| New Sandy Hook school opens after Newtown attack Jan 4th 2013, 01:55  NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Classes resumed on Thursday for the more than 400 surviving students of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, 20 days after a massacre at the school that killed 20 first graders and six adults last month, plunging a rural New England town and the nation into grief. Across Newtown's sprawling Sandy Hook neighborhood, home to the school where the December 14 attack took place, children ranging from kindergartners to fourth graders boarded buses for the seven-mile journey to their new school. ...
|  | Elvis play generates controversy at Utah high school Jan 4th 2013, 01:31 SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - Elvis Presley, whose gyrating hips caused an uproar in the 1950s, has become the center of a controversy at a Utah high school where a parent complaint prompted officials to revise a musical featuring the music of the late "king of rock 'n' roll." The Jordan School District in a Salt Lake City suburb said on Thursday the reworked production of "All Shook Up" at Herriman High School allowed it to avoid canceling the show, as it had announced on Wednesday it was doing. ... | | Nearly half of 280 New York pets displaced by Sandy left behind Jan 4th 2013, 01:13 NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York City shelter housing 280 pets displaced by Superstorm Sandy must shut down and, with nearly half the animals still unclaimed, cannot rule out euthanizing any left behind. An uncertain future lies ahead for 52 cats and 84 dogs who remain in the Brooklyn emergency boarding facility run by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, spokeswoman Kelly Krause said on Thursday. They are among 280 pets sheltered since November, after the New York City area was devastated by the late October storm. ... | | Former lawmaker Giffords to visit Newtown on Friday Jan 4th 2013, 01:05 (Reuters) - Former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a mass shooting in her Arizona district two years ago, plans to visit Newtown, Connecticut, the site of last month's deadly elementary school massacre, the Connecticut lieutenant governor's office said Thursday. Giffords plans to attend a private event at a local home on Friday, Steven Jensen, spokesman for Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, said in an email. The event will have no media access and Giffords' plans are still developing and may change. ... | | Chicago couple eagerly awaits Illinois gay marriage vote Jan 4th 2013, 00:46  CHICAGO (Reuters) - Theresa Volpe and Mercedes Santos' 8-year-old daughter, Ava, has learned about the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in school. So her school friends understand when she tells them her two moms are fighting for their civil rights to marry -- it's just hard to explain it to grown-ups sometimes, Volpe and Santos say. "This is really for our kids," said Volpe, who along with Santos are plaintiffs in a lawsuit demanding same sex marriage in Illinois. "It's important for them to be treated fairly. We're just as much a family as any other family. ...
| | $400 million raised by charities working on Sandy relief in New York Jan 3rd 2013, 23:58 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Charities working on Superstorm Sandy relief in New York have raised at least $400 million, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said on Thursday. Starting in November, Schneiderman contacted 90 charities that helped after the late October devastation, asking them to complete a survey detailing the amount they raised and how it was being spent. As of Thursday, 88 had obliged and their responses were posted on a website run by the attorney general, www.CharitiesNYS.com. Schneiderman said the charities' information had not been checked for accuracy. ... | | Chicago couple eagerly awaits Illinois gay marriage vote Jan 3rd 2013, 23:47  CHICAGO (Reuters) - Theresa Volpe and Mercedes Santos' 8-year-old daughter, Ava, has learned about the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in school. So her school friends understand when she tells them her two moms are fighting for their civil rights to marry -- it's just hard to explain it to grown-ups sometimes, Volpe and Santos say. "This is really for our kids," said Volpe, who along with Santos are plaintiffs in a lawsuit demanding same sex marriage in Illinois. "It's important for them to be treated fairly. We're just as much a family as any other family. ...
| | Homicides in troubled Detroit up 9 percent in 2012: officials Jan 3rd 2013, 23:45  (Reuters) - The bad news continues for the financially troubled city of Detroit, where the number of homicides jumped 9 percent last year, according to data released on Thursday. Detroit's total of 411 homicides, up from 377 the previous year, includes 386 criminal homicides and 25 "justifiable homicides" that included 3 shootings by police, according to numbers released by the city. The number of criminal homicides was up from 344 in 2011 - an increase of 12 percent. The total in 2010 was 308. ...
| | Fracking can be done safely in New York state: dept report Jan 3rd 2013, 23:42  (Reuters) - The natural gas drilling process known as fracking would not be a danger to public health in New York state so long as proper safeguards were put into place, according to a health department report that environmentalists fear could help lift a moratorium on the controversial technique. Governor Andrew Cuomo is weighing the economic benefits of hydraulic fracturing - commonly known as fracking - against the environmental risks from a technology that could unlock a vast domestic energy supply but also one that environmentalists say pollutes groundwater and the air. ...
| | Mississippi man pleads guilty to hate crimes following attacks Jan 3rd 2013, 23:39 JACKSON, Miss (Reuters) - A Mississippi man pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal hate crime charges in connection with attacks on African-Americans that ended with a black man dead after being run over by a truck, federal officials said. Joseph Dominick, 21, was the sixth person to plead guilty to hate crimes charges for being part of a group of white males who routinely assaulted blacks in the Jackson area starting in the spring of 2011, attacking victims with motor vehicles, beer bottles and sling shots. ... | | Bill to legalize gay marriage in Rhode Island is introduced Jan 3rd 2013, 23:28 (Reuters) - Rhode Island lawmakers introduced a measure on Thursday that would make the state the 10th in the nation and the last in New England to legalize same-sex marriage. Sponsors of the proposal tried to move through similar legislation in 2011, but met with opposition and were forced to change the bill to allow civil unions only. Representative Gordon Fox, an openly gay co-sponsor of the bill, said after being elected House speaker this week that he intended to bring the marriage issue to the House floor before the end of January. "It is time," Fox, a Democrat, said in a statement. ... | |
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