Poll: Did you like the smoother, HFR Hobbit?

If you're one of the many, many people who saw "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" over the weekend, chances are you didn't see the film exactly as the director, Peter Jackson, intended.

But if you were, please let us know whether you liked it by voting in the poll.

The Hobbit is the first major film to be released in a higher-frame-rate 3D version called HFR. Unlike traditional releases, which are shot and shown at 24-frames-per-second, the HFR Hobbit comes in at 48.

Jackson said he preferred viewers watch the HFR version if they could, although he admits it's an "experiment." Only about ten percent of the more than 4,000 theaters showing the film have an HFR screen available, and the look of the higher frame rate is controversial. You can check out our full report here.

The short story is that Thorin and Co. look smoother in HFR than you're used to seeing in traditional presentations, and whether that's a good or a bad thing depends largely on personal taste. So let us know yours, and elaborate in comments if you'd like.

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In divorce, mom had authority over Conn. shooter

Last Updated 11:12 a.m.

NEWTOWN, Conn. When the parents of Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza divorced in 2009, their legal documents offer no hints of an acrimonious split and make no mention of any lingering mental health or medical issues for the then-teenage boy.

Newly-public divorce paperwork shows that Nancy Lanza had the authority to make all decisions regarding her son's upbringing.

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Who is Adam Lanza?

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Adam Lanza's weapons, strategy

The court papers were made public Monday.

The divorce was finalized in September 2009, when Adam Lanza was 17.

There is no evidence of bitterness in the court file, no exchange of accusations or drawn out custody disputes.

Nancy and Peter Lanza had joint legal custody of Adam but he lived with his mother. The parents agreed to consult and discuss major decisions affecting Adam's best interests. In instances where the parents couldn't agree, Nancy Lanza "shall make the final decision," Judge Stanley Novak wrote on Sept. 24, 2009.

Nancy Lanza, who was once a stockbroker for John Hancock in Boston, married Peter Lanza in Kingston, N.H., in June 1981. The divorce file said the marriage "has broken down irretrievably and there is no possibility of getting back together."

The divorce agreement gave Nancy Lanza $265,000 in alimony last year.

It makes no mention of any mental health issues regarding her son.

As part of the divorce, Nancy Lanza was ordered to attend a parenting education program. The provider, Family Centers Inc., certified that she completed the program on June 3 and June 10, 2009. The document says only that Lanza "satisfactorily completed the program."

The documents also say Adam Lanza has lived his entire life at the Newtown home where he shot his mother to death, before going to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Friday morning and killing 20 children and six adults before taking his own life.

A Connecticut officials said Nancy Lanza was found in bed, in her pajamas, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.

29 Photos

Victims of Conn. school shooting

Adam Lanza is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle in the school attack, a civilian version of the military's M-16 and a model commonly seen at marksmanship competitions. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in the United States under the 1994 assault weapons ban; that law expired in 2004, and Congress, in a nod to the political power of the gun-rights lobby, did not renew it.

Neighbors told CBS News that Nancy Lanza was a gun enthusiast and often took Adam Lanza target shooting with her; it was her guns Adam used against her and the women and children at Sandy Hook.

CBS News' Pat Milton reports a source briefed on the investigation said that Nancy Lanza was demanding of her children. Even though Adam was highly intelligent, she pressed him to high standards and even pressed her sons to measure up at the shooting range where she taught them to shoot, the source said.

Federal agents have concluded that Adam Lanza had visited an area shooting range, but they do not know whether he practiced shooting there. Agents determined Lanza's mother visited shooting ranges several times, but it's not clear whether she took her son or whether he fired a weapon there, said Ginger Colbrun, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Adam's aunt, Marsha Lanza of Crystal Lake, Ill., said that Nancy Lanza kept guns for own safety, and had something of a survivalist mentality; she was worried about protecting her home if the economy went south.

Money was not an issue for the family. Marsha said her ex-husband left Nancy "well-off . . . She didn't have to work."

However, a friend of Nancy Lanza, local landscaper Dan Holmes, said she evidently still suffered from a bad divorce and could be pretty vocal about her ex-husband ... years afterwards."

Peter Lanza, a tax director who lives in Stamford, Conn., issued a statement relating his own family's anguish in the aftermath.

"Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy. No words can truly express how heartbroken we are," he said. "We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can. We too are asking why. ... Like so many of you, we are saddened, but struggling to make sense of what has transpired."

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Conn. Community Mourns Victims of Massacre

President Obama will visit Newtown, Conn. today to meet with the grieving families and thank the first responders from Friday's school shooting, as the community begins the long process of healing.

The pictures of the young victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School emerged Saturday, along with a remarkable story of survival.

Twenty children and six adults were killed at the school when shooter Adam Lanza went on a shooting rampage.

Later this evening, the community will gather for an interfaith vigil, where the president is scheduled to address mourners, some from out of state who came to offer help and others, who knew the young victims or their families.

Addressing the nation on Friday, Obama mourned the children who "had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own."

Story of Survival

READ: Complete List of Sandy Hook Victims

The lone survivor of her class tricked the gunman by playing dead, the girl's pastor told ABC News, before running out of the school covered in the blood of her classmates.

"She ran out of the school building covered from head to toe with blood and the first thing she said to her mom was, 'Mommy, I'm OK but all my friends are dead,'" said Pastor Jim Solomon. "Somehow in that moment, by God's grace, [she] was able to act as she was already deceased."

Five first graders in another class were also killed, along with six staff members.

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Connecticut Shooting: Pastor Explains How Girl Played Dead to Survive Watch Video

"The mom told me, and I thought this was very insightful, that she was suffering from what she felt was survivor's guilt because so many of her friends no longer have their children but she has hers," the pastor said.

Click Here for full coverage of the tragedy at the elementary school.

Remembering the Victims of the Sandy Hook Shooting

There was Emilie Parker, the little girl with the blond hair and bright blue eyes, who would have been one of the first to comfort her classmates at Sandy Hook Elementary School, had a gunman's bullets not claimed her life, her father said.

Noah Pozner and his twin sister had just celebrated their sixth birthdays. His twin sister survived the shooting, but Noah did not.

Six-year-old Jesse Lewis went to school on Friday, excited to make gingerbread houses. He died, along with his teacher, Victoria Soto, 27, whose family said was shielding some of her first graders when she was hit by bullets.

As the community mourns and families bear the pain of planning 26 funerals before Christmas, school board members hope to get students back to a familiar routine.

"Well, all the mental health experts we've talked to...tell us that the best thing we can do is to get back to normal operations as soon as possible," said Bill Hart, a member of the Newtown Board of Education.

"We know some teachers won't be prepared to come back, he said. "We are going to be prepared with substitutes. We've got counseling for all. We're prepared to do whatever we have to do to help all of our community."

READ: Police Seek Motive in Shooting

Students who attend Sandy Hook Elementary School will be moved to another location that has yet to be announced, Hart said. He said officials did not yet know what would become of the building that was turned into a slaughterhouse on Friday.

"I think trying to understand what we are going to do with that is a long process and we're not in any way prepared to make those decisions now," he said.

ABC News' Lara Spencer and Dan Harris contributed reporting.

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Japan's LDP surges back to power, eyes two-thirds majority with ally

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) surged back to power in an election on Sunday just three years after a devastating defeat, giving ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to push his hawkish security agenda and radical economic recipe.

An LDP win will usher in a government committed to a tough stance in a territorial row with China, a pro-nuclear energy policy despite last year's Fukushima disaster and a potentially risky prescription for hyper-easy monetary policy and big fiscal spending to beat deflation and tame a strong yen.

A TV Asahi projection based on counted votes gave the LDP at least 291 seats in parliament's 480-member lower house, and together with its small ally, the New Komeito party, a two-thirds majority needed to override, on most matters, the upper house, where no party has majority.

That would help break a policy deadlock that has plagued the world's third biggest economy since 2007.

"We have promised to pull Japan out of deflation and correct a strong yen," Abe said on live television. "We need to do this. The same goes for national security and diplomacy."

Parliament is expected to vote Abe in as prime minister on December 26.

Analysts said that while markets had already pushed the yen lower and share prices higher in anticipation of an LDP victory, stocks could rise and the yen weaken further in response to "super majority."

While LDP and New Komeito officials confirmed they would form a coalition, LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba did not rule out cooperation with the Japan Restoration Party, a new right-leaning party that was set to pick up at least 52 seats.

"I think there is room to do this in the area of national defense," he said. The New Komeito is more moderate than the LDP on security issues.

DEMOCRATS' DEBACLE

Projections showed Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Democratic Party of Japan winning at least 56 seats, less than a fifth of its tally in 2009. Noda said he was stepping down as party leader after the defeat, in which several party heavyweights lost their seats.

The Democrats swept to power in 2009 promising to pay more heed to consumers and break up the "iron triangle" of the powerful bureaucracy, business and politicians formed during more than half a century of almost unbroken LDP rule.

Many voters had said the DPJ failed to meet election pledges as it struggled to govern and cope with last year's huge earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, and pushed through an unpopular sales tax increase with LDP help.

Voter distaste for both major parties has spawned a clutch of new parties including the Japan Restoration Party, founded by popular Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto.

LDP leader Abe, 58, who quit as premier in 2007 citing ill health after a troubled year in office, has been talking tough in a row with China over uninhabited isles in the East China Sea, although some experts and party insiders say he may temper his hard line with pragmatism once in office.

"The Senkaku islands are inherently Japanese territory," Abe said, referring to the islands that China calls the Diaoyu. "I want to show my strong determination to prevent this from changing."

But he also said he had no intention of worsening relations with China.

The soft-spoken grandson of a prime minister, who would become Japan's seventh premier in six years, Abe also wants to loosen the limits of a 1947 pacifist constitution on the military, so Japan can play a bigger global security role.

China's official Xinhua news agency, noting the deterioration in relations with Japan, warned it not to strain ties further.

"An economically weak and politically angry Japan will not only hurt the country, but also hurt the region and the world at large," Xinhua said. "Japan, which brought great harm and devastation to other Asian countries in World War Two, will raise further suspicions among its neighbors if the current political trend of turning right is not stopped in time."

"UNLIMITED" MONETARY EASING

The LDP, which promoted nuclear energy during its decades-long reign, is expected to be friendly to power utilities, although public safety concerns remain a barrier to business-as-usual for the industry.

Abe has called for "unlimited" monetary easing and big spending on public works to rescue the economy from its fourth recession since 2000. Such policies, a centerpiece of the LDP's platform for decades, have been criticized by many as wasteful pork-barrel politics.

Kyodo news agency said the new government could draft an extra budget for 2012/13 worth up to 10 trillion yen ($120 billion) and issue debt to pay for it.

Many economists say that prescription for "Abenomics" could create temporary growth and allow the government to go ahead with a planned initial sales tax rise in 2014 to help curb a public debt now more than twice the size of Japan's economy.

But it looks unlikely to cure deeper ills or bring lasting growth, and risks triggering a market backlash if investors decide Japan has lost control of its finances.

"Japan can't spend on public works forever and the Bank of Japan's monetary easing won't keep the yen weak for too long," said Koichi Haji, chief economist at NLI Research Institute. "The key is whether Abe can implement long-term structural reforms and growth strategies."

Japan's economy has been stuck in the doldrums for decades, its population ageing fast and flagship companies such as Sony Corp struggling with foreign rivals and burdened with a strong yen, making "Japan Inc" a synonym for decline.

(Additional reporting by Chikafumi Hodo, Yoko Kubota, Kiyoshi Takenaka, Leika Kihara and Mari Saito in TOKYO, Yoshiyuki Osada in OSAKA and Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Robert Birsel)

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Football: Corinthians clinch Club World Cup title

YOKOHAMA, Japan: Brazilian giants Corinthians won the Club World Cup in Japan on Sunday, overcoming European champions Chelsea 1-0 in a closely-fought encounter.

Striker Paolo Guerrero got the goal as the Sao Paulo club secured their second intercontinental title -- they won the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship -- and became the first side from outside Europe to win the title since 2006.

"We played a high quality match," a delighted Corinthians coach Tite said afterwards.

"Everything went well. Each player performed their own role and were able to do well in their position. I'm very happy."

But interim Chelsea boss Rafael Benitez felt his team were unlucky to lose, ruing several missed chances.

"We knew it would be a tough game against a good team. I think they had one (clear cut) chance and they scored and we didn't take our chances. That was the difference."

Benitez made three changes to the team that thrashed Mexican side Monterrey 3-1 in the semi-final -- replacing Oscar, John Obi Mikel and Cesar Azpilicueta with Frank Lampard, Ramires and Victor Moses.

Tite changed just one player from the side that scraped to a 1-0 last-four win over Egypt's Al Ahly, bringing in Jorge Henrique for Douglas.

The match at the almost-full 68,000-capacity International Stadium in Yokohama was frenetic right from the first whistle as play swung from end to end.

Chelsea came closest to taking the lead after eight minutes when Corinthians goalkeeper Cassio fumbled a Gary Cahill effort from a corner, before gathering the ball just short of the goal-line as Victor Moses looked to pounce.

On 25 minutes, the referee waved away a penalty appeal by Corinthians when centre-forward Guerrero went down softly under a challenge by Cahill.

Emerson should have scored three minutes later after Cahill let the ball slip under his foot. But the Corinthians forward blazed his shot over the bar from the edge of the penalty box with just Petr Cech to beat.

Guerrero then had a shot blocked shortly afterwards before striker Fernando Torres was similarly denied at the other end.

The Spaniard should have done better on 37 minutes however, expertly controlling a long-range pass from Lampard that split the Corinthians' defence. But a weak shot at Cassio meant the Brazilians breathed a sigh of relief.

Moses did better two minutes later, cutting in from the left and curling a shot that Cassio did well to tip round his left-hand post.

The Corinthians goalkeeper -- later named player of the tournament -- was proving tough to beat, holding onto a long-range shot from Juan Mata shortly afterwards, and the teams entered the break goalless.

The second half started as quick as the first, with Eden Hazard causing problems for the Corinthians defence before midfielder Paulinho gave Cech a fright with a shot that narrowly went wide on 64 minutes.

There was finally a breakthrough five minutes later when Guerrero headed in from close range after Danilo's shot was blocked.

Benitez brought Oscar on for Moses almost straightaway. But it was Torres who missed the best chance to equalise when he shot straight at the goalkeeper from the edge of the six-yard box with only four minutes to go.

Cahill was sent off shortly afterwards, believed to be for lashing out at Emerson, but Chelsea managed one last chance in injury time.

Torres headed the ball in the net, however it was ruled offside and Corinthians held on.

CONCACAF champions Monterrey took third place earlier Sunday, defeating Al Ahly 2-0 through goals from Jesus Corona and Cesar Delgado.

- AFP/fa

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NASA takes on 'Gangnam Style' and wins

Psy's got nothing on this.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Christopher MacManus/CNET)

For those of you with a dirty wit, please lend me some patience before you fly off the rails when I say that a group of NASA interns made a "Gangnam Style" parody named "NASA Johnson Style."

Wondering what's with the song name? Well, NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center houses educational programs for interns and students aspiring to progress further into the field of space science. The eclectic group of youths created a parody video that plays off Psy's "Gangam Style" in a geeky way by amusingly attempting to "inform the public about the amazing work going on at NASA and the Johnson Space Center," says a related video description.

Several space visitors make appearances in the nearly four-minute long parody, including NASA astronauts Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Mike Massimino and Clay Anderson -- all three participated in space missions at least two times (or more).

What lyrics in the Gangnam parody made you chuckle? I couldn't help but snicker after hearing, "Orbiting earth, international space station, where we work and live in space with a crew from several nations -- Got Japanese, and Russians, that European charm, throw them up, like the Canada Arm."

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Losing our religion

(CBS News) The words "In God We Trust" can be found on all our currency, a reflection of the importance of religion in American lives. At least the lives of many of us, but not ALL. Our Sunday Morning Cover Story is reported by Lee Cowan:

It's not just in Newtown, Connecticut, but in churches and synagogues - and any other building of faith - the question "why" is being asked over and over this morning.

In times of both heartache and happiness, we turn to our faith for guidance and comfort. But increasingly, how we think about our faith is changing.

According to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the nation's spiritual landscape may be becoming a little LESS religious.

Some 45 million people, or one-fifth of the U.S. adult population, now say they belong to no church in particular.

Six percent of them are either atheist or agnostic.

"There's a yearning to find like-minded people, to be able to have a conversation that's not taboo," said Red McCall, president of an atheist group in the buckle of the Bible Belt - Oklahoma City - whom we met last month.

In just the past three years, membership in the Oklahoma Atheists has jumped from just 300 members to well over a thousand.

Shelly Rees, a college professor, in one of them. She feels the public mood on atheists - even here - has softened.

"There were still people when we were marching in the parade at Halloween yelling, 'You're going to hell,' and stuff like that," said Rees. "But there were more people who weren't, and I think that's going to keep going. I think that's the trend."

Researchers call them "The Nones" - those who check the "none" box when asked to describe their religious affiliation.

And they've more than doubled since 1990.

Is the nation becoming more secular? "Maybe, a little bit," said Cary Funk, the senior researcher on that Pew Study. Funk says it's a complicated question, because being unaffiliated isn't necessarily the same as not having faith.

"Sixty-eight percent of the unaffiliated say they believe in God or a universal spirit. More than a third describe themselves as spiritual people, but not religious people," Funk said. "And a good portion pray, at least daily."

So if it's not God, or the thought of a higher power that's turning people off, what is?

The study suggests it's organized religion - with respondents overwhelmingly saying many organizations are too focused on money, power and politics.

Protestants have suffered the greatest decline. They now account for just 48 percent of religious adults, making it the first time in history that the United States doesn't have a Protestant majority.

Evangelical churches aren't immune, either. The megachurches once bursting at the seams are a little less mega than they used to be.

"We're seeing church attendance being much more inconsistent than I've ever seen it in my entire life," said Ed Young, Senior Pastor of the Fellowship Church based in Dallas. He's hardly conventional - even preaching a sermon with his wife while sitting on a double bed.

It's his attempt not at a gimmick, he says, but to reach those who these days find organized religion, at its best, irrelevant - at its worst, intolerant.

"I don't think we have been vulnerable enough," said Pastor Young. "I don't think we have been real enough about issues and about life. You have to realize that the church is pretty much one generation away from extinction."

Indeed, it's the young - one out of every three person surveyed under the age of 30 - who say they don't link themselves with a church, a mosque, a synagogue, or anything else.

Compare that, with the "Greatest Generation," where only one in 20 claimed no religious home.

"We're in kind of a post-denominational phase, I think, in many ways in the United States," said Charles Kimball, Director of Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "That's still dramatically different that what you see in Europe, but you see that pattern, I think, is present here as well."

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Conn. Shooter Adam Lanza: Quiet, Bright, Troubled

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who killed 20 kids and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school Friday, was very bright, say neighbors and former classmates, but he was also socially awkward and deeply troubled.

"[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said family friend Barbara Frey. A relative told ABC News that Adam was "obviously not well."

READ full ABC News coverage of the Connecticut shootings.

On Friday morning, Lanza shot his mother Nancy in the face at the home they shared in Newtown, and then drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Dressed in black combat gear, he broke a window at the school, which had recently had a new security system installed, and within minutes had shot and killed six adults and 20 schoolchildren between the ages of five and 10.

The shooting stopped when Lanza put a bullet in his own head. Multiple weapons were found at the scene, including two semiautomatic handguns registered to his mother. A Bushmaster rifle registered to Nancy was discovered outside in the car.

Long before Lanza's spree, however, residents of Newtown had noticed that tall, pale boy was different, and believed he had some kind of unspecified personality disorder.

"Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were five years old," wrote aneighbor and former classmate Timothy Dalton on Twitter. "As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised."

Newtown School Massacre: 20 Children, 7 Adults Dead Watch Video

Newtown Teacher Kept 1st Graders Calm During Massacre Watch Video

In school, Lanza carried a black briefcase and spoke little. Every day, he wore a sort of uniform: khakis and a shirt buttoned up to the neck, with pens lined up in his shirt pocket.

He hated being called on by teachers, and it seemed to require a physical effort for him to respond. He avoided public attention and had few, if any, friends. He liked to sit near the door of the classroom to make a quick exit.

He even managed to avoid having his picture in his high school yearbook. Instead of his portrait, the space reserved for Adam Lanza says "Camera Shy." And unlike most in his age group, he seems to have left little imprint on the internet – no Facebook page, no Twitter account.

Lanza's parents Peter and Nancy Lanza married in New Hampshire in 1981, and had two sons, Adam and his older brother Ryan, who is now 24 and lives in New Jersey.

The Lanzas divorced in 2009 after 28 years of marriage due to "irreconcilable differences." When they first filed for divorce in 2008, a judge ordered that they participate in a "parenting education program."

Adam was 17 at the time of the divorce. He continued to live in Newtown with his mother. His father now lives in his Stamford, Connecticut with his second wife.

Peter Lanza, who drove to northern New Jersey to talk to police and the FBI, is a vice president at GE Capital and had been a partner at global accounting giant Ernst & Young.

Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24, has worked at Ernst & Young for four years, apparently following in his father's footsteps and carving out a solid niche in the tax practice. He too was interviewed by the FBI. Neither he nor his father is under any suspicion.

"[Ryan] is a tax guy and he is clean as a whistle," a source familiar with his work said.

Police had initially identified Ryan as the killer. Ryan sent out a series of Facebook posts saying it wasn't him and that he was at work all day. Video records as well as card swipes at Ernst & Young verified his statement that he had been at the office.

Two federal sources told ABC News that identification belonging to Ryan Lanza was found at the scene of the mass shooting. They say that identification may have led to the confusion by authorities during the first hours after the shooting.

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Egyptians vote on divisive constitution

CAIRO/ALEXANDRIA (Reuters) - Egyptians queued to vote on Saturday on a constitution promoted by its Islamist backers as the way out of a prolonged political crisis and rejected by opponents as a recipe for further divisions in the Arab world's biggest nation.

Soldiers joined police to secure the referendum after deadly protests during the buildup. Street brawls erupted again on Friday in Alexandria, Egypt's second city, but voting proceeded quietly there, with no reports of violence elsewhere.

President Mohamed Mursi provoked angry demonstrations when he issued a decree last month expanding his powers and then fast-tracked the draft constitution through an assembly dominated by his Muslim Brotherhood group and its allies. At least eight people were killed in clashes last week outside the presidential palace.

The liberal, secular and Christian opposition says the constitution is too Islamist and tramples on minority rights. Mursi's supporters say the charter is needed if progress is to be made towards democracy nearly two years after the fall of military-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak.

"The sheikhs (preachers) told us to say 'yes' and I have read the constitution and I liked it," said Adel Imam, a 53-year-old queuing to vote in a Cairo suburb. "The president's authorities are less than before. He can't be a dictator."

Opposition politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on Twitter: "Adoption of (a) divisive draft constitution that violates universal values and freedoms is a sure way to institutionalize instability and turmoil."

Official results will not be announced until after a second round of voting next Saturday. But partial results and unofficial tallies are likely to emerge soon after the first round, giving an idea of the overall trend.

In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of voters who cast ballots. A little more than half of Egypt's electorate of 51 million are eligible to vote in the first round in Cairo and other cities.

TRANSITION

Christians, making up about 10 percent of Egypt's 83 million people and who have long grumbled of discrimination, were among those waiting at a polling station in Alexandria to oppose the basic law. They fear Islamists, long repressed by Mubarak, will restrict social and other freedoms.

"I voted 'no' to the constitution out of patriotic duty," Michael Nour, a 45-year-old Christian teacher in Alexandria. "The constitution does not represent all Egyptians," he said.

Islamists are counting on their disciplined ranks of supporters and the many Egyptians who may fall into line in a desperate bid to end turmoil that has hammered the economy and sent Egypt's pound to eight-year lows against the dollar.

"I voted 'yes' for stability," said shopkeeper Ahmed Abou Rabu, 39. "I cannot say all the articles of the constitution are perfect but I am voting for a way forward. I don't want Egyptians to go in circles, for ever lost in this transition."

Mursi was among the early voters after polls opened at 8 a.m. (1:00 a.m. Eastern Time). He was shown on television casting his ballot shielded by a screen and then dipping his finger in ink - a measure to prevent people voting twice.

One senior official in the committee overseeing the referendum said Saturday's vote could extend to Sunday if crowds were too heavy to allow everyone cast ballots in one day. Voting for Egyptians abroad that began on Wednesday has been extended to Monday, the state news agency reported.

After weeks of turbulence, there has been limited public campaigning. Opposition politicians and parties, beaten in two elections since Mubarak's overthrow, only announced on Wednesday they backed a "no" vote instead of a boycott.

Flag-waving Islamists gathered peacefully at one of the main mosques on Friday, some shouting "Islam, Islam" and "We've come here to say 'yes' to the constitution".

PALACE SIT-IN

Opposition supporters assembled outside the presidential palace, where there has been a sit-in for days. The walls of the palace, ringed by tanks, are scrawled with anti-Mursi graffiti.

The referendum will be held on two days covering different regions, with the second round on December 22, because there are not enough judges willing to monitor all polling stations after some in the judiciary said they would boycott the vote.

Egyptians are being asked to accept or reject a constitution that must be in place before a parliamentary election can be held next year to replace an Islamist-led parliament dissolved this year. Many hope this will lead Egypt towards stability.

If the constitution is voted down, a new assembly will have to be formed to draft a revised version, a process that could take up to nine months.

The army has deployed about 120,000 troops and 6,000 tanks and armored vehicles to protect polling stations and other government buildings. While the military backed Mubarak and his predecessors, it has not intervened in the present crisis.

(Writing by Edmund Blair and Giles Elgood; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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China's longest high-speed railway to start on December 26

BEIJING: The world's longest high-speed rail route, running from the Chinese capital Beijing to Guangzhou in the south, will open for business on December 26, state media said on Saturday.

Travelling at an average speed of 300 kilometres per hour, the line will slash journey times linking Beijing in the north with the country's southern economic hub from 22 hours to eight hours, the China Daily newspaper said.

The December opening means the 2,298-kilometre route, with 35 stops including major cities Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Changsha, will be operational for China's Lunar New Year holiday period, in which hundreds of millions of people travel across the country in the world's largest annual migration.

The specific date was chosen to commemorate the birth of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, state media said.

China's high-speed rail network is booming. Only established in 2007, it has quickly become the largest in the world, with 8,358 kilometres of track at the end of 2010 and expected to almost double to 16,000 kilometres by 2020.

The network, however, has been plagued by graft and safety scandals following its rapid expansion, with a deadly bullet train collision in July 2011 killing 40 people and sparking a public outcry.

The accident - China's worst rail disaster since 2008 - triggered a flood of criticism of the government and accusations that the authorities had compromised safety in its rush to expand.

- AFP/de

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