Newtown mulls what to do with school

Newtown mulls what to do with school

newtown, conn.

Talk about Sandy Hook Elementary School is turning from last month’s massacre to the future, with differing opinions on whether students and staff should ever return to the building where a gunman killed 20 children and six educators.

Some Newtown residents say the school should be demolished and a memorial built on the property in honor of those killed Dec. 14. Others believe the school should be renovated and the areas where the killings occurred removed.

Those appear to be the two prevailing proposals as the community begins discussing the school’s fate. A public meeting on the building’s future drew about 200 people to Newtown High School on Sunday afternoon, with another meeting set for Friday.

Thousands march to protest adoption ban

moscow

Thousands of people marched through Moscow on Sunday to protest Russia’s new law banning Americans from adopting Russian children, a far bigger number than expected in a sign that outrage over the ban has breathed some life into the dispirited anti-Kremlin opposition movement.

Shouting “shame on the scum,” protesters carried posters of President Vladimir Putin and members of Russia’s parliament who overwhelmingly voted for the law last month. Up to 20,000 took part in the demonstration.

Opponents of the adoption ban argue it victimizes children to make a political point. Eager to take advantage of this anger, the anti-Kremlin opposition has played the ban as further evidence that Putin and his parliament have lost the moral right to rule Russia.

French planes bomb rebel targets in Mali

bamako, mali

French fighter jets bombed rebel targets in a major city in Mali’s north Sunday, pounding the airport as well as training camps, warehouses and buildings used by the al-Qaida-linked Islamists controlling the area, officials and residents said.

The three-day-old French-led effort to take back Mali’s north from the extremists began with airstrikes by combat helicopters in the small town of Konna. It has grown to a coordinated attack by state-of-the-art fighter jets which have bombarded at least five towns, of which Gao, which was attacked Sunday afternoon, is the largest.

6 arrested in new rape of bus rider in India

new delhi

Police said Sunday they have arrested six suspects in another gang rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws.

Police officer Raj Jeet Singh said a 29-year-old woman was the only passenger on a bus as she was traveling to her village in Punjab state Friday night. The driver refused to stop at her village despite her repeated pleas and drove her to a desolate location, he said. There, the driver and the conductor took her to a building where they were joined by five friends and took turns raping her throughout the night, Singh said. The driver dropped the woman off at her village early Saturday, he said.

Singh said police arrested six suspects Saturday and were searching for another.

Possible HIV exposure

buffalo, n.y.

The Veterans Administration has told western New York members of Congress that more than 700 patients at the Buffalo VA Medical Center may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C because of accidental reuse of insulin pens, according to a published report.

Authorities told The Buffalo News, which first published the report on its website Friday, there is a “very small risk” for the diabetic patients who may have been exposed to the reused insulin pens between Oct. 19, 2010, and November 2012.

Associated Press