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Zicam Nasal Gel recalled over contamination

Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK -- One lot of Zicam Extreme Congestion Relief nasal gel has been recalled by its manufacturer after routine testing revealed Burkholderia cepacia bacteria in a sample, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported.

The company, Matrixx Initiatives, said the affected lot had been distributed nationwide. The lot consists of 0.5-ounce spray bottles containing a nondrip liquid, in cartons labeled with NDC number 62750-005-10, lot number 2J23, with an expiration date of September 2015.

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School Safety: Inside One School's Extraordinary Security Measures

Body Armor For Kids: Sales Surge

Body armor companies are having a surge of sales for bulletproof backpacks following the Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn., massacre.

Although the nondescript, black, child-size backpacks sold by the Massachusetts body armor company Bullet Blocker look like regular backpacks, a sheet of body armor is sewn inside each bag as "another protective layer."

Elmar Uy, chief operating officer at Bullet Blocker, noticed his sales numbers were up "tenfold" on Friday, the day of the massacre, but said he didn't understand why until he turned on the news.

"When word gets out there is an option, not a complete solution, to protect their kids, parents go and seek it," he said.

Complete Coverage of the Connecticut Shooting

Amendment II, a Utah-based company that manufactures lightweight armor for law enforcement and the military, began inserting their technology into kids' backpacks six months ago after they received several custom orders, said Derek Williams, president of Amendment II.

"We would sell a few here and there, and it was very much a niche item. But following Friday, our sales have gone up over 500 percent in childrens' armor products," Williams said.

The backpacks aren't meant to be worn during an active shooter situation, but rather as a shield "to cover their head and vital areas," Uy said.

Uy and Williams, who are both fathers, recognize that bulletproof backpacks and the inserts their companies sell aren't a solution to surviving a school shooting.

"There is only so much you can do," Williams said. "The bottom line is, having some armor is better than none. I don't want my kids to be unprotected in schools, which are becoming increasingly violent."

Amendment II plans to donate a portion of their sales to the families of Sandy Hook victims, Williams said.

"On Friday my business partners and I were in tears along with everyone else. We're all fathers," he said. "We can't do much except do what we can and what we're good at, which is making good body armor."

CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS FROM THE NEWTOWN SCHOOL SHOOTING SCENE

Gun laws show difficulty of stemming violent acts

ALICIA A. CALDWELLWASHINGTON -- One early focus of new gun regulations by President Barack Obama and some lawmakers would reinstate a federal ban on assault weapons, a law widely regarded as imperfect.

The ban, which existed for 10 years until 2004, would have made it illegal for the young gunman in Connecticut to use the 30-round magazines that allowed him to shoot so many elementary school students before he reloaded. But the ban and other U.S. gun laws wouldn't have prevented his mother's purchase of the powerful assault rifle or the especially deadly ammunition that he used to kill 26 people.

A generation of U.S. gun laws - and the inherent compromises intended to balance constitutional gun rights and public safety - reflects the intricacies of applying government policy to stem acts of mass violence. Since July, there have been at least four mass shootings that killed 47 people and wounded dozens more in Connecticut, Colorado, Oregon and Wisconsin. The killing of 20 children and six adults in a Newtown, Conn., elementary school appears to be a tipping point that pushed Congress and the White House toward tackling new gun laws.

Obama on Wednesday directed Vice President Joe Biden to produce recommendations on new gun laws and pledged to push for them without delay.

"This time, the words need to lead to action," Obama said.

The details of such laws have long stymied lawmakers. Gun control advocates say this has left significant gaps in laws that have not had and likely would not have much impact on recent deadly shootings.

The 1994 ban outlawed specific weapons, including the Colt AR-15, UZI and TEC-9, and high-capacity magazines and clips that held more than 10 bullets. But the law didn't outlaw the caliber - the approximate internal diameter of the barrel - of any of the high-powered weapons used in the most recent mass killings.

Also, federal law bars someone who "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution" from buying a gun. Yet Jared Loughner, who has pleaded guilty earlier this year in the deadly 2011 attack on then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., and has at times been forcefully medicated to treat his mental illness, was not ruled by a court to be mentally ill before the attack.

Investigators are still sorting out the past of 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the gunman in the Newtown school killings. But since he didn't buy the guns - his mother owned the firearms and kept them in the family's home - federal laws wouldn't have affected Lanza's access to them.

Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, said lawmakers should focus on a weapon's firepower. In the Colorado theater shooting and the deadly attack at a suburban Portland mall, police said the accused shooters used AR-15 assault rifles, versions of which were outlawed under the 1994 ban. Diaz said bullets fired from those types of guns are powerful enough to pierce all but the highest-grade, military-style, bullet-proof vests.

"It's designed for battlefield use," Diaz said.

Gun control long has been a politically difficult subject.

"The fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing," Obama said. "The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence doesn't mean we can't steadily reduce the violence."

The president, who expended little political capital on gun control despite a series of mass shootings in his first term, bristled at suggestions that he had been silent on the issue during his first four years in office. But he acknowledged that Friday's deadly shooting in Connecticut had been "a wake-up call for all of us."

Along with asking Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban, Obama asked lawmakers to pass legislation that would close the gun show "loophole," which allows people to purchase firearms from private dealers without a background check. Obama also said he wanted Congress to pursue the possibility of limiting high-capacity ammunition clips.

Gunmen have used high-capacity ammunition clips and magazines to kill large numbers of people quickly in this year's mass shootings. Inside Sandy Hook Elementary, police said, Lanza needed just 10 minutes to shoot and kill 20 children and six adults. Each was shot multiple times with a high-powered rifle.

The president's announcement Wednesday underscores the urgency the White House sees in formulating a response to the Newtown shooting. The massacre has prompted several congressional gun rights supporters to consider new legislation to control firearms, and there is some concern that their willingness to engage could fade as the shock and sorrow over the Newtown shooting eases.

Appealing to gun owners, Obama said he believes in the Second Amendment and the country's strong tradition of gun ownership. And he said "the vast majority of gun owners" in America are responsible.

"I am also betting that the majority, the vast majority, of responsible, law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war," Obama said.

The president challenged the National Rifle Association, the country's most powerful gun lobby and key backer of many Republican politicians, to join the broader effort to reduce gun violence as well.

"Hopefully they'll do some self-reflection," Obama said of the NRA.

The NRA made its first comments since the Newtown shooting on Tuesday, promising to offer "meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

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Miss USA wins 1st Miss Universe crown since 1997

HANNAH DREIERLAS VEGAS -- An American university student is the new Miss Universe, defeating dozens of contestants from six continents to bring the crown back to the U.S. after a drought of more than a decade.

Twenty-year-old Olivia Culpo won the title Wednesday night at the Planet Hollywood casino on the Las Vegas Strip, replacing outgoing champion Leila Lopes of Angola.

CLICK HERE to see images from the pageant

The Boston University sophomore's coronation ends a long losing spell for the U.S. in the competition co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC. An American had not won the Miss Universe title since Brook Lee won in 1997.

Culpo, who beat out 88 competitors, wore a tight navy blue mini-dress with a sequined bodice as she walked on stage for the event's opening number. Later in the night, she strutted in a purple and blue bikini, and donned a wintery red velvet gown with a plunging neckline.

No one was more surprised than Culpo's family when told them she was entering the Miss Rhode Island contest last year, her father Peter recalled.

"We didn't know a thing about pageants," he said.

She won that contest in a rented $20 dress with a hole in it and then began working out, dieting, and studying current events on flashcards to compete for the Miss USA crown.

Culpo was good enough during preliminary Miss Universe contests to be chosen as one of 16 semifinalists who moved on to compete in the main show. Her bid lasted through swimsuit, evening wear, and interview competitions that saw cuts after each round.

She won over the judges even after tripping slightly during the evening gown competition. Telecasters pointed it out but also noted her poised recovery.

Moments before she won, Culpo was asked whether she had she had ever done something she regretted.

"I'd like to start off by saying that every experience no matter what it is, good or bad, you'll learn from it. That's just life," she said. "But something I've done I've regretted is probably picking on my siblings growing up, because you appreciate them so much more as you grow older."

One of those siblings, 17-year-old Gus, was cheering from the front row with his sister's glittering Miss Rhode Island sash wrapped around his shoulders Miss Philippines, Janine Tugonon, came in second, while Miss Venezuela, Irene Sofia Esser Quintero, placed third. All the contestants spent the past two weeks in Sin City, where they posed in hardhats at a hotel groundbreaking, took a painting lesson, and pranked hotel guests by hiding in their rooms.

After the show, Culpo appeared wearing a white gold crown atop her long brown hair and told a group of reporters she hoped to bring the country some good news in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Connecticut.

"It's such an honor to be representing the USA in an international beauty contest in spite of all the tragedy that's happened in this country lately," she said. "I really hope that this this will raise everybody's spirits a little."

The daughter of two professional musicians, Culpo grew up in Cranston and spent her summers at band camp. She has played the cello alongside world-renowned classical musician Yo-Yo Ma, and followed in her parents' footsteps with performances at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Her father called her the "nerdiest" of her siblings, and her brother recalled that she was "really chubby and sort of weird when she was younger."

They speculated that the same single-mindedness that helped her master the cello in second grade propelled her rapid rise through the beauty pageant ranks.

With her promotion, Miss Maryland Nana Meriwether becomes the new Miss USA.

The Miss Universe pageant was back in Las Vegas this year after being held in Sao Paulo in 2011. It aired live on NBC and was streamed to more than 100 countries.

The panel of 10 judges included singer Cee Lo Green, "Iron Chef" star Masaharu Morimoto and Pablo Sandoval of the San Francisco Giants.

Asked on the red carpet whether he found playing in the World Series or judging the beauty pageant to be more difficult, Sandoval said both were hard.

As Miss Universe, Culpo will receive an undisclosed salary, a wardrobe fit for a queen, a limitless supply of beauty products, and a luxury apartment in New York City.

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House GOP plans vote on fiscal cliff 'Plan B'

ANDREW TAYLORWASHINGTON -- The GOP-controlled House is moving ahead Thursday on a bill that would raise taxes on people earning over $1 million a year, sparing most workers from a tax hike but leaving in place painful budget cuts to the military and domestic agencies as "fiscal cliff" talks appear stalled.

The move, dubbed "Plan B" by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, seems to be aimed at upping the year-end pressure on Capitol Hill Democrats and President Barack Obama, but it looks to be a dead letter in the Senate and earned a White House veto threat Wednesday.

A supremely confident Obama dismissed Plan B in a Wednesday news conference, telling reporters that he and Boehner were just a few hundred billion dollars apart on a 10-year, $2 trillion-plus deficit-cutting pact.

Republicans should "peel off the war paint" and take the deal he's offering, Obama said sharply at the White House. He noted that he had won re-election with a call for higher taxes on the wealthy, then added pointedly that the nation aches for conciliation, not a contest of ideologies, after last week's mass murder at a Connecticut elementary school.

Obama continues to press for a comprehensive budget pact with Boehner to replace an economy-jarring set of automatic tax hikes and sweeping spending cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies set to take effect in January.

Boehner countered that the president will bear responsibility for "the largest tax increase in history" if he makes good on his veto threat.

But to a remarkable extent, the two sides have flip-flopped.

Republicans have for years argued that voting to renew most Bush-era tax cuts on income, investments and elsewhere, but allowing upper-end tax cuts to expire would be a debilitating blow to the economy and small businesses. Now, they point to the 99-plus percent of taxpayers who wouldn't be affected by their latest plan.

For their part, Democrats have lashed themselves to Obama, who carries great leverage into the battle over the fiscal cliff, the price to pay for Washington's chronic inability to address the deficit.

Boehner expressed confidence the Republicans' narrow, so-called Plan B bill would pass the House on Thursday despite opposition from some conservative, anti-tax dissidents. The leadership worked to shore up the measure's chances late in the day by setting a vote on a companion bill to replace across-the-board cuts in the Pentagon and some domestic programs with targeted reductions elsewhere in the budget, an attempt to satisfy defense-minded lawmakers.

With Christmas approaching, Republicans also said they were hopeful the tax measure could quickly form the basis for a final bipartisan "fiscal cliff" compromise once it arrives in the Senate.

Democrats, in the majority in the Senate, gave no indication of their plans.

On paper, the two sides are relatively close to an agreement on major issues, each having offered concessions in an intensive round of talks that began late last week.

But political considerations are substantial, particularly for Republicans.

After two decades of resolutely opposing any tax increases, Boehner is seeking votes from fellow Republicans for legislation that tacitly lets rates rise on million-dollar income tax filers. The measure would raise revenue by slightly more than $300 billion over a decade than if all of the Bush-era tax cuts remained in effect.

Boehner won a letter of cramped support from anti-tax activist Grover Norquist during the day. Norquist's organization, Americans For Tax Reform, issued a statement saying it will not consider a vote for the bill a violation of a no-tax-increase pledge that many Republicans have signed.

But another conservative group came to an opposing conclusion. "Allowing a tax increase to hit a certain segment of Americans and small businesses is not a solution; it is a political ploy," the Heritage Foundation said in a statement.

That appeared to be the hope of Boehner and the rest of the leadership - that by showing his rank and file is united behind the fallback bill, the speaker would be in a strong position to demand concessions from the White House in the broader endgame.

At the White House, Obama repeated that he is ready to agree to spending cuts that may cause distress among some fellow Democrats, but he saved his sharpest words for Republicans.

"Goodness, if this past week has done anything, it should just give us some perspective," he said in a reference to the shootings of schoolchildren in Connecticut.

Speaking of Republicans, he said: "It is very hard for them to say yes to me. But at some point, they've got to take me out of it."

He added: "I'm often reminded when I speak to the Republican leadership that the majority of their caucus' membership come from districts that I lost. And so sometimes they may not see an incentive in cooperating with me, in part because they're more concerned about challenges from a tea party candidate, or challenges from the right, and cooperating with me may make them vulnerable."

Nor did Boehner slam the door on further compromises in his brief appearance before reporters. "Republicans continue to work toward avoiding the fiscal cliff," he said.

In the talks to date, Obama is now seeking $1.2 trillion in higher tax revenue, down from the $1.6 trillion he initially sought. He also has softened his demand for higher tax rates on household incomes so they would apply to incomes over $400,000 instead of the $250,000 he cited during his successful campaign for a new term.

He also has offered more than $800 billion in spending cuts over a decade, half of it from Medicare and Medicaid, $200 million from farm and other benefit programs, $100 billion from defense and $100 billion from a broad swath of government accounts ranging from parks to transportation to education.

In a key concession to Republicans, the president also has agreed to slow the rise in cost-of-living increases in Social Security and other benefit programs, at a savings estimated at about $130 billion over a decade.

By contrast, Boehner's most recent offer allowed for $1 trillion in higher taxes over a decade, with higher rates for annual incomes over $1 million. His latest offer seeks about $1 trillion in spending cuts.

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Dick's stores suspend sales of certain rifles

Eyewitness NewsPITTSBURGH -- A sporting goods chain says it's suspending sales of modern rifles nationwide because of the school shooting in Connecticut.

Dick's Sporting Goods also says it's removing all guns from display at its store closest to Newtown, where the massacre took place.

Authorities say a gunman killed 26 people, mostly children, with a military-style rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday after killing his mother. He then killed himself. A statement posted on Dick's website expresses sympathy for the victims' families. It says sales of modern sporting rifles will be suspended during "this time of national mourning."

Dick's declined to answer Associated Press questions about how long the suspension would last or which weapons were being pulled.

Pittsburgh-based Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. has more than 500 stores in 44 states.

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Fed. Prosecutors said suspect planned bombings in New York

Eyewitness NewsFT. LAUDERDALE -- Federal prosecutors say a South Florida man arrested last month plotted to set off a bomb in New York City to avenge deaths in Afghanistan.

Prosecutor Karen Gilbert said during a detention hearing Tuesday that 20-year-old Raees Alam Qazi traveled to New York on Nov. 23 to obtain explosives and conduct an attack on an unspecified target. But Qazi was not successful and returned to Florida on Nov. 27.

Gilbert says recordings indicate Qazi was a lone wolf with allegiance to al-Qaida. Qazi told the FBI after his arrest he changed his mind about the attack.

Qazi and older brother Sheheryar Alam Qazi are accused of providing material support to terrorists and attempting to obtain a weapon of mass destruction. Both have pleaded not guilty.

The brothers are naturalized U.S. citizens originally from Pakistan.

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UBS to pay $1.5 billion over rate-rigging scandal

JOHN HEILPRINGENEVA -- Swiss bank UBS agreed Wednesday to pay $1.5 billion in fines for trying to manipulate a key interest rate that affects borrowers around the world.

The settlement with U.S., British and Swiss regulators caps a tough year for the company and the reputation of the global banking industry. The fine on UBS, which will also see two former traders charged with conspiracy in the U.S., is triple the amount that British bank Barclays PLC agreed to pay in June to settle similar charges.

And it comes a week after HSBC agreed to pay nearly $2 billion to settle allegations of laundering money for Mexican drug cartels and countries under U.S. embargoes, such as Iran.

UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, said some of its employees tried to rig the LIBOR rate - short for London Interbank Offered Rate - in several currencies. The rate is set daily using information that banks provide and is used to price trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including mortgages and credit cards.

Some UBS traders voluntarily submitted - or pressured others to submit - inaccurate data to gain some financial advantage.

The bank's Japan unit, where much of the manipulation took place, entered a plea to one count of wire fraud in an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department.

The Justice Department said two former UBS senior traders, Tom Alexander William Hayes, 33, of Britain, and Roger Darin, 41, of Switzerland, will be charged with conspiracy, while Hayes also will be charged with wire fraud in New York federal court. Justice Department officials said they believed the two men were in Britain and Switzerland, and would be seeking their extradition.

UBS will pay $1.2 billion of its fine to the Justice Department and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC will get $700 million, the largest fine it ever ordered. The remaining $300 million will go to regulators in Britain and Switzerland.

As a result of the fines, litigation, unwinding of real estate investments, restructuring and other costs, UBS said it expects to lose between 2 billion and 2.5 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion to $2.7 billion) in the fourth quarter. Nevertheless, the Zurich-based bank maintained that it "remains one of the best capitalized banks in the world."

UBS shares closed down 0.3 percent at 15.20 francs on the Zurich exchange.

The LIBOR scandal is likely to make headlines again in coming months. Other big global banks are also being investigated in the LIBOR scandal and are expected to be fined.

The UBS penalty is more than triple the $450 million in fines imposed by American and British regulators in June on Barclays. The scandal led to the departure of Chief Executive Bob Diamond.

UBS said some of its personnel had "engaged in efforts to manipulate submissions for certain benchmark rates to benefit trading positions" and that some employees had "colluded with employees at other banks and cash brokers to influence certain benchmark rates to benefit their trading positions."

Britain's financial regulator called the misconduct by UBS "extensive and broad," with the rate-fixing carried out from UBS offices in London and Zurich.

Different desks were responsible for different rate submissions. At least 2,000 requests for inappropriate submissions were documented. An unquantifiable number of oral requests, which by their nature would not be documented, were also made, the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority said.

"Manipulation was also discussed in internal open chat forums and group emails, and was widely known," the FSA said. "At least 45 individuals including traders, managers and senior managers were involved in, or aware of, the practice of attempting to influence submissions."

Joe Rundle, head of trading at London-based ETX Capital, said the case exposes "just how brazen and arrogant" the UBS traders were while collaborating with "corrupt external brokers."

Sergio Ermotti, who was appointed CEO of UBS in November 2011 in the wake of a major trading scandal, said the misconduct does not reflect the bank's values or standards.

In an interview with Swiss TV, Ermotti said the bank let go of 36 employees involved in the scandal over the past 18 months and learned some clear lessons from it - mainly that "we had to strengthen our controls."

"We are on our way to finding solutions to some of the problems and there are some other items that remain unresolved," he told the German-speaking public broadcaster SRF. "We have to recognize our failures and learn from them, but also look ahead."

With more than 2.2 trillion Swiss francs ($2.4 trillion) in invested assets, UBS is one of the world's largest managers of private wealth assets. At last count, the bank had 63,745 employees in 57 countries and said it aims for a headcount of 54,000 in 2015.

Along with Credit Suisse, the second-largest Swiss bank, UBS is on the list of the 29 "global systemically important banks" that the Bank for International Settlements - the central bank for central banks - considers too big to fail.

It's not the first time that UBS has fallen afoul of regulators. In 2009, U.S. authorities fined UBS $780 million for helping U.S. citizens avoid paying taxes.

The U.S. government has since been pushing Switzerland to loosen its rules on banking secrecy. The country has been trying to shed its image as a tax haven, signing deals with the U.S., Germany and Britain to provide greater assistance to foreign tax authorities seeking information on their citizens' accounts.

Ermotti has called Switzerland's tax disputes with the U.S. and some European nations "an economic war" putting thousands of jobs at risk.

In September 2011, UBS revealed that unauthorized trades in London by a 32-year-old employee, Kweku Adoboli, had cost it more than $2 billion, the biggest ever fraud at a bank in Britain.

Britain's financial regulator fined UBS, saying its internal controls were inadequate to prevent Adoboli, a relatively inexperienced trader, from making vast and risky bets. Adoboli has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

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Instagram says photos won't appear in ads

Instagram is demonstrated on an iPhone Monday, April 9, 2012, in New York. Facebook is spending $1 billion to buy the photo-sharing company Instagram in the social network's largest acquisition ever. Instagram lets people apply filters to photos they snap with their mobile devices and share them with friends and strangers. (AP Photo/Karly Domb Sadof) (AP Photo)

BARBARA ORTUTAYSAN FRANCISCO -- Instagram, the popular mobile photo-sharing service now owned by Facebook, said Tuesday that it will remove language from its new terms of service suggesting that users' photos could appear in advertisements.

The language in question had appeared in updated policies announced Monday and scheduled to take effect Jan. 16. After an outcry on social media and privacy rights blogs, the company clarified that it has no plans to put users' photos in ads.

That said, Instagram maintains that it was created to become a business and would like to experiment with various forms of advertisements to make money. Instagram doesn't currently run any ads. As of now, the free service has no way to make money and brings in no revenue to Facebook.

"Our main goal is to avoid things likes advertising banners you see in other apps that would hurt the Instagram user experience," Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom wrote in a blog post Tuesday.

What had riled users and privacy advocates was Instagram's new assertion that it may now receive payments from businesses to use its members' photos, user name and other data "in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation" to them.

Instagram didn't offer many details at the time. Its blog post on Monday made no mention of ads or other commercial activities, though it offered links to the new privacy policy and terms of service. Those documents spell out what the service could do, but say little about actual plans.

Instead, Instagram merely said the changes will help its service "function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups." Facebook Inc. also recently updated its privacy policy to allow for more integration with Instagram.

"This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used," the earlier blog post said, adding that the updates also "help protect you, and prevent spam and abuse as we grow."

Facebook bought Instagram in September for $715.3 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock.

Instagram's new policy, which takes effect Jan. 16, suggests that Facebook wants to integrate Instagram into its ad-serving system.

"These services are publicly advertised as 'free,' but the free label masks costs to privacy, which include the responsibility of monitoring how these companies sell data, and even how they change policies over time," said Chris Hoofnagle, director of Information Privacy Programs at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology.

The fast-growing service has become a popular way to share photos from cellphones. The Instagram app, available for the iPhone and Android devices, offers a variety of filters to give photos a retro feel or other look. Although many other apps also offer filters for enhancing photos, they don't offer the sharing features and community aspects of Instagram.

Instagram has had a loyal following since before Facebook bought it. The purchase worried some of the earliest fans of the service, who feared Facebook would swallow up their beloved community.

Users must accept the new terms when they go into effect or leave the Instagram.

Twitter users were vowing to cancel their Instagram accounts. They complained that the new terms would essentially let the service sell people's photos for ads - something Instagram said Tuesday it doesn't plan to do.

Facebook's stock price increased nearly 4 percent on Tuesday amid the Instagram ads chatter, to close at $27.71.

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Time picks President Obama as 'Person of the Year'

Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK -- President Barack Obama has been named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for 2012.

"We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes, and Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America," Time Editor Rick Stengel said.

The short list for the honor included Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head for advocating for girls' education, as well as Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Italian physicist Fabiola Giannati.

Obama also received the honor in 2008, when he was President-elect.

In an interview with Time, Obama said his re-election "may have been more satisfying a win than 2008."

"We've gone through a very difficult time," Obama said. "The American people have rightly been frustrated at the pace of change, and the economy is still struggling, and this president we elected is imperfect, and yet, despite all that, this is who we want to be. That's a good thing."

Last year, Time honored "The Protester," citing dissent across the Middle East that spread to Europe and the United States, saying the protesters reshaped global politics.

Time's "Person of the Year" is the person or thing that has most influenced the culture and the news during the past year for good or for ill. In 2010, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg received the honor.

Other previous winners have included Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Bono and President George W. Bush.

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Caught on camera: Mudslide derails train

Eyewitness NewsWASHINGTON (WABC) -- Heavy rains and a steep, muddy hillside proved to be a bad combination in Washington state.

A cell phone camera captured a mudslide that derailed seven cars of a freight train near everett.

The cargo included cleaning chemicals and fertilizer.

No one was hurt, but HazMat teams had to be brought in to clean up the mess.

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NRA breaks silence, comments on Newtown tragedy

PHILIP ELLIOTTWASHINGTON -- After four days of self-imposed silence on the shooting that killed 26 people inside a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, the nation's largest gun rights lobby emerged Tuesday and promised "to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

The National Rifle Association explained its unusual absence "out of respect for the families and as a matter of common decency" after Friday's shooting that left dead 20 children, all ages 6 or 7.

The group - typically outspoken about its positions even after shooting deaths - went all but silent since the rampage. As it faced public scrutiny online and in person, the group left many wondering how - if at all - it would respond to one of the most shocking slayings in the nation's history.

"The National Rifle Association of America is made up of 4 million moms and dads, sons and daughters, and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown," the organization said in a statement. "The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

The group said it would have a news conference to answer questions Friday, the one-week anniversary of the shootings.

Almost immediately after it became clear the extent of carnage, the group's Facebook page disappeared. It posted no tweets. It made no mention of the shooting on its website. None of its leaders hit the media circuit Sunday to promote its support of the Second Amendment right to bear arms as the nation mourns the latest shooting victims and opens a new debate over gun restrictions. On Monday, the NRA offered no rebuttal as 300 antigun protesters marched to its Capitol Hill office.

Yet on Tuesday, the NRA re-emerged, albeit more slowly than normal and with its somber statement.

After previous mass shootings - such as in Oregon and Wisconsin - the group was quick to both send its condolences and defend gun owners' constitutional rights, popular among millions of Americans. There's no indication that the National Rifle Association is prepared to weaken its ardent opposition to gun restrictions but it did hint it was open to being part of a dialogue that already has begun.

Its deep-pocketed efforts to oppose gun control laws have proven resilient. Firearms are in a third or more of U.S. households and suspicion runs deep of an overbearing government whenever it proposes expanding federal authority. The argument of gun-rights advocates that firearm ownership is a bedrock freedom as well as a necessary option for self-defense has proved persuasive enough to dampen political enthusiasm for substantial change.

Seldom had the NRA gone so long after a fatal shooting without a public presence. It resumed tweeting just one day after a gunman killed two people and then himself at an Oregon shopping mall last Tuesday, and one day after six people were fatally shot at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in August.

The Connecticut shootings occurred three days after the incident in Oregon.

Since the Connecticut shootings, the NRA has been taunted and criticized at length, vitriol that may have prompted the shuttering of its Facebook page just a day after the association boasted about reaching 1.7 million supporters on the social media network.

Twitter users have been relentless, protesting the organization with hashtags like NoWayNRA.

The NRA has not responded to them. Its last tweets, sent Friday, offered a chance to win an auto flashlight.

Offline, some 300 protesters gathered outside the NRA's lobbying headquarters on Capitol Hill on Monday chanting, "Shame on the NRA" and waving signs declaring "Kill the 2nd Amendment, Not Children" and "Protect Children, Not Guns."

"I had to be here," said Gayle Fleming, 65, a real estate agent from Arlington, Va., saying she was attending her first antigun rally. "These were 20 babies. I will be at every rally, will sign every letter, call every congressman going forward."

Retired attorney Kathleen Buffon of Chevy Chase, Md., reflected on earlier mass shootings, saying: "All of the other ones, they've been terrible. This is the last straw. These were children."

"The NRA has had a stranglehold on Congress," she added as she marched toward the NRA's unmarked office. "It's time to call them out."

The group's reach on Capitol Hill is wide as it wields its deep pockets to defeat lawmakers, many of them Democrats, who push for restrictions on gun ownership.

The NRA outspent its chief opponent by a 73-1 margin to lobby the outgoing Congress, according to the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, which tracks such spending. It spent more than 4,000 times its biggest opponents during the 2012 election.

In all, the group spent at least $24 million this election cycle - $16.8 million through its political action committee and nearly $7.5 million through its affiliated Institute for Legislative Action. Its chief foil, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, spent just $5,816.

On direct lobbying, the NRA also was mismatched. Through July 1, the NRA spent $4.4 million to lobby Congress to the Brady Campaign's $60,000.

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Texas town allows teachers to carry concealed guns

ANGELA K. BROWNHARROLD, Texas -- In this tiny Texas town, children and their parents don't give much thought to safety at the community's lone school - mostly because some of the teachers are carrying concealed weapons.

In remote Harrold, the nearest sheriff's office is 30 minutes away, and people tend to know - and trust - one another. So the school board voted to let teachers bring guns to school.

"We don't have money for a security guard, but this is a better solution," Superintendent David Thweatt said. "A shooter could take out a guard or officer with a visible, holstered weapon, but our teachers have master's degrees, are older and have had extensive training. And their guns are hidden. We can protect our children."

In the awful aftermath of last week's Connecticut elementary school shooting, lawmakers in a growing number of states - including Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota and Oregon - have said they will consider laws allowing teachers and school administrators to carry firearms at school.

Texas law bans guns in schools unless the school has given written authorization. Arizona and six other states have similar laws with exceptions for people who have licenses to carry concealed weapons.

Harrold's school board voted unanimously in 2007 to allow employees to carry weapons. After obtaining a state concealed-weapons permit, each employee who wants to carry a weapon must be approved by the board based on his or her personality and reaction to a crisis, Thweatt said.

Employees also must undergo training in crisis intervention and hostage situations. And they must use bullets that minimize the risk of ricochet, similar to those carried by air marshals on planes.

CaRae Reinisch, who lives in the nearby community of Elliott, said she took her children out of a larger school and enrolled them in Harrold two years ago, partly because she felt they would be safer in a building with armed teachers.

"I think it's a great idea for trained teachers to carry weapons," Reinish said. "But I hate that it has come to this."

The superintendent won't disclose how many of the school's 50 employees carry weapons, saying that revealing that number might jeopardize school security.

The school, about 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth near the Oklahoma border, has 103 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Most of them rarely think about who is carrying a gun.

"This is the first time in a long time that I've thought about it," said Matt Templeton, the principal's 17-year-old son. "And that's because of what happened" in Connecticut.

Thweatt said other Texas schools allow teachers to carry weapons, but he would not reveal their locations, saying they are afraid of negative publicity.

The Texas Education Agency said it had not heard of any other schools with such a policy. And the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence did not know of any other districts nationwide that allow school employees to carry concealed handguns.

But that may change soon.

Oklahoma state Rep. Mark McCullough said he is working on a bill that would allow teachers and administrators to receive firearms training through the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training, which would authorize them to carry weapons at school and at school events. Other states are proposing or considering similar measures.

However, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder this week vetoed legislation that would have allowed concealed weapons in schools, churches and day care centers, saying he seeks a more "thoughtful review" that includes school emergency policies and mental health-related issues.

In Texas, guns have an honored place in the state's culture, and politicians often describe owning a gun as essential to being Texan. At the state Capitol, concealed handgun license holders are allowed to skip the metal detectors that scan visitors.

Gov. Rick Perry has indicated he would prefer to give gun owners the widest possible latitude. Just days after the Connecticut attack, Perry said permit holders should be able to carry concealed weapons in any public place.

Last year, many Texas lawmakers supported a plan to give college students and professors with concealed handgun licenses the right to carry guns on campus, but the measure failed.

Opponents insist that having more people armed at a school, especially teachers or administrators who aren't trained to deal with crime on a daily basis, could lead to more injuries and deaths. They point to an August shooting outside the Empire State Building, where police killed a laid-off clothing designer after he fatally shot his former colleague. Nine bystanders were wounded by police gunfire, ricochets and fragments.

"You are going to put teachers, people teaching 6-year-olds in a school, and expect them to respond to an active-shooter situation?" said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, who called the idea of arming teachers "madness."

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner said she would not have felt better if teachers at her children's Seattle school had been armed during a May shooting at a nearby cafe. A gunman killed four people at the cafe and another woman during a carjacking before killing himself. The school went on lockdown as a precaution.

"It would be highly concerning to me to know that guns were around my kids each and every day. ... Increasing our arms is not the answer," said Rowe-Finkbeiner, co-founder and CEO of MomsRising.org.

Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign, said focusing on arming teachers distracts from the "real things" that could help prevent a school shooting "and at worse it furthers a dangerous conversation that only talks about guns as protection without a discussion about the serious risks they present."

As the debate continues, Harrold's school plans to leave its policy unchanged.

"Nothing is 100 percent at all. ... But hope makes for a terrible plan, hoping that (a tragedy) won't happen," Thweatt said. "My question is: What have you done about it? How have you planned?"

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Associated Press writers Juan A. Lozano in Houston and Nomaan Merchant in Dallas contributed to this report.

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Resignations follow report on Benghazi

Libyan investigators cars are parked in front of the U.S. Consulate during their investigation regarding the attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens on the night of Tuesday, in Benghazi, Libya, Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012. The American ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed when a mob of protesters and gunmen overwhelmed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, setting fire to it in outrage over a film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Ambassador Chris Stevens, 52, died as he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff as a crowd of hundreds attacked the consulate Tuesday evening, many of them firing machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades. (AP photo/Mohammad Hannon)

MATTHEW LEEWASHINGTON -- Three State Department officials resigned under pressure Wednesday, less than a day after a damning report blamed management failures for a lack of security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, where militants killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans on Sept. 11.

The resignations came as lawmakers expressed anger and frustration over the findings of an independent review panel, and the State Department struggled to find a balance between protecting its diplomats while allowing them to do their jobs connecting with people in high-risk posts.

Obama administration officials said those who had stepped down were Eric Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security, and Raymond Maxwell, the deputy assistant secretary of state who oversees the Maghreb nations of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss personnel matters publicly.

Some of the three may have the option of being reassigned to other duties, the officials said.

The department declined immediate comment on the resignation of the officials whose decisions had been criticized in the unclassified version of the Accountability Review Board's report that was released late Tuesday.

The board's co-chairman, retired Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters that the board had not determined that any officials had "engaged in willful misconduct or knowingly ignored his or her responsibilities," But Mullen, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, added, "We did conclude that certain State Department bureau level senior officials in critical levels of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability appropriate for senior ranks in their responses to security concerns posed by the special mission."

Mullen said the mission's security fell through bureaucratic cracks caused in part because buildings were categorized as temporary. The report said that budget constraints had caused some officials to be more concerned with saving scarce money than in security.

Co-chairman Thomas Pickering, a retired ambassador, said the personnel on the ground in Benghazi had reacted to the attack with bravery and professionalism. But, he said, the security precautions were "grossly inadequate" and the contingent was overwhelmed by the heavily armed militants.

"They did the best they possibly could with what they had but what they had wasn't enough," Pickering said.

Pickering and Mullen spoke shortly after briefing members of Congress in private. Lawmakers from both parties emerged from the sessions with harsh words for the State Department.

"My impression is the State Department clearly failed the Boy Scout motto of be prepared," said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.

"They failed to anticipate what was coming because of how bad the security risk already was there. ... They failed to connect the dots," he said. "They didn't have adequate security leading up to the attack and once the attack occurred, the security was woefully inadequate."

Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the House intelligence committee, said security was "plainly inadequate, intelligence collection needs to be improved, and our reliance on local militias was sorely misplaced.

"These are not mistakes we can afford to make again," he said.

The House intelligence committee chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said the report laid bare "the massive failure of the State Department at all levels, including senior leadership, to take action to protect our government employees abroad," and complained that no one was being held accountable.

Rogers also said he was dissatisfied with the lack of progress in finding the attackers.

Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security who was in charge of embassy protection, testified in October before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and defended the security measures.

"I made the best decisions I could with the information I had," Lamb said at the time. "We had the correct number of assets in Benghazi at the time of 9/11."

She also told Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., that she rejected requests for more security in Benghazi, instead training "local Libyans and army men" to provide security, a policy in force at U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world.

Pickering and Mullen set the stage for public hearings set for Thursday on Capitol Hill., Scheduled to testify were Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who is in charge of policy, and Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who is in charge of management.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was to have appeared at Thursday's hearings, but canceled after fainting and sustaining a concussion last week while recovering from a stomach virus. Clinton is under doctors' orders to rest.

Senate Republicans and Democrats said they hoped Clinton would testify on the Hill even though she is planning to step down from her Cabinet post.

In a letter that accompanied the transmission of the report to Capitol Hill, Clinton thanked the board for its "clear-eyed, serious look at serious systemic challenges" and said she accepted its 29 recommendations to improve security at high-threat embassies and consulates.

She said the department had begun to put in place some of the recommendations. They include increasing by several hundred the number of Marine guards stationed at diplomatic missions throughout the world; relying less on local security forces for protection at embassies, consulates and other offices; and increasing hiring and deployment of highly trained Diplomatic Security agents at at-risk posts.

Clinton agreed with the panel's finding that Congress must fully fund the State Department's security initiatives. The panel found that budget constraints in the past had led some management officials to emphasize savings over security, including rejecting numerous requests from the Benghazi mission and the embassy in Tripoli for enhanced protection.

House and Senate negotiators working on a defense bill agreed on Tuesday to fund 1,000 more Marines at embassy security worldwide.

The report singled out the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Near East Affairs for criticism. It said there was a lack of cooperation and confusion over protection at the mission in Benghazi, a city in eastern Libya that was relatively lawless after the revolution that toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

But it broke little new ground about the timeline of the Benghazi attack. Killed were U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, information specialist Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods - who were contractors working for the CIA. Stevens was the first U.S. ambassador killed since 1988.

The board determined that there had been no immediate, specific tactical warning of a potential attack on the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. But the report said there had been several worrisome incidents before to the attack that should have set off warning bells.

It did confirm, though, that contrary to initial accounts, there was no protest outside the facility.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, administration officials linked the attack to the spreading protests that had begun in Cairo earlier that day over an American-made, anti-Islamic film. Those comments came after evidence already pointed to a distinct militant attack in Benghazi.

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on numerous TV talk shows the Sunday after the attack and used the administration talking points linking it to the film. An ensuing brouhaha in the heat of the presidential campaign eventually led her to withdraw her name from consideration to replace Clinton as secretary of state in President Barack Obama's second term.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., emerging from the Senate briefing on the report, kept up the congressional criticism of Rice.

"Now we all know she had knowledge. She knew what the truth was. It was a cover-up," he said.

While criticizing State Department management in Washington along with the local militia force and contract guards that the mission depended on for protection, the report said U.S. personnel on the ground in Benghazi "performed with courage and readiness to risk their lives to protect their colleagues in a near-impossible situation."

It said the response by Diplomatic Security agents on the scene and CIA operatives at a nearby compound that later came under attack itself had been "timely and appropriate" and absolved the military from any blame. "There was simply not enough time for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference," it said.

The report also discounted speculation that officials in Washington had refused appeals for additional help after the attack had begun.

The report said the evacuation of the dead and wounded 12 hours after the initial attack was due to "exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response" that helped save the lives of two seriously wounded Americans.

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Associated Press writers Donna Cassata and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.

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Obama announces task force to prevent gun violence

JULIE PACEWASHINGTON -- Spurred by a horrific elementary school shooting, President Barack Obama vowed to send Congress new policy proposals for reducing gun violence by January.

"This time, the words need to lead to action," Obama said Wednesday. He tasked Vice President Joe Biden with leading an administration-wide effort to create the new recommendations and pledged to push for their implementation without delay.

The president, who exerted little political capital on gun control despite a series of mass shootings in his first term, bristled at suggestions that he had been silent on the issue during his first four years in office. But he acknowledged that Friday's deadly shooting had been "a wake-up call for all of us."

Twenty children and six adults were killed when a man carrying a military-style rifle stormed Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Friday morning.

The president also called on Congress Wednesday to reinstate an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and to pass legislation that would close the gun show "loophole," which allows people to purchase firearms from private dealers without a background check. Obama also said he wanted Congress to pursue the possibility of limiting high-capacity ammunition clips.

Obama said it was "encouraging" to see people of different backgrounds and political affiliations coming to an understanding that the country has an obligation to prevent such violence.

Appealing to gun owners, Obama said he believes in the Second Amendment and the country's strong tradition of gun ownership. And he said "the vast majority of gun owners in America are responsible."

"I am also betting that the majority, the vast majority, of responsible law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war," Obama said.

Obama also tasked the Biden-led team with considering ways to improve mental health resources and address ways to create a culture that doesn't promote violence. The departments of Justice, Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, along with outside groups and lawmakers, will all be part of the process.

Biden's prominent role in the process could be an asset for the White House in getting gun legislation through Congress. The vice president spent decades in the Senate and has been called on by Obama before to use his long-standing relationships with lawmakers to build support for White House measures.

"Hopefully they'll do some self-reflection," Obama said of the NRA.

The NRA made its first comments since the shooting on Tuesday, promising to offer "meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

Obama said that while taking the necessary steps to reduce gun violence would take commitment and compromise, he said it could be achieved if Washington summons "even one tiny iota of the courage of those teachers, that principal in Newtown summoned on Friday."

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Midwest hit by its first major snowstorm of season

BARBARA RODRIGUEZDES MOINES, Iowa -- The Midwest's first major snowstorm of the season was sweeping across several states early Thursday, shuttering schools, creating treacherous roadways and threatening to slow down one of the nation's busiest airports ahead of the holiday weekend.

Forecasters warned that heavy snowfall coupled with strong winds would create blizzard conditions for morning commuters from Kansas to Wisconsin.

Nebraska's largest school district canceled classes because of heavy overnight snow, as did many districts across Iowa, where drivers were being told to stay off the roads starting Wednesday evening because of whiteout conditions.

But the weather likely won't stop Iowa native Laurie Harry from starting up her car Thursday morning.

"If I need to get into work, I'll be here," said Harry, a manager at a Casey's General Store in the western Iowa town of Atlantic. "We've had snow before. Iowans know what to expect. We're used to it."

The heaviest snow is expected across a swath extending from northwest Missouri into Milwaukee, Chicago and Michigan, with predictions of as much as a foot of snow in some areas, according to the National Weather Service. Before the storm, several cities in the Midwest had broken records for the number of consecutive days without measurable snow.

Light snow, strong winds and low clouds could make visibility poor and cause delays at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the nation's second-busiest airport, according to the National Weather Service. The weather has already prompted Delta and United Airlines to allow many affected travelers to change schedules without incurring fees.

By Wednesday night, snow had blanketed parts of Iowa and Nebraska as the storm moved out of eastern Colorado and across parts of Kansas. Several states were reporting numerous traffic accidents, including one fatality in Nebraska.

"There are a few truckers stranded here. And we have some semis that have rolled over and we have some that have jackknifed," said Ashley Brozek, a clerk at the Eagle Travel Center in the western Kansas town of Tribune. "We also have a UPS driver that is stranded and a local family has let him in for the night."

In Madrid, about 30 miles north of Des Moines, auto repair shop owner Steve Simmons said he had a busy Wednesday morning with customers looking for snow tires ahead of the storm.

"Everybody seems to wait to the last minute for this kind of thing," he said. And he was also expecting a busy Thursday snowplowing several churches and private businesses.

"The bad weather usually benefits me greatly," he said.

Meteorologist Kris Sanders explained "it's a pretty strong system that is coming out of the Rockies," where the storm dumped a foot of snow - a gift for ski resorts in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah ahead of the busy holiday week - before moving east.

The moisture was being welcomed by farmers in the drought-parched region, but Sanders said the storm wouldn't make much of a dent. In Kansas, for example, some areas are more than 12 inches below normal precipitation for the year.

"It's not going to have a big effect, maybe only a half-inch of liquid precipitation. It's not helping us out much," the meteorologist said.

Sanders said another storm similar to the current one could bring additional snow on Christmas or the day after.

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John Milburn reported from Topeka, Kan. Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo.; Colleen Slevin in Denver; and Erin Gartner in Chicago also contributed to this report.

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Funerals become sad routine after Newtown tragedy

by DAVID KLEPPERNEWTOWN, Conn. -- A season that should be a time of joy has been marked by heart-wrenching loss in Newtown, as more victims from the massacre of 20 children and six adults are laid to rest.

At least nine funerals and wakes were held Wednesday for those who died when gunman Adam Lanza, armed with a military-style assault rifle, broke into Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday and opened fire. Lanza killed his mother at her home before the attack and committed suicide at the school as police closed in.

On Thursday, six funerals and five wakes were planned, and more tributes were scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

"The first few days, all you heard were helicopters," said Dr. Joseph Young, an optometrist who attended one funeral and would go to several more. "Now at my office all I hear is the rumble of motorcycle escorts and funeral processions going back and forth throughout the day."

At St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Wednesday, mourners arrived for Caroline Previdi, an auburn-haired 6-year-old with an impish smile, before the service had even ended for Daniel Barden, a 7-year-old who dreamed of being a firefighter.

"It's sad to see the little coffins," said the Rev. John Inserra, a Catholic priest who worked at St. Rose for years before transferring to a church in Greenwich.

"It's always hard to bury a child," Inserra said of the seemingly unrelenting cycle of sorrow and loss. "God didn't do this. God didn't allow this. We allowed it. He said, 'Send the little children to me.' But he didn't mean it this way."

Hundreds of firefighters formed a long blue line outside the church for Daniel's funeral. Two of his relatives work at the Fire Department of New York, and the gap-toothed redhead had wanted to join their ranks one day.

At Caroline's funeral, mourners wore pink ties and scarves - her favorite color - and remembered her as a New York Yankees fan who liked to kid around. "Silly Caroline" was how she was known to neighbor Karen Dryer.

"She's just a girl that was always smiling, always wanting others to smile," Dryer said.

Across town, at Christ the King Lutheran Church, hundreds gathered for the funeral of Charlotte Helen Bacon, many wearing buttons picturing the 6-year-old redhead. Speakers, including her grandfather, told of her love of wild animals, the family's golden retriever and the color pink.

She was "a beautiful little girl who could be a bit stubborn at times, just like all children," said Danbury resident Linda Clark as she left the service.

And in nearby Stratford, family and friends gathered to say goodbye to Victoria Soto, a first-grade teacher hailed as a hero for trying to shield her students, some of whom escaped. Musician Paul Simon, a family friend, performed "The Sound of Silence" at the service.

"She had the perfect job. She loved her job," said Vicky Ruiz, a friend since first grade.

In Woodbury, a line of colleagues, students and friends of slain Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, 47, wrapped around the block to pay their respects to the administrator, who rushed the gunman in an effort to stop him and paid with her life. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan attended the service.

"She loved kids. She'd do anything to help them and protect them," said Joann Opulski, of Roxbury.

The symbol of Christmas took on a new meaning in Newtown, where one memorial featured 26 Christmas trees - one for each victim at the school.

Edward Kish said he bought a Christmas tree two days before the shooting but hasn't had the heart to put it up or decorate it.

"I'll still put it up, probably," he said. "It doesn't seem right, and it doesn't seem like Christmas."

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed, Helen O'Neill, John Christoffersen, Katie Zezima and Pat Eaton-Robb in Newtown; Michael Melia in Hartford; and Larry Margasak in Washington and AP Business Writer Joshua Freed in Minneapolis.

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Utah boy brings gun to school, cites Newtown fears

PAUL FOYSALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah sixth-grader caught with a gun at school told administrators he brought the weapon to defend himself in case of an attack similar to last week's mass shooting at a Connecticut school, officials said Tuesday.

The 11-year-old was being held in juvenile detention on suspicion of possessing a dangerous weapon and aggravated assault after other students at the suburban Salt Lake City elementary school told police he threatened them with the handgun.

Teachers and administrators at West Kearns Elementary School confronted the boy in class Monday after students reported the weapon, said Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley. The boy had an unloaded gun and ammunition in his backpack, Horsley said.

The boy waved the gun at others during a morning recess, school officials said. Other students, however, didn't report the threat until classes were nearly finished for the day. There was no immediate explanation for the delay, authorities said.

Authorities have not released the child's name. The .22-caliber handgun had been left at the boy's home by a relative, Horsley said.

The child made statements to administrators and mentioned the shooting rampage last week in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children dead, authorities said.

The boy told others his parents sent him to school with the gun for protection, which his parents adamantly deny, Horsley said.

"The family is rocked by this. They have been very forthcoming," Horsley said.

The boy was expected to be charged in juvenile court Tuesday, Horsley said.

"This kid made a mistake, and he knows it," Horsley said. "He feels bad about it, and his parents are cooperating with the investigation. He will not be coming back to this school."

No one was injured.

Two other Utah schools were dealing with rumors of gun possession by students that turned out to be false, underscoring fears spread by the Connecticut shooting.

Separately, Utah's attorney general-elect, John Swallow, said he planned to make school safety a high priority and that fortifying schools might be one solution.

"When we had the issue with the airliners, for example, we strengthened the cockpit doors so that terrorists on the plane couldn't get through to the pilot," Swallow told The Associated Press.

Granite School District officials said they have a high level of security compared to other Utah schools. The district employs its own police force with 16 armed officers on patrol, plus school resource officers who are off-duty police officers.

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Associated Press writer Brady McCombs contributed to this report.

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Obama offers 'love, prayers of nation' to Newtown

JIM KUHNHENNNEWTOWN, Conn. -- President Barack Obama is vowing to use "whatever power this office holds" to safeguard the nation's children, raising the prospect that he will pursue policy changes to stem gun violence in the wake of an elementary school massacre.

"Because what choice do we have?" a somber Obama said at a Sunday evening vigil in the grieving community of Newtown, Conn. "We can't accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard?"

The newly re-elected president offered few specifics about how he planned to proceed, saying only that he will engage with law enforcement, mental health professionals, parents and educators in the coming weeks. Just days after the shooting at an elementary school, Obama is already facing pressure from fellow Democrats and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to tackle gun control legislation, a contentious issue he avoided as he sought a second term.

But Friday's shooting, which left 20 children and eight adults dead, appears to have spurred some soul-searching by Obama, who told Connecticut's governor that Friday was the most difficult day of his presidency. Speaking to families of the victims and first responders, Obama said Sunday that he had been reflecting on whether the country was doing enough to give its children "the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose."

"And if we're honest with ourselves, the answer is no. We're not doing enough, and we will have to change," Obama said.

Sunday marked the fourth time in Obama's presidency that he has traveled to a community shaken by a mass shooting. Just this summer, he made a similar visit to Aurora, Colo., where a dozen people were killed in a movie theater attack.

Drawing on his past experiences, Obama said he was mindful that mere words would not be enough to heal the depths of Newtown's sorrow.

"I can only hope that it helps for you to know that you are not alone in your grief," Obama said during the vigil, which followed his private meeting with families of the victims.

The president closed his remarks by reading the first names of the kids, slowly, in the most wrenching moment of the night. Cries and sobs filled the room.

Said Obama of the girls and boys who died: "God has called them all home. For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on and make our country worthy of their memory."

Inside the room, children held stuffed teddy bears and dogs. The smallest kids sat on their parents' laps.

There were tears and hugs, but also smiles and squeezed arms. Mixed with disbelief was a sense of a community reacquainting itself all at once.

One man said it was less mournful, more familial. Some kids chatted easily with their friends. The adults embraced each other in support.

"We're halfway between grief and hope," said Curt Brantl, whose daughter was in the library of the elementary school when the shootings occurred. She was not harmed.

Police and firefighters got hugs and standing ovations when they entered. So did Obama.

"We needed this," said the Rev. Matt Crebbin, senior minister of the Newtown Congregational Church. "We needed to be together to show that we are together and united."

The shootings have restarted a debate in Washington about what politicians can to do help - gun control or otherwise. Obama has called for "meaningful action" to prevent killings.

Police say the gunman, Adam Lanza, was carrying an arsenal of ammunition big enough to kill just about every student in the school if given enough time. He massacred 20 students and six teachers and administrators before shooting himself in the head just as he heard police drawing near, authorities said.

A Connecticut official said the gunman's mother was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a.22-caliber rifle. The killer then went to the school with guns he took from his mother and began blasting his way through the building.

"There is no blame to be laid on us but there is a great burden and a great challenge that we emerge whole," First Select Woman Patricia Llodra said. "It is a defining moment for our town, but it does not define us."

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AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller contributed to this report.

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