NY Exchange sold for $ 8.2Billion

Reuters:
IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) agreed a $8 billion deal to buy New York Stock Exchange owner NYSE Euronext on Thursday, propelling the commodities player into the big league of European derivatives and helping it to take on arch rival CME Group.

ICE will look at selling Euronext, NYSE's European stock market business, in an initial public offering after the deal closes in the second half of next year.

"Our transaction is responsive to the evolution of market infrastructure today and offers a range of growth opportunities," ICE chairman and CEO Jeff Sprecher said in a statement.

ICE will buy NYSE, which also owns derivatives market Liffe, for $33.12 per share in stock and cash, a 37 per cent premium to its Wednesday closing price and valuing NYSE Euronext at $8.2 billion.

NYSE Euronext shares rose nearly 32 per cent after the deal was announced, while ICE's shares fell four per cent.

Analysts said the deal will give Atlanta-based ICE a strategic boost with control of Liffe, Europe's second-largest derivatives market, helping it compete against U.S.-based CME Group Inc, owner of the Chicago Board of Trade.

"ICE is after Liffe, that is the crown jewel of NYSE Euronext," said Peter Lenardos, analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

"Strategically it makes sense for ICE to enter the European derivatives space in a meaningful way."

ICE, founded in 2000, has its roots in electronic commodity trading and a tie-up with Liffe will boost trade for soft commodities such as sugar, buoying its profits.

"I would imagine that, having the softs contracts under one roof, would provide for easier arbitrage, financing and development of trading opportunities behind the contracts, via swaps and options," said Jonathan Kingsman, a sugar trade veteran who heads agriculture at information provider Platts.

"If you have clearing membership of ICE, you could trade London contracts under the same membership."

Regulatory thumbs-up

An ICE-NYSE Euronext tie-up would leap-frog Deutsche Boerse to become the world's third-largest exchange group with a combined market value of $15.2 billion. CME Group, ICE's largest U.S.-based rival, has a market value of $17.5 billion, Thomson Reuters data shows.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is the world's largest exchange group with a market cap of $19.5 billion.

ICE's main operations are in energy futures trading and unlike NYSE Euronext, it has steered clear of stocks and stock-options trading, so there is not much business overlap between the two groups, making it more likely competition authorities would approve a tie-up, analysts said.

Last year, the US Justice Department blocked a $11 billion joint hostile bid by ICE and Nasdaq OMX Group for NYSE Euronext on concerns the tie-up would dominate U.S. stock listings.

If that bid had succeeded, ICE planned to buy NYSE Euronext derivatives business while Nasdaq would have taken control of the stock exchanges.

A rival $9.3 billion bid by German exchange operator Deutsche Boerse also fell foul of regulators.

"I doubt the competition authorities will have a problem with it, there's only a modest overlap between the businesses," said Richard Perrott, an analyst at Berenberg Bank.

"The rationale for the deal will be the same as that with Deutsche Boerse - migrate the clearing of Liffe derivatives to ICE's services in London and scale up to attract OTC (Over The Counter) derivatives clearing."

ICE said it expected to achieve $450 million in cost savings from the deal.

Before the latest ICE offer emerged, NYSE Euronext's shares had fallen by nearly a third since ICE and Nasdaq launched their thwarted joint bid.

The New York Stock Exchange, known as the Big Board and the symbol of U.S. capitalism, has seen its clout fade as new technology and the rise of private trading venues run by Wall Street banks and brokers cut its margins.

ICE, which started out as an online marketplace for energy trading, is the product of a string of acquisitions from the London-based International Petroleum Exchange in 2001, to the New York Board of Trade and, most recently, a handful of smaller deals, including a climate exchange and a stake in a Brazilian clearing house.

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Newtown Massacre:Confusion over how many gunmen

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19 Dec 2012

adam Lanza,sandy hook

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Police radio traffic from the Newtown school shooting shows emergency responders initially thought there might be two gunmen on the loose and were not aware of the extent of the carnage inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, the NBC reported.

The communications were not officially released but were posted on YouTube by a scanner monitor and authenticated by police.
Some of the dialogue is encrypted or garbled, but the transmissions that can be heard – with the sound of sirens blaring in the background — provide a glimpse of how Friday’s massacre unfolded through the eyes of police and paramedics.
The recordings begin at 9:35 a.m. with a dispatcher calmly reporting a 911 call about “somebody shooting in the building,” followed two minutes later by the chilling update that a caller was “continuing to hear what he believes to be gunfire,” More on this story click here.

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End is near-Video

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19 Dec 2012

end,Mayan,world

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UBS ordered to pay $ 700M for widespread rate rigging

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19 Dec 2012

UBS

by admin

Washington, DC – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) announced an Order today against UBS AG and UBS Securities Japan Co., Ltd. (together “UBS” or the “Bank”), bringing and settling charges of manipulation, attempted manipulation and false reporting of certain global benchmark interest rates. These benchmarks, which are enormously significant to the American public and to financial markets, are the basis for hundreds of trillions of dollars of swaps transactions, commercial and consumer loans, futures contracts, and other financial derivatives products traded in over-the-counter markets and exchanges around the world. The Order requires UBS to pay a $700 million civil monetary penalty, cease and desist from further violations as charged, and take specified steps to ensure the integrity and reliability of its LIBOR and other benchmark interest rate submissions and improve related internal controls.

In summary, CFTC’s Order finds:
• For at least six years UBS regularly tried to manipulate multiple benchmark interest rates for profit, and at times succeeded in manipulating the official fixing of Yen LIBOR;
• More than 2,000 instances of unlawful conduct involving dozens of UBS employees, colluding with other panel banks, and inducing interdealer brokers to spread false information and influence other banks; and
• UBS made false U.S. Dollar LIBOR and other submissions to protect its reputation during the global financial crisis.
“As our action today makes clear, when a major bank brazenly games some of the world’s most important financial benchmarks, the CFTC will respond with the full force of its authority,” said David Meister, the CFTC’s Director of Enforcement. “The American public, as well as people and companies around the globe, rely on interest rate benchmarks every day for mortgages, loans and other transactions, trusting that the underlying benchmark rates are honest. Market integrity is seriously compromised where, as here, a bank spins its rate submissions to boost trading profits, pays off a network of brokers to disseminate false rate information, or makes false submissions to protect its reputation.”
According to the Order, from at least 2005 to at least 2010, UBS engaged in two overarching courses of unlawful conduct that undermined the integrity of the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”), the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (“Euribor”), the Euroyen Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (“Euroyen TIBOR”), and other interest rate benchmarks.Each of these benchmarks is supposed to reflect or relate to the true costs of borrowing unsecured funds in the relevant interbank market, and as demonstrated by the CFTC’s Order, during the relevant period, UBS’s submissions for these benchmark interest rates often did not.
Specifically, today’s enforcement action states:
• From at least January 2005 to at least June 2010, acting through more than three dozen employees around the world including a number of senior managers, UBS attempted to manipulate these benchmarks in UBS’s favor, to enhance the profits the Bank earned from trading benchmark-based derivatives. UBS regularly, and for certain benchmarks sometimes daily, made false rate submissions. Moreover, with respect to Yen LIBOR and Euroyen TIBOR, UBS colluded with at least four other panel banks to make false submissions, and induced at least five interdealer brokers to disseminate false information or otherwise influence other panel banks’ submissions. The Order also finds that UBS sometimes successfully manipulated the official fixing of Yen LIBOR.
• From August 2007 through mid-2009, during the global financial crisis, UBS managers directed that the Bank’s U.S. Dollar LIBOR and certain other submissions be tailored to protect the Bank’s reputation and avoid what it perceived to be unfair speculation about its fundraising ability and creditworthiness. The first wrongful direction was for the submissions to “err on the low side.” Later, the directions were revised to place UBS in “the middle of the pack” of panel bank submissions. According to the Order, these directions, at times, caused UBS’s U.S. Dollar LIBOR and other benchmark submissions to be knowingly false.
UBS engaged in all of this misconduct even after it was on notice in October 2008 of the CFTC’s investigation of UBS. The Order finds that the conduct came to light only after UBS began an internal inquiry upon the request of the CFTC in April 2010. The unlawful conduct by UBS is described in more detail below. Attached to this release are excerpts of quotations from the numerous UBS communications evidencing the unlawful conduct.
Manipulative Conduct For Profit
As detailed in the Order, from at least January 2005 through at least June 2010, UBS routinely skewed its submissions for Yen, Swiss Franc, Sterling and Euro LIBOR, Euribor, and, at times, Euroyen TIBOR, to benefit UBS’s derivatives trading positions that were tied to those particular benchmarks. This unlawful conduct involved more than three dozen traders and submitters located in many offices, from London to Zurich to Tokyo, and elsewhere. Several UBS managers participated in or knew that this was a routine practice of the traders, and did nothing to stop it.
According to the Order, UBS’s interest rate submissions were determined by inherently conflicted UBS derivatives traders, who, not only determined the rates to submit, but also traded derivatives for UBS’s profit based on the same benchmarks. The Order finds that, in deciding what rates to submit, these traders often took into consideration how their trading positions might benefit, and also routinely accommodated requests of other UBS derivatives traders to make similarly beneficial submissions.
The Senior Yen Trader and Interdealer Brokers
The Order sets forth the particularly extensive unlawful activity of one UBS senior Yen trader (“Senior Yen Trader”), known as one of the most significant traders in the Yen market, who generated hundreds of millions of dollars in trading revenue for UBS. The Senior Yen Trader orchestrated a massive, multi-year course of conduct to manipulate Yen LIBOR almost daily at times, and Euroyen TIBOR less frequently. In three years, the Senior Yen Trader, along with other UBS employees made approximately 2000 requests by email or in written chats alone, to manipulate Yen LIBOR, accounting for 75% of the days in which Yen LIBOR submissions were made by UBS during that period. At times, the Senior Yen Trader conducted sustained manipulative operations for weeks to move Yen LIBOR in the direction he needed; these operations were given names such as “the Turn Campaign” and “Operation 6m.”
The Senior Yen Trader used at least three manipulative strategies: (i) he wrongfully induced at least five interdealer brokers to assist with his manipulative scheme; (ii) he had UBS submitters make submissions reflecting his preferred rates; and (iii) he cultivated prior working relationships and friendships with derivatives traders from at least four other banks and had them make requests of their banks’ own Yen LIBOR submitters based on his preferred rates.
With respect to interdealer brokers, who act as intermediates to cash and derivatives transactions for their bank clients, the Order finds that the Senior Yen Trader induced such brokers to employ various unlawful methods tailored to drive the submissions of other panel banks to achieve the rates that would benefit the Senior Yen Trader’s derivatives positions. Thus, from late 2006 to late 2009, he made requests of interdealer brokers to: (i) disseminate false “run-throughs” of suggested Yen LIBOR to panel bank submitters, whom a broker once referred to as “sheep” following the information; (ii) contact other panel bank submitters to influence their submissions; (iii) publish false market cash rates on dedicated electronic screens available to the brokers’ bank clients; and (iv) “spoof,” i.e., make fake bids and offers, to influence submissions of other panel bank submitters. To secure the cooperation of interdealer brokers, the Senior Yen Trader took steps to make sure the brokers were compensated, or sometimes threatened to steer his business away from them. The compensation took the form of additional trades or even wash trades that generated broker commissions, and certain individuals at one broker received approximately $216,000 from UBS in paid fees/bonuses, which were shared over approximately two years in return for their unlawful assistance.
According to the Order, in making requests of UBS submitters for beneficial submissions, the Senior Yen Trader was sometimes careful not to cause a conflict with trading positions held by the UBS Yen submitters who were helping him. He sometimes reconciled conflicts by executing transactions to offset any negative impact on the submitters’ positions. This was all to make sure that the UBS employees involved with the scheme, as one submitter commented, were “one happy family.”
Management Directions to Protect UBS’s Reputation Caused False Submissions
As set forth in the Order, with the onset of the global financial crisis, the media focused on the financial well-being of the world’s major financial institutions and analyzed LIBOR submissions, among other market indicators, to ascertain a panel bank’s strength and ability to borrow funds. Questions arose in the media about the integrity of the panel banks’ submissions. In response, from early August 2007 to at least mid-2009, certain managers in UBS Group Treasury and Asset and Liability Management (“ALM”) issued directions to UBS’s submitters to tailor UBS benchmark interest rate submissions to ward off negative public and media perceptions about UBS. These directions, at times, resulted in false submissions for U.S. Dollar LIBOR, LIBORs for other currencies, Euribor, and Euroyen TIBOR, because the submissions did not solely reflect UBS’s assessment of the borrowing costs of unsecured funds in the relevant interbank markets, as required.
At first, in August 2007, the management directions were to “err on the low side” of panel bank submissions. UBS’s U.S. Dollar LIBOR submissions immediately moved to the lowest quartile of panel submissions and remained there for a sustained period. UBS continued to make low submissions that suggested it could borrow at such low rates even though at the same time it was suffering from negative credit events such as reporting negative revenues in October 2007, a significant write down of assets in December 2007, losses in the first quarter of 2008, and a credit rating downgrade. As one senior UBS employee commented at the time, “senior management want to show the world we are the strongest bank with loads of liquidity.”
In April 2008, after the Wall Street Journal questioned the integrity of low submissions by the panel banks, such as UBS, managers in Group Treasury and ALM directed that UBS’s submissions be made “in the middle of the pack” of panel banks submissions. That direction was followed and, at times, enforced, notwithstanding disagreement or resistance on some occasions by the submitters. From June 2008 through at least the first half of 2009, UBS’s submissions were in the “middle of the pack” virtually every day, even after events suggesting that the submissions should have been higher, such as UBS’s receipt of more than $125 billion in infusions and loans from the Swiss government and the Swiss National Bank, and from liquidity programs of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, and the Bank’s $7.59 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008.
UBS’s Obligations to Ensure Integrity and Reliability of Benchmark Interest Rates
In addition to the $700 million penalty, the CFTC Order requires UBS to implement measures to ensure that its submissions are transaction-focused, based upon a rigorous and honest assessment of information, and not influenced by conflicts of interest. See pages 60-73 of the CFTC’s Order. Among other things, the Order requires UBS to:
• Make its submissions based on certain specified factors, with UBS’s transactions being given the greatest weight, subject to certain specified adjustments and considerations;
• Implement firewalls to prevent improper communications including between traders and submitters;
• Prepare and retain certain documents concerning submissions, and retain relevant communications;
• Implement auditing, monitoring and training measures concerning its submissions and related processes;
• Make regular reports to the CFTC concerning compliance with the terms of the Order;
• Use best efforts to encourage the development of rigorous standards for benchmark interest rates; and
• Continue to cooperate with the CFTC.
* * * *
The CFTC Order also recognizes the cooperation of UBS with the Division of Enforcement in its investigation, as of late December 2010.
In related matters concerning the U.S. Justice Department, UBS Securities Japan Co., Ltd., agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge of wire fraud, UBS AG agreed pursuant to a non-prosecution agreement to continue to cooperate with the Justice Department, and UBS AG and UBS Securities Japan Co., Ltd. agreed to make payments that when combined total $500 million. In addition, the United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) issued a Final Notice regarding its enforcement action against UBS AG and has imposed a penalty of £160 million, the equivalent of $259.2 million, against the Bank; the Swiss Financial Market Authority (“FINMA”) issued an order resolving proceedings against UBS AG and requiring disgorgement of 59 million Swiss Francs, the equivalent of $64.3 million.
The CFTC thanks and acknowledges the valuable assistance of U.S. law enforcement and regulatory authorities, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Washington Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the CFTC’s foreign counterparts in this matter ─ the FSA, FINMA, and the Japanese Financial Services Agency.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this case are Philip P. Tumminio, Anne M. Termine, Rishi K. Gupta, Jonathan K. Huth, Timothy M. Kirby, Aimée Latimer-Zayets, Terry Mayo, Brian G. Mulherin, Elizabeth Padgett, Maura M. Viehmeyer, Jason Wright, Gretchen L. Lowe, and Vincent A. McGonagle. CFTC Staff from the Division of Market Oversight and Office of the Chief Economist also assisted with the investigation of this matter.

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12 reasons why world will end

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17 Dec 2012

Mayan

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Bird flu and swine flu gave us a fright in years past, but the real plague could be released upon the world any minute. Scientists have reconstructed the DNA microbe of the bubonic plague, aka the Black Death, in the hope of figuring out what made it so very powerful. The New York Times reports that a lab recently grew a H5N1 flu virus, “one of the most dangerous flu viruses ever known, and made it even more dangerous — by tweaking it genetically to make it more contagious.”

Mayan Calendar
The ancient Mayan calendar (combined with a dash of New Age mysticism) has predicted that on December 12, 2012 the world will end — and even John Cusack won’t be able to stop it. The occasion will be marked by the return of Quetzalcoatl, a Mesoamerican feathered serpent god, which is a nice

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Preacher busted for bilking $ 3.8M from federal food stamp program

0

17 Dec 2012

Al-Idu Al-Gaheem

by admin

By Cornelius Frolik
 A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Al-Idu Al-Gaheem to one year and one day in prison for his role in a scheme that bilked $3.8 million from the federal food stamp program, a newspaper reported

Pic:1389blog

The Dayton Daily News said that Al-Gaheem, the former owner of two Dayton View businesses and the imam of Masjid At-Taqwa mosque, was the second of four defendants to be sentenced in the case. All four defendants have pleaded guilty.
Al-Gaheem faced as many as four years in prison after he pleaded guilty in August to felony charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, food stamp trafficking and structuring transactions to avoid reporting requirements.
Al-Gaheem, who previously was named Lawrence Phillips, was the owner of Five Pillars Market, 1263 W. Riverview Ave., and Riverview Cell & Cup of Dreams, 512 N. Broadway St.
Al-Gaheem worked and conspired with Abdul Yamini Sr., Abdul Qadir and Omar Yahya to defraud the food-assistance program. The men illegally paid customers 50 cents in cash for every $1 in food stamp benefits they redeemed.
Undercover law enforcement agents caught the defendants illegally trading cash for food stamp benefits and buying and selling products that are ineligible through the program, such as counterfeit clothing and firearms.
Authorities estimate that more than 1,000 transactions took place at Five Pillars Market that involved the illegal exchange of food benefits. The federal government deposited about $3.8 million into bank accounts controlled by Al-Gaheem and others as reimbursement for food benefits redeemed at Five Pillars.
Al-Gaheem repeatedly withdrew large amounts of cash from the bank account, but he always took out sums that were just less than the threshold that requires the filing of federal financial reports.
Al-Gaheem and the other defendants used the money they stole to renovate the Dayton View businesses and pay for personal expenses, such as rent, mortgage and other bills, said assistant U.S. Attorney Dwight Keller.
Keller urged Judge Timothy S. Black to give Al-Gaheem the maximum prison sentence to deter him from breaking the law in the future and also to send a message that this criminal activity will not be tolerated.
“Mr. Al-Gaheem is arguably the most culpable” defendant in the case, Keller said.
Al-Gaheem’s attorney James Fleisher argued that justice would best be served by placing his client on probation or house arrest, because Al-Gaheem is an important part of his community and some family members depend on him for caregiving and financial support.
Judge Black said although Al-Gaheem had an “extraordinarily impressive” record of good deeds and charitable actions, he could not ignore his role in the criminal enterprise by only giving him “a slap on the wrist.”
Black sentenced Al-Gaheem to the same prison term that he handed down to Qadir in November.
In addition to prison, Black also ordered Al-Gaheem to be placed on three years of community control after his release.
Al-Gaheem and the other co-defendants in the case will be ordered to pay $3.8 million in restitution to the federal government, even though authorities doubt that they can even come close to paying back the money they stole.
Yamini is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 20. Yahya is scheduled to be sentenced in late February.

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Football turns into Ootball in newspaper title

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17 Dec 2012

Football

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Connecticut killer is remembered as “the nice kid”-video

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17 Dec 2012

adam Lanza

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JPMorgan sued

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17 Dec 2012

bear stearns,JPmorgan

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ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Dec. 17, 2012) – The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has filed suit in Federal District Court in Kansas against J.P. Morgan Securities and Bear, Stearns & Co., alleging violations of federal and state securities laws in the sale of $3.6 billion in mortgage-backed securities to four corporate credit unions, a news release posted on NCUA said.


NCUA’s suit—the largest the agency has filed to date—alleges Bear, Stearns & Co. made misrepresentations in connection with the underwriting and subsequent sale of mortgage-backed securities to U.S. Central, Western Corporate, Southwest Corporate and Members United Corporate federal credit unions.

All four corporate credit unions became insolvent and were subsequently placed into NCUA conservatorship and liquidated as a result of losses from these faulty securities. These failures caused significant losses to the credit union system. J.P. Morgan Securities purchased Bear, Stearns & Co. in 2008, after the demise of Bear, Stearns & Co.

“Bear, Stearns was one of several Wall Street firms that sold faulty securities to corporate credit unions, leading to their collapse and enormous losses across the industry,” said NCUA Board Chairman Debbie Matz. “Firms like Bear, Stearns acted unfairly by ignoring the rules for underwriting. They packaged these securities and then told buyers the paper was sound. When the securities plunged in value, we learned the truth. NCUA is now working to hold these underwriters accountable and secure recoveries on behalf of federally insured credit unions.”

The complaint alleges Bear, Stearns & Co. made numerous misrepresentations and omissions of material facts in the offering documents of the securities sold to the failed corporate credit unions. The complaint states underwriting guidelines in the offering documents were “abandoned” and the misrepresentations caused the credit unions to believe the risk of loss was minimal. In fact, these securities were “significantly riskier than represented” and “routinely overvalued.” The faulty securities, the complaint states, “were destined from inception to perform poorly.”

NCUA has eight similar actions pending against Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Securities, RBS Securities, UBS Securities, and Wachovia.

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Man with 47 guns threatens to shoot elementary school students arrested

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16 Dec 2012

by admin

Los Angeles, The Guardian Express: A man affiliated to a notorious motor cycle club has been arrested with 47 weapons for threatening to assassinate children belonging to an elementary school and his wife in Indiana on Saturday.

The man identified as Von.I. Meyer of Invaders Motorcycle gang has told his wife that he wanted to kill as many as he could”. His threats came just 48 hours after a crazed gunman assassinated 28 people including 20 children in an affluent town of Connecticut on Friday.
Von Meyer’s wife called police on late Friday after he threatened to set on fire and kill students belonging to Jane Ball Elementary School.
It was not known what types of weapons were seized from the home of Meyer and he is being held without a bond.

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Children were shot multiple times from close proximity

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16 Dec 2012

adam Lanza

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 The Connecticut medical examiner Wayne Carver has announced that all children were shot multiple times and each child was shot between three to 11 times, a media report said.

Two of the children were shot at close range. The parents were shown bullet-riddled bodies to identify their children, an online publication Heavy said.

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Killer’s mother was big fan of high-profile weapons

0

16 Dec 2012

Adam Lansa,Nancy Lansa

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The mother of Adam Lanza, the gunmen who went on a rampage killing 28 people including 20 children, as young as five, was a survivalist, who assumed the world economy is going to collapse, media reported.

Investigations have revealed that Nancy Lansa began hoarding food and water because she feared that ongoing economic turmoil would bring an end to civilized society. She, a gun enthusiast alleged to have taught her son how to shoot and was obsessed with weapons, the London Daily Mail reported.
She was the first victim of her own son, Adam Lanz.

The Killer-Adam Lansa

In an interview Nancy Lanza sister has said that her sister was a “prepper” and was preparing for the doomsday, December 21, 2012. The Mayan’s apparently think the world would come to an end on December 21 this year.
Marsha Lanza has said that her sister was stockpiling food and both were involved in lengthy discussions over the doomsday. “Nancy was preparing for the economic disaster”, she was quoted.
It is learnt that Nancy Lanza took Adam Lanza to several shooting ranges to teach him how to fire weapons.  At the time of the crime she was in possession of five firearms, all registered in Connecticut.

Graphics-Daily Mail

A man who knew Nancy Lansa has said that she took her kids for target shooting and once showed him a high-profile weapon.
Adam first killed his mother and went on the rampage on Friday, which is described as the second worst massacre in the history of United States.
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Images of Connecticut tragedy

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15 Dec 2012

sandy hook

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All Pictures Credit to The Hartford Courant

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Breaking News: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faints

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15 Dec 2012

Hillary Clinton

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The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who fainted and  suffered a concussion is recovering at home, the state department said on Saturday.

Ms Clinton fell ill after becoming dehydrated due to a stomach virus, it added

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Hurricane Sandy gone, Now Sandy Hook, What’s next for Americans-Nation mourns

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15 Dec 2012

sandy hook ct

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America mourns: Carnage of terror is described the worst in U.S history

While the bodies of young children, some of them young as five lay scattered in their school classrooms, residents of the quiet Newton town began converging in silence and with candles in their hands to mourn the death of 27 of their own, even as the President of the country tearfully said “our hearts are broken today”.

The Killer-Adam Lansa

The total number of dead has been officially confirmed as 28 including 20 children in a campaign of terror that has shook the nation.
The young man who unleashed carnage of terror at the sandy hook elementary school in Connecticut on a Friday morning has been described as a socially stubborn youth as well as an honor student. But the horror that he unleashed has sent the country into mourning with thousands of heartfelt condolence messages posted on social media.
Adam Lansa, the 20 year youth killed 20 children and six adults before turning the gun to him in a cowardly act. Earlier law enforcement agencies reported that gunman was Ryan Lansa, the elder brother of Adam Lansa. Ryan Lansa has told the authorities that his brother seemed to be suffering from personality disorder and that he had not seen his brother in many months.
Adam Lansa was dressed in black and wore a military vest. Lansa was a former student of Newton High School in 2007 and was awarded high honors when he was attending ninth grade.
Adam Lansa’s mother Nancy Lansa who was shot dead by her own son was a substitute teacher at the Sandy Hook Elementary school. Nancy Lansa and her husband Peter Lansa filed for divorce in 2009 after 28 years of marriage stating “irreconcilable differences. Adam Lansa primarily stayed with his mother.  Before unleashing the carnage he killed his mother and then drove to the school in his mother’s car and with three weapons.
When the shootings began the teachers in other classrooms ordered the children to huddle in safe places. A teacher led 15 students inside the rest room and told the students that she loved them, but the children had told her that they do not want to die and they wanted to see Christmas.
President Obama said “our hearts are broken today, our nation has been through this many times and we are going to come together to take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies”.
As the country reeled in shock and horror investigators were trying to piece together the evidence to determine what led to the shootings.
The next two weeks would be a very difficult period for the residents of Newton as there would be at least 26 funerals, twenty of them for children.

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Man killed and woman injured in a shooting inside Excalibur hotel and casino in Las Vegas

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14 Dec 2012

by admin

A man is dead and a woman injured in a shooting incident at Excalibur hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
Police said the man shot himself to death after wounding the woman.
No other details were available. The incident occurred just before 9.00pm on Friday.

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Gunman fired nearly 100 rounds killing 29 people in Friday’s bloodiest massacre

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14 Dec 2012

Crime,elementary schook,Ryan Lanza,sandy hook ct

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Ryan Lanza fired at least 100 rounds with several weapons including .223 rifle.
Black Friday massacre suspect Ryan Lanza’s target was his mother who worked at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut. On Friday the police officials took Lanza’s younger brother into custody to determine whether he was involved in the bloodiest massacre in which 29 people including 22 children were killed.

Ryan Lanza feeding a cat..YouTube Picture

Just miles away from the Sandy Hook Elementary school, authorities placed another school under lock down after reports of a stranger lurking around.

Similar rifle was used by Ryan Lanza

Lanza first shot his father to death and drove to school where his mother was the Kindergarten teacher. He is alleged to have entered the school through the front office opened fire and then walked into his mother’s classroom shot her to death and students in her classroom.
At the time of the shooting nearly 450 students were at the location.

Alleged to be Ryan Lanza’s final tweet-YouTube

President Obama on Friday said that “we are going to have to come together and take meaningful action”.
Law enforcement agencies said Lanza after going on the rampage turned the gun to himself. Two hand guns were discovered at the school premises. It was not immediately clear why Lanza targeted the elementary school students.

Just after President Obama was briefed about the incident, he ordered flags at White House and federal buildings to be flown at half-mast to honor the victims.

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Gunman’s mother among the dead in Connecticut shooting-Suspected shooter is identified as Ryan Lanza

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14 Dec 2012

Ryan Lanza,Sandy hook elementary school

by admin

The gunman’s mother among the dead in the bloodiest massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut. The gunman has been identified as 24 year old Ryan Lanza.

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Black Friday in Connecticut as death toll climbs to 29 including 22 children

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14 Dec 2012

sandy hook school ct

by admin

At least 29 people including 22 children are confirmed dead in one of the deadliest massacre in country’s history at Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary school on Friday, media reported.

But some local agencies said the death toll remains at 27.
Among the dead were the principal of the school.  Detail of the incident was not immediately clear, but local and state authorities were dispatched after 9.00om on Friday after flurry of calls to 911.
According to some reports one entire classroom is unaccounted.
Reports said a house just few miles away from the school has been surrounded by local and federal authorities. More to follow…

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Connecticut shooter’s parent found dead in New Jersey 0 14 Dec 2012 sandy hook school ct by admin Parent of the Connecticut elementary school shooter has been found dead at home in New Jersey.

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14 Dec 2012

sandy hook school ct

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Parent of the Connecticut elementary school shooter has been found dead at home in New Jersey.

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Danish tennis player slammed as racist for impersonating Serena Williams

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14 Dec 2012

Caroline Wozniacki,Serena Williams

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Caroline Wozniacki, the Danish pro-tennis player is under fire and slammed as a racist for impersonating U.S ace Serena Williams during a game in Brazil.

Caroline Wozniacki as Serena Williams, in a weekend tournament in Brazil (Special to Gossip Extra)

The 22 year old Wozniacki is weathering heat after she padded her shorts and the top to impersonate her friend Williams at last weekend’s Roger Federer tour in Sao Paolo. Williams too took part in the tournament. Wozniacki ultimately lost the game to Maria Sharapova.

Wozniacki’s rep told a television station “It was all in good fun as Serena is one of her closest friends”.
Although the prank was a hot among the crowd for some it was bad taste.
She’s being accused of stereotyping not just Williams, but also the bodies of many black women!

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Gunman 20 year old carrying two hand guns-18 children among the dead

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14 Dec 2012

sandy hook ct

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A crazed gunman has gone on a rampage at an elementary school in Connecticut killing at least 27 people including 18 children on Friday just hours before students went home for winter break.

The identity of the gunman was not known as police in Newton Connecticut were holding a press conference at the time this article went on line. President Obama was briefed of the latest developments and the mood in white house has been described as “somber atmosphere”.
Federal authorities has said that the gunman was a 20 year old man carrying two hand guns and according to White House sources there would be discussions on gun policies.
According to news reports the gunman is dead.
“We all started crying when we heard the “boom boom” sound a child told the NBC in Connecticut. How the gunman got into the school premises was not clear. More to follow…

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Under water volcanoes discovered off California

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14 Dec 2012

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SAN FRANCISCO — Scientists have discovered one of the world’s weirdest volcanoes on the seafloor near the tip of Baja, Mexico.

Unlike most deep-sea basalt lavas, the rhyolitic lavas on the Alarcon Rise were very thick and pasty, like chunky peanut butter. As they emerged from the underwater volcano, they formed large, angular blocks, some of which tumbled down the sides of the volcano, eventually covering the sides of the dome in talus.
CREDIT: (c) 2012 MBARI

The petite dome — about 165 feet tall (50 meters) and 4,000 feet long by 1,640 feet wide (1,200 m by 500 m) — lies along the Alarcón Rise, a seafloor-spreading center. Tectonic forces are tearing the Earth’s crust apart at the spreading center, creating a long rift where magma oozes toward the surface, cools and forms new ocean crust.
Circling the planet like baseball seams, seafloor-spreading centers (also called midocean ridges) produce copious amounts of basalt, a low-silica content lava rock that makes up the ocean crust. (Silica, or silicon dioxide, is the main component of quartz, one of the most common minerals on Earth.)
But samples from the newly discovered volcano are strangely rhyolite lava, and have the highest silica content (up to 77 percent) of any rocks collected from a midocean ridge, said Brian Dreyer, a geochemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The results were presented last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Researchers with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) discovered the volcano this spring, during a three-month expedition to the Gulf of California, the warm stretch of water that separates Baja from mainland Mexico. A remote-control vehicle explored the volcano, which is 7,800 feet (2,375 m) below the surface, and brought samples back to the ship.
“When we picked up the rocks and got them back on the ship, we immediately noticed that they were very low density, and they were very light, glassy and gray. They were not the usual dark, black, shiny basalts,” Dreyer told OurAmazingPlanet. “So we immediately knew that something was unusual.”
The volcano is primarily rhyolite and a silicic lava called dacite, said MBARI geologist Jennifer Paduan. “To find this along a midocean ridge is a total surprise,” she told OurAmazingPlanet.

These maps show the location of the Alarcón Rise, a 31-mile-long (50 kilometer) spreading center at the mouth of the Gulf of California. Along ocean spreading ridges like the Alarcón Rise, the seafloor is splitting apart as lava wells up from underneath.
CREDIT: (c) 2012 MBARI

Boulders and blocks the size of cars and small houses littered the steep slopes of the dome, the robot’s video camera showed. The gravelly debris is made of lava that resembles the ragged surface of an ‘a (rough, rubbly or blocky lava). The flows would have been deposited via large, avalanche like deposits, Paduan wrote on the expedition’s blog. A few ridges were composed of very strange, steeply dipping, lineated flows very different from the pillow-style appearance of deep-sea basalt, she wrote.
The researchers don’t yet know how the age of the volcano because their samples haven’t finished undergoing the necessary tests. The dome is probably several thousand years old, MBARI geologist David Clague said in an email.
Of more concern is the evidence for explosive volcanism, which is typical of rhyolite volcanoes, Paduan said.

“It’s only 100 kilometers [60 miles] from land. When the sun is setting, you can see Cabo,” she said. Both the Baja Peninsula and mainland Mexico near Alarcón Rise have cities and luxury resorts. The Gulf of California is also home to endangered sea life.
Rhyolite lava carries more gas and volatiles (things that are likely to cause explosions) than basalt, and when magma meets water, it vaporizes instantly, driving an even more explosive eruption. “There are definitely explosive deposits there, and that is of extreme concern, given that the ridge is so close to land and the tsunami potential of a big explosion there,” Paduan said. “We don’t know how explosive, and that is something we are definitely trying to figure out.”
The researchers also found Pele’s seaweed, or limu o pele, at another location on the 30-mile-long (50 km) ridge. These are little fragments of lava formed from explosive magmatic gas bubbles that implode when they hit cold seawater. “We did find evidence of mildly explosive eruptions on the ridge,” Paduan said.

Rhyolites have been found on spreading centers, but only above hot spots, such as in Iceland and the Galapagos Islands, Dreyer said. Hot spots are plumes that bring magma to the surface from deep within Earth’s mantle. There is no hot spot under the Alarcón Rise, he said.
Rhyolite lava typically occurs only on continents, such as in Mount St. Helen’s growing dome in Washington. One possible explanation for the bizarre composition of the Alarcón dome is that continental crust snuck into the molten rock below — the spreading center is young and continental crust lies close by. But tests of different isotopes (versions of elements with differing numbers of neutrons in the cores) in the lava samples revealed no evidence of contamination by continental crust, Dreyer said.
Another discarded idea was that a cold spot underlying the ridge cooled and crystallized the magma chamber that fed the volcano, leaving only a high-silica melt behind. The team’s current hypothesis is that the magma source had a high concentration of volatiles like water, sulfur and chlorine, maybe from an influx of seawater.

“It’s a work in progress, but we have found some of the glassy volcanic debris surrounding this feature has water concentrations of up to eight percent, which is pretty unusual for a spreading center,” Dreyer said.

The Alarcón Rise drifts apart at a relatively slow 2 inches (5 centimeters) a year. The segment is bounded by the Pescadero transform fault to the north and the Tamayo transform fault to the south, and is the northern extension of the East Pacific Rise. The vast majority of lava flows along the ridge are basalt. The rhyolite dome is about 5.5 miles (9 km) south of the Pescadero transform fault.
Reach Becky Oskin at boskin@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @beckyoskin. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We’re also on Facebook and Google+.

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Mount Everest seen from space

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14 Dec 2012

mount everest

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The world’s highest mountain doesn’t look quite so high from space.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko recently snapped a shot of Mount Everest from his perch 230 miles (370 kilometers) above Earth on the International Space Station. The photo shows the peak of Everest nestled among other crags in the Himalayas, with snow lightly dusting the tops.
Such a famous mountain, one of the world’s most iconic climbing goals, is an often-sought photographic target for astronauts in orbit. But it’s harder than you might think to catch a good snapshot of the mountain, or any specific landmark on Earth, astronauts say, because their schedules are so packed tight, and photos of Earth locations must be timed carefully.
Source:OAP

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Dog waits over a week for its owner despite harsh weather conditions in Japan

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14 Dec 2012

hachi

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Al elderly Japanese couple has spotted a brokenhearted dog waiting at a side of mountain road in the city of Lida waiting for his owner to return despite blistering weather conditions, media reported.

The dog has refused to move an inch from the location and simply stares downhill at the long stretch for his owner.
The light-brown dog discovered in chilly Nagano prefecture was first spotted by a local couple on December 4 while they were out driving. The couple, both in their 70s, were driving along the high mountain road when they spotted the sad-looking dog standing in an open section of land near the roadside, facing down the sloping path.
The dog is said to be of muscular build and was believed to have been kept as a hunting dog, though now clearly malnourished and having been exposed to the elements for so long he is started looking rather worse for wear.

“He may have strayed too far from his master,” commented the couple who first sighted the pooch, “but if he’s simply been abandoned, wait as he might his master almost definitely isn’t coming back. I feel so sorry for him; he must be hungry.”
More than seven days later, apart from having turned to brace against the bitterly cold wind, the dog has remained in the same spot and is seemingly still awaiting his owner’s return.
Quite why no one has picked the pooch up and taken him somewhere safe and warm, we have no idea. We’ll be sure to bring you more information about this sad but infinitely dutiful dog as soon as it emerges.

A movie was made in 2009 of a dog named  Hachikō which waited for his master every day outside Tokyo’s Shibuya station for an incredible nine years after his death. The dog would go to meet his master Hidesaburo Ueno coming home from work at the same time each day for years, but after Ueno suffered a stroke and died, his dog continued to return to the station daily until his own death nine years later, much to the sorrow of local residents and station staff who grew to love and pity him. Visitors to the station today can see a memorial statue of the faithful pooch standing outside the entrance closest to the famous “scramble” street crossing, appropriately named the “Hachiko exit”.

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Deadly shooting at elementary school as children prepare for winter-break

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14 Dec 2012

sandy hook school ct

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An entire school district in Connecticut was placed under lock down and local police aided by SWAT officers combed for a gunman or gunmen after reports of shooting incident at an elementary school on Friday morning.

Media reports said that a teacher was among three injured in the incident at Sandy Hook elementary school. As soon the gunfire echoed the students were rushed to safety locations and according to reports the teacher was shot in the foot.
The motive for the shooting was not clear as this article went online.
According to local NBC news reports the shots were heard during announcements. Today is the last day of school for the winter break.

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Singapore says no to boat people

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13 Dec 2012

singapore

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Singapore which brags itself as one of the cleanest and tourism friendly country in the globe is not that friendly for people struck in the middle of the ocean without proper food and medical supplies, news report suggests.

Read the full article as it appeared on Phuketwan, a Thailand based newspaper.
PHUKET: The condition of 40 shipwreck survivors who have been in limbo on a Vietnamese-flagged cargo ship for seven days is deteriorating as food supplies run low and they go without medical treatment.
Some of the Burmese asylum seekers who were plucked from the sea 30 hours after their boat sank in the Bay of Bengal do not even have clothes, according to a manager of the 27,000-tonne Nosco Victory, which is anchored off Singapore.
Vivian Lee, a Bangkok-based spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, on Thursday repeated an appeal for Singapore to reverse its decision to ban the ship.
”We need to get them off the ship to get them the urgent attention they need,” she said.
In a sign of wariness by south-east Asian nations about accepting asylum seekers amid an exodus from Burma, the ship’s captain cannot obtain permission to take the group to any nearby port.
Nguyen Cong Thanh, a deputy director of the Northern Shipping Joint Stock Co, or Nosco, said the ship is designed to accommodate only 24 sailors.
”So with 40 more people on board, we are very concerned about the safety issues and the food supplies,” he said. ”Some [of the survivors] don’t even have clothing.”
Ms Lee said those rescued are probably ”quite desperate” as they had apparently spent time in the water before rescue and seen people drown around them.
Up to 160 other Rohingya, a Muslim minority fleeing violence in Burma’s western Rahkine state, are believed to have drowned when the over-crowded Bangladeshi-flagged Nagu sank on December 5.
Nine other survivors are believed to have been picked up by another ship and their whereabouts are unknown.
Singapore authorities say the captain of the Nosco Victory ignored advice from Indian rescue authorities to take the people it picked up to the nearest port, which probably was in India or Bangladesh.
The captain instead continued on to Singapore, its original destination.
Singapore, which is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Refugees, has said in the past it would not accept Rohingya asylum seekers. The Nosco Victory is due to arrive in Indonesia on Saturday but Jakarta appears cool on accepting them.

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