Though Robert Pattinson stuck by her, Ben Affleck has left Kristen Stewart in the dust. Citing a schedule crunch, the actor has backed out of Focus, a con-artist movie set to costar Stewart and begin filming this spring. Stewart had just said in a recent interview that she was excited to start shooting, but now who knows what will happen. "Hi Kristen. We know that you were excited about working with Ben, but he dropped out, so we got you a replacement," a producer says to her the day she arrives on set. ...
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Four State Department Officials Are Out After Benghazi Report
Label: World
WASHINGTON — Four State Department officials were removed from their posts on Wednesday after an independent panel criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that was attacked on Sept. 11, leading to the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Eric J. Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, resigned. Charlene R. Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security, and another official in the diplomatic security office whom officials would not identify were relieved of their duties. So was Raymond Maxwell, a deputy assistant secretary who had responsibility for North Africa. The four officials, a State Department spokeswoman said, “have been placed on administrative leave pending further action.”
The report criticized officials in the State Department’s Bureau for Diplomatic Security as having displayed a “lack of proactive leadership.” It also said that some officials in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs “showed a lack of ownership of Benghazi’s security issues.”
The report did not criticize more senior officials, including Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary for management, who has vigorously defended the State Department’s decision-making on Benghazi to the Congress, or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
At a news conference at the State Department on Wednesday, Thomas R. Pickering, a former ambassador who led the independent review, said that most of the blame should fall on officials in the two bureaus.
“We fixed it at the assistant secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look, where the decision-making in fact takes place, where, if you like, the rubber hits the road,” said Mr. Pickering, who did not identify the officials.
At the same time, the report that Mr. Pickering oversaw suggested that there was a culture of “husbanding resources” at senior levels of the State Department that contributed to the security deficiencies in Benghazi. Without identifying Mr. Kennedy or other senior officials, the report said that attitude “had the effect of conditioning a few State Department managers to favor restricting the use of resources as a general orientation.”
Two deputy secretaries of state, William J. Burns and Thomas R. Nides, are scheduled to testify to Congressional committees on Thursday. The question of whether senior officials at the State Department should be held accountable is likely to be raised by lawmakers at the hearing.
“The board severely critiques a handful of individuals, and they have been held accountable,” said Representative Ed Royce, Republican of California, who is the incoming chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “The degree that others bear responsibility warrants Congressional review, given the report’s rather sweeping indictment. And the Foreign Affairs Committee must hear from Secretary Clinton concerning her role, which this report didn’t address.”
Mrs. Clinton, in a letter to Congress, outlined a number of steps the department is taking to improve security, including hiring hundreds of additional Marine guards for high-risk embassies and consulates around the world.
In an apparent gesture of support for the American diplomatic corps, President Obama — speaking at a diplomatic reception at the State Department on Wednesday night — praised the department’s personnel, who he said often worked “at great risk.”
Another issue that might be raised and that was largely skirted by the panel, concerns what role the American military should play in protecting diplomats abroad.
The Pentagon had no forces that could be readily sent to Benghazi when the crisis unfolded. The closest AC-130 gunship was in Afghanistan. There are no armed drones thought to be within range of Libya. There was no Marine expeditionary unit — a large seaborne force with its own helicopters — in the Mediterranean Sea. The Africa Command, whose area of operation includes North Africa, also did not have on hand its own force able to respond rapidly to emergencies — a Commanders’ In-Extremis Force, or C.I.F. Every other regional command had one at the time.
The Defense Department has repeatedly declined to say whether the Africa Command requested that any of these forces be on hand during the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Nor has it said whether Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta or Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave any thought to moving forces in the region as a precaution.
The unclassified version of the Benghazi report concluded that “there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference.” But the report did not address whether it would have been prudent to station quick-reaction forces in the region or whether the United States would have been in a position to quickly respond militarily had Ambassador Stevens been kidnapped and the crisis had dragged on, as was initially feared.
The United States military’s best-trained team to extract diplomats under fire — Delta Force commandos — was half a world away, in Fort Bragg, N.C. “What this report shows is that we need a fundamental rethink of the problem,” said one senior Pentagon official who has spent considerable time examining the issue of protecting American diplomats since the attack in September. “It’s not the military’s job to protect diplomats; it’s the host government’s. But in the absence of a real government, we never asked the question, ‘So how do we do this?’ ”
But as the military budget declines, some ranking officers are wary about taking on new commitments, even ones that involve protecting Americans.
“It is not reasonable nor feasible to tether U.S. forces at the ready to respond to protect every high-risk post in the world,” Mike Mullen, the retired admiral and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who served as vice chairman of the independent review, said Wednesday.
Apple is dominating the small and medium business market in Q4
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Blake Shelton Says The Voice Winner Cassadee Pope Can Do Anything
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
The Voice
Cassadee Pope and Blake Shelton
Trae Patton/NBC
Cassadee Pope won Tuesday night's The Voice competition, and already her team leader and star mentor Blake Shelton says she has the right frame of mind for success.
Even as last week, when her rendition of "Stupid Boy" went No. 1 on iTunes, she was nervously telling Shelton her time on the show was over – much to his chagrin.
"That's what makes an artist," Shelton praised her after the results were announced Tuesday night. "We are never satisfied. But I hope she's really happy that she won."
Pope, 23, who beat out finalists Terry McDermott, who came in second, and Nicholas Davis, who was third, said after her victory that she's eyeing a crossover record as her first professional effort.
"I would love to do the pop/rock thing, but I know that I gained some amazing country fans and I know how hard it is to get into that world," the Florida native said. "I'd love to add a country music element to it a bit. I used to cover country music when I was a kid and it's stylistically part of my voice somehow."
Shelton said the versatile Pope can take many directions for her future success in music.
"She's got a lot of options," he said. "She's adored by rock fans, pop fans, country fans. She connects with a lyric the way few people can. The door is wide open."
Season 4 of The Voice premieres March 25, 2013, with Usher and Shakira joining Shelton and Adam Levine as team leaders.
Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (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.
Wall Street falls as "cliff" talks sour, but hopes remain
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks sold off late in the day to close at session lows on Wednesday as talks to avert a year-end fiscal crisis turned sour, even as investors still expect a deal.
The S&P 500 slipped after a two-day rally that took the benchmark index to its highest close in two months. Defensive-oriented shares led the decliners, including health care and consumer staples.
General Motors
President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are struggling to come up with a deal to avoid early 2013 tax hikes and spending cuts that many economists say could send the U.S. economy into recession.
House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said in a one-minute press conference that his chamber will pass a proposal that Obama had already threatened to veto as it spares many wealthy Americans from tax hikes needed to balance the budget. Obama has already agreed to reductions in benefits for senior citizens.
"My guess is they're close to a deal, and right before, it looks like the deal is about to blow up either on manufactured or legitimate reasons," said Uri Landesman, president of hedge fund Platinum Partners in New York.
He said if the market thought a deal was in real danger, the S&P 500 would slide below 1,400. It stands now near 1,435, not far from a two-month high.
The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> surged 11.5 percent to 17.36, but has remained relatively stable. Its 14- 50- and 200-day averages are all within 1.1 points.
Landesman said the VIX's stability indicates "the bulls have control of this market still."
Banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - have led recent gains, indicating a shift to focusing on a growing economy as Wall Street looks past the budget talks.
Defensive sectors led Wednesday's downturn, with the S&P health care sector index <.gspa> down 1.1 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 98.99 points, or 0.74 percent, to 13,251.97. 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.
Herbalife Ltd
Oracle
Knight Capital Group Inc
Shares of Chinese display advertising provider Focus Media Holding Ltd
Data showed homebuilding permits touched their highest level in nearly 4-1/2 years in November. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> fell 0.8 percent, but has gained 66.4 percent this year as the housing market has turned the corner.
About 6.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, slightly above the daily average so far this year of about 6.45 billion shares.
Advancing and declining issues were almost even on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Law Firms Accused of Aiding Chinese Immigrants’ False Asylum Claims
Label: World
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
F.B.I. agents during a raid in Chinatown in Manhattan on Tuesday. Twenty-six people, including six lawyers and employees of at least 10 law firms, were arrested in what the authorities said was a plot to orchestrate false asylum claims for Chinese immigrants.
They invented woeful tales of persecution for their Chinese clients. Prepped them on how to lie about having had a forced abortion. Even tutored them on religion.
In all, 26 people, including 6 lawyers, were charged Tuesday with helping Chinese immigrants submit false asylum claims in an attempt to remain in the United States, law enforcement officials said.
The indictments describe elaborate schemes based in law offices in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, Queens, which involved teams of paralegals and office managers, translators and a church official, who conspired to dupe immigration officials by inventing stories of political and religious persecution for their clients, officials said.
According to the indictments, female clients who sought asylum based on China’s one-child policy were encouraged to prepare for asylum interviews by watching Chinese soap operas so they could describe the experience of receiving a forced abortion. Some paralegals were called “story writers” because of their knack for inventing detailed tales of persecution. A church official in Flushing prepared clients for questions about religion by offering basic instruction in Christianity.
More than 20 defendants were arrested in raids at several locations in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing late Tuesday morning, capping a three-year investigation.
Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused the defendants of “weaving elaborate fictions” and making it “more difficult for those who are legitimately seeking refuge in this country.”
The federal indictments charged employees of at least 10 law firms, the authorities said. In the past few years, the firms filed more than 1,900 asylum applications, according to the indictments, although officials did not specify how many of those they believe were fraudulent.
Tuesday’s operation appeared to be among the largest roundups of lawyers and their associates in New York City in connection with asylum fraud allegations. Even so, the indictments only hinted at the pervasiveness of immigration fraud within the Chinese diaspora, experts said.
Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies and urban affairs at Hunter College, said that he believed most Chinese asylum cases in New York City were fraudulent.
“This is an industry,” said Mr. Kwong, who has written widely on the Chinese population in New York City. “Everybody knows about it, and these violations go on all the time.”
Wary of widespread fraud, Mr. Kwong said he had turned down numerous offers from immigration lawyers to be a witness in asylum cases.
The investigation began after federal immigration officials in the New York Asylum Office told investigators they were seeing similarities in many of the cases they were handling, according to an official briefed on the investigation.
In many of the asylum cases reviewed by investigators, Chinese immigrants said they had been persecuted for being Christian or followers of Falun Gong. Others said they were persecuted for their political leanings. Yet others claimed they had suffered as a result of forcible abortions under China’s family-planning rules, the authorities said.
But investigators determined that many of the asylum applicants “had not actually suffered persecution in China,” according to the indictments.
In exchange for money, the indictments state, “the law firm would make up a story of persecution and the client would need to memorize that story.”
Many of the law firms also referred asylum seekers to the Full Gospel Church in Flushing, where they would meet with a church official, Liying Lin, prosecutors said.
Ms. Lin, 29, provided services to asylum seekers including “training in the basic tenets of Christianity,” prosecutors said. But much of Ms. Lin’s instruction was specifically aimed at tricking the immigration authorities, according to the indictment against her, which claimed that she “trained asylum applicants on what questions about religious belief would be asked during an asylum interview and coached the clients on how to answer.”
In return for such instruction, applicants “were expected to make cash donations.” For an additional price, Ms. Lin provided certificates showing “the client’s attendance at church and/or the client’s baptism,” according to the indictment.
Ms. Lin also served on occasion as an interpreter for immigrants during their immigration hearings. If one of her students gave the wrong answer concerning Christianity, Ms. Lin “would kick them on the foot,” according to an indictment.
A top F.B.I. official in the New York office, George Venizelos, said in a statement that some of the defendants had “used religion like a fake passport or phony ID — a perversion of religious freedom.”
Several of the arrests took place at 11 a.m. near the intersection of Catherine Street and East Broadway in Chinatown. F.B.I. agents in raid jackets could be seen leading defendants, who included several women who appeared to be in their 30s and 40s, out of nearby office buildings, as nearby residents and passers-by paused to watch.
Other arrests occurred in Flushing, another major enclave of Chinese residents.
All 26 defendants were charged with conspiring to commit immigration fraud. They were awaiting arraignment Tuesday night.
Samsung Galaxy Muse is like an iPod Shuffle that Syncs with Your Phone
Label: TechnologyIn perhaps the most awkwardly titled tech press release ever, Samsung Mobile announced the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy Muse, a device which appears to have nothing to do with “CORRECTING and REPLACING and ADDING MULTIMEDIA” but everything to do with being a music player crossed with a smartphone accessory.
Say goodbye to iTunes?
While most handheld music players (and smartphone or tablets with music apps) sync with a PC or Mac music app, like iTunes or Banshee, the Samsung Galaxy Muse syncs with your Android phone itself. It uses the Muse Sync app, which Google Play says will install on devices like the Nexus 7 tablet but which Samsung says will only work with the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II smartphones.
Plug it in, turn it on
The pebble-shaped Muse connects to your Samsung phone via its headset jack. It doesn’t have a screen, so you have to control it iPod Shuffle style, and use the Muse Sync app to see how much of its 4 GB of space are free and decide which playlists to sync. Since it only has those 4 GB, it can only hold a fraction of the music that can be put on the much more powerful smartphones.
Who is Samsung selling the Galaxy Muse to?
Samsung says “users can sync the songs they want and leave their phone behind,” the usefulness of which may depend on whether or not you feel limited by having to bring your smartphone with you. The press release mentions its “wearable design and small form factor,” and suggests taking it “in place of [your] smartphone … at the gym or on the go.”
What other gadgets are like the Galaxy Muse?
The most obvious comparison is to the iPod Shuffle, Apple’s similarly tiny and screen-less portable music player. At $ 49, it costs the same as the Galaxy Muse (although a Droid-Life tipster found a $ 25 off coupon code for the Muse), but comes in seven different colors and has an embossed click-wheel controller instead of a flat and featureless surface. It requires you to use iTunes on a desktop PC or Mac, though.
On the upside
The Galaxy Muse’s six hours of battery life may not be suitable for all-day listening, but may at least take the pressure off of a battery-hungry smartphone (so long as it’s one of Samsung’s flagship models). And as PCMag’s Chloe Albanesius notes, “it’s not very convenient to strap a 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II to your arm when you hit the gym.”
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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Kristen Stewart Apologizes for Making Everyone 'So Angry'
Label: LifestyleKristen Stewart
Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Disney/Getty
Kristen Stewart is once again saying she's sorry.
A few months after publicly expressing regret over cheating on boyfriend Robert Pattinson with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, the actress has some words for everybody else.
"I apologize to everyone for making them so angry," the typically press-shy On the Road star, 22, tells Newsweek. "It was not my intention."
Stewart, who has been the subject of both vitriolic criticism and tremendous support from fans, adds, "It's not a terrible thing if you're either loved or hated."
But at the end of the day, the former Twilight star is primarily focused on her craft.
"I don't care [about people's opinions]," she explains. "It doesn't keep me from doing my s–––."
Addressing her most famous role, that of Bella Swan in the Twilight franchise, she says, "The only relief when it comes to Twilight is that the story is done ... I start every project to finish the mother––, and to extend that [mentality] over a five-year period adapting all of these treasured moments over four books, it was constantly worrying."
As for always being know to a generation of moviegoers as Bella, she says, "As long as people's perspective of me doesn't keep me from doing what I want to do, it doesn’t matter.”
Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (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.
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