The Gangnam style craze grabbed the top spot among YouTube's most popular videos of 2012.
(Credit: YouTube/Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)
YouTube watchers kept busy this year checking out videos related to Gangnam Style, the presidential elections, and Facebook parenting for the troubled teen.
Rewinding back through 2012, YouTube yesterday posted its list of the top ten trending videos for the year.
A video devoted to Korea's Gangnam style craze took the top spot. A music video of the song "Somebody that I Used to Know" by Canadian band Walk off the Earth took second place.
Along going viral this year and taking third place was Kony 2012, a video campaign urging the capture and arrest of Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony, on the run after his indictment for war crimes.
A music video of "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen was next on the list.
In fifth place was a rap take on the presidential election, featuring actors portraying Barack Obama and Mitt Romney engaged in a rapper's debate to see who emerges the winner.
The next video started with a large red button placed in a simple square in a town in Belgium, which was soon followed by the chaos of an ambulance, a fight, a police shooting, football players, and a woman on a motorcycle with not much in the way of clothes. In the end, it all turned out to be a promo for TNT.
Video No. 7 was called "Why you asking all them questions," while video No. 8 featured a violin performance among landscapes of snow and ice.
In ninth place was the infamous video of a father who wasn't too happy with his daughter's latest Facebook comment and shot up her laptop in response.
And finally, Felix Baumgartner's supersonic freefall from 128,000 feet above the earth closed out the list.
YouTube seemed impressed by the variety of videos that made the top ten list.
"Millions of creators are using YouTube channels to experiment with innovative forms of entertainment, explore their passions and interests, and take creativity and pop culture to new levels," YouTube said in yesterday's blog. "2012's top trending videos showcase this creative ingenuity in ways we'd never before thought possible."
NEWTOWN, Conn. Family members have gathered for the first of eight funerals for school shooting victims to be held at a Catholic church in Newtown, Conn.
A motorcade of dozens of vehicles led by police motorcycles accompanied the family of 6-year-old James Mattioli to St. Rose of Lima on Tuesday. His funeral comes a day after two other 6-year-old boys were laid in the first of a long, almost unbearable procession of funerals.
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Holiday week is full of funerals for Newtown, Conn.
Margarita Rosniak and her 10-year-old daughter, Charlotte, watched from the sidewalk as people entered the church. They had traveled from California for a Christmas vacation in New York and came to Newtown to join the residents in their grief.
Clutching her daughter close, Margarita Rosniak spoke of sympathizing with the parents. Her daughter says she plans to do a school project on the massacre. She asks, "What was the point of it? They're just little kids."
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Funerals begin for Conn. shooting victims
Meanwhile, a funeral for another of the 20 innocent children killed - 6-year-old Jessica Rekos - was also scheduled for Tuesday. Her family says she loved horses and had just asked Santa for new cowgirl boots and a cowgirl hat, CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reported.
Security remained high, and the small, affluent Connecticut community was still on edge as the rest of the country prepared for the Christmas holidays.
"There's going to be no joy in school," said 17-year-old P.J. Hickey. "It really doesn't feel like Christmas anymore." But he added, "This is where I feel the most at home. I feel safer here than anywhere else in the world."
In a sign of investors distancing themselves from gun makers, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management announced it would sell its stake in major arms manufacturer Freedom Group. It said in a statement, "It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level."
The mystery of why a smart but severely withdrawn 20-year-old, Adam Lanza, shot his mother to death in bed before rampaging through Sandy Hook Elementary, killing 20 children ages 6 and 7, was as deep as ever.
Sandy Hook Elementary will remain closed indefinitely.
Investigators say Lanza had no ties to the school he attacked, and they have found no letters or diaries that could explain why he targeted it. He forced into the school shortly after its front door locked as part of a new security measure. He wore all black and is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, a civilian version of the military's M-16. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in the U.S. under the 1994 assault weapons ban, but the law expired in 2004.
Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges and visited ranges together.
At the White House on Monday, spokesman Jay Carney said curbing gun violence is a complex problem that will require a "comprehensive solution." He did not mention specific proposals to follow up on President Barack Obama's call for "meaningful action."
New York City's billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, perhaps the most outspoken advocate for gun control in U.S. politics, again pressed Obama and Congress to toughen gun laws and tighten enforcement.
"If this doesn't do it," he asked, "what is going to?"
At least one senator, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, said Monday that the attack has led him to rethink his opposition to the ban on assault weapons. And West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is an avid hunter and lifelong member of the powerful National Rifle Association, said it's time to move beyond the political rhetoric and begin an honest discussion about reasonable restrictions on guns.
In Newtown on Monday, minds were on mourning.
Two funeral homes filled for Jack Pinto and the youngest victim, Noah Pozner, who turned 6 just two weeks ago..
A rabbi presided at Noah's service, and in keeping with Jewish tradition, the boy was laid to rest in a simple brown wooden casket with a Star of David on it.
"I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room," Noah's mother, Veronique Pozner, said at the service, according to remarks the family provided to The Associated Press. Both services were closed to the news media.
Noah's twin, Arielle, who was assigned to a different classroom, survived the killing frenzy.
At 6-year-old Jack Pinto's Christian service, hymns rang out from inside the funeral home, where the boy lay in an open casket.
In the middle of town, an ever-growing memorial has become a pilgrimage site for strangers who want to pay their respect.
One man told CBS Station WCBS why he visited: "Because I'm a dad with four beautiful daughters, when I found out it broke my heart. It's hard to sleep, I don't know how to feel."
Authorities say Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.
Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drab utility vest with lots of pockets, during the attack.
As investigators worked to figure out what drove him to lash out with such fury -- and why he singled out the school -- federal agents said he had fired guns at shooting ranges over the past several years but that there was no evidence he did so recently as practice for the rampage.
Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges, and also visited ranges together.
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"We do not have any indication at this time that the shooter engaged in shooting activities in the past six months," Seifert said.
Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.
Whatever his motives, normalcy will be slow in revisiting Newtown.
Classes were canceled district-wide Monday, though other students in town were expected to return to class Tuesday.
Dan Capodicci, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, said he thinks it's time for her to get back to classes.
"It's the right thing to do. You have to send your kids back. But at the same time I'm worried," he said. "We need to get back to normal."
Gina Wolfman said her daughters are going back to their seventh- and ninth-grade classrooms tomorrow. She thinks they are ready to be back with their friends.
"I think they want to be back with everyone and share," she said.
Newtown police Lt. George Sinko said whether to send children to school is a personal decision for every parent.
"I can't imagine what it must be like being a parent with a child that young, putting them on a school bus," Sinko said.
The district has made plans to send surviving Sandy Hook students to Chalk Hill, a former middle school in the neighboring town of Monroe. Sandy Hook desks that will fit the small students are being taken there, empty since town schools consolidated last year, and tradesmen are donating their services to get the school ready within a matter of days.
"These are innocent children that need to be put on the right path again," Monroe police Lt. Brian McCauley said.
With Sandy Hook Elementary still designated a crime scene, state police Lt. Paul Vance said it could be months before police turn the school back over to the district.
The shooting has put schools on edge across the country.
Anxiety ran high enough in Ridgefield, Conn., about 20 miles from Newtown, that officials ordered a lockdown at schools after a person deemed suspicious was seen at a train station.
Two schools were locked down in South Burlington, Vt., because of an unspecified threat. A high school in Windham, N.H., was briefly locked down after an administrator heard a loud bang, but a police search found nothing suspicious.
The parents of Jessica Rekos, a 6-year-old girl who died during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., said they are committed to keeping their daughter's memory alive despite their pain.
"We will talk about her every day, we will live for her," Krista Rekos told ABC News. "We will make sure her brother knows what an amazing person she was."
Richard and Krista Rekos say that talking about Jessica, who loved horseback riding and whom they called the CEO of their family, brings tiny moments of comfort.
CLICK HERE for full coverage of the massacre at the elementary school.
"Jessica loved writing, and she would often leave us little notes all over the house," Rekos said. "They would just say, 'I love you so much.'
"She was a ball of fire, she ruled the roost," Krista Rekos said.
When the call came Friday morning that Sandy Hook Elementary was on lockdown, Krista Rekos rushed in disbelief through the town where she and her husband were raised, a place they had always felt safe.
"I was running, and I kept thinking, 'I'm coming for you honey, I'm coming,'" she said, choking up.
CLICK HERE to read about the "hero teacher," the principal and 20 children who lost their lives.
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Richard Rekos said they initially had little information on what had happened.
"We had no idea at that point," he said. "We thought, OK, the reports are that one or two people may have been injured and taken to hospitals. There was still hope, that the children were hiding, there was still so much hope at that point."
The couple said that they walked around the firehouse, thinking that maybe Jessica had been taken there.
"I knew exactly what she was wearing, and I was hoping to see her little ponytail run around the corner, and her jacket and her black glittery Uggs that she had on that morning," Krista Rekos said.
Finally, around 1:15 p.m., everyone was asked to sit down, and a police officer said 20 children had been killed.
"We couldn't get a straight answer," Richard Rekos said. "There's so much panic and confusion when that announcement was made, the life was just sucked out of the room. And you know, I just point-blank found a state trooper and said, 'Are you telling me that standing here as a parent that my daughter is gone?' And he said, 'Yes.'"
The Rekoses were asked to stay at the firehouse to identify their daughter's body but, overcome with grief, they left in disbelief. The couple went home, and got into their daughter's bed, staying there until about 1 a.m., they said.
At that point there was a knock on the door and a police officer said that Jessica was dead.
"It just confirmed the nightmare, it's not real," Krista Rekos said. "It's still not real that my little girl who's so full of life and wants a horse so badly, and who was going to get cowboy boots for Christmas, isn't coming home."
The couple said the pain is just settling in. But equally strong is their commitment to keeping their daughter's memory alive.
The parents said that their 6-year old family powerhouse, with an enormous heart, will forever be their angel who left behind love notes that are still being found.
"This morning I found a little journal, and it was exactly what I needed, because it says, 'I love you so much momma, love Jessica,'" her mother said.
"It was like she was telling me she was watching us and she knows how hard this must be for us, and she wants us to know she loved us, and she knows how much she was loved."
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa said that neither the forces of President Bashar al-Assad nor rebels seeking to overthrow him can win the war which is now being fought on the outskirts of Assad's powerbase in Damascus.
Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a power structure dominated by Assad's Alawite minority, has rarely been seen since the Syrian revolt erupted in March 2011 and is not part of the president's inner circle directing the fight against Sunni rebels.
But he is the most prominent figure to say in public that Assad will not win. He was speaking to the pro-Assad al-Akhbar paper in an interview from Damascus which is now hemmed in by rebel fighters to the south.
Assad's forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters from around Damascus but the violence has crept into the heart of the capital and rebels announced on Sunday a new offensive in the central province of Hama.
Sharaa said the situation in Syria, where more than 40,000 people have been killed, was deteriorating and a "historic settlement" was needed to end the conflict, involving regional powers and the U.N. Security Council and the formation of a national unity government "with broad powers".
"With every passing day the political and military solutions are becoming more distant. We should be in a position defending the existence of Syria. We are not in a battle for an individual or a regime," Sharaa was quoted as saying.
"The opposition cannot decisively settle the battle and what the security forces and army units are doing will not achieve a decisive settlement," he told the paper, adding that the insurgents fighting to topple Syria's leadership could plunge it into "anarchy and an unending spiral of violence".
Sources close to the Syrian government say Sharaa had pushed for dialogue with the opposition and objected to the military response to an uprising that began peacefully.
In Damascus, residents said on Monday the army had told people to evacuate the Palestinian district of Yarmouk, suggesting an all-out military offensive on the southern district was imminent.
The centre of the city, largely insulated from the violence for 21 months, is now full of army and vigilante checkpoints and shakes to the sound of regular shelling, residents say.
Queues for bread form at bakeries hours before dawn, as people seek out dwindling supplies, power cuts are increasing and fears are growing that Damascus could descend into chaos.
In a veiled criticism of the crackdown, Sharaa said there was a difference between the state's duty to provide security to its citizens, and "pursuing a security solution to the crisis."
He said even Assad could not be certain where events in Syria were leading, but that anyone who met him would hear that "this is a long struggle...and he does not hide his desire to settle matters militarily to reach a final solution."
CHANGE INEVITABLE
"We realize today that change is inevitable," Sharaa said, but "none of the peaceful or armed opposition groups with their known foreign links can call themselves the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people".
"Likewise the current leadership...cannot achieve change alone after two years of crisis without new partners who contribute to preserving (Syria's) national fabric, territorial unity and regional sovereignty".
Rebels have now brought the war to the capital, without yet delivering a fatal blow to the government. But nor has Assad found the military muscle to oust his opponents from the city.
In Paris, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France, one of the powers most insistent that Assad has lost his legitimacy, said: "I think the end is nearing for Bashar al-Assad."
On the ground, rebels said they were launching an operation to seize the central province of Hama to try to link northern rural areas of Syria under their control to the center.
Qassem Saadeddine, a member of the newly established rebel military command, said fighters had been ordered to surround and attack checkpoints across the province. He said forces loyal to Assad had been given 48 hours to surrender or be killed.
"When we liberate the countryside of Hama province ... then we will have the area between Aleppo and Hama liberated and open for us," he told Reuters.
The city of Hama in the province of the same name has a special resonance for anti-Assad activists. In 1982 Hafez al-Assad, father of the current ruler, crushed an uprising in the city, killing up to 30,000 civilians.
In Damascus, activists said fighter jets bombed the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on Sunday, killing at least 25 people sheltering in a mosque.
The attack was part of a month-old campaign by Assad's forces to eject rebels from positions they are establishing around the capital's perimeter. Yarmouk, to the south, falls within an arc of territory running from the east of Damascus to the southwest from where rebels hope to storm the government's main redoubt.
MOSQUE HIT
Opposition activists said the deaths in Yarmouk, to which refugees have fled from fighting in nearby suburbs, resulted from a rocket fired from a warplane hitting the mosque.
Footage showed bodies and body parts scattered on the stairs of what appeared to be the mosque.
The latest battlefield accounts could not be independently verified due to tight restrictions on media access to Syria.
Syria is home to more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees, most living in Yarmouk, and both Assad's government and the rebels have enlisted and armed Palestinians as the uprising, which began as a peaceful street movement 21 months ago, has mushroomed into a civil war.
After Sunday's air raid, clashes flared between Palestinians from the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) and rebels including other Palestinian fighters and some PFLP-GC fighters were killed.
In the latest of a string of military installations to fall to the rebels, the army's infantry college north of Aleppo was captured on Saturday after five days of fighting, a rebel commander with the powerful Islamist Tawheed Brigade said.
(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Anna Willard)
SINGAPORE: The Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) says the government can help in defraying the cost of training foreign workers.
In an interview with MediaCorp, SNEF president Stephen Lee said the federation is in discussions with various agencies to see how this can be done.
Mr Lee pointed out that the productivity of foreign workers must be raised in order for Singapore to achieve its long term productivity target of 2 to 3 per cent.
To recruit better skilled workers, the federation says a few industries are working with the authorities to implement a stricter pre-selection process where workers are tested for their skills before they arrive in Singapore.
Construction workers like Umesh Sundaram survives on less than S$300 a month. He earns about S$1,100 a month and sends most of it to his family in India.
The 25-year-old hopes he can earn more as his skills improves.
"I'd like to go for training to be more productive, so it can increase my salary," said Umesh.
The Workforce Development Agency (WDA) tells MediaCorp that only a small number of foreign workers are sent for training by their companies.
Mr Lee said foreign workers, who represent one third of the workforce, cannot be neglected.
"We must have some programmes to train foreign workers. Those who are already here, (we can) re-train them, to upgrade their skills...the more sensitive question is: who will take up the tab for this training?" he said.
"We are in discussions with various agencies to see how they can do that without putting undue burden on the government's training expenses," he added.
The government currently does not provide direct training subsidies for foreign workers.
Labour chief Lim Swee Say pointed out that employers are ultimately responsible for improving the productivity of migrant workers.
"The ownership of upgrading every worker cannot be with the government, or the tripartite partners, it has to be with the management," he said.
Observers noted that some companies hire foreign workers on short-term contracts, which reduce the incentive to send them for training.
However they pointed out that there were many reasons to train workers who stay with the company longer; HR experts believe foreign workers will be able to earn more when their productivity increases and can take on greater responsibilities.
"Cost is always a major consideration for any business and if the company has to come out with additional cost to train these foreign workers and with very minimal productivity gains, then it won't be (much of an incentive)," said Ronald Lee, managing director of PrimeStaff Management Services.
"However, if the government does come by and also support and provide finances to supplement this training, then it will be easier to incentivise the employers to provide more training," he said.
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.
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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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."
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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"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.
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)
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.
