's revolution." The general who heads Syria's military police has defected and joined the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime, one of the highest walkouts by a serving security chief during the country's 21-month uprising, a pan Arab TV station has reported.(AP Photo/Al Arabiya via AP video)TV OUT NO SALES
In this image made from video broadcast on Al Arabiya TV late Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012, Syrian Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Jassem al-Shallal makes remarks saying he is joining "the people's revolution." The general who heads Syria's military police has defected and joined the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime, one of the highest walkouts by a serving security chief during the country's 21-month uprising, a pan Arab TV station has reported.(AP Photo/Al Arabiya via AP video)TV OUT NO SALES
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syria's wounded interior minister rushed home from a Beirut hospital on Wednesday for fear he would be arrested after some Lebanese called to put him on trial for his role in a 1986 crackdown by Syrian troops in Lebanon.
In another blow to President Bashar Assad, his commander of military police defected.
The defector, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, is one of the most senior members of Assad's inner circle to join the opposition during the 21-month-old uprising against authoritarian rule. He appeared in a video aired on Al-Arabiya TV late Tuesday saying the army has been turned into a gang to kill and destroy.
Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar, wounded in a bombing of his ministry in Damascus, left a Beirut hospital before his treatment was finished and flew home to Damascus on a private jet, officials at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport said.
Al-Shaar was wounded on Dec. 12 when a suicide bomber exploded his vehicle outside the Interior Ministry, killing five and wounding many. He was brought to the hospital in neighboring Lebanon a week ago.
A top Lebanese security official told The Associated Press that al-Shaar was rushed out of Lebanon after authorities there received information that international arrest warrants could be issued against him because of his role in the crackdown against protesters in Syria.
Over the past week, some Lebanese officials and individuals have called for al-Shaar's arrest for his role in a 1986 crackdown in the northern city of Tripoli.
In the 1980s, al-Shaar was a top intelligence official in northern Lebanon when Syrian troops stormed Tripoli and crushed the Islamic Unification Movement ? a Sunni Muslim group that then supported former Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat. Hundreds of people were killed in the battles and since then, many in northern Lebanon have referred to al-Shaar as "the butcher of Tripoli."
The Lebanese security official said Lebanese citizens had also begun taking steps to sue al-Shaar for his role during Syria's military domination of Lebanon for decades. Lebanese are deeply divided over the Syria crisis.
Al-Shaar and other Syrian officials are also on a list of people subjected to European Union sanctions for violence against anti-regime protesters in Syria.
"Lebanese officials contacted Syrian authorities and that sped up his departure," said the security official, adding that a Lebanese medical team is expected to go to Damascus to continue al-Shaar's treatment there. "If such arrest warrants are issued, Lebanese judicial authorities will have to arrest him and this could be an embarrassment for the country," he said.
The airport and security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The Syrian government denied at first that al-Shaar was wounded. Then it emerged that he was brought to the Beirut hospital last week for treatment. It was the second time the minister was wounded in the civil war. He was also injured when a bomb went off on July 18 during a high-level crisis meeting in Damascus, killing four top security officials.
Lebanon and Syria have a long and bitter history.
Syrian forces moved into Lebanon in 1976 as peacekeepers after the country was swept into a civil war between Christian and Muslim militias. For nearly 30 years that followed, Lebanon lived under Syrian military and political domination.
That grip began to slip in 2005, when former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in Beirut. Syria was widely accused of involvement ? something it has always denied ? and Damascus was forced to withdraw its troops. Even so, Damascus has since maintained considerable power and influence in Lebanon.
Shortly after he arrived in Beirut for treatment last week, anti-Syrian politicians, including legislators Jamal Jarrah and Mohammed Kabbara, called for al-Shaar's arrest. Another call came this week, when Lebanese lawyer Tarek Shandab filed a complaint to the country's prosecution accusing al-Shaar of "genocide and ethnic cleansing" in Tripoli.
In another setback for the regime, the defection of the military police chief came as military pressure builds on the regime, with government bases falling to rebel assault near the capital Damascus and elsewhere across the country.
The defector al-Shallal appeared in a video aired on Al-Arabiya TV late Tuesday saying he is joining "the people's revolution."
Dozens of generals have defected since Syria's crisis began in March 2011. In July, Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass was the first member of Assad's inner circle to break ranks and join the opposition.
Al-Shallal is one of the most senior and held a top post at the time that he left. He said in the video that the "army has derailed from its basic mission of protecting the people and it has become a gang for killing and destruction." He accused the military of "destroying cities and villages and committing massacres against our innocent people who came out to demand freedom."
Thousands of Syrian soldiers have defected over the past 21 months and many of them are now fighting against government forces. Many have cited attacks on civilians as the reason they switched sides. Anti-regime activists estimate more than 40,000 have died in the past 21 months.
In violence on Wednesday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government shelling in the northeastern province of Raqqa killed at least 20 people, including eight children, three women and nine others. An agricultural area near the village of Qahtaniyeh was hit by the shelling.
An amateur video showed the bodies of a dozen people including children lying in a row inside a room. Some of them had blood on their clothes, while weeping could be heard in the background.
The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.
Also Wednesday, activists said rebels were attacking the Wadi Deif military base in the northern province of Idlib. The base, which is near the strategic town of Maaret al-Numan, has been under siege for weeks.
In October, rebels captured Maaret al-Numan, a town on the highway that links the capital Damascus with Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a major battleground in the civil war since July.
The attack on Wadi Deif comes a day after rebels captured the town of Harem near the Turkish border. The rebels have captured wide areas and military posts in northern Syria over the past weeks.
In Lebanon, airport officials in Beirut said Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad and Assistant Foreign Minister Ahmad Arnous flew early Wednesday to Moscow.
Their visit to Moscow comes two days after Assad met in Damascus with Lakhdar Brahimi, the international envoy to Syria. Brahimi, who is scheduled to go to Moscow as well, gave no indication of progress toward a negotiated solution for the civil war.
Brahimi is still in Syria and met Tuesday with representatives of the opposition National Coordination Body, state-run news agency SANA said. The head of the group, Hassan Abdul-Azim, said Brahimi briefed them on his efforts to reach an "international consensus, especially between Russia and the United Stated to reach a solution."
NCB spokesman Rajaa al-Naser said his group said there must be an end to violence and formation of a "transitional government with full prerogatives."
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Freezing rain and sleet made for a sloppy Christmas trek in parts of the nation's midsection, while residents along the Gulf Coast faced thunderstorms, high winds and tornadoes that were doing damage in some areas.
Winds toppled a tree onto a pickup truck in the Houston area, killing the driver. Icy roads already were blamed for a 21-vehicle pileup in Oklahoma, where authorities warned would-be travelers to stay home.
Trees fell on a few houses in central Louisiana's Rapides Parish but there were no injuries reported so far and crews were cutting trees out of roadways to get to people in their homes, said sheriff's Lt. Tommy Carnline. Possible damage also was reported near McNeil, Miss.
Fog blanketed highways, including arteries in the Atlanta area where motorists slowed as a precaution. In New Mexico, drivers across the eastern plains had to fight through snow, ice and low visibility.
At least three tornadoes were reported in Texas, though only one building was damaged, according to the National Weather Service. Tornado watches were in effect across southern Louisiana and Mississippi.
More than 180 flights nationwide were canceled by midday, according to the flight tracker FlightAware.com. More than half were canceled by American Airlines and its regional affiliate, American Eagle.
American is headquartered and has its biggest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
Christmas lights also were knocked out with more than 70,000 people without power in east Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Meanwhile, blizzard conditions were possible for parts of Illinois, Indiana and western Kentucky with predictions of 4 to 7 inches of snow. Much of Oklahoma and Arkansas braced under a winter storm warning of an early mix of rain and sleet forecast to eventually turn to snow. About a dozen counties in Missouri were under a blizzard warning from Tuesday night to noon Wednesday.
Some mountainous areas of Arkansas' Ozark Mountains could get up to 10 inches of snow, which would make travel "very hazardous or impossible" in the northern tier of the state from near whiteout conditions, the National Weather Service said.
The holiday may conjure visions of snow and ice, but twisters this time of year are not unheard of. Ten storm systems in the last 50 years have spawned at least one Christmastime tornado with winds of 113 mph or more in the South, said Chris Vaccaro, a National Weather Service spokesman in Washington, via email.
The most lethal were the storms of Dec. 24-26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32; and those of Dec. 24-25, 1964, when two people were killed and about 30 people injured by 14 tornadoes in seven states.
Quarter-sized hail reported early Tuesday in western Louisiana was expected to be just the start of a severe weather threat on the Gulf Coast, said meteorologist Mike Efferson at the weather service office in Slidell, La.
Storms along the Gulf Coast could bring winds up to 70 mph, heavy rain, more large hail and dangerous lightning in Louisiana and Mississippi, Efferson said. Furthermore, warm, moist air colliding with a cold front could produce dangerous straight-line winds.
The storm was moving quickly as it headed into northeast Louisiana and Mississippi into the late afternoon and early evening, said Bill Adams at the weather service's Shreveport, La., office.
In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant urged residents to have a plan for any severe weather.
"It only takes a few minutes, and it will help everyone have a safe Christmas," Bryant said.
___
AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner in Washington and Associated Press Writer Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasty-storms-blamed-1-death-travel-tough-210855633--finance.html
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Q. ?I'm going home for the holidays, and my parents have a very slow connection. Do you have any tips for getting my work done effectively when everything's moving slower than molasses??
Separate your Internet-heavy work and postpone it?
A.?Before you start making tweaks to your browser and computer, it's a good idea to take stock of what work you have and separate it into two categories. GigaOM explains:
Divide your tasks into bandwidth-heavy and bandwidth-light. Evaluate your routine web tasks and see which ones you can do with a slow connection, and which ones require a faster, more reliable one. This is especially important if your mobile Internet provider charges based on bandwidth usage instead of time. Aliza Sherman did something similar in a previous post, to help her work around bandwidth limits.
This is particularly useful if you know you're going to be stuck on a slow connection, but even if you get yourself in a bind, you can still do some re-prioritization quickly. If you have some Internet-heavy tasks that can't wait, you should delegate them to someone else if you can???heck, even offer to pick up some of your co-workers' Internet-light load if they can help you out.
Tweak your browser for low-speed connections
Chances are, your browser isn't exactly primed for slow Internet speeds. So, we recommend grabbing a second browser that you can tweak to work better with slow connections. Opera is a great choice, because it has a Turbo Mode that optimizes the Web for faster loading, but no matter what, there are a number of tweaks you can make to speed up your browser, like:
With these few tweaks in place, you should find things run a little smoother and you won't be stuck waiting for pages quite as long.
Use mobile, HTML or other low-footprint sites
These days, a lot of websites load up their pages with junk that isn't really a problem when you have a normal high-speed connection, but can really bog things down when your connection is limited. Some of them have alternatives in place.?
Gmail, for example, has a handy HTML version that you can use to cut down on the crap when you need to get into your email quicker. You can also see if a specific site has a mobile version, designed for smartphones. Most mobile sites will only load if you're actually on a mobile device, though, so you'll want to change your browser's user agent to make sites recognize you as a smartphone.
Work outside your browser whenever possible
The?more you stay in your browser, the longer you'll be waiting for pages to load. Travel website Gadling recommends transferring as much of that work outside your browser as possible. For example, if you write on a blog or do any work in Google Docs, transfer that to a desktop app like Microsoft Office or LibreOffice for the time being. Heck, you can even compose an email in Notepad while you wait for it to load???don't waste any time watching a progress bar when you could be doing something else.
When you do have to work in your browser, try not to put too much stress on it. Open one tab at a time, so you aren't trying to load a bunch of pages at once (since it'll take them longer, and you can only read one at a time). Close tabs you aren't using often, as they can often take up bandwidth even if you aren't looking at them.
Turn off bandwidth-sucking background apps?
With all the focus on your browser, you may forget that other apps like Dropbox might be taking up precious bandwidth in the background. Close any and all of those you don't need to do your work, or put them into offline mode so they aren't constantly checking if they need to sync. Some apps may require some foresight for this to work: Notational Velocity and ResophNotes will work fine without a connection, for example, but Evernote will require you to go into its settings and download your notebooks before it'll work in offline mode.
When all else fails, find better Wi-Fi?
No one wants to rush around all day trying to find better Internet, but if what you're using is just too slow, look elsewhere. Free Wi-Fi is everywhere, and if at first you don't succeed, find a faster hotspot. You won't be able to do this all day if you have work to get done, but you should be able to find something that's somewhat workable for the time being.
More from Lifehacker:
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/how-deal-slow-internet-connection-away-home-1C7660214
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NEW YORK (AP) ? The price of oil fell slightly Monday during a quiet day at the world's energy markets.
Concerns over the political stalemate in Washington continue to be the focus of traders, with the price of U.S. benchmark oil down 24 cents to $88.42 a barrel in early trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
"With politicians out on recess, sovereign credit markets closed and a general lack of vigor in seasonal markets, there's not much to chew on today with crude oil prices edging lower in decidedly thin volume," said a report from Sucden Financial Research in London.
The average U.S. price for gasoline rose 1.5 cents over the weekend to $3.247 a gallon. The price is nearly two cents higher than a year ago.
In other energy futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange:
? Brent crude, used to price international varieties of oil, was down 59 cents to $108.38 a barrel.
? Natural gas was down 8 cents to $3.37 per 1,000 cubic feet.
? Heating oil was down 2 cents to $2.99 a gallon.
? Wholesale gasoline was unchanged at $2.72 a gallon.
___
Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.
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Most expect recognition for 'Les Mis' come Oscar time, like it or not.
By Ryan J. Downey
Anne Hathaway in "Les Miserables"
Photo: Universal
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699373/les-miserables-the-reviews-are-in.jhtml
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NEWTOWN, Connecticut (CNN) ? Grace McDonnell would write messages for her mother in the bathroom window.
On the first day without Grace, the bathroom fogged up and mom glanced at the window. And right there was a message from beyond the grave.
The little girl had drawn the peace sign, her favorite symbol. Above it was a heart with the words: ?Grace, Mom.?
?She was all about peace and gentleness and kindness,? said Lynn McDonnell.
Amazing, Grace. A girl who lived by the family?s mottos: ?Live for the moment? and ?Soak it in.?
The McDonnells are now part of a community bound together by the tragedy of what transpired at a Connecticut elementary school, joined by a nation that has grieved with them.
Yet amid the memories of that awful day in Newtown, signs of hope have emerged.
Gene Rosen won?t forget his connection. It?s touched his soul and made him believe more in God and angels again.
Rosen went out back to feed two of his cats shortly after 9:15 a.m. on December 14. His home sits on an acre of land on Riverside Road, with his backyard on a hill overlooking Sandy Hook Elementary.
That day, he heard staccato gunfire ? Boom! Boom! Boom! ? coming from the vicinity of the school. The retired psychologist convinced himself it was fireworks.
Andrei Nikitchyuk was working in his home office that morning. He received a robocall from the school that it was in lockdown. He didn?t think much of it ? the school recently had two lockdowns for false alarms: a suspicious car and bank robbery.
Inside the school, his son, Bear, walked down the hall with a friend toward the main office. Gunshots whizzed by.
Teacher Janet Vollmer huddled with her children away from doors and windows. Someone turned on the intercom system. The sound of gunfire and a woman crying was piped into every classroom.
Vollmer told her kids she loved them and began reading out loud.
A loss of innocence
It shattered a town and brought a president to tears. Twenty children ? all aged 6 and 7 ? were gunned down in the safest place they had ever known, their home away from home. Six educators died, too, hailed as heroes.
Never had an act of violence seemed so heinous, so horrifying in America. An attack on pure innocence at a school that symbolized peace and love.
Since then, residents of Newtown have been dealing with the arc of life in unimaginable ways ? of death and loss, of pain and suffering, of shock and horror, of beginning to heal.
Couples who settled here years ago had grown close to one another through their children and their schools. Teens in middle school had babysat the first-graders slain at Sandy Hook. Some teens had played on sports teams with siblings of the slain children; others attended dance class with sisters of girls killed at the school. College students, home for the holiday, saw the school they loved desecrated.
?I can?t even tell you how hard it is for these kids,? said Lillian Bittman, former chairwoman of the Newtown Board of Education. ?A lot of these kids have been here their whole lives. That?s why these connections are so strong.
?They?ve lost their childhood.?
Newtown?s Pastor Rocky Veach had been a preacher in Littleton, Colorado, when the Columbine shooting occurred. He said the biggest lesson he learned from the 1999 massacre was ?that a lot of things are going to pan out over the next months here, even years, and you will see God?s hand was in this, but you can?t see it now.?
Maybe it?s too soon, too difficult to imagine another reality further in the future. Right now, residents can only think of the town they once knew and how everything changed that Friday.
For most, the pain is just too fresh, the attack too senseless to comprehend.
In the wake of the massacre, Americans have begun looking at gun control and mental health issues. It?s also forced our society to take a deep introspective look: Have we become too polarized? What can we learn from those children?
Is there meaning to be drawn from Grace?s message on that window?
Journey into hell
Gene Rosen had blocked out the sounds of whatever he heard coming from the school. How obnoxious, he thought, that somebody would shoot off fireworks so early in the day.
?I wanted to think that,? he said, ?because I know the school is over there.?
He fed his two cats in a loft above his garage and walked back toward his home. He spotted something odd toward the end of his driveway.
There were six children ? four girls and two boys ? sitting on his lawn. A woman sat in the middle with them. A tall, skinny man stood over them and spoke in a loud voice: ?IT?S GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT! IT?S GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT!?
Rosen thought they were practicing a school skit. When he got closer, he could see the children were out of breath and crying.
?There?s been an incident at the school,? said the woman, a Sandy Hook bus driver.
Rosen?s not sure how the bus driver ended up with the children on his lawn. Nor does he know the identity of the man, who later walked off.
But Rosen knows this: It was the start of a ?journey into hell.?
He once had worked as a psychologist with the chronically mentally ill at a state psychiatric hospital. But nothing had prepared him for what would transpire next. Instead, at 69, his grandfatherly instincts kicked in.
He invited the children into his home. He ran upstairs and grabbed as many stuffed animals as possible. They calmed the children briefly.
One of the girls stared out his living room window. ?I want my mommy,? she said. ?I want my mommy.?
The two boys sat on the floor, crying uncontrollably and shouting, ?We can?t go back to school! We can?t go back to school! We don?t have a teacher!?
Then they said the name of their 27-year-old teacher, Victoria Soto.
?Mrs. Soto! Mrs. Soto! She?s gone,? they said in unison.
One of the girls said she watched the teacher fall to the ground.
Without prompting, one of the boys added, ?He had a big gun and he had a little gun.?
The other boy said, ?Yeah, yeah, he had a big gun and a little gun.?
Then they both began anew their chilling cry. ?We can?t go back to school. We can?t go back to school ??
Blowing Mom a kiss
Grace McDonnell, 7, enjoyed Sandy Hook Elementary School with its loving teachers and inviting learning environment. Earlier in the week she had a stomachache, and her mother suggested she stay home.
?No way,? the girl said. ?I have too much fun there, and I don?t want to miss anything.?
Eager to learn, Grace would pack her bag the night before school and skip to the bus stop when it was time to leave.
The night before the tragedy, Mom and Dad tucked their only daughter in bed. ?See you in the morning,? Chris McDonnell told her. ?Don?t let the bed bugs bite.?
Mom often joked that her daughter was so full of life ?she would talk from the minute she woke up until the minute she went to bed. We were always, ?It?s time for bed, Grace. It?s time for bed, Grace.??
That Friday morning was like any other school day, a whirlwind of activity before heading out the door. She skipped down the road and boarded the school bus.
Grace blew her mother a kiss, as she always did. An endearing final image.
?Luckiest guy in the room?
Bear was one of two third-graders chosen by their teacher for the important job of class helper. The pair headed out of the room that morning to deliver an attendance report to the office.
As they neared the office, gunshots rang out. Bear said he could see bullets flying by. Smoke filled the air.
The two children froze, like deer in headlights. A second-grade teacher saw the children were in harm?s way, raced toward them and grabbed them. She pulled them into a bathroom with other children and barricaded the door.
?If she didn?t do that, I don?t know,? said Bear?s father, Andrei Nikitchyuk.
Nikitchyuk and his wife were filled with anxiety when they realized the robocall was real. Rumors were rampant. Parents were panicked. Police were everywhere.
A Ukrainian native, Nikitchyuk came to the United States in 1992 shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He had always felt safe here and had been fortunate enough to live the American dream.
He settled in Newtown eight years ago. His two oldest children, ages 13 and 14, had attended Sandy Hook.
?It?s just horrific,? Nikitchyuk said. ?I don?t know how our little ones are going to be affected by all this, but our older ones, I think, matured in just a few days.?
The father was spurred to action: ?This horrific event woke me up.? He traveled to the White House to speak up for gun control. He was the Sandy Hook representative for a Newtown United delegation that was joined by families who had lost loved ones to gun violence in the mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, Columbine and Virginia Tech, as well as random shootings in Chicago.
?I was the luckiest guy in the room because my kid survived and theirs didn?t.?
The group met with Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama.
Nikitchyuk?s message: ?This is unacceptable in our society. We have to do better.?
Emergency plans and instinct
Kindergarten teacher Janet Vollmer heard what she believed were gunshots. Then, the intercom system piped in the sounds of gunfire into her room. The teachers were well-schooled on drills; their principal made sure of that.
Vollmer immediately began putting her emergency planning to use. She knew the drill was to get kids outside and to the nearby firehouse. But it seemed too dangerous. She had 19 children she needed to protect.
?There was no announcement of what was going on,? she said. ?My instinct was it wasn?t good.?
The teacher of 18 years gathered her kindergartners in a cubby area away from the door. Teaching assistants closed the blinds.
?We read a story and we kept them calm,? she said. ?We do this as teachers. We are trained. We have drills. We talk to the kids and in case something were to happen, this is what we do.?
After about 30 minutes, she said, police knocked on the door. The children were told to close their eyes and walk in a line outside. She told the kids to look straight at the walls and nothing else until they got outside. They headed to the Sandy Hook firehouse, the school?s emergency gathering point.
It would be hours before she learned the awful magnitude. She had taught 10 of the slain children just last year.
?The gift of these children?
Gene Rosen?s home sits right next to the firehouse. Inside his house, the kids continued to wail.
?We can?t go back to school!?
At one point, one of the boys broke through his tears with a note of levity. He sat up, held his finger in the air and said, ?Just saying, your house is very small.?
?In that moment, he brought into the home peace and light,? Rosen recalled. ?I felt like an angel descended upon us and this boy, and we laughed.?
?God sent a respite from hell ? just a moment of recess.? He paused, then added: ?They saw their teacher assassinated.?
He and the school bus driver tried to call the children?s parents, but they got answering machines. They notified the driver?s supervisor who relayed the information to authorities. Some of the parents soon arrived. The parents, Rosen and the six kids walked to the neighboring firehouse.
The children and their teachers huddled in bay areas where firetrucks are typically kept so they could be counted.
Two hours later, after Rosen had returned home, a woman knocked on his door. She said she was the mother of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis.
?Her face looked frozen in fear. She said to me, ?I heard there were six kids here. Is he here???
Rosen knew the names of the six children who he helped. His heart sank. ?No, he?s not here,? Rosen told her.
As he recalled that encounter, Rosen wept. ?She was just looking for a miracle, and I wanted to deliver her son to her ? and I couldn?t.?
Initial reports had indicated two adults were dead, but by late Friday afternoon parents of the slain children were told of their loss at a private room in the firehouse.
Back at the firehouse, Rosen looked at a list posted later and wept again when he saw two of the names: Victoria Soto and Jesse Lewis.
Before the tragedy, Rosen often read children?s books to an elementary school in a neighboring town.
He?d recently come across a kid?s book about a girl whose dog died in a fire. For weeks afterward, the girl smelled soot in her dreams and couldn?t sleep. Then, one night a one-eyed cat jumped into her bed, cuddled with her and purred. The cat?s soothing purr helped her sleep for the first time.
?The book doesn?t end with a rainbow,? he said. ?It ends with hope in the sense of the continuity of her healing.?
He couldn?t help but wonder: What will be Newtown?s one-eyed cat?
?The one-eyed cat is here,? he said. ?I don?t know what it is yet.?
The son of Orthodox Jews from Ukraine, Rosen hasn?t been to synagogue in more than 40 years. But he said God delivered six angels to him that day. ?This experience has made me spiritual,? he said. ?I want to show those children that there is light.
?Let the goodness of the children, their essential innocence and goodness and energy ? let them provide us with a pathway,? he said. ?That?s what I want the gift of these children to be.?
?So many angels?
The McDonnells were overcome when they first saw Grace?s white casket at the funeral home. ?You felt like the floor was falling out beneath you and your breath was taken away,? her mother said.
But then, they pulled out Sharpies of all colors and began drawing: peace signs, ice cream cones, lighthouses, sea gulls. The family said it looked like it was covered in graffiti by the time they were done.
?We had to take great joy in knowing that when we walked in there it was so white, and our breath was taken away,? Lynn McDonnell said. ?But when we walked out of there, it was like we had joy again. It had so much color.?
The family also brought Grace?s favorite pocketbook, seashells, hair bows and flip-flops, as well as her sunglasses and a frying pan. Her father placed his New York Yankees cap with her. Grace loved Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney ? the family gave her music from both.
?When we left, we were like: She?s fully stocked,? her mom recalled.
Her father said that ?thinking of her smile, her spark, her brightness? helped guide the family through this most difficult time. Telling Grace?s 12-year-old brother Jack what had happened, he said, was the ?toughest thing to do.?
The McDonnells, like the other grieving families, met privately with President Obama when he visited Newtown last Sunday. Lynn McDonnell said his visit brought reassurance. ?He?s just a dad coming in to meet a dad and a mom and a son ? and we really felt that.?
Grace was a budding artist. The family gave the president a painting of an owl she had drawn. He told the family he would treasure it.
The parents say they?re comforted by the fact Grace died with her friends. ?She was at a place that she loved,? her mother said.
?We have so many angels and so many bright stars shining over all of us in this town right now,? the father said. ?They will teach us how to go on and how to live through them.?
They have no hatred toward the shooter, a point they?ve emphasized to their surviving son.
?The thing that Grace taught us is that you?ve got to live for the future,? her father said. ?You?ve got to live for happiness, peace, and to not divert your energies to hate, anger. That wasn?t her. It?s not us.?
That, they say, is their daughter?s lasting legacy.
? & ? 2012 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
Source: http://fox13now.com/2012/12/23/a-message-from-beyond-peace-in-newtown/
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