3 charged in deadly home explosion

By Logan Burruss, CNN

updated 6:11 PM EST, Fri December 21, 2012

Bob Leonard Jr., left, Mark Leonard and Monserrate Shirley are accused in a deadly explosion.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Two brothers among accused in explosion at that killed couple next door


• Explosion injured 12 other people and caused $4 million in damage


• Investigators found abnormalities in gas line at suspect's home, affidavit says

(CNN) -- Three Indiana residents were arrested Friday on charges of arson and felony murder in a fatal house explosion in Indianapolis in November, according to the Marion County, Indiana, prosecutor's office.

Monserrate Shirley and brothers Mark Leonard and Bob Leonard Jr. were arrested Friday morning and charged with two counts of felony murder in the deaths of John and Jennifer Longworth, the neighbors of Shirley and Mark Leonard who were killed by the explosion at Shirley's home in the Richmond Hill area on November 10.

"We have to acknowledge that we are helpless to alleviate the pain and anguish of such innocent victims and their families," prosecutor Terry Curry said at a news conference Friday, according to a news release. "However, what we as a public safety community can do and must do is devote our best efforts to see that justice is served on behalf of those victims."

The explosion also injured 12 people and caused roughly $4 million in residential damage, according to the prosecutor's office.

An investigation led by local and federal authorities, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, revealed suspicious behavior and circumstances surrounding the explosion. In particular, various elements of the gas line at Shirley's home may have been tampered with before the blast, including a missing step-down regulator, which reduces gas pressure entering the home, and a missing on/off valve to the residence's gas fireplace.

"The absence of the valve and regulator would explain how such a large volume of gas would be released into the home," Curry told CNN.

In addition, the digital thermostat at Shirley's home had been replaced by a slide-switch thermostat that "will produce a spark when the thermostat reaches a specified temperature," the probable cause affidavit says. However, it appears that the thermostat did not contribute to the explosion; instead, it appears to have been started by the microwave in the kitchen, which was a model that could be programmed to start 24 hours in advance.

Witnesses interviewed during the investigation indicated that the three accused may have a long history of fraud, particularly Mark Leonard, who has allegedly been participating in confidence schemes since 1995, according to the affidavit. The investigation also revealed that Shirley filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

In addition to two counts of felony murder, the accused are charged with conspiracy to commit arson, 12 counts of arson as a Class A felony and 33 counts of arson as a Class B felony. Mark Leonard and Shirley were also charged with conspiracy to commit arson as a Class B felony. They are being held at the Marion County Jail without bail, and an initial court hearing is scheduled for Monday morning.

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NRA: Guns in schools would protect students

Updated: 6:44 p.m. ET

In a press conference reflecting on last week's massacre in Newtown, Conn., the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre today called on Congress to put armed law enforcement agents in every American school, insisting that guns in schools -- not tougher gun laws -- would most effectively protect children from school shootings.

Play Video

A "good guy with a gun" in every school?

LaPierre, who did not take any questions and whose remarks were interrupted twice by pro-gun control protesters, disdained the notion that stricter gun laws could have prevented "monsters" like Adam Lanza from committing mass shootings, and wondered why students, unlike banks, don't have the protection of armed officials. He also called for a "national database of the mentally ill."

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he said.

Twenty first-grade students were gunned down at their Connecticut elementary school last Friday, when 20-year-old Lanza reportedly opened fire in the school. Six adult faculty members were killed in his rampage, and Lanza also took his own life. Shortly before entering Sandy Hook Elementary School, Lanza is believed to have killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, in her bed. In the aftermath of the shootings, there has been much speculation as to the state of Adam Lanza's mental health, but no concrete evidence has been established that he was mentally ill.

Play Video

60 Minutes archives: Understanding the NRA

In the aftermath of the shooting, the NRA stayed largely silent, making only a brief comment earlier this week when announcing today's press conference. In his remarks today, however, LaPierre vehemently defended the pro-gun agency against critics and offered up a solution of his own.

"We must speak for the safety of our nation's children," said LaPierre. "We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses, even sports stadiums, are all protected by armed security. We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress works in offices surrounded by Capitol police officers, yet when it comes to our most beloved innocent and vulnerable members of the American family -- our children -- we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless. And the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it."

"That must change now," argued LaPierre, moments before being interrupted by a protester carrying a large pink sign proclaiming that the "NRA is killing our kids." "The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters -- people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment?"

Play Video

60 Minutes archives: The anti-gun lobby

Alternately criticizing politicians, the media, and the entertainment industry, LaPierre argued that "the press and political class here in Washington [are] so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and America's gun owners" that they overlook what he claims is the real solution to the nation's recent surge in mass shootings -- and what, he said, could have saved lives last week.

"What if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he had been confronted by qualified, armed security?" he asked. "Will you at least admit it's possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared? Is that so abhorrent to you that you would rather continue to risk the alternative?"

LaPierre called on Congress to put a police officer in every school in America, which according to a Slate analysis would cost the nation at least $5.4 billion. LaPierre recognized that local budgets are "strained," but urged lawmakers "to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school." He offered up the NRA's unique "knowledge, dedication, and resources" to assist in efforts to train those forces, but made no mention of a fiscal contribution. 

Columbine High School employed an armed guard, Neil Gardner, at the time of the 1999 school shootings. According to CNN, Gardner was eating lunch in his car when violence broke out in the school, and 13 people were killed.

Play Video

Protesters disrupt NRA press conference

Gun control advocates immediately decried LaPierre's comments, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the press conference a "shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country."

"Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe," he said. "Leadership is about taking responsibility, especially in times of crisis. Today the NRA's lobbyists blamed everyone but themselves for the crisis of gun violence."

On Twitter, Senator-elect Chris Murphy, D-Ct., called LaPierre's comments "the most revolting, tone-deaf statement I've ever seen."

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Obama Still an 'Optimist' on Cliff Deal

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON D.C. – Ten days remain before the mandatory spending cuts and tax increases known as the “fiscal cliff” take effect, but President Obama said he is still a “hopeless optimist” that a federal budget deal can be reached before the year-end deadline that economists agree might plunge the country back into recession.

“Even though Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether those rates should go up for the wealthiest individuals, all of us – every single one of us -agrees that tax rates shouldn’t go up for the other 98 percent of Americans, which includes 97 percent of small businesses,” he said.

He added that there was “no reason” not to move forward on that aspect, and that it was “within our capacity” to resolve.

The question of whether to raise taxes on incomes over $250,000 remains at an impasse, but is only one element of nuanced legislative wrangling that has left the parties at odds.

For ABC News’ breakdown of the rhetoric versus the reality, click here.

At the White House news conference this evening, the president confirmed he had spoken today to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, although no details of the conversations were disclosed.

The talks came the same day Speaker Boehner admitted “God only knows” the solution to the gridlock, and a day after mounting pressure from within his own Republican Party forced him to pull his alternative proposal from a prospective House vote. That proposal, ”Plan B,” called for extending current tax rates for Americans making up to $1 million a year, a far wealthier threshold than Democrats have advocated.

Boehner acknowledged that even the conservative-leaning “Plan B” did not have the support necessary to pass in the Republican-dominated House, leaving a resolution to the fiscal cliff in doubt.

“In the next few days, I’ve asked leaders of Congress to work towards a package that prevents a tax hike on middle-class Americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million Americans, and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction,” Obama said. ”That’s an achievable goal.  That can get done in 10 days.”

Complicating matters: The halls of Congress are silent tonight. The House of Representatives began its holiday recess Thursday and Senate followed this evening.

Meanwhile, the president has his own vacation to contend with. Tonight, he was embarking for Hawaii and what is typically several weeks of Christmas vacation.

However, during the press conference the president said he would see his congressional colleagues “next week” to continue negotiations, leaving uncertain how long Obama plans to remain in the Aloha State.

The president said he hoped the time off would give leaders “some perspective.”

“Everybody can cool off; everybody can drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones,” he said. “And then I’d ask every member of Congress, while they’re back home, to think about that.  Think about the obligations we have to the people who sent us here.

“This is not simply a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn’t,” he added later. “There are real-world consequences to what we do here.”

Obama concluded by reiterating that neither side could walk away with “100 percent” of its demands, and that it negotiations couldn’t remain “a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn’t.”

Boehner’s office reacted quickly to the remarks, continuing recent Republican statements that presidential leadership was at fault for the ongoing gridlock.

“Though the president has failed to offer any solution that passes the test of balance, we remain hopeful he is finally ready to get serious about averting the fiscal cliff,” Boehner said. “The House has already acted to stop all of the looming tax hikes and replace the automatic defense cuts. It is time for the Democratic-run Senate to act, and that is what the speaker told the president tonight.”

The speaker’s office said Boehner “will return to Washington following the holiday, ready to find a solution that can pass both houses of Congress.”

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Van-sized space rock is a cosmic oddball

The shattered remains of a high-profile space rock are oddly low in organic materials, the raw ingredients for life. The discovery adds a slight wrinkle to the theory that early Earth was seeded with organics by meteorite impacts.

In April a van-sized meteor was seen streaking over northern California and Nevada in broad daylight. The fireball exploded with a sonic boom and sprayed the region with fragments. Videos, photographs and weather radar data allowed the meteor's trajectory to be reconstructed, and teams quickly mobilised to search for pieces in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in northern California.

Researchers readily identified the meteorites as rare CM chondrites, thought to be one of the oldest types of rock in the universe. "Because the meteorites were discovered so freshly, for the first time we had a chance to study this type of meteorite in a pristine form," says Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who led the search effort and the subsequent study of the space rocks.

Jenniskens personally found a fragment in a parking lot, where it remained relatively free of soil contaminants. "That's the best you could hope for, other than landing in a freezer," says Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Battered past

CM chondrites make up only about 1 per cent of known meteorites. Most of them contain plenty of organic materials, including amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth.

Jenniskens and colleagues found that the California fragments also have amino acids, including some not found naturally on Earth. But in three rocks collected before a heavy rainstorm, which bathed the other pieces in earthly contaminants, organics are less abundant by a factor of 1000 than in previously studied CM chondrites.

These three rocks could not have lost organics due to space "weathering": analysis of the meteorites' exposure to cosmic rays suggests the original meteor was flying through space for only about 50,000 years before hitting Earth.

Based on its trajectory and its relatively short flight time, Jenniskens thinks the meteor can be traced back to a family of asteroids dominated by 495 Eulalia, a group known as a possible source of CM chondrites. It is probably a piece that broke off during an impact, revealing the relatively pristine material inside.

So what happened to its organics? Jenniskens' team found that the meteorites are breccia – smaller rocks cemented together – which suggests that the asteroid from which they came took a series of beatings. Those impacts, or possibly other processes inside the asteroid, could have heated it enough to destroy most organic material.

Limited delivery

The result might have implications for the organics delivery theory, says Bill Bottke of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

"It shows that not all asteroids can deliver sufficient quantities. One of the disappointments is that, from a prebiotic organic chemistry perspective, it was very limited," says Bottke. "But this is an unusual case. Most [CM chondrites] are loaded with organic compounds."

Still, studying the space rocks will help us prepare future missions to asteroids such as OSIRIS-Rex, scheduled to take off for asteroid 1999 RQ36 in 2016 and bring a sample back in 2023.

"In some ways, we've had a sample, a very fresh one, come to us," says Bottke. "This is a test bed for the techniques we'll use in that mission."

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1227163

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User revolt causes Instagram to keep old rules

SAN FRANCISCO: Instagram on Thursday tried to calm a user rebellion by nixing a change that would have given the Facebook-owned mobile photo sharing service unfettered rights to people's pictures.

"The concerns we heard about from you the most focused on advertising, and what our changes might mean for you and your photos," Instagram co-founder and chief Kevin Systrom said in a blog post.

"There was confusion and real concern about what our possible advertising products could look like and how they would work," he continued.

Protests prompted Instagram to stick with wording in its original terms of service and privacy policies regarding advertising and to do away with some changes that were to take effect in January, according to Systrom.

"You also had deep concerns about whether under our new terms, Instagram had any plans to sell your content," the Instagram chief said.

"I want to be really clear: Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don't own your photos, you do."

Instagram on Tuesday backed off a planned policy change that appeared to clear the way for the mobile photo sharing service to sell pictures without compensation, after users cried foul.

Changes to the Instagram privacy policy and terms of service had included wording that appeared to allow people's pictures to be used by advertisers at Instagram or Facebook worldwide, royalty-free.

Twitter and Instagram forums buzzed over the phrasing, as users debated whether to delete their accounts before the new rules kicked in.

Originally proposed portions of the new policy that rankled users included "You hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the content that you post on or through the service."

The terms also stated that "a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you."

Instagram said that the policy changes to take effect in January were part of a move to better share information with Facebook, which bought the company this year.

The original price was pegged at US$1 billion but the final value was less because of a decline in the social network's share price.

"I'm proud that Instagram has a community that feels so strongly about a product we all love," Systrom said while apologising to users and promising the offensive policy changes were gone.

-AFP/fl

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Mayans don't buy it

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Some believe a major calamity will occur Friday based on the Mayan calendar


• The Mayans don't think that's true: "It's an era," a Mayan wood carver says


• The end of the winter solstice marks the end of a 394-year period on the calendar


• Predictions mention a deity but not the end of the world, an archeologist says

Merida, Mexico (CNN) -- There may be no one left on Earth to say TGIF this week.

Some believe the world is coming to an end Friday -- on 12/21/12 -- which is when an important phase on the ancient calendar of the Mayan people terminates.

Mayans don't buy it.

At least the ones living in the city of Merida, Mexico, don't. Neither does anyone in the Mayan village of Yaxuna. They know the calendar their ancestors left them is about to absolve a key phase -- the end of an era and the heralding of a new one -- but they don't think we're all gonna die.

Read more: Be honest, apocalypse seems kind of exciting

"It's an era. We are lucky to see how it ends," said wood carver Santos Esteban in Yaxuna, a sleepy village of fewer than 700 Mayans, located in a territory that once belonged to the ancient kingdom founded around 2000 B.C.

He feels it is a momentous occasion and is looking forward to the start of the new age. He is not afraid.

"Lots of people say it's the end of the world, but we don't believe that," he said.

Read more: China cracks down on 'Doomsday cult'

People in his village will keep living much as they have, preferring hand-built, palm-thatch huts to concrete buildings and baking tortillas on an open flame.

For those less optimistic than the Mayans, an "official" website in the United States has collected links to all the doomsday articles and videos Internet users can consume.

December212012.com also offers tips on survival and advertisements for the needed gear -- from gas masks to first aid kits and hand-crank radios. Comments are welcome on its Facebook page, which has more than 14,000 likes, and website owner "John" from near Louisville, Kentucky, sends out tweets under the handle @December212012.

On the doomsday Facebook page -- in between gloomy superstitious links and user comments -- John has confessed that he does not really believe the world will end on Friday but thinks that a new era could dawn that may include some improvements for the world. That new era, however, might require a good bit of destruction as well.

John asked posters not to take the whole thing too seriously.

"PLEASE PEOPLE. . . I'm begging you. Do not overreact or make any rash decisions regarding Dec 21st. Anyone who knows anything about the 2012 prophecies, including myself, does not believes that the world is going to end," the Facebook page says.

Opinion: The Maya collapsed - could we?

Gunmaker Ryan Croft in Asheville, North Carolina, does take the prediction seriously. He is building a special assault rifle to deal with any signs of doom lurking around the corner.

He doesn't think life on Earth will come to a complete end Friday. "I'm not planning for the world to go away," Croft told CNN affiliate WHNS.

However, he thinks the day could mark the beginning of cataclysmic times introduced by a disaster. That may call for drastic measures, Croft said.

His new rifle, a hybrid of an AR-15 and an AK-47, is designed to be easy to use, the Gulf War veteran said. Trouble in the United States could ensue in the wake of an economic catastrophe, he thinks.

"I taught about economic collapse and how it actually looks on the ground," he said. "People want to act like it can't happen or doesn't happen, and it happens around the world. There are places on fire right now."

In true survivalist manner, Croft also teaches his family how to subsist on alternative sources of nourishment, such as algae, roasted mice and live earthworms.

Though 12/21/12 is a somewhat congruent date on the western calendar, the Mayan version enumerates the event in a different way.

The ancient people measured time in cycles called "baktuns" of 394 years each, and the winter solstice coming Friday marks the end of the 13th baktun. Some who study the calendar say the date for the end of the period is not Friday, but Sunday.

The Mayan calendar is based on the position of the heavenly bodies -- the sun, the moon and the stars -- and was meant to tell the Mayan people about agricultural and economic trends, said archeologist Alfredo Barrera.

NASA is also weighing in on the matter, with a post on its website declaring that the world will not end on Friday.

"It will be another winter solstice," NASA said. "The claims behind the end of the world quickly unravel when pinned down to the 2012 timeline."

As of Thursday afternoon in the eastern United States -- already Friday across Asia -- the space agency said it had detected "nothing unusual" and that it anticipated a normal couple of days ahead.

Read more: Hotels ready for the end of the world

The hubbub about a calamity occurring comes from a Mayan stone carving called monument 6, made in 700 A.D., which predicts a major event at the end of this baktun, Barrera said. But half of the broken tablet is missing, so one may only speculate on what the complete message may be.

Whatever it is, it's not about the end of the world, he said.

"We don't have a prophecy or inscription related to the finish of the world. It just mentioned a deity."

Barrera said he believes the hullabaloo about the end of the world has been whipped up by online speculation -- and he finds it a bit ignorant.

In Merida, Mayan priest Valerio Canche conducts an ancient ritual to honor the dead in light of the upcoming end of the 13th baktun.

"It is considered the closure of the great cycle of Mayan time," he said. "But, of course, the cycle (14th baktun) begins the following day. For the Mayans, it's not the end of the world."

If you're reading this on Thursday, keep in mind that it's already Friday in New Zealand, and it's still on the map. If it's Friday, a look out the window may be reassuring.

If it's Saturday, and no major calamity has occurred, then relax and go celebrate the beginning of the 14th baktun with the Mayans.

Debunking doomsday: 6 rumors dispelled

CNN's Ben Brumfield reported from Atlanta, and Nick Parker from Mexico

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It's already Dec. 21 in Europe, so where's doomsday?

MERIDA, Mexico Doomsday hour is here, at least in much of the world, and so still are we.

According to legend, the ancient Mayans' long-count calendar ends at midnight Thursday, ushering in the end of the world.

Didn't happen.

"This is not the end of the world. This is the beginning of the new world," Star Johnsen-Moser, an American seer, said at a gathering of hundreds of spiritualists at a convention center in the Yucatan city of Merida, an hour and a half from the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza.

"It is most important that we hold a positive, beautiful reality for ourselves and our planet. ... Fear is out of place."

24 Photos

Only place to be spared by Mayan apocalypse

Play Video

Doomsday loophole?

11 Photos

Instinct for survival: Ways we've tried to stave off apocalypse

As the appointed time came and went in several parts of the world, there was no sign of the apocalypse.

Indeed, the social network Imgur posted photos of clocks turning midnight in the Asia-Pacific region with messages such as: "The world has not ended. Sincerely, New Zealand."

In Merida, the celebration of the cosmic dawn opened inauspiciously, with a fumbling of the sacred fire meant to honor the calendar's conclusion.

Gabriel Lemus, the white-haired guardian of the flame, burned his finger on the kindling and later had to scoop up a burning log that fell from the ceremonial brazier onto the stage.

Still, Lemus was convinced that it was a good start, as he was joined by about 1,000 other shamans, seers, stargazers, crystal enthusiasts, yogis, sufis and swamis.

"It is a cosmic dawn," Lemus declared. "We will recover the ability to communicate telepathically and levitate objects ... like our ancestors did."

Celebrants later held their arms in the air in a salute to the Thursday morning sun.

"The galactic bridge has been established," intoned spiritual leader Alberto Arribalzaga. "At this moment, spirals of light are entering the center of your head ... generating powerful vortexes that cover the planet."

Despite all the ritual and banter, few here actually believed the world would end Friday; the summit was scheduled to run through Sunday. Instead, participants said they were here to celebrate the birth of a new age.

A Mexican Indian seer who calls himself Ac Tah, and who has traveled around Mexico erecting small pyramids he calls "neurological circuits," said he holds high hopes for Friday.

"We are preparing ourselves to receive a huge magnetic field straight from the center of the galaxy," he said.

Play Video

Archaeologists find 2nd Mayan artifact with 12-21-12 date

Terry Kvasnik, 32, a stunt man from Manchester, England, said his motto for the day was "be in love, don't be in fear." As to which ceremony he would attend on Friday, he said with a smile, "I'm going to be in the happiest place I can."

At dozens of booths set up in the convention hall, visitors could have their auras photographed with "Chi" light, get a shamanic cleansing or buy sandals, herbs and whole-grain baked goods. Cleansing usually involves having copal incense waved around one's body.

Visitors could also learn the art of "healing drumming" with a Mexican Otomi Indian master, Dabadi Thaayroyadi, who said his slender hand-held drums are made with prayers embedded inside. The drums emit "an intelligent energy" that can heal emotional, physical and social ailments, he said.

During the opening ceremony, participants chanted mantras to the blazing Yucatan sun, which quickly burned the fair-skinned crowd.

Violeta Simarro, a secretary from Perpignan, France, taking shelter under an awning, noted that the new age won't necessarily be easy.

"It will be a little difficult at first, because the world will need a complete 'nettoyage' (cleansing), because there are so many bad things," she said.

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Police Chief Wants to Ban High-Capacity Firepower

High-capacity magazines are the deadliest of gun cartridges. They come in cases of 30, 40, 60 and even 120 rounds.

These magazines are maximum, economy-sized firepower packed into a steel cartridge. When strapped into a pistol or semi-automatic rifle, a shooter can fire non-stop until the magazine is empty. By then, the damage can be devastating.

That is why the Baltimore County Police Chief Jim Johnson wants to outlaw all but the smallest of these magazines. Johnson wants to limit them to a capacity of 10 rounds.

The fewer the bullets, the more often the shooter has to stop firing, eject the empty cartridge and load another one.

A lot can happen in the window of time it takes to reload, Johnson said.

"Folks that are being attacked have time to react, to close that distance in," he said. "I think any football player in America would like to have four-and-a-half seconds to get to the quarterback without any of the offensive players."

An expert shooter like a police officer can switch magazines in less than two seconds. But for a nervous, scared adolescent, it would take much longer, Johnson said, which can be crucial.

During the Tucson, Ariz., attack on Rep. Gabby Giffords, gunman Jared Loughner was wrestled down when he stopped shooting to reload his 9-millimeter pistol.

During the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting spree last July, police say James Holmes' assault came to an end when his semi-automatic rifle jammed.

"As we've seen in America today, there have been several attacks where that reload is vital," Johnson said. "Tragically, in the shooting of a congresswoman, the reload was instrumental.

"We've also seen this in Baltimore County, in a school shooting that we had, where the reload became very instrumental in allowing the teacher to actually tackle a student that was trying to reload a double-barreled shotgun," he said.

Last week at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., police believe Adam Lanza was armed with high-capacity magazines. He fired at least 30 times before having to stop to reload.

Johnson said there is no reason that the general public should have access to high-capacity magazines.

"I have to advise you that even for law enforcement, 100-round magazines, 50-round magazines, have no place for law enforcement," Johnson said. "Certainly, we believe that limiting a magazine to 10 rounds, what was in place from '94 to 2004, is wise and certainly could save lives in America."

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Human hands evolved so we could punch each other

Forget toolmaking, think fisticuffs. Did evolution shape our hands not for dexterity but to form fists so we could punch other people? That idea emerges from a new study, although it runs counter to conventional wisdom.

About the same time as we stopped hanging from trees and started walking upright, our hands become short and square, with opposable thumbs. These anatomical changes are thought to have evolved for tool manipulation, but David Carrier at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has an alternative explanation.

He says there are several possible hand shapes that would have allowed greater dexterity, making it less clear why we ended up with the hands we have. But only one hand shape lets us make a fist with a thumb as buttress.

Among primates' hands, ours is unique for its ability to form a fist with the thumb outside the fingers. The fingers of other primates' hands are too long to curl into their palms, and their thumbs are too short to reach across the fingers. So when apes fight, they are far more likely to wrestle or hold their opponent down while others stomp on him, says Carrier.

To test the importance of fists, Carrier and his colleagues recruited 10 athletes and measured how hard they could hit a punching bag using a normal fist, a fist with the thumb stuck out, and with an open palm.

The athletes could generate more than twice the force with a normal fist as with the thumb-stuck-out fist, because of thumb's buttressing role. There was no difference in the force they could generate with a normal fist and with an open palm, but Carrier says it's possible that a fist concentrates the force into a smaller area and so does more damage.

Cause or effect?

Mary Marzke of Arizona State University in Tempe says the study is interesting, but it far from proves that the ability to make a strong fist was the main driver behind the evolution of our hands' shape. It is more likely that it was a useful side effect of a whole suite of modifications.

She points out that apes strike with the heel of their hand when knocking fruit out of trees. Carrier's study didn't assess the force that the heel of the hand generates, but if it turns out to be as good as a fist, it becomes less clear that our hands evolved so as to be perfect for fist-making, Marzke says.

But if the hypothesis is true, Carrier thinks it could explain another mystery. It has long been unclear why high levels of testosterone cause men's ring fingers to be longer than their index fingers. He says the finger-length ratio makes sense if it generates a better fist. This would make dominant males even better fighters.

Journal reference: Journal of Experimental Biology, doi:10.1242/jeb.075713

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Review slams BBC over Savile report but says no cover-up

LONDON: An official report strongly criticised the BBC's handling of allegations of child sex abuse against late presenter Jimmy Savile, but cleared the world's biggest broadcaster of a cover-up.

The findings by an independent inquiry sparked the resignation of the BBC's deputy director of news, and led to the editor and deputy editor of the programme at the centre of the scandal being replaced.

The report exposed the "chaos and confusion" at the BBC although it dismissed claims that its flagship current affairs programme Newsnight dropped an investigation into Savile so as not to jeopardise Christmas tribute shows to him.

The BBC commissioned the inquiry by former Sky News executive Nick Pollard in October during a major crisis at the corporation that cost then-director-general George Entwistle his job.

Savile, who died last year at the age of 84, was one of the BBC's top TV and radio presenters.

The child abuse claims were first made public by rival broadcaster ITV two months ago and since then police have identified 199 crimes in which Savile is a suspect, including 31 alleged rapes.

Newsnight first had evidence of the allegations a year ago, shortly after Savile's death, but it dropped the story after just a few weeks.

The Pollard report found no evidence to support claims that this was to avoid an embarrassing clash with planned Christmas tributes to the late star.

But it criticised the decision to drop the probe and the BBC's failure to deal with the ensuing crisis at the broadcaster, which it said was plagued by infighting and a "critical lack of leadership and coordination".

"The decision to drop the original investigation was flawed and the way it was taken was wrong but I believe it was done in good faith. It was not done to protect the Savile tribute programmes or for any improper reason," Pollard said.

"In my view, the most worrying aspect of the Jimmy Savile story for the BBC was not the decision to drop the story itself. It was the complete inability to deal with the events that followed."

BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten, the former governor of Hong Kong, said the BBC accepted the review in its "entirety" and looked at the failings of the corporation with "pretty searing honesty".

In an email to staff, acting director-general Tim Davie welcomed the finding that there was no cover-up but acknowledged the report had exposed "clear failings" which must now be addressed.

He announced a shake-up of staff at Newsnight, saying the programme's editor, Peter Rippon, and deputy editor, Liz Gibbons, would move to other BBC jobs.

And he said Stephen Mitchell was resigning as deputy director of BBC news and would leave next year after 38 years with the corporation.

Mitchell had stood aside pending the Pollard review, and was criticised in Wednesday's report for removing Newsnight's Savile investigation from an internal BBC list that flagged up controversial stories.

Mitchell's boss, director of news Helen Boaden, keeps her job despite being criticised for failing to take greater responsibility as the crisis grew.

Davie later told Newsnight that it had been a "particularly bad and sorry saga" but defended the lack of sackings.

"My job is not to just dismiss people, my job is to make a fair and balanced assessment of the facts," he said.

"The idea that you have to sack someone to lead to cultural change I think is just flawed."

The report also revealed that when Savile was ill a BBC executive had emailed Entwistle before he became director general to urge against preparing an obituary for the late presenter because of concerns about "the darker side" of his life.

Entwistle said he never read that email and Pollard said he found nothing to suggest anyone preparing the tribute programmes was aware of the rumours or allegations about Savile.

London police on Wednesday arrested an eighth person in connection with the Savile abuse probe, who was identified by media as the star's former producer.

The scandal over Newsnight's dropped investigation was compounded when the programme broadcast a television report last month which wrongly implicated a senior former Conservative politician, Alistair McAlpine, in child sex abuse.

The BBC was forced to apologise and pay substantial damages to McAlpine, and Entwistle resigned as director-general after only 54 days in the job.

He will be replaced by former BBC news chief and current Royal Opera House chief Tony Hall in March.

A further investigation is ongoing into what the BBC knew about Savile's activities during his time there.

- AFP/al

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