Will Obama's order lead to surge in gun research?

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.

That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.

Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.

How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?

Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.

The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."

Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.

"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.

Some unknowns:

—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.

—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.

—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.

—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.

—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.

—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.

"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.

One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."

Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention center, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.

"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury center at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."

Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.

He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."

"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.

Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.

The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.

Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.

Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."

Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.

"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.

What now?

CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."

Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.

Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.

"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.

"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.

___

Online:

Violence prevention research: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp

CDC injury prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nvdrs/

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Woman repeatedly raped inside Nordstrom, police allege

Prosecutors said one of the five people charged in connection with the
take-over robbery at a Nordstrom Rack department store in Westchester raped one of the female hostages.

Prosecutors offered no details. But a district attorney's office spokeswoman said the victim was sexually assaulted "multiple times."

Raymond Sherman Jr., 34, who authorities said was the most violent in the group, was charged with two counts
of forcible rape, one count of
oral copulation, one count of kidnapping for rape, one count of assault
with a
deadly weapon and 14 counts of second-degree robbery.

DOCUMENT: Read the criminal complaint 

Troy Marsay Hammock, 29, and Everett Oneal Allen, 24, face 14 counts
each of second-degree robbery and one count each of assault with a
deadly weapon, identified as a knife, according to the Los Angeles
County district attorney's office.

Rochelle Monique Sherman, 33; and Paula Roneshia Bradley, 29, were charged with one count each of accessory after the fact.

The complaint also alleges Sherman, who is awaiting extradition from Phoenix, where he was
arrested Saturday, used a handgun in the commission of the crimes.

Police have not detailed the roles of the suspects in the
robbery and hostage situation. But those in law enforcement familiar with
the investigation said there is strong evidence linking the crimes to those charged, including physical evidence and security video.

The incident began about 11 p.m. Thursday at the Promenade at Howard
Hughes Center, near the 405 Freeway. Sherman, Hammock and Allen
allegedly confronted the employees as they were leaving the store, which
had just closed.

As the incident was unfolding, one of the employees called her
husband and told him to call 911. The LAPD called a tactical alert and
closed off the area around the shopping center. When the police
department's SWAT officers arrived, they surrounded the store.

At one point, one of the suspected burglars exited, saw the police and ran back inside. A
second suspected burglar walked out with an unidentified woman, saw police and
also headed back inside. The officers entered the store at 3:30 a.m. and
freed the captives.

At least three of the employees were injured, including at least one
woman who was sexually assaulted. Another woman was stabbed in the neck
and sustained non-life-threatening injuries, and a third employee was
pistol-whipped, police said. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck praised the
employees for their bravery and composure.

Beck would not discuss whether the robbers hid in the store or gained
entrance after it closed. Nor would he say how long they remained in the
store before fleeing in a white SUV, or discuss how much cash was taken
in the robbery.

ALSO:

House catches fire during East L.A. SWAT standoff

Galt police mourn officer fatally shot responding to burglary

Talk back: Can clinicians help pedophiles quell their desires?

--Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Police officers stand outside Nordstrom Rack in Westchester following take-over style robbery. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

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China Arrests 7 in New Effort to Stop Tibetan Self-Immolations

BEIJING — The authorities in northwest China have detained seven people they claim organized the fatal self-immolation of a Tibetan villager in October, photographed his burning body and then sent the images abroad.

The arrests, announced Tuesday by Xinhua, the official news agency, suggest that the Chinese government is increasing the use of its newest strategy against the politically motivated suicides in Tibetan areas of China: punishing friends and relatives of those who self-immolate.

The Xinhua report blamed a Tibetan advocacy group in India for convincing the villager, Sangye Gyatso, a 27-year-old father of two, that self-immolation was a “heroic deed” and that it would improve his family’s standing.

A spokesman for the group, the Tibetan Youth Congress, rejected the accusations, calling them “ridiculous.”

With the accumulated toll of self-immolations approaching 100, Beijing has been scrambling to find effective deterrents to such acts, which began in 2009 as a desperate attempt to publicize what many Tibetans consider heavy-handed Chinese policies. In the early months of the crisis, officials sought to demonize self-immolators as terrorists or mentally deranged people. The authorities also locked down the most restive towns and monasteries, preventing monks from leaving or foreign journalists from entering.

Such measures appear to have done little to quell the protests, prompting officials to try new tactics. In Tongren County, in Qinghai Province, the authorities recently issued new regulations that permanently revoke public benefits for the families of self-immolators and cancel government-financed projects in their hometowns. If a monk or nun visits the home of a self-immolator, their monastery is to be shut down as punishment, according to the rules.

In recent weeks, more than a dozen people across the region have been charged with inciting self-immolations or accused of spreading information about the incidents via text message or e-mail. Last month, eight people were detained on accusations of trying to publicize a self-immolation near a government office in Luchu County in Gansu Province. Among those arrested, exile groups say, was a relative of the deceased.

In October, four young Tibetans in Sichuan Province were given sentences ranging from 7 to 11 years; two were convicted of encouraging their friend to self-immolate, and the other two for leaking news of the incident to “outside contacts.”

In the most recent case in Gansu Province, Xinhua said one of the seven detained men, a Buddhist monk named Khyi Gyatso, had joined the Tibetan Youth Congress in Dharamsala, India, after escaping in 2000. But the monk, Xinhua said, stayed in touch with his boyhood friend, Sangye Gyatso, and persuaded him through phone calls and e-mails to “contribute to the cause of Tibetans” by setting himself on fire.

Xinhua said Sangye Gyatso — whom it described as a convicted thief, perennially unemployed and a chronic womanizer — fell under the monk’s sway. He later told three friends about the time and place of his self-immolation so they could take photographs and share them with overseas groups, including representatives of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader regarded by China as a subversive. “Shortly thereafter,” Xinhua said, “the Dalai clique launched a high-profile ‘propaganda’ campaign on the well-orchestrated incident, claiming there was a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in China and calling for the international community to interfere.”

Tenzin Norsang, joint secretary of Tibetan of Youth Congress in Dharamsala, said the group had no connection to Sangye Gyatso’s death, adding that the intense government restrictions and monitoring limited communication between Tibetans in China and abroad.

“Those who are self-immolating have been living under Chinese rule for more than 50 years — they don’t need anyone to tell them what to do,” he said. “Instead of blaming outsiders, the Chinese government could end the self-immolations by re-examining and changing their own repressive policies.”

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RIM says users line up to try new BlackBerry 10 platform

TORONTO (Reuters) – BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is helping customers prepare to switch to its soon-to-be-launched BlackBerry 10 smartphones that it hopes will help it reclaim market share from rivals such as Apple Inc.

RIM is betting that the new range of touch-screen and keyboard devices, set for a January 30 launch, will revive its fortunes.

The company was “very enthused by the engagement and response of our customer base” to a program aimed at persuading them to adopt the BlackBerry 10 devices, Bryan Lee, senior enterprise accounts director, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Indeed, whether it will be successful in clawing back market share will depend on the response from RIM’s top clients, like companies and government agencies, who have long valued the strong security features that BlackBerry devices offer.

Lee said more than 1,600 customers in North America had registered for its recently launched BlackBerry 10 Ready Program and more than a thousand were actively using the program, which offers customers access to services, information and tools to ease their transition to the BlackBerry 10 and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10.

RIM also said its BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10, which runs the new devices on corporate networks, was in beta testing with more than 130 major government agencies and corporations in North America.

SHARES RISE

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, a one-time pioneer in the now ultra-competitive smartphone industry, has bled market share to Apple’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s market-leading Android operating system, even among enterprise clients who once used BlackBerry devices exclusively.

Early adoption of the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 devices by government and corporate clients will help breathe new life into the struggling company, whose shares are down 90 percent from an all-time high of more than $ 148 in 2008.

Still, shares of RIM, which fell as low as $ 6.22 in September, have more than doubled in value over the last four months as the BlackBerry 10 launch approaches.

Lee said clients that were beta testing the new BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10 included more than 60 Fortune 500 companies and top North American government agencies.

RIM promises that its new line of devices will be faster and smoother than existing BlackBerry phones and will boast a large catalog of apps, crucial to the success of any new line of smartphones.

Shares of RIM were up 3.8 percent at $ 15.03 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday, after Visa approved the smartphone company’s method of handling secure mobile payments; the technology will potentially allow users to tap their smartphones on credit card readers and pay for purchases.

RIM’s Toronto-listed shares were up 3.9 percent at C$ 14.83.

(Editing by Janet Guttsman and Bernadette Baum)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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ER visits tied to energy drinks double since 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The young man stumbled into the emergency room late one night after a house party, saying his heart wouldn't stop pounding and he could barely breathe after downing liquor mixed with energy drinks.

Emergency physician Steve Sun soon found the patient was so dehydrated he was going into kidney failure — one of many troubling cases Sun says he has treated in recent years tied to energy drink consumption.

Sun's changing caseload appears in line with a new government survey that suggests the number of people seeking emergency treatment after consuming energy drinks has doubled nationwide during the past four years, the same period in which the supercharged drink industry has surged in popularity in convenience stores, bars and on college campuses.

"Five years ago, perhaps I would see one or two cases every three months or so. Now we're consistently seeing about two cases per month," said Sun, assistant medical director of the emergency department at St. Mary's Medical Center, on the edge of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

From 2007 to 2011, the government estimates the number of emergency room visits involving the neon-labeled beverages shot up from about 10,000 to more than 20,000. Most of the cases involved teens or young adults, according to the survey of the nation's hospitals released late last week by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

More than half of the patients considered in the survey told doctors they had consumed only energy drinks. In 2011, about 42 percent of the cases involved energy drinks in combination with alcohol or drugs, such as the stimulants Adderall or Ritalin.

The beverage industry says energy drinks are safe and there is no proof linking the products to adverse reactions.

The report doesn't specify which symptoms brought people to the emergency room, but it calls energy drink consumption a "rising public health problem" that can cause insomnia, nervousness, headache, fast heartbeat and seizures that are severe enough to require emergency care.

Several emergency physicians said they had seen a clear uptick in the number of patients suffering from irregular heartbeats, anxiety and heart attacks who said they had recently downed an energy drink.

"A lot of people don't realize the strength of these things. I had someone come in recently who had drunk three energy drinks in an hour, which is the equivalent of 15 cups of coffee," said Howard Mell, an emergency physician in the suburbs of Cleveland, who serves as a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. "Essentially he gave himself a stress test and thankfully he passed. But if he had a weak heart or suffered from coronary disease and didn't know it, this could have precipitated very bad things."

The findings came as concerns over energy drinks have intensified following reports last fall of 18 deaths possibly tied to the drinks and so-called energy shots — including a 14-year-old Maryland girl whose family filed a lawsuit after she drank two large cans of Monster Energy drinks and died. Monster says its products were not responsible for the death.

Two senators are calling for the Food and Drug Administration to investigate safety concerns about energy drinks and their ingredients.

Late last year, the FDA asked the U.S. Health and Human Services to update the figures its substance abuse research arm compiles about emergency room visits tied to energy drinks.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's survey was based on responses it receives from about 230 hospitals each year, a representative sample of about 5 percent of emergency departments nationwide. The agency then uses those responses to estimate the number of energy drink-related emergency department visits nationwide.

The more than 20,000 cases estimated for 2011 represent a small portion of the annual 136 million emergency room visits tracked by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The FDA said it was considering the findings and pressing for more details as it undertakes a broad review of the safety of energy drinks and related ingredients this spring.

"We will examine this additional information ... as a part of our ongoing investigation into potential safety issues surrounding the use of energy-drink products," FDA spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said in a statement.

Beverage manufacturers fired back at the survey, saying the statistics were misleading and taken out of context.

"This report does not share information about the overall health of those who may have consumed energy drinks, or what symptoms brought them to the ER in the first place," the American Beverage Association said in a statement. "There is no basis by which to understand the overall caffeine intake of any of these individuals — from all sources."

Energy drinks remain a small part of the carbonated soft drinks market, representing only 3.3 percent of sales volume, according to the industry tracker Beverage Digest. Even as soda consumption has flagged in recent years, energy drinks sales are growing rapidly.

In 2011, sales volume for energy drinks rose by almost 17 percent, with the top three companies — Monster, Red Bull and Rockstar — each logging double-digit gains, Beverage Digest found. The drinks are often marketed at sporting events that are popular among younger people such as surfing and skateboarding.

From 2007 to 2011, the most recent year for which data was available, people from 18 to 25 were the most common age group seeking emergency treatment for energy drink-related reactions, the report found.

"We were really concerned to find that in four years the number of emergency department visits almost doubled, and these drinks are largely marketed to younger people," said Al Woodward, a senior statistical analyst with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration who worked on the report.

___

Follow Garance Burke on Twitter at http://twitter.com/garanceburke

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L.A. councilman seeks ban on large-capacity gun magazines

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian wants the city to explore the feasibility of banning the possession of high-capacity gun magazines, the first step toward instituting stricter city gun and ammunition laws.

Although the California penal code now prohibits the manufacture and sale of magazines that hold more than 10 bullets, Krekorian said in a council motion Tuesday that a ban on the possession of the magazines within city limits could further improve public safety.

"The element missing from the state prohibition on high-capacity magazines is possession," Krekorian said in an interview with The Times

---

FOR THE RECORD:
High-capacity gun magazines: An earlier online version of this article, and its headline, incorrectly stated that Councilman Paul Krekorian has asked the city to consider banning ammunition for high-capacity gun magazines. Krekorian has requested that the city research a ban on the high-capacity magazines themselves, not their ammunition.

---

Although gun rights advocates frequently describe high-capacity magazine bans as "feel-good" steps, Krekorian said prohibiting their possession would give police a way to stop potential mass shooters before a tragedy can take place.

"I'm not interested in doing something that will have no effect," Krekorian said. "I'm interested in doing something that will prevent the kinds of slaughters we experience too often -- whether it's school shootings, shootouts with the police or drive-bys by gangbangers."

Krekorian's motion cited the 1997 North Hollywood shootout -- during which two bank robbers fired thousands of automatic weapon rounds at responding officers -- as well as the recent Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Conn.

The motion asks that the Los Angeles Police Department, the city attorney and the city legislative analyst look into the feasibility, effectiveness and benefits of such a ban.

It marks the first formal request by a council member to look into a potential ban, according to Krekorian's spokesperson.

Second Amendment advocates have widely decried city, state and federal high-capacity magazine bans. Representatives from both the Gun Owners of America and National Rifle Assn. have previously said the bans restrict the ability of law-abiding gun owners from defending themselves.

"If the city of Los Angeles is looking to find new ways to waste taxpayer money, a proposal along the lines of banning the possession of instruments currently legal to own would certainly be one way to do it," said Brandon Combs, executive director of Calguns Foundation, a California-based 2nd Amendment advocacy group.

Although Combs said it's reasonable to consider bans on "true high-capacity magazines" holding more than 30 bullets, bans on 10- to 20-bullet magazines being pushed into law across the country are infringing on the rights of gun owners to protect themselves.

Meanwhile, a ban would do nothing to curb the behavior of criminals, who probably will continue to use high-capacity magazines even where they are illegal, he said.

"These criminals who commit mass shootings are not interested in listening to the Los Angeles City Council," Combs said. "I'd like to see some evidence that suggests a ban on high-capacity magazines has any effect on crime at all."

He noted that other California cities -- including San Francisco and San Jose -- have also pushed new gun and ammunition restrictions in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting.

While other Los Angeles City Council members have supported a national ban on assault weapons and called for city investment funds to sell any stock they might hold in companies that make or sell such guns, the request for this report is the first step toward curbing high-capacity magazine possession at the city level since the mass shooting in Connecticut.

The December shooting in Newtown, which left 27 dead, including 20 children and the gunman, and last week's shooting at Taft Union High School in Kern County have re-energized discussions of gun control measures among Los Angeles politicians.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck bumped up the annual gun buyback program and have increased the police presence in schools. The mayor has also scheduled a news conference Wednesday to further address gun violence.

Meanwhile, all four mayoral hopefuls -- including current council members Jan Perry and Eric Garcetti -- have called for the renewal of the federal assault weapons ban.

Combs said if there was going to be a renewed conversation about gun control, he hopes the politicians who have added gun safety measures to their platforms and stump speeches open the discussion to 2nd Amendment advocates.

"Are these city officials going to invite us to the table? Or is this just going to be them passing restrictive gun laws they've already decided they want to see pass?" Combs said. "Hopefully, our elected officials are reaching out to gun rights organizations if they're truly interested in having a conversation."

wesley.lowery@latimes.com

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The Lede Blog: Video of Aleppo University Bombing

Last Updated, 4:47 p.m. Video posted online by Syrian opposition activists appeared to show the moment one in a series of deadly explosions struck the campus of Aleppo University on Tuesday.

Video said to capture an explosion on the campus of Aleppo University in Syria on Tuesday, uploaded to the Web by opposition activists.

The brief clip, uploaded to the YouTube channel of the ANA New Media Association (formerly the Syrian Activists News Association), begins with a view of smoke rising from a university building as students mill about. Moments later, following a very loud explosion close to the camera, students run for cover and a much larger plume can be seen above the building.

A description of the video posted on YouTube by ANA, which is run from Cairo by the British-Syrian activist Rami Jarrah, said that the video was filmed by an activist just after the university was hit by a missile fired from a Syrian Air Force MIG fighter jet, and captured the impact of a second airstrike.

Another video clip, uploaded to the Web earlier in the day, appeared to offer a more distant view of the plumes of smoke above the campus. Mr. Jarrah, who blogs as Alexander Page, suggested that one part of the video showed the fighter jet’s contrail in the sky over the damaged buildings.

NEW FOOTAGE: Shows trail of Jet Fighter seconds after Airstrike on University of #Aleppo http://t.co/CRk3C8wb Syrian state TV Lie

— Alexander Page (@AlexanderPageSY) 15 Jan 13

While opposition activists insisted that the blasts, which killed more than 80 people according to the government, were the result of airstrikes by President Bashar al-Assad’s air force, state-controlled television channels claimed that “terrorists” had fired rockets at the campus.

The pro-Assad satellite channel al-Ikhbaria broadcast video of the aftermath, showing extensive damage to the campus and victims being rushed from the scene as on-screen text blamed the attack on rebel forces.

Video from the pro-government Syrian satellite channel al-Ikhbaria showed the aftermath of bombings at Aleppo University on Tuesday

A blogger in Aleppo who supported peaceful protests against the Assad government but has been fiercely critical of the armed rebellion, Edward Dark, described the carnage as a result of an air attack that was “probably a mistake, not an intentional bombing.”

just now: regime jet bombs Aleppo Uni faculty of architecture as students are taking tests. this is in a peaceful regime held area #Syria

— edward dark (@edwardedark) 15 Jan 13

@APHClarkson no, I think it was probably a mistake, not an intentional bombing

— edward dark (@edwardedark) 15 Jan 13

Restrictions on independent reporting in Syria make it hard to confirm who was responsible for the explosions, but the university is in a government-controlled area of the city and large anti-Assad demonstrations there last May were harshly dealt with by the security forces, despite the presence of United Nations observers.

A pair of video clips posted on YouTube shortly after the bombings showed extensive damage to what was described as the university’s architecture school. In one of the clips, dazed students made their way through shattered glass, carrying a wounded man on a table, in the entrance hall to the architecture faculty pictured on the university’s Web site.

Video said to show the badly damaged school of architecture at Aleppo University on Tuesday.

Video of a wounded man being evacuated from Aleppo University’s school of architecture on Tuesday.

Another pro-Assad satellite channel, Addounia, broadcast a report blaming “a terrorist group” for the bombings — which was uploaded, with English subtitles, to YouTube.

A video report on bombings at Aleppo University from Addounia, a pro-Assad satellite channel.

Writing on Twitter, a Syrian-American from Aleppo who uses the pen name Amal Hanano posted links to photographs of three people identified as victims of the bombings by activists on social networks.

Muhanned Assi, 1st year Civil Engineering student. Killed in today’s bombing in University of #Aleppo. #RIP #Syria http://t.co/Wj3o5kII

— Amal Hanano (@AmalHanano) 15 Jan 13

Fahed Miri, 23, refugee living in the dorms, volunteer, killed in today’s bombing in University of #Aleppo. #RIP #Syria http://t.co/Z8mjJGdM

— Amal Hanano (@AmalHanano) 15 Jan 13

Sawsan Haqi, mother of 3, grandmother of 2, beloved citizen, killed today in University of #Aleppo bombing. #RIP #Syria http://t.co/WTjENdhZ

— Amal Hanano (@AmalHanano) 15 Jan 13

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Lance's Doping Drama Explained in 5 Clicks

Before the cyclist tells all to Oprah Winfrey, see how multiple allegations got his Tour de France titles revoked

Credit: AP

Updated: Friday Aug 24, 2012 | 02:30 PM EDT
By: Kiran Hefa

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Vegas woman who couldn't stop growing dies at 34

LAS VEGAS (AP) — As a teenager growing up in Las Vegas, Tanya Angus strutted along fashion runways. She was 5 feet 8 inches, and people told her she had a perfect body.

But at the time of her death Monday, the 34-year-old Angus stood 7 feet 2 inches and weighed about 400 pounds. She was a victim of a rare disorder called acromegaly — or gigantism — that wouldn't let her stop growing.

"'Mom, I don't know why I got it,'" Karen Strutynski recalled her daughter saying. "'But I guess God decided that I could handle it.'"

Handle it she did — by appearing on television specials and in the news, by being vulnerable about a condition that left her face misshapen and gave her chronic growing pains.

Acromegaly is a disorder in which there is too much growth hormone in the body. It's spurred by a non-cancerous tumor that grows on the pituitary gland, and causes growth of bones and organs.

The disorder affected just about everything for Angus. She couldn't pull even the largest of shirts over her head, because she couldn't fit through the collar. She needed specially made shoes, and jewelers stretched her rings to size 20.

"There's nothing made for giants," her mother explained.

Some people judged her daughter, Strutynski said, believing she used a wheelchair because she lacked the discipline to keep her weight down. What they didn't know is that she ate one meal a day, and her medications caused her face to swell.

"People were very cruel until she went into the media," Strutynski said.

After television appearances, Angus became an advocate for those with the disease, corresponding with people from some 60 countries to help them get the treatment they needed.

She saw her mission as helping others get diagnosed before it was too late and the disease got out of control, her mother said.

An autopsy is pending, but Strutynski said it appears Angus died after catching a cold and developing a tear in her big heart.

Her mother plans to keep up Angus' website and continue corresponding with patients struggling to deal with the disease.

"We can't let it end. It's just too important," Strutynski said, her voice cracking. "We can't just let it die with Tanya."

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Man kills wife, leave her body in casino, police allege

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