2013 Smart Guide: New maps to rein in cosmic inflation

Read more: "2013 Smart Guide: 10 ideas that will shape the year"

We're about to get a better grasp of one of the biggest ideas in the universe: inflation. The first maps of the cosmos from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite are due out in early 2013. They should help us to hone descriptions of how, after the big bang, the universe grew from smaller than a proton into a vast expanse in less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second.

The early universe was a featureless soup of hot plasma that somehow grew into the dense galaxy clusters and cosmic voids we know today. On a large scale, regions far apart from each other should look very different, according to the laws of thermodynamics. But studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - the first light to be released, some 300,000 years after the big bang - show that the universe still looks virtually the same in all directions.

To explain this unlikely sameness, physicists invoked inflation: since all points in the universe were once next-door neighbours, the idea is that they blew apart so quickly that they couldn't forget about each other. Data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), launched in 2001, bolstered a key prediction of inflation, that the universe's structure was seeded by quantum fluctuations in space-time.

Stephen Hawking recently told New Scientist that WMAP's evidence for inflation was the most exciting development in physics during his career. But a best-fit model for what drove the exponential expansion, when it began and how long it lasted, hasn't been agreed. The WMAP data also revealed some surprises, such as inexplicable patterns in the CMB. So cosmologists have been anxiously awaiting Planck's higher-resolution maps to set the record straight. The Planck team will release its first cosmological results from 15 months' worth of data in March.

In addition, the Planck results will help refine figures for how much dark energy, dark matter and normal matter make up the universe. Planck might also record the first direct signs of ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. Not bad for a probe that's already half dead - one of Planck's two detectors stopped working in January. The entire craft will be shuttered in August.

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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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Tennis: Levine drops US to represent Canada

MONTREAL: Jesse Levine, ranked 104th on the ATP Tour, will represent his native Canada and no longer compete for the United States, Tennis Canada announced on Wednesday.

The 25-year-old left-hander was born in Ottawa and spent the first 13 years of his life growing up in Canada's capital city before moving with his family to Florida.

Levine reached a career-high of 69th in the rankings last October and has won 25 ATP matches, seven of them in Grand Slam events. His lone ATP final came in doubles with Ryan Sweeting in 2009 on clay at Houston.

"We are pleased that Jesse has decided to play for Canada," Tennis Canada president Michael Downey said. "We believe he can strengthen our Davis Cup team and add depth to our roster when he is eligible to play."

It was not certain whether or not the International Tennis Federation would approve the nationality switch in time for Levine to represent Canada in the first-round Davis Cup tie against Spain in February at Vancouver.

Levine woukld become the No. 2 Canadian in the world rankings behind No. 13 Milos Raonic.

- AFP/de

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President to GOP: Fiscal cliff is not about me

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan will vote for Boehner's tax proposal


• President Obama suggests Republicans are fixated on besting him personally


• Obama: It's "puzzling" that GOP leaders have yet to agree to a deal


• Without a deal, everyone's taxes go up in the new year

Washington (CNN) -- After progress earlier this week in fiscal cliff negotiations, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner firmly butted heads Wednesday to set up a showdown in the final days left to reach an agreement.

In a candid assessment of the tough talks, Obama told reporters that Republicans were focused too much on besting him personally instead of thinking about what's best for the country.

"Take the deal," Obama said of Republicans, adding the proposal under discussion would "reduce the deficit more than any other deficit reduction package" and would amount to a significant achievement.

"They should be proud of it," Obama said. "But they keep on finding ways to say 'no', as opposed to finding ways to say 'yes.' "

The comments at a White House news conference came less than two weeks before the nation faces automatic tax increases on everyone, as well as deep spending cuts due to the fiscal cliff at the end of the year.

Boehner made his own statement later Wednesday, saying Obama had yet to make a proposal offering his promised approach of balance between increased revenue and spending cuts.

He said the House will instead pass a fallback tax plan Thursday that limits tax hikes to income above $1 million. While a concession from his original opposition to any kind of increase in tax rates, the Boehner plan sets a significantly higher threshold for a rate hike than the $400,000 level sought by Obama.

The president can either persuade Senate Democrats to accept the House measure or "be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history," Boehner said before walking off without answering shouted questions from reporters.

Until now, the incremental negotiations focused on a roughly $2 trillion package of new revenue, spending cuts and entitlement reforms the two sides have shaped into a broad deficit reduction plan.

Boehner added a new wrinkle to the talks on Tuesday by proposing his plan B of the limited tax measure to extend Bush-era tax cuts on income of $1 million and below. He described it as a fallback option to prevent a sweeping tax hike while negotiations continue on the broader overall plan.

However, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats said Boehner changed course because he was unable to get Republican support for the larger deal being negotiated with Obama.

At his news conference Wednesday, Obama alluded to last Friday's Connecticut school shootings in calling on Republicans to put aside such political brinksmanship, saying that "if there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be perspective about what's important."

"Right now, what the country needs is for us to compromise," he said, calling what he characterized as a GOP refusal to accept a reasonable compromise on the table as "puzzling."

Asked why an agreement proved so difficult to attain after both sides made major concessions in the past week, Obama said it might be that "it is very hard for them to say 'yes' to me."

"At some point they've got to take me out of it," Obama said of Republicans, adding they should instead focus on "doing something good for the country."

Boehner responded by arguing that Obama's latest proposal was not evenly balanced, with more new revenue opposed by Republicans instead of spending cuts and entitlement reforms they seek.

With automatic tax hikes looming for all, Boehner said, his plan B proposal would "make permanent tax relief for nearly every American."

While addressing part of the fiscal cliff, the Boehner plan B would leave intact government spending cuts, including defense, that are required under a budget deal reached last year to raise the federal debt ceiling. Known as sequestration, the cuts were intended to motivate Congress to reach a deficit reduction deal to avoid them.

Opinion: Art that calls the fiscal cliff's bluff

Obama said Wednesday the Boehner proposal "defies logic" because it raises tax rates on some Americans, which Republicans said they didn't want, and lacks any spending cuts, which Republicans say they do want.

He also criticized the Boehner measure as a benefit for wealthy Americans, who also would have lower tax rates extended on their income up to $1 million.

The White House and congressional Democrats say the Boehner plan B has no chance of passing Congress, and Obama added that bringing it up now wasted time as the deadline for an agreement looms closer.

In a background briefing with reporters, senior administration officials said no further talks have occurred between Obama and Boehner since Monday. According to the officials, Obama will delay his planned holiday trip to Hawaii on Friday if no deal is reached by then.

This week, Republican Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas called Boehner's move a negotiating tactic, and GOP leaders sought to corral support for the plan B option.

They planned to vote Thursday on Boehner's proposal, as well as Obama's long-standing demand to return to higher tax rates of the 1990s on income above $250,000 for families.

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, a leading conservative who was the Republican vice presidential nominee in the November election, will vote for Boehner's plan, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Obama made the tax proposal a central theme of his re-election campaign, arguing that it prevented a tax increase for middle-class Americans in a time of needed fiscal austerity.

Polls consistently show strong public support for the Obama plan, and some Republicans have called for giving the president what he wants on the tax issue in order to focus negotiations on the spending cuts and entitlement reforms sought by their party.

As part of the broader talks on reducing the nation's chronic federal deficits and debt, Obama on Monday raised the threshold for the higher tax rates to $400,000.

Budget experts: Fiscal cliff deal could disappoint

Boehner and Republicans initially opposed any rise in tax rates but conceded to raising more revenue by eliminating some deductions and loopholes. The offer of a plan with higher rates for millionaires represented a further concession, but Obama and Democrats say it is not enough to ensure sufficient revenue from wealthy Americans as part of a deficit reduction package.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Boehner's backup plan appeared to be a result of pressure from tea party conservatives opposing a wider deal.

"It would be a shame if Republicans abandoned productive negotiations due to pressure from the tea party, as they have time and again," Reid said this week.

Boehner's spokesman, Michael Steel, shot back that the plan B proposal gave Democrats exactly what they wanted -- higher tax rates on millionaires. He noted that the Senate passed a similar measure in 2010, saying that to oppose Boehner's plan now would make Democrats responsible for failing to avoid the fiscal cliff.

That brought a response from a spokesman for Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who came up with the 2010 compromise that never won House approval.

Since the 2010 vote, "we've had an election on the president's tax plan, the president won, and Republicans can't turn the clock back," said the spokesman, Brian Fallons.

"It's not surprising Republicans are having buyer's remorse, but we need higher revenues now," Fallons said. "The more revenue we raise up front through a tax rate increase on the wealthy, the less likely the middle class will get hit on the deduction side."

Conservatives trying to shrink the federal government generally oppose increasing tax revenue. They are particularly opposed to higher tax rates because history shows that once rates go up, it is difficult to later reduce government revenue by lowering them again.

Obama and Democrats argue that increased revenue, including higher tax rates on the wealthy, must be part of broader deficit reduction to prevent the middle class from getting hit too hard.

The president previously said that once Republicans agreed to higher tax rates on wealthy Americans, he would be willing to compromise on spending cuts and entitlement reforms sought by Boehner as part of what the president calls a balanced approach.

What happens if the payroll tax cut expires

After weeks of little progress and much ideological pontificating, both sides started making concessions after two face-to-face meetings last week.

Over the weekend, Boehner offered for the first time to accept tax rate increases on household income of $1 million and above, sources said. The speaker also offered to allow the president to raise the debt ceiling in 2013 without a messy political fight, another key Obama demand.

In response, Obama on Monday offered $200 million in new cuts to discretionary federal government spending, divided evenly between defense and non-defense programs.

The president also included for the first time a provision to change the formula for adjusting entitlement benefits for inflation based on the consumer price index, or CPI, and he dropped an extension of a payroll tax cut from the past two years.

According to a source who provided CNN with details of Obama's counteroffer, it included $1.2 trillion in revenue increases and $1.22 trillion in spending reductions.

However, Republicans disputed those figures, saying the Obama offer really was $1.3 trillion in additional revenue and $850 billion in spending reductions.

Working out those differences appeared to be a key to reaching a comprehensive deficit reduction deal by the end of the year.

While Obama's latest offer brought the two sides billions of dollars closer, it also generated protests from the liberal base of the Democratic Party because it included some benefit cuts in entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn, the liberal movement that backed Obama's presidential campaigns, said the group's members would consider any benefit cuts "a betrayal that sells out working and middle-class families."

In particular, liberals cited concessions that Obama made in his Monday counteroffer, including the new inflation formula applied to benefits that is called chained CPI.

Obama offers fiscal cliff tax concession

The chained CPI includes assumptions on consumer habits with regard to rising prices, such as seeking cheaper alternatives, and would result in smaller benefit increases in future years.

Statistics supplied by opponents say the change would mean Social Security recipients would get $6,000 less in benefits over the first 15 years of chained CPI.

However, Carney, the White House spokesman, said Obama's CPI proposal includes a provision "that would protect vulnerable communities including the very elderly when it comes to Social Security recipients." He called the president's acceptance of the chained CPI a signal of his willingness to compromise.

Congress had been scheduled to end its work last week, but legislators returned to Washington on Monday and leaders warned members to be prepared to stay until Christmas, return after the holiday and stay until the end of the year.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said a deal would have to be reached by Christmas to allow time for the legislative process to approve the required measure or measures by the end of the year.

CNN's Dan Lothian, Dana Bash, Deirdre Walsh and Brianna Keilar contributed to this report.

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State Dept. officials resign following Benghazi report

Eric Boswell, the head of diplomatic security at the State Department, has resigned, CBS News confirmed, following the release of a harsh report detailing State Department missteps that led to the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

Two other officials are resigning as well, CBS News has confirmed: Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security, and an unnamed person from the State Department's near eastern affairs department.

Boswell's resignation from his post as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security is effective immediately. Sources say he will stay on as director of the Office of Foreign Missions for a short, indefinite time.

The report, released today by an independent board led by retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, did not single out any individuals for culpability. It did, however, blame failures within two bureaus at the State Department for the missteps that eventually lead to the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three additional American personnel in Libya. The two bureaus cited -- Near Eastern Affairs and Diplomatic Security -- were criticized for a security posture that was "grossly inadequate to deal with the attack," and for failing to coordinate with other agencies to better secure the consulate.

Members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees were briefed on the report this morning. After the briefings, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the report "is going to significantly advance the security of personnel and our country."

A number of congressmen said today that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should still testify before Congress on the Benghazi attack. Clinton was scheduled to testify on the Benghazi attack this Thursday in two congressional hearings. However, after falling ill and suffering from a concussion, she's no longer scheduled to appear at the hearings. Clinton sent a letter to Congress, indicating she accepts the Benghazi report's 29 recommendations for strengthening security at diplomatic posts and recognizes the the need to address the "systemic challenges" at the State Department.

House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-lehtinen, R-Fla., said Clinton "absolutely" still needs to testify. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., said committee members still have many questions and that today's closed-door briefing was just the start.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said it was "imperative" for Clinton to testify before a new secretary of state is confirmed in President Obama's second term.

"I think that is very important to her, I think it is very important for our country, and I think it is very important to really understand the inner workings of the State Department itself," he said.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in a statement that Clinton will need to "personally address" issues he feels were not addressed entirely in the report.

"While I appreciate the board's hard work, I am deeply concerned that the unclassified report omits important information the public has a right to know," Issa said. "This includes details about the perpetrators of the attack in Libya as well as the less-than-noble reasons contributing to State Department decisions to deny security resources. Relevant details that would not harm national security have been withheld and the classified report suffers from an enormous over-classification problem."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., by contrast, called the report's conclusions "very stark, very candid, very honest."

The report, he said, "told us the following: Mistakes were made, lives were lost, lessons need to be learned." Durbin said the review board's conclusions were: "Our intelligence fell short, our security personnel were inexperienced and unprepared, our security systems failed, our host nation was lacking in protection for our own people, and senior State Department officials unfortunately showed a lack of leadership and management ability."

He added, "That is a challenge to all of us, it is a challenge for us to assess this in an honest fashion and to change policy to put resources in place that will make a difference."

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Twin attack could deliver universal flu vaccine

A UNIVERSAL vaccine. It is the stuff of dreams for flu scientists, but it could be within reach if a new type of vaccine that elicits an immune response from white blood cells is combined with traditional vaccines.

Every year, between 250,000 and 500,000 people of all ages die worldwide after getting seasonal flu, partly because few people are vaccinated for it. When a novel human flu evolves in pigs or poultry and becomes pandemic, the numbers can be even higher. The solution is better vaccines for people and animals.

Flu comes back every year because when you catch it or are vaccinated, your immune system is only trained to identify the flu's large surface proteins. These proteins change from year to year, allowing flu to strike again if you haven't had an updated vaccine.

To end the need for continually updated shots, researchers have tried to create a vaccine for all flu, with varied success.

Most attempts have been vaccines designed to make us produce antibodies, aimed not at flu's surface proteins, but at internal proteins that are the same in all flu viruses. Success has been mixed. But there is another arm to the immune system. White blood cells called T-cells tend to attack a wider range of invaders than antibodies. If a vaccine sensitises them to internal flu proteins, they could potentially kill all types of flu.

Earlier this year, Sarah Gilbert and colleagues at the University of Oxford equipped the virus used in the smallpox vaccine, which stimulates this cell-mediated immunity, with two proteins common to all flu viruses. They reported that this vaccine prevented symptoms in some people experimentally infected with flu, and those that did get sick had milder symptoms.

Now Colin Butter and colleagues at the Institute for Animal Health in Compton, UK, have tested that vaccine, and a similar one made of a different live virus, in chickens (Vaccine, doi.org/jz6). Just as in people, it did not prevent infection, but the birds' T-cells responded strongly, and less of the virus was passed on.

Neither result sounds very impressive. But, says Butter, the key will be combining these vaccines with the classic kind that elicits antibodies. Gilbert reports that her team has tested such a combination in people, and has seen cell-mediated immunity to the universal proteins, as well as antibodies to specific surface proteins.

Such a combination could be more than the sum of its parts. In chickens, for example, antibodies could knock out the main virus, while T-cells mop up the variants that evade the antibodies and allow the virus to keep spreading - and evolving. "We could finally get vaccines that stop viral spread completely," says Butter.

The "universal" proteins would also give chickens and humans some protection against novel flu viruses. And because they work against all flu, such vaccines can be stockpiled to prepare for pandemics. "I'd love to have a stockpile of vaccine with both antibody and cell-mediated capabilities," says Thomas Reichert of the Entropy Research Institute in Lincoln, Massachusetts. This gives us a chance to beat an adversary we've been defeated by time and again. Or as Reichert puts it: "Now that might bring flu to the negotiating table."

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Can Cops Read Shooter's Sabotaged Computer?

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza may have tried to sabotage his own computer before going on a murderous rampage that claimed the lives of 20 children, but experienced investigators said today that law enforcement forensic experts could still recover critical evidence from the damaged drives.

Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance revealed Monday that a computer crimes unit was working in conjunction with a forensics laboratory to "dissect" any evidence relevant to the case, but he declined to comment further on what type of evidence was involved and in what condition it was in. Later that day, law enforcement officials told ABC News that police recovered a badly damaged computer from Lanza's home that appeared to have been attacked by a hammer or screwdriver.

Sources said if they can still read the computer's hard drive, they hope to find critical clues that may help explain Lanza's motives in the killing.

Former FBI forensic experts told ABC News that in cases similar to this one, damage to the computer does not necessarily mean the computer files cannot be accessed.

"If he took a hammer to the outside, smashed the screen, dented the box, it's more than likely the hard drive is still intact," said Al Johnson, a retired FBI special agent who now works privately examining digital evidence and computer data. "And even if the hard drive itself is damaged, there are still steps that can be taken to recover everything."

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Brett Harrison, a former FBI computer forensics expert who now works with a D.C. consulting firm, said that authorities have a great deal of technology at their disposal to retrieve that data. How much is recovered, he said, will depend entirely on how much damage was done to the well-insulated "platters" -- discs lodged deep inside the machine -- where Lanza's every digital footstep was recorded.

It is likely, he said, that Lanza's computer has been moved to a "clean room" where, if the discs are intact, they could be removed and then carefully re-inserted in a fresh hard drive. If the calibrations are done correctly, investigators would still be able to unlock the clues on the discs.

If the discs aren't in perfect condition, Harrison said, "There is equipment they can use to read the data off a record even if a portion of it is damaged."

Johnson said it is tedious work done in a clean environment because the tolerances of the discs is so precise – even a particle of dust could destroy crucial evidence.

"We're talking about a tolerance of less than a human hair," said Johnson, who now does computer forensics for a South Carolina-based investigative firm.

Police have not said exactly what they expect to find on the computer's hard drive, but the former FBI experts said typically there could be record of visits to violent web sites, or to online stores that sell ammunition, or to email that might reveal if Lanza shared any hints of his plans with others.

"I'm not big on speculation," Harrison said, "but you're talking about potentially finding all the normal things that people do with their computer – Facebook pages, internet activity, email, you name it."

For now, the FBI is keeping mum on what kind of computer forensic help it could be offering in the case.

"At this time, in deference to the ongoing investigation being conducted by the CSP, the FBI is not releasing information regarding operational or forensic assistance provided in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting," an FBI spokesperson said.

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

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Twitter tops 200 million active users

SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter said Tuesday the number of active users of the service has topped 200 million, in a sign of the sizzling growth of the messaging platform.

News of the milestone came in a tweet, of course, from the official Twitter account: "There are now more than 200M monthly active twitter users. You are the pulse of the planet. We're grateful for your ongoing support!"

The number was the first official estimate from Twitter since it claimed 140 million active users.

Twitter offered no details on the latest update, but in the past has said the majority of active users were in the United States.

Outside analysts have provided various estimates for Twitter, which is privately held and thus not required to disclose most business data.

Earlier this year, a French-based research firm said over 500 million people are on the micro-blogging site, with Americans and Brazilians the most connected.

Another group, Sys-Con media, estimated last month that Twitter had over 465 million accounts and that the number of daily tweets had topped 175 million.

A recent survey found one in seven Americans who go online use Twitter and eight percent do so every day.

- AFP/fa

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Newtown residents unite on gun control

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Group of Newtown residents met Sunday and Monday


• A few decided to drive to Washington and meet with Brady Campaign members


• More than 40 families of people killed by guns spoke at a Tuesday morning presser

(CNN) -- As the capital building came into view Tuesday morning, Lee Shull tried to help his neighbor Po Murray navigate their car into Washington.

He's a 43-year-old software consultant. She's a mother of four. A week ago, they lived in a town and a neighborhood they thought was safe.

Now their block in Sandy Hook set off by caution tape. Inside the house 100 yards from Murray's front door, Nancy Lanza was found in her bed on Friday, a gunshot to her face. The killer, her 20-year-old son Adam Lanza, took three of his mother's high-powered guns to Sandy Hook Elementary and murdered 20 first-graders and six adults.

"I cannot even tell you what that feels like to have that happen in your town. It was like we were grabbing for something, anything," said Shull. On Friday night, neighbors and friends starting calling each other.

"We all thought we have to do something," he said. "That turned into, 'What are you doing Saturday? Can we get people together Saturday?'

About 50 people got together Saturday, then Sunday and again Monday at the town's public library, the only place that could accommodate the growing 75-plus crowd.

They decided to call themselves Newtown United. A Facebook and Twitter account were set up. Then they scrambled to find someone in the group who could drop their jobs for a day or put off family obligations to go to Washington. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which holds perhaps the biggest pro-gun control megaphone in the country, was staging a press conference at the capital.

At the presser, more than 40 relatives of people who have been victims of gun violence spoke.

"I am here today wearing my son's shoes," said Tom Mauser whose son Daniel was killed in the 1999 Columbine High school shooting. He was wearing a pair of sneakers.

"It's amazing we have the same size shoes so I wear them because he was a member of the debate team at Columbine High School, so I now wear his shoes in this great debate and it's a debate we need to have in this country," Mauser said, referring to a discussion on gun control.

Others spoke -- relatives of those shot to death in Aurora, Colorado, at a movie theater in July and some related to victims of the 2007 Virginia Tech slayings.

"These people are here before you because they refuse to be statistics," Mauser said. "They want to be the stories of ordinary Americans who have been through hell and back and they don't want it to happen to the rest of you."

Organizers with the Brady campaign said there is a "disconnect" between what the American public wants -- a safer country -- and what elected officials are doing.

"It's more than a hope," David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, "We are confident that this tragedy that happened in Newtown, Connecticut, is going to shine such a stark spotlight on that disconnect that as is starting to happen our elected officials are going to do the right thing and they are going to join the conversation."

Bill Toomey, who is part of Newtown United, told CNN earlier Tuesday that it feels "so visceral and raw in our town right now," he said.

Toomey, who works in nature conservancy, said members of the group realize that they likely will have a long and difficult road ahead advocating for a change that others have been time and money trying to achieve.

"Meeting with the people with the Brady campaign will help us understand what has to be done and how to do it," he told CNN early Tuesday. "We just have to do something."

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Cops: 2 inmates escape from Ill. federal prison

CHICAGO, IL - DECEMBER 18: Crime scene tape surrounds the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop after two convicted bank robbers escaped on December 18, 2012. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

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Scott Olson

(AP) CHICAGO - Authorities say two men being held on bank robbery charges have escaped from a downtown Chicago federal prison.

Chicago Police Sgt. Michael Lazarro says their disappearance was discovered at about 8:45 Tuesday morning, a little less than four hours after they were last checked.

Lazarro says they used rope or bed sheets to climb from the building.

He says one was spotted downtown and the other was seen elsewhere. The FBI says in a release they were both seen in Tinley Park, a southwestern Chicago suburb.

Lazarro says the two were wearing orange jump suits when they escaped but that they may now be wearing white t-shirts, gray sweat pants and white gym shoes.

One of the escapees had been convicted and the other had recently pleaded guilty.

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