Student shot at Calif. high school by classmate

Updated at 5:48 p.m. ET

TAFT, Calif. A 16-year-old student armed with a shotgun walked into class in a rural California high school on Thursday and shot one student, fired at another but missed, and then was talked into surrendering by a teacher and another staff member, officials said.

The teen victim was in critical but stable condition, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a press conference. The sheriff said the teacher suffered a minor pellet wound to the head but declined treatment.

The gunman had as many as 20 rounds of ammunition in his pocket, the sheriff said.

When the shots were fired, the teacher tried to get the more than two dozen students out a back door and also engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, Youngblood said. A campus supervisor responding to a call of shots fired also began talking to the gunman.

"They talked him into putting that shotgun down. He in fact told the teacher, `I don't want to shoot you,' and named the person that he wanted to shoot," Youngblood said.

"The heroics of these two people goes without saying. ... They could have just as easily ... tried to get out of the classroom and left students and they didn't," the sheriff said. "They knew not to let him leave the classroom with that shotgun."

The shooter didn't show up for first period then interrupted the class of 28 students.

Investigators had not yet had a chance to interview the student and so had no immediate word on a motive or whether the attacker had a previous disciplinary record. Nor did they know where he got the shotgun.

The wounded student was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield. Officials said a female student was hospitalized with possible hearing damage because the shotgun was fired close to her ear, and another girl received minor injuries during the scramble to flee when she fell over a table.

Officials said there's usually an armed officer on campus but the person wasn't there because he was snowed in. Taft police officers arrived within 60 seconds of first reports.

The shooting happened on the second floor of the school's science building around 9 a.m., according to CBS affiliate KBAK in Bakersfield.

As word spread, Dayna Hopper rushed to the school to pick up her son Joseph Sorensen, 16, and daughter, Cheryle Pryor, 15, who had called from Cheryle's cellphone.

"I panicked. I wanted to puke and just get here," Dayna Hopper told The Bakersfield Californian.

KERO-TV Bakersfield reported that the station received phone calls from people inside the school who hid in closets.

The bell had just rung at a nearby school when teachers began shouting for students to get inside buildings, and the principal used an intercom to tell students to stay inside, Felicity Reich, 13, a student at Lincoln Junior High School, told the newspaper.

Shaken, she held the hand of her mother, Ellie Reich, as she spoke.

About 900 students are enrolled at the high school, which includes 9th through 12th grades. Authorities went room by room through the school and expected to spend the day checking backpacks to make sure no other weapons were on campus.

Masses of parents headed to the school football field to find their children, and officials at other schools took action to protect their students as well, the newspaper said.

Wilhelmina Reum, whose daughter Alexis Singleton is a fourth-grader at a nearby elementary school, got word of the attack while she was about 35 miles away in Bakersfield and immediately sped back to Taft.

"I just kept thinking this can't be happening in my little town," she told The Associated Press.

"I was afraid I was going to get hurt," Alexis said. "I just wanted my mom to get here so I could go home."

The Taft shooting came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then killed himself.

That shooting prompted President Barack Obama to promise new efforts to curb gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden, who was placed in charge of the initiative, said he would deliver new policy proposals to the president by next week.

At the state Capitol, Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said the thoughts and prayers of legislators were with the people at the Taft school.

"It really is just another very sad moment as we deal with the ongoing reality of gun violence that has captured so much of our attention this last year," Perez said.

Read More..

Jodi Arias: 'No Jury Will Convict Me' for Murder

The jury in the Jodi Arias murder trial watched a television interview today in which Arias said "no jury will convict me" for killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

Arias added that she could never imagine committing such a violent act as killing Alexander.

"I understand all the evidence is really compelling," she said in the interview. "In a nutshell, two people came in and killed Travis. I've never even shot a gun. That's heinous. I can't imagine slitting anyone's throat."

She went on to tell the interviewer, "No jury will convict me and you can mark my words on that. ... I am innocent."

Arias made the statements to the television show "Inside Edition" after she was indicted for murdering Alexander. Months later, she would confess to killing him in his Mesa, Ariz., home and say it was in self-defense.

Jodi Arias Trial: Watch Live

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Full Coverage

Photos of Key Players and Evidence in the Jodi Arias Murder Trial

The tape was played on the fifth day of testimony in Arias' trial, in which police allege that she carried out the murder with such brutal force that she stabbed Alexander 27 times, slashed his throat from ear to ear, and shot him in the head.

Arias, now 32, has claimed Alexander was a controlling and abusive "sexual deviant" who she was forced to kill in self-defense.

She could face the death penalty if convicted of Alexander's murder.

Jodi Arias Trial: Jurors See Photos of Bloody Handprint Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Who Is the Alleged Killer? Watch Video

Jodi Arias Trial: Defense Claims Victim Was Sex Deviant Watch Video

The defense petitioned the court to declare a mistrial at the end of testimony today, but the request was denied by Judge Sherry Stephens. Arias' attorneys claimed that testimony presented by Det. Esteban Flores about whether Arias shot Alexander first or at the end of the attack was different from his earlier testimony and, therefore, affected whether Arias was "especially cruel" during the killing -- but Stephens denied that it had any effect.

The jury also watched as dozens of photos of blood-spattered walls, flooring, stained carpets and blood smeared sink were explained in detail by a forensic analyst from the Mesa Police Department, who noted that on many of the stains water had been mixed with the blood and diluted it.

The prosecution has alleged that Arias tried to wash away the evidence of the killing with water.

Prosecutors spent much of today and Wednesday using Arias' recorded statements and other testimony to prove that she lied about her relationship with Alexander, where she was when Alexander was killed, and even where she worked as a bartender.

The testimony today suggested that Arias lied to her new boyfriend Ryan Burns about working at a bar called Margaritaville in her hometown of Yreka, Calif.

"Is there any restaurant in Yreka called Margaritaville? Has there ever been?" prosecutor Juan Martinez asked Nathaniel Mendes, a former detective with the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office in California.

"No, sir," Mendes replied.

Mendes testified that Arias worked at a restaurant called Casa Ramos in Yreka, not a bar called Margaritaville, as she told Burns.

Mendes also went over receipts showing that Arias rented a car the day before she killed Alexander, and noted that she went to a rental outfit 90 miles from her hometown despite two businesses that rented cars in Yreka.

Arias told friends and investigators that she rented a car to go on a road trip to visit Burns, in West Jordan, Utah, on June 3, 2008. She showed up at Burns' house a day late with cuts on her hands, but told Burns that she got lost driving and that the cuts were from broken glass at her Margaritaville bartending job, according to Burns' testimony Wednesday.

The trail of receipts showed that Arias drove from California to Alexander's hometown of Mesa, Ariz., on Tuesday, June 4, 2008.

There, the pair had sex and took sexually graphic photos of one another, according to photographs and the opening statement of Arias' lawyer. Shortly after the tryst, Arias killed Alexander, both sides agree.

Burns testified that Arias never mentioned going to Alexander's house when she arrived at his home in Utah. He said he did not know that Arias and Alexander were still sexually involved, and that she told him they had broken up.

When she arrived at his home 24 hours after killing Alexander, she seemed "normal," he said. The pair kissed and cuddled, and went out with Burns' friends, where she laughed and made conversation.

Prosecutors have played recorded phone conversations between detectives and Arias in the weeks after Alexander's body was found. She could be heard apparently lying multiple times to investigators as they asked about the last time she spoke with Alexander and her trip to Utah.

Read More..

Hints of new dark force seen in galactic smash-ups

Colliding clusters of galaxies may hold clues to a mysterious dark force at work in the universe. This force would act only on invisible dark matter, the enigmatic stuff that makes up 86 per cent of the mass in the universe.

Dark matter famously refuses to interact with ordinary matter except via gravity, so theorists had assumed that its particles would be just as aloof with each other. But new observations suggest that dark matter interacts significantly with itself, while leaving regular matter out of the conversation.

"There could be a whole class of dark particles that don't interact with normal matter but do interact with themselves," says James Bullock of the University of California, Irvine. "Dark matter could be doing all sorts of interesting things, and we'd never know."

Some of the best evidence for dark matter's existence came from the Bullet cluster, a smash-up in which a small galaxy cluster plunged through a larger one about 100 million years ago. Separated by hundreds of light years, the individual galaxies sailed right past each other, and the two clusters parted ways. But intergalactic gas collided and pooled on the trailing ends of each cluster.

Mass maps of the Bullet cluster showed that dark matter stayed in line with the galaxies instead of pooling with the gas, proving that it can separate from ordinary matter. This also hinted that dark matter wasn't interacting with itself, and was affected by gravity alone.

Musket shot

Last year William Dawson of the University of California, Davis and colleagues found an older set of clusters seen about 700 million years after their collision. Nicknamed the Musket Ball cluster, this smash-up told a different tale. When Dawson's team analysed the concentration of matter in the Musket Ball, they found that galaxies are separated from dark matter by about 19,000 light years.

"The galaxies outrun the dark matter. That's what creates the offset," Dawson said. "This is fitting that picture of self-interacting dark matter." If dark matter particles do interact, perhaps via a dark force, they would slow down like the gas.

This new picture could solve some outstanding mysteries in cosmology, Dawson said this week during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California. Non-interacting dark matter should sink to the cores of star clusters and dwarf galaxies, but observations show that it is more evenly distributed. If it interacts with itself, it could puff up and spread outward like a gas.

So why doesn't the Bullet cluster show the same separation between dark matter and galaxies? Dawson thinks it's a question of age – dark matter in the younger Bullet simply hasn't had time to separate.

New window

The idea complements a previous study that saw evidence for dark forces at work in the Bullet cluster. In 2007 Glennys Farrar of New York University and colleagues said that the smaller cluster was moving too fast for gravity alone to be responsible. They suggested that some mysterious force related to dark matter might be hurrying it along.

Still, two clusters is not a lot to go on. Dawson, Bullock and colleagues are following up with about 20 more galactic collisions to see if they show any unusual behaviours. "I really think that we're almost to the point where we have enough observational data in hand," Dawson said. "We could close the book on self-interacting dark matter."

If the new force does exist, we might soon be able to see its effects on things influenced by dark matter, such as the behavior of black holes or the masses of the first stars, says Douglas Finkbeiner of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was not involved in the new study.

"The simple thing isn't always the right thing, so I really appreciate that Will is trying to look into these other possibilities," he says.

Louis Strigari of Stanford University in California agrees. "Self-interacting dark matter is worth pursuing because we're still very ignorant," he said. "We're desperate to understand what dark matter is, so any new window is welcome."

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Read More..

China's 2012 trade surplus surges 48%

BEIJING: China's trade surplus surged 48.1 percent to $231.1 billion in 2012 from the previous year, though total trade volume grew at a much slower pace, official data showed on Thursday.

Exports from the world's second-largest economy rose 7.9 percent to $2.05 trillion, while imports increased 4.3 percent to $1.82 trillion, the national customs bureau said.

China's trade volume, or the total of exports and imports, grew 6.2 percent in 2012, well below the government's target of about 10 percent.

Customs spokesman Zheng Yuesheng said 2012's performance came "despite a sharply slowing world economic recovery, weak international market demand and rather big downside pressure on the domestic economy".

Zheng told reporters: "China's foreign trade continued to grow steadily and made further progress in improving quality, increasing profits and optimising structure."

- AFP/al

Read More..

Latino should have played lead in 'Argo'

Ben Affleck plays the lead role of Tony Mendez in "Argo," which he also directed.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Oscar nominations on Thursday, and Ben Affleck expected to get one for "Argo"


• Affleck plays real-life Latino who helped diplomats escape in Iran hostage crisis


• Ruben Navarrette: Affleck should have used a Latino actor to play role


• He says it cheats actor out of a job, and the Latino community out of a hero's story

San Diego, California (CNN) -- The upcoming Oscars are no stranger to causes or controversy. And this year, there is a strong dose of both surrounding the film "Argo" -- and its star and director, Ben Affleck.

This controversy bubbled up when the buzz started that Affleck could get an Academy Award nomination for best director when the announcements are made Thursday.

"Argo" tells how an ingenious and daring CIA agent helped orchestrate the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980. In November 1979, about 300 Islamic students stormed the U.S. Embassy and 66 Americans were taken hostage. But six U.S. diplomats escaped and were hidden at the Canadian Embassy by the Canadian ambassador and his wife.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.

The CIA agent -- Antonio "Tony" Mendez, played by Affleck -- successfully led the mission to evacuate the Americans, which involved Mendez and his associates posing as a Canadian film crew that was eager to make a movie in Iran.

The real Tony Mendez was awarded the Intelligence Star for Valor, and other honors, for leading the rescue. He later wrote a memoir, detailing the events in Tehran.

"Argo" is loosely based on Mendez's book. Better make that, very loosely based. As movie critics and others have pointed out since the movie opened a few months ago, the filmmakers took lots of dramatic license with the story. Mendez's role is played up, while that of the Canadians who helped hide and protect the Americans is played down. Some scenes depicted in the film never happened. Some characters are composites of several real people.

In other words, it's what you would expect from a Hollywood feature film based on a historical event. It's not a documentary. It's meant to be taken with a grain of salt, and to be entertaining.

Still, there are some Latinos -- in and out of Hollywood -- who think that, in this case, the filmmakers, and especially Affleck, pushed the concept of creativity too far. They say Affleck missed an opportunity to put more Latinos on screen. Moreover, they say, Affleck improperly claimed, for himself, the choice role of Mendez when he should have cast a Latino actor instead. They insist that the director didn't just cheat a Latino out of an acting job but the Latino community out of a feel-good story about one of their own who won acclaim for a heroic deed.

The critics are right, and their cause is just. Affleck should have tried to cast a Latino to play Mendez. That's common sense, and it would have made "Argo" a better movie. Affleck also didn't do himself any favors by trying to dismiss the criticism with a glib remark that essentially said that it really doesn't matter that the actor playing Mendez isn't Latino since Mendez himself isn't, shall we say, overtly Latino.

At a recent forum intended to publicize the film, Affleck responded to a question from the audience about the controversy by noting that "Tony does not have, I don't know what you would say, a Latin/Spanish accent" and that "You wouldn't necessarily select him out of a line of 10 people and go 'This guy's Latino.' "

Ouch. At least Affleck didn't slip and say "line up."

"So I didn't feel as though I was violating something," he said, "where, here's this guy who's clearly ethnic in some way and it's sort of being whitewashed by Ben Affleck the actor."

Johnny Depp set a better example. Several months ago, Depp turned down the role of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa in another film. He said that the role should go to a Latino. I praised Depp at the time for showing that, besides being a great actor, he is also a person of character.

The exclusion of Latinos from Hollywood is an old story. This is still a black and white world, where Latinos rarely get cast in the leading role. We're the gardeners and housekeepers, the gang leader and drug dealers, the nannies and farm workers. That's it. There has been some progress, of course. But not enough -- not when you have a Latina in the Supreme Court, three Latinos in the U.S. Senate, and Latinos heading Fortune 500 companies.

I could blame the environment of Southern California, in which most Hollywood writers, producers and directors live and spend most of their time. When they get up in the morning and drive to work, most Latinos they encounter are subservient. We clean their homes, cook their breakfast, trim their hedges, park their cars and otherwise help them get through the day.

Still, you can push this argument too far, and wind up going down a dangerous path -- one that ultimately sets back the greater cause of trying to get television networks and film studios to create a broader range of meatier roles for Latino actors and actresses.

After all, it's a short walk from saying that a director should have cast a Latino to play a Latino to arguing that only Latinos can play Latinos. And, if that's the argument, then on what moral high ground do Latinos stand to also push -- as we should -- for Latino actors and actresses to be considered for generic and mainstream roles that could have gone to white actors? We can't have it both ways.

Even if Latinos succeed in making their point about this one director and this one movie, it could backfire. We could win this battle, and still lose the war.

But before Latinos can be fully integrated into America and not considered outsiders, we have to take every opportunity to push for inclusion and fairness. And acknowledging that Latinos have the skills to play themselves is a good start.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette.

Read More..

Hilda Solis stepping down as labor secretary

Hilda Solis announced that she is stepping down from her post as labor secretary, CBS News has confirmed. She sent a letter to President Obama today notifying him of her retirement.

Solis was nominated to the position the same day the president was inaugurated in 2009, serving through the president's entire first term. She ran the Labor Department during the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. The department, which calculates unemployment statistics, came under criticism during the presidential campaign for a steep drop in the jobless numbers from above 8 percent to below 8 percent right before Election Day.

President Obama called her "a critical member" of his economic team who has helped put "millions" of people back to work. "Hilda Solis has been a tireless champion for working families," the president wrote in a statement.

Before her current position, she was a member of Congress, representing California since 2001 but left that job to be the first Hispanic woman to run the agency.

The president must now name a replacement that must go through the Senate confirmation process. CBS News learned today that the president intends to nominate his chief of staff, Jack Lew, to run the Treasury Department.

Solis joins Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, CIA Director David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in stepping down from their cabinet-level posts.

A White House official says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and Attorney General Eric Holder plan to remain in their positions.

Read More..

White House Won't Rule Out $1 Trillion Coin

(United States Mint/Wikimedia Commons)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today flatly ruled out any negotiations with Congress over raising the debt ceiling, but there’s one odd-ball solution he would not rule out:  minting trillion dollars coins to pay off the debt.

“There is no Plan B. There is no backup plan. There is Congress’s responsibility to pay the bills of the United States,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters at the daily White House briefing.

READ: $1-Trillion Coins: The Ultimate Debt Ceiling End-Around?

Asked if the administration would rule out minting trillion dollars coins if Congress fails to act, Carney deflected saying “you could speculate about a lot of things.”

“Nothing needs to come to these kinds of… speculative notions about how to deal with a problem that is easily resolved by Congress doing its job, very simply,” he added.

Pressed further on why they won’t offer a clear yes-or-no answer to the question, Carney referred questions to the Treasury Department.

“I answered it thoroughly,” he later joked. “And I have no coins in my pocket.”

Some have suggested the President could invoke the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution – which states, “the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned” – and ignore the debt ceiling altogether.  On that question, Carney has offered a straight answer:  the 14 Amendment does not apply to the debt ceiling.

“We just don’t believe that it provides the authority that some believe it does,” Carney said.

The trillion-dollar-coin idea has been floated by, among others, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

Here’s our full Q and A:

KARL: I heard you unequivocally rule out using the 14th Amendment on the debt ceiling. I heard you unequivocally rule out negotiating with Congress. But you did not rule out this trillion-dollar coin idea. So can I ask you just a yes-or-no question? Does the White House rule out the idea of minting trillion-dollar coins as a way of dealing with the debt ceiling?

CARNEY: I would refer you to Treasury for the specifics of this question. I can tell you that the president does not believe that there is a backup plan or a plan B or an off-ramp. The only viable option here is Congress to fulfill its — that Congress fulfills its responsibility and ensures that the United States of America pays its bills, as it has always paid its bills throughout its history.

KARL: But why have we ruled out the 14th Amendment and not ruled out the trillion-dollar coin idea?

CARNEY: Again, I can tell you that there are no back-up plans. There are no plan B’s. I’d refer you to the Treasury.

–

KARL: Jay, the speaker of the House has made it perfectly clear that he is willing to increase the debt ceiling, but the principle is for every dollar the debt ceiling is increased, a dollar of spending must be cut. Given that you’re saying that the White House will not negotiate on raising the debt ceiling, are you willing to accept that principle from the speaker, a dollar in cuts for every dollar increase?

MR. CARNEY: I think the president’s been very clear that his absolute principle is that we need to reduce our deficit in a balanced way that does not shift all the burden, through cuts exclusively, on senior citizens, on families who have disabled children, on families who are trying to send their kids to school. That’s just unacceptable.

You know, one of the things we learned in the process that we just went through late in — late last year is that when it comes to specificity, we never saw any specificity from Republicans in terms of how exactly they would achieve the kind of sweeping cuts that they say they want and out of whose — you know, from whom would they demand that payment.

And what the president has been very clear about is he will not negotiate on Congress’ responsibility to pay its bills. He will negotiate and is willing to compromise, as he has demonstrated repeatedly, when it comes to moving forward in a balanced way to reduce our deficit. We have to deal with the sequester. We have to deal with a variety of budgetary and economic and fiscal challenges.

But he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. And the threat itself is a problem, as we saw in the summer of 2011. The binary choice that Republicans seem to want to present to the American public is either we gut Medicare and Social Security or we tank the global economy. I’m not a communications director for the speaker of the House or the Senate minority leader, but I would think selling that would be very hard.

KARL: But help me understand how this works. You say you will not negotiate on this issue. They’ve put out a principle, so they produce something — and they say they will — that cuts a dollar for every dollar increase. And you’re saying you won’t negotiate on that?

MR. CARNEY: Have you seen that?

KARL: Well, this is what they say they are going to go forward.

MR. CARNEY: Well, I mean, you know –

KARL: So either –

MR. CARNEY: — words are not actions, and there has been, at — to this date, very little specificity, you know, since we — since the Ryan plan, which itself was lacking in specifics. And if their — if their position is we’re going to voucherize Medicare or tank the global economy, they should say so. That is unacceptable to the American people. It’s certainly unacceptable to the president.

Look, here’s the thing. Congress has the authority to authorize money, right, not the president. Congress racked up these bills. Congress has to pay these bills. We are very interested in a discussion and negotiation about getting our fiscal house in order. This president has already signed into law over $2 trillion in deficit reduction. He is eager to do more in a balanced way.

But it is not appropriate to — in this president’s view — to say that if I don’t get what I want, I’m not going to raise the debt limit. That is basically saying, I will abandon the history of the United States maintaining the full faith and credit of its currency and its — and its treasury by refusing to pay bills because I didn’t get what I want politically.

And that’s just not acceptable to the president.

KARL:  I’m not sure I understand how that works — you’re not going to negotiate at all? –

MR. CARNEY: We’re not going to negotiate. Congress has a — if Congress wants to give the president the responsibility to raise the debt ceiling, he would take it, as we saw when — in 2010 or — I forget, there have been so many of these confrontations — in — when — in 2011 when the so-called McConnell plan was adopted, you know. But they assigned themselves this responsibility. They need to be — the fact that they, you know, assigned it to them is something that they have to deal with. They assigned it to themselves, they need to act, and they need to, without drama or delay, raise the debt ceiling. We still have — there is plenty of opportunity outside of threatening the full faith and credit of the United States to debate fundamental differences over our economic and fiscal policy proposals, but it is not wise to do that around raising the debt ceiling, not wise to do it around the simple principle that we, the United States of America, pay our debts.

Read More..

Pruney fingers give us better grip underwater

WHY do our fingers do prune impressions when soaked? It could be an adaptation that gives us better grip underwater.

Fingers and toes wrinkle in water after about 5 minutes due to the constriction of blood vessels. This reduction in volume pulls the skin inward, but as the skin's surface area cannot change, it wrinkles. A study in 2011 showed that wrinkles form a pattern of channels that divert water away from the fingertip – akin to rain treads on tyres. The team thought that this could aid grip.

To find out, Tom Smulders and his team at Newcastle University, UK, timed people as they transferred wet or dry objects from one box to another with and without wrinkled fingers.

With wrinkles, wet objects were transferred about 12 per cent faster than with unwrinkled fingers. The time it took to transfer dry objects was the same regardless of wrinkles.

So why aren't our digits always prune-like? "With wrinkles, less of your skin surface touches the object, so there may be issues of sensitivity," Smulders suggests.

Journal reference: Royal Society Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0999.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Read More..

Relatives sob as US massacre 911 calls heard in court

CENTENNIAL, Colorado: Relatives wept in court Tuesday as frantic 911 calls were played from a US theater shooting that killed 12 people last year, as prosecutors closed their case for the alleged gunman to face trial.

The court heard how suspected killer James Holmes purchased more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition in the months before last July's shooting in Colorado, and rigged up elaborate booby-traps at his apartment.

Defense lawyers will call witnesses Wednesday, the third day of hearings, to decide if there is enough evidence for Holmes to go on trial. They are expected to highlight his mental instability as a possible reason he should not do so.

In the first of 41 harrowing emergency calls made in a 10-minute period in Colorado, 30 loud booms could be heard in less than half-a-minute, making it difficult for the 911 dispatcher to distinguish what was being said.

In another, six minutes after the first call was logged at 12:38 am, 14-year-old Kaylan Bailey told the emergency operator her two cousins had been shot, and that one of them did not appear to be breathing.

"We need to start CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) on your cousin who's not breathing," said the operator.

"I can't hear you," responded Bailey, as chaos unfolded in the theater in Aurora, where Holmes -- clad in body armor and a mask -- threw at least one smoke-bomb type device before opening fire in the early hours of July 20.

The hearings opened Monday with officers choking back tears as they recalled scenes after the slaughter, which left 12 dead and 58 injured by gunshots at a packed midnight screening of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises."

The Aurora massacre revived the perennial US debate over gun control -- an issue re-ignited even more intensely by last month's shooting of 20 young children at a Connecticut elementary school.

Tuesday's hearing heard testimony from federal firearms supervisor Steven Beggs that Holmes made at least 16 purchases from May to July 2012 including four firearms, incendiary devices and almost 6,300 rounds of ammunition.

Holmes's lawyers could argue that he is mentally unfit to stand trial.

Defense attorney Tamara Brady asked Beggs: "Is there any process in Colorado to screen out purchases by a severely mentally ill person?"

"No," replied Beggs, who detailed the purchases made online and in person by Holmes.

FBI bomb technician Garrett Gumbinner said Holmes told investigators after being arrested that he had booby-trapped his apartment, in an attempt to draw emergency responders away from the theater shooting site.

Officers found a trip wire at the door of his home, rigged to set off flame and sparks that would catch the gasoline-soaked carpet and go on fire.

There were six-inch fireworks shells filled with improvised thermite, a hot-burning explosive.

"You can't put it out with water," Gumbinner told judge William Sylvester. There were also three containers of improvised napalm, 11 bottles of gasoline and other chemicals intended to act as fire accelerants, he said.

There were three systems in the apartment intended to initiate the explosive devices, including one linked to a trash bag near the apartment dumpster by a remote control.

Curious behavior by Holmes during police questioning was also recounted: At one point he tried to stick a metal staple into a power socket. At another he played hand puppets with gloves that had been put on him to preserve evidence.

Prosecutors are trying to build up their case that the shootings were a premeditated act of mass murder, and identifying Holmes as the lone shooter.

Supporting that strategy, Aurora police officer Tom Welton testified that Holmes made postings on two dating websites earlier in July, asking "Will you visit me in prison?"

Prosecutors wrapped up their evidence in the hearing by listing all the victims by name, the injuries they suffered and the charges -- more than 160 in all -- filed on behalf of each.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

Opinion: Time for tough talk with Karzai

The last time Presidents Obama and Karzai met was in May in Kabul, when they signed a pact regarding U.S. troop withdrawal.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Afghan President Karzai meeting with President Obama in Washington this week


• Felbab-Brown: Afghan politics are corrupt; army not ready for 2014 troop pullout


• She says Taliban, insurgents, splintered army, corrupt officials are all jockeying for power


• U.S. needs to commit to helping Afghan security, she says, and insist corruption be wiped out

Editor's note: Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. Her latest book is "Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan."

(CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai is meeting this week with President Obama in Washington amid increasing ambivalence in the United States about what to do about the war in Afghanistan.

Americans are tired of the war. Too much blood and treasure has been spent. The White House is grappling with troop numbers for 2013 and with the nature and scope of any U.S. mission after 2014. With the persisting corruption and poor governance of the Afghan government and Karzai's fear that the United States is preparing to abandon him, the relationship between Kabul and Washington has steadily deteriorated.

As the United States radically reduces its mission in Afghanistan, it will leave behind a stalled and perilous security situation and a likely severe economic downturn. Many Afghans expect a collapse into civil war, and few see their political system as legitimate.

Karzai and Obama face thorny issues such as the stalled negotiations with the Taliban. Recently, Kabul has persuaded Pakistan to release some Taliban prisoners to jump-start the negotiations, relegating the United States to the back seat. Much to the displeasure of the International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan government also plans to release several hundred Taliban-linked prisoners, although any real momentum in the negotiations is yet to take place.

Vanda Felbab-Brown

Washington needs to be careful that negotiations are structured in a way that enhances Afghanistan's stability and is not merely a fig leaf for U.S. and NATO troop departure. Countering terrorism will be an important U.S. interest after 2014. The Taliban may have soured on al Qaeda, but fully breaking with the terror group is not in the Taliban's best interest. If negotiations give the insurgents de facto control of parts of the country, the Taliban will at best play it both ways: with the jihadists and with the United States.

Negotiations of a status-of-forces agreement after 2014 will also be on the table between Karzai and Obama. Immunity of U.S. soldiers from Afghan prosecution and control over detainees previously have been major sticking points, and any Afghan release of Taliban-linked prisoners will complicate that discussion.

Karzai has seemed determined to secure commitments from Washington to deliver military enablers until Afghan support forces have built up. The Afghan National Security Forces have improved but cannot function without international enablers -- in areas such as air support, medevac, intelligence and logistical assets and maintenance -- for several years to come. But Washington has signaled that it is contemplating very small troop levels after 2014, as low as 3,000. CNN reports that withdrawing all troops might even be considered.

Everyone is hedging their bets in light of the transition uncertainties and the real possibility of a major security meltdown after 2014. Afghan army commanders are leaking intelligence and weapons to insurgents; Afghan families are sending one son to join the army, one to the Taliban and one to the local warlord's militia.

Patronage networks pervade the Afghan forces, and a crucial question is whether they can avoid splintering along ethnic and patronage lines after 2014. If security forces do fall apart, the chances of Taliban control of large portions of the country and a civil war are much greater. Obama can use the summit to announce concrete measures -- such as providing enablers -- to demonstrate U.S. commitment to heading off a security meltdown. The United States and international security forces also need to strongly focus on countering the rifts within the Afghan army.

Assisting the Afghan army after 2014 is important. But even with better security, it is doubtful that Afghanistan can be stable without improvements in its government.

Afghanistan's political system is preoccupied with the 2014 elections. Corruption, serious crime, land theft and other usurpation of resources, nepotism, a lack of rule of law and exclusionary patronage networks afflict governance. Afghans crave accountability and justice and resent the current mafia-like rule. Whether the 2014 elections will usher in better leaders or trigger violent conflict is another huge question mark.

Emphasizing good governance, not sacrificing it to short-term military expediencies by embracing thuggish government officials, is as important as leaving Afghanistan in a measured and unrushed way -- one that doesn't jeopardize the fledgling institutional and security capacity that the country has managed to build up.

Karzai has been deaf and blind to the reality that reducing corruption, improving governance and allowing for a more pluralistic political system are essential for Afghanistan's stability. His visit provides an opportunity to deliver the message again -- and strongly.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Vanda Felbab-Brown.

Read More..