Stock index futures point to flat-to-lower start

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a flat-to-lower open on Wall Street on Thursday.

Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones were down 0.1 percent, while contracts for the Nasdaq 100 were flat at 5.01 a.m. ET.

Japan's Nikkei average dropped on Thursday in active trade after the central bank's third dose of monetary stimulus disappointed the market and triggered profit-taking, although the index managed to end above 10,000.

European shares were flat as new signs of friction in U.S. budget talks stopped investors from buying on multi-month highs on key regional indexes.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives may vote on an alternative tax bill that House Speaker John Boehner said would extend low tax rates, except on income of $1 million and above. The White House said President Barack Obama would veto the proposal, designed to avert January 1 tax hikes.

The U.S. Commerce Department releases its third and final estimate gross domestic product estimate at 8.30 a.m. ET. The pace of growth is likely to be revised up to 2.8 percent from 2.7 percent, reflecting a smaller trade deficit, but the composition of growth will probably continue to point to a slowdown in activity this quarter.

The Labor Department issues first-time claims for jobless benefits for the week ended December 15 at the same time. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast a total of 357,000 new filings compared with 343,000 in the prior week.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank publishes December business activity survey at 1500, forecast to come in at -3.0 versus -10.7 in November.

The Conference Board's November leading economic indicators, also due at 1500, was forecast to show a 0.2 percent drop compared with a 0.2 percent increase in October.

IntercontinentalExchange Inc is in talks to buy NYSE Euronext , the operator of the New York Stock Exchange, according to a source familiar with the situation on Wednesday, in a multibillion dollar deal that could help the commodities exchange take on arch rival CME Group Inc .

Google Inc agreed to sell set-top TV box maker Motorola Home to Arris Group Inc for $2.35 billion in cash and stock, the companies said on Wednesday.

BlackBerry maker RIM is on track to report its third straight quarterly loss on Thursday as it struggles to sell its ageing lineup in a market crowded with Apple iPhones and a range of devices using Google's Android software.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected Apple Inc's 'pinch-to-zoom' patent in a preliminary ruling that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd argues supports its request for a new trial in the patent war against its rival.

Top sports clothes maker Nike reports second-quarter results, expected to show earnings per share of $1 dollar, steady year on year, and will talk about holiday demand and trends.

The U.S. Treasury plans to sell its stake in General Motors Co over the coming year, all but assuring a multibillion-dollar loss in a move that will end the automaker's "Government Motors" era.

General Motors Corp and PSA Peugeot Citroen have dropped plans to jointly develop a large car and will base their alliance on three smaller vehicle projects, the automakers said on Thursday.

Food safety authorities have shut down two chicken farms in eastern China, including one that supplied Yum Brands Inc's KFC and McDonald's Corp , the official Shanghai Daily reported on Thursday.

Stephen Gillett, the head of Best Buy Co Inc's digital business, is leaving the world's largest consumer electronics chain to become chief operating officer of data protection software company Symantec Corp .

Activist investor William Ackman confirmed on Wednesday that he is betting against the stock of Herbalife Ltd in a move that sent shares of the weight management product company reeling and sparked a caustic rebuke from its chief executive officer.

Embattled healthcare technology firm Allscripts named its board member and former chief operating officer of rival Cerner Corp Paul Black as its CEO, replacing Glen Tullman, and said it ended a review of strategic alternatives.

U.S. mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have suffered more than $3 billion in losses due to manipulation of the benchmark interest rate known as Libor, according to an internal memo by a federal watchdog.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 98.99 points, or 0.74 percent, to 13,251.97 on Wednesday. The S&P 500 <.spx> lost 10.98 points, or 0.76 percent, to 1,435.81. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> fell 10.17 points, or 0.33 percent, to 3,044.36.

(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Read More..

What If Nothing or Nobody is to Blame for Lanza? Guns, Video Games, Autism or Authorities

What if there is nobody or nothing to blame for Adam Lanza‘s heinous acts? Other than Lanza, of course.

What if school security and the school psychiatrist kept an eye on Lanza since his freshman year? The Wall Street Journal has a compelling narrative about the red flags addressed.

What if he had a form of autism that has little or no link to violent behavior? Lanza may have had Asperger’s syndrome but, even so, that is not a cause.

What if it’s too simple to lay the massacre at the feet of the gun lobby? Reader Larry Kelly tweets that shaming Aspies “makes about as much sense at stigmatizing the NRA. Pick an enemy … any enemy. Let outrage and fear rule.”

What if Lanza wasn’t provoked by video games? David Axelrod, a close friend an adviser of President Obama, tweeted last night: “In NFL post-game: an ad for shoot ‘em up video game. All for curbing weapons of war. But shouldn’t we also quit marketing murder as a game.”

When I asked whether he was laying groundwork for a White House initiative, Axelrod said no: “Just one man’s observation.” A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonytmmity, said today that Axelrod was not a stalking horse for Obama on this issue.

What if Lanza’s mother did everything she could, short of keeping her guns out her adult son’s reach? What if he wasn’t bullied?

What if there is nobody or nothing to blame? Would that make this inexplicable horror unbearable?

What if we didn’t rush to judgement? What if we didn’t waste our thoughts, prayers and actions on assigning blame for the sake of mere recrimination? What if we calmly and ruthlessly learned whatever lessons we can from the massacre — and prevented the next one?

A parting thought: What if it wasn’t one thing, but everything, that set off Lanza?

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: What If Nothing or Nobody is to Blame for Lanza? Guns, Video Games, Autism or Authorities
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

U.N. Suspends Immunization Work in Pakistan

 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The United Nations suspended all polio-related field activities in Pakistan on Wednesday after more attacks on public health workers attempting to immunize children. Two people were killed and another wounded around the northwestern city of Peshawar.

 The shootings followed a day of violence on Tuesday in the port city of Karachi in which four female health workers were killed. The attacks Wednesday brought the death toll from the three-day polio immunization campaign to eight people, most of them women.

 The World Health Organization and Unicef ordered their staff members off the streets in response to the latest shootings, although some provincial governments continued to immunize children.

 The shootings represent the most direct assault yet on an urgently needed public health program in one of the world’s last remaining reservoirs of the polio virus. Pakistan is one of three countries were polio remains endemic — the others are Nigeria and Afghanistan — and it has made strong progress against the disease following a disastrous rate of infection last year.

 So far in 2012, officials say, Pakistan has recorded 56 new polio cases, compared with 192 at the same point in 2011. The turnaround is due to a series of nationwide immunization drives targeting children under 5, which can involve up to 225,000 public health workers.

 But the unprecedented series of attacks targeting female health workers in recent days threatens to hinder future immunization efforts.

 The attacks Wednesday were concentrated in the districts around Peshawar. North of the city, a gunman riding a motorcycle killed a female health worker and her driver. Another driver was seriously wounded in a second incident close to the city center. And in Nowshera, east of Peshawar, four female health workers reported being shot at but not hit.

 A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban denied responsibility for the attacks, although the insurgents have a history of threatening polio eradication programs, claiming they are a cover for American espionage activities.

But the police in Peshawar said that Taliban fighters based in Mohmand tribal agency, north of Peshawar, were involved in at least two of the attacks in the Peshawar area.

One woman who came under fire described the attack, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “Two people were riding a motorbike,” she said. “The one wearing a mask pulled out a gun and fired four shots. We shouted. The bullets whizzed past us but luckily we were safe.”

 The Taliban’s suspicions about vaccination workers were aggravated by the case of Shakil Afridi, a doctor from the tribal areas who was paid by the Central Intelligence Agency to run a bogus hepatitis vaccination campaign near Osama bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad in the run-up to the May 2011 American commando raid that killed the Qaeda leader.

 But the Taliban have also used the polio campaign — a rare attempt by the government to extend its authority into the tribal belt — for raw political purposes. In North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a major Taliban-affiliated warlord, has banned polio vaccination until America halts drone strikes in the area.

 In contrast, the Taliban in Afghanistan have taken a more enlightened approach to polio vaccination, in some cases actively sponsoring the campaign, said Shahnaz Wazir Ali, a senior Pakistani polio official.

 “What’s happening here is much, much more sinister,” she said. “And it’s happening right in the heart of our cities.”

 Vaccination rounds in Pakistan take place many times each year, with teams of health workers visiting homes and public spaces to deliver polio immunization drops to children under 5.

 The three-day vaccination round under way this week, which began on Monday, targeted parts of the country worst hit by the virus — the northwest, the tribal belt, and Karachi — and was due to involve an estimated 135,000 health workers, according to the government.

 The lower house of Parliament adopted a unanimous resolution Wednesday condemning the attacks on polio campaign volunteers.

 “We cannot and would not allow polio to wreak havoc on the lives of our children,” Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said on Tuesday.

 

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Read More..

The Voice Crowns a Winner!

TV Watch

By Julia Haskins

12/18/2012 at 11:20 PM EST

Cassadee Pope (Blake Shelton, inset)

Tyler Golden/NBC (2)

Cassadee Pope is the new winner of The Voice!

After several powerful performances the night before, the top three singers – Nicholas David (of Team Cee Lo) and Terry McDermott and Pope (of Blake Shelton's team) – faced the music on Tuesday during the final results show of season 3.

Pope thanked her fans who supported her throughout the competition. She was joined onstage by McDermott, who was the runner-up, and David, who came in third place.

It was a night of music as Rihanna, newly engaged Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars and the Killers celebrated with the finalists by displaying their talents.

Season 4 of The Voice premieres March 25, 2013, with Shakira and Usher stepping in to take over for Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green.

Read More..

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.

___

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

Read More..

Stock index futures trade flat to higher

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a flat-to-higher open on Wall Street on Wednesday, consolidating gains after the S&P 500's best two-day run in a month.

* Futures for the S&P 500 were unchanged, while Dow Jones and Nasdaq 100 contracts rose 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively, at 0924 GMT.

* Japan's Nikkei <.n225> jumped 2.4 percent to end above 10,000 for the first time in more than eight months on Wednesday on growing expectations of easier monetary policy under a new government.

* European shares continued to drift higher as expectations built that a budget deal in the United States is close, though traders reckoned any positive outcome is largely baked into the price.

* The U.S. Commerce Dept. releases housing starts and permits for November at 1330 GMT. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast 873,000 housing starts in November versus 894,000 in October, and a total of 875,000 building permits in November compared with 868,000 in the prior month.

* FedEx, the No. 2 U.S. package-delivery company, is due to report second-quarter results at 1230 GMT. It is expected to post earnings per share of $1.41 down from $1.57 one year earlier, as a weakening economy leads corporate customers to choose slower, cheaper and less profitable ways of shipping goods.

* Industrial machinery maker SPX Corp is closing in on a roughly $4.2 billion deal to buy rival Gardner Denver Inc , as it makes progress in securing financing, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

* U.S. securities regulators on Tuesday outlined potential ways to reduce conflicts of interest at the country's largest credit-rating agencies, Moody's Corp , McGraw-Hill Cos Inc's Standard & Poor's, and Fimalac SA's Fitch.

* Google's Motorola Mobility unit cannot assert a patent against Apple Inc which covers a sensor that stops phone users from dialing wrong numbers on touchscreen devices, a U.S. trade judge ruled.

* The Federal Trade Commission is unlikely to finish its investigation before January into whether Google Inc abused its power in the search market, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the investigation.

* Oracle Corp's quarterly profit beat Wall Street expectations on strong software sales growth, suggesting that the approach of the "fiscal cliff" has yet to crimp corporate spending on technology.

* Pharma group Pfizer plans to cut about 20 percent of its sales force for primary-care drugs, Bloomberg News reported, as the pharmaceutical company copes with the loss of a patent for top-selling cholesterol drug Lipitor.

* Time Warner Cable , the second-largest cable TV distributor in the United States, said on Tuesday it is planning to drop arts-focused cable channel Ovation, citing its low ratings relative to the cost of carrying the network.

* Accenture, the technology outsourcing and consulting company, reports first quarter results after the market close.

* The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 115.57 points, or 0.87 percent, to 13,350.96 on Tuesday. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 16.43 points, or 1.15 percent, to 1,446.79. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 43.93 points, or 1.46 percent, to 3,054.53.

(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; editing by Patrick Graham)

Read More..

$35 Raspberry Pi computer gets its own app store

Title Post: $35 Raspberry Pi computer gets its own app store
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Report Cites Bias by Police In Killings In Canada

OTTAWA — Robert W. Pickton, a pig farmer, managed to murder 49 women before his arrest in 2002 largely because of “systemic bias by the police” against the victims, the commissioner who investigated the actions of the police said Monday.

Up until Mr. Pickton’s arrest, at least 67 women had disappeared in British Columbia, mainly from Vancouver’s downtown East Side. The victims were mainly members of Canadian aboriginal groups, and most were prostitutes and drug addicts. All were killed or are presumed dead. After a 10-month trial in 2007, Mr. Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. During his interrogation, he confessed to killing 49 women.

The inquiry’s 1,448-page report shows that although some people were alarmed at the rising number of missing women in the area during the 1990s, the police were indifferent largely because of the women’s social status and race. It was an indifference, said the man who led the inquiry, Wally T. Oppal, that extended to much of the city’s population.

“There was an institutional, systemic bias against the women,” Mr. Oppal said at a news conference Monday. “They were poor, they were aboriginal, they were drug addicted and they were not taken seriously.”

He added, “What if you were made to feel invisible, unworthy?”

Despite Mr. Oppal’s condemnation of the police as well as his passionate plea for eliminating the poverty in the aboriginal communities where many of the victims were born, it was not clear whether his findings would satisfy the families of the victims or native groups. Several aboriginal leaders were critical of the two-year inquiry’s focus on the actions of the police rather than on broad issues of poverty.

Mr. Oppal’s news conference was repeatedly interrupted by hecklers identified by Canadian news outlets as relatives of the victims. At one point, Mr. Oppal was silenced as a native drummer played and family members sang, some raising clenched fists.

In addition to indifference, the Vancouver Police Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which patrols the suburb of Port Coquitlam, where Mr. Pickton killed his victims on his farm, were faulted for poor communication, lack of cooperation and a failure to accept that a sharp rise in disappearances in 1997 could have been the work of a serial killer.

Mr. Oppal particularly faulted the police and prosecutors for their actions after Mr. Pickton was arrested and charged with stabbing a prostitute in 1997 during the height of the disappearances.

The prostitute, whose name is protected under a court order, reluctantly agreed to let Mr. Pickton drive her out to his ramshackle farm for a sex act. Once there, she saw evidence that other women had been at the farm. Mr. Pickton handcuffed the woman and then repeatedly stabbed her before she escaped.

The police and prosecutors eventually suspended charges against Mr. Pickton, apparently because of doubts over the prostitute’s reliability as a witness. Moreover, the inquiry also found that they ignored her suggestions that Mr. Pickton had taken other prostitutes to the farm. Mr. Oppal said that if the police had followed up, it was “conceivable” that Mr. Pickton could have been stopped at that point.

Instead, the two police forces, the report found, felt little urgency to act on the disappearances of prostitutes or to even warn people in the downtown East Side of the rapid rise in disappearances.

“The Vancouver Police Department deeply regrets anything we did that may have delayed the eventual solving of these murders,” the force said in a statement. “It may also come as small consolation to those who still grieve that we are committed to learning from our mistakes.”

In the end, Mr. Pickton was caught by a police officer who had been on the job for just 18 months and was serving a search warrant for weapons. The officer initiated a wider search of the farm after finding items of women’s clothing and accessories.

“Pickton was not even attempting to hide the fruits of his violent acts,” Mr. Oppal said. “It was there for everyone to see.”

Read More..

The Voice's Top Three Give Final Performances in the Competition

TV Watch

The Voice

By Julia Haskins

12/17/2012 at 10:25 PM EST

From left: Judges Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton

Trae Patton/NBC

Monday night's The Voice gave the final three contestants three chances to earn fans' votes, as every singer revisited a "breakout" song, sang a new song and performed a duet with his or her coach.

First, however, came a touching tribute to the victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy. While singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," coaches and singers held up the names of those whose lives were lost on Friday morning.

Team Cee Lo's Nicholas David then kicked off the competition with Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire." Not able to resist a pun, his coach chimed in on his performance: "Your fire tonight burned this house down," Green said. David later revisited his performance of Bill Withers's "Lean On Me" and joined Green for a duet of Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music."

Team Blake's two contestants also had the crowd cheering. Terry McDermott sang his best song, Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is," and took a stab at Mr. Mister's "Take These Broken Wings." But the crowning moment of the night for McDermott was his duet with Blake Shelton as they delivered Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)." Adam Levine, decked out in a long rocker wig, played guitar alongside them.

Cassadee Pope sang "Over You," co-written by her coach and his wife, Miranda Lambert. Pope received huge praise the first time she sang it, but the song about Shelton's late brother held special meaning in the wake of the shootings in Newtown.

"America's heart is heavy, and that's about healing," Shelton said. She also moved the coaches with her take on Faith Hill's "Cry."

"I don't care that you weren't on my team," Levine said. "I am so proud of you and so happy that you're here at this moment." Pope finished the night with Shelton for a duet of Sheryl Crow's "Steve McQueen."

The Voice returns Tuesday, when the season's winner will be named. Who will it be? Tell us in the comments below.

Read More..

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.

__

AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

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

Read More..