AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football


WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.


Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid policy can face a team whose players have repeatedly tested positive.


An investigation by The Associated Press — based on dozens of interviews with players, testers, dealers and experts and an analysis of weight records for more than 61,000 players — revealed that while those running the multibillion-dollar sport believe the problem is under control, that is hardly the case.


The sport's near-zero rate of positive steroids tests isn't an accurate gauge among college athletes. Random tests provide weak deterrence and, by design, fail to catch every player using steroids. Colleges also are reluctant to spend money on expensive steroid testing when cheaper ones for drugs like marijuana allow them to say they're doing everything they can to keep drugs out of football.


"It's nothing like what's going on in reality," said Don Catlin, an anti-doping pioneer who spent years conducting the NCAA's laboratory tests at UCLA. He became so frustrated with the college system that it drove him in part to leave the testing industry to focus on anti-doping research.


Catlin said the collegiate system, in which players often are notified days before a test and many schools don't even test for steroids, is designed to not catch dopers. That artificially reduces the numbers of positive tests and keeps schools safe from embarrassing drug scandals.


While other major sports have been beset by revelations of steroid use, college football has operated with barely a whiff of scandal. Between 1996 and 2010 — the era of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong — the failure rate for NCAA steroid tests fell even closer to zero from an already low rate of less than 1 percent.


The AP's investigation, drawing upon more than a decade of official rosters from all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, found thousands of players quickly putting on significant weight, even more than their fellow players. The information compiled by the AP included players who appeared for multiple years on the same teams, making it the most comprehensive data available.


For decades, scientific studies have shown that anabolic steroid use leads to an increase in body weight. Weight gain alone doesn't prove steroid use, but very rapid weight gain is one factor that would be deemed suspicious, said Kathy Turpin, senior director of sport drug testing for the National Center for Drug Free Sport, which conducts tests for the NCAA and more than 300 schools.


Yet the NCAA has never studied weight gain or considered it in regard to its steroid testing policies, said Mary Wilfert, the NCAA's associate director of health and safety. She would not speculate on the cause of such rapid weight gain.


The NCAA attributes the decline in positive tests to its year-round drug testing program, combined with anti-drug education and testing conducted by schools.


"The effort has been increasing, and we believe it has driven down use," Wilfert said.


Big gains, data show


The AP's analysis found that, regardless of school, conference and won-loss record, many players gained weight at exceptional rates compared with their fellow athletes and while accounting for their heights. The documented weight gains could not be explained by the amount of money schools spent on weight rooms, trainers and other football expenses.


Adding more than 20 or 25 pounds of lean muscle in a year is nearly impossible through diet and exercise alone, said Dan Benardot, director of the Laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia State University.


The AP's analysis corrected for the fact that players in different positions have different body types, so speedy wide receivers weren't compared to bulkier offensive tackles. It could not assess each player's physical makeup, such as how much weight gain was muscle versus fat, one indicator of steroid use. In the most extreme case in the AP analysis, the probability that a player put on so much weight compared with other players was so rare that the odds statistically were roughly the same as an NFL quarterback throwing 12 passing touchdowns or an NFL running back rushing for 600 yards in one game.


In nearly all the rarest cases of weight gain in the AP study, players were offensive or defensive linemen, hulking giants who tower above 6-foot-3 and weigh 300 pounds or more. Four of those players interviewed by the AP said that they never used steroids and gained weight through dramatic increases in eating, up to six meals a day. Two said they were aware of other players using steroids.


"I just ate. I ate 5-6 times a day," said Clint Oldenburg, who played for Colorado State starting in 2002 and for five years in the NFL. Oldenburg's weight increased over four years from 212 to 290, including a one-year gain of 53 pounds, which he attributed to diet and two hours of weight lifting daily. "It wasn't as difficult as you think. I just ate anything."


Oldenburg told the AP he was surprised at the scope of steroid use in college football, even in Colorado State's locker room. "College performance enhancers were more prevalent than I thought," he said. "There were a lot of guys even on my team that were using." He declined to identify any of them.


The AP found more than 4,700 players — or about 7 percent of all players — who gained more than 20 pounds overall in a single year. It was common for the athletes to gain 10, 15 and up to 20 pounds in their first year under a rigorous regimen of weightlifting and diet. Others gained 25, 35 and 40 pounds in a season. In roughly 100 cases, players packed on as much 80 pounds in a single year.


In at least 11 instances, players that AP identified as packing on significant weight in college went on to fail NFL drug tests. But pro football's confidentiality rules make it impossible to know for certain which drugs were used and how many others failed tests that never became public.


What is bubbling under the surface in college football, which helps elite athletes gain unusual amounts of weight? Without access to detailed information about each player's body composition, drug testing and workout regimen, which schools do not release, it's impossible to say with certainty what's behind the trend. But Catlin has little doubt: It is steroids.


"It's not brain surgery to figure out what's going on," he said. "To me, it's very clear."


Football's most infamous steroid user was Lyle Alzado, who became a star NFL defensive end in the 1970s and '80s before he admitted to juicing his entire career. He started in college, where the 190-pound freshman gained 40 pounds in one year. It was a 21 percent jump in body mass, a tremendous gain that far exceeded what researchers have seen in controlled, short-term studies of steroid use by athletes. Alzado died of brain cancer in 1992.


The AP found more than 130 big-time college football players who showed comparable one-year gains in the past decade. Students posted such extraordinary weight gains across the country, in every conference, in nearly every school. Many of them eclipsed Alzado and gained 25, 35, even 40 percent of their body mass.


Even though testers consider rapid weight gain suspicious, in practice it doesn't result in testing. Ben Lamaak, who arrived at Iowa State in 2006, said he weighed 225 pounds in high school and 262 pounds in the summer of his freshman year on the Cyclones football team. A year later, official rosters showed the former basketball player from Cedar Rapids weighed 306, a gain of 81 pounds since high school. He graduated as a 320-pound offensive lineman and said he did it all naturally.


"I was just a young kid at that time, and I was still growing into my body," he said. "It really wasn't that hard for me to gain the weight. I had fun doing it. I love to eat. It wasn't a problem."


In addition to random drug testing, Iowa State is one of many schools that have "reasonable suspicion" testing. That means players can be tested when their behavior or physical symptoms suggest drug use.


Despite gaining 81 pounds in a year, Lamaak said he was never singled out for testing.


The associate athletics director for athletic training at Iowa State, Mark Coberley, said coaches and trainers use body composition, strength data and other factors to spot suspected cheaters. Lamaak, he said, was not suspicious because he gained a lot of "non-lean" weight.


"There are a lot of things that go into trying to identify whether guys are using performance-enhancing drugs," Coberley said. "If anybody had the answer, they'd be spotting people that do it. We keep our radar up and watch for things that are suspicious and try to protect the kids from making stupid decisions."


There's no evidence that Lamaak's weight gain was anything but natural. Gaining fat is much easier than gaining muscle. But colleges don't routinely release information on how much of the weight their players gain is muscle, as opposed to fat. Without knowing more, said Benardot, the expert at Georgia State, it's impossible to say whether large athletes were putting on suspicious amounts of muscle or simply obese, which is defined as a body mass index greater than 30.


Looking solely at the most significant weight gainers also ignores players like Bryan Maneafaiga.


In the summer of 2004, Maneafaiga was an undersized 180-pound running back trying to make the University of Hawaii football team. Twice — once in pre-season and once in the fall — he failed school drug tests, showing up positive for marijuana use. What surprised him was that the same tests turned up negative for steroids.


He'd started injecting stanozolol, a steroid, in the summer to help bulk up to a roster weight of 200 pounds. Once on the team, where he saw only limited playing time, he'd occasionally inject the milky liquid into his buttocks the day before games.


"Food and good training will only get you so far," he told the AP recently.


Maneafaiga's coach, June Jones, meanwhile, said none of his players had tested positive for doping since he took over the team in 1999. He also said publicly that steroids had been eliminated in college football: "I would say 100 percent," he told The Honolulu Advertiser in 2006.


Jones said it was news to him that one of his players had used steroids. Jones, who now coaches at Southern Methodist University, said many of his former players put on bulk working hard in the weight room. For instance, adding 70 pounds over a three- to four-year period isn't unusual, he said.


Jones said a big jump in muscle year-over-year — say 40 pounds — would be a "red light that something is not right."


Jones, a former NFL head coach, said he is unaware of any steroid use at SMU and believes the NCAA is doing a good job testing players. "I just think because the way the NCAA regulates it now that it's very hard to get around those tests," he said.


The cost of testing


While the use of drugs in professional sports is a question of fairness, use among college athletes is also important as a public policy issue. That's because most top-tier football teams are from public schools that benefit from millions of dollars each year in taxpayer subsidies. Their athletes are essentially wards of the state. Coaches and trainers — the ones who tell players how to behave, how to exercise and what to eat — are government employees.


Then there are the health risks, which include heart and liver problems and cancer.


On paper, college football has a strong drug policy. The NCAA conducts random, unannounced drug testing and the penalties for failure are severe. Players lose an entire year of eligibility after a first positive test. A second offense means permanent ineligibility from sports.


In practice, though, the NCAA's roughly 11,000 annual tests amount to just a fraction of all athletes in Division I and II schools. Exactly how many tests are conducted each year on football players is unclear because the NCAA hasn't published its data for two years. And when it did, it periodically changed the formats, making it impossible to compare one year of football to the next.


Even when players are tested by the NCAA, people involved in the process say it's easy enough to anticipate the test and develop a doping routine that results in a clean test by the time it occurs. NCAA rules say players can be notified up to two days in advance of a test, which Catlin says is plenty of time to beat a test if players have designed the right doping regimen. By comparison, Olympic athletes are given no notice.


"Everybody knows when testing is coming. They all know. And they know how to beat the test," Catlin said, adding, "Only the really dumb ones are getting caught."


Players are far more likely to be tested for drugs by their schools than by the NCAA. But while many schools have policies that give them the right to test for steroids, they often opt not to. Schools are much more focused on street drugs like cocaine and marijuana. Depending on how many tests a school orders, each steroid test can cost $100 to $200, while a simple test for street drugs might cost as little as $25.


When schools call and ask about drug testing, the first question is usually, "How much will it cost," Turpin said.


Most schools that use Drug Free Sport do not test for anabolic steroids, Turpin said. Some are worried about the cost. Others don't think they have a problem. And others believe that since the NCAA tests for steroids their money is best spent testing for street drugs, she said.


Wilfert, the NCAA official, said the possibility of steroid testing is still a deterrent, even at schools where it isn't conducted.


"Even though perhaps those institutional programs are not including steroids in all their tests, they could, and they do from time to time," she said. "So, it is a kind of deterrence."


For Catlin, one of the most frustrating things about running the UCLA testing lab was getting urine samples from schools around the country and only being asked to test for cocaine, marijuana and the like.


"Schools are very good at saying, 'Man, we're really strong on drug testing,'" he said. "And that's all they really want to be able to say and to do and to promote."


That helps explain how two school drug tests could miss Maneafaiga's steroid use. It's also possible that the random test came at an ideal time in Maneafaiga's steroid cycle.


Enforcement varies


The top steroid investigator at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joe Rannazzisi, said he doesn't understand why schools don't invest in the same kind of testing, with the same penalties, as the NFL. The NFL has a thorough testing program for most drugs, though the league has yet to resolve a long-simmering feud with its players union about how to test for human growth hormone.


"Is it expensive? Of course, but college football makes a lot of money," he said. "Invest in the integrity of your program."


For a school to test all 85 scholarship football players for steroids twice a season would cost up to $34,000, Catlin said, plus the cost of collecting and handling the urine samples. That's about 0.2 percent of the average big-time school football budget of about $14 million. Testing all athletes in all sports would make the school's costs higher.


When schools ask Drug Free Sport for advice on their drug policies, Turpin said she recommends an immediate suspension after the first positive drug test. Otherwise, she said, "student athletes will roll the dice."


But drug use is a bigger deal at some schools than others.


At Notre Dame and Alabama, the teams that will soon compete for the national championship, players don't automatically miss games for testing positive for steroids. At Alabama, coaches have wide discretion. Notre Dame's student-athlete handbook says a player who fails a test can return to the field once the steroids are out of his system.


"If you're a strength-and-conditioning coach, if you see your kids making gains that seem a little out of line, are you going to say, 'I'm going to investigate further? I want to catch someone?'" said Anthony Roberts, an author of a book on steroids who says he has helped college football players design steroid regimens to beat drug tests.


There are schools with tough policies. The University of North Carolina kicks players off the team after a single positive test for steroids. Auburn's student-athlete handbook calls for a half-season suspension for any athlete caught using performance-enhancing drugs.


Wilfert said it's not up to the NCAA to determine whether that's fair.


"Obviously if it was our testing program, we believe that everybody should be under the same protocol and the same sanction," she said.


Fans typically have no idea that such discrepancies exist and players are left to suspect who might be cheating.


"You see a lot of guys and you know they're possibly on something because they just don't gain weight but get stronger real fast," said Orrin Thompson, a former defensive lineman at Duke. "You know they could be doing something but you really don't know for sure."


Thompson gained 85 pounds between 2001 and 2004, according to Duke rosters and Thompson himself. He said he did not use steroids and was subjected to several tests while at Duke, a school where a single positive steroid test results in a yearlong suspension.


Meanwhile at UCLA, home of the laboratory that for years set the standard for cutting-edge steroid testing, athletes can fail three drug tests before being suspended. At Bowling Green, testing is voluntary.


At the University of Maryland, students must get counseling after testing positive, but school officials are prohibited from disciplining first-time steroid users. Athletic department spokesman Matt Taylor denied that was the case and sent the AP a copy of the policy. But the policy Taylor sent included this provision: "The athletic department/coaching staff may not discipline a student-athlete for a first drug offense."


By comparison, in Kentucky and Maryland, racehorses face tougher testing and sanctions than football players at Louisville or the University of Maryland.


"If you're trying to keep a level playing field, that seems nonsensical," said Rannazzisi at the DEA. He said he was surprised to learn that what gets a free pass at one school gets players immediately suspended at another. "What message does that send? It's OK to cheat once or twice?"


Only about half the student athletes in a 2009 NCAA survey said they believed school testing deterred drug use.


As an association of colleges and universities, the NCAA could not unilaterally force schools to institute uniform testing policies and sanctions, Wilfert said.


"We can't tell them what to do, but if went through a membership process where they determined that this is what should be done, then it could happen," she said.


'Everybody around me was doing it'


Steroids are a controlled substance under federal law, but players who use them need not worry too much about prosecution. The DEA focuses on criminal operations, not individual users. When players are caught with steroids, it's often as part of a traffic stop or a local police investigation.


Jared Foster, 24, a quarterback recruited to play at the University of Mississippi, was kicked off the team in 2008 after local authorities arrested him for giving a man nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, according to court documents. Foster pleaded guilty and served jail time.


He told the AP that he doped in high school to impress college recruiters. He said he put on enough lean muscle to go from 185 pounds to 210 in about two months.


"Everybody around me was doing it," he said.


Steroids are not hard to find. A simple Internet search turns up countless online sources for performance-enhancing drugs, mostly from overseas companies.


College athletes freely post messages on steroid websites, seeking advice to beat tests and design the right schedule of administering steroids.


And steroids are still a mainstay in private, local gyms. Before the DEA shut down Alabama-based Applied Pharmacy Services as a major nationwide steroid supplier, sales records obtained by the AP show steroid shipments to bodybuilders, trainers and gym owners around the country.


Because users are rarely prosecuted, the demand is left in place after the distributor is gone.


When Joshua Hodnik was making and wholesaling illegal steroids, he had found a good retail salesman in a college quarterback named Vinnie Miroth. Miroth was playing at Saginaw Valley State, a Division II school in central Michigan, and was buying enough steroids for 25 people each month, Hodnik said.


"That's why I hired him," Hodnik said. "He bought large amounts and knew how to move it."


Miroth, who pleaded no contest in 2007 and admitted selling steroids, helped authorities build their case against Hodnik, according to court records. Now playing football in France, Miroth declined repeated AP requests for an interview.


Hodnik was released from prison this year and says he is out of the steroid business for good. He said there's no doubt that steroid use is widespread in college football.


"These guys don't start using performance-enhancing drugs when they hit the professional level," the Oklahoma City man said. "Obviously it starts well before that. And you can go back to some of the professional players who tested positive and compare their numbers to college and there is virtually no change."


Maneafaiga, the former Hawaii running back, said his steroids came from Mexico. A friend in California, who was a coach at a junior college, sent them through the mail. But Maneafaiga believes the consequences were nagging injuries. He found religion, quit the drugs and became the team's chaplain.


"God gave you everything you need," he said. "It gets in your mind. It will make you grow unnaturally. Eventually, you'll break down. It happened to me every time."


At the DEA, Rannazzisi said he has met with and conducted training for investigators and top officials in every professional sport. He's talked to Major League Baseball about the patterns his agents are seeing. He's discussed warning signs with the NFL.


He said he's offered similar training to the NCAA but never heard back. Wilfert said the NCAA staff has discussed it and hasn't decided what to do.


"We have very little communication with the NCAA or individual schools," Rannazzisi said. "They've got my card. What they've done with it? I don't know."


___


Associated Press writers Ryan Foley in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; David Brandt in Jackson, Miss.; David Skretta in Lawrence, Kan.; Don Thompson in Sacramento, Calif.;and Alexa Olesen in Shanghai, China; and researchers Susan James in New York and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.


___


Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org.


Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.


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Schools Threatened Nationwide After Sandy Hook













Schools across the country, already on edge following last week's massacre of 20 students and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school have been further unnerved following a series of copycat threats, sometimes yielding arrests and caches of deadly weapons.


From California to Connecticut, police in the past five days have arrested more than a dozen individuals in Indiana, South Carolina, Maryland and elsewhere who were plotting or threatening to attack schools.


"After high-profile incidents like the shootings at Columbine and Sandy Hook, threats go off the wall. Some of those threats turn out to be unfounded, but sometimes those incidents propel people planning legitimate threats," Ken Trump, a national school safety consultant, told ABCNews.com.


CLICK HERE FOR AN INTERACTIVE MAP AND TIMELINE OF THE SANDY HOOK SHOOTING.


Many of these incidents turned out to be little more than young people acting out or seeking attention, but in some cases police found significant stockpiles of firearms and ammunition.


Just a few hours after the world learned what happened inside the halls at the Sandy Hook elementary school, police arrested a 60-year-old Indiana man who had allegedly threatened to "kill as many people as he could before police stopped him," according to the police report, at an elementary school in Cedar Lake, Ind.






Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images











Indiana School Shooting Threat: Parents Not Notified Watch Video









Tennessee Teen Arrested Over School Shooting Threat Watch Video









Maryland Student Hospitalized for Alleged Threat Watch Video





When Von Meyer was arrested, just 1,000 feet from Jane Ball Elementary School, police confiscated from his home $100,000 worth of guns and ammunition including 47 weapons.


The school was placed on lockdown.


Meyer's case was taken by the Lake County public defender's office, but an attorney has not yet been assigned. He has been charged with seven crimes, including felonious intimidation, and an automatic "not guilty" plea was made on his behalf at a hearing on Tuesday.


Many of the suspects arrested in the wake of the Connecticut shooting were themselves school students – teenagers or young adults.


On Wednesday, in Laurel, Md., an unidentified student at Laurel High School was taken to the hospital and placed under psychiatric evaluation after school security officials found maps of the school and lists of students they believed he planned to kill.


Authorities called the evidence a "credible threat." The student, however, was not arrested or charged with a crime.


In Columbia, Tenn., police arrested Shawn Lenz, 19, who on Saturday posted to Facebook that he felt like "goin on a rampage, kinda like the school shooting were that one guy killed some teachers and a bunch of students."


He later told police that "it was stupid" to have written what he did. Lenz was arraigned Tuesday on terrorism and harassment charges and was appointed a public defender. He did not enter a plea.


A Tampa, Fla., school was put on lockdown two days in a row, Tuesday and Wednesday, after students found bullets on a school bus. Police there have made no arrests.


Despite the rash of recent threats, anecdotal data compiled by Trump's National School Safety and Security Services and analyzed by Scripps Howard found that there were approximately 120 known but thwarted plots against schools between 2000 and 2010. The list is not comprehensive and many incidents likely went unreported.


Fifty-five of those known threats -- all thwarted -- involved guns and 22 of them involved explosive devices, according to the Scripps Howard report.


"We're getting better at preventing these situations," Trump told ABC News.com.


But in that same time there were about 50 lethal school shootings, including the killing of 32 people at Virginia Tech.


"While shootings statistically may be rare, they impact a community and these kids forever," said Trump.



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Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province


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)



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Bank of England votes 8-1 to maintain stimulus






LONDON: Bank of England policymakers voted 8-1 to maintain their quantitative easing stimulus programme at their December meeting, repeating the voting pattern from the previous month, minutes showed on Wednesday.

The BoE's nine-member monetary policy committee (MPC) had voted earlier this month to keep the QE stimulus amount at 375 billion pounds ($611 billion, 460 billion euros).

Polcymakers were also unanimous in keeping the bank's key interest rate at 0.50 percent, according the minutes from the December 5-6 gathering. British borrowing costs have stood at this record low level since March 2009.

Lone policymaker David Miles voted again this month for an extra £25 billion for the asset purchasing programme in order to lift economic growth, repeating his call from November.

Under quantitative easing, the Bank of England creates cash that is used to purchase assets such as government and corporate bonds with the aim of boosting lending and in turn economic activity.

- AFP/de



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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma


WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.


Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?


For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.


But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.


"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.


And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.


"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.


Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.


Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.


Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.


There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.


Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.


Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.


In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.


Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.


But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.


Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.


To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.


Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.


When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.


Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.


Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.


Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.


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EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.


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Inside One School's Extraordinary Security Measures


While schools across America reassess their security measures in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., one school outside of Chicago takes safety to a whole new level.


The security measures at Middleton Elementary School start the moment you set foot on campus, with a camera-equipped doorbell. When you ring the doorbell, school employees inside are immediately able to see you, both through a window and on a security camera.


“They can assess your demeanor,” Kate Donegan, the superintendent of Skokie School District 73 ½, said in an interview with ABC News.


Once the employees let you through the first set of doors, you are only able to go as far as a vestibule. There you hand over your ID so the school can run a quick background check using a visitor management system devised by Raptor Technologies. According to the company’s CEO, Jim Vesterman, only 8,000 schools in the country are using that system, while more than 100,000 continue to use the old-fashioned pen-and-paper system, which do not do as much to drive away unwanted intruders.


“Each element that you add is a deterrent,” Vesterman said.


In the wake of the Newtown shooting, Vesterman told ABC News his company has been “flooded” with calls to put in place the new system. Back at Middleton, if you pass the background check, you are given a new photo ID — attached to a bright orange lanyard — to wear the entire time you are inside the school. Even parents who come to the school on a daily basis still have to wear the lanyard.


“The rules apply to everyone,” Donegan said.


The security measures don’t end there. Once you don your lanyard and pass through a second set of locked doors, you enter the school’s main hallway, while security cameras continue to feed live video back into the front office.


It all comes at a cost. Donegan’s school district — with the help of security consultant Paul Timm of RETA Security — has spent more than $175,000 on the system in the last two years. For a district of only three schools and 1100 students, that is a lot of money, but it is all worth it, she said.


“I don’t know that there’s too big a pricetag to put on kids being as safe as they can be,” Donegan said.


“So often we hear we can’t afford it, but what we can’t afford is another terrible incident,” Timm said.


Classroom doors open inward — not outward — and lock from the inside, providing teachers and students security if an intruder is in the hallway. Some employees carry digital two-way radios, enabling them to communicate at all times with the push of a button. Administrators such as Donegan are able to watch the school’s security video on their mobile devices. Barricades line the edge of the school’s parking lot, keeping cars from pulling up close to the entrance.


Teachers say all the security makes them feel safe inside the school.


“I think the most important thing is just keeping the kids safe,” fourth-grade teacher Dara Sacher said.


Parents like Charlene Abraham, whose son Matthew attends Middleton, say they feel better about dropping off their kids knowing the school has such substantial security measures in place.


“We’re sending our kids to school to learn, not to worry about whether they’re going to come home or not,” she said.


In the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook last Friday, Donegan’s district is now even looking into installing bullet-resistant glass for the school building. While Middleton’s security measures continue to put administrators, teachers, parents and students at ease, Sacher said she thinks that more extreme measures — such as arming teachers, an idea pushed by Oregon state Rep. Dennis Richardson — are a step too far.


“I wouldn’t feel comfortable being armed,” Sacher said. “Even if you trained people, I think it’d be better to keep the guns out of school rather than arm teachers.”

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Park wins South Korea presidency, to be first woman leader


SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler won South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday and will become the country's first female leader, saying she would work to heal a divided society.


The 60-year old conservative, Park Geun-hye, will return to the presidential palace in Seoul where she served as her father's first lady in the 1970s, after her mother was assassinated by a North Korean-backed gunman.


With more than 88 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, giving her an unassailable lead that forced Moon to concede.


Her raucous, jubilant supporters braved sub-zero temperatures to chant her name and wave South Korean flags outside her house. When she reached her party headquarters, Park was greeted with shouts of "president".


An elated Park reached into the crowd to grasp hands of supporters wearing red scarves, her party's color.


"This is a victory brought by the people's hope for overcoming crisis and for economic recovery," she told supporters at a rally in central Seoul.


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 its decades of hyper-charged growth.


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)



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Coal use set to surpass oil in a decade: IEA






PARIS: Coal is set to surpass oil as the world's top fuel within a decade, driven by growth in emerging market giants China and India, with even Europe finding it hard to cut use despite pollution concerns, according to a report published Tuesday.

"Thanks to abundant supplies and insatiable demand for power from emerging markets, coal met nearly half of the rise in global energy demand during the first decade of the 21st century," said Maria van der Hoeven, head of the International Energy Agency.

Economic growth is expected to push up further coal's share of the global energy mix, "and if no changes are made to current policies, coal will catch oil within a decade," she said in a statement.

The latest IEA projections see coal consumption nearly catching oil consumption in four years time, rising to 4.32 billion tonnes of oil equivalent in 2017 against 4.4 billion tonnes for oil.

That has consequences for climate change as coal produces far more carbon emissions responsible for global warming than other fuels.

But the IEA report on coal found that even countries which have committed themselves to reducing carbon emissions are finding it difficult to resist the renewed allure of coal.

A number of European countries have seen their use of coal for electricity consumption jump at the beginning of this year, including by 65 per cent in Spain, 35 per cent in Britain and 8 per cent in Germany.

The shale gas boom in the United States has led to a slump in coal prices there and subsequently on the market in Europe, where natural gas remains expensive.

This gave a price advantage to coal beginning last year, with the low price of polluting in Europe's emission trading scheme also a contributing factor.

"Low coal prices, supported by a low (emissions) price resulted in a significant gas-to-coal switch in Europe," said the report.

European countries have been slow to exploit shale gas deposits, concerned about possible environmental damage, but the IEA pointed out that the US experience shows that tapping it can bring benefits from lower coal use as well as lower electricity costs.

"Europe, China and other regions should take note," said van der Hoeven.

Moreover, the IEA report doesn't foresee within the next five years the widespread take-up of technology to capture and store underground carbon emissions from burning coal.

Van der Hoeven warned that "coal faces the risk of a potential climate policy backlash" unless there is technological progress or a replication of the US experience.

The IEA, the energy advisory arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development of 34 industrialised nations, sees non-OECD developing countries as driving the increase in coal consumption due to population growth and rising electricity consumption as their economies grow and modernise.

In its baseline scenario, the IEA sees rapid increases in power generation making India the second-largest coal consumer in 2017, displacing the United States where the shale gas boom makes coal uncompetitive.

Chinese coal consumption is forecast to account for more than half of global demand by 2014, with the country also displacing the United States as the biggest coal polluter on a per-capita basis.

The IEA sees China's coal demand increasing by an average of 3.7 per cent per year to 3,190 million tonnes of coal equivalent in 2017.

Even in the case of a slowdown in the breakneck growth in the Chinese economy the IEA sees the country's use of coal growing by 2 per cent per year, as well as the overall coal market growing.

The agency said that given its position developments in the Chinese market would largely determine the course of the global coal market, saying: "China is coal. Coal is China."

The IEA believes that current mining and port expansion projects are sufficient to meet China's rising needs, but expressed concern if the current low prices and uncertainties about the economic outlook make investors overly cautious.

Cancellations or a slowdown in "development projects might lead to tightened international coal markets" in the next five years, the IEA warned.

The report sees only the United States making reductions on coal-based carbon emissions on per capita and per economic output measures thanks to cheap gas displacing coal.

Increased coal use pushes up China's emissions on a per capita basis, displacing the United States as the top polluter.

However. China is also seen as making the most gains in emissions efficiency, followed by the United States.

Neither the Europe nor India are forecast to make considerable gains in emissions efficiency.

- AFP/fa



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TN minister's brother O Raja, others get anticipatory bail

MADURAI: O Raja, brother of Tamil Nadu minister O Panneerselvam, and four others, charged with abetment of suicide of a Dalit youth, were today granted conditional bail by the Madras high court.

Police had filed cases against them under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) and Cr.PC 174 following a "suicide note" recovered from the spot.

21-year-old Nagamuthu of Kailapatty area in the district had in the note alleged that Raja and others were "responsible" for his suicide.

Granting conditional bail to them, Justice C T Selvam od Madurai bench asked Raja and another accused Pandi to appear before the Thenkarai police station on Saturdays and Sundays.

Three other accused Sivakumar, Logu and Saravanan had been asked to appear before the Inspector of Thenkarai police station daily.

In the suicident note, Nagamuthu had alleged that Raja had "sidelined" him from renovation work of Kailasanathar temple at Kailasapatti and also threatened to have him branded as a thief if he got involved further in the work.

Cases had already been registered against the petitioners, except Raja, who were with the Protection Committee of the temple, for allegedly abusing Nagamuthu by caste name. He was earlier called to police station in connection with a theft case inquiry.

The petitioners denied that they instigated Nagamuthu to commit suicide.

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence


NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.


Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.


"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.


Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.


A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.


High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.


Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.


"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.


"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.


Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.


Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.


"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.


She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.


"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."


After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.


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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.


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Online:


Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5


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