New Sandy Hook school opens after Newtown attack

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• New Sandy Hook school opens after Newtown attack
• Rig accident shows danger of Arctic drilling - Green groups
• Homicides in troubled Detroit up 9 percent in 2012: officials
• Mississippi man pleads guilty to hate crimes following attacks
• Chicago couple eagerly awaits Illinois gay marriage vote
• Elvis play generates controversy at Utah high school
• Bill to legalize gay marriage in Rhode Island is introduced
• Fracking can be done safely in New York state: dept report
• New Sandy Hook school opens after attack
• Annual Pap tests? For some in U.S., old habits die hard
• Chicago couple eagerly awaits Illinois gay marriage vote
• Drought persists in Plains; improvement in Midwest
• Private sector job gains offer hope for labor market
• Subaru recalls vehicles in U.S. for lighting issue
• Wave damage, flooding found on beached Shell drill ship
• Nearly half of 280 New York pets displaced by Sandy left behind
• Former lawmaker Giffords to visit Newtown on Friday
• $400 million raised by charities working on Sandy relief in New York

New Sandy Hook school opens after Newtown attack Posted: 03 Jan 2013 05:55 PM PST NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Classes resumed on Thursday for the more than 400 surviving students of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, 20 days after a massacre at the school that killed 20 first graders and six adults last month, plunging a rural New England town and the nation into grief. Across Newtown's sprawling Sandy Hook neighborhood, home to the school where the December 14 attack took place, children ranging from kindergartners to fourth graders boarded buses for the seven-mile journey to their new school. ...

Rig accident shows danger of Arctic drilling - Green groups Posted: 03 Jan 2013 01:42 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Opponents of Royal Dutch Shell's ambitious Arctic oil program have called on the Obama administration to put offshore drilling plans in the region on hold after one of the company's oil rigs broke away from tow boats in high seas and ran aground off Alaska. The Natural Resources Defense Council and The Wilderness Society on Thursday said the accident involving Shell's Kulluk oil rig is new evidence that oil companies are not prepared to safely manage the extreme conditions of the Arctic. ...

Homicides in troubled Detroit up 9 percent in 2012: officials Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:45 PM PST (Reuters) - The bad news continues for the financially troubled city of Detroit, where the number of homicides jumped 9 percent last year, according to data released on Thursday. Detroit's total of 411 homicides, up from 377 the previous year, includes 386 criminal homicides and 25 "justifiable homicides" that included 3 shootings by police, according to numbers released by the city. The number of criminal homicides was up from 344 in 2011 - an increase of 12 percent. The total in 2010 was 308. ...

Mississippi man pleads guilty to hate crimes following attacks Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:39 PM PST JACKSON, Miss (Reuters) - A Mississippi man pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal hate crime charges in connection with attacks on African-Americans that ended with a black man dead after being run over by a truck, federal officials said. Joseph Dominick, 21, was the sixth person to plead guilty to hate crimes charges for being part of a group of white males who routinely assaulted blacks in the Jackson area starting in the spring of 2011, attacking victims with motor vehicles, beer bottles and sling shots. ...

Chicago couple eagerly awaits Illinois gay marriage vote Posted: 03 Jan 2013 04:46 PM PST CHICAGO (Reuters) - Theresa Volpe and Mercedes Santos' 8-year-old daughter, Ava, has learned about the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in school. So her school friends understand when she tells them her two moms are fighting for their civil rights to marry -- it's just hard to explain it to grown-ups sometimes, Volpe and Santos say. "This is really for our kids," said Volpe, who along with Santos are plaintiffs in a lawsuit demanding same sex marriage in Illinois. "It's important for them to be treated fairly. We're just as much a family as any other family. ...

Elvis play generates controversy at Utah high school Posted: 03 Jan 2013 05:31 PM PST SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - Elvis Presley, whose gyrating hips caused an uproar in the 1950s, has become the center of a controversy at a Utah high school where a parent complaint prompted officials to revise a musical featuring the music of the late "king of rock 'n' roll." The Jordan School District in a Salt Lake City suburb said on Thursday the reworked production of "All Shook Up" at Herriman High School allowed it to avoid canceling the show, as it had announced on Wednesday it was doing. ...

Bill to legalize gay marriage in Rhode Island is introduced Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:28 PM PST (Reuters) - Rhode Island lawmakers introduced a measure on Thursday that would make the state the 10th in the nation and the last in New England to legalize same-sex marriage. Sponsors of the proposal tried to move through similar legislation in 2011, but met with opposition and were forced to change the bill to allow civil unions only. Representative Gordon Fox, an openly gay co-sponsor of the bill, said after being elected House speaker this week that he intended to bring the marriage issue to the House floor before the end of January. "It is time," Fox, a Democrat, said in a statement. ...

Fracking can be done safely in New York state: dept report Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:42 PM PST (Reuters) - The natural gas drilling process known as fracking would not be a danger to public health in New York state so long as proper safeguards were put into place, according to a health department report that environmentalists fear could help lift a moratorium on the controversial technique. Governor Andrew Cuomo is weighing the economic benefits of hydraulic fracturing - commonly known as fracking - against the environmental risks from a technology that could unlock a vast domestic energy supply but also one that environmentalists say pollutes groundwater and the air. ...

New Sandy Hook school opens after attack Posted: 03 Jan 2013 09:13 AM PST NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Twenty days after the massacre that left 20 first graders and six adults dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, plunging a rural New England town and the nation into grief, classes resumed on Thursday for the more than 400 students who lived through the harrowing assault. Across Newtown's sprawling Sandy Hook neighborhood where the December 14 attack took place, children bundled in heavy winter coats boarded buses decked in green and white ribbons, their school colors, for the seven-mile journey to their new school. ...

Annual Pap tests? For some in U.S., old habits die hard Posted: 03 Jan 2013 01:53 PM PST CHICAGO (Reuters) - An increasing number of younger women in the United States are delaying their first Pap test for cervical cancer until after they reach 21, reflecting new U.S. guidelines, health officials said on Thursday. But 60 percent of U.S. women who have had a total hysterectomy and no longer have a cervix are still getting the tests, a sign that old habits may die hard, experts said. Although an annual Pap test was once the standard of care, most professional groups including the American Cancer Society, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the U.S. ...

Chicago couple eagerly awaits Illinois gay marriage vote Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:47 PM PST CHICAGO (Reuters) - Theresa Volpe and Mercedes Santos' 8-year-old daughter, Ava, has learned about the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in school. So her school friends understand when she tells them her two moms are fighting for their civil rights to marry -- it's just hard to explain it to grown-ups sometimes, Volpe and Santos say. "This is really for our kids," said Volpe, who along with Santos are plaintiffs in a lawsuit demanding same sex marriage in Illinois. "It's important for them to be treated fairly. We're just as much a family as any other family. ...

Drought persists in Plains; improvement in Midwest Posted: 03 Jan 2013 12:02 PM PST CHICAGO (Reuters) - Snowfall in parts of the Plains last week had little impact on historic drought gripping the region, but parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and the Southeast showed slight improvement, weather experts said. A weekly report issued Thursday by a consortium of federal and state climatology experts said that as of January 1, 42.05 percent of the contiguous United States was in severe to exceptional drought, down from 42.45 percent the previous week. ...

Private sector job gains offer hope for labor market Posted: 03 Jan 2013 01:18 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Private-sector employers shrugged off a looming budget crisis and stepped up hiring in December, offering further evidence of underlying strength in the economy as 2012 ended. While other data on Thursday showed an increase in the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits, the trend remained consistent with steady job growth. "The underlying economy has momentum, and the employment data confirms that. The hope and prayer of the market is that our political leaders don't screw it up," said John Brady, managing director at R.J. ...

Subaru recalls vehicles in U.S. for lighting issue Posted: 03 Jan 2013 10:42 AM PST (Reuters) - Subaru is recalling as many as 634,000 vehicles in the United States for potential lighting problems that could lead to smoke or fire, according to U.S. safety regulators. The recall by Subaru, owned by Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, potentially affects some Forester vehicles from model years 2009 through 2012, all Legacy and Outback vehicles from model years 2010 and 2011, and some Tribeca vehicles from model years 2006 through 2012, according to documents filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. ...

Wave damage, flooding found on beached Shell drill ship Posted: 03 Jan 2013 06:21 PM PST ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - The Royal Dutch Shell drill ship that was tossed by high winds and grounded off an Alaska island on New Years Eve has suffered some damage from waves and flooding, but so far has not spilled any of the 155,000 gallons of fuel and other petroleum products aboard, officials managing the emergency response said Thursday. Salvage experts were flown to the stricken Kulluk on Wednesday and Thursday, officials said at a news conference in Anchorage. ...

Nearly half of 280 New York pets displaced by Sandy left behind Posted: 03 Jan 2013 05:13 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York City shelter housing 280 pets displaced by Superstorm Sandy must shut down and, with nearly half the animals still unclaimed, cannot rule out euthanizing any left behind. An uncertain future lies ahead for 52 cats and 84 dogs who remain in the Brooklyn emergency boarding facility run by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, spokeswoman Kelly Krause said on Thursday. They are among 280 pets sheltered since November, after the New York City area was devastated by the late October storm. ...

Former lawmaker Giffords to visit Newtown on Friday Posted: 03 Jan 2013 05:05 PM PST (Reuters) - Former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a mass shooting in her Arizona district two years ago, plans to visit Newtown, Connecticut, the site of last month's deadly elementary school massacre, the Connecticut lieutenant governor's office said Thursday. Giffords plans to attend a private event at a local home on Friday, Steven Jensen, spokesman for Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, said in an email. The event will have no media access and Giffords' plans are still developing and may change. ...

$400 million raised by charities working on Sandy relief in New York Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:58 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Charities working on Superstorm Sandy relief in New York have raised at least $400 million, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said on Thursday. Starting in November, Schneiderman contacted 90 charities that helped after the late October devastation, asking them to complete a survey detailing the amount they raised and how it was being spent. As of Thursday, 88 had obliged and their responses were posted on a website run by the attorney general, www.CharitiesNYS.com. Schneiderman said the charities' information had not been checked for accuracy. ...

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