14 dead, 80 injured in Mexico oil company blast

Updated 8:25 PM ET

MEXICO CITY An explosion at the main headquarters of Mexico's state-owned oil company in the capital killed 14 people and injured 80 on Thursday as it heavily damaged three floors of the building, sending hundreds into the streets and a large plume of smoke over the skyline.

There were also reports that as many as 30 people were trapped in the debris from the explosion, which occurred in the basement of an administrative building next to the iconic, 52-story tower of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

There was no immediate cause given for the blast, which also damaged the first and second floors of the auxiliary building in a busy commercial and residential area. But in an earlier Tweet, Pemex said it had evacuated the building as a precautionary measure because of a problem with the electrical system.

"It was an explosion, a shock, the lights went out and suddenly there was a lot of debris," employee Cristian Obele told Milenio television, adding that he had been injured in the leg. "Co-workers helped us get out of the building."

The tower, where several thousand people work, was evacuated. The main floor and the mezzanine of the auxiliary building, where the explosion occurred, were heavily damaged, along with windows as far as three floors up.

"Right now they're conducting a tour of the building and the area adjacent to the blast site to verify if there are any still trapped so they can be rescued immediately," Interior Ministry spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told Milenio.

A reporter at the scene saw rescue workers trying to free several workers trapped. Television images showed people being evacuated by office chairs, and gurneys. Most of them had injuries likely caused by falling debris.

"We were talking and all of sudden we heard an explosion with white smoke and glass falling from the windows," said Maria Concepcion Andrade, 42, who lives on the block of Pemex building. "People started running from the building covered in dust. A lot of pieces were flying."

Police landed four rescue helicopters to remove the dead or injured. About a dozen tow trucks were furiously moving cars to make more landing room for the helicopters.

Streets surrounding the building were closed as evacuees wandered around, and rescue crews loaded the injured into ambulances.

"I profoundly lament the death of our fellow workers at Pemex. My condolences to their families," President Enrique Pena Nieto said via his Twitter account.

Shortly before the explosion, Operations Director Carlos Murrieta reported via Twitter that the company had reduced its accident rate in recent years. Most Pemex accidents have occurred at pipeline and refinery installations.

A fire at a pipeline metering center in northeast Mexico near the Texas border killed 30 workers in September, the largest-single toll in at least a decade for the company.

6 Photos

Oil company explosion in Mexico City

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What If Undocumented Immigrants Had Voted?

If every undocumented immigrant had cast a vote for President Obama in 2012, he would have won Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, and he would have beaten Mitt Romney by nearly 11 percentage points nationally, instead of three.

Only citizens can vote, however, and 11.2 million unauthorized residents didn't get the chance.

But with immigration overhaul on the table, legalizing new Democratic voters looms as a threat for conservatives who don't want to hand their political foes a potential windfall of 11.2 million new voters with the creation of a pathway to citizenship -- and to voting rights -- with a comprehensive bill.

"The fear that many people have is that the Democrats aren't interested in border security, that they want this influx," Rush Limbaugh griped during his Tuesday interview with overhaul champion Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "For example, if 70 percent of the Hispanic vote went Republican, do you think the Democrats would be for any part of this legislation?"

New immigration policies could mean in influx of new voters, but Republicans needn't worry about it in the short term.

See Also: Gang of Eight Accelerates Immigration Reform Pace

"Under almost any scenario, it's pretty far in the distance," Jeff Passell, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said of the prospect that unauthorized immigrants' gaining voting rights would pump up numbers significantly enough to meaningfully change the U.S. electorate.

Whitney Curtis/Getty Images

And yet, the "influx" wouldn't be negligible: "Realistically, we're talking about potentially adding probably 5 million potential voters or so in 10 years," he said.

Hispanic voters broke 71 percent for Obama in November, and Republican strategists recognize that the party has failed to court Hispanic voters effectively. But depending on how slowly the citizenship line moves, the Republican Party will have a decade or so to shake its anti-Hispanic stigma.

See also: A Glossary for Immigration Reform

"It's a long time coming. You're talking about 15 to 20 years before we're talking about a whole slew of new voters coming into the electorate," said Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, who served as Hispanic outreach director for George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

"If Republicans can map out and change their positions with things that Hispanics do support -- on less government, lower taxes, less regulations on small businesses -- then they can really compete for the Hispanic vote over the next 20, 30 years."

There are 11.2 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center's estimate. While most are of voting age (Pew estimates just 1 million younger than 18), the deluge of new Democratic voters might not be as substantial as Limbaugh implied.

In other words, it's not as if Democrats will gain 11.2 million votes in the next few years. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Not All Hispanics Vote for Democrats. Most do, but not all, and voter preferences vary from state to state. In Florida, 60 percent of Hispanic voters backed Obama, according to 2012 exit polls; in Arizona, 74 percent voted for the president. Even if all 11.2 million had voted in 2012, Obama would only have picked up North Carolina if they simply hewed to Hispanic voter trends. Romney still would have carried Arizona, Georgia and Texas, although he would have won Georgia by less than 1 percentage point. (Note: There were no exit polls in Texas or Georgia, and here the national rate provides rough estimates of how results would have changed.)

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Today on New Scientist: 30 January 2013

Timbuktu's precious scientific texts must be saved

Islamist militants in Mali have burned documents that attest to science in Africa before European colonisation - what remains must be protected

Think that massage feels good? Try adding drugs

Nerve bundles that respond to stroking have been identified and chemically activated in mice

How Obama will deliver his climate promise

The US is set to meet - and maybe exceed - Obama's pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent, which could give a boost to international climate talks

Minimum booze price will rein in alcohol abuse

Evidence suggests the UK government's proposal to set a minimum price for alcohol could save thousands of lives, and billions of pounds of public money

First real time-travel movies are loopers

Hollywood has played with time travel for decades, but now physicists have the first movies of what travelling to the past actually looks like

Surfer rides highest wave ever caught

Garret McNamara of Hawaii claims to have ridden the highest wave ever caught by a surfer, a 30-metre monster off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal

Infrared laptop trackpad ignores accidental touches

Longpad is a touchpad that extends the full width of your laptop and uses infrared sensors to ignore any unwanted touches

Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat

With an errant space rock heading this way, just how good are our asteroid defences - and how do we avert the cataclysm?

The right to fight: women at war

The US military has accepted women into combat. What can science tell us about how women deal with being in the line of fire? And are they any different to men?

Earth and others lose status as Goldilocks worlds

Several planets are taking a hit thanks to a redefinition of the habitable zone - the area around a star in which liquid water can theoretically exist

The 10,000-year bender: Why humans love a tipple

Our taste for alcohol results from an evolutionary tussle between humans and yeast - one in which the microbes have often had the upper hand

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Research links acute malnutrition to gut microbes

WASHINGTON: A dearth of calories may not be the only reason some children face acute malnutrition, according to a new study out this week that says the microbes living in our guts may also be to blame.

Within hunger-stricken communities, not all children fare the same. Some develop acute malnutrition, while others, even their brothers and sisters, may stay healthy.

And some children respond well to treatment -- generally a peanut-based nutrient-rich supplement -- while for others, the benefits cease when the treatment does.

To figure out why this happens, researchers studied more than 300 sets of twins in Malawi, where malnutrition is a common childhood ailment, during their first three years of life.

Among half the twin pairs, one or both twins became malnourished over the course of the study.

Even among identical twins, there were cases where one twin -- but not the other -- developed a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor, associated with swollen bellies, liver damage, skin ulcerations and loss of appetite, in addition to wasting.

That ruled out human genetics as a factor in the disorder, since identical twins share identical genomes.

But the researchers found something else at play: the microbes in the gut that extract nutrients and calories from the diet synthesise vitamins and nutrients and help shape the immune system.

When any of the twins became malnourished, both received treatment to limit food sharing.

In the healthy twin, the gut microbes thrived with the extra food and continued to mature after the treatment ended. But in the severely malnourished twin, the gut microbes stalled out or even regressed by four weeks after the treatment ended.

The findings were further bolstered when the researchers implanted into mice the gut microbes of the healthy and malnourished twins.

Both groups of mice were fed the same diet -- one similar to the nutrient-deficient diet common in Malawi -- but the ones who were transplanted with the malnourished children's microbes dropped weight, while the others did not.

"The gut microbes of malnourished children and malnourished mice do not appear to mature along a normal, healthy trajectory," said senior author Jeffrey Gordon of Washington University's Centre for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology.

"Our results suggest we need to devise new strategies to repair gut microbial communities so these children can experience healthy growth and reach their full potential."

Gordon said the new findings could be a crucial step towards finding better treatment for severely malnourished children.

"It may be that earlier or longer treatment with existing or next-generation therapeutic foods will enhance our ability to repair or prevent the problems associated with malnutrition," he said.

"We are also exploring whether it is possible to supplement the therapeutic food with beneficial gut bacteria from healthy children, as a treatment to repair the gut microbiome," he added.

"We hope that these studies will provide a new way of understanding how the gut microbiome and food interact to affect the health and recovery of malnourished children."

Their study is to be published Thursday in the US journal "Science".

According to UNICEF, a person dies of starvation every 3.6 seconds, and most of the deaths are among children under five.

"Some 300 million children go to bed hungry every day. Of these only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 per cent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency," the UN agency says on its website.

-AFP/fl

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'Destroyed' owner of burned club attempts suicide

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: A lawyer for the owner blames the fire department


• The club owner who attempted suicide is "emotionally destroyed," police say


• New patients are arriving at hospitals with respiratory symptoms


• The fire department says club was in the process of renewing its license

iReport: Are you there? Share your story.

Santa Maria, Brazil (CNN) -- One of the owners of the Brazilian nightclub that burned down this week, killing 235, tried to take his own life while in custody, police said Wednesday.

Elissandro Spohr is one of four arrested in the aftermath of Sunday's deadly blaze at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil.

The suicide attempt happened while he was interned and under police guard at a hospital, where he is being treated for smoke inhalation, Santa Maria Police Chief Lylian Carus said.

While taking a shower, Spohr removed the shower hose and tied it to a window, but police discovered him before he placed the other end around his neck, Carus said.

"Everything indicates he was going to commit suicide by hanging," she said. "He's emotionally destroyed."

The residents of Santa Maria, in southern Brazil, have also suffered an emotional toll from the tragedy.

Opinon: We haven't learned from past mistakes

It seems to be all that people in the town talk about, and protestors have taken to the streets demanding justice.

In addition to Spohr, police arrested another owner of the club, Mauro Hoffman. Also in custody are the vocalist for the band performing that night, Marcelo de Jesus dos Santos, and show producer Luciano Bonilha.

During their performance, the band Gurizada Fandangueira used pyrotechnics that they knew were for outdoor use only, police have said. They opted to buy this particular firework because it was cheaper than the indoor-use kind, police said.

Kiss was filled well beyond its legal capacity with the crowd of 2,000 people, who packed the club to hear the band play.

When the pyrotechnics were set off, the ceiling caught fire, state officials said, and the flames spread quickly.

The crowd panicked, breaking into a stampede, and it hit a bottleneck -- the only exit was the front door, down a dark, narrow hallway.

More than 100 of the victims were students at the local Federal University of Santa Maria, the school said.

In addition to the ongoing criminal investigation, Santa Maria's public prosecutor announced that there will be a separate investigation to establish civil liability.

"The introduction of the civil investigation allows us to request documents and produce evidence to establish that kind of responsibility," public prosecutor Cesar Carlan said, according to state media. "We are, at this moment, watching the police work, where the evidence produced will be useful for our own inquiry."

Eerie sounds of cell phones amid disaster

New patients

In the days after the fire, about 20 more people who were at the club sought health services because of symptoms such as tiredness and breathlessness, Brazil's state-run Agencia Brasil news agency reported.

These new patients were hospitalized for observation and may require breathing aids.

Some 82 people remained in intensive care units, with 75 in critical condition, health officials said.

Club was renewing its license

Investigators said they found evidence of faulty and fake fire extinguishers at the club, which had expired fire and municipal licenses. The club's original license permitted just 691 people inside.

However, fire officials said that because the club was in the process of renewing its license, it was not required to be shut down.

Last September, the fire department notified the owners of the club about their expired permit, and in November, the club requested inspection for a renewal, fire official Sergio Roberto de Abreu said, according to Agencia Brasil.

The renewal request was pending at the time of the fire.

A lawyer for Spohr, the owner, not only said the club was operating legally, but also blamed the fire department for the mass casualties.

"It was a disastrous and poor operation by the fire department," attorney Jader Marques said, according to Agencia Brasil.

The firefighters weren't wearing proper masks and lacked proper equipment, he said. "Worse than that, the firefighters, feeling powerless, used civilians" to assist in the rescue.

Deadly blazes: Nightclub tragedies in recent history

Shasta Darlington reported from Santa Maria, and Mariano Castillo and Umaro Djau from Atlanta. CNN's Helena de Moura contributed from Santa Maria

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Obama: "No doubt" Congress will pass immigration, gun bills

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Obama: "No doubt" gun, immigration bills will pass in coming months

There's more bipartisan support in Congress for comprehensive immigration reform than gun control legislation, President Obama said tonight during an interview with Univision, but qualified that even under his proposal, illegal immigrants shouldn't be harboring expectations that they'll be granted citizenship "manana."

"Even under our proposal, this is not a situation where overnight, suddenly people all find themselves as citizens," Mr. Obama told the Spanish-language television network. "They're going to have to go to the back of the line. We're going to have to clear out the existing line, backlogs we have in terms of illegal immigrants, because they did it the right way. We shouldn't punish them for breaking the law.

"...What we don't want to do is to create some vague prospect in the future that somehow comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship will happen manana," he continued, chuckling softly at the somewhat awkward injection of the Spanish word for "tomorrow." "But we have to put that in place at the outset, and make sure people are clear that this pathway is real and not just a fantasy for the future."

Asked whether he was in a standoff with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the son of Cuban immigrants who has said he will not support a bill that does not put border control ahead of a path to citizenship, Mr. Obama said no, but pointed out that the number of people crossing the border illegally has dropped "about 80 percent since 2000."

On Tuesday, the president delivered a speech in Las Vegas outlining his immigration plan and applauding a bipartisan group of eight senators that has offered up proposals as well. In an interview today with another Spanish language network, Telemundo, he specified that he's hoping immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship can be passed in the next six months, but "certainly this year."

Meanwhile, despite facing more resistance from the right on tightening gun laws, he said he has "no doubt" that Congress will be able to put through legislation on gun control, as well as immigration.

Play Video

Obama: Legalization for illegal immigrants won't happen "ma?ana"

"On the gun issue, you're starting to see gun owners, people who traditionally have opposed gun control, saying, 'You know what, when 20 of our children are shot by somebody who is disturbed, and when it is that easy to get these high-clip magazines that can fire off hundreds of shots in a few minutes, then it's time for us to do better job on background checks, to get control of these magazine clips, to really crack down on gun trafficking," Mr. Obama said in the Univision interview.

The Senate Judiciary Committee today held the first congressional hearing on gun violence since last month's massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, that left 20 children and six adults dead. Star witnesses included former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who survived a shot to the head two years ago during an assassination attempt that left six people dead, and her husband on one side, and NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre on the other.

Both gun control and immigration "will end up generating some opposition," the president said. "There will be passions on both sides. But I'm generally encouraged that the Senate seems to be having a serious conversation about these issues."

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Obama Confident Immigration Reform Will Pass

President Barack Obama expressed confidence on Wednesday that he would sign comprehensive immigration reform into law by the end of this year.

In an interview with Univision's Maria Elena Salinas, Obama explained that significant details of a bill still must be worked out by lawmakers, including the structure of a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Obama said that the progress made by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate has given him hope that a deal can get done.

See Also: What Will Be Obama's Immigration Legacy?

When asked by Salinas if we will have immigration reform by the end of the year, Obama said, "I believe so."

"You can tell our audience, 'Sí, se puede?'" Salinas asked.

"Sí, se puede," Obama responded.

Later in the interview, Obama said that he hopes a bill could be passed as early as this summer.

But cognizant of deep divisions a topic like immigration has sewn in the past, Obama said that's contingent on bipartisan negotiations continuing to proceed well.

"The only way this is going to get done is if the Republicans continue to work with Democrats in Congress, in both chambers, to get a bill to my desk," he said. "And I'm going to keep on pushing as hard as I can. I believe that the mood is right."

Although the president threatened to introduce his own bill if negotiations in Congress stall during his speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday, he said he is content to let lawmakers hash out the details among themselves for the time being.

"If they are on a path as they have already said, where they want to get a bill done by March, then I think that's a reasonable timeline and I think we can get that done. I'm not going to lay down a particular date because I want to give them a little room to debate," he said. "If it slips a week, that's one thing. If it starts slipping three months, that's a problem."

The president's principles and the Senate's principles on immigration broadly align with one another, but there are still thorny issues that could spark a division between Obama and Republicans, such as the pathway to citizenship.

The Senate's path to citizenship would allow many undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status immediately upon passage of the law. But their ability to then seek legal permanent residency would be contingent upon the U.S.-Mexico border being deemed secure. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" on immigration, has been particularly vocal in stating that border security is a precondition for gaining legal permanent residence, and then citizenship.

While the White House has said that it is withholding judgment on that plan until actual legislative language is drafted, Obama said that he wants a bill that makes it clear from the outset that undocumented immigrants eligible to earn their way to citizenship can eventually obtain it.

"What we don't want to do is create some kind of vague prospect in the future that somehow comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship will happen, you know, mañana," Obama said. "We want to make sure we are very clear this legislation provides a real pathway."

The president said that enhancing border security measures and workplace enforcement provisions are a part of his plan, as well as the Senate's, and cited his administration's efforts to bulk up border security during the past four years, saying that illegal crossings have dropped 80 percent since 2000.

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Today on New Scientist: 29 January 2013

Creatures of the air caught in the mist

Photographer Todd Forsgren uses mist nets to briefly ensnare a variety of tropical South American birds before releasing them, unharmed

Drug reduces enlarged prostate with few side effects

Shrinking enlarged prostates by blocking a potent growth factor could avoid problems - such as erectile dysfunction - that accompany current treatments

Climate change blamed for Australia's extreme weather

Floods have hit the east coast of Australia before recent bush fires have been put out, giving people a taste of climate change's possible consequences

Midnight sun: How to get 24-hour solar power

Rust may be the scourge of electronics but it could help solar power run all night

The most beautiful explanations

The 2012 Edge questions asked for great thinkers' favourite explanations. This Explains Everything collects them all into a fascinating read

Netted Costa Rican birds pay small price for art

Only mildly traumatic, mist nets offer an easy and safe way to catch birds for artistic, and ecological, study

Iran launches monkey into space

The Iranian Space Agency claims to have launched a rhesus monkey into space on a sub-orbital flight, and returned it safely to Earth

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Tibetans in India launch drive against China

NEW DELHI: The Tibetan government-in-exile in India on Tuesday announced plans for a four-day campaign to bring global pressure on China in a bid to end a string of self-immolations in their Himalayan homeland.

Penpa Tsering, speaker of the exiled Tibetan parliament based in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala, said the drive would include rallies and meetings and begin in New Delhi on Wednesday.

"The situation is getting more and more grim," Tsering said at a joint news conference with Lobsang Sangay, who in 2011 took over political duties from revered Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and was named prime minister.

The two leaders said 99 Tibetans had set themselves on fire between 2009 and January 22 this year in protest against Chinese rule in Tibet. Of that number, the government-in-exile says 83 have died.

"Instead of trying to address the main causes as to why self-immolations are taking place, as to why Tibetans are protesting in various other forms, the Chinese government has resorted to a blame game," Sangay said.

The Havard-educated scholar said India, home to tens of thousands of Tibetan exiles, "ought to speak out forcefully on Tibet".

The four-day campaign will call for visits to Tibet by UN fact-finding teams and the publication of details of human rights discussions between Beijing and foreign powers, Sangay said.

He said the Tibetan government as well as the parliament, which has been based in Dharamshala since the Dalai Lama fled after a failed uprising against China in 1959, were determined to highlight "repression of Tibetans in Tibet".

Both the Dalai Lama and the prime minister have appealed to Tibetans not to resort to self-immolation.

"We are against drastic action but we must highlight it (the situation in Tibet) to the international community," Sangay said.

Many Tibetans in China accuse the government of religious repression and eroding their culture, as the country's majority Han ethnic group increasingly moves into historically Tibetan areas.

China rejects that, saying Tibetans enjoy religious freedom. Beijing also points to the huge ongoing investment that it says has brought modernisation and a better standard of living to Tibet.

-AFP/fl

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Tearful Newtown dad: No new gun laws

By David Ariosto, CNN

updated 8:09 PM EST, Tue January 29, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Mark Mattioli, a parent of a Sandy Hook victim, says there are more than enough gun laws


• "The time is now" to strengthen gun laws, says Veronique Pozner, another parent


• Crowd interrupts the statement of a parent of a slain child


• Connecticut has some of the nation's strictest gun laws

(CNN) -- His voice wavering, Mark Mattioli wiped away tears as he recalled the day his 6-year-old son died when a man wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle broke into Sandy Hook Elementary School and began shooting.

His son, James, was among the 20 children and seven adults killed by Adam Lanza on December 14 in Newtown, Connecticut -- an event so horrific that it has since spawned a federal task force and kick-started a national conversation about gun control.

But unlike the handful of other parents who testified Monday at the emotionally charged hearing in Hartford, Connecticut, Mattioli said there are more than enough gun laws on the books. He called instead for a closer look at mental health policies.

Why new laws could miss America's bigger gun problem

"I don't care if you named it 'James' law,' I don't want (another law)," he said during the first of a series of meetings set up by a legislative task force assigned to review the state's gun laws.

Reaction to Newtown school killings

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"I think there's much more promise for a solution in identifying, researching and creating solutions along the lines of mental health."

Connecticut's medical examiner said he was told that Lanza, 20, had Asperger's syndrome. Research has not shown a link between that condition and violence.

The hearing drew hundreds to the Connecticut state house and revealed the sharp divide in public opinion over what should happen next in the massacre's aftermath.

"The time is now," said Veronique Pozner, whose son, Noah, was also killed, referring to a strengthening of the nation's gun laws.

Sandy Hook probe to extend until summer

With a framed photo of her slain 6-year-old propped up beside her, Pozner called on Connecticut to become "an agent for change" across the country.

During her testimony, she held up a crayon drawing that Noah once scrawled on Thanksgiving.

"I am thankful for the life I live," he wrote.

At one point during the hearing, Neil Heslin, father of a 6-year-old boy named Jesse who was also gunned down that day, asked why the public needed assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Some people in the crowd then interrupted his statement and shouted the "Second Amendment shall not be infringed."

"We're not living in the Wild West. We're not a Third World nation," Heslin continued. "We have the strongest military in the world. We don't need to defend our homes with weapons like that."

Connecticut already has some of the nation's strictest gun laws.

Gov. Dannel Malloy, a first-term Democrat, has also vowed to address the factors that led to last month's massacre and set up a 16-member panel of experts to come up with recommendations. It includes experts who reviewed policies after mass shootings in Colorado and at Virginia Tech.

The panel must meet a March 15 deadline for its initial report, which Malloy is expected to use in drafting initiatives aimed at reducing gun violence.

Newtown parents learn comforting details about son's death

Part of complete coverage on

Details continue to emerge about what precisely happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Here is a timeline of events that compiles the latest reporting.

An interactive tribute to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

updated 11:26 AM EST, Tue January 15, 2013

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updated 10:08 PM EST, Mon January 14, 2013

Many questions remain after a school massacre shocked the nation. But what's clear is that the pain remains powerfully visible throughout the community.

updated 12:17 PM EST, Fri December 21, 2012

Growing up in Louisiana and Texas in the home of a part-time deputy sheriff, guns were a constant presence in Robin's childhood.

updated 10:17 AM EST, Wed December 19, 2012

Amid the chaos that first-responder Ray Corbo witnessed on Friday, there is one image that he will never forget.

updated 10:02 AM EST, Thu December 20, 2012

In many ways, Josh Stepakoff's childhood came to an abrupt halt at 10:49 a.m. on August 10, 1999.

updated 9:40 AM EST, Thu December 20, 2012

When Lauren Rousseau's boyfriend wakes up, he can smell her perfume.

updated 10:30 AM EST, Tue December 18, 2012

Placing yourself in the path of flying bullets to protect innocents. It's a job description fitting for a soldier or police officer, but not for a school teacher.

updated 5:45 AM EST, Mon December 17, 2012

Robbie Parker has a message for the family of the gunman who killed his 6-year-old daughter and 19 of her school mates.

updated 11:46 AM EST, Fri December 21, 2012

Learn how to help the victims and families affected by the Connecticut school shooting tragedy.

Read More..