AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football


WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.


Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid policy can face a team whose players have repeatedly tested positive.


An investigation by The Associated Press — based on dozens of interviews with players, testers, dealers and experts and an analysis of weight records for more than 61,000 players — revealed that while those running the multibillion-dollar sport believe the problem is under control, that is hardly the case.


The sport's near-zero rate of positive steroids tests isn't an accurate gauge among college athletes. Random tests provide weak deterrence and, by design, fail to catch every player using steroids. Colleges also are reluctant to spend money on expensive steroid testing when cheaper ones for drugs like marijuana allow them to say they're doing everything they can to keep drugs out of football.


"It's nothing like what's going on in reality," said Don Catlin, an anti-doping pioneer who spent years conducting the NCAA's laboratory tests at UCLA. He became so frustrated with the college system that it drove him in part to leave the testing industry to focus on anti-doping research.


Catlin said the collegiate system, in which players often are notified days before a test and many schools don't even test for steroids, is designed to not catch dopers. That artificially reduces the numbers of positive tests and keeps schools safe from embarrassing drug scandals.


While other major sports have been beset by revelations of steroid use, college football has operated with barely a whiff of scandal. Between 1996 and 2010 — the era of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong — the failure rate for NCAA steroid tests fell even closer to zero from an already low rate of less than 1 percent.


The AP's investigation, drawing upon more than a decade of official rosters from all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, found thousands of players quickly putting on significant weight, even more than their fellow players. The information compiled by the AP included players who appeared for multiple years on the same teams, making it the most comprehensive data available.


For decades, scientific studies have shown that anabolic steroid use leads to an increase in body weight. Weight gain alone doesn't prove steroid use, but very rapid weight gain is one factor that would be deemed suspicious, said Kathy Turpin, senior director of sport drug testing for the National Center for Drug Free Sport, which conducts tests for the NCAA and more than 300 schools.


Yet the NCAA has never studied weight gain or considered it in regard to its steroid testing policies, said Mary Wilfert, the NCAA's associate director of health and safety. She would not speculate on the cause of such rapid weight gain.


The NCAA attributes the decline in positive tests to its year-round drug testing program, combined with anti-drug education and testing conducted by schools.


"The effort has been increasing, and we believe it has driven down use," Wilfert said.


Big gains, data show


The AP's analysis found that, regardless of school, conference and won-loss record, many players gained weight at exceptional rates compared with their fellow athletes and while accounting for their heights. The documented weight gains could not be explained by the amount of money schools spent on weight rooms, trainers and other football expenses.


Adding more than 20 or 25 pounds of lean muscle in a year is nearly impossible through diet and exercise alone, said Dan Benardot, director of the Laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia State University.


The AP's analysis corrected for the fact that players in different positions have different body types, so speedy wide receivers weren't compared to bulkier offensive tackles. It could not assess each player's physical makeup, such as how much weight gain was muscle versus fat, one indicator of steroid use. In the most extreme case in the AP analysis, the probability that a player put on so much weight compared with other players was so rare that the odds statistically were roughly the same as an NFL quarterback throwing 12 passing touchdowns or an NFL running back rushing for 600 yards in one game.


In nearly all the rarest cases of weight gain in the AP study, players were offensive or defensive linemen, hulking giants who tower above 6-foot-3 and weigh 300 pounds or more. Four of those players interviewed by the AP said that they never used steroids and gained weight through dramatic increases in eating, up to six meals a day. Two said they were aware of other players using steroids.


"I just ate. I ate 5-6 times a day," said Clint Oldenburg, who played for Colorado State starting in 2002 and for five years in the NFL. Oldenburg's weight increased over four years from 212 to 290, including a one-year gain of 53 pounds, which he attributed to diet and two hours of weight lifting daily. "It wasn't as difficult as you think. I just ate anything."


Oldenburg told the AP he was surprised at the scope of steroid use in college football, even in Colorado State's locker room. "College performance enhancers were more prevalent than I thought," he said. "There were a lot of guys even on my team that were using." He declined to identify any of them.


The AP found more than 4,700 players — or about 7 percent of all players — who gained more than 20 pounds overall in a single year. It was common for the athletes to gain 10, 15 and up to 20 pounds in their first year under a rigorous regimen of weightlifting and diet. Others gained 25, 35 and 40 pounds in a season. In roughly 100 cases, players packed on as much 80 pounds in a single year.


In at least 11 instances, players that AP identified as packing on significant weight in college went on to fail NFL drug tests. But pro football's confidentiality rules make it impossible to know for certain which drugs were used and how many others failed tests that never became public.


What is bubbling under the surface in college football, which helps elite athletes gain unusual amounts of weight? Without access to detailed information about each player's body composition, drug testing and workout regimen, which schools do not release, it's impossible to say with certainty what's behind the trend. But Catlin has little doubt: It is steroids.


"It's not brain surgery to figure out what's going on," he said. "To me, it's very clear."


Football's most infamous steroid user was Lyle Alzado, who became a star NFL defensive end in the 1970s and '80s before he admitted to juicing his entire career. He started in college, where the 190-pound freshman gained 40 pounds in one year. It was a 21 percent jump in body mass, a tremendous gain that far exceeded what researchers have seen in controlled, short-term studies of steroid use by athletes. Alzado died of brain cancer in 1992.


The AP found more than 130 big-time college football players who showed comparable one-year gains in the past decade. Students posted such extraordinary weight gains across the country, in every conference, in nearly every school. Many of them eclipsed Alzado and gained 25, 35, even 40 percent of their body mass.


Even though testers consider rapid weight gain suspicious, in practice it doesn't result in testing. Ben Lamaak, who arrived at Iowa State in 2006, said he weighed 225 pounds in high school and 262 pounds in the summer of his freshman year on the Cyclones football team. A year later, official rosters showed the former basketball player from Cedar Rapids weighed 306, a gain of 81 pounds since high school. He graduated as a 320-pound offensive lineman and said he did it all naturally.


"I was just a young kid at that time, and I was still growing into my body," he said. "It really wasn't that hard for me to gain the weight. I had fun doing it. I love to eat. It wasn't a problem."


In addition to random drug testing, Iowa State is one of many schools that have "reasonable suspicion" testing. That means players can be tested when their behavior or physical symptoms suggest drug use.


Despite gaining 81 pounds in a year, Lamaak said he was never singled out for testing.


The associate athletics director for athletic training at Iowa State, Mark Coberley, said coaches and trainers use body composition, strength data and other factors to spot suspected cheaters. Lamaak, he said, was not suspicious because he gained a lot of "non-lean" weight.


"There are a lot of things that go into trying to identify whether guys are using performance-enhancing drugs," Coberley said. "If anybody had the answer, they'd be spotting people that do it. We keep our radar up and watch for things that are suspicious and try to protect the kids from making stupid decisions."


There's no evidence that Lamaak's weight gain was anything but natural. Gaining fat is much easier than gaining muscle. But colleges don't routinely release information on how much of the weight their players gain is muscle, as opposed to fat. Without knowing more, said Benardot, the expert at Georgia State, it's impossible to say whether large athletes were putting on suspicious amounts of muscle or simply obese, which is defined as a body mass index greater than 30.


Looking solely at the most significant weight gainers also ignores players like Bryan Maneafaiga.


In the summer of 2004, Maneafaiga was an undersized 180-pound running back trying to make the University of Hawaii football team. Twice — once in pre-season and once in the fall — he failed school drug tests, showing up positive for marijuana use. What surprised him was that the same tests turned up negative for steroids.


He'd started injecting stanozolol, a steroid, in the summer to help bulk up to a roster weight of 200 pounds. Once on the team, where he saw only limited playing time, he'd occasionally inject the milky liquid into his buttocks the day before games.


"Food and good training will only get you so far," he told the AP recently.


Maneafaiga's coach, June Jones, meanwhile, said none of his players had tested positive for doping since he took over the team in 1999. He also said publicly that steroids had been eliminated in college football: "I would say 100 percent," he told The Honolulu Advertiser in 2006.


Jones said it was news to him that one of his players had used steroids. Jones, who now coaches at Southern Methodist University, said many of his former players put on bulk working hard in the weight room. For instance, adding 70 pounds over a three- to four-year period isn't unusual, he said.


Jones said a big jump in muscle year-over-year — say 40 pounds — would be a "red light that something is not right."


Jones, a former NFL head coach, said he is unaware of any steroid use at SMU and believes the NCAA is doing a good job testing players. "I just think because the way the NCAA regulates it now that it's very hard to get around those tests," he said.


The cost of testing


While the use of drugs in professional sports is a question of fairness, use among college athletes is also important as a public policy issue. That's because most top-tier football teams are from public schools that benefit from millions of dollars each year in taxpayer subsidies. Their athletes are essentially wards of the state. Coaches and trainers — the ones who tell players how to behave, how to exercise and what to eat — are government employees.


Then there are the health risks, which include heart and liver problems and cancer.


On paper, college football has a strong drug policy. The NCAA conducts random, unannounced drug testing and the penalties for failure are severe. Players lose an entire year of eligibility after a first positive test. A second offense means permanent ineligibility from sports.


In practice, though, the NCAA's roughly 11,000 annual tests amount to just a fraction of all athletes in Division I and II schools. Exactly how many tests are conducted each year on football players is unclear because the NCAA hasn't published its data for two years. And when it did, it periodically changed the formats, making it impossible to compare one year of football to the next.


Even when players are tested by the NCAA, people involved in the process say it's easy enough to anticipate the test and develop a doping routine that results in a clean test by the time it occurs. NCAA rules say players can be notified up to two days in advance of a test, which Catlin says is plenty of time to beat a test if players have designed the right doping regimen. By comparison, Olympic athletes are given no notice.


"Everybody knows when testing is coming. They all know. And they know how to beat the test," Catlin said, adding, "Only the really dumb ones are getting caught."


Players are far more likely to be tested for drugs by their schools than by the NCAA. But while many schools have policies that give them the right to test for steroids, they often opt not to. Schools are much more focused on street drugs like cocaine and marijuana. Depending on how many tests a school orders, each steroid test can cost $100 to $200, while a simple test for street drugs might cost as little as $25.


When schools call and ask about drug testing, the first question is usually, "How much will it cost," Turpin said.


Most schools that use Drug Free Sport do not test for anabolic steroids, Turpin said. Some are worried about the cost. Others don't think they have a problem. And others believe that since the NCAA tests for steroids their money is best spent testing for street drugs, she said.


Wilfert, the NCAA official, said the possibility of steroid testing is still a deterrent, even at schools where it isn't conducted.


"Even though perhaps those institutional programs are not including steroids in all their tests, they could, and they do from time to time," she said. "So, it is a kind of deterrence."


For Catlin, one of the most frustrating things about running the UCLA testing lab was getting urine samples from schools around the country and only being asked to test for cocaine, marijuana and the like.


"Schools are very good at saying, 'Man, we're really strong on drug testing,'" he said. "And that's all they really want to be able to say and to do and to promote."


That helps explain how two school drug tests could miss Maneafaiga's steroid use. It's also possible that the random test came at an ideal time in Maneafaiga's steroid cycle.


Enforcement varies


The top steroid investigator at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joe Rannazzisi, said he doesn't understand why schools don't invest in the same kind of testing, with the same penalties, as the NFL. The NFL has a thorough testing program for most drugs, though the league has yet to resolve a long-simmering feud with its players union about how to test for human growth hormone.


"Is it expensive? Of course, but college football makes a lot of money," he said. "Invest in the integrity of your program."


For a school to test all 85 scholarship football players for steroids twice a season would cost up to $34,000, Catlin said, plus the cost of collecting and handling the urine samples. That's about 0.2 percent of the average big-time school football budget of about $14 million. Testing all athletes in all sports would make the school's costs higher.


When schools ask Drug Free Sport for advice on their drug policies, Turpin said she recommends an immediate suspension after the first positive drug test. Otherwise, she said, "student athletes will roll the dice."


But drug use is a bigger deal at some schools than others.


At Notre Dame and Alabama, the teams that will soon compete for the national championship, players don't automatically miss games for testing positive for steroids. At Alabama, coaches have wide discretion. Notre Dame's student-athlete handbook says a player who fails a test can return to the field once the steroids are out of his system.


"If you're a strength-and-conditioning coach, if you see your kids making gains that seem a little out of line, are you going to say, 'I'm going to investigate further? I want to catch someone?'" said Anthony Roberts, an author of a book on steroids who says he has helped college football players design steroid regimens to beat drug tests.


There are schools with tough policies. The University of North Carolina kicks players off the team after a single positive test for steroids. Auburn's student-athlete handbook calls for a half-season suspension for any athlete caught using performance-enhancing drugs.


Wilfert said it's not up to the NCAA to determine whether that's fair.


"Obviously if it was our testing program, we believe that everybody should be under the same protocol and the same sanction," she said.


Fans typically have no idea that such discrepancies exist and players are left to suspect who might be cheating.


"You see a lot of guys and you know they're possibly on something because they just don't gain weight but get stronger real fast," said Orrin Thompson, a former defensive lineman at Duke. "You know they could be doing something but you really don't know for sure."


Thompson gained 85 pounds between 2001 and 2004, according to Duke rosters and Thompson himself. He said he did not use steroids and was subjected to several tests while at Duke, a school where a single positive steroid test results in a yearlong suspension.


Meanwhile at UCLA, home of the laboratory that for years set the standard for cutting-edge steroid testing, athletes can fail three drug tests before being suspended. At Bowling Green, testing is voluntary.


At the University of Maryland, students must get counseling after testing positive, but school officials are prohibited from disciplining first-time steroid users. Athletic department spokesman Matt Taylor denied that was the case and sent the AP a copy of the policy. But the policy Taylor sent included this provision: "The athletic department/coaching staff may not discipline a student-athlete for a first drug offense."


By comparison, in Kentucky and Maryland, racehorses face tougher testing and sanctions than football players at Louisville or the University of Maryland.


"If you're trying to keep a level playing field, that seems nonsensical," said Rannazzisi at the DEA. He said he was surprised to learn that what gets a free pass at one school gets players immediately suspended at another. "What message does that send? It's OK to cheat once or twice?"


Only about half the student athletes in a 2009 NCAA survey said they believed school testing deterred drug use.


As an association of colleges and universities, the NCAA could not unilaterally force schools to institute uniform testing policies and sanctions, Wilfert said.


"We can't tell them what to do, but if went through a membership process where they determined that this is what should be done, then it could happen," she said.


'Everybody around me was doing it'


Steroids are a controlled substance under federal law, but players who use them need not worry too much about prosecution. The DEA focuses on criminal operations, not individual users. When players are caught with steroids, it's often as part of a traffic stop or a local police investigation.


Jared Foster, 24, a quarterback recruited to play at the University of Mississippi, was kicked off the team in 2008 after local authorities arrested him for giving a man nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, according to court documents. Foster pleaded guilty and served jail time.


He told the AP that he doped in high school to impress college recruiters. He said he put on enough lean muscle to go from 185 pounds to 210 in about two months.


"Everybody around me was doing it," he said.


Steroids are not hard to find. A simple Internet search turns up countless online sources for performance-enhancing drugs, mostly from overseas companies.


College athletes freely post messages on steroid websites, seeking advice to beat tests and design the right schedule of administering steroids.


And steroids are still a mainstay in private, local gyms. Before the DEA shut down Alabama-based Applied Pharmacy Services as a major nationwide steroid supplier, sales records obtained by the AP show steroid shipments to bodybuilders, trainers and gym owners around the country.


Because users are rarely prosecuted, the demand is left in place after the distributor is gone.


When Joshua Hodnik was making and wholesaling illegal steroids, he had found a good retail salesman in a college quarterback named Vinnie Miroth. Miroth was playing at Saginaw Valley State, a Division II school in central Michigan, and was buying enough steroids for 25 people each month, Hodnik said.


"That's why I hired him," Hodnik said. "He bought large amounts and knew how to move it."


Miroth, who pleaded no contest in 2007 and admitted selling steroids, helped authorities build their case against Hodnik, according to court records. Now playing football in France, Miroth declined repeated AP requests for an interview.


Hodnik was released from prison this year and says he is out of the steroid business for good. He said there's no doubt that steroid use is widespread in college football.


"These guys don't start using performance-enhancing drugs when they hit the professional level," the Oklahoma City man said. "Obviously it starts well before that. And you can go back to some of the professional players who tested positive and compare their numbers to college and there is virtually no change."


Maneafaiga, the former Hawaii running back, said his steroids came from Mexico. A friend in California, who was a coach at a junior college, sent them through the mail. But Maneafaiga believes the consequences were nagging injuries. He found religion, quit the drugs and became the team's chaplain.


"God gave you everything you need," he said. "It gets in your mind. It will make you grow unnaturally. Eventually, you'll break down. It happened to me every time."


At the DEA, Rannazzisi said he has met with and conducted training for investigators and top officials in every professional sport. He's talked to Major League Baseball about the patterns his agents are seeing. He's discussed warning signs with the NFL.


He said he's offered similar training to the NCAA but never heard back. Wilfert said the NCAA staff has discussed it and hasn't decided what to do.


"We have very little communication with the NCAA or individual schools," Rannazzisi said. "They've got my card. What they've done with it? I don't know."


___


Associated Press writers Ryan Foley in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; David Brandt in Jackson, Miss.; David Skretta in Lawrence, Kan.; Don Thompson in Sacramento, Calif.;and Alexa Olesen in Shanghai, China; and researchers Susan James in New York and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.


___


Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org.


Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.


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Schools Threatened Nationwide After Sandy Hook













Schools across the country, already on edge following last week's massacre of 20 students and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school have been further unnerved following a series of copycat threats, sometimes yielding arrests and caches of deadly weapons.


From California to Connecticut, police in the past five days have arrested more than a dozen individuals in Indiana, South Carolina, Maryland and elsewhere who were plotting or threatening to attack schools.


"After high-profile incidents like the shootings at Columbine and Sandy Hook, threats go off the wall. Some of those threats turn out to be unfounded, but sometimes those incidents propel people planning legitimate threats," Ken Trump, a national school safety consultant, told ABCNews.com.


CLICK HERE FOR AN INTERACTIVE MAP AND TIMELINE OF THE SANDY HOOK SHOOTING.


Many of these incidents turned out to be little more than young people acting out or seeking attention, but in some cases police found significant stockpiles of firearms and ammunition.


Just a few hours after the world learned what happened inside the halls at the Sandy Hook elementary school, police arrested a 60-year-old Indiana man who had allegedly threatened to "kill as many people as he could before police stopped him," according to the police report, at an elementary school in Cedar Lake, Ind.






Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images











Indiana School Shooting Threat: Parents Not Notified Watch Video









Tennessee Teen Arrested Over School Shooting Threat Watch Video









Maryland Student Hospitalized for Alleged Threat Watch Video





When Von Meyer was arrested, just 1,000 feet from Jane Ball Elementary School, police confiscated from his home $100,000 worth of guns and ammunition including 47 weapons.


The school was placed on lockdown.


Meyer's case was taken by the Lake County public defender's office, but an attorney has not yet been assigned. He has been charged with seven crimes, including felonious intimidation, and an automatic "not guilty" plea was made on his behalf at a hearing on Tuesday.


Many of the suspects arrested in the wake of the Connecticut shooting were themselves school students – teenagers or young adults.


On Wednesday, in Laurel, Md., an unidentified student at Laurel High School was taken to the hospital and placed under psychiatric evaluation after school security officials found maps of the school and lists of students they believed he planned to kill.


Authorities called the evidence a "credible threat." The student, however, was not arrested or charged with a crime.


In Columbia, Tenn., police arrested Shawn Lenz, 19, who on Saturday posted to Facebook that he felt like "goin on a rampage, kinda like the school shooting were that one guy killed some teachers and a bunch of students."


He later told police that "it was stupid" to have written what he did. Lenz was arraigned Tuesday on terrorism and harassment charges and was appointed a public defender. He did not enter a plea.


A Tampa, Fla., school was put on lockdown two days in a row, Tuesday and Wednesday, after students found bullets on a school bus. Police there have made no arrests.


Despite the rash of recent threats, anecdotal data compiled by Trump's National School Safety and Security Services and analyzed by Scripps Howard found that there were approximately 120 known but thwarted plots against schools between 2000 and 2010. The list is not comprehensive and many incidents likely went unreported.


Fifty-five of those known threats -- all thwarted -- involved guns and 22 of them involved explosive devices, according to the Scripps Howard report.


"We're getting better at preventing these situations," Trump told ABC News.com.


But in that same time there were about 50 lethal school shootings, including the killing of 32 people at Virginia Tech.


"While shootings statistically may be rare, they impact a community and these kids forever," said Trump.



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Park wins South Korea presidency, to be first woman leader


SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler won South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday and will become the country's first female leader, saying she would work to heal a divided society.


The 60-year old conservative, Park Geun-hye, will return to the presidential palace in Seoul where she served as her father's first lady in the 1970s, after her mother was assassinated by a North Korean-backed gunman.


With more than 88 percent of the votes counted, Park led with 51.6 percent to 48 percent for her left-wing challenger, human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in, giving her an unassailable lead that forced Moon to concede.


Her raucous, jubilant supporters braved sub-zero temperatures to chant her name and wave South Korean flags outside her house. When she reached her party headquarters, Park was greeted with shouts of "president".


An elated Park reached into the crowd to grasp hands of supporters wearing red scarves, her party's color.


"This is a victory brought by the people's hope for overcoming crisis and for economic recovery," she told supporters at a rally in central Seoul.


Park will take office for a mandatory single, five-year term in February and will face an immediate challenge from a hostile North Korea and have to deal with an economy in which annual growth rates have fallen to about 2 percent from an average of 5.5 percent in its decades of hyper-charged growth.


She is unmarried and has no children, saying that her life will be devoted to her country.


The legacy of her father, Park Chung-hee, who ruled for 18 years and transformed the country from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War into an industrial power-house, still divides Koreans.


For many conservatives, he is South Korea's greatest president and the election of his daughter would vindicate his rule. His opponents dub him a "dictator" who trampled on human rights and stifled dissent.


"I trust her. She will save our country," said Park Hye-sook, 67, who voted in an affluent Seoul district, earlier in the day.


"Her father ... rescued the country," said the housewife and grandmother, who is no relation to the candidate.


For younger people, the main concern is the economy and the creation of well-paid jobs in a country where income inequalities have grown in recent years.


"Now a McDonald's hamburger is over 5,000 Korean won ($4.66) so you can't buy a McDonald's burger with your hourly pay. Life is hard already for our two-member family but if there were kids, it would be much tougher," said Cho Hae-ran, 41, who is married and works at a trading company.


Park has spent 15 years in politics as a leading legislator in the ruling Saenuri party, although her policies are sketchy.


She has a "Happiness Promotion Committee" and her campaign was launched as a "National Happiness Campaign", a slogan she has since changed to "A Prepared Woman President".


She has cited former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a tough proponent of free markets, as her role model as well as Angela Merkel, the conservative German chancellor who is Europe's most powerful leader.


NEGOTIATE WITH NORTH


One of those who voted on Wednesday was Shin Dong-hyuk, a defector from North Korea who is the only person known to have escaped from a slave labor camp there.


He Tweeted that he was voting "for the first time in my life", although he didn't say for whom.


Park has said she would negotiate with Kim Jong-un, the youthful leader of North Korea who recently celebrated a year in office, but wants the South's isolated and impoverished neighbor to give up its nuclear weapons program as a precondition for aid, something Pyongyang has refused to do.


The two Koreas remain technically at war after an armistice ended their conflict. Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the North's current leader, ordered several assassination attempts on Park's father, one of which resulted in her mother being shot to death in 1974.


Park herself met Kim Jong-un's father, the late leader Kim Jong-il, and declared he was "comfortable to talk to" and he seemed to be someone "who would keep his word".


The North successfully launched a long-range rocket last week in what critics said was a test of technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile and has recently stepped up its attacks on Park, describing her as holding a "grudge" and seeking "confrontation", code for war.


Park remains a firm supporter of a trade pact with the United States that and looks set to continue the free-market policies of her predecessor, although she has said she would seek to spread wealth more evenly.


The biggest of all the chaebol, Samsung Group, which produces the world's top selling smartphone as well as televisions, computer chips and ships, has sales equivalent to about a fifth of South Korea's national output.


(Additional reporting by Jumin Park, Seongbin Kang, Narae Kim, SoMang Yang; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Robert Birsel)



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US Vice President Joe Biden to head panel on gun violence






WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Wednesday will appoint Vice President Joe Biden to head a government panel to formulate a response to gun violence after last week's school massacre, US media reported.

The New York Times and the Washington Post cited White House officials as saying that Obama would formally name Biden to head the panel at a press conference later Wednesday morning.

The panel will explore possible new gun legislation to rein in the sale of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, but will also look at mental health policies and violence in popular culture.

Obama vowed to take action against gun violence when he spoke at a memorial on Sunday for the 26 victims - including 20 young children - killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

On Tuesday Obama backed a new bid to revive an assault weapons ban and other new gun laws, as traumatized US politicians wrestled with the aftermath of the worst in a series of mass shootings over the last two years.

The massacre shocked the country, and may have shifted the political debate on firearms in US society after years of gun lobby ascendancy.

- AFP/de



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Intense cold wave conditions continue in Himachal

SHIMLA: The hills and valleys of Himachal Pradesh had no respite from piercing cold wave conditions as mercury dropped further by few notches inspite of a clear but chilly day.

Icy winds continued to sweep the region causing fall in mercury with Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti recording lowest temperature at minus 7.5 degree Celsius, followed by Kalpa minus 2.0 degree, Manali zero degree, Solan 2.6 degree, Mandi 3.1 degree, Bhuntar 3.5 degree, Sundernagar 3.7 degree, Palampur 5.5 degree and state capital Shimla 6.8 degree C, Met office sources said.

The maximum day temperatures also dropped marginally with Una, which was hottest in the region with a high of 23.6 degree Celsius, followed by Sundernagar 22.4 degree, Solan 21. 5 degree, Bhunter 20.8 degree, Dharamshala 18.2 degree and Shimla 15.1 degree C.

The high altitude tribal areas groaned under arctic conditions with minimum temperatures staying between minus eight and minus 15 degree Celsius.

All natural sources of water like lakes, springs, rivulets and 70 km long stretch of Chandrabhaga river were frozen for past two weeks causing sharp fall in discharge of water in snowfed Sutlej, Ravi and Beas rivers, affecting hydropower generation.

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma


WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.


Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?


For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.


But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.


"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.


And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.


"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.


Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.


Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.


Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.


There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.


Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.


Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.


In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.


Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.


But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.


Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.


To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.


Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.


When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.


Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.


Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.


Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.


___


EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.


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Newtown Parents Committed to Staying Put














The people of Newtown, Conn., and the surrounding towns are filled with fear and doubt in light of the rampage that turned their worlds upside down. Despite the uncertainty, however, there is one thing parents are adamant about: They're not going anywhere.


"I know it's an awful thing, but this town and the towns surrounding it, it's a big community where people come together and people know each other," resident Chris Roman said. "Growing up here, I would definitely stay."


He paused a moment, before saying with great resolve, "I'm definitely going to stay. One tragedy is not going to push us away."


Roman and his wife, Ellen Roman, are the parents of 16-month-old Stella and they have held her even closer since the Adam Lanza killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School before turning the gun on himself. He had killed his mother at her home earlier that morning.


"I don't think I've kissed her as much as I have in the past three days as I have the entire time she's been alive," Ellen Roman, 33, said. "I constantly am picking her up and kissing her and hugging her."


The new mom is still shaken by the shooting, gasping to choke back tears as she recalled hearing the news.








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"Before I even knew that anyone had died, before I even knew that anyone had been shot, I was bawling; just to know that gunfire had happened anywhere near a school in Newtown affected me," she said through tears. "This town is so small and it's such a tight community and everyone knows everyone so it's just, it just doesn't happen here. It just doesn't happen in this town."


Chris Roman, 36, said there's "a big hole to fill that will never be filled" in the community, and he hopes for change so that the only tricky conversation he'll have to have with his young daughter in the future is "the birds and the bees talk."


"It's something that we all have to deal with and work together and try to stop it from happening so I wouldn't have to explain it to her," he said of school shootings.


Other parents echoed the Romans' sentiments.


Maureen Pendergast is the mother of 11-month-old James and her 8-year-old nephew is a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School.


"It's absolutely terrible," Pendergast said. "My nephew, Brian, was in the school when it did happen and James goes to day care right down the street here, so it's hard to say [Lanza] didn't stop into the day care."


She said Brian is "as OK as he can be" and that his parents are planning on putting him in counseling. Pendergast knows that healing will take time, but she plans on sticking it out.


"I want to stay," she said. "Overall, it's a very cute and quiet town. My husband has lived here his entire life and I like it. It's a tough community."


Others are equally committed, including Ana Deaguiar of nearby Danbury.


"I'm not going anywhere," Deaguiar, mother of 16-month-old Giovanni, said. "I've spent 11 years in Danbury and I don't think about moving at all. I want him to grow up here and not let this be the only memory there is of this state and this region."



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Egypt prosecutor's resignation angers Brotherhood


CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's public prosecutor resigned under pressure from his opponents in the judiciary, dealing a blow to President Mohamed Mursi and drawing an angry response on Tuesday from the Islamist leader's supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood.


Seeking to keep pressure on Mursi, the main opposition coalition will hold new protests against an Islamist-backed draft constitution that has divided Egypt but which looks set to be approved in the second round of a referendum on Saturday.


Mursi obtained a 57 percent "yes" vote for the constitution in a first round of the referendum last weekend, state media said, less than he had hoped for.


The opposition, which says the law is too Islamist, will be emboldened by the result but is unlikely to win the second round, to be held in districts seen as even more sympathetic towards Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.


Protesters broke out into cheers when the public prosecutor appointed by Mursi last month announced his resignation late on Monday.


In a statement on its Facebook page, the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to power in elections in June, said the enforced resignation of public prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim was a "crime".


The Supreme Judiciary Council, which governs the country's judicial system, should refuse to accept the prosecutor's resignation, the Brotherhood said.


Further signs of opposition to Mursi emerged when a judges' club urged its members not to supervise Saturday's vote. But the call is not binding and balloting is expected to go ahead.


If the constitution passes next weekend, national elections can take place early next year, something many hope will help end the turmoil that has gripped Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago.


The National Salvation Front opposition coalition said there were widespread voting violations in the first round and called for protests across Egypt on Tuesday to "bring down the invalid draft constitution".


The Ministry of Justice said it was appointing a group of judges to investigate complaints of voting irregularities around the country.


DEMONSTRATIONS


In Cairo, the Front planned to hold demonstrations at Tahrir Square, cradle of the revolution that toppled Mubarak, and outside Mursi's presidential palace, still ringed with tanks after earlier protests.


"Down with the constitution of the Brotherhood," the Front said in a statement. "Down with the constitution of tyranny."


A protester at the presidential palace, Mohamed Adel, 30, said: "I have been camping here for weeks and will continue to do so until the constitution that divided the nation, and for which people died, gets scrapped."


The build-up to the first round of voting saw clashes between supporters and opponents of Mursi in which eight people died. Recent demonstrations in Cairo have been more peaceful, although rival factions clashed on Friday in Alexandria, Egypt's second biggest city.


On Monday evening, more than 1,300 members of the General Prosecution staff gathered outside the public prosecutor's office, demanding Ibrahim leave his post.


Hours later, Ibrahim announced he had resigned and the crowd cheered, "God is Great! Long live justice!" and "Long live the independence of the judiciary!" witnesses said.


The closeness of the first-round referendum vote and low turnout give Mursi scant comfort as he seeks to assemble support for difficult economic reforms.


OPPOSITION BOOST


"This percentage ... will strengthen the hand of the National Salvation Front and the leaders of this Front have declared they are going to continue this fight to discredit the constitution," said Mustapha Kamal Al-Sayyid, a professor of political science at Cairo University.


Mursi is likely to become more unpopular with the introduction of planned austerity measures, polarizing society further, Sayyid told Reuters.


To tackle the budget deficit, the government needs to impose tax rises and cut back fuel subsidies. Uncertainty surrounding economic reform plans has already forced the postponement of a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The Egyptian pound has fallen to eight-year lows against the dollar.


Mursi and his backers say the constitution is needed to move Egypt's democratic transition forward. Opponents say the document is too Islamist and ignores the rights of women and of minorities, including Christians who make up 10 percent of the population.


Demonstrations erupted when Mursi awarded himself extra powers on November 22 and then fast-tracked the constitution through an assembly dominated by his Islamist allies and boycotted by many liberals.


The referendum has had to be held over two days because many of the judges needed to oversee polling staged a boycott in protest. In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of those voting.


(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)



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Squash: David hurtles into world squash quarter-finals






GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands: Titleholder Nicol David showed how much she likes the music and warmth of the bay-side venue at Grand Cayman on Monday with an in-tune performance which carried her to the quarter-finals of the World Open in less than half an hour.

The six-time champion from Malaysia looked as strong a favourite as ever as she won 9-3, 9-2, 9-3 against Annie Au, the Hong Kong player who has become a regular in the world's top ten, but was allowed no chance to show how.

David struck the ball rhythmically and well, gave little away, and kept pressure on so relentlessly that it was easy to forget that the tournament had undergone a major shift of playing conditions.

"They made the ball bouncy, but at the same time this is a glass court so if you play your shots, it goes in," said David referring to the more favourable chances of putting the ball away compared with the first round which had been played on conventionally walled indoor courts.

David, occasionally a tense starter, seemed to be relaxed by the idyllic courtside view and sociable evening ambience and comfortably swept aside one of the tour's most improved and promising younger players.

"It's such a good vibe and everyone is in such a lively mood that I feed off the energy of it," she said happily. It was easy to see why, in three previous tournaments here, David has never been beaten.

She now has a rest day before taking on Madeline Perry, the tenth-seeded Irish woman who beat David back in 2009 en route to the final of the British Open in Manchester.

The oldest player in the top ten, Perry won 11-2, 11-9, 11-9 against the youngest, Nour El Sherbini, the 17-year-old Egyptian who still combines school with professional squash.

By contrast, Perry has been on tour for much of a decade and a half, though it was hard to tell that she was fully 18 years senior during this effective performance.

However, her opponent was not quite the same Egyptian who contested this year's British Open final against David.

Instead, El Sherbini became frustrated by her slow start, and not until the third game, when she had her nose ahead for a while, that the teenager looked like the player touted as David's successor.

Earlier, two English players, Alison Waters, the fourth seed, and Jenny Duncalf, last year's runner-up, also reached the last eight, where they will play each other.

Waters saved a game point in the second game to beat Samantha Teran, the 15th-seeded Mexican, 11-5, 12-10, 11-5, while Duncalf saved a crucial game point in the first game of her 12-10, 11-6, 8-11, 11-8 win over Camille Serme, the 14th seeded French woman.

That swung the match almost irrevocably, for Duncalf went on to take 11 out of 12 points, and by the time Serme had recovered it was well into the fourth game and too late to pull the deficit all the way back.

- AFP/fa



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Rapists deserve death sentence: Salman

NEW DELHI: Condemning the gang rape of a 23-year-old girl in the capital, Bollywood star Salman Khan Tuesday said rapists should be hanged.

"In my view, there should be a death sentence for all rapists. Such things have no role in our life. I feel disgusted after hearing such things. For me, this is a third grade crime. I also believe that there should be a norm that if a rapist goes to jail, he should be beaten till death," said the 46-year-old.

The brutal rape and torture took place Sunday night when the woman along with her male friend boarded a private bus at Munirka to go to Dwarka after watching a movie.

The woman was beaten up, stripped and raped by at least seven men who were inside the bus. Both the woman and her male friend, who was also beaten up when he resisted, were thrown off the bus near Mahipalpur.

Salman feels people should have zero tolerance for such crime and that they should try to stop it if they come across any such incident.

"I think Indian society needs to be 'dabang' (bold) in their approach. I recently read a news where a girl was being molested and people standing nearby were making videos on their phones. This is not the real India and I don't think if such incidents can ever happen in front of my eyes," he added.

The actor was in the capital Tuesday to promote his upcoming film "Dabangg 2", a sequel to 2010 hit "Dabangg".

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