Rookies rule at the Sony Open

HONOLULU (AP) — Two days into his PGA Tour career, Russell Henley was on his way to breaking a record.

Henley had another 7-under 63 on Friday in the Sony Open and wound up with a two-shot lead over fellow rookie Scott Langley among early starters in the second round. He was at 14-under 126, which breaks by two shots the 36-hole record at this tournament.

In the first full-field event of the season, the two rookies are leading the way.

Langley finished with three straight birdies for a 66, a solid effort after opening with a 62. Depending on afternoon play, they would play together a third straight day, this time as the final group. They first were linked as low amateurs in the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

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Iran May Not Be Behind Bank Cyberattacks, Experts Say

There’s really not much evidence that the government of Iran is behind the ongoing wave of cyberattacks on U.S. bank websites, say many security experts.

“I don’t consider any attack I can do in my spare time as ‘nation-state-sponsored,’” said Robert David Graham, chief executive officer of Atlanta-based Errata Security.

“[It] could just as well be a loose group of those sympathetic to Iran and the Middle East and angry as hell at U.S. involvement there,” said George Smith, a senior fellow at the Alexandria, Va.-based think tank GlobalSecurity.org.

A front-page story in The New York Times Wednesday (Jan. 9) repeated what politicians and unnamed government officials have been saying for months: Iran has to be behind the attacks.

Yet the officials have failed to offer any proof. (Tehran denies any involvement.) Instead, the Times article cited several experts who said the size and sophistication of the distributed of denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks was unprecedented and hence implied the backing of a nation-state.

The security experts whom TechNewsDaily communicated with weren’t so sure.

“We have no idea who is behind these attacks, and unless these unnamed sources want to explain how they might have derived attribution, I imagine they don’t, either,” said Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser with the British anti-virus firm Sophos.

“Is it an amateur, professional or nation state?” asked Steve Santorelli, a former Scotland Yard and Microsoft computer-security expert who now works with Lake Mary, Fla.-based Team Cymru. “The answer to that would only come after a long and technical specialist investigation involving multiple different folks.”

Heavy artillery

The DDoS attacks against the bank sites are several orders of magnitude higher than the attacks led by the hacktivist movement Anonymous against PayPal, MasterCard and dozens of government sites over the past few years.

Anonymous enlisted dozens, maybe hundreds, of supporters worldwide to install free site-load-testing software on their home PCs and use it to overwhelm Web servers on targeted sites by making millions of bogus requests for pages.

The bank attacks, on the other hand, have often used a DDoS tool called “ItsOKNoProblemBro” to hijack and launch attacks from other Web servers, greatly amplifying the bandwidth of the bogus requests. An Israeli security firm found one such hijacked server this week.

In DDoS attacks, neither the targeted servers nor the data on them are actually damaged. But websites can be cut off from the rest of the Internet, which for online banks adds up to a lot of lost business.

Even the well-defended websites of banking titans such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase have suffered connection problems under the weight of the recent onslaughts.

[The Bank Cyberattacks: Is Your Money Safe?]

… that anyone can use

That’s still far from a smoking gun.

“ItsOKNoProblemBro is far from sophisticated malware. It’s really rather simple,” said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior anti-virus researcher with Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab. “Going strictly by the publicly known technical details, I don’t see enough evidence to categorize this operation as something only a nation-state-sponsored actor could pull off.”

“Lots of non-nation-state actors can amass staggering bandwidth,” noted security researcher Bruce Schneier. “And lots of state actors can’t.”

Sean Sullivan, a security adviser at Helsinki, Finland’s F-Secure, thinks the attacks are too well-organized to be the work of pure amateurs.

“There does appear to be a good level of coordination,” Sullivan said. “Perhaps the attacks are being carried out by useful idiots — a group of hackers funded by Iran (or other party) but not a professional ‘hacker corps.’”

Yet in Graham’s opinion, mounting an attack of this scope really isn’t that difficult.

“Hacking computers in data centers is easy,” he said. “Any data center hosts websites with obvious flaws, so it’s easy to target a data center, then find a vulnerable server.

“Even easier yet is just get a lot of VPS machines,” Graham added. “For $ 10 per virtual private server in 100 data centers around the world, you could easily flood a victim with 100 gbps [gigabits per second]. This takes zero hacking skills and really not too much money.”

When the bank attacks began, there was suspicion that they might be providing cover for cybercriminals, who would slip past distracted security software and personnel to raid online accounts.

That doesn’t seem to have happened, but Santorelli admits criminals still could be behind the attacks.

“A nation state would perhaps have the resources, but so would a lot of criminal syndicates and rogue individuals,” Santorelli said. “These same folks would also have a criminal motive, especially if there was some way to generate a financial reward from the attacks.”

Denial of government backing

Iran has denied involvement in the attacks, which began in mid-September. But someone else claimed responsibility right from start: a previously unknown Islamist hacktivist group, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters, or Qassam Cyber Brigades, which calls the campaign “Operation Ababil.”

(Ababil, “small birds” in Arabic, may refer to a story in the Quran about birds who defended Mecca by dropping stones on an invading army — or to a type of Iranian-made aerial drone.)

The group has posted several statements online in both English and Arabic (but not in Farsi, the language of Iran) accurately predicting the timing and target of each attack.

It says that the attacks are protests against YouTube’s hosting of the offensive “Innocence of Muslims” movie trailer, and of the movie itself. It denies any connection to any government.

On Tuesday the group offered a complicated formula to determine how long the attacks would continue, based on the number of YouTube viewings of “Innocence of Muslims” and how much it estimated each DDoS attack cost the targeted banks.

The Qassam Cyber Fighters calculated that the DDoS campaign would last 14 more months unless the video clips were taken down. Google has refused to do so.

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam was an imam who led resistance to French and British occupiers and Jewish settlers in Syria and Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s.

The military wing of the Palestinian Islamist political party Hamas also named itself after Qassam, but the Qassam Cyber Fighters deny any link to Hamas.

The case for Iranian hacktivists — or maybe a false flag

Iranian government involvement certainly can’t be ruled out, and there’s evidence that Iranian amateurs are involved.

In September, independent Bulgarian security researcher Dancho Danchev did an analysis of the attackers and their methods.

He found that just before the attacks began, some of the earliest versions of the malware used were uploaded by someone using the name “Marzi Mahdavi II” — the name used on an Iranian woman’s personal Facebook page.

Danchev also noted that there was a recruitment appeal on Facebook for participants to download the DDoS tool and take part in the attack. There seemed to be little attempt to disguise identities.

“Is the Iranian government really behind this campaign, or was it actually the work of amateurs with outdated and virtually irrelevant technical skills?” Danchev asked. 

Comparing it with a previous Iranian hacktivist campaign, he said, “We once again see a rather limited understanding of cyber operations.”

But there’s another possibility, Danchev noted. The entire operation, including the Qassam Cyber Fighters postings, could be a “false flag” operation designed to pin blame on Iran.

“This is the first public appearance of the group that claims responsibility for these attacks,” he pointed out. “Virtually anyone on the Internet can engineer cyberwarfare tensions between Iran and the U.S. by basically impersonating what’s believed to be an Iranian group.”

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Saudi execution: Brutal and illegal?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Saudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman


• She was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaid


• This was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accident


• Becker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"

Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of 'Campaigning for Justice: Human Rights Advocacy in Practice.' Follow Jo Becker on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old, according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.

Although Rizana said the baby died in a choking accident, Saudi courts convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death. On Wednesday, the Saudi government carried out the sentence in a gruesome fashion, by beheading Rizana.

Jo Becker

Read more: Outrage over beheading of Sri Lankan woman by Saudi Arabia

Rizana's case was rife with problems from the beginning. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka knew she was legally too young to migrate, but she had falsified papers to say she was 23. After the baby died, Rizana gave a confession that she said was made under duress -- she later retracted it. She had no lawyer to defend her until after she was sentenced to death and no competent interpreter during her trial. Her sentence violated international law, which prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

Rizana's fate should arouse international outrage. But it should also spotlight the precarious existence of other domestic workers. At least 1.5 million work in Saudi Arabia alone and more than 50 million -- mainly women and girls -- are employed worldwide according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Read more: Indonesian maid escapes execution in Saudi Arabia

Again according to the ILO, the number of domestic workers worldwide has grown by more than 50% since the mid-1990s. Many, like Rizana, seek employment in foreign countries where they may be unfamiliar with the language and legal system and have few rights.

When Rizana traveled to Saudi Arabia, for example, she may not have known that many Saudi employers confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them inside their home, cutting them off from the outside world and sources of help.

It is unlikely that anyone ever told her about Saudi Arabia's flawed criminal justice system or that while many domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, others are forced to work for months or even years without pay and subjected to physical or sexual abuse.

Passport photo of Rizana Nafeek

Read more: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

Conditions for migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are among some of the worst, but domestic workers in other countries rarely enjoy the same rights as other workers. In a new report this week, the International Labour Organization says that nearly 30% of the world's domestic workers are completely excluded from national labor laws. They typically earn only 40% of the average wage of other workers. Forty-five percent aren't even entitled by law to a weekly day off.

Last year, I interviewed young girls in Morocco who worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for a fraction of the minimum wage. One girl began working at age 12 and told me: "I don't mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part."

Many governments have finally begun to recognize the risks and exploitation domestic workers face. During 2012, dozens of countries took action to strengthen protections for domestic workers. Thailand, and Singapore approved measures to give domestic workers a weekly day off, while Venezuela and the Philippines adopted broad laws for domestic workers ensuring a minimum wage, paid holidays, and limits to their working hours. Brazil is amending its constitution to state that domestic workers have all the same rights as other workers. Bahrain codified access to mediation of labor disputes.

Read more: Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps most significantly, eight countries acted in 2012 to ratify -- and therefore be legally bound by -- the Domestic Workers Convention, with more poised to follow suit this year. The convention is a groundbreaking treaty adopted in 2011 to guarantee domestic workers the same protections available to other workers, including weekly days off, effective complaints procedures and protection from violence.

The Convention also has specific protections for domestic workers under the age of 18 and provisions for regulating and monitoring recruitment agencies. All governments should ratify the convention.

Many reforms are needed to prevent another tragic case like that of Rizana Nafeek. The obvious one is for Saudi Arabia to stop its use of the death penalty and end its outlier status as one of only three countries worldwide to execute people for crimes committed while a child.

Labor reforms are also critically important. They may have prevented the recruitment of a 17 year old for migration abroad in the first place. And they can protect millions of other domestic workers who labor with precariously few guarantees for their safety and rights.

Read more: Malala, others on front lines in fight for women

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jo Becker.

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Ald. Sandi Jackson resigns from Chicago City Council

Chicago Tribune political editor Eric Krol phones in to discuss the resignation of Alderman Sandi Jackson and the future of the Chicago City Council. (Posted: January 11, 2013).

Ald. Sandi Jackson has resigned from the Chicago City Council.

The 7th Ward alderman submitted her resignation letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel today. It is effective Tuesday.

"After much consideration and while dealing with very painful family health matters, I have met with my family and determined that the constituents of the 7th Ward, as well as you Mr. Mayor, and my colleagues in the City Council deserve a partner who can commit all of their energies to the business of the people. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I tender my resignation as Alderman of 7th Ward, effective January 15, 2013," reads the letter released by the mayor's office.

Ald. Jackson's resignation comes after her husband, Jesse Jackson Jr., resigned from Congress before Thanksgiving amid federal ethics probes and a diagnois of bipolar depression.

Talk swirled around City Hall that Ald. Jackson also would step down, but she remained on the council until Friday afternoon.

Emanuel put out a statement about the resignation.

"As Sandi takes this time to focus on her family, we give her our deepest thanks and support for her service to our City and the residents of her ward.  Her leadership has been greatly appreciated in the Chicago City Council," the statement read.

"The process to identify a replacement for Alderman Jackson to serve and represent the residents of Chicago’s 7th ward will be announced early next week."

A month ago, amid rumors that she was considering a run to replace her husband in Congress, Jackson denied she was interested in the job and said she wouldn’t resign from the City Council unless "something catastrophic happens.”
 
At the same time, she also said she was undecided about whether to move back to Chicago from Washington, D.C., where the couple lives with their children.

"I will finish my term. I intend to finish my term," Ald. Jackson said then. "Unless something catastrophic happens -- I could step outside and get hit by a bus today."

Her husband, in his resignation letter to House Speaker John Boehner in November, appeared to try to shield his wife in the federal ethics investigation. "I am doing my best to address the situation responsibly, cooperate with the investigators, and accept responsibility for my mistakes, for they are my mistakes and mine alone," the former congressman wrote. "None of us is immune from our share of shortcomings or human frailties, and I pray that I will be remembered for what I did right."
 
The former congressman paid his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to act as his political consultant.

Ald. Jackson could not be reached for comment.

Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., the former congressman’s father and the former council member’s father-in-law, was reached Friday afternoon by telephone, but had no comment on her resignation.

“I think that she has made a very personal decision that she feels is in the best interests of her family and her constituents,” said Ald. Patrick O’Connor, 40th, the mayor’s floor leader.

Emanuel will have 60 days to name a replacement, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

"He is looking for someone who has a history of community involvement and engagement," Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley got to substantially shape the City Council during his two-decade tenure, appointing scores of aldermen who tended to be loyal to him in return. All told, Daley got to make 35 appointments.

Jackson's resignation marks Emanuel's first chance to appoint an alderman since taking office in May 2011.

Sandi Jackson was elected to the City Council in 2007, defeating then-Ald. Darcel Beavers, who had been appointed to succeed her father, William Beavers, who moved to the Cook County Board. Jackson defeated Darcel Beavers in a 2011 rematch.

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Malian army beats back Islamist rebels with French help

PARIS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Malian government troops drove back Islamist rebels from a strategic central town after France intervened on Friday with air strikes to halt advances by the militants controlling the country's desert north.

Western governments, particularly former colonial power France, had voiced alarm after the al Qaeda-linked rebel alliance captured the town of Konna on Thursday, a gateway towards the capital Bamako 600 km (375 miles) south.

President Francois Hollande said France would not stand by to watch the rebels push southward. Paris has repeatedly warned that the Islamists' seizure of the country's north in April gave them a base to attack neighboring African countries and Europe.

"We are faced with blatant aggression that is threatening Mali's very existence. France cannot accept this," Hollande, who recently pledged Paris would not to meddle in African affairs, said in a New Year speech to diplomats and journalists.

The president said resolutions by the United Nations Security Council, which in December sanctioned an African-led military intervention in Mali, meant France was acting in accordance with international law.

In Washington, a U.S. official told Reuters the Pentagon was weighing options in Mali, including intelligence-sharing with France and logistics support.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed France had carried out air strikes against the rebels to prevent them conquering the whole of Mali. He refused to reveal further details, such as whether French troops were on the ground.

France's intervention immediately tipped the military balance of power, with Malian government forces quickly sweeping back into Konna, according to local residents.

"The Malian army has retaken Konna with the help of our military partners. We are there now," Lieutenant Colonel Diaran Kone told Reuters, adding that the army was mopping up Islamist fighters in the surrounding area.

EU SPEEDS UP DEPLOYMENT

A military operation had not been expected until September due to the difficulties of training Malian troops, funding the African force and deploying during the mid-year rainy season. However, Mali's government appealed for urgent military aid from France on Thursday after Islamist fighters took Konna.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on Friday for "accelerated international engagement" and said the bloc would speed up plans to deploy 200 troops to train Malian forces, initially expected in late February.

Blaise Compaore, the president of neighboring Burkina Faso which is acting as a mediator in the Malian crisis, said his country would contribute a contingent of ground troops toward the African Union mission to retake Mali's north.

Burkina Faso had been due to host peace talks between the Malian government and some of the rebel factions on Thursday, but these have been postponed until January 21 due to the outbreak of hostilities.

The capture of Konna by the rebels - who have imposed strict Sharia Islamic law in northern Mali - had caused panic among residents in the towns of Mopti and Sevare, 60 km (40 miles) to the south. Calm returned, however, after residents reported Western soldiers and foreign military aircraft arriving late on Thursday at Sevare's airport - the main one in the region.

Military analysts said the Western soldiers may have been the first deployment of French special forces.

They voiced doubt, however, whether Friday's action heralded the start of the final operation to retake northern Mali - a harsh, sparsely populated terrain the size of France - as neither the equipment nor ground troops were ready.

"We're not yet at the big intervention," said Mark Schroeder, director for Sub-Saharan Africa analysis for the global risk and security consultancy Stratfor. He said France had been forced to act when the Islamists bore down on Sevare, a vital launching point for future military operations.

"The French realized this was a red line that they could not permit to be crossed," he said.

STATE OF EMERGENCY

More than two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bulwark of democracy in a part of Africa better known for turmoil - an image that unraveled in a matter of weeks after a military coup last March that paved the way for the Islamist rebellion.

Mali is Africa's third largest gold producer and a major cotton grower, and home to the fabled northern desert city of Timbuktu - an ancient trading hub and UNESCO World Heritage site that hosted annual music festivals before the rebellion.

Interim President Dioncounda Traore, under pressure for bolder action from Mali's military, declared a state of emergency on Friday. Traore will fly to Paris for talks with Hollande on Wednesday.

"Every Malian must henceforth consider themselves a soldier," Traore said on state TV, calling on mining and telecoms companies to contribute to the war effort. He said he requested French air support with the blessing of West African allies.

The chief of operations for Mali's Defence Ministry said Nigeria and Senegal were among the other countries providing military support on the ground. Fabius said these countries had not taken part in the French operation.

A spokesman for the Nigerian air force said planes had been deployed to Mali for a reconnaissance mission, not for combat.

The French foreign ministry stepped up its security alert on Mali and parts of neighboring Mauritania and Niger on Friday, extending its red alert - the highest level - to include Bamako. France has eight nationals in Islamist hands in the Sahara after a string of kidnappings.

A spokesman for al Qaeda's north African arm AQIM urged France, in a video posted on the Internet, to reconsider its intervention. "Stop your assault against us or you are digging your own sons' graves," said Abdallah Al-Chinguetti.

(Additional reporting by Richard Valdmanis in Dakar, Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg, Phil Stewart in Washington, Alexandria Sage, John Irish and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris; writing by Daniel Flynn; editing by Giles Elgood)

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Wall Street climbs as China data puts S&P back at five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Thursday and the S&P 500 ended at a fresh five-year high as stronger-than-expected exports from China spurred optimism about global growth prospects.

Buying accelerated late in the day after the S&P 500 broke through technical resistance at 1,466.47, which was the market's closing level last Friday and the highest level since December 2007.

"Historically, January is a positive month for the market and you're seeing that play out," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut.

Financial and energy stocks were the day's top gainers. The financial sector index <.gspf> rose 1.4 percent and the energy sector <.gspe> was up 1 percent.

Analysts cited economic data out of China as the day's catalyst, which showed the country's export growth rebounded sharply to a seven-month high in December, a strong finish to the year after seven straight quarters of slowdown.

"It is being interpreted positively that they've stopped the downturn (in growth)," said Kurt Brunner, portfolio manager at Swarthmore Group in Philadelphia.

"If they continue to produce good growth, that's going to be supportive of our global manufacturers."

Wall Street's fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> suggested markets were relatively calm. The VIX was down 2.3 percent at 13.49.

At Thursday's close, the S&P sits about 6 percent below its all-time closing high of 1,565.15, hit in October 2007.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 80.71 points, or 0.60 percent, to 13,471.22. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 11.10 points, or 0.76 percent, to 1,472.12. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 15.95 points, or 0.51 percent, to 3,121.76.

Thursday's session had earlier included a dip that traders said was triggered by a trade in the options market that prompted a large amount of S&P futures to hit the market at the same time. That sent the S&P 500 index down rapidly but those losses were reversed through the afternoon.

Financials benefited from events this week that added clarity to mortgage rules and banks' potential exposure to the housing market.

The U.S. government's consumer finance watchdog announced mortgage rules on Thursday that will force banks to use new criteria to determine whether a borrower can repay a home loan.

Earlier this week, several big mortgage lenders reached a deal with regulators to end a review of foreclosures mandated by the government.

"It's a resolution. It's not hanging over their heads," said Brunner.

Bank of America gained 3.1 percent to $11.78, while Morgan Stanley was up 3.7 percent at $20.34, one day after sources said the bank plans to cut jobs.

Shares of upscale jeweler Tiffany dropped 4.5 percent to $60.40 after it said sales were flat during the holidays.

Herbalife Ltd stepped up its defense against activist investor Bill Ackman, stressing it was a legitimate company with a mission to improve nutrition and help public health. The stock ended down 1.8 percent at $39.24 after a volatile day.

After the closing bell, American Express said it would cut about 5,400 jobs, and take about $600 million in after-tax charges in the fourth quarter. The stock added 0.7 percent to $61.20 in after-hours trade.

Volume was above the 2012 average of 6.42 billion shares traded a day, with roughly 6.77 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT.

Advancers outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,916 to 1,039, while advancers also outpaced decliners on the Nasdaq by 1,439 to 1,036.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Researchers: NFL's Seau had brain disease

When he ended his life last year by shooting himself in the chest, Junior Seau had a degenerative brain disease often linked with repeated blows to the head.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health said Thursday the former NFL star's abnormalities are consistent with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

The hard-hitting linebacker played for 20 NFL seasons with San Diego, Miami and New England before retiring in 2009. He died at age 43 of a self-inflicted gunshot in May, and his family requested the analysis of his brain.

"We saw changes in his behavior and things that didn't add up with him," his ex-wife, Gina, told The Associated Press. "But (CTE) was not something we considered or even were aware of. But pretty immediately (after the suicide) doctors were trying to get their hands on Junior's brain to examine it."

The NIH, based in Bethesda, Md., studied three unidentified brains, one of which was Seau's, and said the findings on Seau were similar to autopsies of people "with exposure to repetitive head injuries."

"It was important to us to get to the bottom of this, the truth," Gina Seau added, "and now that it has been conclusively determined from every expert that he had obviously had CTE, we just hope it is taken more seriously. You can't deny it exists, and it is hard to deny there is a link between head trauma and CTE. There's such strong evidence correlating head trauma and collisions and CTE."

In the final years of his life, Seau had wild behavioral swings, according to Gina and to 23-year-old son, Tyler, along with signs of irrationality, forgetfulness, insomnia and depression.

"He emotionally detached himself and would kind of 'go away' for a little bit," Tyler Seau said. "And then the depression and things like that. It started to progressively get worse."

He hid it well in public, they said, but not when he was with family or close friends.

Seau joins a list of several dozen football players who were found to have CTE. Boston University's center for study of the disease reported last month that 34 former pro players and nine who played only college football suffered from CTE.

The NFL faces lawsuits by thousands of former players who say the league withheld information on the harmful effects of concussions. According to an AP review of 175 lawsuits, 3,818 players have sued. At least 26 Hall of Famer members are among the players who have done so.

The National Football League, in an email to the AP, said: "We appreciate the Seau family's cooperation with the National Institutes of Health. The finding underscores the recognized need for additional research to accelerate a fuller understanding of CTE.

"The NFL, both directly and in partnership with the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and other leading organizations, is committed to supporting a wide range of independent medical and scientific research that will both address CTE and promote the long-term health and safety of athletes at all levels."

NFL teams have given a $30 million research grant to the NIH.

The players' union called the NIH report on Seau "tragic."

"The only way we can improve the safety of players, restore the confidence of our fans and secure the future of our game is to insist on the same quality of medical care, informed consent and ethical standards that we expect for ourselves and for our family members," the NFLPA said in a statement.

"This is why the players have asked for things like independent sideline concussion experts, the certification and credentialing of all professional football medical staff and a fairer workers compensation system in professional football," it said.

Seau is not the first former NFL player who killed himself and later was found to have had CTE. Dave Duerson and Ray Easterling are the others.

Before shooting himself, Duerson, a former Chicago Bears defensive back, left a note asking that his brain be studied for signs of trauma. His family filed a wrongful-death suit against the NFL, claiming the league didn't do enough to prevent or treat the concussions that severely damaged his brain.

Easterling played safety for the Falcons in the 1970s. After his career, he suffered from dementia, depression and insomnia, according to his wife, Mary Ann. He committed suicide last April.

Mary Ann Easterling is among the plaintiffs who have sued the NFL.

Tyler Seau played football through high school and for two years in college. He says he has no symptoms of brain trauma.

"I was not surprised after learning a little about CTE that he had it," Tyler said. "He did play so many years at that level. I was more just kind of angry I didn't do something more and have the awareness to help him more, and now it is too late."

Gina Seau's son Jake, now a high school junior, played football for two seasons but has switched to lacrosse and has been recruited to play at Duke.

"Lacrosse is really his sport and what he is passionate about," she said. "He is a good football player and probably could continue. But especially now watching what his dad went through, he says, 'Why would I risk lacrosse for football?'

"I didn't have to have a discussion with him after we saw what Junior went through."

Her 12-year-old son Hunter has shown no interest in playing football.

"That's fine with me," she said.

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Whew! Big asteroid no longer threat to Earth

WASHINGTON (AP) — Upon further review, a big scary-sounding asteroid is no longer even a remote threat to smash into Earth in about 20 years, NASA says.

Astronomers got a much better look at the asteroid when it whizzed by Earth on Wednesday from a relative safe 9 million miles away. They recalculated the space rock’s trajectory and determined it wasn’t on a path to hit Earth on April 13, 2036 as once feared possible.

At more than 1,060 feet wide, the rock called Apophis could do significant damage to a local area if it hit and perhaps even cause a tsunami. But it was not large enough to trigger worldwide extinctions. One prominent theory that explains the extinctions of dinosaurs and other species 65 million years ago says a six-mile-wide meteorite hit Earth and spewed vast amounts of dust into the air, cooling and darkening the planet.

About nine years ago, when astronomers first saw Apophis (uh-PAH’-fihs), they thought there was a 2.7 percent chance that it would smack into our planet. Later, they lowered the chances to an even more unlikely 1 in 250,000.

Now it’s never mind.

“Certainly 2036 is ruled out,” said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program. “It’s why we track them so we can be assured that they won’t get dangerously close.”

Yeomans said now the asteroid, named after an evil Egyptian mythical serpent, won’t get closer than 19,400 miles. That’s still the closest approach asteroid watchers have seen for a rock this large. And when astronomers got a closer look they noticed it was about 180 feet larger than they thought, but not a threat.

Asteroids circle the sun as leftovers of failed attempts to form planets billions of years ago. When asteroids enter Earth’s atmosphere, they become meteors and when they hit the ground they are meteorites.

This is the second time in as many months the asteroid watchers have had good news for Earth. Last month, astronomers got a closer look at a smaller asteroid that they had previously calculated had a 1 in 500 chance of hitting Earth, this time in 2040. And they decided the 460-foot asteroid was no longer a threat.

If you still want to see a space rock come cosmically close to Earth, there’s always next month.

On Feb. 15, a small asteroid, only 130-feet wide, will come close to Earth, about 17,000 miles above the equator. That’s so close it will come between our planet and some of the more distant satellites that circle the globe. But it will miss Earth.

“This will be the closest passage of an object this size,” Yeomans said.

That asteroid, called 2012 DA14, should be visible with smaller telescopes and binoculars, but mostly in Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia, he said.

___

Online:

NASA’s Near Earth Object Program: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

___

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Science News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Emanuel to unveil new Chicago gun control ordinance

Senator Dick Durbin met with some of Chicagos top law enforcement officials today to focus on preventing gun violence in Chicago.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel today indicated he will put forward his own city gun control ordinance in the next few days after state lawmakers did not reach agreement on the divisive issue.

Emanuel refused to give details about what specifically his proposal will address. But he said he isn't willing to wait until state lawmakers take up gun control. Last month, a federal appeals court tossed out the state's longstanding ban on carrying concealed guns in public. The court gave the state six months to set up new rules.

During his remarks today, Emanuel hit on several of the firearms regulations he has said he would like to see in place at the state level since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut.

"Waiting is not a strong suit of mine," Emanuel said when asked today about the General Assembly's failure to pass a proposed state ban on assault weapons. "First of all, I believe there's, I know there's a majority in the state, an overwhelming majority in the city for a ban on assault weapons, clips, and comprehensive background checks on all sales, wherever they take place, wherever the location may be. And there's also a majority in the legislature."

There was not, however, enough votes in the Illinois Senate last week to pass bans on assault weapons and high-capacity clips. A new legislature featuring greater numbers of Democrats was sworn in Wednesday.

Emanuel also has spoken in recent weeks about the need for laws requiring people to report if their guns are lost or stolen.

Emanuel said he will introduce his gun legislation to the City Council at its meeting next week. It would then have to receive a committee hearing before coming back to the full council for a vote at a later date. "I will not wait when it comes to protecting our neighborhoods, our communities, our children, the residents in the city of Chicago," he said.

The mayor has been dogged by rising gun violence during his first term. His predecessor, Richard Daley, saw a city handgun ban overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Even when Chicago banned handguns, the city continued to be plagued by shooting violence for decades.

Emanuel acknowledged the possibility of a court fight over his upcoming plan.

"We have run it through the (city) corporation counsel, we believe this stands the muster of the court," he said.

"I can do certain things in the city," Emanuel added. "We're going to take those steps and do that."

The mayor also nodded to the fact stronger gun regulations in Chicago will have limited impact if the state and federal governments don't also take action.

"I hope this will not only be the responsibility I take for what I control. I hope it will be a spur to action for Springfield to take the steps that are necessary for them," he said during remarks at the Budlong Woods library on the Northwest Side.

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String of bombings kill 101, injure 200 in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 101 people were killed in bombings in two Pakistani cities on Thursday in one of the country's bloodiest days in recent years, officials said, with most casualties caused by sectarian attacks in Quetta.

The bombings underscored the myriad threats Pakistani security forces face from homegrown Sunni extremist groups, the Taliban insurgency in the northwest and the less well-known Baloch insurgency in the southwest.

On Thursday evening, two coordinated explosions killed at least 69 people and injured more than 100 in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, said Deputy Inspector of Police Hamid Shakil.

The first attack, in a crowded snooker hall, was a suicide bombing, local residents said. About ten minutes later, a car bomb exploded, they said. Five policemen and a cameraman were among the dead from that blast.

The attacks happened in a predominately Shia neighborhood and banned sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility. The extremist Sunni group targets Shias, who make up about 20 percent of Pakistani's population.

Targeted killings and bombings of Shia communities are common in Pakistan, and rights groups say hundreds of Shia were killed last year. Militant groups in Balochistan frequently bomb or shoot Shia passengers on buses travelling to neighboring Iran.

The killers are rarely caught and some Shia activists say militants work alongside elements of Pakistan's security forces, who see them as a potential bulwark against neighboring India.

Many Pakistanis fear their nation could become the site of a regional power struggle between Saudi Arabia, source of funding for Sunni extremist groups, and Iran, which is largely Shia.

But sectarian tensions are not the only source of violence.

The United Baloch Army claimed responsibility for a blast in Quetta's market earlier in the day. It killed 11 people and injured more than 40, mostly vegetable sellers and secondhand clothes dealers, police officer Zubair Mehmood said. A child was also killed.

The group is one of several fighting for independence for Balochistan, an arid, impoverished region with substantial gas, copper and gold reserves, which constitutes just under half of Pakistan's territory and is home to about 8 million of the country's population of 180 million.

SWAT BOMBING

In another incident Thursday, 21 were killed and more than 60 injured in a bombing when people gathered to hear a religious leader speak in Mingora, the largest city in the northwestern province of Swat, police and officials at the Saidu Sharif hospital said.

"The death toll may rise as some of the injured are in critical condition and we are receiving more and more injured people," said Dr. Niaz Mohammad.

It has been more than two years since a militant attack has claimed that many lives in Swat.

The mountainous region, formerly a tourist destination, has been administered by the Pakistani army since their 2009 offensive drove out Taliban militants who had taken control.

But Talibans retain the ability to attack in Swat and shot schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousufzai in Mingora last October.

A Taliban spokesman said they were not responsible for Thursday's bombing.

(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Pakistan; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Jason Webb)

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