Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels thrust into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday, activists said, pursuing a string of territorial gains to help cut army supply lines and cement a foothold in the capital Damascus to the south.


They have made a series of advances across the country, seizing several military installations and more heavy weaponry, hardening the threat to President Bashar al-Assad's power base in Damascus 21 months into an uprising against his rule.


Rebels said a day earlier they had captured at least six towns in Hama province. On Thursday heavy fighting erupted in Morek, a town on the highway that runs from Damascus north to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and another battleground.


The opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels were trying to take checkpoints in Morek, one of which they had already seized, and described the town as a critical position for the Syrian army.


"The town of Morek lies on the Damascus-Aleppo road ... it has eight checkpoints and two security and military headquarters. If the rebels were able to control the town they would completely sever the supply lines between Hama and Damascus to Idlib province," the group said in an email.


Idlib is in the rebel-dominated north bordering on Turkey.


The British-based Observatory has a network of activists across the country. Activist reports are difficult to verify, as the government restricts media access into Syria.


Fighting in Hama could aggravate Syria's sectarian strife as it is home to many rural minority communities of Alawites and Christians. Minorities, and particularly the Alawite sect to which Assad himself belongs, have largely backed the president. Syria's Sunni Muslim majority has been the engine of the revolt.


"Rebels are trying to take Mohardeh and al-Suqaylabiya, which are strongholds of the regime and are strategic. The residents are Christian and the neighboring towns are Alawite. The rebels worry security forces may be arming people there," said activist Safi al-Hamawi, speaking on Skype.


He said the opposition feared skirmishes that had previously been largely Sunni-Alawite could spread into a broader sectarian conflict.


"I think it is still unlikely, because the residents have tried to maintain neutrality, but if the battle became a sectarian clash, it could be a catastrophe. Christians and Muslims could suddenly find themselves enemies."


U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday that Syria's conflict was becoming more "overtly sectarian", with more civilians seeking to arm themselves and foreign fighters - mostly Sunnis - flocking in from 29 countries.


"They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighboring countries," said Karen Abuzayd, one of U.N. investigators, told a news conference in Brussels.


The deepened sectarian divisions may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if Assad is ousted, and the influx of foreigners raises the risk of fighting spilling into neighboring countries riven by similar communal fault lines.


President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally and arms supplier, warned that any solution to the conflict must ensure government and rebel forces do not merely swap roles and fight on forever. It appeared to be his first direct comment on the possibility of a post-Assad Syria.


The West and some Arab states accuse Russia of shielding Assad after Moscow blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions intended to increase pressure on Damascus to end the violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people. Putin said the Syrian people would ultimately decide their own fate.


FIGHTS FOR DAMASCUS CAMP


Assad's forces have been hitting back at rebel advances with bouts of heavy shelling, particularly along the eastern ring of suburbs outside Damascus, where rebels are dominant.


A Syrian security source said the army was planning heavy offensives in northern and central Syria to stem rebel advances, but there was no clear sign of such operations yet.


Rebels seized the Palestinian refugee district of Yarmouk earlier this week, which put them within 3 km (2 miles) of downtown Damascus. Heavy shelling and fighting forced thousands of Palestinian and Syrian residents to flee the Yarmouk area.


But rebels said on Thursday they were negotiating to put the camp - actually a densely packed urban district - back into the hands of pro-opposition Palestinian fighters. There are some 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in Syria, and they have been divided by the uprising.


Palestinian factions, some backed by the government and others by the rebels, had begun fighting last week, a development that allowed Syrian insurgents to take the camp.


Despite warnings of continued violence, a video released by activists on Thursday showed dozens of people returning to Yarmouk. Most of the people in the footage were men, suggesting entire families may not be venturing back yet.


"There are still negotiations going on between the Palestinians and the rebels. The rebels want control of the checkpoints to be sure they can keep supply routes open to central Damascus," said a rebel who asked not to be named.


"Palestinians want their fighters to run the checkpoints so the army will stop attacking and people can go home. But we are worried there are government collaborators among them."


The fighter said rebels were looking to ensure their Palestinian allies could keep open access for rebels in Yarmouk, which they have described as a gateway to central Damascus.


LEBANON BORDER POST TAKEN


Elsewhere, Syrian insurgents took over an isolated border post on the western frontier with Lebanon earlier this week, local residents told Reuters on Thursday.


They said around 20 rebels from the Qadissiyah Brigade overran the post at Rankus, which is linked by road to the remote Lebanese village of Tufail.


Video footage downloaded on the Internet on Thursday, dated December 16, showed a handful of fighters dressed in khaki fatigues and wielding rifles as they kicked down a stone barricade around a small, single-storey army checkpoint.


"This is the end of you, Bashar you dog," one of the fighters said. The remains of two army trucks, which the rebels said had been blown up, stood nearby on a single track dirt road crossing a flat brown plain between snow-capped mountains.


The rebels already hold much of the terrain along Syria's northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq respectively.


Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for treatment of wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his ministry in Damascus a week ago.


Lebanese medical sources said Shaar had shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, stomach and legs but they were not critical.


The Syrian opposition has tried to peel off defectors not only from the army but from the government as well, though only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned Assad.


But the conflict has divided many Syrian families. Security forces arrested on Thursday an opposition activist who is also the relative of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian Observatory said. The man was arrested along with five other activists who are considered pacifists, it said.


Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has few powers in Assad's Alawite-dominated power structure, said earlier this week that neither side could win the war in Syria. He called for the formation of a national unity government to solve a crisis that has killed more than 40,000 Syrians.


(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)



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Wall Street little changed after two-day rally, GM jumps

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Wednesday as investors found scant reason to continue buying following the best two-day rally for the S&P in a month.


General Motors bucked the overall weakness to surge more than 8 percent after the company said it will buy back 200 million of its shares from the U.S. Treasury, which plans to sell the rest of its GM stake over the next 15 months. GM was up 8.6 percent at $27.68.


There was optimism that politicians were getting closer to an agreement to avert the "fiscal cliff" - steep tax hikes and spending cuts that will come into effect in the new year - but that was not enough to push the market higher.


"The question has shifted to what a deal will look like and entail, and markets are taking a pause as we consider that," said Scott Eldridge, director of portfolio management at Caprin Asset Management in Richmond, Virginia.


"It seems like all the parties at the table have made steady progress, but it continues to drown out all the other noise in markets."


Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives could vote on Thursday on a "Plan B" tax bill that would extend low tax rates, except on income of $1 million and above, though the White House said President Barack Obama would veto the proposal.


Investors are concerned the fiscal cliff could send the economy back into recession, though most expect a deal will be reached eventually.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 11.80 points, or 0.09 percent, to 13,339.16. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> eased 2.12 points, or 0.15 percent, to 1,444.67. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 0.36 points, or 0.01 percent, to 3,054.89.


Markets have been buoyed in recent weeks by any signs that an agreement between policy makers over the budget may be reached, with banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - leading gains.


The S&P added 2.3 percent over the past two sessions, the first time it has notched two straight days of 1 percent gains since late July. Still, trading has been light ahead of the holidays, and with investors' focus on the budget talks.


Defensive sectors led the downside on Wednesday, with the utilities sector <.gspu> slipping 0.7 percent.


Gains in technology shares boosted the Nasdaq after Oracle reported earnings that beat expectations on strong software sales growth. Oracle jumped 3.4 percent to $34.00, while the tech sector <.gspt> was up 0.1 percent.


Knight Capital Group Inc climbed 6.9 percent to $3.56 after it agreed to be bought by Getco Holdings in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The stock, which nearly collapsed after a trading error in August, remains down about 76 percent so far this year.


(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum)



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Penn State voted AP sports story of year again


NEW YORK (AP) — The Penn State child sex abuse scandal was selected as the sports story of the year by U.S. editors and news directors in an annual vote conducted by The Associated Press.


The news broke in November 2011, with a grand jury report outlining charges against Jerry Sandusky, and the outrage that followed led to the firing of Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno. But the aftershocks were felt long into 2012: Sandusky was convicted in June of assaulting 10 boys, and the NCAA handed down brutal sanctions in July.


In both years, the scandal was picked as the top sports story, the first time since the AP began conducting its annual vote in 1990 that the same story was selected twice in a row. The results of this year's tally were announced Wednesday.


Even before the Sandusky trial, the State College community had absorbed another huge blow as Paterno died Jan. 22 at age 85 of lung cancer.


The year ended with a small step to normalcy — joy on the football field. Under new coach Bill O'Brien, the Nittany Lions won eight of their last 10 games to finish 8-4, capped by an overtime victory at home over Wisconsin.


There were 157 ballots submitted from U.S. news organizations. The voters were asked to rank the top 10 sports stories of the year, with the first-place story getting 10 points, the second-place story receiving nine points, and so on.


The Penn State saga received 1,420 points and 109 first-place votes. The No. 2 sports story, Lance Armstrong stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, had 10 first-place votes and 1,008 points.


Football's popularity, college and pro, was unmistakable with seven of the top 10 stories. But only two of them involved the action on the field.


Here are 2012's top 10 stories:


1. PENN STATE: Sandusky, the former defensive coordinator whose crimes led to such devastation for his victims and for his former employer, was found guilty on 45 of 48 counts. In October, the 68-year-old was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison. His conviction provided some closure, but a messy aftermath remained. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh released the results of his investigation July 12, saying Paterno and other top school officials covered up allegations against Sandusky. The NCAA used that report as a basis for its sanctions announced later that month, which included a $60 million fine, a four-year bowl ban and scholarship reductions.


2. LANCE ARMSTRONG: In February, federal prosecutors closed an investigation into whether the star cyclist doped. That turned out to be only a temporary reprieve for a once-revered figure. In June, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency accused him of using performance-enhancing drugs, and in August, when he dropped his fight against the charges, USADA ordered his record seven Tour titles wiped out. A report released in October laid out vivid details of the evidence. The year ends with Armstrong dropped by many of the companies he endorsed and no longer formally involved with the cancer charity he founded, Livestrong.


3. NFL BOUNTIES: This much is clear: Saints coach Sean Payton was suspended for the entire season and New Orleans started 0-4 to quickly fall out of playoff contention. Much else about the bounty scandal remains in dispute. Players deny the NFL's assertions of a pay-for-injury program. On Dec. 11, former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue overturned his successor's suspensions of four players but endorsed the findings of the investigation under Roger Goodell.


4. FOOTBALL CONCUSSIONS: The deaths of NFL greats Alex Karras — who suffered from dementia — and Junior Seau — who committed suicide — were grim reminders of the angst over head injuries in the sport and their possible consequences. Thousands of retired players have sued the league, alleging the NFL failed to protect them from the dangers of concussions.


5. LONDON OLYMPICS: Michael Phelps retired from swimming after setting an Olympic record with his 22nd medal at a Summer Games bursting with memorable performances. Usain Bolt became the first man to successfully defend both the 100- and 200-meter dash titles. And the host country racked up 65 medals in an Olympics so successful for Britain that it barely even rained.


6. COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS: Instead of complaining about the BCS, soon we can moan about the selection committee. After years of carping, fans finally got a playoff system, which will debut after the 2014 season. The four-team bracket will feature semifinals and a title game to determine a national champion.


7. REPLACEMENT OFFICIALS: Fans and pundits predicted a blown call would decide a critical game when the NFL started the season with replacement officials. Sure enough, in Week 3, on the national stage of "Monday Night Football," a missed offensive pass interference penalty and a questionable touchdown catch handed the Seattle Seahawks a win over the Green Bay Packers. Two days later, the league resolved its labor dispute with the regular refs.


8. SUPER GIANTS: A team that had been 7-7 upset the top-seeded Green Bay Packers on the road in the playoffs, needed overtime to beat the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC title game, then came from behind to defeat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, 21-17, an outcome strangely similar to their matchup four years earlier. Eli Manning won his second Super Bowl MVP award.


9. SUMMITT RETIRES: Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in NCAA basketball history, retired from the Tennessee bench in April at age 59, less than eight months after revealing she had early-onset dementia. Longtime assistant Holly Warlick took over the Lady Vols. Summitt was 1,098-208 with eight national titles in 38 seasons.


10. MANNING'S RESURGENCE: Peyton Manning was released from the Indianapolis Colts in March after missing last season because of neck surgery, the future uncertain for the four-time MVP. John Elway and the Broncos gambled that he still had some championship play left in that right arm, and so far it's looking like a brilliant move as Denver won the AFC West.


___


AP Projects Editor Brooke Lansdale contributed to this report.


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American, Canadian, and Russian Spaceflyers Launch to Space Station






This story was updated on Dec. 19 at 7:20 a.m. EST.


An American astronaut, a Russian cosmonaut, and the man who will become Canada’s first space station commander lifted off today (Dec. 19) toward the International Space Station.






NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield launched aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome at 7:12 a.m. EST (6:12 p.m. Baikonur time, or 1212 GMT).


“Everything is nominal onboard; we’re feeling well,” Romanenko, commanding the Soyuz, said through a translator just after launch. “We are feeling great.”


The three spaceflyers will join the three men already on the space station to round out the Expedition 34 crew. Marshburn, Romanenko and Hadfield are due to spend about five months in space, and Hadfield will take over control of the station in March 2013 when the Expedition 35 mission begins.


Hadfield has been active on Twitter leading up to his flight, sharing memories from his previous two visits to space and thoughts on what’s in store for him and his crewmates.


“To deal with pre-flight jitters I focus on what matters, right now, & 1 min from now,” he wrote Dec. 18 in response to a follower’s question. “The entire event is too big & overwhelming.”


Marshburn, Romanenko and Hadfield will join current space station commander Kevin Ford of NASA, and Expedition 34 flight engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin, both cosmonauts. From now, it will take two days for the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft to catch up with the space station in orbit. Docking is expected on Friday (Dec. 21) at 9:12 a.m. EST (1412 GMT).


Marshburn, who worked as a NASA flight surgeon before joining the astronaut corps in 2004, has one previous space shuttle flight in 2009 under his belt. Romanenko is also making his second trip to space following a six-month stay on the space station in 2009.


All three men have been training for this mission for years. “It’s a two-and-a-half-year flow, so you have more time to get into depth in every subject,” Marshburn said of his space station training, contrasting it to the shorter training regimen for space shuttle flights. [Video: Marshburn Talks to SPACE.com]


“We have to be plumbers, electricians, construction engineers, or workers, on the space station, but at the same time running a laboratory, being scientists, being the best laboratory assistants we can be,” Marshburn told SPACE.com. “It’s all in a bundle; it’s very exciting, it’s a lot of fun.”


The spaceflyers will be arriving at the station just in time to celebrate an orbital Christmas.


“I think it will be a big adventure, a big moment in our space life,” Romanenko said in a preflight NASA interview. “And we’ll be dressing up, we’ll be decorating the station, we’ll put up a Christmas tree, maybe we’ll have some presents that will arrive on the cargo vehicles, which of course will make us very happy and will support us during this evening, this special time.”


The space station is also stocked with foods to make a traditional holiday feast, such as turkey, mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing, and even cherry blueberry cobbler.


“I believe there’s a little tiny Christmas tree that’s been up there for a few years,” Marshburn said. “We’ll pull it out.”


While the crew’s time will be taken up with some space station maintenance work, and exercises to keep their bodies fit, the bulk of the spaceflyers’ work will involve carrying out the 110 science experiments onboard the orbiting laboratory.


“The space station is there for a purpose and that is to do science that can’t be done on the surface of the Earth,” Hadfield said in a NASA interview. “That is the core purpose of the space station, and so our job, as the people on board, is to make sure that that science gets done. Everything else is sort of downstream of that.”


Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.


Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Arming teachers would halt massacres




William Bennett argues that schools would be safer with at least one armed person there who is well-trained in firearms use.




STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • William Bennett: Arming, training one person in a school could help prevent shootings

  • He says armed people have stopped instances of mass killing

  • Killers may target places where they know they can't be shot down, Bennett says

  • Bennett: Guns help prevent crime and improve public safety




Editor's note: William J. Bennett, a CNN contributor, is the author of "The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood." He was U.S. secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 and director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush.


(CNN) -- On NBC's "Meet the Press" this past Sunday, I was asked how we can make our schools safer and prevent another massacre like Sandy Hook from happening again. I suggested that if one person in the school had been armed and trained to handle a firearm, it might have prevented or minimized the massacre.


"And I'm not so sure -- and I'm sure I'll get mail for this -- I'm not so sure I wouldn't want one person in a school armed, ready for this kind of thing," I said. "The principal lunged at this guy. The school psychologist lunged at the guy. Has to be someone who's trained. Has to be someone who's responsible."



William Bennett

William Bennett



Well, I sure did get mail. Many people agreed with me and sent me examples of their son or daughter's school that had armed security guards, police officers or school employees on the premises. Many others vehemently disagreed with me, and one dissenter even wrote that the blood of the Connecticut victims was ultimately on the hands of pro-gun rights advocates.


To that person I would ask: Suppose the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary who was killed lunging at the gunman was instead holding a firearm and was well trained to use it. Would the result have been different? Or suppose you had been in that school when the killer entered, would you have preferred to be armed?


Evidence and common sense suggest yes.



In 2007, a gunman entered New Life Church in Colorado Springs and shot and killed two girls. Jeanne Assam, a former police officer stationed as a volunteer security guard at the church, drew her firearm, shot and wounded the gunman before he could kill anyone else. The gunman then killed himself.


In 1997, high school student Luke Woodham stabbed his mother to death and then drove to Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi, and shot and killed two people. He then got back in his car to drive to Pearl Junior High to continue his killings, but Joel Myrick, the assistant principal, ran to his truck and grabbed his pistol, aimed it at Woodham and made him surrender.


These are but a few of many examples that the best deterrent of crime when it is occurring is effective self-defense. And the best self-defense against a gunman has proved to be a firearm.


LZ Granderson: Teachers with guns is a crazy idea










And yet, there is a near impenetrable belief among anti-gun activists that guns are the cause of violence and crime. Like Frodo's ring in "The Lord of The Rings," they believe that guns are agencies of corruption and corrupt the souls of whoever touches them. Therefore, more guns must lead to more crime.


But the evidence simply doesn't support that. Take the controversial concealed-carry permit issue, for example.


In a recent article for The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, by no means an avowed gun-rights advocate, declared, "There is no proof to support the idea that concealed-carry permit holders create more violence in society than would otherwise occur; they may, in fact, reduce it."


Goldberg cites evidence from Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA, that concealed-carry permit holders actually commit crimes at a lower rate than the general population.


The General Accountability Office recently found that the number of concealed weapon permits in America has surged to approximately 8 million.


According to anti-gun advocates, such an increase in guns would cause a cause a corresponding increase in gun-related violence or crime. In fact, the opposite is true. The FBI reported this year that violent crime rates in the U.S. are reaching historic lows.


This comes in spite of the fact that the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004. Supporters of the ban (not including anti-gun groups who thought it didn't go far enough in the first place) claimed that gun crime would skyrocket when the ban was lifted. That wasn't true at all.


In fact, after the expiration of the ban, The New York Times, whose editorial pages are now awash with calls for more gun restrictions, wrote in early 2005, "Despite dire predictions that America's streets would be awash in military-style guns, the expiration of the decade-long assault weapons ban in September has not set off a sustained surge in the weapons' sales, gun makers and sellers say. It also has not caused any noticeable increase in gun crime in the past seven months, according to several city police departments."


But let's take the issue one step further and examine places where all guns, regardless of make or type, are outlawed: gun-free zones. Are gun-free zones truly safe from guns?


John Lott, economist and gun-rights advocate, has extensively studied mass shootings and reports that, with just one exception, the attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011, every public shooting since 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns. The massacres at Sandy Hook Elementary, Columbine, Virginia Tech and the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, all took place in gun-free zones.


Do you own a gun that fell under the now-expired federal weapons ban?


These murderers, while deranged and deeply disturbed, are not dumb. They shoot up schools, universities, malls and public places where their victims cannot shoot back. Perhaps "gun-free zones" would be better named "defenseless victim zones."


To illustrate the absurdity of gun-free zones, Goldberg dug up the advice that gun-free universities offer to its students should a gunman open fire on campus. West Virginia University tells students to "act with physical aggression and throw items at the active shooter." These items could include "student desks, keys, shoes, belts, books, cell phones, iPods, book bags, laptops, pens, pencils, etc." Such "higher education" would be laughable if it weren't true and funded by taxpayer dollars.


Eliminating or restricting firearms for public self-defense doesn't make our citizens safer; it makes them targets. If we're going to have a national debate about guns, it should be acknowledged that guns, in the hands of qualified and trained individuals subject to background checks, prevent crime and improve public safety.


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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of William J. Bennett.






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FBI offering $50,000 for help in capturing prison escapees








The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of two convicted robbers who rappelled down the side of a high-rise federal jail in the South Loop, scurrying some 15 floors to freedom on a rope made of bedsheets.

The FBI announced the reward in a brief statement this morning. It said anyone with information can call 312-421-6700.


The daring, carefully planned escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center Tuesday by Joseph "Jose" Banks and Kenneth Conley shocked federal law enforcement officials who scrambled to find the two violent bank robbers on a desperate run.

FBI spokeswoman Joan Hyde says there are no developments to report this morning. "Unfortunately, we don't have any new news," she said. "Our focus is still primarily on the Chicago metropolitan area."


The hulking federal jail with its narrow slits for windows has defied escape attempts. This marked only the second successful one and the first in almost three decades. Just three years ago, however, a brother of a famous Hollywood director was caught with 31 feet of roped bedsheets in his cell.

The two escapees made for memorable bank robbers — Banks for his goofy disguises and Conley for flaunting his cash loot a short time later at the strip club where he worked.

Banks and Conley were present for a 10 p.m. check Monday, but by 7 a.m., MCC employees arriving for work saw the crudely wrapped rope dangling on the south side of the building, still swinging in the wind.

Guards found the window in their cell broken and the makeshift rope tied to its bars, federal authorities revealed late Tuesday in filing escape charges against the pair. Numerous articles of clothing and sheets were piled under a blanket in both their beds to make it appear they were asleep for the standard overnight bed checks.

In addition, authorities found metal bars from the window in a mattress as well fake bars in the cell, suggesting the two had gone to some lengths to cover their tracks as they prepared their escape.

But exactly how Banks and Conley slipped through a window just 5 inches wide was not immediately clear.

"You've got to be a contortionist to pull that one off," said Scott Fawell, a top aide of convicted former Gov. George Ryan. Fawell spent about eight months at the MCC for corruption.

However, one law enforcement source said Banks and Conley may have removed a cinder block from beneath the window to make a bigger opening to slip out.

The jail, at 71 W. Van Buren St., was placed on lockdown after the break was discovered and visits with inmates were canceled, according to several criminal defense attorneys who had planned to meet with clients. The facility, which is operated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, opened in 1975 and houses about 700 inmates.

Conley and Banks were last seen in suburban Tinley Park and are believed to be together. Banks, 37, was described as black, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds, while Conley, 38, is white, 6 feet and 185 pounds.

Banks could have as much as $500,000 stashed away, according to testimony at his trial. He stole a combined $589,000 in two robberies, but only about $80,000 had been recovered or accounted for through Banks' purchases, prosecutors said.

The FBI called Banks one of the most prolific bank robbers in Chicago history, saying at the time of his arrest in 2008 that he was suspected in about 20 heists. However, he was charged in only two bank robberies and two attempted holdups. A jury convicted him on all counts last week.

An aspiring clothes designer, Banks was caught on bank surveillance tapes in 2007 and 2008 jumping bank counters and directing employees to empty vaults while wearing a fake beard. He was dubbed the Second Hand Bandit because of the discount clothing he wore during the robberies.

On the day he was scheduled to go to trial in late October, Conley abruptly pleaded guilty to robbing a Homewood bank in 2011 while brandishing a pistol and threatening a teller.

"If you don't give (the money) to me, I will put them in your head," he allegedly said.

Conley then went to the Chicago Heights strip club where he worked while still dressed in the black suit and white tie he wore during the holdup, flashing cash around, prosecutors alleged. He paid off a $400 debt before telling co-workers he was jetting off to Bermuda, according to the charges.

Conley, incarcerated at the MCC since October 2011, faces a maximum 20 years, while Banks, who has been in custody since 2008, could be hit with an 80-year sentence. An escape conviction carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Early in the day the search for the duo zeroed in on Tinley Park, where Conley lived and where the two had last been spotted, authorities said. SWAT teams searched the home of a Conley relative, but the investigators missed the two by a few hours, authorities said.

Helicopters hovered above the southwest suburb and streets were blocked by police squads as the search continued. The SWAT team walked the nearby streets with dogs as neighbors followed behind, snapping pictures with their phones. About two blocks down, the officers searched the Metra stop.

In the wake of the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Tinley Park officials notified local schools and dispatched police officers to school buildings closest to where the search was under way.

Federal and local law enforcement also charged into Conley's old strip club, Club 390, surprising staff and patrons, in an attempt to find him, staff said.

FBI agents first showed up at the Chicago Heights club early Tuesday morning, hours before its 11 a.m. opening. The agents questioned an employee who told them she hadn't seen Conley, staff said.

Sheriff's deputies returned around 1 p.m., bursting into the club in police gear and scattering the lunch crowd, employees said. A few officers questioned staff and searched the building, including the dancers' dressing room and women's bathroom. Plainclothes officers remained seated in the darkness at the periphery of the stage around 3 p.m.

A mug shot of Conley was posted near the cash register at the bar.

Authorities were chasing numerous tips into the night Tuesday, but the search so far remained focused on Chicago and the suburbs.

A woman who answered at the home of a relative of Conley said the day's events were "very upsetting for everyone" and declined further comment.

The Banks family learned of the escape while watching the morning news, said Banks' cousin, Theresa Ann Banks, who pleaded for her cousin to turn himself in.

"I just don't want to see him get hurt or killed," she said in a shaky voice. "(The family) is trying to hold themselves together. We just have to have faith in God and hope everything goes right."

Banks represented himself at the trial, challenging U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer so much that he was briefly strapped into a restraint chair during the trial. In court filings, he identified himself as "Joseph Banks-Bey," a Moorish national, and made legal filings defying the court's jurisdiction.

He offered a long, rambling closing that Pallmeyer finally cut off because Banks would not stop making wild accusations that the government had "trumped" up the charges and rigged photo lineups in the case.

The law enforcement source said security had been stepped up for Pallmeyer and the prosecutors involved in Banks' trial.

Tribune reporter Adam Sege contributed.






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Park wins South Korea presidency, to be first woman leader


SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler won South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday and will become the country's first female leader, saying she would work to heal a divided society.


The 60-year old conservative, Park Geun-hye, will return to the presidential palace in Seoul where she served as her father's first lady in the 1970s, after her mother was assassinated by a North Korean-backed gunman.


With more than 88 percent of the votes counted, Park led with 51.6 percent to 48 percent for her left-wing challenger, human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in, giving her an unassailable lead that forced Moon to concede.


Her raucous, jubilant supporters braved sub-zero temperatures to chant her name and wave South Korean flags outside her house. When she reached her party headquarters, Park was greeted with shouts of "president".


An elated Park reached into the crowd to grasp hands of supporters wearing red scarves, her party's color.


"This is a victory brought by the people's hope for overcoming crisis and for economic recovery," she told supporters at a rally in central Seoul.


Park will take office for a mandatory single, five-year term in February and will face an immediate challenge from a hostile North Korea and have to deal with an economy in which annual growth rates have fallen to about 2 percent from an average of 5.5 percent in its decades of hyper-charged growth.


She is unmarried and has no children, saying that her life will be devoted to her country.


The legacy of her father, Park Chung-hee, who ruled for 18 years and transformed the country from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War into an industrial power-house, still divides Koreans.


For many conservatives, he is South Korea's greatest president and the election of his daughter would vindicate his rule. His opponents dub him a "dictator" who trampled on human rights and stifled dissent.


"I trust her. She will save our country," said Park Hye-sook, 67, who voted in an affluent Seoul district, earlier in the day.


"Her father ... rescued the country," said the housewife and grandmother, who is no relation to the candidate.


For younger people, the main concern is the economy and the creation of well-paid jobs in a country where income inequalities have grown in recent years.


"Now a McDonald's hamburger is over 5,000 Korean won ($4.66) so you can't buy a McDonald's burger with your hourly pay. Life is hard already for our two-member family but if there were kids, it would be much tougher," said Cho Hae-ran, 41, who is married and works at a trading company.


Park has spent 15 years in politics as a leading legislator in the ruling Saenuri party, although her policies are sketchy.


She has a "Happiness Promotion Committee" and her campaign was launched as a "National Happiness Campaign", a slogan she has since changed to "A Prepared Woman President".


She has cited former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a tough proponent of free markets, as her role model as well as Angela Merkel, the conservative German chancellor who is Europe's most powerful leader.


NEGOTIATE WITH NORTH


One of those who voted on Wednesday was Shin Dong-hyuk, a defector from North Korea who is the only person known to have escaped from a slave labor camp there.


He Tweeted that he was voting "for the first time in my life", although he didn't say for whom.


Park has said she would negotiate with Kim Jong-un, the youthful leader of North Korea who recently celebrated a year in office, but wants the South's isolated and impoverished neighbor to give up its nuclear weapons program as a precondition for aid, something Pyongyang has refused to do.


The two Koreas remain technically at war after an armistice ended their conflict. Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the North's current leader, ordered several assassination attempts on Park's father, one of which resulted in her mother being shot to death in 1974.


Park herself met Kim Jong-un's father, the late leader Kim Jong-il, and declared he was "comfortable to talk to" and he seemed to be someone "who would keep his word".


The North successfully launched a long-range rocket last week in what critics said was a test of technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile and has recently stepped up its attacks on Park, describing her as holding a "grudge" and seeking "confrontation", code for war.


Park remains a firm supporter of a trade pact with the United States that and looks set to continue the free-market policies of her predecessor, although she has said she would seek to spread wealth more evenly.


The biggest of all the chaebol, Samsung Group, which produces the world's top selling smartphone as well as televisions, computer chips and ships, has sales equivalent to about a fifth of South Korea's national output.


(Additional reporting by Jumin Park, Seongbin Kang, Narae Kim, SoMang Yang; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Robert Birsel)



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