At Least 27, Mostly Kids, Killed at Grade School

More than two dozen people, mostly elementary school children, were shot and killed at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News.

The massacre involved two gunmen and prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today.

One shooter is dead and a manhunt is on for a second gunman. Police are searching cars. One shooter was described as a 24-year-old armed man with four weapons and wearing a bullet-proof vest, sources told ABC News.

It's unclear how many people have been shot, but 25 people, mostly children, are dead, multiple federal and state sources tell ABC News. That number could rise, officials said.

President Obama was briefed on the shooting by FBI Director Robert Mueller.

It is the worst shooting in a U.S. elementary school in recent memory and exceeds the carnage at the 1999 Columbine High School
shooting in which 13 died and 24 were injured.

The Newtown shooting comes three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts opened fire in a busy Oregon mall, killing two before turning the gun on himself.

Today's shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which includes 450 students in grades K-4. The town is located about 12 miles east of Danbury.

Shannon Hicks/The Newtown Bee

Connecticut School Shooting: 3 Victims Hospitalized Watch Video

Connecticut School Shooting: 1 Gunman Confirmed Dead Watch Video

Watch Upcoming State Police News Conference Live at ABCNews.com

State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41 a.m. and immediately began sending emergency units from the western part of the state. Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State Police source.

A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.

LIVE UPDATES: Newtown, Conn., School Shooting

Three patients have been taken to Danbury Hospital, which is also on lockdown, according to the hospital's Facebook page.

"Out of abundance of caution and not because of any direct threat Danbury Hospital is under lockdown," the statement said. "This allows us simply to focus on the important work at hand."

CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.

Newtown Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June said in a statement that the district's schools were locked down because of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety of all students and staff," she said.

State police sent SWAT team units to Newtown.

All public and private schools in the town are on lockdown.

"We have increased our police presence at all Danbury Public Schools due to the events in Newtown. Pray for the victims," Newtown Mayor Boughton tweeted.

State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.

A message on the school district website says that all afternoon kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no midday bus runs.

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Today on New Scientist: 13 December 2012

Violent beauty at the end of an Alaskan glacier

You can almost hear the crash of ice on water in this stunning image of an ice sheet calving off the Chenega glacier in Alaska

Overeating now bigger global problem than lack of food

The most comprehensive disease report ever produced confirms that, for the first time, there is a larger health problem from people eating too much than too little

In search of the world's oldest cave etching

Strange markings on the walls of a cave in Australia's vast Nullarbor Plain could have been a tactile code for ancient Aboriginal flint miners

Higgs boson having an identity crisis

Six months on from its announcement, the mass and decay rates of the particle thought to be the Higgs boson are proving hard to pin down

Go forth and print: 3D objects you can print yourself

We pick our favourite objects to 3D-print, including a mathematical cookie cutter, a wormhole and a New Scientist holiday tree ornament inspired by fractals

Laser drills could relight geothermal energy dreams

High-powered lasers that can drill through igneous rocks may make reaching oil and geothermal sources much easier

Robots should be cleaning your home

Tech investor Dmitri Grishin explains why the time is right for sleek, versatile robots that will be our everyday helpers rather than factory equipment

Welcome to the personal drone revolution

Sophisticated, affordable drones could soon be so commonplace that they will become our personal servants, says Michael Brooks

Finding dangerous asteroids, before they find us

Near-Earth Objects: Finding them before they find us by Donald Yeomans is a fascinating tour guide of the asteroids we should worry about

World's loneliest bug turns up in Death Valley

A microbe that survives deep below Earth's surface without the sun's energy has reappeared, in California

Search for aliens poses game theory dilemma

The complex question of whether to risk contact with ET may be navigable with a new spin on the "prisoner's dilemma"

'Robot ecosystem' in sight as apps get a cash boost

The first company dedicated to investing in consumer robotics stakes $250,000 on robot apps

First results from James Cameron's trip to the abyss

It's not Pandora, but the Mariana trench holds life just as strange as that in James Cameron's film Avatar

UK government urged to consider relaxing drug rules

A parliamentary report calls for a fresh programme of research to monitor the effects of European drug legalisation

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Football: Serbia fined 80,000 euros for England violence

LAUSANNE: Serbia were fined 80,000 euros on Thursday and ordered to play their next Under-21 international behind closed doors as UEFA handed out a range of sanctions following October's violent European qualifier against England.

Two of Serbia's coaching staff and four players were handed suspensions while two England players were also banned.

In chaotic scenes at the October 21 game in Krusevac, England defender Danny Rose was sent off for kicking the ball away in response to what he said was monkey chanting and physical provocation.

Scuffles also broke out between players, coaches and supporters at the end of the match.

"The UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body has ordered the Serbian Under-21 national team to play their next UEFA competition home match behind closed doors, following a number of incidents that occurred during and after the 2013 UEFA European Under-21 Championship play-off second-leg match against England at the Mladost Stadium in Krusevac on 16 October," said a UEFA statement.

"The Football Association of Serbia (FSS) has also been fined 80,000 euros."

Serbia fitness coach Andreja Milunovic and assistant coach Predrag Katic were both banned from all football-related activities for two years.

Players Goran Causic (banned for four matches), Ognjen Mudrinski (three matches), Filip Malbasic (three matches) and Nikola Ninkovic (two matches) were also punished.

Disciplinary proceedings against Aleksandar Pantic were dismissed.

England's Steven Caulker (two matches) and Thomas Ince (one match) were also suspended.

-AFP/ac

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Low Latency No. 47: Thinking outside the box

Low Latency is a weekly comic on CNET's Crave blog written by CNET editor and podcast host Jeff Bakalar and illustrated by Blake Stevenson. Be sure to check Crave every Thursday at 8 a.m. PT for new panels! Want more? Here's every Low Latency comic so far.

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Maya Calendars Actually Predict That Life Goes On

This December, not everyone is concerned with making plans for the New Year—especially not the people who think doomsday will get here first. Instead of planning parties, they're stockpiling food, refining escape routes, and honing survival skills ahead of the alleged date on which the Maya calendar "ends"—December 21, 2012.

So should we all be preparing for imminent apocalypse? According to the scholars, no.

The ancient Maya are usually cited as the predictors of the world coming to an end this month: One of their "great cycles" supposedly ends now. But the Maya were brilliant mathematicians and fantastic record keepers. They didn't have just one calendar. They developed many different kinds, including a cyclical solar calendar and a sacred almanac. They also measured time with something known as the Long Count, which were great cycles of 5,000 years.

Somewhere along the way a rumor spread about the current great cycle, indicating it ends on December 21, 2012. This sparked the belief among some that the last of our days are upon us.

Rebirth

It's not the first time that the possibility of apocalypse has sparked the human imagination. Doomsday prophecies have a rich history, and believers tend to overlook the scientific evidence that disproves them. In this case, the doomsdayers fail to take into account the intricacies of Maya timekeeping.

"There's only one [Maya] monument that even has the 2012 date on it," says Maya scholar Ricardo Agurcia, adding that apocalypse anticipators are ignoring that according to the Maya, when one great cycle ends, another begins. "It's about rebirth, not death." (Read about the rise and fall of the Maya in National Geographic magazine.)

Indeed, the Maya predicted the world would most certainly not end in 2012. Earlier this year, archaeologist and National Geographic Grantee William Saturno discovered a series of numbers painted on the walls at a Maya complex in Guatemala. The calculations included dates that go far into the future. "The ancient Maya predicted the world would continue, that 7,000 years from now, things would be exactly like this," he said in a press release. (See ultra-high-resolution, zoomable pictures from inside a newfound Maya chamber.)

"We keep looking for endings. The Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change. It's an entirely different mindset." (Watch: Mysterious Maya Calendar and Mural Uncovered.)

It Came From Outer Space?

That should be enough to soothe Maya-inspired worries about doomsday scenarios. But what about other potential agents of catastrophe—coronal mass ejections, a "killer planet," polar shifts?

On these possibilities, NASA can shed some light. On his blog Ask an Astrobiologist, NASA space scientist David Morrison has fielded some 5,000 questions about doomsday 2012. People want to know about the existence of Nibiru, or Planet X, and whether it's coming to destroy Earth or not. Others inquire about alignment of the heavenly bodies, shifting of the magnetic poles, and bursting of solar flares. In a YouTube video, Morrison said, "There is no threat to Earth in 2012. Nibiru does not exist. There are no special forces when planets align. Don't worry about 2012, and enjoy 2013 when it comes."

Despite this emphatic professional pushback, anxiety over our impending demise persists. According to an article in the New York Times, a number of Russians have fallen under the apocalypse spell, snatching up essentials as December 21st approaches. The story also cites apprehension in southern France, where certain camps believe Bugarach mountain has the power to protect in a doomsday scenario.

In the United States, doomsday preparers have help from people like Larry Hall, who is building underground luxury "survival condos" in Kansas missile silos leftover from the Cold War era. Careful not to judge anyone's reason for worry, he said, "I'm not saying you're right or you're wrong. I'm just trying to have a one-size-fits-all solution to whatever your threats may be."

Catherine Zuckerman knows her apocalypses. She is author of National Geographic's e-book "Doomsday 2012," which examines the enduring fascination with doomsday predictions.

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Court: CIA Tortured German in Botched Rendition

Nearly a decade after a German man claimed he was snatched off the street, held in secret and tortured as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program -- all due to a case of mistaken identity -- a panel of international judges said today what Khaled El-Masri has been waiting to hear since 2004: We believe you.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) handed down a unanimous verdict siding with El-Masri in his case against the government of Macedonia, which he claimed first played an integral role in his illegal detention and then ignored his pleas to investigate the traumatic ordeal. For his troubles, the ECHR ordered the government of Macedonia to pay El-Masri 60,000 Euros in damages, about $80,000.

"There's no question 60,000 Euros does not begin to provide compensation for the harm he has suffered," James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, which is representing El-Masri, told ABC News today. "That said... for Mr. El-Masri, the most important thing that he was hoping for was to have the European court officially acknowledge what he did and say that what he's been claiming is in fact true and it was in fact a breach of the law... It's an extraordinary ruling."

Felix Kaestle/dapd/AP Photo

El-Masri's dramatic story, as detailed in various court and government documents, began in late 2003 when he was snatched off a bus at a border crossing in Macedonia. Plainclothes Macedonian police officers brought him to a hotel in the capital city of Skopje and held him there under guard for 23 days. In the hotel he was interrogated repeatedly and told to admit he was a member of al Qaeda, according to an account provided by the Open Society Justice Initiative.

The German was then blindfolded and taken to an airport where he said he was met by men he believed to be a secret CIA rendition team. In its ruling today, the EHRC recounted how the CIA men allegedly beat and sodomized El-Masri in an airport facility, treatment that the court said "amounted to torture." The CIA declined to comment for this report.

El-Masri was then put on a plane and claims that the next thing he knew, he was in Afghanistan, where he would stay for four months under what his lawyers called "inhuman and degrading" conditions.

According to the Initiative, it wasn't until May 28, 2004 that El-Masri was suddenly removed from his cell, put on another plane and flown to a military base in Albania. "On arrival he was driven in a car for several hours and then let out and told not to look back," the group says on its website. Albanian authorities soon picked El-Masri up and took him to an airport where he flew back to Frankfurt, Germany.

According to El-Masri's lawyers, the CIA had finally realized they accidentally picked up the wrong man.

In their decision today, the ECHR said El-Masri's account was established "beyond reasonable doubt," in part based on the findings of previous investigations into flight logs and forensic evidence.

Before the EHRC, El-Masri and his supporters had tried to bring his case to trial in several courts, including in the U.S. in 2005. There, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit on behalf of El-Masri against George Tenet, then director of the CIA, but the case was dismissed in 2006 after the U.S. government claimed hearing it would jeopardize "state secrets." The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case in 2007.

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UK government urged to consider relaxing drug rules

JUST say yes to considering relaxed drug controls, urged a panel of UK parliamentarians this week - but Prime Minister David Cameron has rejected the calls.

Many countries have loosened their penalties for drug use, including the Czech Republic and Portugal, which introduced a "de-penalisation" strategy in 2000. Citizens caught in possession avoid criminal records but must attend drug advice sessions. Last month, the US states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalise the recreational use of cannabis.

The UK report calls for the effects of these legal moves to be monitored. "Drugs policy ought to be evidence-based as much as possible," it concludes. "We recommend that the government fund a detailed research project to monitor the effects of each legalisation system."

The report notes that 21 countries have now introduced some form of decriminalisation. But the government's response has been lukewarm. "I don't support decriminalisation," said Cameron. "We have a policy which actually is working in Britain. Drugs use is coming down."

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"Serious differences" in US fiscal stand-off

WASHINGTON: The United States economy was cruising towards the disaster of the looming "fiscal cliff" on Wednesday as President Barack Obama's Republican opponents warned a budget deal was still far off.

The newly re-elected White House chief is locked in a stand-off with lawmakers over a budget deal that would prevent the onset of a toxic package of tax hikes and deep spending cuts kicking in at the end of the year.

"We don't have an agreement today," the top Republican in Congress, House Speaker John Boehner, told reporters a day after his latest meeting with Obama to exchange compromise offers.

"I remain the most optimistic person in this town, but we've got some serious differences," he said.

Boehner acknowledged that Obama lowered his opening gambit of $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue over 10 years to $1.4 trillion, but said the White House was not putting forward enough spending cuts to make the deal palatable.

"The longer the White House slow-walks this discussion, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff, and the more American jobs are placed in jeopardy," he warned.

While the White House's lower tax revenue offer is now public, Boehner's office declined to provide any new details on the Republican counter-offer.

Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor warned lawmakers to expect a shortened end-of-year holiday that could see them huddled in Washington between Christmas and New Year in order to pass fiscal legislation.

"We are going to stay here right up until Christmas Eve, throughout the time and period before the New Year, because we want to make sure that we resolve this in an acceptable way for the American people," Cantor said.

The White House and Republicans are up against the clock when it comes to averting a crisis that economists say could tip the US economy back into recession.

If no deal is agreed before the end of the year, taxes will go up on all Americans and automatic and savage cuts to government spending will begin.

Obama has demanded that Republicans agree to raise taxes on the rich as part of any deal, while Boehner has offered more revenue, but only by closing loopholes and capping deductions -- a plan the president says falls short.

After recent signs that the differences might be narrowing, with a face-to-face meeting Sunday and two Obama-Boehner phone calls this week, the speaker said the two sides remain far apart.

"His plan does not begin to solve our debt crisis. It actually increases spending," Boehner said.

Democrats say Republicans must step forward with a clearer outline of the spending cuts they would like to see.

"Spending cuts are their suggestion -- put them on the table," senior House Democrat Steny Hoyer said Tuesday. "We're not going to fill in the details of their proposal."

It is increasingly unlikely that a grand bargain addressing tax revenue, spending cuts, a deal on raising the debt ceiling, as well as reform of the tax code and the country's entitlement programs can be completed by year-end.

While Republicans want cuts to entitlements as part of a fiscal deal, top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Obama has already agreed to more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicare and other health care spending.

Such savings should be considered a "down payment" for broader negotiations next year, she said.

"Let's do something significant now and then in the next stage we can address further entitlement reform as well as reform of the tax code," Pelosi told CBS News.

"Just get it done and make corrections and expansions on it next year."

-AFP/ac

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Police: Google Maps giving dangerous directions, too

Colac, Victoria, Australia in Google Maps.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Casey Newton/CNET)

Days after Australian police warned motorists not to rely on Apple Maps, lest they end up stranded in punishing heat, authorities issued a similar warning about Google Maps.

Police in Colac, a town west of Melbourne, say Google Maps has created "a significant safety issue for tourists [and] locals" along the Great Ocean Road by suggesting they drive down a one-way road not built for heavy traffic, according to a police sergeant quoted by ABC News.

Tour buses using Wild Dog Road are in danger of being driven off the road, Sgt. Nick Buenen told ABC.

The warning comes days after police in the Australian province of Victoria warned that Apple Maps incorrectly said the town of Mildura was located in the middle of Murray Sunset National Park, 70 kilometers from its actual location. Several motorists had become stranded for up to 24 hours without food or water after using Apple's directions, according to reports.

CNET has contacted Google for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

(via Daring Fireball)

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Best Space Pictures of 2012: Editor's Picks

Photograph courtesy Tunç Tezel, APOY/Royal Observatory

This image of the Milky Way's vast star fields hanging over a valley of human-made light was recognized in the 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by the U.K.’s Royal Observatory Greenwich.

To get the shot, photographer Tunç Tezel trekked to Uludag National Park near his hometown of Bursa, Turkey. He intended to watch the moon and evening planets, then take in the Perseids meteor shower.

"We live in a spiral arm of the Milky Way, so when we gaze through the thickness of our galaxy, we see it as a band of dense star fields encircling the sky," said Marek Kukula, the Royal Observatory's public astronomer and a contest judge.

Full story>>

Why We Love It

"I like the way this view of the Milky Way also shows us a compelling foreground landscape. It also hints at the astronomy problems caused by light pollution."—Chris Combs, news photo editor

Published December 11, 2012

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