10 Afghan Girls Killed in Old Mine Blast; Car Bomb Kills One in Kabul

Parwiz/Reuters

Afghan villagers gathered around the bodies of girls who were killed by an explosion on Monday.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives targeted the compound of a private military contractor on the eastern outskirts of Kabul on Monday, killing at least one person and injuring at least 15 others, including foreigners, the police said.

In a separate episode, 10 girls were killed in a rural district of eastern Afghanistan on Monday when a roadside bomb exploded while they were collecting firewood, the Afghan police said. The office of the governor of Nangarhar Province said the girls were all between 9 and 11 years old. The Ministry of Education said some were as young as 6.

The Kabul explosion sent a large plume of smoke above the capital on the Jalalabad road, a main thoroughfare leading east out of the city lined with shops, yards and industrial units.

The target was a company called Contrack International, said Gen. Mohammed Dawood Amin, Kabul’s deputy chief of police. Officials said Contrack was a construction maintenance company that provided logistics services for the Afghan Army and police and NATO coalition bases.

“There was a blast, a boom and a wall fell down,” said Roheen Fedai, 19, who said he worked in the company’s call center. Shortly after the blast, he was wandering close to the compound with his hand in a bandage and blood on his face from an eye injury.

The car exploded in a small lane between the company and another compound housing a carton-making factory, blasting down walls and destroying a two-story office.

Barialyia, a security official for Contrack, said the company’s country director was wounded in the explosion. He said five American and South African citizens were among the injured.

Mr. Fedai said Contrack was an American-owned supplier to the Afghan military. Officials here also said the company was American-owned, but the company could not be reached to confirm this or other details about the attack. Its Web site says its headquarters are in McLean, Va., and shows that it has provided services for the United States military in the past.

The compound is close to a NATO base, Camp Phoenix, and other NATO installations. The Taliban claimed responsibility, but a coalition spokesman in Kabul, Lt. Col. Hagen Messer, said the attack did not affect the NATO bases, and there were no coalition casualties.

In the blast in eastern Afghanistan, Hazarat Hussain Masharaqiwal, a spokesman for the police chief of Nangarhar Province, said that the children discovered the unexploded bomb near their village, and that it went off when they hit it with an ax. The explosion also injured a boy who was with them.

The local police said the bomb probably dated from the civil war or even the Soviet occupation of the country.

The United States-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said the explosion was caused by the accidental triggering of an old land mine, quoting the governor of Chaparhar District in Nangarhar.

In a statement, Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of American and international forces in Afghanistan, said he was saddened by the girls’ deaths. “Over three decades of conflict, Afghanistan became one of the most heavily mined countries on earth,” he said.

Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Khalid Alokozai from Nangarhar.

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

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Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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U.S. moves ahead on new downtown L.A. courthouse

Downtown Los Angeles is finally getting its new federal courthouse, and it's going to stand out amid the aging government buildings in the Civic Center.

A 550,000-square-foot courthouse — planned for the southwest corner of Broadway and 1st Street, across from the old county law library and the Los Angeles Times building — will feature a bright, serrated facade and a structural design that allow the structure to appear to float over its stone base, officials said.

It will have a public plaza along 1st Street near recently opened Grand Park. Officials say the building's design has received a "platinum" rating for energy efficiency from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The U.S. General Services Administration is moving forward on the project despite last-minute opposition from some Republicans in Congress, who question the viability of the agency's plans to sell the federal courthouse on North Spring Street to private developers. The lawmakers also questioned whether the extra courtrooms were actually necessary.

The GSA awarded a $318-million contract last week to the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Clark Construction Group, and released several renderings of the proposed design. The building will rise on a 3.6-acre lot on Broadway that city officials have long wanted to develop.

"We are moving toward the groundbreaking of a critically needed facility that will resolve long-standing security and space issues," Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-East Los Angeles) said in a statement. "At a time when we need to keep investing in our recovering economy, we expect the courthouse to create thousands of new jobs in the construction industry and related businesses."

Peter Zellner, faculty member at Southern California Institute of Architecture, noted that the courthouse design in some ways is reminiscent of Mid-Century architectural styles of other Los Angeles government centers, particularly the Wilshire Federal Building. Zellner also suggested the architects consider the courthouse plaza as part of a chain of public spaces spilling down from the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The courthouse will include 24 courtrooms and 32 judicial chambers. Along with the judges of the U.S. District Court, the building will be used by the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. attorneys' office and the Federal Public Defender.

Federal judges have been pushing for new space downtown since the late 1990s. In addition to the Spring Street courthouse, federal judges occupy space elsewhere in downtown, but they have complained about overcrowding and security issues.

Construction on the courthouse is expected to begin sometime next year, with completion set for 2016, the GSA said.

The agency also announced that it had released a formal "request for information" to solicit ideas for adaptive reuse of one of the old federal courthouses, on North Spring Street. Under the agency's plan, the 72-year-old building would be sold to a private developer, with the proceeds to help finance construction of a second federal office building next to the new courthouse.

Some real estate experts have questioned whether the exchange proposal would be feasible, saying it could be difficult for a private owner to adapt the old courthouse because of its structural issues, location and historic status. And the Republican critics of the courthouse plan expressed concern that if the GSA could not manage to sell the old courthouse, it would be stuck with a vacant building and higher costs to taxpayers.

There is still no specific timeline on when the exchange would be made, a GSA spokeswoman said, but officials remain upbeat about the plan.

"This step is just another example of GSA's commitment to providing real value to the American public," said acting GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini.

sam.allen@latimes.com

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Google could emerge unscathed from federal web search probe – WSJ

(Reuters) – Google may not face any major repercussions from the Federal Trade Commission‘s (FTC) two-year-old anti-trust investigation into its web search business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The FTC might drop the investigation sometime this week based on voluntary changes Google will make to its search practices, rather than making the company sign a formal settlement called a consent decree, the Journal said.

The web search investigation examined whether Google tweaks its search results to disadvantage rivals in travel, shopping and other specialized searches.

Google will probably still be required to sign a consent decree for a separate federal investigation into the licensing of mobile-technology patents it acquired when it took over phone maker Motorola Mobility, the Journal said.

An end to the federal probe into Google’s search business would allow the company to avoid getting mired in anti-trust investigations like rival Microsoft Corp endured in the early 2000s.

The European Commission, which is also probing Google, is expected to announce a decision next month.

The FTC declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal and could not be reached for comment by Reuters outside of regular business hours. Google could not be reached for comment by Reuters outside of regular business hours.

(Reporting by Tej Sapru in Bangalore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Google could emerge unscathed from federal web search probe – WSJ
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President Obama Meets with Grieving Families

By Stephen M. Silverman

12/17/2012 at 07:20 AM EST

President Barack Obama on Dec. 14

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty

At an interfaith memorial service in Newton, Conn., for those lost in Friday's Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, an emotional President Obama told the grieving audience, "We can't tolerate this anymore," and vowed "in the coming weeks I'll use whatever power this office holds" in "preventing more tragedies like this."

As he told the 1,000 people, including the surviving families, as he spoke on the stark stage of Newtown High School Sunday night, the President said, "I can only hope it helps for you to know that you're not alone. … Across this land of ours, we have wept with you."

And he pledged, "These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change."

Noting this was the fourth time in his presidency the nation has had to deal with senseless acts of gun violence, the President said it was "the fourth time we've hugged survivors. The fourth time we've consoled the families of victims.

"There have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children. Much of the time, their only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

He added, "We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. … But that can't be an excuse for inaction."

The President asked, "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is the price of our freedom?"

Privately, the President met with the relatives of about 15 of those gunned down Friday and with first-responders. He also held the granddaughter of the slain school principal, Dawn Hochsprung, and Hochsprung's daughter, Cristina Hassinger, Tweeted with a photo of the President with the little girl: “My mom would be so proud to see President Obama holding her granddaughter. But not as proud as I am of her."

His speech cited the heroics of the six Sandy Hook school personnel who sacrificed their own lives trying to protect the children.

As audible sobs were heard from the audience, Obama closed his words by reading the first names of all those killed.

Seven funerals are planned to take place in Newtown on Monday. More will follow in the coming weeks.

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Dec. 15

NEWS A 20-year-old man wearing combat gear and armed with pistols and a rifle killed 26 people — 20 of them children — in an attack in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, before committing suicide on Friday. It was America’s second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. James Barron reports.

European Union leaders pledged on Friday to take further steps to set up common banking rules for the bloc, but they delayed plans for a shared budget for the euro zone nations as pressure appeared to be easing on the single currency. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

The lesson of Japan’s last major election, which ousted the long-dominant Liberal Democrats, was that a growing hunger for change had seemed to reach a threshold. But voters look ready to return that party to power Sunday, determined to punish the governing Democratic Party for failing to rein in bureaucracies and mishandling the 2011 nuclear crisis. Martin Fackler reports from Kanazawa, Japan.

At the global treaty conference on telecommunications in Dubai, the United States got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the document and left in a huff. What was that all about, and what does it say about the future of the Internet? Eric Pfanner reports from Dubai.

The U.S. defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, signed a deployment order on Friday to send 400 American military personnel and two Patriot air defense batteries to Turkey as its tensions intensify with neighboring Syria. Germany and the Netherlands will also send Patriot batteries. Thom Shanker and Michael R. Gordon report.

Xi Jinping, the new Communist Party chief and civilian commander of the Chinese military, is moving quickly to make strengthening the country’s armed forces a centerpiece of what he calls the “Chinese dream” of national rejuvenation. Edward Wong reports from Guangzhou.

Nearly a decade after the German government embarrassingly failed in an attempt to ban the country’s leading extreme-right political party, the upper house of Parliament on Friday voted to initiate a new effort to have the National Democratic Party deemed unconstitutional. Melissa Eddy reports from Berlin.

SPORTS It’s tough to find a place where this Olympic year didn’t leave a trace, from hermetic Saudi Arabia to tiny Grenada. But for Britain, 2012 was a true annus mirabilis, and the London Games were not the only force behind it. Christopher Clarey looks back.

ARTS Increasing scarcity of Old Masters continues to drive up prices, even in hard economic times, but some bargains of rare beauty can still be had. Souren Melikian writes from London.

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

__

AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

Read More..

More than 50 shots fired at Fashion Island mall; suspect held

A gunman at Fashion Island in Newport Beach apparently fired more than 50 rounds in a parking lot at the busy shopping mall Saturday before he was apprehended by police, authorities said.

Marcos Gurrola, 42, of Garden Grove, was arrested in the parking lot near the Macy's department store shortly after allegedly firing the shots about 4:30 p.m., said Kathy Lowe, a spokeswoman for the Newport Beach Police Department. Officers on bike patrol apprehended Gurrola as he was standing by a white Honda.

Police searched the mall but did not find anyone who had been injured by the shots, which were apparently fired either into the air or at the ground.

More than 50 rounds from a handgun were recovered at the scene, said Deputy Chief David McGill. A handgun was also recovered at the scene, but police did not reveal any more details about the weapon. The state's landmark assault-weapons law, which went into effect in 2000, banned the use of handgun magazines with more than 19 bullets.

The mall was crowded with holiday shoppers at the time of the shooting. Some stores were immediately locked down, and many shoppers posted messages on Facebook and Twitter saying they were locked inside.

Shopper Dena Nassef said she and another person were walking toward Macy's when people started yelling and running.

"With what happened in Connecticut, we were freaking out," she said. "It was like crazy, people leaving stores."

Ann Butcher, an employee at Macy's, said she was on the patio at Whole Foods when people started running and screaming. She said some women left their purses and fled.

"That was very scary," she said.

Shopper Eric Widmer said he was at the Barnes & Noble bookstore when he saw a mother and daughter rush in crying. He said he heard someone scream, "Shooter!"

He said he managed to leave the bookstore and go to Macy's, which he could not leave.

"I thought, 'Great, I get to be scared twice,'" he said. "Lightning strikes twice."

One person was hurt fleeing the scene, but the injury was not considered serious.

lauren.williams@latimes.com

rosanna.xia@latimes.com

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Facebook unveils new privacy controls

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc began rolling out a variety of new privacy controls on Wednesday, the company’s latest effort to address user concerns about who can see their personal information on the world’s largest social network.

New tools introduced on Wednesday will make it easier for Facebook’s members to quickly determine who can view the photos, comments and other information about them that appears on different parts of the website, and to request that any objectionable photos they’re featured in be removed.

A new privacy “shortcut” in the top-right hand corner of the website provides quick access to key controls such as allowing users to manage who can contact them and to block specific people.

The new controls are the latest changes to Facebook’s privacy settings, which have been criticized in the past for being too confusing.

Facebook Director of Product Sam Lessin said the changes were designed to increase users’ comfort level on the social network, which has roughly one billion users.

“When users don’t understand the concepts and controls and hit surprises, they don’t build the confidence they need,” said Lessin.

Facebook, Google Inc and other online companies have faced increasing scrutiny and enforcement from privacy regulators as consumers entrust ever-increasing amounts of information about their personal lives to Web services.

In April, Facebook settled privacy charges with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it had deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. Under the settlement, Facebook is required to get user consent for certain changes to its privacy settings and is subject to 20 years of independent audits.

Facebook’s Lessin said some users don’t understand that the information they post on their Timeline profile page is not the only personal information about them that may be viewable by others. Improvements to Facebook’s so-called Activity Log will make it easier for users to see at a glance all the information that involves them across the social network.

Facebook also said it is changing the way that third-party apps, such as games and music players, get permission to access user data. An app must now provide separate requests to create a personalized service based on a user’s personal information and to post automated messages to the Facebook newsfeed on behalf of a user – previously users agreed to both conditions by approving a single request.

The revamped controls follow proposed changes that Facebook has made to its privacy policy and terms of service. The changes would allow Facebook to integrate user data with that of its recently acquired photo-sharing app Instagram, and would loosen restrictions on how members of the social network can contact other members using the Facebook email system.

Nearly 600,000 Facebook users voted to reject the proposed changes, but the votes fell far short of the roughly 300 million needed for the vote to be binding, under Facebook’s existing rules. The proposed changes also would eliminate any such future votes by Facebook users.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Donald Faison Marries Cacee Cobb

By Lesley Messer

12/15/2012 at 08:25 PM EST

Cacee Cobb and Donald Faison

Dr. Billy Ingram/WireImage

It's official!

After six years together, Donald Faison and Cacee Cobb were married Saturday night at the Los Angeles home of his Scrubs costar Zach Braff.

Cobb's friend Jessica Simpson was a bridesmaid. Sister Ashlee Simpson also attended.

"What a happy day," Tweeted groomsman Joshua Radin, a singer, who posted a photo of himself with Faison and Braff in their tuxedos.

The couple got engaged in August 2011. At the time, Faison Tweeted, "If you like it then you better put a Ring on it," and Cobb replied, "If she likes it then she better say YES!!"

Since then, the couple had been hard at work planning their wedding. On Nov. 12, Faison, who currently stars on The Exes, Tweeted that they were tasting cocktails to be served on the big day.

"Alcohol tasting for the wedding!" he wrote, adding a photo of the drinks. "The [sic] Ain't Say It Was Going To Be Like This!!!"

This is the first marriage for Cobb. Faison was previously married to Lisa Askey, with whom he has three children. (He also has a son from a previous relationship.)

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