4 Dead After Aurora, Colo., SWAT Standoff

Four people were killed, including the gunman, during a hostage standoff this morning at a townhouse in Aurora, Colo., police said.

Police pumped tear gas into the home in an attempt to get the gunman to leave, and then went into the home and shot him, ABC News Denver affiliate KMGH-TV reported.

The three people found dead in the home are believed to be relatives of the shooter, Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson told KMGH. A fourth person was found unharmed, she said.

Officers responded to the home after the first reports of gunshots came in around 3 a.m.

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The suspected gunman was found dead inside the townhome at 9 a.m., but police were not sure when he had been shot by officers or killed himself, she said.

"We're just getting in there with our crime scene detectives, so obviously we'll have to determine if it was our rounds or his rounds," Carlson said. "This is a big investigation, and a lot is entailed."

Carlson said neighboring residences were evacuated while the SWAT team attempted to resolve the standoff.

"We've evacuated several residences in the neighboring townhomes and in the immediate area where we believed would be the most dangerous," Carlson told KMGH-TV earlier today.

The Colorado town was the site of a movie theater massacre last July. A gunman opened fire during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.

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Abbas sees Palestinian unity as Fatah rallies in Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big Palestinian factions as his Fatah movement staged its first mass rally in Gaza with the blessing of Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave.

"Soon we will regain our unity," Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the 2007 civil war between the two factions, said in a televised address to hundreds of thousands of followers marching in Gaza on Friday, with yellow Fatah flags instead of the green of Hamas.

The hardline Hamas movement, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, expelled secular Fatah from Gaza during the war. It gave permission for the rally after the deadlock in peace talks between Abbas's administration and Israel narrowed the two factions' ideological differences.

The Palestinian rivals have drawn closer since Israel's assault on Gaza assault in November, in which Hamas, though battered, claimed victory.

Egypt has long tried to broker Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, but past efforts have foundered over questions of power-sharing, control of weaponry, and to what extent Israel and other powers would accept a Palestinian administration including Hamas.

An Egyptian official told Reuters Cairo was preparing to invite the factions for new negotiations within two weeks.

Israel fears grassroots support for Hamas could eventually topple Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.

"Hamas could seize control of the PA any day," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

The demonstration marked 48 years since Fatah's founding as the spearhead of the Palestinians' fight against Israel. Its longtime leader Yasser Arafat signed an interim 1993 peace accord that won Palestinians a measure of self rule.

Hamas, which rejected the 1993 deal, fought and won a Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006. It formed an uneasy coalition with Fatah until their violent split a year later.

Though shunned by the West, Hamas feels bolstered by electoral gains for Islamist movements in neighboring Egypt and elsewhere in the region - a confidence reflected in the fact Friday's Fatah demonstration was allowed to take place.

"The success of the rally is a success for Fatah, and for Hamas too," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "The positive atmosphere is a step on the way to regain national unity."

Fatah, meanwhile, has been riven by dissent about the credibility of Abbas's statesmanship, especially given Israel's continued settlement-building on West Bank land. The Israelis quit Gaza unilaterally in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.

"The message today is that Fatah cannot be wiped out," said Amal Hamad, a member of the group's ruling body, referring to the demonstration attended by several Abbas advisers. "Fatah lives, no one can exclude it and it seeks to end the division."

In his speech, Abbas promised to return to Gaza soon and said Palestinian unification would be "a step on the way to ending the (Israeli) occupation".

(Editing by Dan Williams, Alistair Lyon and Jason Webb)

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Oil prices mixed; WTI up on US crude supply drop

NEW YORK: Oil prices were mixed Friday, with the New York WTI higher on data showing crude supplies unexpectedly shrank sharply in the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer.

New York's main West Texas Intermediate contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, rose 17 cents from Thursday to close at US$93.09 a barrel.

In London trade, Brent North Sea crude for February settled at US$111.31 a barrel, down 83 cents.

The New York market found support after the US Department of Energy's weekly petroleum inventories statement, said Bill Baruch of iiTrader.com.

"The crude inventories was a big draw; however the gasoline was a big build," Baruch said.

Crude supplies dived by 11.1 million barrels in the week ended December 28, much more than the 1.0 million consensus estimate of analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires.

Still, US crude supplies were 9.2 per cent higher than their year-ago level.

Gasoline supplies rose by a stronger-than-expected 2.6 million barrels, and distillates, which include diesel and heating oil, climbed by 4.6 million barrels.

Investors also digested an in-line US jobs report for December that showed job growth remained too slow to significantly reduce unemployment.

The jobless rate was unchanged at 7.8 per cent and a modest 155,000 were added last month, according to the US Labor Department.

Earlier, WTI and Brent prices were sharply lower after minutes of the December US Federal Reserve policy meeting, released Thursday, showed central bank officials were divided over the duration of asset purchases, signalling they could end as early as this year.

"Prices were... driven down following the move by the US Federal Reserve to signal a possible end to fiscal stimulus this year, which has raised concern that the economic recovery may falter," said Inenco energy analyst Gary Hornby.

- AFP/jc

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Aruna Roy objects to direct cash transfer

NEW DELHI: National Advisory Council (NAC) member and MKSS leader Aruna Roy on Friday shot off a scathing letter to the finance ministry objecting to "talk" of subsidy cuts for the poor while funding programmes like Aadhar that have no legislative backing. She also suggested that pre-budget consultations for business and social sector should be held jointly in a more democratic fashion.

Expressing "shock" at subsidy cuts Roy, who did not attend Friday's meeting with the finance ministry, said, " In a country that has fuelled its economic growth through exploitation of common property resources and the labour of the poor, to not have a tax to GDP ratio that is substantially higher only makes it clear that for India's unorganized sector the candle is burning on both ends. Enough has already been said about the undiminished tax subsidies to the corporate sector, which will I am sure will be meeting you with increased demands."

Suggesting that the business and social sector be met with jointly rather than "pigeon-holed" Roy said that banking heavily on cash transfers through the Aadhar scheme was a "huge mistake". "The government is making a huge mistake in pushing Aadhaar and making it mandatory, without ensuring its viability. Glaring mismatches have already begun at the grass root level and the system being imposed is undemocratic and injudicious. Any further investment without proper and complete examination will undoubtedly lead to confirmed disaster," she added.

Stressing that NREGS, food security bill and old age pension required the priority of the government, Roy said that the government was "steam rolling" opposition. "Yours was a government that empowered people to monitor government through the right to information act. Instead of showing the political will to act on demands for accountability, this government is proceeding on the assumption that technology will be the "game changer." It is not that we oppose technology or even blindly oppose the use of technology for monitoring of welfare programmes. Many of us feel that it is not been adequately discussed, or rationally evaluated; instead all opposition and even questions are being steam rolled."

She added that she was "extremely distressed" the food security bill has been pushed into cold storage and the contrary path of cash transfers is being relentlessly pursued.

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FDA proposes sweeping new food safety rules

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens.

The long-overdue regulations are aimed at reducing the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.

The FDA's proposed rules would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.

Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.

In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.'s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.

Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress on those safety efforts and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.

"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.

The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost 2 million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply — meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect. Smaller farms would have even longer to comply.

The new rules, which come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress, were already delayed. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.

The produce rule would mark the first time the FDA has had real authority to regulate food on farms. In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are usually eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.

Such flexibility, along with the growing realization that outbreaks are bad for business, has brought the produce industry and much of the rest of the food industry on board as Congress and FDA has worked to make food safer.

In a statement Friday, Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's biggest food companies, said the food safety law "can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal."

The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.

Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.

"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

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Pharmacy Blames Cleaners in Meningitis Outbreak

Jan 4, 2013 11:41am

Credit: Minnesota Department of Health/AP Photo

The pharmacy at the heart of the fungal meningitis outbreak says a cleaning company it hired should share the blame for the tainted steroid injections that caused more than 600 illnesses in 19 states, killing 39 people.

Click here to read about the road to recovery for fungal meningitis victims.

The New England Compounding Pharmacy, which made the fungus-tainted drugs, sent a letter to UniFirst Corp., which provided once-a month cleaning services to the Framingham, Mass., lab, “demanding” it indemnify NECC for the meningitis outbreak, according to a UniFirst filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Based on its preliminary review of this matter, the company believes that NECC’s claims are without merit,” UniFirst wrote in its quarterly filing.

The New England Compounding Center recalled 17,000 vials of tainted steroid injections on Sept. 26 before recalling all drugs and shutting down on Oct. 6.

The Food and Drug Administration investigated NECC’s lab and found that a quarter of the steroid injections in one bin contained “greenish black foreign matter,” according to the report.  The FDA also identified several cleanrooms that had bacterial or mold overgrowths.

UniFirst’s UniClean business cleaned portions of the NECC cleanrooms to NECC’s specifications and using NECC’s cleansing solutions, UniFirst spokesman Adam Soreoff said in a statement. It provided two technicians once a month for about an hour and a half.

“UniClean was not in any way responsible for NECC’s day-to-day operations, its overall facility cleanliness, or the integrity of the products they produced,” Soreoff said. “Therefore, based on what we know, we believe any NECC claims against UniFirst or UniClean are unfounded and without merit. ”

Click here for our fungal meningitis outbreak timeline, “Anatomy of an Outbreak.”

NECC was not immediately available for comment.

The House of Representatives subpoenaed Barry Cadden, who owns NECC,  to a hearing in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 14. He declined to testify when members of Congress pressed him on his role in ensuring that the drugs his company produced were safe and sterile.

“On advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer on the basis of my constitutional rights and privileges including the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States,” he said at the hearing.

Members of Congress also questioned whether the FDA could have prevented the outbreak.

Compounding pharmacies, which are intended to tailor drugs to individuals with a single prescription from a single doctor, are typically overseen by state pharmacy boards rather than the FDA because they are so small. However, in 2006, the FDA issued a warning letter to NECC, accusing it of mass-producing a topical anesthetic cream, and jeopardizing another drug’s sterility by repackaging it.

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Syria rebels in push to capture air base

AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - Rebels battled on Thursday to seize an air base in northern Syria, part of a campaign to fight back against the air power that has given President Bashar al-Assad's forces free rein to bomb rebel-held towns.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the 21-month-old uprising and civil war, the United Nations said this week, sharply raising the death toll estimate in a conflict that shows no sign of ending.

After dramatic advances over the second half of 2012, the rebels now hold wide swathes of territory in the north and east, but are limited in exerting control because they cannot protect towns and villages from Assad's helicopters and jets.

Hundreds of fighters from rebel groups were attempting to storm the Taftanaz air base, near the northern highway that links Syria's two main cities, Aleppo and the capital Damascus.

Rebels have been besieging air bases across the north in recent weeks, in the hope this will reduce the government's power to carry out air strikes and resupply loyalist-held areas.

A rebel fighter speaking from near the Taftanaz base overnight said the base's main sections were still in loyalist hands but insurgents had managed to infiltrate and destroy a helicopter and a fighter jet on the ground.

The northern rebel Idlib Coordination Committee said the rebels had detonated a car bomb inside the base.

The government's SANA news agency said the base had not fallen and that the military had "strongly confronted an attempt by the terrorists to attack the airport from several axes, inflicting heavy losses among them and destroying their weapons and munitions".

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the opposition-aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict from Britain, said as many as 800 fighters were involved in the assault, including Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful group that Washington considers terrorists.

Taftanaz is mainly a helicopter base, used for missions to resupply army positions in the north, many of which are cut off by road because of rebel gains, as well as for dropping crude "barrel bombs" of explosives on rebel-controlled areas.

"WHAT IS THE FAULT OF THE CHILDREN?"

Near Minakh, another northern air base that rebels have surrounded, government forces have retaliated by regularly shelling and bombing nearby towns.

In the town of Azaz, where the bombardment has become a near nightly occurrence, shells hit a family house overnight. Zeinab Hammadi said her two wounded daughters, aged 10 and 12, had been rushed across the border to Turkey, one with her brain exposed.

"We were sleeping and it just landed on us in the blink of an eye," she said, weeping as she surveyed the damage.

Family members tried to salvage possessions from the wreckage, men lifting out furniture and children carrying out their belongings in tubs.

"He (Assad) wants revenge against the people," said Abu Hassan, 33, working at a garage near the destroyed house. "What is the fault of the children? Are they the ones fighting?"

Opposition activists said warplanes struck a residential building in another rebel-held northern town, Hayyan, killing at least eight civilians.

Video footage showed men carrying dismembered bodies of children and dozens of people searching for victims in the rubble of the destroyed building, shouting "God is greatest". The provenance of the video could not be independently confirmed.

In addition to their tenuous grip on the north, the rebels also hold a crescent of suburbs on the edge of Damascus, which have come under bombardment by government forces that control the center of the capital.

On Wednesday, according to opposition activists, dozens of people were incinerated in an inferno caused by an air strike on a petrol station in a Damascus suburb where residents were lining up for precious fuel.

The civil war in Syria has become the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts that rose out of uprisings across the Arab world in the past two years.

Assad's family has ruled for 42 years since his father seized power in a coup. The war pits rebels, mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, against a government supported by members of Assad's Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect and some members of other minorities who fear revenge if he falls.

The West, most Sunni-ruled Arab states and Turkey have called for Assad to leave power. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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Fiat says to boost stake in Chrysler to 65.17%

ROME: Italian auto giant Fiat on Thursday said it was exercising its option to increase by 3.3 percentage points its stake in US automaker Chrysler to 65.17 per cent for US$198 million.

Fiat said the value of the purchase from a trust run by the US auto union UAW to pay health care benefits for Chrysler retirees was its estimate, which still had to be determined by a US court.

In July, the Italian company said it was exercising its option to purchase another 3.3-percent tranche from the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) trust.

"Following the consummation of both purchases, Fiat will hold 65.17 per cent of the outstanding equity in Chrysler," the company said in a statement.

Fiat took over operational command of the ailing US automaker in June 2009, when Chrysler emerged from a government-supported bankruptcy following a collapse in sales amid the financial crisis.

In June 2011, Fiat took a majority stake of the company and Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne is now also chief executive of the Chrysler Group, though the two groups still operate independently.

Marchionne does not foresee a full merger before 2015.

- AFP/jc

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Gulf flight cites low fuel, lands in Mumbai

NEW DELHI: Is jet fuel becoming so expensive that airlines are no longer able to afford tanking up their aircraft with the required amount for a journey? An aircraft that recently took off from Hyderabad for an over three-hour flight to the Gulf found itself running low on fuel barely after reaching Mumbai—less than a third of the total distance it was supposed to travel nonstop. It then made an unscheduled refuelling stop there.

This unprecedented situation was witnessed on Thursday, December 27, with Oman Air's flight WY232 that was winging its way from Hyderabad to Muscat and was supposed to reach there in three hours and thirty five minutes. But it ended up taking a refuelling stop in Mumbai—which is about 45 minutes flying time from Hyderabad!

Top ATC officials, who say the Oman Air aircraft had flown about 180km out of Mumbai and was over the Arabian Sea when it decided to land at the megacity, are baffled at what they term is possibly the first of its kind fuel emergency ever reported in India. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is examining this incident because of its serious implications.

According to global norms, aircraft are supposed to carry fuel to meet these requirements: make it from origin to destination; divert from destination to an alternate airport in case of a problem at the former and hover at both destination and alternate airport for up to 30 minutes.

Oman Air admitted that the pilots of its nonstop Hyderabad-Muscat flight (WY 232) on December 27 had requested to land in Mumbai for refuelling. But it said the pilot did so as the flight's alternate airport Sharjah was not available to it.

"In this case, the destination airport was Muscat, Oman, and alternative airport was Sharjah, UAE. However, whilst following the flight plan on route to Muscat, the captain identified that Sharjah was no longer legal as an alternative airport even though he had adequate fuel for the flight to land at the destination. In line with Oman Air's policies of always operating above safety standards, the captain rightfully decided to divert to Mumbai... it was done to ensure rigorous safety compliance even if the chances of dependence on the additional safety measure were remote," said Usama Karim Al Haremi, Oman Air's head of corporate communications and media.

However, top ATC officials here are sceptical of the explanation given by Oman Air and blame the airline for this mid-air fuel shortage. "If Sharjah was not available as the alternate airport, why did Oman Air file for there in the first place? Airlines can have second alternates also. Most importantly, if the aircraft had fuel to fly till Muscat, it could have gone there and then declared a fuel emergency to land at any of the numerous airports dotting the region. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are not too far either. We suspect some other reason for this fuel shortage," said a top ATC official, seeking an inquiry by the DGCA so that the aviation regulator of Oman could then be contacted with the right reasons.

The official added that either miscalculation in fuel required for the journey and then tanking up the aircraft or a technical snag seem more likely to have caused this situation.

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CDC: 1 in 24 admit nodding off while driving

NEW YORK (AP) — This could give you nightmares: 1 in 24 U.S. adults say they recently fell asleep while driving.

And health officials behind the study think the number is probably higher. That's because some people don't realize it when they nod off for a second or two behind the wheel.

"If I'm on the road, I'd be a little worried about the other drivers," said the study's lead author, Anne Wheaton of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the CDC study released Thursday, about 4 percent of U.S. adults said they nodded off or fell asleep at least once while driving in the previous month. Some earlier studies reached a similar conclusion, but the CDC telephone survey of 147,000 adults was far larger. It was conducted in 19 states and the District of Columbia in 2009 and 2010.

CDC researchers found drowsy driving was more common in men, people ages 25 to 34, those who averaged less than six hours of sleep each night, and — for some unexplained reason — Texans.

Wheaton said it's possible the Texas survey sample included larger numbers of sleep-deprived young adults or apnea-suffering overweight people.

Most of the CDC findings are not surprising to those who study this problem.

"A lot of people are getting insufficient sleep," said Dr. Gregory Belenky, director of Washington State University's Sleep and Performance Research Center in Spokane.

The government estimates that about 3 percent of fatal traffic crashes involve drowsy drivers, but other estimates have put that number as high as 33 percent.

Warning signs of drowsy driving: Feeling very tired, not remembering the last mile or two, or drifting onto rumble strips on the side of the road. That signals a driver should get off the road and rest, Wheaton said.

Even a brief moment nodding off can be extremely dangerous, she noted. At 60 mph, a single second translates to speeding along for 88 feet — the length of two school buses.

To prevent drowsy driving, health officials recommend getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, treating any sleep disorders and not drinking alcohol before getting behind the wheel.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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