NEW YORK The New York Stock Exchange (NYX) is being sold to a rival exchange for about $8 billion, ending more than two centuries of independence for the iconic Big Board.
The buyer, IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE), an upstart exchange based in Atlanta, made clear Thursday that little would change for the iconic trading floor in Manhattan's financial district if regulators approve the deal.
There will be dual headquarters in New York and Atlanta and ICE will open an office in Manhattan. NYSE CEO Duncan Niederauer will become president of the combined company and CEO of NYSE Group.
ICE said that the tie-up will create a top exchange operator covering a diverse lineup of markets and boosting efficiency.
"We believe the combined company will be better positioned to compete and serve customers across a broad range of asset classes by uniting our global brands, expertise and infrastructure," said IntercontinentalExchange Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher. "With a track record of growth and returns, clearing and M&A integration, we are well positioned to transform our combined companies into a premier global exchange operator that remains a leader in market evolution."
Sprecher will keep his positions. Four members of the NYSE board will be added to IntercontinentalExchange's board, expanding it to 15 members.
NYSE Euronext Inc. shareholders can chose to receive either $33.12 in cash, .2581 IntercontinentalExchange Inc. shares, or a combination of $11.27 in cash plus .1703 shares of stock.
IntercontinentalExchange plans to fund the cash portion of the acquisition with a combination of cash and existing debt. It added that the addition of NYSE will help it cut costs and should boost its earnings by more than 15 percent in the first year after the deal closes.
The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies, but still needs the approvals by regulators and the shareholders of both companies. It's expected to close in the second half of next year.
Exchanges have repeatedly attempted to merge recently as competition intensifies and commissions decline.
Last year, IntercontinentalExchange and Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. made a failed $11 billion bid to buy NYSE Euronext.
Earlier this year, European regulators blocked Deutsche Boerse AG from buying NYSE Euronext.
Shares of NYSE jumped 40 percent in premarket trading to $33.75 and are headed for a new high for the year. Shares if ICE rose 5 percent, to $134.98.
Shares of both companies had been halted in premarket trading earlier Thursday.
Colin Goddard knows what it's like to be in a classroom when an armed man bursts through the door and starts randomly shooting people. Goddard was a student at Virginia Tech when a gunman shot him and killed 32 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
"It was the most terrifying nine minutes of my life," Goddard told Terry Moran of "Nightline" Wednesday. "One moment you're conjugating French verbs, the next you're shot."
Four of Seung-Hui Cho's bullets hit Goddard April 16, 2007. Three of the bullets are still in him and serve as a constant reminder in his work with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Goddard does more than just lobby and appear in public-service announcements. He says he goes undercover to show how easy it is to buy guns without any background check. It's the subject of his documentary called "Living for 32," after the 32 people who died at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
"There is not one thing that will stop all shootings," Goddard said. " There's not one policy that will save us all, but a background check is something that will make it more difficult for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun."
School Shooting Survivor Documents Gun Law Fight Watch Video
Virginia Tech Documentary Debuts at Sundance Watch Video
In "Living for 32," Goddard says he was able to buy, for example, an Egyptian Maadi AK-47, a TEC-9 and a MAC-11 machine pistol at gun shows across the United States.
"I bought the same gun that was used to shoot me," he said. "I bought it all, all without a background check and it was all legal. My question is, 'Why is that legal?'"
Only licensed dealers are required by law to perform background checks on the people to whom they sell guns while private sellers can make gun-show sales with no background checks.
This is known as the "gun-show loophole" and Goddard has made it his mission to close it.
In one instance, Goddard was able to buy the Maadi Egyptian for $660 and was told by the dealer "there's no tax and no paperwork."
The dealer requested to see Goddard's Ohio driver's license. When Goddard couldn't provide it, he was still able to purchase the gun by providing an Ohio address instead.
"I didn't think I was going to be able to do it at first," he said. "And then once I did it once, then twice, then three times. I was like, 'Wow, this is really easy.'
"Toward the end I wasn't even thinking about it. I tried to do it as quickly as I could, say as few words as I could."
Polls show that a majority of Americans favor closing the loophole.
Goddard says closing the loophole won't end all gun violence, but that the government can do better.
The Brady Campaign recently launched a YouTube series, "We Are Better than This," in the wake of last week's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The videos feature celebrities and, perhaps more significantly, families of mass-shooting victims.
In the first three videos, Goddard appears, as do Lonnie and Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Redfield Ghawi, died in the Aurora, Colo., mass shooting in July.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels thrust into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday, activists said, pursuing a string of territorial gains to help cut army supply lines and cement a foothold in the capital Damascus to the south.
They have made a series of advances across the country, seizing several military installations and more heavy weaponry, hardening the threat to President Bashar al-Assad's power base in Damascus 21 months into an uprising against his rule.
Rebels said a day earlier they had captured at least six towns in Hama province. On Thursday heavy fighting erupted in Morek, a town on the highway that runs from Damascus north to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and another battleground.
The opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels were trying to take checkpoints in Morek, one of which they had already seized, and described the town as a critical position for the Syrian army.
"The town of Morek lies on the Damascus-Aleppo road ... it has eight checkpoints and two security and military headquarters. If the rebels were able to control the town they would completely sever the supply lines between Hama and Damascus to Idlib province," the group said in an email.
Idlib is in the rebel-dominated north bordering on Turkey.
The British-based Observatory has a network of activists across the country. Activist reports are difficult to verify, as the government restricts media access into Syria.
Fighting in Hama could aggravate Syria's sectarian strife as it is home to many rural minority communities of Alawites and Christians. Minorities, and particularly the Alawite sect to which Assad himself belongs, have largely backed the president. Syria's Sunni Muslim majority has been the engine of the revolt.
"Rebels are trying to take Mohardeh and al-Suqaylabiya, which are strongholds of the regime and are strategic. The residents are Christian and the neighboring towns are Alawite. The rebels worry security forces may be arming people there," said activist Safi al-Hamawi, speaking on Skype.
He said the opposition feared skirmishes that had previously been largely Sunni-Alawite could spread into a broader sectarian conflict.
"I think it is still unlikely, because the residents have tried to maintain neutrality, but if the battle became a sectarian clash, it could be a catastrophe. Christians and Muslims could suddenly find themselves enemies."
U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday that Syria's conflict was becoming more "overtly sectarian", with more civilians seeking to arm themselves and foreign fighters - mostly Sunnis - flocking in from 29 countries.
"They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighboring countries," said Karen Abuzayd, one of U.N. investigators, told a news conference in Brussels.
The deepened sectarian divisions may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if Assad is ousted, and the influx of foreigners raises the risk of fighting spilling into neighboring countries riven by similar communal fault lines.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally and arms supplier, warned that any solution to the conflict must ensure government and rebel forces do not merely swap roles and fight on forever. It appeared to be his first direct comment on the possibility of a post-Assad Syria.
The West and some Arab states accuse Russia of shielding Assad after Moscow blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions intended to increase pressure on Damascus to end the violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people. Putin said the Syrian people would ultimately decide their own fate.
FIGHTS FOR DAMASCUS CAMP
Assad's forces have been hitting back at rebel advances with bouts of heavy shelling, particularly along the eastern ring of suburbs outside Damascus, where rebels are dominant.
A Syrian security source said the army was planning heavy offensives in northern and central Syria to stem rebel advances, but there was no clear sign of such operations yet.
Rebels seized the Palestinian refugee district of Yarmouk earlier this week, which put them within 3 km (2 miles) of downtown Damascus. Heavy shelling and fighting forced thousands of Palestinian and Syrian residents to flee the Yarmouk area.
But rebels said on Thursday they were negotiating to put the camp - actually a densely packed urban district - back into the hands of pro-opposition Palestinian fighters. There are some 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in Syria, and they have been divided by the uprising.
Palestinian factions, some backed by the government and others by the rebels, had begun fighting last week, a development that allowed Syrian insurgents to take the camp.
Despite warnings of continued violence, a video released by activists on Thursday showed dozens of people returning to Yarmouk. Most of the people in the footage were men, suggesting entire families may not be venturing back yet.
"There are still negotiations going on between the Palestinians and the rebels. The rebels want control of the checkpoints to be sure they can keep supply routes open to central Damascus," said a rebel who asked not to be named.
"Palestinians want their fighters to run the checkpoints so the army will stop attacking and people can go home. But we are worried there are government collaborators among them."
The fighter said rebels were looking to ensure their Palestinian allies could keep open access for rebels in Yarmouk, which they have described as a gateway to central Damascus.
LEBANON BORDER POST TAKEN
Elsewhere, Syrian insurgents took over an isolated border post on the western frontier with Lebanon earlier this week, local residents told Reuters on Thursday.
They said around 20 rebels from the Qadissiyah Brigade overran the post at Rankus, which is linked by road to the remote Lebanese village of Tufail.
Video footage downloaded on the Internet on Thursday, dated December 16, showed a handful of fighters dressed in khaki fatigues and wielding rifles as they kicked down a stone barricade around a small, single-storey army checkpoint.
"This is the end of you, Bashar you dog," one of the fighters said. The remains of two army trucks, which the rebels said had been blown up, stood nearby on a single track dirt road crossing a flat brown plain between snow-capped mountains.
The rebels already hold much of the terrain along Syria's northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq respectively.
Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for treatment of wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his ministry in Damascus a week ago.
Lebanese medical sources said Shaar had shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, stomach and legs but they were not critical.
The Syrian opposition has tried to peel off defectors not only from the army but from the government as well, though only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned Assad.
But the conflict has divided many Syrian families. Security forces arrested on Thursday an opposition activist who is also the relative of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian Observatory said. The man was arrested along with five other activists who are considered pacifists, it said.
Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has few powers in Assad's Alawite-dominated power structure, said earlier this week that neither side could win the war in Syria. He called for the formation of a national unity government to solve a crisis that has killed more than 40,000 Syrians.
(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
SEOUL: Liberal candidate Moon Jae-In conceded victory Wednesday in South Korea's presidential election to conservative Park Geun-Hye, saying he "humbly" accepted the decision of the voters.
"Everyone did their best but I lacked the ability," Moon told reporters outside his Seoul residence. "I humbly accept the outcome of the election."
Get 32GB of USB 3.0-powered flash storage for under $20.
(Credit: Ice Monkey)
Regular readers know that flash-drive prices have plummeted in the past year. But you know what all those dirt-cheap drives have had in common? A USB 2.0 interface.
What is this, 2001? USB 2.0 is over, man. It's the digital equivalent of the horse and buggy. And yet it's still pretty rare to find flash drives that support the newer, faster USB 3.0 spec.
That's why I'm jazzed about today's deal. While supplies last, Ice Monkey has the Super Talent ST3U32ST1K 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $19.99 shipped. Elsewhere it sells for at least $28.
The black-and-turquoise drive features a retractable USB plug (my favorite design), backward compatibility with USB 2.0, and a one-year warranty. (I mention this last item not because it's especially good -- quite the opposite -- but because there's a mistake in Ice Monkey's product-features list. It says "5 Manufacturer Warranty," but I double-checked with Super Talent, and it's indeed just one year.)
With rated sequential read and write rates of 90MB/second and 16MB/second, respectively, the drive should blow the doors off any USB 2.0 storage you've used in the past. (That's assuming, of course, that you plug it into a USB 3.0 port. If you've purchased a PC within the last year or so, you should have at least one of them.)
According to Ice Monkey's "stock meter," the company has a full inventory of these drives, though how many actual units that means is anybody's guess. Also, it's worth noting that Ice Monkey has a fairly mediocre score over at ResellerRatings.com, with poor communication and slow shipping being the big complaints. (I've heard similar complaints of late about Daily Steals, Ice Monkey's "sister" company.)
Thus, if you're in a big hurry, you may want to spend extra to get it elsewhere. If not, well, this is one of the best deals on a speedy, high-capacity flash drive I've seen this year.
Bonus deal: Speaking of big hurries, it's hard to beat e-mail delivery. For a limited time, and while supplies last, Walmart is offering a $50 iTunes eGift Card for $40. You can use the card for yourself or send it along to someone else as a gift, all with just a few minutes' worth of clicking.
Deals found on The Cheapskate are subject to availability, expiration, and other terms determined by sellers.
Curious about what exactly The Cheapskate does and how it works? Read our FAQ.
If there is one country that best represents the possibility of cutting gun crime by increasing gun control, it is Australia.
In 1996, 28-year-old Martin Bryant finished his lunch in a café in the seaside resort of Port Arthur and pulled out a semi-automatic rifle. In the first 15 seconds of his attack, he killed 12 and wounded 10. In all, he shot more than 50 people in six locations, killing 35. The worst mass shooting in Australia's history capped a violent decade of mass shootings that killed nearly 100 – and Australians had had enough.
Only 12 days later, Prime Minister John Howard – a conservative who had just been elected with the help of gun owners – pushed through not only new gun control laws, but also the most ambitious gun buyback program seen in recent memory.
The laws banned assault rifles, tightened gun owner licensing, and created national uniform registration standards. Howard knew they might be unpopular among some of the same voters who helped put him into office -- during one particularly hostile public town hall, he wore a bulletproof vest.
But something extraordinary happened: the laws tapped into public revulsion at the shooting and became extremely popular. And they became extremely effective.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images
In the last 16 years, the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia has fallen by more than 50 percent. The national rate of gun homicide is one-thirtieth that of the United States. And there hasn't been a single mass shooting since Port Arthur.
"It's not that we are a less violent people and that you are a more violent people," says Philip Alpers, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Sydney who runs GunPolicy.org, which tracks gun violence and gun laws across the world. "It's that you have more lethal means at your disposal."
But it wasn't just the new laws that made Australia safer. The gun buyback program collected nearly 650,000 assault weapons and 50,000 additional weapons – about one sixth of the national stock. Fewer guns on the street helped severely reduce the likelihood that guns could be used for a mass shooting.
"Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of gun owners simply, voluntarily gave up guns that they did not need to give up," Alpers told ABC News. "You could not be a gun owner during that period and not feel terribly persecuted, terribly under threat from public opinion. The commentaries were vicious."
Gun advocates hold up Australia's example as a reason to try similar laws in the United States, following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But Australians' willingness to give up their guns suggests a fundamental difference between Australia and the United States' gun cultures – and why Australia could be looked at for inspiration, rather than a model.
In the U.S., the founding fathers wrote gun ownership into the country's bedrock documents. Gun owners have long seen their weapons as a sign of freedom.
"But Australians are predisposed toward not having guns," Alpers argues. "We take it for granted that you license the gun owner and you register the firearm. Just as you do with a car. In the United States, everything went in the different direction."
So gun control advocates urge the Obama administration to look at certain steps Australia took – but not necessarily reproduce them.
SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler took a commanding lead in South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday, putting her on track to become the country's first woman head of state.
A win for 60-year old conservative Park Geun-hye would see her return to the presidential palace where she served as her father's first lady in the 1970s, after Park's mother was assassinated by a North Korean-backed gunman.
With more than 70 percent of the votes counted, Park led with 51.6 percent to 48 percent for her left-wing challenger, human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in.
Her raucous, jubilant supporters braved sub-zero temperatures to chant her name and wave South Korean flags outside her house.
An elated Park reached into the crowd to grasp hands.
Park will take office for a mandatory single, five-year term in February and will face an immediate challenge from a hostile North Korea and have to deal with an economy in which annual growth rates have fallen to about 2 percent from an average of 5.5 percent in the past 50 years.
She is unmarried and has no children, saying that her life will be devoted to her country.
The legacy of her father, Park Chung-hee, who ruled for 18 years and transformed the country from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War into an industrial power-house still divides Koreans.
For many conservatives, he is South Korea's greatest president and the election of his daughter would vindicate his rule. His opponents dub him a "dictator" who trampled on human rights and stifled dissent.
"I trust her. She will save our country," said Park Hye-sook, 67, who voted in an affluent Seoul district, earlier in the day.
"Her father ... rescued the country," said the housewife and grandmother, who is no relation to the candidate.
For younger people, the main concern is the economy and the creation of well-paid jobs in a country where income inequalities have grown in recent years.
"Now a McDonald's hamburger is over 5,000 Korean won ($4.66) so you can't buy a McDonald's burger with your hourly pay. Life is hard already for our two-member family but if there were kids, it would be much tougher," said Cho Hae-ran, 41, who is married and works at a trading company.
Park has spent 15 years in politics as a leading legislator in the ruling Saenuri party, although her policies are sketchy.
She has a "Happiness Promotion Committee" and her campaign was launched as a "National Happiness Campaign", a slogan she has since changed to "A Prepared Woman President".
She has cited former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a tough proponent of free markets, as her role model as well as Angela Merkel, the conservative German chancellor who is Europe's most powerful leader.
NEGOTIATE WITH NORTH
One of those who voted on Wednesday was Shin Dong-hyuk, a defector from North Korea who is the only person known to have escaped from a slave labor camp there.
He Tweeted that he was voting "for the first time in my life", although he didn't say for whom.
Park has said she would negotiate with Kim Jong-un, the youthful leader of North Korea who recently celebrated a year in office, but wants the South's isolated and impoverished neighbor to give up its nuclear weapons program as a precondition for aid, something Pyongyang has refused to do.
The two Koreas remain technically at war after an armistice ended their conflict. Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the North's current leader, ordered several assassination attempts on Park's father, one of which resulted in her mother being shot to death in 1974.
Park herself met Kim Jong-un's father, the late leader Kim Jong-il, and declared he was "comfortable to talk to" and he seemed to be someone "who would keep his word".
The North successfully launched a long-range rocket last week in what critics said was a test of technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile and has recently stepped up its attacks on Park, describing her as holding a "grudge" and seeking "confrontation", code for war.
Park remains a firm supporter of a trade pact with the United States that and looks set to continue the free-market policies of her predecessor, although she has said she would seek to spread wealth more evenly.
The biggest of all the chaebol, Samsung Group, which produces the world's top selling smartphone as well as televisions, computer chips and ships, has sales equivalent to about a fifth of South Korea's national output.
(Additional reporting by Jumin Park, Seongbin Kang, Narae Kim, SoMang Yang; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Robert Birsel)
SINGAPORE: Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin has said his ministry can and will do more for foreign workers.
He said this in response to various criticisms about the ministry's management of migrant worker matters.
Mr Tan said the ministry's various systems, including those dealing with employment issues for workers, can be improved, and the ministry will continue to work on them.
He also pointed out that whatever systems are in place, there will always be some employers who are irresponsible and who do not treat workers fairly.
However, most are reasonable employers, and should not be tarred with the same brush.
The same goes for workers.
In a blog post on Tuesday evening to mark International Migrants Day, Mr Tan said the ministry has reviewed its legislation and will continue to do so to ensure protection for workers.
He stressed the ministry is not pro-employer or pro-worker.
Instead, it strives to balance the employer-worker relationship while ensuring vulnerable workers are not disadvantaged.
But Mr Tan added the onus is also on employers -- those who bring in foreign workers must also be responsible for them and treat them fairly.
Employers should not simply look at the bottom-line, without caring for workers' welfare and well-being. Mr Tan added that this applies for local and migrant workers alike.
He said workers are also more productive and committed, if they are taken care of.
Mr Tan stressed it is about doing what is right and time should be taken to recognise the contributions of migrant workers in Singapore.
He pointed out that Singapore's economy and businesses will continue to tap on foreign workers to supplement specific sectors and workers who may not be as familiar with the laws and avenues for help in Singapore are vulnerable.
Mr Tan said their rights should and must be protected.
More than 90 per cent of some 3,000 work pass holders surveyed in 2011 were satisfied with working in Singapore and Mr Tan said things should be kept that way.
Apple iOS users can now do even more with Google+ on their mobile devices.
Released yesterday, version 4.1 of Google+ for iOS lets you browse, search for, and join communities. You can find communities devoted to your own interests, read posts from fellow members, and post your own comments.
You can now subscribe to any circle from your iPhone or iPad and receive notifications of updates and other items. Those of you who stage Google+ events can now indicate how many guests you've invited.
The "Find People" feature has been improved so you can more easily search for topics as well as individuals. And you can now edit your profile via your mobile device.
The Google+ app is optimized for the iPhone 5 and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The app requires iOS 5.0 or higher.
NEWTOWN, Conn. With security stepped up and families still on edge in Newtown, schools are opening for the first time since last week's massacre, bringing a return of familiar routines -- at least, for some -- to a grief-stricken town as it buries 20 of its children.
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Holiday week is full of funerals for Newtown, Conn.
Two 6-year-old boys were laid to rest Monday in the first of a long, almost unbearable procession of funerals. A total of 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S history.
While classes resume Tuesday for Newtown schools -- except for students at Sandy Hook -- some parents were likely to keep their children at home anyway. Local police and school officials have been discussing how and where to increase security, and state police said they will be on alert for threats and hoaxes.
Suzy DeYoung said her 15-year-old son is going back to the high school.
"I think he wants to go back," she said. "If he told me he wants to stay home, I'd let him stay home. I think going back to a routine is a good idea; at least that's what I hear from professionals."
On Monday, Newtown held the first two funerals of many the picturesque New England community of 27,000 people will face over the next few days, just as other towns are getting ready for the holidays. At least one funeral is planned for a student -- 6-year-old Jessica Rekos -- as well as several wakes, including one for teacher Victoria Soto, who has been hailed as a hero for sacrificing herself to save several students.
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Funerals begin for Conn. shooting victims
Two funeral homes filled Monday with mourners for Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto, both 6 years old. A rabbi presided at Noah's service, and in keeping with Jewish tradition, the boy was laid to rest in a simple brown wooden casket with a Star of David on it.
"I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room," Noah's mother, Veronique Pozner, said at the service, according to remarks the family provided to The Associated Press. Both services were closed to the news media.
"Most of all, I will miss your visions of your future," she said. "You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure that the world kept producing tacos."
She closed by saying: "Momma loves you, little man."
Noah's twin, Arielle, who was assigned to a different classroom, survived the killing frenzy.
At Jack Pinto's Christian service, hymns rang out from inside the funeral home, where the boy lay in an open casket. Jack was among the youngest members of a youth wrestling association in Newtown, and dozens of little boys turned up at the service in gray Newtown Wrestling T-shirts.
Jack was a fan of New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz and was laid to rest in a Cruz jersey.
In the middle of town, an ever-growing memorial has become a pilgrimage site for strangers who want to pay their respect.
One man told CBS Station WCBS why he visited: "Because I'm a dad with four beautiful daughters, when I found out it broke my heart. It's hard to sleep, I don't know how to feel."
Authorities say the man who killed the two boys and their classmates, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot his mother, Nancy, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.
Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drab utility vest with lots of pockets, during the attack.
As investigators worked to figure out what drove him to lash out with such fury -- and why he singled out the school -- federal agents said he had fired guns at shooting ranges over the past several years but that there was no evidence he did so recently as practice for the rampage.
Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges, and also visited ranges together.
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Political reaction to Newtown, CT tragedy
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Gun sales on the rise after Conn. shooting
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CBS News poll: Strong support for tougher gun laws
"We do not have any indication at this time that the shooter engaged in shooting activities in the past six months," Seifert said.
Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.
Whatever his motives, normalcy will be slow in revisiting Newtown.
Classes were canceled district-wide Monday, though other students in town were expected to return to class Tuesday.
Dan Capodicci, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, said he thinks it's time for her to get back to classes.
"It's the right thing to do. You have to send your kids back. But at the same time I'm worried," he said. "We need to get back to normal."
Gina Wolfman said her daughters are going back to their seventh- and ninth-grade classrooms tomorrow. She thinks they are ready to be back with their friends.
"I think they want to be back with everyone and share," she said.
Newtown police Lt. George Sinko said whether to send children to school is a personal decision for every parent.
"I can't imagine what it must be like being a parent with a child that young, putting them on a school bus," Sinko said.
The district has made plans to send surviving Sandy Hook students to Chalk Hill, a former middle school in the neighboring town of Monroe. Sandy Hook desks that will fit the small students are being taken there, empty since town schools consolidated last year, and tradesmen are donating their services to get the school ready within a matter of days.
"These are innocent children that need to be put on the right path again," Monroe police Lt. Brian McCauley said.
With Sandy Hook Elementary still designated a crime scene, state police Lt. Paul Vance said it could be months before police turn the school back over to the district.
The shooting has put schools on edge across the country.
Anxiety ran high enough in Ridgefield, Conn., about 20 miles from Newtown, that officials ordered a lockdown at schools after a person deemed suspicious was seen at a train station.
Two schools were locked down in South Burlington, Vt., because of an unspecified threat. A high school in Windham, N.H., was briefly locked down after an administrator heard a loud bang, but a police search found nothing suspicious.
Lanza is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, a civilian version of the military's M-16. It is similar to the weapon used in a recent shopping mall shooting in Oregon and other deadly attacks around the U.S. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in this country under the 1994 assault weapons ban, but the law expired in 2004.
The outlines of a national debate on gun control have begun to take shape. At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said curbing gun violence is a complex problem that will require a "comprehensive solution."
Carney did not offer specific proposals or a timeline. He said President Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and mental health professionals in coming weeks.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, flanked by shooting survivors and relatives of victims of gunfire around the country, pressed Mr. Obama and Congress to toughen gun laws and tighten enforcement after the Newtown massacre.
"If this doesn't do it," he asked, "what is going to?"
At least one senator, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, said Monday that the attack in Newtown has led him to rethink his opposition to the ban on assault weapons.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is an avid hunter and lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, said it's time to move beyond the political rhetoric and begin an honest discussion about reasonable restrictions on guns.
"This is bigger than just about guns," he added. "It's about how we treat people with mental illness, how we intervene, how we get them the care they need, how we protect our schools. It's just so sad."
