Gov's Handling of Sandusky Case Under Investigation

The newly-elected attorney general of Pennsylvania is going after the state's governor, Tom Corbett, who was attorney general when child sex allegations against Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky were first brought forward.

Kathleen Kane, a Democrat who was sworn in as attorney general on Jan. 15, said that she will name a special prosecutor in the coming days to investigate Corbett's handling of the Sandusky case. Corbett is a Republican.

The investigation will look specifically at why it took the attorney general's office three years to bring criminal charges against Sandusky while he continued to have access to children.

"Attorney General Kane will appoint a special prosecutor to lead the office's internal investigation into how the Sandusky child abuse investigation was handled by the Office of the Attorney General," Kane's office said in a statement released today.

Corbett's attorney general's office was first notified of the allegations against Sandusky in 2008 when a high school student told his mother and school that Sandusky had molested him. The local district attorney passed the allegation on to the attorney general, then Corbett. Corbett convened a grand jury.

Mario Tama; Patrick Smith/Getty Images

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It wasn't until 2011 that sex abuse charges were filed against Sandusky while Corbett had since become governor. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sex abuse in June 2012.

The charges sent shockwaves throughout Pennsylvania, as Penn State's president, two top officials, and legendary coach Joe Paterno all lost their jobs over the scandal.

"Why did it take 33 months to get Sandusky off the streets? Was the use of a grand jury the right decision? Why were there so few resources dedicated to the investigation? Were the best practices implemented?" the statement from Kane's office read.

"At the end of this investigation, we will know the answers to these questions and be able to tell the people of Pennsylvania the facts and give them answers that they deserve," the statement said.

Describing an interview Kane gave the New York Times, the Times said Kane suggested that Corbett did not want to upset voters or donors in the Penn State community before his gubernatorial run in 2009.

Corbett has denied those suggestions. His office did not immediately return calls for comment.

Kane's office preemptively fought back against the idea that the investigation is politically motivated. Kane, a Democrat, defeated the incumbent attorney general, Linda Kelly, a Republican in November 2011. Corbett is a Republican.

"The speculation that this is about politics is insane," a staff member in Kane's office told ABC News today. "You go anywhere in Pennsylvania and anywhere across the country and you'll find individuals asking, 'why did it take three years? Why was there a grand jury? Why make these kids talk to 30 different people about what happened?"

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VA study finds more veterans committing suicide

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to two-year study by a VA researcher.

The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

As a result, the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has decreased slightly since 1999, even though the total number of veterans who kill themselves has gone up, the study says.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said his agency would continue to strengthen suicide prevention efforts. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,” he said in a statement.

The study follows long-standing criticism that the agency has moved far too slowly even to figure out how many veterans kill themselves. “If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” asked retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist. “This is a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.

An earlier VA estimate of 18 veterans’ suicides a day, which was disclosed during a 2008 lawsuit, has long been cited by lawmakers and the department’s critics as evidence of the agency’s failings. A federal appeals court pointed to it as evidence of the VA’s “unchecked incompetence.” The VA countered that the number, based on old and incomplete data, was not reliable.

To calculate the veterans’ suicide rate, Bossarte and his sole assistant spent more than two years, starting in October 2010, cajoling state governments to turn over death certificates for the more than 400,000 Americans who have killed themselves since 1999. Forty-two states have provided data or agreed to do so; the study is based on information from 21 that has been assembled into a database.

Bossarte said that men in their 50s — a group that includes a large percentage of the veteran population— have been especially hard-hit by the national increase in suicide. The veterans’ suicide rate is about three times the overall national rate, but about the same percentage of male veterans in their 50s kill themselves as do non-veteran men of that age, according to the VA data.

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MediaCorp's Toggle service available on multiple devices

SINGAPORE: MediaCorp's personal entertainment service, Toggle, is now available on multiple devices to offer an uninterrupted and engaging viewing experience.

Its over-the-top service offers entertainment, information and news to viewers online, on smartphones, tablets and smart TV.

Users can subscribe to their favourite channels and movies.

They can also register - at no cost - to watch free local content which MediaCorp has rights to, such as programmes from the free-to-air channels in the form of Catch-up, as well as the linear streaming of Channel NewsAsia.

For its Catch-Up service, viewers can subscribe to Toggle-It-First to watch the next five episodes of their Channel 8 dramas before they are shown on TV.

Toggle viewers can choose to buy content on an a la carte basis, without having to subscribe to a basic bundle of programmes beforehand.

They can access content via any internet service provider.

Viewers can now enjoy 21 days of free preview when they register before 17 February.

Viewers can visit www.toggle.sg or download the app on their iPhone or iPad from the App Store.

Toggle will soon be made available on smart TV and Android devices.

For information on subscription plans, log on to www.toggle.sg or call 6388-3888.

By mid-2013, Toggle plans to offer local content to Singaporeans overseas.

Mr Philip Koh, managing director of MediaCorp's Convergent Media Division, said: "Toggle offers this experience by allowing you to choose the content you want, plus where and how you want to consume it.

"It is that personal. This means Toggle's content goes where you go, allowing you to switch from watching on your PC to your mobile phone when you leave home. And with the wide range of content offered from different channels and movies to original productions, viewers will have a lot to keep them toggling."

- CNA/ir

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Cold conditions abate in Punjab, Haryana

CHANDIGARH: Minimum temperatures today rose by up to two notches above normal in Punjab and Haryana where dense fog disrupted normal life.

Chandigarh saw a low of 8.5 deg C, up by two notches above normal, the Met office said today.

Among other places in Punjab, Amritsar saw a minimum of 6 degrees Celsius while Ludhiana and Patiala recorded a minimum of 7 degrees C each.

In Haryana, Ambala, Karnal and Bhiwani saw a low of 8.4 deg C, 7 deg C and 8 deg C respectively. Hisar experienced cold at 5.4 deg C, two degrees below normal while Narnaul had a low of 7 deg C, up by two degrees above normal.

Fog disrupted normal life in Amritsar, Karnal, Ludhiana, Ambala and Patiala.

Met has forecast light rain at isolated places in Punjab and Haryana.

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Sinkhole Swallows Buildings in China

Photograph from AFP/Getty Images

The sinkhole that formed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (pictured) is, unfortunately, not a new occurrence for the country.

Many areas of the world are susceptible to these sudden formations, including the U.S. Florida is especially prone, but Guatemala, Mexico, and the area surrounding the Dead Sea in the Middle East are also known for their impressive sinkholes. (See pictures of a sinkhole in Beijing that swallowed a truck.)

Published January 31, 2013

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Arias' Lawyer Shows Ex-Boyfriend's Lewd Photos

Accused murderer Jodi Arias was kept away from the Mormon friends of her lover Travis Alexander and their torrid sex affair was kept secret by Alexander, even as he sent lewd photos of himself to her online, according to court testimony today.

The testimony in Arias' trial for killing Alexander in 2008 was intended to bolster the defense's argument that she killed him in self defense, that Alexander was a sexual deviant who treated Arias as his "dirty little secret."

Arias' attorneys introduced as evidence photos that Alexander took of his penis and sent to Arias, part of a string of graphic messages and sexual phone calls the two engaged in while Alexander, an elder in the Mormon church, was supposed to be chaste.

Today's witness was the latest in a string called by the defense, including Alexander's former girlfriend Lisa Daidone, who told the court that Alexander had professed to be a virgin.

Daniel Freeman continued his testimony today, describing how he was a friend of both Arias and Alexander but that Alexander kept Arias distanced from his Mormon pals.

"Travis had made more friends at (the Mormon) ward, and had (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fight nights at his house many times, and Jodi was in town, but she wasn't there," Freeman said.

"There was that group of friends, them and Jodi, two different groups, and so Lisa [Daidone] and friends from church were there, but Jodi wasn't there," Freeman said.

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Alexander's behavior, the defense hopes to prove, shows that he mistreated Arias.

Arias, 32, is on trial for murdering Alexander, whom she dated for a year and continued to have a sexual relationship for a year after that. Her attorneys claim that Alexander was abusive and controlling toward Arias, and that she was forced to kill him.

Freeman described how he took a trip with his sister, Alexander, and Arias, and how Alexander had asked him to come along so that he and Arias "would not get physical."

"I don't know that I can say he didn't want to be alone with her, but he liked that when I was there, and my sister was there. They weren't as physical," Freeman said.

Freeman admitted that he had no idea Alexander and Arias had been having a sexual relationship the entire time they were together. He said Alexander never mentioned that to his friends.

In fact, Freeman noted that Alexander was considered to be a church elder when he baptized Arias into the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Both a church elder and a convert were expected to abide by the church's strict law of chastity, which banned any sexual relations outside of marriage.

"One thing people give up in this baptism process was sex," prosecutor Juan Martinez said. "Did you know she was having oral sex with Mr. Alexander at the time of her baptism? Would that be an insincere baptism?"

"She would not be ready to be baptized in that case," Freeman said.

"You were asked about Miss Arias, whether she was worthy of baptism if she was performing oral sex, but what about the elder receiving oral sex?" defense attorney Kirk Nurmi said.

"They would not be worthy of performing that ordinance at that time until they had gone through repentance," Freeman said. "They would go to a discipline council and could face excommunication or a probation period or have their priesthood removed."

Freeman said that Alexander never confessed to having a sexual relationship with Arias.

Freeman's testimony came on the third day of the defense's attempt to paint Alexander as a controlling, sex-obsessed liar who was cruel to Arias. Other witnesses have said that Alexander cheated on other women he dated with Arias, and lied to his friends and family about their relationship.

The defense also had Freeman point out that Alexander was strong and fit. They are expected to conclude that Alexander was physically threatening Arias when she killed him.

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Manufacturing business sentiments expected to remain weak: EDB

SINGAPORE: Business sentiments in Singapore's manufacturing sector are expected to remain weak in the first half of this year, as slow global economic growth continues.

According to the latest survey by the Economic Development Board, a net weighted balance of 10 per cent of manufacturers anticipate a less favourable business situation in the period January to June this year, compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.

Within the manufacturing sector, EDB said the biomedical cluster is the most optimistic, with a net weighted balance of 7 per cent of firms anticipating better business prospects in the months ahead. Part of this optimism stems from the pharmaceutical segment which is foreseeing higher demand from overseas.

In the general manufacturing industries cluster, a net weighted balance of just one per cent of businesses project an improved performance in the first half of the year. This is due mainly to the food, beverages and tobacco segment, which is anticipating stronger demand due to seasonal factors such as the Lunar New Year.

On the other hand, the electronics cluster is the least upbeat about business prospects in the next two quarters. A net weighted balance of 28 per cent of electronics firms expect weak demand conditions to persist amid slow economic growth in Europe and US.

The precision engineering segment is also projecting a less favourable outlook on the back of weak equipment spending and low demand for precision components.

Meanwhile, business outlook for the chemical cluster is also weak. This is largely due to the petroleum segment, which is expecting refining margins to come under pressure with increased capacity from new plants overseas.

EDB said a net weighted balance of 10 per cent of manufacturers expect output to decline in the first quarter this year.

It added that employment prospects in the manufacturing sector in the first quarter of 2013 are likely to remain similar to the fourth quarter of 2012.

In particular, the transport engineering and general manufacturing industries clusters are most optimistic about employment opportunities between January and March 2013.

A weighted 45 per cent of the manufacturers said there are no limiting factors which could affect their ability to obtain direct export orders in the first quarter.

The weighted 48 per cent of firms that indicated export constraints cited price competition from overseas competitors, and economic and political conditions abroad as the most important limiting factors.

- CNA/al

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Vishwaroopam row: Want to wait before going to Supreme Court, Kamal Haasan says

CHENNAI: Actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan said Thursday that he doesn't want to move the Supreme Court as of now because he hopes for a positive outcome for his movie "Vishwaroopam".

"I still have hope things may be settled with Tamil Nadu government. For now, I may wait before moving to Supreme Court," said Kamal.

On Jan 30, a Madras HC bench chaired by Justice Dharma Rao re-imposed the ban on the film and nullified the revocation of an earlier ban on the film by Justice K. Venkataraman on Jan 29.

The final hearing on the case is due February 6.

The Rs 95 crore espionage thriller was originally scheduled to release in Tamil and Telugu on Jan 25, but a day before the screenings, the Tamil Nadu government imposed a two-week ban on the film after some Muslim groups complained that some scenes in the film portrayed the community in a bad light.

Kamal on Wednesday also agreed to cut a few scenes that were pointed out as controversial to him by his Muslim brothers.

"My Muslim brothers have pointed out few scenes in my film which I'm ready to cut in order to settle the matter between us amicably," said Kamal.

Kamal, 58, described the ban as "cultural terrorism" and added: "Any neutral and patriotic Muslim will surely feel pride on seeing my film. It was designed for that purpose."

"Vishwaroopam" was also initially banned in places such as Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Malayasia.

Written, produced and directed by Kamal, "Vishwaroopam" features him in the title role. Other members of the cast include Pooja Kumar, Andrea Jeremiah, Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur and Jaideep Ahlawat. Its Hindi version "Vishwaroop" is slated to release Friday.

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New Theory on How Homing Pigeons Find Home

Jane J. Lee

Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have been prized for their navigational abilities for thousands of years. They've served as messengers during war, as a means of long-distance communication, and as prized athletes in international races.

But there are places around the world that seem to confuse these birds—areas where they repeatedly vanish in the wrong direction or scatter on random headings rather than fly straight home, said Jon Hagstrum, a geophysicist who authored a study that may help researchers understand how homing pigeons navigate.

Hagstrum's paper, published online Wednesday in the Journal of Experimental Biology, proposes an intriguing theory for homing pigeon disorientation—that the birds are following ultralow frequency sounds back towards their lofts and that disruptions in their ability to "hear" home is what screws them up.

Called infrasound, these sound waves propagate at frequencies well below the range audible to people, but pigeons can pick them up, said Hagstrum, who works at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.

"They're using sound to image the terrain [surrounding] their loft," he said. "It's like us visually recognizing our house using our eyes."

Homeward Bound?

For years, scientists have struggled to explain carrier pigeons' directional challenges in certain areas, known as release-site biases.

This "map" issue, or a pigeon's ability to tell where it is in relation to where it wants to go, is different from the bird's compass system, which tells it which direction it's headed in. (Learn about how other animals navigate.)

"We know a lot about pigeon compass systems, but what has been controversial, even to this day, has been their map [system]," said Cordula Mora, an animal behavior researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who was not involved in the study.

Until now, the two main theories say that pigeons rely either on their sense of smell to find their way home or that they follow the Earth's magnetic field lines, she said.

If something screwed up their sense of smell or their ability to follow those fields, the thinking has been, that could explain why pigeons got lost in certain areas.

But neither explanation made sense to Hagstrum, a geologist who grew interested in pigeons after attending an undergraduate lecture by Cornell biologist William Keeton. Keeton, who studied homing pigeons' navigation abilities, described some release-site biases in his pigeons and Hagstrum was hooked.

"I was just stunned and amazed and fascinated," said Hagstrum. "I understand we don't get dark matter or quantum mechanics, but bird [navigation]?"

So Hagstrum decided to look at Keeton's pigeon release data from three sites in upstate New York. At Castor Hill and Jersey Hill, the birds would repeatedly fly in the wrong direction or head off randomly when trying to return to their loft at Cornell University, even though they had no problems at other locations. At a third site near the town of Weedsport, young pigeons would head off in a different direction from older birds.

There were also certain days when the Cornell pigeons could find their way back home from these areas without any problems.

At the same time, homing pigeons from other lofts released at Castor Hill, Jersey Hill, and near Weedsport, would fly home just fine.

Sound Shadows

Hagstrum knew that homing pigeons could hear sounds as low as 0.05 hertz, low enough to pick up infrasounds that were down around 0.1 or 0.2 hertz. So he decided to map out what these low-frequency sound waves would have looked like on an average day, and on the days when the pigeons could home correctly from Jersey Hill.

He found that due to atmospheric conditions and local terrain, Jersey Hill normally sits in a sound shadow in relation to the Cornell loft. Little to none of the infrasounds from the area around the loft reached Jersey Hill except on one day when changing wind patterns and temperature inversions permitted.

That happened to match a day when the Cornell pigeons had no problem returning home.

"I could see how the topography was affecting the sound and how the weather was affecting the sound [transmission]," Hagstrum said. "It started to explain all these mysteries."

The terrain between the loft and Jersey Hill, combined with normal atmospheric conditions, bounced infrasounds up and over these areas.

Some infrasound would still reach Castor Hill, but due to nearby hills and valleys, the sound waves approached from the west and southwest, even though the Cornell loft is situated south-southwest of Castor Hill.

Records show that younger, inexperienced pigeons released at Castor Hill would sometimes fly west while older birds headed southwest, presumably following infrasounds from their loft.

Hagstrum's model found that infrasound normally arrived at the Weedsport site from the south. But one day of abnormal weather conditions, combined with a local river valley, resulted in infrasound that arrived at Weedsport from the Cornell loft from the southeast.

Multiple Maps

"What [Hagstrum] has found for those areas are a possible explanation for the [pigeon] behavior at these sites," said Bowling Green State's Mora. But she cautions against extrapolating these results to all homing pigeons.

Some of Mora's work supports the theory that homing pigeons use magnetic field lines to find their way home.

What homing pigeons are using as their map probably depends on where they're raised, she said. "In some places it may be infrasound, and in other places [a sense of smell] may be the way to go."

Hagstrum's next steps are to figure out how large an area the pigeons are listening to. He's also talking to the Navy and Air Force, who are interested in his work. "Right now we use GPS to navigate," he said. But if those satellites were compromised, "we'd be out of luck." Pigeons navigate from point to point without any problems, he said.

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No Device Eliminates Concussion Risk, Experts Say

As the long-term consequences of concussions become clearer, a cottage industry has popped up to sell athletes and worried parents products designed to mitigate risks of concussions that even helmets cannot prevent.

Despite the bold claims of some companies, however, many experts say the Holy Grail in contact sports -- a device that prevents concussions -- simply does not exist. Indeed, experts say, there is no proof that any current device significantly reduces the risk of concussions beyond the protections already provided by helmets.

"Nightline" found several products for sale online that aim to reduce the risk of concussions or even alert parents and coaches when a kid has supposedly taken a concussion-level hit. The claims the manufacturers make are often breathtakingly reassuring.

Concern about the risk of concussion is mounting at every level of the gridiron from the NFL to colleges and even high schools. Concussions are the most common injury among high school football players.

Jennifer Branin, whose son Tyler Branin is one of the stars of the Woodbridge Warriors high school football team in Irvine, Calif., said "it was scary" the first time he had a concussion.

"He had lost his balance on the field," she said. "He got up and tried to continue, but couldn't keep his balance."

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She said the effects of the concussion lingered, causing Tyler to miss a week of school and football practice. Even months later, he complained of difficulty concentrating in class.

Parents such as Jennifer Branin, who is president of the team's booster club, and her husband, Andy Branin, a former college football player himself, were looking for a way to support their son's desire to play football while also keeping him safe.

"He wants to play and, as a mom, you may want to put bubble-wrap around them and protect them forever, but that's not going to happen," she said.

So Jennifer Branin decided to do something. She raised money to buy the team helmet inserts by Unequal Technologies for added protection.

Unequal Technologies, one of the highest profile players in this new market, described its product explicitly on the box as "Concussion Reduction Technology," or "CRT." It is a strip of composite material including bullet-proof Kevlar that is designed to stick inside the helmet as a liner to the existing helmet pads.

Unequal Technologies uses its material in products ranging from padded sleeves to shin guards. The company counts NFL players and X-Games athletes among its fans.

On board as paid spokesmen are Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick and James Harrison, a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Harrison is one of the hardest-hitting guys in the NFL and said he uses Unequal Technology's liners in his helmet.

"I don't know what it's made of but it works," Harrison says in one of Unequal's promotional videos. "I really don't feel like I'm taking a risk."

Vick wasn't wearing the CRT product when he suffered a season-ending concussion in November, but he has since promised that he will be wearing it when he returns to the field next season.

Rob Vito, founder and CEO of the Kennett Square, Pa.-based company, said he worked with scientists to create a military-grade composite material that can help protect athletes from all kinds of injuries from head to toe.

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