It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas — six shoppers have been arrested after a brawl over a mall parking space in New Hampshire.

SALEM, N.H. (AP) — It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas — six shoppers have been arrested after a brawl over a mall parking space in New Hampshire.

Police said the dispute happened on the second level of a parking garage Sunday at the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem.

Deputy Chief Shawn Patten tells WMUR-TV said two groups were fighting over the parking space and multiple officers had to be called out to calm things down.

He said the six shoppers, all from Lawrence, Mass., were charged with disorderly conduct. They face arraignment on Jan. 28.

The former medical director of an exclusive Massachusetts prep school is facing arraignment in federal court on new child pornography charges.

BOSTON (AP) — The former medical director of an exclusive Massachusetts prep school is facing arraignment in federal court on new child pornography charges.

Fifty-six-year-old Richard Keller of Andover was indicted last week on two counts of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. The indictment charges Keller possessed depictions of minors in sexually explicit conduct, including boys from about 7 to 16 years old. His lawyer couldn't be reached for comment on the new charges.

Keller is to appear Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Boston.

He was arrested in September on a charge of receiving child pornography and waived his right to a probable cause hearing. Authorities alleged he'd had child porn delivered to him at Phillips Academy campus before his 2011 resignation.

Keller worked at Boston Children's Hospital and taught at Harvard Medical School.

The panel overseeing the state's casino gambling law is planning to vote to open the licensing process to bids from commercial developers in southeastern Massachusetts.

10-11-12 - Palmer - Republican staff photo by Don Treeger- The Massachusetts Gaming Commission held an informational meeting at Pathfinder Regional Vocational High in Palmer. This is Stephen Crosby, Massachusetts Gaming Commission Chair. Staff photo by Don Treeger  

BOSTON (AP) — The panel overseeing the state's casino gambling law is planning to vote to open the licensing process to bids from commercial developers in southeastern Massachusetts.

Commercial developers have previously been excluded under a provision that gave preference to a Native American tribe in the region.

Tuesday's planned vote has been described as an "imperfect" solution by Massachusetts Gaming Commission chair Stephen Crosby.

It does not guarantee that commercial developers will be able to compete for a casino license nor does it jettison a proposal by the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to build a casino in Taunton.

The year-old law allows up to three resort-style casinos across the state, but gave first crack in the southeastern region to a federally-recognized tribe.

Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday declined to comment on the pending vote.

On Dec. 7, 1941, high school senior Daniel Inouye knew he and other Japanese-Americans would face trouble when he saw Japanese dive bombers, torpedo planes and fighters on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor and other Oahu military bases.

By OSKAR GARCIA, Associated Press

HONOLULU (AP) — On Dec. 7, 1941, high school senior Daniel Inouye knew he and other Japanese-Americans would face trouble when he saw Japanese dive bombers, torpedo planes and fighters on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor and other Oahu military bases.

He and other Japanese-Americans had wanted desperately to be accepted, he said, and that meant going to war.

"I felt that there was a need for us to demonstrate that we're just as good as anybody else," Inouye, who eventually went on to serve 50 years as a U.S. senator from Hawaii, once said. "The price was bloody and expensive, but I felt we succeeded."

Inouye, 88, died Monday of respiratory complications at a Washington-area hospital. As a senator, he became one of the most influential politicians in the country, playing key roles in congressional investigations of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals. He was the longest serving current senator and by far the most important for his home state of Hawaii.

"Tonight, our country has lost a true American hero with the passing of Sen. Daniel Inouye," President Barack Obama said in a statement Monday. "It was his incredible bravery during World War II — including one heroic effort that cost him his arm but earned him the Medal of Honor — that made Danny not just a colleague and a mentor, but someone revered by all of us lucky enough to know him."

Inouye turned toward life as a politician after his dreams of becoming a surgeon became impossible in World War II. He lost his right arm in a firefight with Germans in Italy in 1945.

Inouye's platoon came under fire and Inouye was shot in the stomach as he tried to draw a grenade. He didn't stop, crawling up a hillside, taking out two machine gun emplacements and grabbing a grenade to throw at a third.

That's when an enemy rifle grenade exploded near his right elbow, shot by a German roughly 10 yards away.

He searched for the grenade, then found it clenched in his right hand, his arm shredded and dangling from his body.

"The fingers somehow froze over the grenade, so I just had to pry it out," Inouye said in recounting the moment in the 2004 book "Beyond Glory: Meal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words" by Larry Smith.

"When I pulled it out, the lever snapped open and I knew I had five seconds, so I flipped it into the German's face as he was trying to reload," he said. "And it hit the target."

In this Monday, Sept. 19, 2011 file photo, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, president pro temper of the Senate, and a recipient of the Medal of Honor, attends a ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, where he is presented a commemorative coin marking the 150th anniversary of the creation of the Medal of Honor by Congress. Inouye has died of respiratory complications, Monday, Dec. 17, 2012. He was 88. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The Associated Press




 

In 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton belatedly presented Inouye and 21 other Asian-American World War II veterans with the Medal of Honor, Clinton recounted that Inouye's father believed their family owed an unrepayable debt to America.

"If I may say so, sir, more than a half century later, America owes an unrepayable debt to you and your colleagues," Clinton said.

Inouye became a senator in January 1963. As president pro tempore of the Senate, he was third in the line of presidential succession. He broke racial barriers on Capitol Hill as the first Japanese-American to serve in Congress.

Less than an hour after Inouye's passing, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Inouye's death to a stunned chamber. "Our friend Daniel Inouye has died," Reid said somberly. Shocked members of the Senate stood in the aisles or slumped in their chairs.

He was elected to the House in 1959, the year Hawaii became a state. He won election to the Senate three years later and served there longer than anyone in American history except Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who died in 2010 after 51 years in the Senate.

Inouye died after a relatively brief hospitalization. Once a regular smoker, he had a portion of a lung removed in the 1960s after a misdiagnosis for cancer. Just last week, he issued a statement expressing optimism about his recovery.

Despite his age and illness, Inouye's death shocked members of the Senate.

"I'm too broken up," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who becomes president pro tem of the Senate. Leahy also is poised to take over the Senate Appropriations Committee, which Inouye helmed since 2009.

"He was the kind of man, in short, that America has always been grateful to have, especially in her darkest hours, men who lead by example and who expect nothing in return," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie will appoint a replacement, choosing from a list of three candidates selected by the state Democratic Party. "We're preparing to say goodbye," Abercrombie said. "Everything else will take place in good time."

Abercrombie met with the chairman of the state party on Monday afternoon, and the party leader said afterward that he hoped to have a replacement in office by the first day of the January session.

Whomever Abercrombie appoints would serve until a special election in 2014.

Inouye was handily re-elected to a ninth term in 2010 with 75 percent of the vote.

His last utterance, his office said, was "Aloha."

Inouye spent most of his Senate career attending to Hawaii. At the height of his power, Inouye routinely secured tens of millions of dollars annually for the state's roads, schools, national lands and military bases.

Although tremendously popular in his home state, Inouye actively avoided the national spotlight until he was thrust into it. He was the keynote speaker at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and later reluctantly joined the Senate's select committee on the Watergate scandal. The panel's investigation led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Inouye also served as chairman of the committee that investigated the Iran-Contra arms and money affair, which rocked Ronald Reagan's presidency.

A quiet but powerful lawmaker, Inouye ran for Senate majority leader several times without success. He gained power as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee before Republicans took control of the Senate in 1994.

When the Democrats regained control in the 2006 elections, Inouye became chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. He left that post two years later to become chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.

Inouye also chaired the Senate Indian Affairs Committee for many years. He was made an honorary member of the Navajo nation and given the name "The Leader Who Has Returned With a Plan."

He is the last remaining member of the Senate to have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Inouye was serving as Hawaii's first congressman in 1962, when he ran for the Senate and won 70 percent of the vote.

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson urged Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had won the Democratic nomination for president, to select Inouye as his running mate. Johnson told Humphrey that Inouye's World War II injuries would silence Humphrey's critics on the Vietnam War.

"He answers Vietnam with that empty sleeve. He answers your problems with (Republican presidential candidate Richard) Nixon with that empty sleeve," Johnson said.

But Inouye was not interested.

"He was content in his position as a U.S. senator representing Hawaii," Jennifer Sabas, Inouye's Hawaii chief of staff, said in 2008.

Inouye joined the Watergate proceedings at the strong urging of Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield. The panel's investigation of the role of the Nixon White House in covering up a burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate in June 1972 ultimately prompted the House to initiate impeachment proceedings against Nixon, who resigned before the issue reached a vote in the House.

In one of the most memorable exchanges of the Watergate proceedings, an attorney for two of Nixon's closest advisers, John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman, referred to Inouye as a "little Jap."

The attorney, John J. Wilson, later apologized. Inouye accepted the apology, noting that the slur came after he had muttered "what a liar" into a microphone that he thought had been turned off following Ehrlichman's testimony.

Inouye achieved celebrity status when he served as chairman of the congressional panel investigating the Iran-Contra affair in 1987. That committee held lengthy hearings into allegations that top Reagan administration officials had facilitated the sale of weapons to Iran, in violation of a congressional arms embargo, in hopes of winning the release of American hostages in Iran and to raise money to help support anti-communist fighters in Nicaragua.

"This was not a happy chore, but it had to be done," Inouye said of the hearings.

The panel sharply criticized Reagan for what it considered laxity in handling his duties as president. "We were fair," Inouye said. "Not because we wanted to be fair but because we had to be fair."

Inouye was born Sept. 7, 1924, to immigrant parents in Honolulu. After the Pearl Harbor bombings changed the course of his life, he volunteered for the Army at 18 and was assigned to the famed Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The team earned the nickname "Go For Broke." Inouye rose to the rank of captain and earned the Distinguished Service Cross and Bronze Star.

His military unit became the most highly decorated ever for its size and length of service.

Unlike the families of many of his comrades in arms, Inouye's wasn't subjected to the trauma and indignity of being sent by the U.S. government during the war to internment camps for Japanese Americans.

"It was the ultimate of patriotism," Inouye said at a 442nd reunion. "These men, who came from behind barbed wire internment camps where the Japanese-Americans were held, to volunteer to fight and give their lives. ... We knew we were expendable."

Inouye spent the next 20 months after losing his right arm in military hospitals. During his convalescence, Inouye met Bob Dole, the future majority leader of the Senate and 1996 Republican presidential candidate, who also was recovering from severe war injuries. The two later served together in the Senate for decades.

"With Sen. Inouye, what you saw is what you got and what you got was just a wonderful human being that served his country after the ill-treatment of the Japanese, lost an arm in the process," Dole said Monday. "He was the best bridge player on our floor. He did it all with one arm."

Despite his military service and honors, Inouye returned to an often-hostile America. On his way home from the war, he often recounted, he entered a San Francisco barbershop only to be told, "We don't cut Jap hair."

He returned to Hawaii and received a bachelor's degree in government and economics from the University of Hawaii in 1950. He graduated from George Washington University's law school in 1952.

Inouye proposed to Margaret Shinobu Awamura on their second date, and they married in 1949. Their only child, Daniel Jr., was born in 1964. When his wife died in 2006, Inouye said, "It was a most special blessing to have had Maggie in my life for 58 years."

He remarried in 2008, to Irene Hirano, a Los Angeles community leader.

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor in Washington and Audrey McAvoy and Becky Bohrer in Honolulu contributed to this report.

When the Justice Department announced its record $1.9 billion settlement against British bank HSBC last week, prosecutors called it a powerful blow to a dysfunctional institution accused of laundering money for Iran, Libya and Mexico's murderous drug cartels.

This May 11, 2012, file photo shows the corporate logo for HSBC hangs on a wall outside an office for the London-based multinational bank in New York. When the Justice Department announced its record $1.9 billion settlement against British bank HSBC last week, prosecutors called it a powerful blow to a dysfunctional institution accused of laundering money for Iran, Libya and Mexico's murderous drug cartels. But to some former federal prosecutors, it was only the latest case of the government stopping short of bringing criminal money laundering charges against a big bank or its executives. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) The Associated Press  

NEW YORK (AP) — When the Justice Department announced its record $1.9 billion settlement against British bank HSBC last week, prosecutors called it a powerful blow to a dysfunctional institution accused of laundering money for Iran, Libya and Mexico's murderous drug cartels.

But to some former federal prosecutors, it was only the latest case of the government stopping short of bringing criminal money laundering charges against a big bank or its executives, at least in part on the rationale that such prosecutions could be devastating enough to cause such banks to fail.

They say it sounds a lot like the "too big to fail" meme that kept big but sickly banks alive on the support of taxpayer-funded bailouts. In these cases, they call it, "Too big to jail."

"Shame on the Department of Justice. Shame on them," said Jimmy Gurulé, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at the University of Notre Dame.

"These are actions that facilitated major international drug cartels to continue their operations," he said. "Now, if that doesn't justify criminal prosecution, I can't imagine a case that would."

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley shot off a letter to U.S. Attorney Eric Holder after the HSBC settlement, saying the government "appears to have firmly set the precedent that no bank, bank employee, or bank executive can be prosecuted even for serious criminal actions if that bank is a large, systemically important financial institution."

Neil Barofsky, the former inspector general of the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program and a former federal prosecutor in New York, warned that big banks could interpret the Justice Department's leniency as "a license to steal."

Since 2009, several European banks have paid heavy settlements related to allegations they moved money for people or companies on the U.S. sanctions list: Switzerland's Credit Suisse, $536 million; British bank Barclays, $298 million; British bank Lloyds, $350 million; Dutch bank ING, $619 million; and the Royal Bank of Scotland, $500 million for alleged money laundering at Dutch bank ABN Amro.

While those cases involved deals with such countries as Iran, Libya, Cuba and Sudan, the HSBC case was notable for the government's allegation that it also helped launder $881 million in drug-trafficking proceeds for Mexican drug cartels.

As bad as those allegations were, prosecutors say they could not prove HSBC executives conspired to aid drug organizations or rogue nations. Breakdowns in security controls within the company had occurred gradually, over decades, with a motive of increasing profits rather than committing crimes, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also expressed fear of "collateral consequences" — that going further could have sunk a company that employs tens of thousands of people and is tied tightly to the economies of the roughly 80 countries where it does business.

Such a collapse has happened in white-collar prosecutions before, most notably in 2002 when the huge accounting firm Arthur Andersen was convicted for destroying Enron-related documents before the energy giant's collapse. It was forced to surrender its accounting license and to stop conducting public audits. Only after 85,000 people worldwide lost their jobs did the court case ultimately play out, with the Supreme Court overturning the conviction too late to save the doomed Chicago-based business.

"From a policy standpoint, it's a pretty compelling argument," said Kevin O'Brien, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice. "Employees lose their jobs, towns where these businesses are located are negatively affected, stockholders which include a lot of moms and pops lose their savings and none of that is really fair. Even a large fine can sometimes have a negative effect on employees and shareholders."

Bill Black, a former financial regulator who was instrumental in uncloaking the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1980s, scoffed at such a notion. "Seriously, you want to keep felons in charge of a bank for bank stability?" he said.

To Black and other critics of the government's approach, the HSBC case is a replay of the years immediately after the 2008 financial crisis, when the people most responsible for it were never really punished. No high-profile bankers have gone to jail in the wake of the financial crisis, nor has there been any well-known, large-scale effort to recover the giant bonuses awarded to executives of failed or nearly failed banks.

In the HSBC case, the bank has rescinded deferred compensation bonuses given to its most senior executives and agreed to partially defer bonus compensation for its most senior executives during the next five years.

"The guy who filed a false tax return, he's probably doing five years in prison," said Notre Dame's Gurulé. "And these guys — transactions with Iran, threatening to jeopardize U.S. national security — they don't even get prosecuted. The fairness of that system is very suspect."

The government's charges against HSBC are grim. They sketch a picture of a bank that systemically and purposefully skirted the law.

HSBC willfully failed to keep proper anti-laundering programs in place and to conduct due diligence on its customers, the government says. Court documents showed that the bank let over $200 trillion between 2006 and 2009 slip through relatively unmonitored, including more than $670 billion in wire transfers from HSBC Mexico, making it a favorite of drug cartels. At the same time, the bank gave Mexico its lowest risk rating for money laundering.

The cartels are a deadly force, controlling large swaths of Mexico as virtual mafias. The government of former President Felipe Calderon started reporting drug-related killings when it took office in late 2006, but stopped more than a year ago when the toll reached 47,500. Many private groups now put the number close to 60,000.

In July, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations produced a damning 334-page report that told a similar story.

In one email cited in the Senate committee's report, an HSBC executive pushed to reopen a part of the bank's business that had been closed to a Saudi Arabian bank with possible links to the Sept. 11 attacks.

At a hearing with the committee in July, the bank's head of group compliance broke from his prepared testimony to resign.

Henry Pontell, a criminologist who teaches at the University of California-Irvine, was underwhelmed by the $1.9 billion in fines against HSBC, given its $17 billion in profits last year.

"The notion that 'Oh, they paid a big fine, that will scare everyone else,' is nonsense," Pontell said. "Those individuals that did this, they didn't pay the $1.9 billion. The company did. And that's supposed to be an effective deterrent? A white-collar criminal, the biggest thing they fear is being put into prison."

___

Associated Press Writer Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.

With security stepped up and families still on edge in Newtown, schools are opening for the first time since last week's massacre, bringing a return of familiar routines — at least, for some — to a grief-stricken town as it buries 20 of its children.

DAVID KLEPPER,Associated Press
MICHAEL MELIA,Associated Press

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — With security stepped up and families still on edge in Newtown, schools are opening for the first time since last week's massacre, bringing a return of familiar routines — at least, for some — to a grief-stricken town as it buries 20 of its children.

Two 6-year-old boys were laid to rest Monday in the first of a long, almost unbearable procession of funerals. A total of 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S history.

While classes resume Tuesday for Newtown schools except those at Sandy Hook, some parents were likely to keep their children at home anyway. Local police and school officials have been discussing how and where to increase security, and state police said they would be on alert for threats and hoaxes.

Suzy DeYoung said her 15-year-old son is going back to the high school.

"I think he wants to go back," she said. "If he told me he wants to stay home, I'd let him stay home. I think going back to a routine is a good idea; at least that's what I hear from professionals."

On Monday, Newtown held the first two funerals of many the picturesque New England community of 27,000 people will face over the next few days, just as other towns are getting ready for the holidays. At least one funeral is planned for a student — 6-year-old Jessica Rekos — as well as several wakes, including one for teacher Victoria Soto, who has been hailed as a hero for sacrificing herself to save several students.

Two funeral homes filled Monday with mourners for Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto, both 6 years old. A rabbi presided at Noah's service, and in keeping with Jewish tradition, the boy was laid to rest in a simple brown wooden casket with a Star of David on it.

"I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room," Noah's mother, Veronique Pozner, said at the service, according to remarks the family provided to The Associated Press. Both services were closed to the news media.

"Most of all, I will miss your visions of your future," she said. "You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure that the world kept producing tacos."

She closed by saying: "Momma loves you, little man."

Noah's twin, Arielle, who was assigned to a different classroom, survived the killing frenzy.

At Jack Pinto's Christian service, hymns rang out from inside the funeral home, where the boy lay in an open casket. Jack was among the youngest members of a youth wrestling association in Newtown, and dozens of little boys turned up at the service in gray Newtown Wrestling T-shirts.

Jack was a fan of New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz and was laid to rest in a Cruz jersey.

Authorities say the man who killed the two boys and their classmates, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot his mother, Nancy, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.

Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drab utility vest with lots of pockets, during the attack.

As investigators worked to figure out what drove him to lash out with such fury — and why he singled out the school — federal agents said that he had fired guns at shooting ranges over the past several years but that there was no evidence he did so recently as practice for the rampage.

Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges, and also visited ranges together.

"We do not have any indication at this time that the shooter engaged in shooting activities in the past six months," Seifert said.

Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.

Whatever his motives, normalcy will be slow in revisiting Newtown. Classes were canceled district-wide Monday, though other students in town were expected to return to class Tuesday.

Dan Capodicci, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, said he thinks it's time for her to get back to classes.

"It's the right thing to do. You have to send your kids back. But at the same time I'm worried," he said. "We need to get back to normal."

Gina Wolfman said her daughters are going back to their seventh- and ninth-grade classrooms tomorrow. She thinks they are ready to be back with their friends.

"I think they want to be back with everyone and share," she said.

Newtown police Lt. George Sinko said whether to send children to school is a personal decision for every parent.

"I can't imagine what it must be like being a parent with a child that young, putting them on a school bus," Sinko said.

The district has made plans to send surviving Sandy Hook students to Chalk Hill, a former middle school in the neighboring town of Monroe. Sandy Hook desks that will fit the small students are being taken there, empty since town schools consolidated last year, and tradesmen are donating their services to get the school ready within a matter of days.

"These are innocent children that need to be put on the right path again," Monroe police Lt. Brian McCauley said.

With Sandy Hook Elementary still designated a crime scene, state police Lt. Paul Vance said it could be months before police turn the school back over to the district.

The shooting has put schools on edge across the country.

Anxiety ran high enough in Ridgefield, Conn., about 20 miles from Newtown, that officials ordered a lockdown at schools after a person deemed suspicious was seen at a train station.

Two schools were locked down in South Burlington, Vt., because of an unspecified threat. A high school in Windham, N.H., was briefly locked down after an administrator heard a loud bang, but a police search found nothing suspicious.

Lanza is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, a civilian version of the military's M-16. It is similar to the weapon used in a recent shopping mall shooting in Oregon and other deadly attacks around the U.S. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in this country under the 1994 assault weapons ban, but the law expired in 2004.

Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management announced Tuesday it plans to sell its stake in Freedom Group, maker of the Bushmaster rifle, following the school shootings.

Cerberus said in a statement Tuesday that it was deeply saddened by Friday's events, and that it will hire a financial adviser to help with the process of selling its Freedom Group interests.

The outlines of a national debate on gun control have begun to take shape. At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said curbing gun violence is a complex problem that will require a "comprehensive solution."

Carney did not offer specific proposals or a timeline. He said President Barack Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and mental health professionals in coming weeks.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, flanked by shooting survivors and relatives of victims of gunfire around the country, pressed Obama and Congress to toughen gun laws and tighten enforcement after the Newtown massacre.

"If this doesn't do it," he asked, "what is going to?"

At least one senator, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, said Monday that the attack in Newtown has led him to rethink his opposition to the ban on assault weapons.

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is an avid hunter and lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, said it's time to move beyond the political rhetoric and begin an honest discussion about reasonable restrictions on guns.

"This is bigger than just about guns," he added. "It's about how we treat people with mental illness, how we intervene, how we get them the care they need, how we protect our schools. It's just so sad."

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed, Helen O'Neill, John Christoffersen and Katie Zezima in Newtown; Christine Armario in Miami; and Julie Pace in Washington.

Just two weeks before the economy-threatening "fiscal cliff" is due to kick in, both President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are making significant concessions, backing off what had once been ironclad positions on how to avoid the huge automatic spending cuts and tax increases.

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just two weeks before the economy-threatening "fiscal cliff" is due to kick in, both President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are making significant concessions, backing off what had once been ironclad positions on how to avoid the huge automatic spending cuts and tax increases.

The moves signal a new stage in the negotiations, which picked up steam Monday with Obama's offer to drop his long-held insistence that taxes rise on individuals earning more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000. He is now offering a new threshold of $400,000 and lowering his 10-year tax revenue goals from the $1.6 trillion he had argued for a few weeks ago.

Obama's move follows concessions by Boehner on higher tax rates for the wealthy.

In the new proposal, Obama abandoned his demand for permanent borrowing authority. Instead, he is now asking for a new debt limit that would last two years, putting its renewal beyond the politics of a 2014 midterm election.

And in a move sure to create heartburn among some congressional Democrats, Obama is proposing lower cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries, employing an inflation index that would have far-reaching consequences, including pushing more people into higher income tax brackets.

Those changes, as well as Obama's decision not to seek an extension of a temporary payroll tax cut, would force higher tax payments on the middle class, a wide swath of the population that Obama has repeatedly said he wanted to protect from tax increases.

As public posturing has given way to pragmatism, both sides still seem willing to lock in on a substantial agreement rather than just putting off a fiscal day of reckoning. To that end, Obama has conceded that a big bargain would require giving up some of his proposals.

"I understand that I don't expect the Republicans simply to adopt my budget," he said during his post-election news conference last month. "That's not realistic. So, I recognize we're going to have to compromise."

The talks, facing a looming deadline, seek to avoid across-the-board tax hikes for nearly all wage-earners as well as spending cuts at the Pentagon and in domestic programs that are set to kick in at the start of the new year. Economists inside and outside the government have warned that the combination of the two — the "fiscal cliff" — could stall a weak recovery and threaten a new recession.

Obama's steps toward Boehner came after the House speaker took a plunge in a call to Obama on Friday — while the nation was focused on the horror of a mass murder in Newtown, Conn. — and agreed to accept an increase in tax rates for taxpayers who earn more than $1 million. Boehner's plan would raise about $1 trillion in taxes over 10 years.

That was a barrier-breaking moment, changing the negotiations from a fundamental debate over whether tax rates should rise at all to quibbling over who should pay them.

There are still plenty of disputes to iron out. And people familiar with Obama's proposal were careful not to describe it as his final offer.

The Obama plan seeks $1.2 trillion in revenue over 10 years and $1.2 trillion in 10-year spending reductions. Boehner aides say the revenue is closer to $1.3 trillion if revenue triggered by the new inflation index is counted, and they say the spending reductions are closer to $930 billion if one discounts about $290 billion in lower estimated debt interest.

"Any movement away from the unrealistic offers the President has made previously is a step in the right direction," Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said. "But a proposal that includes $1.3 trillion in revenue for only $930 billion in spending cuts cannot be considered balanced."

Either way, though, there is no doubt Obama has moved in Boehner's direction after Boehner opened the door to a tax rate increase.

Obama's plan, like Boehner's, would also raise taxes on dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent. Both would also reduce the number of deductions and exemptions that wealthy taxpayers can claim. Obama's proposal also would let estate taxes revert to 55 percent on estates after allowance for a $1 million exemption.

In making his offer, Obama stiff-armed Republican demands to increase the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, a goal Democrats strongly reject. He also sought to contain cuts in Medicare and other health care programs to about $400 billion over 10 years, less than what Republicans want. And he is continuing to seek spending on unemployment assistance and on public works projects.

Obama's willingness to reduce future cost-of-living increases in Social Security would also mean smaller annual increases in government pensions and veterans' benefits. Annual adjustments to income tax brackets would be smaller, pushing more people into higher tax brackets.

Over time, because annual adjustments to the poverty level would be smaller, the new index could reduce the number of people eligible for programs such as Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps, school lunches and home heating assistance.

To avoid some of that risk, Obama wants lower-income recipients to receive protection against any loss from scaling back future cost-of-living increases, people familiar with his plan said.

The victim, who was pistol-whipped during the Monday night incident, was taken to Baystate Medical Center.

 

SPRINGFIELD -- A city man, pistol-whipped during a carjacking in the McKnight neighborhood Monday, was taken to Baystate Medical Center for treatment of wounds to his head and face.

The incident at St. James Avenue and Dorchester Street was reported about 9:30 p.m. and a 27-year-old suspect, found driving the stolen car about two hours later in the Pine Point neighborhood, was arrested, police Capt. Larry Brown said.

Two suspects remain at large.

Brown said the incident began when the victim received a phone call regarding the sale of CDs and agreed to meet the caller at St. James and Dorchester.

Once there the victim, accompanied by a female, was confronted by three suspects, one brandishing a handgun, who demanded money.

“A fight ensued,” Brown said, adding that the victim was hit in the head and face several times with the handgun. The suspects then fled in the victim’s car.

Police spotted the vehicle about 11:30 p.m. at East Baypath Terrace and West Baypath Terrace and arrested the driver and sole occupant after a struggle.

Jason Martinez, of 262 Page Blvd., was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon, carjacking with a firearm, failure to stop for police, receiving a stolen motor vehicle, resisting arrest, assault and battery on a police officer and various traffic offenses, Brown said.

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While our legislators debate gun control and mental health initiatives, who will protect the children?

In a week in which the sadness just keeps on coming out of Newtown Conn. like a string of gray December days that just won’t quit, comes the realization that perhaps now is the time to think about placing a police officer in all our schools.

First it was police in our high schools, where the thinking was that raging hormones, a growing gang and drug culture had created too dangerous a brew to insure that our teenagers were safe. Then we looked at our middle schools where the seeds of terror could be found in the epidemic of bullying. And now as we watch the heartbreaking and seemingly endless parade of 6-year-old faces and the adults who died trying to protect them, it’s come to this.

Kindergarten cops.

Of course police are no long-term solution. But while our legislators work on gun laws, and our doctors work on mental health, who will man the fort so our educators can do what they have always done – teach?

Sounds like a job for police and as inadequate as it sounds to ask one part of society to keep civilization from collapsing under our feet, isn’t that what police have always done?

Of course a school police officer can do so much more than wait for a gunman to show up. He, or she, can nip bullying in the bud, can spot gangs when they are still groups, can steer troubled students to concerned adults and professionals who can help.

And they can protect.

There is evidence that the killer at Newtown stopped his carnage and took his own life only when he knew that police were on their way. Is it possible that if he knew the police were already there the outcome would have been different?

Perhaps. And perhaps not. But until the long-term solutions have a chance to kick in and we feel that we can protect killers from themselves let’s make the statement that nothing is more important than protecting our children.

Alas, the time may have come for kindergarten cops.

The position of interim or transitional pastor is a special ministry within the United Church of Christ and is designed to help congregations move from the departure of one minister to the calling of a new one in a smooth and successful way.

The Rev. Dr. Jay M. Terbush, the new transitional senior pastor at the First Church of Christ in Longmeadow, is shown in his office. He will serve the church during its one to two year search for a new settled minister. Cory White photo  

LONGMEADOW - The First Church of Christ in Longmeadow has called the Rev. Jay M. Terbush as its transitional senior pastor. He will serve the church during its transition from the previous pastor, the Rev. Michael S. Bennett, to the installation of a new settled pastor, a process that can take anywhere from 18 months to two years.

The position of interim or transitional pastor is a special ministry within the United Church of Christ and is designed to help congregations move from the departure of one minister to the calling of a new one in a smooth and successful way.

Terbush began his tenure in Longmeadow at the end of September.

"It's very exciting to be a part of this church," Terbush said. "It's an opportunity for the congregation to have a prayerful conversation and share with each other what it means to be in this church in this time and place. The outcome will prepare the church for the future - prepare it to enter into a partnership with a new settled minister."

He added, "I'm always working my way out of a job."

The Rev. Dr. Jay M. Terbush, the new transitional senior pastor at the First Church of Christ in Longmeadow, stands on the steps of the church. Cory White photo  

Terbush, who lives in Storrs, Conn., and commutes daily to Longmeadow, began his ministry in Michigan, serving as a settled minister at a church there for eight years. About 20 years ago, he moved with his family, including four daughters, to a church in Hartford, where he served as senior minister for 10 years.

But about 12 years ago, he started looking for a change and a new challenge. He eventually tested the waters by taking a position as an associate interim pastor. From there, he went on to a church in Keene, N.H., as a senior interim pastor.

"It was challenging," Terbush said, "because the two previous ministers had left under a cloud. There were huge issues of trust, a sense of betrayal and conflict among members." But he found he thrived in that setting. His background helped. In addition to a master of divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical School in Deerfield, Ill., he has a Ph.D in counseling from Michigan State University.

"I haven't looked back," he said. "This niche ministry is my calling. I like to be in a situation where what we're supposed to do isn't clear at first. It keeps me fresh."

In addition to helping the Longmeadow congregation prepare for calling a new minister, Terbush is involved in the full range of activities in a church, and is responsible for keeping current programs going and starting up new ones.

"Some interim ministers are consultants in this process and distant in their relationship with the church," Terbush said. "But I don't know how to do this ministry without falling in love with people, even though it makes leaving at the end of two years painful."

He added, "I love what I do. I can't imagine doing anything else. I'm blessed to be part of the lives of so many people."

TAVR, a heart surgery in which a failing aortic valve is replaced through a small incision in the patient's leg and a catheter up into the heart itself, extends the benefits of heart-valve repair to people whose age or other health issues previously had left them no remedy.

Dublin-born Violet Switzer, 90, of Stockbridge, became the first person at Baystate Medical Center to undergo a Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) performed by Drs. Joseph Flack and Asheqel Islam.i Submitted  

In nine decades of life, from a childhood in Dublin to immigration to Western Massachusetts in 1950, Violet Switzer had never had an operation.

The Stockbridge woman - who celebrates her 90th birthday on Dec. 19 - became an area medical pioneer in July, according to Baystate Medical Canter, as the center's Drs. Joseph Flack and Ashequl Islam performed the first Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement in this part of the state.

TAVR, a heart surgery in which a failing aortic valve is replaced through a small incision in the patient's leg and a catheter up into the heart itself, similar to angioplasty, extends the benefits of heart-valve repair to people whose age or other health issues previously had left them no remedy for this life-threatening condition.

"Minimally invasive approaches to cardiac therapy such as TAVR enable us to address the cardiovascular disease of a significantly larger group of patients - people who could experience major complications from a more invasive open-heart surgery," said Dr. Aaron Kugelmass, medical director of the Baystate Heart and Vascular Program and chief of the division of cardiology at Baystate.

"The successful TAVR procedure will add years of life expectancy for a patient who would otherwise expect a 50 percent two-year mortality."

Kugelmass added that the procedure is currently "limited to patients who are otherwise not candidates for an aortic valve operation, although it may be available to other patients as well."

"TAVR is a transformative technology, still a relative rarity in the U.S., and we're thrilled to be offering this extremely sophisticated procedure here in Western Massachusetts," Kugelmass said in the release.

Switzer had been diagnosed with aortic stenosis - a narrowed opening of the aortic valve, which carries blood out of the heart - a few years ago. But the standard treatment for that stenosis at the time - open-heart surgery, with a large incision in her chest and a long and challenging recovery - was not available to her, given her age and relative frailty.

When Dr. Jeff Leppo, her Berkshire Medical Center cardiologist, told Switzer this spring that TAVR was on its way to implementation at Baystate in Springfield, it didn't take her long to decide to opt in for the procedure. She had experienced fainting spells at home, one symptom of aortic stenosis that typically gets worse over time without treatment.

"I was just so calm about it - I felt everything was going to be all right," said Switzer, who met with Islam and Flack.

Switzer went home to Stockbridge less than a week after her surgery. After a few weeks in cardiac rehab, she was able to live independently again, gardening at home, going to lunch with friends and participating in her knitting ministry, which makes stoles for people in need and hats for preemies.

"The difference in how I feel is 100 percent," Switzers said in a Baystate release. She took a trip to Vermont in October to view the foliage.

The Davis center rooms were designed specifically to support a "hybrid" clinical approach such as TAVR: an interventional cardiologist working side-by-side with a cardiac surgeon and a multidisciplinary care team.

Questions, answers on TAVR

The following answers were provided by Baystate Medical Center to questions from Lifestyle editor Anne-Gerard Flynn:

How did the development of this procedure come about, and where was it first done?

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement traces its roots to Europe, where Dr. Alain Cribier performed the first procedure in April 2002 in Rouen, France. The Food and Drug Administration approved TAVR for use in the United States in 2011.

When was the procedure first done at Baystate and by whom and on a patient how old and from where?

The first TAVR in the history of Western Massachusetts took place in July at the Davis Family Heart and Vascular Center at Baystate Medical Center. Dr. Ashequl Islam, an interventional cardiologist, and Dr. Joseph Flack, a cardiac surgeon, performed the procedure on then 89-year-old Violet Switzer, of Stockbridge.

What did it take for it to be done at Baystate - technology, training for both nurses and doctors?

Some years ago, the leaders of the Baystate heart and vascular program recognized that a collaborative approach to the health care needs of the aging population of Western Massachusetts would be essential in supporting the best patient outcomes for serious cardiovascular illnesses.

In many ways, the Davis Center is designed to accommodate advanced procedures such as TAVR. The advanced imaging and sterility of the facility's new procedure rooms make possible "hybrid" operations like TAVR, which bring teams of highly trained specialists together around a single patient.

As a group, the team is experienced in performing aortic valve surgeries, balloon aortic valvuloplasty (opening of an aortic valve using a balloon catheter) and other structural heart procedures that existed before the TAVR procedure.

Drs. Flack and Islam and other members of the TAVR team underwent training required by the heart-valve manufacturer, observed TAVR procedures at peer institutions around the country, and practiced the procedure extensively in simulations before performing the first operation.

The first few procedures were done in the presence of experienced proctors before the team got certified to perform TAVR independently.

Who is a candidate for the procedure and why?

TAVR can help patients who are diagnosed with aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the heart's aortic valve. The most important advantage of TAVR is that it brings the benefits of major heart valve repair surgery to patients who, due to other health problems or even general frailty associated with age, would be very high risk or not otherwise be eligible for lifesaving traditional valve surgery.

Open heart surgery, while safer than ever before, can still be associated with higher risk of mortality and other complications in elderly or frail individuals who often have significant other medical problems.

TAVR, due to its less invasive approach, allows these patients with significant other health issues to undergo valve replacement with less mortality and morbidities compared to open valve replacement. After interview, assessment and pre-screening, potential TAVR patients are assigned a risk score that drives our team's decision as to what course of treatment to take.

Some patients may not be eligible for any surgery, due to the degree of other illnesses and frailties. Others may be deemed candidates for traditional open procedures, due to their relative good health. It is a robust process.

We also follow our patients very closely after the surgery, in order to add to our rigorous database of information about patient outcomes, and further develop our understanding of the best approaches to a given health challenge.

What does the procedure involve, both in terms of the anatomy and the technology?

TAVR is a heart surgery in which a failing aortic valve is replaced minimally invasively via a small incision in the patient's leg or chest wall that allows a catheter to be guided up into the heart itself.

In the procedure, similar to angioplasty, the interventional cardiologist and surgeon "drive" the catheter up into the patient's heart. The cardiac surgeon stands ready to perform traditional surgery if complications occur.

Using a process called "pacing," the heart rhythm is speeded up to a point where the flow of blood through the organ is reduced enough to allow insertion of the new valve.
Advanced technology plays a key role in the actual procedure as well as in the endovascular surgical suite where it takes place.

The replacement valve itself is a flexible stainless-steel frame encasing bovine (cow) heart tissue. It is designed for maximum durability, and to fit seamlessly into the patient's heart.

The imaging technology and advanced sterility of the procedure rooms in the Davis Center allow the surgical team to clearly see the path via which they will deliver the replacement valve, and to deliver the valve with minimal risk of complications.

What are the risks involved?

There is about 5 percent risk of major stroke at 30 days in TAVR patients who could not otherwise be operated on.

In high-risk surgical patients, TAVR had increased risk of all strokes compared to open valve surgery. In addition, there is increased risk of vascular and bleeding complications in the TAVR group. Should any major life threatening complications occur during the procedure, an open valve replacement is usually done then and there.

In a randomized U.S. trial with inoperable patients, TAVR reduced one-year mortality from 50 percent to 30 percent. In high-risk patients, one-year mortality in the TAVR group was similar to surgical valve replacement with significantly reduced procedural complications.

What does the procedure "fix" and how long does it take before it is deemed successful?

TAVR is a treatment for aortic stenosis, which is a reduced opening of the aortic valve, which pumps blood out of the heart. This can cause a thickening of the ventricle walls and increased pressure within the heart, which causes chest pain. As the condition worsens, the reduced blood flow out of the heart can cause serious problems such as chest pain, shortness of breath, weakness, dizziness and fainting.

The condition, slightly more common in men than in women, proves fatal within one to three years once symptomatic.

The benefits of a successful TAVR can manifest themselves very quickly after the operation. It is common for patients to feel stronger and report improved quality of life and activity level once recovered from the procedure.

How does the patient prepare for it, and recuperate from it?

Preparing for TAVR is similar to other surgeries: Follow your doctor's instructions, and be sure you're satisfied that all your questions have been answered. Once the procedure is done, the usual stay in the hospital is most often less than after an open surgery.

The patient still may need to go to a temporary rehabilitation facility to make sure he or she can function independently at home. The patient can expect to recover completely from the procedure in four to six weeks.

How much of a normal life can a patient resume?

Beyond the years of additional life expectancy that the resolution of their aortic stenosis can be expected to bring to our TAVR patients, our experience has been that they are enjoying a very high quality of life following their procedure.

They typically gradually resume most of their normal activities, and although caution may be required in attempting more intense physical activity, they can participate in most of the normal activities of peers their age.

Town officials have said they plan to borrow money to make up for a shortfall that's preventing Brimfield from setting its property tax rate.

Brimfield Town Hall has been closed since March because of structural problems. File photo by John Suchocki / The Republican  

The town's three selectmen have not returned multiple calls seeking comment about Brimfield's fiscal situation, which reportedly stems from a $738,000 cash shortfall that must be addressed before the new tax rate can be set.

The town's auditor, Thomas J. Scanlon Jr., who also has not responded to a request for information, has told the board that he uncovered some "major issues," including problems with "overdrawn accounts." Using a one-to-10 scale, with 10 being the worst, Scanlon ranked Brimfield's predicament as a seven "and escalating." He recommended the town borrow money to address the shortfall, so it can set its property tax rate for fiscal 2013. Property taxes are a major source of funding for communities.

The town's assessor, Cynthia S. Poirier, said Brimfield is running a $737,678 deficit that must be addressed before setting the new rate. The current property tax rate of $14.48 per thousand is expected to increase next fiscal year, but not by more than 2½ percent, said Town Clerk Robert Sullivan, who's also a member of the Board of Assessors.

Unexpected costs associated with last year's crippling June tornado and October nor'easter are the primary culprits behind the town's current financial situation, according to Sullivan and Poirier. "(They) are still haunting us," Poirier said of the two extreme weather events.

Real estate values declined due to the number of homes damaged or destroyed by the tornado, and some of those properties are still "off the books," Sullivan said. "We're tying to maintain our budget with fewer buildings to tax."

Sections of Brimfield were wiped out by the June 1, 2011, tornado that carved a 39-mile path of destruction from Westfield to Charlton, killing four people and destroying or severely damaging hundreds of structures.

"Those two storms, they were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars beyond what any reasonable person would have budgeted for the Highway Department," Sullivan said. Just trying to maintain roadways, specifically clearing and repairing them, was a heavy financial drain on the town, he said.

Further complicating matters is the slow rate at which the town has received financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "We do believe those receipts are on the way," said Sullivan, who was unable to pinpoint a precise FEMA figure for the town.

While Poirier has characterized the town's financial condition as a budget shortfall, Sullivan said it's more of a "cash flow problem" due to various conspiring factors. "We're behind in our receipts," he said.

Selectmen were expected to discuss the fiscal situation Monday evening, but the session was postponed when only one board member was available to attend. "No quorum," Carol L. Warren, the board's assistant, said Tuesday, explaining the cancellation. The meeting has been rescheduled for Thursday, she said.

Sullivan praised the state Department of Revenue for understanding the town's fiscal situation. "They've been very helpful because they realize we're in a very difficult situation," he said. A DOR spokesman did not immediately return a phone message.

When gunfire erupted at an Oregon shopping mall last week, Shaun Wik knew instantly what to do: Run for the door. And so, when Wik heard a man he believed to be the gunman shout "Get down on the ground!", the 20-year-old fled instead. And he lived.

This undated file image provided by the City of Houston shows a scene from a video the city made to teach people how to react in the case of an active shooting situation using a short, three-word mantra: Run, hide, fight. Even as we struggle to learn the details behind the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the sad frequency of attacks by men with guns is creating a growing school of thought based on a simple premise: Be ready for the bullets. (AP Photo/The City of Houston, File) The Associated Press  

When gunfire erupted at an Oregon shopping mall last week, Shaun Wik knew instantly what to do: Run for the door. And so, when Wik heard a man he believed to be the gunman shout "Get down on the ground!", the 20-year-old fled instead. And he lived.

In Arizona, on a January day two years ago, Mary Reed reacted the way her reflexes told her to when Jared Loughner opened fire on a meet-your-congresswoman gathering at her local Safeway. Reed shielded her then-17-year-old daughter, taking a bullet in the back.

They were two responses that came from very different places. For Reed, 54, it was purely instinctive. "I didn't think about anything," she said. "Mine was just that mammalian part of your mind that protects your child."

Wik's actions, though, weren't merely a fight-or-flight response. As a sophomore in high school, he had learned about the Columbine massacre and was taught to always have an escape route. When it mattered, he did.

Even as we struggle to figure out what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School — who did what and why — the sad frequency of attacks by men with guns is creating a growing school of thought based on a simple premise: Be ready for the bullets. These mass shootings, but also bombings and terror attacks, have fueled a need, rational or not, to be prepared for the worst in whatever form it may come and know how to act when it does.

The city of Houston, one of the nation's largest, has even produced a video advising residents of what to do should they encounter an "active shooter." It is called "Run. Hide. Fight." and was released in the days after a gunman opened fire in July at a midnight "Batman" movie screening in Aurora, Colo., killing 12 people.

After a spate of school shootings that included the 1999 Columbine massacre in Colorado and the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, schools heightened security, developed new guidelines for spotting potentially threatening individuals and implemented so-called "lockdown drills" to better help students know what to do in the event of an emergency.

And with Sandy Hook, it seems to have marched forward: Have we gone so far down this rabbit hole of mass murder in America that we must make sure our first-graders are ready with escape routes, too?

The response inside the school, authorities said, seemed to be a mix of the two notions of preparation and instinct — as teachers, a school psychologist, a principal risked, and in some cases lost, their lives to protect the children in their care.

Lockdown drills were part of the routine for the nearly 450 kindergartners through fourth-graders who attended Sandy Hook. Earlier this year, principal Dawn Hochsprung tweeted a picture of an evacuation exercise, showing little ones bundled in winter coats standing outside the school, quietly in line behind their teachers. Hochsprung died Friday at the gunman's hand.

And while nothing can ever prepare children for what happened at Sandy Hook, having a specific procedure to follow probably did help keep the youngsters calm and focused — and could potentially minimize the effects of the trauma down the road, said Stephen Brock, a professor of school psychology at California State University, Sacramento.

He recalled in recent days hearing a little girl in Connecticut on the radio "talking about how the teacher told them to go to the corner of the room away from the doors and windows so the animal couldn't get in."

"In her mind, it was probably a ... lion or a tiger," Brock said. Nevertheless, "they followed procedures that they had been drilled in before. By responding appropriately, it can make the situation appear less threatening if there's something that they can do to keep themselves safe."

This undated file image provided by the City of Houston shows a scene from a video the city made to teach people how to react in the case of an active shooting situation using a short, three-word mantra: Run, hide, fight. Even as we struggle to learn the details behind the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the sad frequency of attacks by men with guns is creating a growing school of thought based on a simple premise: Be ready for the bullets. (AP Photo/The City of Houston, File)
The Associated Press




 

Not unlike adult survivors of these awful tragedies, children also have their own innate tendencies that help influence their response. Even if they can't make their own decisions to hide or escape — they know instinctively who can: the adults around them, to whom they look for cues about how to behave.

Think of a child at a park who falls off the swing set, Brock said. If they look over at Mom and she's upset, chances are the child will get upset, too. If not, "They'd wipe ... off their knee and go out and play some more," he said. "Young kids are going to have their threat perception significantly dictated by how the adults around them are behaving."

Without their moms or dads to look to, the schoolchildren at Sandy Hook turned to their teachers for those cues. And those teachers, in turn, became their saviors and heroes.

In the school library, clerk Mary Ann Jacob was working with a group of 18 fourth-graders when she heard a commotion over the school intercom. She called down to the main office and was told, "There's a shooting. Then she yelled "lock down" to her students before running across the hall to another classroom to tell them to lock down, as well.

"The kids know the routine, and the teachers know the routine, and everyone has a spot in their room where they're supposed to go to," she told reporters on the scene.

Eventually Jacob and three other adults ushered the children into a storage room and locked the door. They found crayons and paper, which they divvied up among the kids.

"They were asking, 'What's going on?' We said, 'We don't know. Our job is to stay quiet. It may be a drill. It may not. But we're just going to stay here.'"

Jacob, of course, knew that it was no drill.

As soon as she heard the shots, first-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig rushed her 15 students into a tiny bathroom, using a bookshelf to barricade the door. She told her children to be "absolutely quiet." ''I said, 'There are bad guys out there now. We need to wait for the good guys,'" Roig said in an interview with ABC News. "If they started crying, I would take their faces and say, 'It's going to be OK. Show me your smile.'"

Just 29 years old herself, Roig drew on her training but, more so, basic humanity to give the children what she thought they needed to make it through.

"I'm thinking that I have to almost be their parent," she said. So she did what any parent would do. She told them how much she loved them. And she promised that everything would be OK.

"I wanted that to be one of the last things they heard," Roig said, "not the gunfire in the hallway."

University of Virginia forensic clinical psychologist Dewey Cornell expects the shooting at Sandy Hook to reinforce the need for door locks and other security measures at schools, or even prompt additional procedures. But Cornell, a leader in developing assessment guidelines to identify threatening individuals that are now used in schools across the nation, worries about going too far.

"This case is going to distort people's perception of the safety of our schools, and that's really unfortunate," he said. "Elementary schools are extremely safe environments."

Aiden Licata's parents prepped him well before the attack last week at his school. If he ever encountered danger along the lines of a Columbine or an Aurora, they told him, do one thing: Run.

The 6-year-old did just that, having the presence of mind to grab his classmates and flee even after the shooter burst into his classroom and gunned down his teacher.

"He was very brave," Robert Licata said of his son. "He waited for his friends."

It's easy to imagine that similar conversations are happening all across the nation now, after Sandy Hook.

That, too, is just part of society today, said James Garbarino, a professor of humanistic psychology at Loyola University in Chicago who specializes in violence and trauma involving children.

Children have seen enough of these horrors on television news or the Internet or in fictionalized movies to know that something bad could happen to them, too — and to wonder how they should respond just in case. Parents, Garbarino said, should have the conversation as long as they can ensure their children are aware and informed without frightening them unnecessarily about a situation that they are, still, unlikely to ever face.

"What do you say? You say, 'It's really sad. This terrible thing happened. This young man went crazy, and he had guns. But I know your school is safe because the teachers are on the lookout.'"

In short, he said: "Do all that you can to foster their sense of security."

Brock said that doing drills with younger children, a common thing post-Columbine, has produced two important conclusions.

First, kids faced with the mock version of a stressful event respond appropriately. And second, developing that appropriate response can make them feel they have the power to keep themselves safe — and thus make the situation appear less threatening.

"I was kind of worried for a while there that by doing these new things called lockdown drills, we might be unnecessarily frightening kids and preparing them for an event that has a real low probability of occurring," Brock said. "Was the cost worth the benefit, especially since it's going to be so rare that we're going to have to employ these drills?"

"The answer," he said, "appears to be yes."

The announcement was made during NBC's "Today" show.

President Obama was named Time's Person of the Year. Time  

President Barack Obama is TIME's 2012 Person of the Year.

TIME managing editor Rick Stengel revealed the choice on NBC's "Today" show on Wednesday morning.

Obama was also the magazine's choice four years ago.

As it has for the past 85 years, TIME selected the person – or sometimes group – that its editors determined had the single greatest impact during the past year.

Recent recipients include The Protester, 2011; Mark Zuckerberg, 2012; Ben Bernanke, 2009; Barack Obama, 2008; Vladimir Putin, 2007; You, 2006; Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono, 2005; and George W. Bush, 2004.

Notorious TIME Man of the Year choices included Adolf Hitler in 1938, Joseph Stalin in 1943 and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

Mourners overlapped at back-to-back services as funerals began in earnest in a Connecticut town that lost 20 of its children and seven adults to a gunman, with emotions and tempers in tatters amid a global crush of media attention to a community once known mostly for its bucolic atmosphere and sterling school system.

By DAVID KLEPPER and MICHAEL MELIA, Associated Press

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — Mourners overlapped at back-to-back services as funerals began in earnest in a Connecticut town that lost 20 of its children and seven adults to a gunman, with emotions and tempers in tatters amid a global crush of media attention to a community once known mostly for its bucolic atmosphere and sterling school system.

At St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown, a service for first-grader James Mattioli had not concluded when mourners began arriving for the funeral of little Jessica Rekos, the first of eight to be held in the coming days at the church. Several more sets of funerals and visitation hours were set throughout town Wednesday.

Students went back to classes the day before, except for those at Sandy Hook Elementary, where a lone gunman armed with a military-style assault rifle slaughtered the children, six adults and himself by the time Friday's massacre ended. He also killed his mother at her home.

Pupils at Sandy Hook, which serves kindergarten through fourth grade, will resume classes in a formerly shuttered school in a neighboring community after the winter break, the Connecticut Post reported.

"It's definitely better than just sitting at home watching the news," sophomore Tate Schwab said outside Newtown High School. "It really hasn't sunk in yet. It feels to me like it hasn't happened."

The tragedy continued to reverberate around America as citizens and lawmakers debated whether Newtown might be a turning point in the often polarizing national discussion of gun-control.

Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management announced Tuesday it plans to sell its stake in Freedom Group, maker of the Bushmaster rifle, following the school shootings. In Pittsburgh, Dick's Sporting Goods said it is suspending sales of modern rifles nationwide because of the shooting. The company also said it's removing all guns from display at its store closest to Newtown.

A former co-chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and 10-term House Republican Jack Kingston, a Georgia lawmaker elected with strong National Rifle Association backing, were the latest to join the call to consider gun control as part of a comprehensive, anti-violence effort next year.

"Put guns on the table. Also put video games on the table. Put mental health on the table," Kingston said.

But he added that nothing should be done immediately, saying, "There is a time for mourning and a time to sort it out. I look forward to sorting it out and getting past the grief stage."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama was "actively supportive" of a plan by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to introduce legislation to reinstate an assault weapons ban. While Obama has long supported a ban, he did little to get it passed during his first term.

The National Rifle Association, silent since the shootings, said in a statement that it was "prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again." It gave no indication what that might entail.

Around Newtown, people had plenty of opinions about the gun debate but were focused on more immediate tasks: shaking off the fear, mourning loved ones and burying the dead.

Family and friends react after attending the wake of school shooting victim Victoria Soto, a teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Stratford, Conn., Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. Soto, 27, was killed when Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Dec. 14, and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children, before killing himself. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
The Associated Press




 

At a wake Tuesday for 27-year-old first-grade teacher Victoria Soto, hundreds of mourners, many wearing ribbons in the school colors of green and white, stood in a line that wrapped around a funeral home in nearby Stratford. Soto has been hailed as a hero for dying while trying to shield her students, some of whom managed to escape.

"Big smile, great eyes, just a wonderful person," Lauren Ostrofsky said. "If anyone could be an example of what a person should be today, it's her."

At St. Rose, a motorcade led by police motorcycles arrived for the funeral of James Mattioli, who loved recess and math and was described by his family as a "numbers guy" who couldn't wait until he was old enough to order a foot-long Subway sandwich.

Traffic in front of the church slowed to a crawl as police directed vehicles into the parking lot. A school bus carrying elementary students got stuck in traffic, and the children, pressing their faces into the windows, sadly watched as the mourners assembled.

Immediately afterward was the funeral for Jessica Rekos, who loved horses and was counting the years until she turned 10, when her family had promised her a horse of her own. For Christmas, she had asked Santa for new cowgirl boots and hat.

Tensions in the shattered community ran high as the grief of parents and townspeople collided with media reporting on the shootings and the funerals. Police walked children to parents waiting in cars to protect them from the cameras. Many parents yelled at reporters to leave their children and the town alone.

At Newtown High, students in sweat shirts and jackets, many wearing headphones, had mixed reactions. Some waved at or snapped photos of the assembled media horde, while others appeared visibly shaken.

Students said they didn't get much work done and spent much of the day talking about the terrible events of Friday, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza, clad all in black, broke into Sandy Hook Elementary and opened fire on students and staff. Some students dismissed any concerns about safety.

"This is where I feel the most at home," P.J. Hickey said. "I feel safer here than anywhere else in the world."

Still, some parents were apprehensive.

Priscilla and Randy Bock, arriving with their 15-year-old special-needs son, James, expressed misgivings. "I was not sure we wanted him going," Priscilla Bock said. "I'm a mom. I'm anxious."

"Is there ever a right day? I mean, you just do it, you know, just get them back to school," said Peter Muckell as he took 8-year-old daughter Shannon, a third-grader, to Hawley Elementary.

A young girl waves as her school bus pulls into Hawley School, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. Classes resumed Tuesday for Newtown, schools except those at Sandy Hook, following Friday's mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Buses ferrying students to schools were festooned with large green and white ribbons on the front grills, the colors of Sandy Hook. At Newtown High School, students in sweatshirts and jackets, many wearing headphones, betrayed mixed emotions. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
The Associated Press




 

At one Newtown school, students found some comfort from Ronan, an Australian shepherd therapy dog from Good Dog Foundation in New York. Owner Lucian Lipinsky took the dog to a fifth-grade science and math class where students were having difficulty coping with the tragedy. Most started smiling immediately.

Lipinsky told the students they could whisper their secrets into Ronan's ear.

"It's pretty amazing how a lot of kids will just go whisper in his ear and tell them their secret, and, of course, he doesn't tell anyone," Lipinsky said. "He's a very good dog."

Authorities say the horrific events of Friday began when Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, at their home, and then took her car and some of her guns to the nearby school, where he broke in and opened fire, killing 20 children and six adults before shooting himself.

A Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.

Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack, even as more fragments of Lanza's life emerged.

As a teenager, Lanza was so painfully shy that he would not speak or look at anyone when he came in for a haircut about every six weeks, always accompanied by his mother, said stylists in the Newtown hair salon Lanza frequented.

Cutting Adam Lanza's hair "was a very long half an hour. It was a very uncomfortable situation," stylist Diane Harty said, adding that she never heard his voice.

Another stylist, Jessica Phillips, said Nancy Lanza would give her son directions about what to do and where to go. He would move only "when his mother told him to," said a third stylist, Bob Skuba.

Even as questions lingered about the gunman and his motive, appreciation for those who helped students escape him persisted — as well as devotion to preventing it from happening again.

Andrei Nikitchyuk's young son, a boy nicknamed Bear, was on his way to the principal's office with a classmate Friday morning. The children were classroom helpers tasked with the most mundane of school day chores: delivering a teacher's attendance sheets. Before they made it, the children heard a series of loud bangs that sounded like someone was slamming a door. Bear later told his dad he "saw bullets flying past."

Nikitchyuk, who was in Washington on Tuesday to support the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence's push for tougher gun regulations, said teacher Abby Clements pulled his son and the boy's classmate into a nearby classroom as the shooting started.

"He was saved by a wonderful teacher," Nikitchyuk said, his voice cracking slightly. "She pulled them into a classroom and barricaded that door."

___

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

The Republican leader in the Massachusetts Senate says the case of a Wakefield man charged with sexually assaulting more than a dozen children points to "deep flaws" in the way the state classifies and tracks sex offenders.

BOSTON (AP) — The Republican leader in the Massachusetts Senate says the case of a Wakefield man charged with sexually assaulting more than a dozen children points to "deep flaws" in the way the state classifies and tracks sex offenders.

John Burbine
The Associated Press




 

Sen. Bruce Tarr of Gloucester says he plans to file legislation next month that would, among other things, improve communication between lawmakers, prosecutors and the Sex Offender Registry Board.

John Burbine is accused of assaulting the children — including one just 8 days old — while working at his wife's unlicensed day care business. He's currently being held without bail after pleading not guilty.

In 1989, Burbine was registered as a Level 1 sex offender, a classification given those least likely to reoffend.

Tarr says subsequent investigations of Burbine over the years should have led him to be reclassified.

Massachusetts Treasurer Steve Grossman has directed the state pension fund to review any investments in gun companies in response to the killings last week of 20 children and six adults in a Connecticut elementary school.

10-13-10 Springfield -Staff photo by Mark M.Murray-Steve Grossman, candidate for Massachusetts treasurer meets with the editorial board. The Associated Press  

Grossman stopped short of calling for divestment in gun companies. He said Tuesday it's the pension fund's duty to maximize investment returns for retirees, but said he will not ignore what he called the values of Massachusetts residents.

Financial firms are feeling pressure from a public outcry over the killings in Newtown, Conn. Private equity group Cerberus Capital Management, which invests money on behalf of public employees, said it will sell its controlling stake in Freedom Group International. It makes Bushmaster rifles, the weapons believed to have been used in Friday's killings.

Investors have fled other firearms makers.

General Motors, trying to clear the stigma of being partly owned by the U.S. government, will spend $5.5 billion to buy back 200 million shares of its stock from the treasury.

This Feb. 19, 2012 file photo shows the familiar Chevrolet bowtie logo displayed on the grille of a 2012 Cruze sedan, foreground, with a 2012 Sonic sedan in the background at a Chevrolet dealership in the south Denver suburb of Englewood, Colo. AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File  

TOM KRISHER
AP Auto Writer

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors, trying to clear the stigma of being partly owned by the U.S. government, will spend $5.5 billion to buy back 200 million shares of its stock from the treasury.

The government, in turn, promised to sell its remaining 300 million shares on the open market starting in January, and get out of the company's business within the next 12 to 15 months.

GM said Wednesday that it will pay $27.50 each for the 200 million shares, and it expects to close the deal by the end of the year. GM stock closed Tuesday at $25.49, and it shot up 7.1 percent in premarket trading Wednesday to $27.30.

"This is fundamentally good for the business," GM Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann told reporters at a hastily called news conference Wednesday morning. He added that GM has market research showing that the government ownership has held down sales of the company's cars and trucks.

The government got its shares of the company as part of a $49.5 billion bailout of GM that began nearly four years ago, a bailout that saved GM from collapsing into financial ruin.

The move leaves the government with 300 million shares, which it pledged to sell "in an orderly fashion" within the next 12-15 months, subject to market conditions.

GM's purchase of the 200 million shares still leaves the government about $21 billion short of breaking even on its investment. To break even, the government would have to get nearly $70 each for its shares.

They are available free to parents, educators, youth counselors, or others who work with children and youth.

Five of the 10 titles in the Massachusetts Medical Society’s series of parent education brochures on youth violence, part of the MMS’s Campaign Against Violence. They are available free via download from the MMS website at www.massmed.org/violence. Submitted  

Physicians of the Massachusetts Medical Society have produced a series of 10 brochures - including one on "Protecting Your Child From Gun Injury" - to help parents identify and deal with a range of topics on youth violence, including bullying, dating and street violence, violence in the media, and child sexual abuse.

They are available free to parents, educators, youth counselors, or others who work with children and youth.

Originated by Dr. Robert D. Sege, and developed by the society's Committee on Violence Intervention and Prevention, the current publications are updated versions of a previous series and contain information from a variety of sources, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and Massachusetts Citizens for Children.

They are written by experts in the field of youth violence.

"Violence or abuse affecting children occurs in far too many places - in the home, at school, on the street, online, in relationships - and has enormous effects on physical and mental health," said Dr. Elliot Pittel, chairman of the Society's Committee on Violence Intervention and Prevention and a psychiatrist at The Home for Little Wanderers in Boston, "and we see the results all too often in headlines and news reports. Physicians can play a major role in addressing the needs of hurt and injured children by screening for violence as an essential part of every visit to the doctor."

In a release distributed early last week, Sege, who is director of the division of family and child advocacy at Boston Medical Center and professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, the aim "is to reach beyond the physician's office, to educate parents and those who care for children with expert, practical information, first to prevent violence, and then, when and if it does occur, to intervene appropriately.

"Parents and their children's health care providers must be allies in trying to keep children safe," Sege said.

The series includes 10 titles: "Protecting Your Child From Sexual Abuse," "When Children Witness Violence in the Home," "Bullying Prevention: When Your Child is the Victim, the Bully, or the Bystander," "Street Violence: Your Child Has Been Hurt, What You Can Do," "Dating Violence: What Parents Need To Know," "Protecting Your Child From Gun Injury," "Pulling the Plug on Media Violence," "Some Myths and Facts About Violence," "Time-Out! A Break From Negative Behavior," and " Raise Your Child With Praise: Tips for Parents of 2-5 year-olds."

The brochures may be downloaded free at www.massmed.org/violence. Printed copies may be ordered individually or in sets from the Medical Society by writing to dph@mms.org or calling (1-800) 322-2303, ext. 7373.

"Recognizing and Preventing Youth Violence, edited by Dr. Sege and Vincent G. Licenziato, provides basic information about youth violence for physicians and health care providers, describing risk factors and appropriate screening tools, as well as suggesting approaches to violence prevention and intervention. A PowerPoint presentation and lecture, based on the guidebook, is also available on the society's website listed above.

"Intimate Partner Violence," written by Dr. Elaine J. Alpert describes the role of the physician in screening and caring for patients at risk for domestic violence, spousal abuse, or battering.

In so many places, the school is the hub of civic life. Inside its walls, and around its grounds, are scattered the ideas and people and places that every day state the unspoken: When we talk of being American, this is what we mean.

By TED ANTHONY, AP National Writer

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pick a public elementary school somewhere in the continental United States and draw a half-mile circle around it. The odds are reasonable that you'll encounter some combination of the following:

A baseball field. A statue erected for war veterans. A municipal building. A community center. A polling place — probably the school itself. A library. A park. A basketball court crawling with kids playing pickup games.

In so many places, the school is the hub of civic life. Inside its walls, and around its grounds, are scattered the ideas and people and places that every day state the unspoken: When we talk of being American, this is what we mean.

It is for this reason that the excruciating saga of Newtown, Conn., has shaken the nation in a second way that is distinct from, yet of course related to, the actual death of so many young children.

Twenty-six lives ending so violently, so horrifyingly, is of course disruptive enough. But this event also disrupted the fundamental notion of what American community is. "Hurt a school and you hurt us all," The Chicago Tribune editorialized this week.

Americans have long had an unspoken social compact that says, hey — we build our lives around our schools because they're the bedrock of a society that makes sense. Without the sense of a strong school system — and, by extension, a safe school system — the whole grid buckles. Schools, where you pledge allegiance to the flag and gaze upon portraits of George Washington, have formed on a local level the civic contours of who we are as a nation.

"It's the place where you prepare to achieve the American dream — being president one day, going to outer space as an astronaut," says El Brown, a former teacher and the mother of a kindergartner in Fairfax, Va. "Classrooms are supposed to be where we build our tomorrows."

Schools are the field in which we farm our future. And when someone turfs that field so violently, leaving such chaos behind, it represents even more than the ugly notion of children dying violently. It feels, in some very visceral ways, like an act of war.

In remarks from the president on down during these jumbled days, the message comes through even when it's not said directly: In killing the children of Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza effectively attacked the American nest. He went after not only our young but two other precious commodities — our sense of what we might become, and the stories we tell about who we are.

Easton police officer J. Sollazzo greets a returning student as he is walked into Hawley School in Newtown, Conn., Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. Classes resumed Tuesday for Newtown, schools except those at Sandy Hook, following Friday's mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Buses ferrying students to schools were festooned with large green and white ribbons on the front grills, the colors of Sandy Hook. At Newtown High School, students in sweatshirts and jackets, many wearing headphones, betrayed mixed emotions. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
The Associated Press




 

Not surprising, then, that many people used language like that of Richard Cantlupe, an American history teacher at Westglades Middle School in Parkland, Fla.: He called Newtown "our 9/11 for schoolteachers."

The archetype of the American elementary school representing the idealized best in us is less potent than it used to be — or maybe ever was, "Leave It To Beaver" notwithstanding. At the very least, it's under stress in the way that so many longstanding American institutions are.

Everything from population shifts to wrenching technological change have imbued the idea of "school" with a more elastic meaning. Home schooling numbers are rising and, judging from the conversations since Friday's attack, may well rise even more.

There's the issue of trust, too: In our divided society, schooling is as deeply politicized as anything else. Ask an active member of a teachers' union and a fiscal conservative what public school means in America and you could get entirely different answers. And when we look to our insecurities about national direction and pride, what do we turn to but education metaphors? The "science gap." The "math gap."

But below that surface, the roots of elementary education as an omnibus civic good in American life run very deep, which helps explain why the post-Newtown trauma feels equally so.

"We have our greatest hope. And it lives in the school," says Carolyn Mears, author and editor of an anthology entitled "Reclaiming School in the Aftermath of Trauma." Her son was a sophomore at Columbine High School during the 1999 shootings, and the path she followed after that day led her to her current job as a professor of education at the University of Denver.

In "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory," Jonathan Zimmerman asserts that the romantic imagery of one-room schools is an emblem of America right up "alongside the flag, eagle and Uncle Sam in the American patriotic pantheon." The notion of the elementary school itself, he said this week, still serves the same purpose — these schools contain not only our young but the story of us.

"They've been this force in defining who we are," he says. "They were really the first public building in most American communities. Not just a place where kids went to school but where citizens gathered for public purposes — weddings, funerals, religious worship, voting. There was no other place. The school was our place."

Echoes of that sentiment remain, even though the world today is so, so different. Even as the details and execution of American elementary education divide us, the potent democratic vision of safe, universal public education still unites us.

And when people mourn the fallen young and educators of Newtown — as they did at Columbine, at Virginia Tech, at Jonesboro, at the Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa. — they are mourning, too, another notion: that one more American institution has been, through someone's ugliness, forever sullied.

When Mears talked to people involved in previous school violence about what helped them recover, she found one very common theme: "that essence of community — the future, society, how we relate one to another."

"That sense of location, sense of place, is profound," she says. "And when that is torn away, when we find that we're not living where we thought we lived, that this world is different, that the future is not what we thought it would be? Well, you have to rebuild it all."

We like to call such a feeling a "loss of innocence" — and, in the past five days, the country has spoken of that often. But given the school's place in the national imagination, isn't it more the wounding of an ideal, of a possibility, of the promise of a bright future? And that, to Americans, is painful stuff indeed.