TOKYO: Japan's trade deficit in November expanded 37.9 per cent on-year to $11.3 billion, a record for the month, official data showed Wednesday.
The trade shortfall came to 953.4 billion yen, marking the fifth straight month of deficit as it widened from a year-earlier deficit of 691.2 billion yen. Exports fell 4.1 per cent while imports edged up 0.8 per cent.
- AFP/fa
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
(CNN) -- As the Capitol Building came into view Tuesday morning, Lee Shull tried to help his neighbor Po Murray navigate their car into Washington.
He's a 43-year-old software consultant. She's a mother of four. A week ago, they lived in a town and a neighborhood they thought was safe.
Now their block in Sandy Hook is set off by caution tape. Inside a house 100 yards from Murray's front door, Nancy Lanza was found in her bed on Friday, a gunshot to her face. The killer, her 20-year-old son, Adam Lanza, took three of his mother's high-powered guns to Sandy Hook Elementary and murdered 20 first-graders and six adults.
"I cannot even tell you what that feels like to have that happen in your town. It was like we were grabbing for something, anything," said Shull. On Friday night, neighbors and friends starting calling each other.
"We all thought we have to do something," he said. "That turned into, 'What are you doing Saturday? Can we get people together Saturday?'"
About 50 people got together Saturday, then Sunday and again Monday at the town's public library, the only place that could accommodate the growing crowd of 75-plus people.
They decided to call themselves Newtown United. A Facebook and Twitter account were set up. Then they scrambled to find people in the group who could drop their jobs for a day or put off family obligations to go to Washington. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which holds perhaps the biggest pro-gun control megaphone in the country, was staging a press conference at the capital.
Shull, Murray and Murray's 16-year-old daughter, Tess, just wanted to be a part of that, if only to stand and listen.
They get that they're entering a foreign, complex and often ugly world of politics and ideology.
"Maybe that sounds like a pipe dream, and maybe that's arrogant," said Shull. "But why not? If we fail, and maybe we will, but we don't know if we don't try."
So many victims, a long fight
At the press conference, more than 40 relatives of people who have been victims of gun violence spoke. One after another, they approached the microphone:
-- Mothers of an 8-year-old and a 27-year-old killed in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shootings this July.
-- A man who talked about his sister who was shot to death in a classroom in 2007 at Virginia Tech.
-- A mother who held a picture of her 16-year-old son, gunned down the same year on a bus in Chicago.
-- The sons of a member of the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin where a gunman murdered six in August.
-- The mother of a little girl killed in the Tucson, Arizona, shooting that targeted former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.
Tom Mauser, the father of Daniel Mauser, who was one of 13 people killed at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, walked to the podium. He had on worn, gray sneakers.
"I am here today wearing my son's shoes," he said. "It's amazing we have the same size shoes so I wear them, because he was a member of the debate team at Columbine High School, so I now wear his shoes in this great debate and it's a debate we need to have in this country."
Mauser knows what he's talking about.
He's dedicated the past 13 years to urging politicians to pass stricter gun laws. Experts say the effort has been largely unsuccessful.
Part of the reason for that rests with the troubled ban on assault weapons that passed in 1994 and was due to last 10 years. It expired in 2004 during President George W. Bush's administration. The specifics of that ban were complicated, critics said, which allowed for numerous loopholes. It also only applied to new gun purchases.
Further, gun-control advocates are up against the National Rifle Association, which has 4 million members in the United States.
This year, the NRA spent $17 million on federal elections. Annual gun sales in the United States total about $3.5 billion, according to CNN Money.
"It's not like the NRA represents some tiny splinter of American culture," said Paul Barrett, author of "Glock: The Rise of America's Gun."
"The liberal argument is that the NRA distorts democracy or bullies politicians. That's not true. They don't speak for cosmopolitan circles on the East or West Coast or the mayor of big cities," he said. "They don't speak for populations of people who are affected by urban crime. But they do speak for many, many people who have guns and don't want those guns taken from them."
Barrett said he feels compassion for everyone in Newtown. But Newtown United is entering a fight tougher than they could possibly fathom at this stage, he added.
"They are entering into a very ideologically charged arena, and are going to run up against a very cynical, very complicated and well-practiced maelstrom," he said. "I wish them the best but I would be surprised if they don't end up quite disillusioned having watched this process."
Start with talking
Shull appreciates that.
Neither he nor Murray have had the time in the past 72 hours to dive into the language of the ban on assault weapons, they said.
But they want to, and intend to.
While Shull said Newtown United wants to also address loopholes in mental health care and making schools safer, he stressed that the group generally is focused on one objective. They think it's achievable in the short-term. They want to sit down and talk to people who support gun rights.
"We have to sit down as adults and have an open dialogue and listen to that other person and find that middle ground," Shull told CNN.
At least two politicians who were for gun rights, Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Mark Warner of Virginia, said they would weigh supporting new proposed limits on firearms.
The NRA has been silent, though Tuesday afternoon it announced it will hold a press conference Friday. Its Facebook page has been deactivated, and visitors are redirected to a bare-bones page where comments are disabled (although "Likes" are still allowed). Its Twitter account, which typically posts several times a day, also has been quiet. The group's last tweet, on Friday morning, was a promotional message that said, "10 Days of NRA Giveaways -- Enter today for a chance to win an auto emergency tool!"
An advocate for Newtown?
Shull said there's hope within Newtown United that they'll have a major prizefighter in their corner -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. She was one of the major backers of the 1994 assault weapons ban.
Feinstein said she'll introduce the bill when Congress reconvenes in January and the same legislation will also be proposed in the House of Representatives.
It will ban the sale, transfer, importation and possession of big clips, drums or strips that contain more than 10 bullets, she said.
She added the caveat that "900 specific weapons" ..."will not fall under the bill."
President Barack Obama, she believes, will support the legislation.
Back in Washington, Murray is weary but optimistic.
"Look at those beautiful babies," the mother said, her voice shaking. "Look at those children at Sandy Hook. I just want to tell people in Washington to do what is right."
She's exhausted. So is her daughter Tess.
The teenager's school was in lockdown on Friday. When she got home later in the day, all she could do was hug her parents.
She casually says, "The next time my school is on lockdown," perhaps not realizing that she thinks there will be another time, no matter the circumstances, when a school is afraid.
"I trust the teachers in my school and the faculty, especially after seeing how they reacted," she said. "But I'm worried that everyone is going to be terrified.
"I know kids around the world feel the same way. They are going to know that this could happen to them. I just want to be a part of trying to change that."
HARROLD, Texas -- There's at least one school that welcome firearms to class.
It believes nothing makes a school safer than teachers who are armed,
The Harrold Independent School District is one building with 103 students. It's 20 minutes away from the nearest sheriff's station. Superintendent David Thweatt created what he calls a "guardian plan" after the attack at Virginia Tech.
"These people that go in and do these horrible acts, they're evil. But they're not that crazy -- they always know where they are going to get resistance," Thweatt said.
NRA promises "meaningful contributions" to avert another Newtown
The Newtown shootings, as they happened
Complete Coverage: Elementary School Rampage
Teachers and administrators here carry concealed handguns. They won't say how many faculty members are armed. They get extra training, but the district would not give us details.
Some people are horrified when he starts talking about putting guns in schools with children, but Thweatt said it's important to be safe.
"Sure, but it's a pretty horrific thing that happened the other day." Thweatt said. "And quite a few people are not horrified. Quite a few people we have in our district, since we have a high-transfer district, people bring their students to us for that protection."
Texas law allows concealed weapons in schools with a district's permission. Harrold was the first district to do it. A similar proposal was vetoed by Michigan's governor Tuesday.
Thweatt says allowing the firearms into the school will dissuade anyone who wants to hurt the kids.
"That's the bottom line," he said.
Since the shootings in Connecticut, Superintendent Thweatt has gotten calls from districts around the state and as far away as Missouri from school administrators asking whether they might be able to implement similar plans.
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza may have tried to sabotage his own computer before going on a murderous rampage that claimed the lives of 20 children, but experienced investigators said today that law enforcement forensic experts could still recover critical evidence from the damaged drives.
Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance revealed Monday that a computer crimes unit was working in conjunction with a forensics laboratory to "dissect" any evidence relevant to the case, but he declined to comment further on what type of evidence was involved and in what condition it was in. Later that day, law enforcement officials told ABC News that police recovered a badly damaged computer from Lanza's home that appeared to have been attacked by a hammer or screwdriver.
Sources said if they can still read the computer's hard drive, they hope to find critical clues that may help explain Lanza's motives in the killing.
Former FBI forensic experts told ABC News that in cases similar to this one, damage to the computer does not necessarily mean the computer files cannot be accessed.
"If he took a hammer to the outside, smashed the screen, dented the box, it's more than likely the hard drive is still intact," said Al Johnson, a retired FBI special agent who now works privately examining digital evidence and computer data. "And even if the hard drive itself is damaged, there are still steps that can be taken to recover everything."
Brett Harrison, a former FBI computer forensics expert who now works with a D.C. consulting firm, said that authorities have a great deal of technology at their disposal to retrieve that data. How much is recovered, he said, will depend entirely on how much damage was done to the well-insulated "platters" -- discs lodged deep inside the machine -- where Lanza's every digital footstep was recorded.
It is likely, he said, that Lanza's computer has been moved to a "clean room" where, if the discs are intact, they could be removed and then carefully re-inserted in a fresh hard drive. If the calibrations are done correctly, investigators would still be able to unlock the clues on the discs.
If the discs aren't in perfect condition, Harrison said, "There is equipment they can use to read the data off a record even if a portion of it is damaged."
Johnson said it is tedious work done in a clean environment because the tolerances of the discs is so precise – even a particle of dust could destroy crucial evidence.
"We're talking about a tolerance of less than a human hair," said Johnson, who now does computer forensics for a South Carolina-based investigative firm.
Police have not said exactly what they expect to find on the computer's hard drive, but the former FBI experts said typically there could be record of visits to violent web sites, or to online stores that sell ammunition, or to email that might reveal if Lanza shared any hints of his plans with others.
"I'm not big on speculation," Harrison said, "but you're talking about potentially finding all the normal things that people do with their computer – Facebook pages, internet activity, email, you name it."
For now, the FBI is keeping mum on what kind of computer forensic help it could be offering in the case.
"At this time, in deference to the ongoing investigation being conducted by the CSP, the FBI is not releasing information regarding operational or forensic assistance provided in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting," an FBI spokesperson said.
Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.
Crayfish are vulnerable to the same fungus that is killing frogs all over the world. The discovery helps explain how the disease spreads even after all the amphibians in an area have been wiped out. Worryingly, chemicals released by the fungus may alone be enough to kill.
Taegan McMahon of the University of South Florida, Tampa, and colleagues discovered infected crayfish in field surveys in Louisiana and Colorado. They found that up to 29 per cent of the animals carried the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Lab studies proved that crayfish can become infected and die, the first time this has been shown in non-amphibians.
Infected crayfish can pass the disease to tadpoles, and crayfish exposed to water from which the fungus had been filtered still died. McMahon says the distribution of crayfish around the world may explain why the fungus is so widespread.
She adds that it is "is certainly possible" that other invertebrates might carry the fungus. Her team are currently investigating this and are working on possible ways to stop the spread of the toxin.
"It's very compelling, their evidence for crayfish as a disease vector and for a toxic effect secreted in the water," says Trenton Garner at London's Institute of Zoology.
PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1200592110
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SYDNEY: Aid groups Tuesday attacked Australia's plans to divert hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid to help pay for asylum-seekers already in the country, saying it was a blow for the world's poor.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr said up to A$375 million ($395 million) would be spent on basic subsistence for refugees waiting to have their claims heard in Australia. It will cover food, shelter and other essential items.
"It's absolutely fair," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"The fact is the OECD guidelines provide that if you're spending money on refugees and potential refugees on your own soil, it's to be counted as if you were spending money on refugees or potential refugees in refugee camps around the world," Carr said.
But aid agencies criticised the decision which comes as Canberra battles to stem a rising flow of asylum-seekers, with more than 16,770 boatpeople arriving in Australia so far in 2012.
The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) called the diversion "an appalling breach of trust between the government and the Australian public", saying it would strip money from the world's poorest people.
Executive director Marc Purcell said it was also out of step with undertakings Canberra made to the world as it sought support for significant positions in global leadership.
"On the eve of Australia taking its seat on the United Nations Security Council, now is the time to show leadership," he said.
World Vision Australia also condemned the move as "more than just an accounting trick".
"We know aid saves lives -- the number of children dying each year has nearly halved over the past two decades," said chief executive Tim Costello.
"If these funds are siphoned away from health programmes, it could literally mean the difference between life and death for some of the world's most vulnerable people, including those in our own region."
Carr said Australia's aid expenditure for fiscal 2012/13 would be a record A$5.2 billion.
But he would not say from which programmes the A$375 million would be drawn during the fiscal year ending June 30.
- AFP/fa
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NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Like a lot of people who interacted with Lanza, Dot Stansy said he was "just quiet"
Adam Lanza.
"On one side, he did something unspeakable, but on the other, that's not how I remember him," Stansy said. "I remember him as the nice kid that, you know, I sat near to in class. We'd joked, he'd laugh, that kind of thing."
Investigators probe life of mass-murderer Adam Lanza
In divorce, mom had authority over Conn. shooter
Asperger's not likely to make people violent, experts emphasize
University: Newtown gunman took college courses at 16
"We were all hanging out outside of class afterwards one night, and he walked by and we were like, 'Hey, do you want to grab a drink with us?' And he said, 'No, I can't, I'm 17.'"
Lanza was also being home-schooled at the time.
He took seven college-level courses between the summers of 2008 and 2009, receiving several As in computer classes and also one in American history. His overall GPA was 3.26.
Dot Stasny remembers meeting Adam Lanza's mother.
"[She] introduced herself, said he was sick, asked where the classroom was, and when we walked in, she was getting his assignments from the teacher," Stansy said.
Nancy Lanza's friends, told CBS News' Scott Pelley on "60 Minutes" that she told them Adam had Asperger's syndrome and taking care of him was a full-time job.
Ryan Kraft
"I mean, I know he was on he was on medication and everything, but she home-schooled him at home cause he couldn't deal with the school classes sometimes," Louise said. "So she just home-schooled Adam at home. And that that was her life."
Ryan Kraft, who babysat for the Lanza's when Adam was just about 10 years old, got a glimpse of how difficult he could be.
"I received instructions from Nancy to always supervise Adam at all times and to never turn my back on him," Kraft said.
Adam Lanza's parent divorced in 2009. CBS News spoke to a mediator in that divorce, who said his parents seemed to love him and only wanted the best for him.
A computer at the Connecticut home where Newtown, Conn., school shooter Adam Lanza lived with his mother was badly damaged, perhaps smashed with a hammer, said police who hope the machine might still yield clues to the gunman's motive.
The computer's hard drive appeared to have been badly damaged with a hammer or screw driver, law enforcement authorities told ABC News, complicating efforts to exploit it for evidence.
Officials have "seized significant evidence at [Lanza's] residence," said Connecticut State Police spokesman Paul Vance, adding that the process of sifting through that much forensic evidence would be a lengthy and "painstaking process."
Authorities also told ABC News that the weapons used in Friday's rampage at Sandyhook Elementary School, which left dead 20 children and seven adults including Lanza's mother Nancy, were purchased by his mother between 2010 and 2012.
According to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Lanza visited shooting ranges several times in recent years, and went at least one time with his mother.
The first funeral for a child killed in the massacre was held today in Fairfield, Conn., where mourners gathered to remember the too-short life of first-grader Noah Pozner.
Authorities also revealed this morning that two adult women shot during the rampage survived and their accounts will likely be integral to the investigation.
"Investigators will, in fact, speak with them when it's medically appropriate and they will shed a great deal of light on the facts and circumstances of this tragic investigation," Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said at a news conference today.
Both survivors are women and are now home from the hospital after being shot, police said. Officials had previously mentioned just one adult survivor. The women have not been identified and police did not give details on their injuries.
READ MORE: School nurse hid from gunman.
Both adults, Vance said, were wounded in the "lower extremities," but did not indicate where in the building they were when they were injured.
Moving trucks were seen outside Sandy Hook Elementary School this morning, as school officials prepare to move furniture and supplies to a vacant school in neighboring Monroe.
Sandy Hook itself will remain a secure crime scene "indefinitely," said Vance.
Emily Friedman/ABC News, Handout
CLICK HERE for complete coverage of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.
Police say Adam Lanza, 20, forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, spraying bullets on students and faculty. Lanza killed 20 children and six adults before turning the gun on himself.
Lanza also killed his mother Nancy Lanza at the home they shared before going to school.
"There are many, many witnesses that need to be interviewed," Vance said. "We will not stop until we have interviewed every last one of them."
Vance said the investigation could take weeks or months to complete. "It's not something done in 60 minutes like you see on T.V."
Some of the other key witnesses will be children who survived the shooting spree by playing dead, hiding in closets and bathrooms and being rescued by dedicated teachers.
"Any interviews with any children will be done with professionals...as appropriate," Vance said. "We'll handle that extremely delicately when the time arises."
CLICK HERE for a tribute to the shooting victims.
The first funerals for victims of the shooting are today, beginning with 6-year-olds Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto.
Officials said today that the Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the shooting took place, will be closed "indefinitely."
Both the school and the home where shootings took place are being held by police as crime scenes and Vance predicted authorities would spend "months" investigating the elementary school.
All Newtown schools are closed today to give residents more time to cope. Every school except for Sandy Hook is expected to re-open Tuesday.
The town of Monroe has offered to open to Sandy Hook students the Chalk Hill School, a former middle school that currently houses the town's EMS and recreational departments.
Officials in Monroe, less than 10 miles from Newtown, say the building could be ready for students by the end of the week, but have not yet set a date to resume classes.
Nearly 100 volunteers are working to ensure the building complies with fire and security regulations and are working to retorfit the school with bathroom facilities for young children.
"We're working to make the school safe and secure for students," said Monroe Police Department spokesman Lt. Brian H. McCauley.
The neighboring community's school is expected to be ready to accommodate students in the next few days, though an exact schedule has not yet been published.
While the families grieve, federal and state authorities are working around the clock to answer the question on so many minds: "Why?"
ABC News has learned that investigators have seized computers belonging to Adam Lanza from the home he shared with his mother. Three weapons were found at the school scene and a fourth was recovered from Lanza's car. Lanza had hundreds of rounds and used multiple high-capacity magazines when he went on the rampage, according to Connecticut State Police.
Vance said that every single electronic device, weapon and round will be thoroughly examined and investigated as well as every aspect of Lanza's life going "back to the date of birth."
ABC News has learned that both the shooter and his mother spent time at an area gun range; however it was not yet known whether they had shot there.
PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.
Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.
Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.
One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).
"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.
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