Temasek raises stake in Olam






SINGAPORE: Temasek Holdings has raised its stake in commodity trader Olam International to 17 percent from 16.3 percent.

In a filing with the Singapore Exchange, Olam said Temasek had bought 200,000 shares for S$293,000 from the open market on Tuesday through its investment vehicle Aranda Investments.

In an emailed comment to Channel NewsAsia, a Temasek spokesperson said: "We have invested in Olam over several years. In our judgement, the company represents a reasonably attractive investment over the long term and we are pleased to have the opportunity to add to our stake."

Earlier this month, Olam said Temasek is backing its rights issue of bonds and warrants to raise as much as US$1.2 billion.

This could potentially translate to the investment firm owning as much as 29 percent of Olam if it exercises all the warrants in 2016 at the earliest.

Kewalram Chanrai Group, Olam's largest investor with nearly a 20 percent stake, has also said it will back the issue.

Olam has been the target of short-seller Carson Block and his research firm Muddy Waters, which questioned the company's allegedly flawed accounting standards that they claimed masked its debts.

- CNA/al



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Funds crunch hits war on malaria

NEW DELHI: The amount of funds available for malaria prevention and control globally is less than half what is needed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said in a report. While it is estimated that $5.1 billion is needed every year between 2011 and 2020 to achieve universal access to malaria interventions, only $2.3 billion was available in 2011. The WHO has blamed this on a slowing down in the efforts to reverse the epidemic.

This was stated in the World Malaria Report released on Monday, which summarised information from 104 malaria-endemic countries, including India. International funding for malaria control has been steadily rising, going up from less than $100 million in 2000 to $1.71 billion in 2010. National government funding for malaria programmes has also been increasing in recent years, touching an estimated $625 million in 2011. Yet the funds are far from adequate as malaria hits the poorest countries with higher proportions of their population living in poverty (less than $1.25 per person per day) have higher mortality rates from malaria.

Projections of both domestic and international resources available between 2013 and 2015 indicate that total funding for malaria control will remain at less than US$ 2.7 billion, substantially below the amount required.

The African continent accounts for the highest incidence of malaria with 219 million cases and 90% of all malarial deaths in the world. In the Southeast Asia region, India has the highest incidence of malaria (24 million cases) followed by Indonesia and Myanmar. According to the latest WHO estimates, worldwide there were about 219 million cases of malaria in 2010 and an estimated 660,000 deaths.

Together, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria are estimated to account for over 40% of all malaria deaths globally. Similarly, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Nigeria account for 40% of malaria cases.

The world report claims that 50 countries are on track to reduce their malaria case incidence rates by 75%, in line with World Health Assembly and Roll Back Malaria targets for 2015. However, these 50 countries account for just 3% (7 million) of the total estimated malaria cases. Moreover, malaria surveillance systems detect only around 10% of the estimated global number of cases, with case detection being lowest in the countries with the highest burden of malaria. In the African and Western Pacific Regions, the main constraint is the small proportion of patients attending public facilities who receive a diagnostic test for malaria.

In the Southeast Asia Region, the most important issue is the high proportion of patients who seek treatment in the private sector, as is happening in India where the private sector is not part of the health reporting system. With such constraints, most of the WHO figures are based on estimates and modelling.

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Race Is On to Find Life Under Antarctic Ice



A hundred years ago, two teams of explorers set out to be the first people ever to reach the South Pole. The race between Roald Amundsen of Norway and Robert Falcon Scott of Britain became the stuff of triumph, tragedy, and legend. (See rare pictures of Scott's expedition.)


Today, another Antarctic drama is underway that has a similar daring and intensity—but very different stakes.


Three unprecedented, major expeditions are underway to drill deep through the ice covering the continent and, researchers hope, penetrate three subglacial lakes not even known to exist until recently.


The three players—Russia, Britain, and the United States—are all on the ice now and are in varying stages of their preparations. The first drilling was attempted last week by the British team at Lake Ellsworth, but mechanical problems soon cropped up in the unforgiving Antarctic cold, putting a temporary hold on their work.


The key scientific goal of the missions: to discover and identify living organisms in Antarctica's dark, pristine, and hidden recesses. (See "Antarctica May Contain 'Oasis of Life.'")


Scientists believe the lakes may well be home to the kind of "extreme" life that could eke out an existence on other planets or moons of our solar system, so finding them on Earth could help significantly in the search for life elsewhere.



An illustration shows lakes and rivers under Antarctica's ice.
Lakes and rivers are buried beneath Antarctica's thick ice (enlarge).

Illustration courtesy Zina Deretsky, NSF




While astrobiology—the search for life beyond Earth—is a prime mover in the push into subglacial lakes, so too is the need to better understand the ice sheet that covers the vast continent and holds much of the world's water. If the ice sheet begins to melt due to global warming, the consequences—such as global sea level rise—could be catastrophic.


"We are the new wave of Antarctic explorers, pioneers if you will," said Montana State University's John Priscu, chief scientist of the U.S. drilling effort this season and a longtime Antarctic scientist.


"After years of planning, projects are coming together all at once," he said.


"What we find this year and next will set the stage for Antarctic science for the next generation and more—just like with the explorers a century ago."


All Eyes on the Brits


All three research teams are at work now, but the drama is currently focused on Lake Ellsworth, buried 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) below the West Antarctic ice sheet.


A 12-person British team is using a sophisticated technique that involves drilling down using water melted from the ice, which is then heated to 190 degrees Fahrenheit (88 degrees Celsius).


The first drilling attempt began on December 12, but was stopped at almost 200 feet (61 meters) because of technical problems with the sensors on the drill nozzle.


Drilling resumed on Saturday but then was delayed when both boilers malfunctioned, requiring the team to wait for spare parts. The situation is frustrating but normal due to the harsh climate, British Antarctic team leader Martin Siegert, who helped discover Lake Ellsworth in 2004, said in an email from the site.


After completing their drilling, the team will have about 24 hours to collect their samples before the hole freezes back up in the often below-zero cold. If all goes well, they could have lake water and mud samples as early as this week.


"Our expectation is that microbes will be found in the lake water and upper sediment," Siegert said. "We would be highly surprised if this were not the case."


The British team lives in tents and makeshift shelters, and endures constant wind as well as frigid temperatures. (Take an Antarctic quiz.)


"Right now we are working round the clock in a cold, demanding and extreme location-it's testing our own personal endurance, but it's worth it," Siegert said.


U.S. First to Find Life?


The U.S. team is drilling into Lake Whillans, a much shallower body about 700 miles inland (1,120 kilometers) in the region that drains into the Ross Sea.


The lake, which is part of a broader water system under the ice, may well have the greatest chances of supporting microbial life, experts say. Hot-water drilling begins there in January.


Among the challenges: Lake Whillans lies under an ice stream, which is similar to a glacier but is underground and surrounded by ice on all sides. It moves slowly but constantly, and that complicates efforts to drill into the deepest—and most scientifically interesting—part of the lake.


Montana State's Priscu—currently back in the U.S. for medical reasons—said his team will bring a full lab to the Lake Whillans drilling site to study samples as they come up: something the Russians don't have the interest or capacity in doing and that the British will be trying in a more limited way. (Also see "Pictures: 'Extreme' Antarctic Science Revealed.")


So while the U.S. team may be the last of the three to penetrate their lake, they could be the first to announce the discovery of life in deep subglacial lakes.


"We should have a good idea of the abundance and type of life in the lake and sediments before we leave the site," said Priscu, who plans to return to Antarctica in early January if doctors allow.


"And we want to know as much as possible about how they make a living down there without energy from the sun and without nutrients most life-forms need."


All subglacial lakes are kept liquid by heat generated from the pressure of the heavy load of ice above them, and also from heat emanating from deeper in the Earth's crust.


In addition, the movement of glaciers and "ice streams" produces heat from friction, which at least temporarily results in a wet layer at the very bottom of the ice.


The Lake Whillans drilling is part of the larger Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) project, first funded in 2009 by the U.S. National Science Foundation with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.


That much larger effort will also study the ice streams that feed and leave the lake to learn more about another aspect of Antarctic dynamism: The recently discovered web of more than 360 lakes and untold streams and rivers—some nearing the size of the Amazon Basin—below the ice. (See "Chain of Cascading Lakes Discovered Under Antarctica.")


Helen Fricker, a member of the WISSARD team and a glaciologist at University of California, San Diego, said that scientists didn't begin to understand the vastness of Antarctica's subglacial water world until after the turn of the century.


That hidden, subterranean realm has "incredibly interesting and probably never classified biology," Fricker said.


"But it can also give us important answers about the climate history of the Earth, and clues about the future, too, as the climate changes."


Russia Returning to Successful Site


While both the U.S. and British teams have websites to keep people up to date on their work, the Russians do not, and have been generally quiet about their plans for this year.


The Russians have a team at Lake Vostok, the largest and deepest subglacial lake in Antarctica at more than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) below the icy surface of the East Antarctic plateau.


The Vostok drilling began in the 1950s, well before anyone knew there was an enormous lake beneath the ice. The Russians finally and briefly pierced the lake early this year, before having to leave because of the cold. That breakthrough was portrayed at the time as a major national accomplishment.


According to Irina Alexhina, a Russian scientist with the Vostok team who was visiting the U.S. McMurdo Station last week, the Russian plan for this season focuses on extracting the ice core that rose in February when Vostok was breached. She said the team arrived this month and can stay through early February.


Preliminary results from the February breach report no signs of life on the drill bit that entered the water, but some evidence of life in small samples of the "accretion ice," which is frozen to the bottom of the lake, said Lake Vostok expert Sergey Bulat, of the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, in May.


Both results are considered tentative because of the size of the sample and how they were retrieved. In addition, sampling water from the very top of Lake Vostok is far less likely to find organisms than farther down or in the bottom sediment, scientists say.


"It's like taking a scoop of water from the top of Lake Ontario and making conclusions about the lake based on that," said Priscu, who has worked with the Russians at Vostok.


He said he hopes to one day be part of a fully international team that will bring the most advanced drilling and sample collecting technology to Vostok.


Extreme Antarctic Microbes Found


Some results have already revealed life under the ice. A November study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that subglacial Lake Vida—which is smaller and closer to the surface than other subglacial lakes—does indeed support a menagerie of strange and often unknown bacteria.


The microbes survive in water six times saltier than the oceans, with no oxygen, and with the highest level of nitrous oxide ever found in water on Earth, said study co-author Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center.


"What Antarctica is telling us is that organisms can eke out a living in the most extreme of environments," said McKay, an expert in the search for life beyond Earth.


McKay called Lake Vida the closest analog found so far to the two ice and water moons in the solar system deemed most likely to support extraterrestrial life—Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's Enceladus.


But that "closest analog" designation may soon change. Life-forms found in Vostok, Ellsworth, or Whillans would all be living at a much greater depth than at Lake Vida—meaning that they'd have to contend with more pressure, more limited nutrients, and a source of energy entirely unrelated to the sun.


"Unique Moment in Antarctica"


The prospect of finding microscopic life in these extreme conditions may not seem to be such a big deal for understanding our planet—or the possibility of life on others. (See Antarctic pictures by National Geographic readers.)


But scientists point out that only bacteria and other microbes were present on Earth for 3 billion of the roughly 3.8 billion years that life has existed here. Our planet, however, had conditions that allowed those microbes to eventually evolve into more complex life and eventually into everything biological around us.


While other moons and planets in our solar system do not appear capable of supporting evolution, scientists say they may support—or have once supported—primitive microbial life.


And drilling into Antarctica's deep lakes could provide clues about where extraterrestrial microbes might live, and how they might be identified.


In addition, Priscu said there are scores of additional Antarctic targets to study to learn about extreme life, climate change, how glaciers move, and the dynamics of subterranean rivers and lakes.


"We actually know more about the surface of Mars than about these subglacial systems of Antarctica," he said. "That's why this work involves such important and most likely transformative science."


Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt, the just-retired president of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, an international coordinating group, called this year "a unique moment in Antarctica."


"There's a growing understanding of the continent as a living, dynamic place—not a locked-in ice desert—and that has created real scientific excitement."


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Newtown Shooting: Bushmaster Under Fire













When the private investment firm Cerberus Capital Management announced Tuesday it would unload its interest in Bushmaster – the company that built the weapon used in last week's mass murder of 20 Connecticut first graders -- it marked the beginning of what experts say is likely to be a challenging period for the North Carolina-based weapons manufacturer.


"They are looking at a taint on their brand and looking at a marketplace that could change dramatically with respect to their weapon," said Chris Lehane, a crisis public relations expert who worked in the Clinton White House. "To me the fact that Cerberus is pulling out is a pretty significant defining moment."


For years, Bushmaster has been marketing itself to testosterone-fueled male customers, issuing "man cards" to customers who want to be "card carrying men." Now, Lehane and others said the company is facing the prospect of being branded the weapon of choice for mass killers. The Newtown, Connecticut shooting marked the fourth time a Bushmaster has been implicated in a mass shooting since 1999, including the Beltway sniper case that left 10 dead and three more wounded.


Cerberus announced Tuesday it wanted distance from Bushmaster, calling the murder of 20 first grade children at Sandy Hook Elementary School a "watershed event." The investment firm, which is chaired by former Vice President Dan Quayle, noted in its statement that Bushmaster may not be an investment consistent with the interests of its clients. Its investors include the pension plans of firemen, teachers, and policemen.






Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo











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Lehane said the announcement could signal a shift in the way investors view companies that make military style weapons for a civilian market.


"It reminds me of the time when tobacco began to be associated with a negative light, or the divestiture movement surrounding companies in South Africa," he said. "Where financial markets believe they are going to pay a price."


In addition, a spokesman for Cerberus Group confirmed that the father of Stephen Feinberg, the founder of Cerberus Group, lives in Newtown.


Gun control groups have also lined up to criticize the weapons manufacturer, arguing that the company was selling civilian customers a weapon clearly designed for war.


"This thing is just a killing machine," said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "[I]t's a weapon that can easily shoot hundreds of … In fact it's very similar to the weapon that James Holmes used to shoot up the movie theater in Aurora."


The company has not responded to phone calls seeking comment, but gun enthusiasts say the weapon's menacing appearance can appeal to civilians looking for a means to secure their homes, and its ease of use can appeal to those looking for a weapon for target shooting.


"The [assault rifle] platform is the most popular in the country," said Frank Cornwall, a firearms instructor in Connecticut. "Civilians have always bought similar type arms to the military. And this is a very versatile platform. Quite a popular hunting and target shooting gun."


Phillip Stutts, a crisis management consultant who worked for President George W. Bush, said he has been surprised by the silence of the gun manufacturer.


"Bushmaster doesn't have to take responsibility for this tragedy, but they have a responsibility to respond to this tragedy," he said. "And they haven't. They have to get out in front of this. It needs to be corrected ASAP."






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Gun-control legislation: The difference between 1994 and today



In a prior life, New York’s taxi and limousine commissioner, David Yassky, played a major role in writing the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which outlawed the production of certain types of weapons and limited the size of high capacity magazines. As chief counsel to then-Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the House crime subcommittee, Yassky had a front-row seat to the last major congressional deal on guns — in which a congressman’s eleventh-hour change of heart gave gun-control advocates a two-vote victory in the House, where Democrats were in the majority.

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Remains of man in armour found at "Pompeii of Japan"






TOKYO: The remains of a high-caste man wearing armour who was buried by hot ash -- possibly as he tried to calm the wrath of an erupting volcano -- have been found in an area known as the "Pompeii of Japan".

Archaeologists say they have unearthed the well-preserved body of a sixth-century man who had apparently turned to face a flow of molten rock as it gushed through his settlement.

"Under normal circumstances, you would flee if pyroclastic flows are rushing toward you and bringing waves of heat. But this person died facing it," said Shinichiro Ohki, of Gunma Archaeological Research Foundation.

"Maybe, if he were someone of a high position, he might have been praying, or doing something in the direction of the volcano and attempting to appease its anger," Ohki told AFP on Monday.

The remains, along with a part of an infant's skull, were found in the Kanai Higashiura dig in Gunma prefecture, roughly 110 kilometres (70 miles) northwest of Tokyo, at the site of the volcanic Mount Haruna.

The find comes from an area known to enthusiasts as the "Pompeii of Japan" a reference to the Roman city near modern-day Naples buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The body is clad in a relatively sophisticated kind of armour made by craftsmen who bound small iron plates with thin leather strips, which would have represented the latest technological import from the Korean Peninsula.

It may have been brought to Japan after the practice of horse riding was introduced in the late fifth century, Ohki said, adding that the armour was much more sophisticated than the single-plate type common in the period.

"It indicates the person wearing it was someone of a high position, like a regional leader," Ohki told AFP, adding studies would be carried out to see if the man was related to occupants of ancient tombs dotting the region.

Archaeologists will also examine the bones to determine whether the man and the child were related.

"If possible, we would like to study their DNA. Were they related? Why and how did they die there?" Ohki said.

- AFP/al



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India lost $123 billion in black money in a decade

WASHINGTON: The Indian economy suffered $1.6 billion in illicit financial outflows in 2010, capping-off a decade in which it experienced black money losses of $123 billion, according to a new report.

India is ranked as the decade's 8th largest victim of illicit capital flight behind China, Mexico, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the Philippines, and Nigeria, respectively in the report by Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization.

Titled "Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2001-2010," the report found that all developing and emerging economies suffered $858.8 billion in illicit outflows in 2010, just below the all-time high of $871.3 billion set in 2008-the year preceding the global financial crisis.

"While progress has been made in recent years, India continues to lose a large amount of wealth in illicit financial outflows," said GFI director Raymond Baker.

"Much focus has been paid in the media on recovering the Indian black money that has already been lost," he said suggesting policymakers should instead make curtailing the ongoing outflow of money priority number one.

"$123 billion is a massive amount of money for the Indian economy to lose," said Dev Kar, GFI lead economist and co-author of the report with GFI economist Sarah Freitas.

"It has very real consequences for Indian citizens. This is more than $100 billion dollars which could have been used to invest in education, healthcare, and upgrade the nation's infrastructure," he said.

A Nov 2010 GFI report, "The Drivers and Dynamics of Illicit Financial Flows from India: 1948-2008," found that the Indian economy lost $462 billion to illicit financial outflows from 1948 through 2008.

Authored by Kar, the report measured India's underground economy as 50 percent of GDP, with cumulative illicit outflows accounting for an increasing share of the total underground economy.

The new GFI study also estimates the developing world lost a total of $5.86 trillion to illicit outflows over the decade spanning 2001 through 2010.

The $858.8 billion of illicit outflows lost to all developing countries in 2010 is a significant uptick from 2009, which saw developing nations lose $776.0 billion.

GFI advocated that world leaders increase the transparency in the international financial system as a means to curtail the illicit flow of money highlighted by Kar and Freitas' research.

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GRAIL Mission Goes Out With a Bang

Jane J. Lee


On Friday, December 14, NASA sent their latest moon mission into a death spiral. Rocket burns nudged GRAIL probes Ebb and Flow into a new orbit designed to crash them into the side of a mountain near the moon's north pole today at around 2:28 p.m. Pacific standard time. NASA named the crash site after late astronaut Sally Ride, America's first woman in space.

Although the mountain is located on the nearside of the moon, there won't be any pictures because the area will be shadowed, according to a statement from NASA' Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Originally sent to map the moon's gravity field, Ebb and Flow join a long list of man-made objects that have succumbed to a deadly lunar attraction. Decades of exploration have left a trail of debris intentionally crashed, accidentally hurtled, or deliberately left on the moon's surface. Some notable examples include:

Ranger 4 - Part of NASA's first attempt to snap close-up pictures of the moon, the Ranger program did not start off well. Rangers 1 through 6 all failed, although Ranger 4, launched April 23, 1962, did make it as far as the moon. Sadly, onboard computer failures kept number 4 from sending back any pictures before it crashed. (See a map of all artifacts on the moon.)

Fallen astronaut statue - This 3.5-inch-tall aluminum figure commemorates the 14 astronauts and cosmonauts who had died prior to the Apollo 15 mission. That crew left it behind in 1971, and NASA wasn't aware of what the astronauts had done until a post-flight press conference.

Lunar yard sale - Objects jettisoned by Apollo crews over the years include a television camera, earplugs, two "urine collection assemblies," and tools that include tongs and a hammer. Astronauts left them because they needed to shed weight in order to make it back to Earth on their remaining fuel supply, said archivist Colin Fries of the NASA History Program Office.

Luna 10 - A Soviet satellite that crashed after successfully orbiting the moon, Luna 10 was the first man-made object to orbit a celestial body other than Earth. Its Russian controllers had programmed it to broadcast the Communist anthem "Internationale" live to the Communist Party Congress on April 4, 1966. Worried that the live broadcast could fail, they decided to broadcast a recording of the satellite's test run the night before—a fact they revealed 30 years later.

Radio Astronomy Explorer B - The U.S. launched this enormous instrument, also known as Explorer 49, into a lunar orbit in 1973. At 600 feet (183 meters) across, it's the largest man-made object to enter orbit around the moon. Researchers sent it into its lunar orbit so it could take measurements of the planets, the sun, and the galaxy free from terrestrial radio interference. NASA lost contact with the satellite in 1977, and it's presumed to have crashed into the moon.

(Learn about lunar exploration.)


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Conn. Kids Laid to Rest: 'Our Hearts Are With You'













Visibly shaken attendees exiting the funeral today for 6-year-old Noah Pozner, one of 20 children killed in the Connecticut school massacre last week, said they were touched by a story that summed up the first-grader best.


His mother, Veronique, would often tell him how much she loved him and he'd respond: "Not as much as I [love] you," said a New York man who attended the funeral but was not a member of the family.


Noah's family had been scheduled to greet the public before the funeral service began at 1 p.m. at the Abraham L. Green & Son Funeral Home in Fairfield, Conn. The burial was to follow at the B'nai Israel Cemetery in Monroe, Conn. Those present said they were in awe at the composure of Noah's mother.


Rabbi Edgar Gluck, who attended the service, said the first person to speak was Noah's mother, who told mourners that her son's ambition when he grew up was to be either a director of a plant that makes tacos -- because that was his favorite food -- or to be a doctor.


Outside the funeral home, a small memorial lay with a sign reading: "Our hearts are with you, Noah." A red rose was also left behind along with two teddy bears with white flowers and a blue toy car with a note saying "Noah, rest in peace."


CLICK HERE for complete coverage of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.






Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images











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The funeral home was adorned with white balloons as members of the surrounding communities came also to pay their respects, which included a rabbi from Bridgeport. More than a dozen police officers were at the front of the funeral home, and an ambulance was on standby at a gas station at the corner.


U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep. and Sen.-Elect Chris Murphy and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, all of Connecticut, were in attendance, the Connecticut Post reported.


Noah was an inquisitive boy who liked to figure out how things worked mechanically, The Associated Press reported. His twin sister, Arielle, was one of the students who survived when her teacher hid her class in the bathroom during the attack.


CLICK HERE for a tribute to the shooting victims.


The twins celebrated their sixth birthday last month. Noah's uncle Alexis Haller told the AP that he was "smart as a whip," gentle but with a rambunctious streak. He called his twin sister his best friend.


"They were always playing together, they loved to do things together," Haller said.


The funeral for Jack Pinto, 6, was also held today, at the Honan Funeral Home in Newtown. He was to be buried at Newtown Village Cemetery.


Jack's family said he loved football, skiing, wrestling and reading, and he also loved his school. Friends from his wrestling team attended his funeral today in their uniforms. One mourner said the message during the service was: "You're secure now. The worst is over."


Family members say they are not dwelling on his death, but instead on the gift of his life that they will cherish.


The family released a statement, saying, Jack was an "inspiration to all those who knew him."


"He had a wide smile that would simply light up the room and while we are all uncertain as to how we will ever cope without him, we choose to remember and celebrate his life," the statement said. "Not dwelling on the loss but instead on the gift that we were given and will forever cherish in our hearts forever."


Jack and Noah were two of 20 children killed Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., when 20-year-old Adam Lanza sprayed two first-grade classrooms with bullets that also killed six adults.






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Obama in Newtown, Conn.: ‘You’re not alone in your grief’ over school massacre



“Whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will provide,” Obama vowed, addressing a grief-stricken audience of hundreds in the auditorium of the town’s high school. Many more listeners crowded near speakers in the school’s gym, while others huddled outside in a cold drizzle, holding candles and weeping at times.

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