Newtown celebrates Christmas amid signs of mourning

NEWTOWN, Conn. - Newtown celebrated Christmas amid piles of snow-covered teddy bears and heaps of flowers as volunteers manned a 24-hour candlelight vigil in memory of the 20 children and six adults shot to death in the second-largest school shooting in U.S. history.

Well-wishers from around the country showed up Tuesday morning to hang ornaments on memorial Christmas trees, while police officers from around Connecticut took extra shifts to give local police a day off.

"It's a nice thing that they can use us this way," Ted Latiak, a police detective from Greenwich, Connecticut, said as he and a fellow detective came out of a store with bagels and coffee for other officers.

A steady stream of residents, some in pyjamas, relit candles that had been extinguished in an overnight snowstorm. Others dropped off toys and fought back tears at a huge sidewalk memorial filled with stuffed animals, poems, flowers, posters and cards.

In the morning, resident Joanne Brunetti watched over 26 candles that had been lit at midnight in honour of those slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She and her husband, Bill, signed up for a three-hour shift and erected a tent to ensure that the flames never went out throughout the day.

"You have to do something and you don't know what to do, you know? You really feel very helpless in this situation," she said. "My thought is if we were all this nice to each other all the time maybe things like this wouldn't happen."

Julian Revie played "Silent Night" on a piano on the sidewalk at the downtown memorial. Revie, from Ottawa, Canada, was visiting the area at the time of the shootings. He found a piano online and chose to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day playing for the people of Newtown.

"It was such a mood of respectful silence," said Revie. "But yesterday being Christmas Eve and today being Christmas Day, I thought now it's time for some Christmas carols for the children."

At a town hall memorial, Faith Leonard waved to people driving by and handed out Christmas cookies and children's gifts. She had driven from Arizona, at almost the other end of the country, to volunteer on Christmas morning alone.

"I guess my thought was if I could be here helping out, maybe one person would be able to spend more time with their family or grieve in the way they needed to," Leonard said.

Many residents attended Christmas Eve services and spent Tuesday morning at home with their families. Others attended church services in search of a new beginning.

At St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, which eight of the child victims of the massacre attended, the pastor told parishioners that "today is the day we begin everything all over again."

Recalling the events of Dec. 14, the Rev. Robert Weiss said: "The moment the first responder broke through the doors, we knew good always overcomes evil."

"We know Christmas in a way we never ever thought we would know it," Weiss said. "We need a little Christmas and we've been given it."

Police have yet to offer a theory about a possible motive for gunman Adam Lanza's rampage. The 20-year-old resident killed his mother in her bed before carrying out the massacre and killing himself.

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Bolivia’s Morales visits Cuba after Chavez surgery

HAVANA (AP) — Bolivian President Evo Morales has made a lightning trip to Havana where key ally Hugo Chavez is convalescing after cancer surgery.

Morales did not speak to foreign journalists during his weekend visit. Cuban state-run media didn’t confirm that he visited Chavez, but said he came “to express his support” for the Venezuelan president. The Cuban government had invited media to cover Morales’ arrival Saturday and departure Sunday but withdrew the invitation with no explanation.

Photos released by Cuban media showed President Raul Castro greeting Morales at the airport in Havana.

Morales aides said Monday he planned to make a statement later about Chavez.

Chavez underwent on Dec. 11 his fourth cancer-related operation since last year, two months after winning reelection to a six-year term. Venezuelan officials say his condition is stable.

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Facebook Shrugs Off Instagram’s New Class Action Lawsuit

For Instagram, there’s good news and there’s bad news about the class action lawsuit just filed against them. Bad news first: Somebody just filed a class action lawsuit. Good news: the lawyers from Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, have plenty of practice getting rid of these pesky things. That might explain why they’re so dismissive about the legal inconvenience a group of disgruntled Instagram users left under its tree this year. “We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously,” says Facebook spokesman Andrew Nusca. It’ll obviously take more than the half-hearted apology Instagram CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom made at the end of last week.

RELATED: It’s Time to Accept the Existence of a Social Media Bubble

The lawsuit’s complaint is somewhat understandable. If you’ve so much as heard the word “Instagram” you’ve heard about how much their new terms of service stink. In it, the company declared that it “may share User Content and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data)” with Facebook, its subsidiaries and its “affiliates.” Instagram users understood this to mean that Instagram could sell their photos to advertisers, though Systrom pushed back at that in his blog post when he more or less said that the company would revert to its old terms of service. “We don’t own your photos – you do,” he said. 

RELATED: And the Actual Retail Price for Instagram Is…

Instagram kept three key new details in place, though. One, the company maintained the ability to serve ads in your feed. Two, it said “that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.” Lastly, it left in place the mandatory arbitration clause that it added with the new terms of service, forcing users to waive their right to participate in class action lawsuit. That obviously didn’t discourage this group of plaintiffs who said in the lawsuit that “Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us.’”

RELATED: Mark Zuckerberg Disappears from Google+ Due to Privacy Settings

No big deal. Instagram is a part of Facebook now, and Facebook has dealt with class action lawsuits before. Just seven months ago, it got slammed with a $ 15 billion class action suit from users who said that the social network was ”improperly tracking the internet use of its members even after they logged out of their accounts.” They haven’t settled yet, but if it winds up anything like the class action lawsuit over the Beacon advertising program a few years ago, it could take years to resolve and could cost Facebook millions. With some good lawyering, though, this latest lawsuit won’t cost as many millions as it could. But Instagram will never be the same.

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Thousands sign U.S. petition to deport Piers Morgan over gun comments

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – More than 48,000 people have signed a petition that they posted on the White House website demanding that British CNN talk show host Piers Morgan be deported over comments he made on air about gun control.

Morgan last week lambasted pro-gun guests on his show, after the December 14 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman shot dead 26 people, including 20 children.

“We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens,” the petition said.

The petition, started on December 21 by a man identified as Kurt N. from Austin, Texas, accuses Morgan of subverting the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms.

U.S. citizens can file a petition on the White House website, whitehouse.gov, if they collect at least 25,000 signatures within 30 days. The White House is then obliged to issue a response.

Morgan, 47, a former newspaper editor in London, shot back at his critics on Twitter. He repeated his past calls for the United States to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and conduct background checks on all gun purchases.

Five days after the Connecticut massacre, Morgan called a guest, Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners for America, an “idiot,” “dangerous” and an “unbelievably stupid man” when Pratt argued that more guns were needed to combat crime in the United States.

“I don’t care about a petition to deport me. I do care about poor NY firefighters murdered/injured with an assault weapon today. #GunControlNow,” Morgan tweeted on Monday, referring to a shooting in New York that killed three people, including the gunman.

Christa Robinson, a CNN spokeswoman, said the network had no immediate comment on the petition.

Publicist Howard Bragman, vice chairman of Reputation.com, said the controversy will get Morgan attention that may translate into higher ratings and wouldn’t harm his reputation.

“A lot of it comes from his being British, he’s seen the differences between the U.S. and UK, he’s passionate and authentic in taking this issue on, and it’s probably only going to help him attract more people to his show,” Bragman, told Reuters.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy and Eric Kelsey; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Allergies, extra weight tied to bullying

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Kids who have food allergies or are overweight may be especially likely to get bullied by their peers, two new studies suggest.

Not surprisingly, researchers also found targets of bullying were more distressed and anxious and had a worse quality of life, in general, than those who weren’t picked on.

Bullying has become a concern among parents, doctors and school administrators since research and news stories emerged linking bullying – including online “cyberbullying” – with depression and even suicide.

“There has been a shift and people are more and more recognizing that bullying has real consequences, it’s not just something to be making jokes about,” said Dr. Mark Schuster, chief of general pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, who wrote a commentary published with the new research.

Studies suggest between one in ten and one in three of all kids and teens are bullied – but those figures may vary by location and demographics, researchers noted.

The new findings come from two studies published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

In one, Dr. Eyal Shemesh from the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and his colleagues surveyed 251 kids who were seen at an allergy clinic and their parents. The children were all between age eight and 17 with a diagnosed food allergy.

Just over 45 percent of them said they’d been bullied or harassed for any reason, and 32 percent reported being bullied because of their allergy in particular.

“Our finding is entirely consistently with what you find with children with a disability,” Shemesh told Reuters Health.

A food allergy, he said, “is a vulnerability that can be very easily exploited, so of course it will be exploited.”

The kids in the study were mostly white and well-off, the researcher said – a group that you’d expect would be targeted less often. So bullying may be more common in poorer and minority children who also have food allergies.

But allergies aren’t the only cause of teasing and harassment by peers.

In another study, researchers from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, found that almost two-thirds of 361 teens enrolled in weight-loss camps had been bullied due to their size.

That likelihood increased with weight, so that the heaviest kids had almost a 100 percent chance of being bullied, Rebecca Puhl and her colleagues found. Verbal teasing was the most common form of bullying, but more than half of bullied kids reported getting taunted online or through texts and emails as well.

‘START THE CONVERSATION’

Shemesh’s team found only about half of parents knew when their food-allergic child was being bullied, and kids tended to be better off when their families were aware of the problem.

He said parents should feel comfortable asking kids if they’re being bothered at school or elsewhere – and that even if it only happens once, bullying shouldn’t be ignored.

“We want parents to know,” he said. “Start the conversation.”

“Parents whose kids have a food allergy should really be aware that their kids have the kind of characteristic that often leads to being bullied,” Schuster told Reuters Health. “They should be working with the school to handle the food allergy in a way that isn’t going to make it more likely that their kids will be bullied – and they need to be attuned to their kids.”

That’s the same for parents of overweight and obese children, he added.

“Kids need their parents to be their allies in these situations,” he said. “Their parents can help them still feel strong.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/cxXOG Pediatrics, online December 24, 2012.

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Nasty weather threatens Gulf Coast for Christmas

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Nasty weather, including a chance of strong tornadoes and howling thunderstorms, could be on the way for Christmas Day along the Gulf Coast from east Texas to north Florida.

The storms held off long enough, though, to let Christmas Eve bonfires light the way for Pere Noel along the Mississippi River, officials said.

Farther north, much of Oklahoma and Arkansas were under a winter storm warning, with freezing rain, sleet and snow expected on Christmas. A blizzard watch is out for western Kentucky. And no matter what form the bad weather takes, travel on Tuesday could be dangerous, meteorologists said.

The storms could bring strong tornadoes or winds of more than 75 mph, heavy rain, quarter-sized hail and dangerous lightning in Louisiana and Mississippi, the National Weather Service said. The worst storms are likely from Winnsboro, La., to Jackson and DeKalb, Miss., according to the weather service's Jackson office.

"Please plan now for how you will receive a severe weather warning, and know where you will go when it is issued. It only takes a few minutes, and it will help everyone have a safe Christmas," said Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant.

In Alabama, the director of the Emergency Management Agency, Art Faulkner, said he was briefing both local officials and Gov. Robert Bentley on plans for dealing with a possible outbreak.

Forecasters said storms would begin near the coast and spread north through the day, bringing with them the chances of storms, particularly in central and southwest Alabama. No day is good for severe weather, but Faulkner said Christmas adds extra challenges because people are visiting unfamiliar areas. Also, people are more tuned in to holiday festivities than their weather radio on a day when thoughts typically turn more toward the possibility of snow than twisters, he said.

"We are trying to get the word out through our media partners and through social media that people need to be prepared," Faulkner said

Meteorologists also recommended getting yards ready Monday, bringing indoors or securing Christmas decorations, lawn furniture and anything else that high winds might rip away or slam into a building or car.

"Make sure they're all stable and secure — that there's not going to be any loose wires blowing around and stuff like that," or bring them inside, said Joe Rua, with the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, where storms were expected to roar in from Texas after midnight.

In the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Timothy J. Babin said the 10 or so wire Christmas sculptures in his yard and more than 180 plastic figures in his mother's yard are staked down.

Dozens of toy soldiers, a nativity scene, Santa and nine reindeer (don't forget Rudolph), angels, snowmen and Santa Clauses fill the yard of his mother, Joy Babin.

"From a wind standpoint, we should be fine unless we're talking 70, 80, 90 miles an hour," Timothy Babin said.

On Christmas Eve, more than 100 log teepees for annual bonfires are set up along the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, which is a bit more than halfway from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and about 20 in St. John the Baptist Parish, its downriver neighbor, parish officials said. Most are 20 feet tall, the legal limit.

Fire chiefs and other officials in both parishes decided to go ahead with the bonfires after an afternoon conference call with the National Weather Service.

The bad weather was expected from a storm front moving from the West Coast crashing into a cold front, said weather service meteorologist Bob Wagner of Slidell.

"There's going to be a lot of turning in the atmosphere," he said.

In California, after a brief reprieve across the northern half of the state on Monday, wet weather was expected to make another appearance on Christmas. Flooding and snarled holiday traffic were also expected in Southern California.

Ten storm systems in the last 50 years have spawned at least one Christmastime tornado with winds of 113 mph or more (F-2) in the South, Chris Vaccaro, a National Weather Service spokesman in Washington, said in an email. The most lethal were the storms of Dec. 24-26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32; and those of Dec. 24-25, 1964, when two people were killed and about 30 people injured by 14 tornadoes in seven states.

Farther north, some mountainous areas of Arkansas' Ozark Mountains could see up to 10 inches of snow, the weather service said Monday. Precipitation is expected to begin as a mix of rain and sleet early Tuesday in western Oklahoma before changing to snow as the storm pushes eastward during the day. The weather service warned that travel could be "very hazardous or impossible" in northern Arkansas, where 4 to 6 inches of snow was predicted.

Out shopping with her family at a Target store in Montgomery, Ala., on Christmas Eve, veterinary assistant Johnina Black said she wasn't worried about the possibility of storms on the holiday.

"If the good Lord wants to take you, he's going to take you," she said.

___

Associated Press writer Bob Johnson in Montgomery, Ala., and Ken Miller in Oklahoma City, Okla., contributed to this report.

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Syria jets kill tens as international envoy visits

BEIRUT (AP) — A government airstrike on a bakery in a rebel-held town in central Syria killed more than 60 people on Sunday, activists said, casting a pall over a visit by the international envoy charged with negotiating an end to the country’s civil war.

The strike on the town of Halfaya left scattered bodies and debris up and down a street, and more than a dozen dead and wounded were trapped in tangled heap of dirt and rubble.

The attack appeared to be the government response to a newly announced rebel offensive seeking to drive the Syrian army from a constellation of towns and village north of the central city of Hama. Halfaya was the first of the area’s towns to be “liberated” by rebel fighters, and activists saw Sunday’s attack as payback.

“Halfaya was the first and biggest victory in the Hama countryside,” said Hama activist Mousab Alhamadee via Skype. “That’s why the regime is punishing them in this way.”

The total death toll remained unclear, but the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 60 people were killed. That number is expected to rise, it said, because some 50 of those wounded in the strike are in critical condition.

Amateur videos posted online Sunday showed residents and armed rebels rushing to the scene. One stopped to cover a mound of human flesh lying in the street with his coat.

More than a dozen dead or seriously wounded people lay in the street near a simple, concrete building, some in puddles of blood. Near its front wall, bodies jutted from a pile of dirt and rubble on the sidewalk.

Rebels screamed in distress while trying to extract the bodies, while others carried away the wounded.

It was unclear from the videos if the building was indeed a bakery. Nearly all the dead and wounded appeared to be men, some wore camouflage, raising the possibility that the jet had targeted a rebel gathering.

For the past week, rebels have been launching attacks in the area, most notably in the nearby village of Morek, where they hope to seize control of the country’s main north-south highway, preventing the regime from getting supplies to its forces further north in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.

On Saturday, one rebel group threatened to storm two predominantly Christian towns nearby if their residents did not “evict” government troops they said were using them as a base to attack nearby areas.

The activist accounts could not be independently verified due to restrictions on reporting in Syria. The Syrian government does not respond to requests for comment on its military activities.

The attack coincided with the start of a two-day visit by Lakhdar Barhimi, who represents the U.N. And the Arab League, to meet with top Syrian officials.

Brahimi has made little apparent progress toward ending Syria’s crisis since assuming his post in September, mostly because the sides appear more interested in fighting it out than in sitting down for talks.

Brahimi did not speak publicly upon arriving in Damascus for a two-day mission, and it was unclear whether he would present new ideas to end the war. His trip appeared troubled from the start.

Instead of flying directly to Syria as he had on previous visits, Brahimi landed in Beirut and traveled to the Syrian capital by land because of fighting near the Damascus airport, Lebanese officials said.

The Lebanese officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said Brahimi was expected to meet Syria’s foreign minister later Sunday and President Bashar Assad on Monday.

The trip is Brahimi’s third since taking the job following the resignation of former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan after both sides disregarded a cease-fire he brokered in April.

While not advancing a comprehensive peace plan, Brahimi has called on the sides to negotiate a solution.

The security situation has gotten notably worse for the regime since his last visit, with rebels storming a number of military bases and seizing valuable munitions. Russia, Assad’s most powerful international backer, also appears to have changed his assessment of Assad’s strength, as top officials say they do not seek to preserve his regime, while still calling for a negotiated solution.

Still, neither side appears willing to talk.

In a lengthy Sunday news conference, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi repeated the Syrian government’s line that it is fighting terrorist groups backed by foreign powers who seek to destroy Syria.

Al-Zoubi said the government was willing to engage in dialogue but said the other side wasn’t.

“We speak of dialogue with those who believe in national dialogue,” he said. “But those who rejected dialogue in their statements and called for arms and use of weapons, that’s a different issue. They don’t want dialogue.”

Rebel groups refuse to talk to Assad, saying too many people have died for him to be considered part of the solution.

Violence raged elsewhere in the country on Sunday. Anti-regime activists reported government airstrikes on suburbs east of the capital and the northern province of Aleppo.

Airstrikes on the town of al-Safira, south of Aleppo, killed 13 people, including a mother and five daughters from one family, a local activist named Hussein said via Skype. He gave only his first name for fear of retribution.

The town lies next to a large military complex with factories and artillery and air defense bases. Hussein guessed the airstrike was payback for recent rebel attacks on the complex.

“The strikes don’t hit the fighters at all,” he said. “They want to take revenge on the civilians.”

The Observatory said at least 10 rebels and an unknown number of government troops were killed in clashes in Afreen, near Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, as rebels sought to storm an army base there.

Anti-regime activists say more than 40,000 people have been killed since Syria’s crisis began in March 2011.

___

Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed reporting from Damascus.

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Barbra Streisand goes on a “Guilt Trip” with Seth Rogen

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Road-trip movies have been dominated by teenagers on wild adventures or “Hangover” style bro-mances, but Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen are driving the genre into new territories with mother-son comedy “The Guilt Trip” to usher in the holiday season.

“The Guilt Trip,” which hits U.S. theaters this week, follows struggling novice inventor Andy (Seth Rogen), who is guilted in to bringing his mother on a work-related road-trip across the country.

Streisand, 70, who broke out as an actress in 1968′s comedy “Funny Girl,” returns to her comedic roots as Joyce, Andy’s overbearing mother, who becomes closer to her son over the duration of their tense and comedic adventures on the road.

The actress told reporters at a recent press conference that it was her son Jason Gould who convinced her to do the project after reading the script with her, and Streisand found a deeper connection to the story.

“Mothers develop guilt trips,” Streisand said. “(When my own son was young) I was working a lot and I felt guilty as a parent that I cannot pick (up) my son everyday from school, bake him cookies, that kind of thing. And so you try and compensate.”

“I thought it was interesting to investigate this – trying to be his friend versus a mother…this movie, it hit on all those things that I thought I could explore.”

Rogen, 30, also related closely to the mother-son storyline, saying that while he has a “good relationship” with his own mom, even she can drive him “crazy” sometimes.

“That dynamic where your mother is trying and the more she tries, the more it bugs you, the more it bugs you, the more she tries….All that is very, at times, real to my relationship with my mother,” Rogen said.

STAYING OUT OF THE SPOTLIGHT

Streisand, who is one of the few actresses to win a Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Oscar award over her six-decade career, last took a leading role in 1996′s “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” which she also directed and produced.

The actress initially had reservations about signing onto the movie and said she gave the movie studio numerous clauses “because I kept wanting an out some way.”

Her requests included having a set “no more than 45 minutes away from my house” and later morning starts, as “my husband (James Brolin) and I stay up until two or three in the morning so we don’t function…at six in the morning.”

Streisand’s requests were granted, and thus came about a road trip movie where the actors never actually went on the road. The film ended up largely being shot on a sound stage with Streisand and Rogen in a car against a green screen while backdrops of landmarks such as the Grand Canyon, were added in later.

With the exception of a supporting role as Ben Stiller’s mother in 2004′s “Meet The Fockers” and 2010′s “Little Fockers,” Streisand has stayed out of the spotlight in recent years, and attributes that as one of the keys to her long-standing success.

“I don’t make many movies and I don’t make that many appearances. Less is more. Maybe that keeps a little mystery,” Streisand said, adding that she likes to “stay at home a lot.”

While she hasn’t signed onto another project just yet, she said what keeps her satisfied as an artist is engaging in work that is “private” as opposed to being on public display.

“I love recording and I love making films as a filmmaker,” she said. “Because it uses every bit of what you have experienced or know, whether it’s graphics, composition, decorating, psychology, storytelling, whatever it is. It’s a wonderful thing.”

(Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Lisa Shumaker)

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NRA chief LaPierre fires back at his critics

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre fired back at his critics today, defending his proposal to put armed guards in every school in the country as a way to prevent future tragedies like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that took the lives of 20 children and six adults.

"If it's crazy to call for armed officers in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," the head of the powerful gun lobby said today on NBC's "Meet the Press."

LaPierre and the NRA came under harsh criticism this week for their response to the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

After keeping silent for a week, except for a release announcing that the organization would make "meaningful contributions" to the search for answers to the problem of gun violence, LaPierre held what critics described as a "tone deaf" press conference in which he blamed the media, video games and Hollywood for the recent shootings, and suggested that the answer to gun violence was more guns.

Gun control advocates argue that a federal assault weapons ban is necessary to curbing gun violence. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who helped pass an assault weapons ban in 1996 is renewing efforts to pass similar legislation as the original ban expired in 2004.

"I think that is a phony piece of legislation and I do not believe it will pass for this reason: it's all built on lies," LaPierre said today.

LaPierre and many pro-gun advocates like him argue that assault weapons bans aren't effective and that violent criminals are solely to blame.

INFOGRAPHIC: Guns in America: By The Numbers

In today's interview, LaPierre pointed out that the Columbine High School shooting occurred after the assault weapons ban passed, but he failed to mention that the shooters obtained the guns they used illegally though a gun show.

He also did not discuss the fact that there was an armed guard on duty at the school when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people there before killing themselves.

Several senators watching LaPierre's interview had strong reactions.

"He says the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. What about stopping the bad guy from getting the gun in the first place?" said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was also on the show, said that he open to discussing increased school security but warned against a quick rush to ban assault weapons.

"I don't suggest we ban every movie with a gun in it and every video that's violent and I don't suggest that you take my right buy an AR-15 away from me because I don't think it will work," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he didn't think having armed guards in schools was a good idea, though the Republican said he was "not commenting on the NRA proposal in particular."

"I am not someone who believes that having multiple, armed guards, in every school, is something that will enhance the learning environment, and that is our first responsibility inside a school, is the learning environment, you don't want to make this an armed camp for kids, I don't think that is a positive example for children," he said. "We should be able to figure out some other ways to enhance safety."

Earlier this week protesters from the group "Code Pink" snuck into the NRA press conference and held up a sign that read "NRA Blood on Your Hand."

Gun-control advocates like the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence have long been critical of the NRA, but some lawmakers who also back more stringent gun control have been reluctant to lash out at the NRA until the recent shootings at Newtown, Conn.

After the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting, when a gunman armed with an AR-15, two Glock pistols and a shotgun, killed 12 and wounded 70 others, even Feinstein lamented that it was a "bad time" to press for gun control.

She has since changed her tone, but her previous reluctance to tackle the issue shows just how powerful the NRA is in derailing any opposition gun ownership.

President Obama announced last week that he was creating a task force headed by Vice President Biden to offer workable policy solutions to the problem of gun violence by the end of January.

The president will likely face an uphill battle, as any proposed legislation will have to make its way through the House of Representatives, which is currently controlled by Republicans.

Many lawmakers, the president and the NRA have discussed a holistic solution that includes the examination potential problems with the mental health system in this country.

Mental health services have come under a great strain as local governments are forced to cut their budgets. As a result, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors has estimated a loss of $4.35 billion to state funded mental health services.

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Canada spending growth sluggish in November, Mastercard says

(Reuters) – Canada‘s holiday shopping season got off to a slow start in November with retail sales rising only 1.3 percent from the previous year, compared with 4.2 percent growth a year earlier, according to data released by MasterCard on Thursday.

Still, the shopping season was still young in November. MasterCard Advisors, the payment company’s research and consulting division, found that in recent years, holiday shopping peaks from December 20 to December 22.

“Many Canadians may have gotten an early start with Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, but it’s still a very young phenomenon in Canada,” Senior Vice-President Richard McLaughlin, said in a release.

The Friday after U.S. Thanksgiving is the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season south of the border, and in recent years retailers have imported Black Friday sales to Canada.

Some also promote online sales the following Monday.

Canada’s online retail sales continued to grow in November, increasing 26.4 percent.

(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Peter Galloway)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Canada spending growth sluggish in November, Mastercard says
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