Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Ravens Defeat 49ers in Historic, Unusual Super Bowl

The Baltimore Ravens emerged Super Bowl champions after one of the strangest and most incredible Super Bowl games in recent memory.

It's the second championship for the Ravens, who pulled out a 34-31 win over the San Francisco 49ers at the Superdome in New Orleans.

The Super Bowl is the biggest spectacle in American sports, and each year becomes the most watched television event in history. This year, Jennifer Hudson kicked things off with a touching performance of "America the Beautiful" with a choir of students from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Alicia Keys accompanied herself on the piano for a long, jazzy rendition of the national anthem, before the coin toss which resulted in San Francisco receiving to start the first half.

Although the game looked at one point like it was going to be a completely unexpected blow-out, with the Ravens leading 28-6 at the beginning of the 3rd quarter, the 49ers got some unusual help that turned the showdown into a much more exciting battle.

About a third of the way into the 3rd quarter, right after a record-tying Ravens rushing touchdown, the power went out at the Superdome, knocking the lights and air conditioning out in the indoor stadium. The crowd of more than 71,000 strong, along with a lot of antsy players, coaches, and staff waited for 34 minutes for the power to fully come back on and the game to resume.

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

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In a statement, the NFL said authorities were "investigating the cause of the power outage," and law enforcement sources told ABC News it was just an issue with the building.

That didn't stop many people on Twitter from jokingly blaming Beyonce, the energetic halftime performer who surprisingly reunited shortly with her former band Destiny's Child, for shutting down the power. After her performance, even her husband Jay-Z got in on it, tweeting "Lights out!!! Any questions??"

VIDEO: Super Bowl 2013: Beyonce Rocks the Halftime Show

The 49ers quickly followed the long delay with a touchdown, getting themselves right back into the game. Then just a few minutes later, they found themselves in the end zone again, and it appeared the power outage had flipped the momentum towards the 49ers.

With a score of 31-29 with more than 7 minutes left in the game, San Francisco looked poised to make the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history, but the team, trying for its 6th title, wasn't able to overcome the Ravens lead.

Baltimore was able to run out the clock, and the game ended with a final score of 34-31. Purple and gold confetti fell as the Ravens rushed onto the field and celebrated -- with some colorful language from quarterback Joe Flacco audible on the live broadcast, who was caught saying, "f***ing awesome" on CBS' cameras.

The game was already historic thanks to the match-up for John and Jim Harbaugh, the first head coach brothers to ever face each other on football's biggest stage. It was also the final game for the future Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis, who is, as of the conclusion of the game retired from football.

This is the fifth season in a row that the Ravens have made it to the playoffs, led by Coach John Harbaugh, and SB XLVII MVP Quarterback Joe Flacco. It's the team's first Lombardi trophy since 2000. Their victor tonight made them the only team left in the NFL to have never lost a Super Bowl in multiple appearances.

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Turkey says tests confirm leftist bombed U.S. embassy

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A member of a Turkish leftist group that accuses Washington of using Turkey as its "slave" carried out a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy, the Ankara governor's office cited DNA tests as showing on Saturday.

Ecevit Sanli, a member of the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), blew himself up in a perimeter gatehouse on Friday as he tried to enter the embassy, also killing a Turkish security guard.

The DHKP-C, virulently anti-American and listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, claimed responsibility in a statement on the internet in which it said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was a U.S. "puppet".

"Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage," the statement on "The People's Cry" website said, next to a picture of Sanli wearing a black beret and military-style clothes and with an explosives belt around his waist.

It warned Erdogan that he too was a target.

Turkey is an important U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism. Leftist groups including the DHKP-C strongly oppose what they see as imperialist U.S. influence over their nation.

DNA tests confirmed that Sanli was the bomber, the Ankara governor's office said. It said he had fled Turkey a decade ago and was wanted by the authorities.

Born in 1973 in the Black Sea port city of Ordu, Sanli was jailed in 1997 for attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul, but his sentence was deferred after he fell sick during a hunger strike. He was never re-jailed.

Condemned to life in prison in 2002, he fled the country a year later, officials said. Interior Minister Muammer Guler said he had re-entered Turkey using false documents.

Erdogan, who said hours after the attack that the DHKP-C were responsible, met his interior and foreign ministers as well as the head of the army and state security service in Istanbul on Saturday to discuss the bombing.

Three people were detained in Istanbul and Ankara in connection with the attack, state broadcaster TRT said.

The White House condemned the bombing as an "act of terror", while the U.N. Security Council described it as a heinous act. U.S. officials said on Friday the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past.

SYRIA

The DHKP-C statement called on Washington to remove Patriot missiles, due to go operational on Monday as part of a NATO defense system, from Turkish soil.

The missiles are being deployed alongside systems from Germany and the Netherlands to guard Turkey, a NATO member, against a spillover of the war in neighboring Syria.

"Our action is for the independence of our country, which has become a new slave of America," the statement said.

Turkey has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the civil war in Syria and has become one of President Bashar al-Assad's harshest critics, a stance groups such as the DHKP-C view as submission to an imperialist agenda.

"Organizations of the sectarian sort like the DHKP-C have been gaining ground as a result of circumstances surrounding the Syrian civil war," security analyst Nihat Ali Ozcan wrote in a column in Turkey's Daily News.

The Ankara attack was the second on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an Islamist militant attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War, and it fired rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

It has been blamed for previous suicide attacks, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square. It has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

Friday's attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

(Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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34 injured in bus accident in Boston: report

NEW YORK: Thirty-four people were injured late Saturday when a charter bus traveling on a highway hit an overpass in Boston, Massachusetts, US media reported.

NBC News said the accident happened on Soldiers Field Road about 7:30 pm (0030 GMT Sunday).

The bus was returning to Pennsylvania from Harvard University with 42 people on board, the network said.

The injured have been taken to local hospitals. One them is reported to have life-threatening injuries.

-AFP/ac

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Haryana pineline scam: Deputy commissioner orders FIR against 5 govt officials, many others

CHANDIGARH: Jhajjar deputy commissioner, AjitBalajiJoshi, has ordered registration of an FIR against around a dozen persons, including five agriculture department officials, in the subsidy scam related to laying of underground pipelines.

Joshi told The Times of India on Saturday that they have also sought comments from the agriculture department in the matter. FIR has been sought against former assistant soil conservation officer Neena Sehwag, agriculture inspector Jagbir Singh, agriculture development officer Jain Singh Mann, accountant Satya Prakash, another employee Dharmpal, some farmers and officials of a Charkhi Dadri-based private firm for alleged involvement in the scam, he said.

The action follows an inquiry conducted by Jhajjar city magistrate, who detected that over Rs 1 lakh subsidy was claimed by five farmers in connivance with officers of agriculture department and the private firm. "There is possibility of more such cases coming to light," the inquiry report maintained.

According to official records, over Rs 25 crore was disbursed to 444 farmers as subsidy through the firm, for installing underground pipelines for irrigation purposes in Godhi village of Jhajjar district. The agriculture department has ordered physical verification in all these cases.

A retired agriculture economist, Ram Kanwar, had recently alleged a Rs 200 crore scam in subsidy to farmers by the agriculture department, for installation of sprinkler sets and laying underground pipelines. However, the department has been denying the scam.

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Gun Violence 'Depletes Precious Natural Resource'

It took the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, to prompt lawmakers to call for stricter gun legislation. But the reality is that in a city like Chicago, where 515 murders took place last year and more than 100 shooting incidents have occurred since January 1, gun violence is an ongoing issue and it has been for years. Only, these shootings have become so common that they don't make national headlines.

"We lost a classroom full of children in Connecticut which sparked national outrage that needs to be translated into action, but in Chicago, we sometimes lose a dozen or more young people every weekend," Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois), who serves the Chicago area, said in a statement. "Too many bullets and too many guns are killing the next generation and we have got to make it stop."

Gutierrez, like many others, believe that any debate about gun violence shouldn't just take into account mass shootings that make headline news. It should also consider the chronic gun violence that takes place on a daily basis across the U.S.

In Chicago's case, many of the victims are young minorities growing up in poor, gang-ridden neighborhoods on the south and west side of the city.

Just earlier this week a 15-year-old girl who performed at President Barack Obama's recent inauguration was gunned down, The Washington Post reported.

The teen, Hadiya Pendleton, was hanging out in a park with about a dozen other young people when she was shot. Two other victims were reportedly wounded. By all accounts she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Reports indicate that the gunman was not even aiming at her.

And Pendleton is just the latest example. Chicago police officer Ron Holt lost his son, Blair, to gun violence in the spring of 2007. The 16-year-old was shot and killed while riding a bus after school.

Holt now works with young people in the community, particularly minorities at an increased risk of engaging in dangerous behavior, to encourage them to focus on their education instead of turning to violence.

"I explain to them that if they continue to ascribe to this diabolical idea of resolving conflict with firearms they're depleting the most precious natural resource in the community, and that is them," Holt said.

What's clear is that the root of the gun problem is not just the guns. There are several factors that play a role, many of which are rarely discussed. For example, for minority youth living in urban communities characterized by poverty, violence, particularly gun violence, tends to be chronic. And the groups largely impacted tend to be African American and Hispanic.

A lot of that has to do with acculturation, according to Rahsmia Zatar, executive director of Strong Youth, a gang prevention and intervention organization. There is a sense that it's difficult to move beyond one's cultural sphere.

As a result, minorities often tend to gravitate toward other young minorities in similar situations, and turn to violence to gain a sense of control, however false it really is.

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo

"It's easy to fall victim to feeling a sense of empowerment through violence," Zatar said. "They feel they have limited opportunities and they don't have a sense of 'I can achieve,' [or] that there is something here for me that's better."

According to the 2011 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 30 percent of Chicago's African-American population and nearly 27 percent of Hispanics live below the poverty line. Perhaps more importantly, blacks and whites remain largely segregated, with African-Americans making up the vast majority of neighborhoods in the south, and whites comprising most of the north. Latinos are somewhat more mixed, often living in "buffer" communities between blacks and whites, which could exacerbate the pressure to conform to two cultures, neither of which is entirely comfortable.

These various enclaves also suffer from a distinct gang problem. Chicago Police Commissioner Garry McCarthy told Reuters the city is plagued by the breakup of larger more established gangs into new factions that are fighting over everything from turf to money.

Then there's the city's illicit gun issue, which is bigger than New York's or Los Angeles' despite strict laws to limit weapons. Gun shops are actually outlawed in Chicago, as are assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Handguns were even banned until 2010.

Still, in a place like Chicago it's handguns doing the most damage. According to statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, most of the guns they recovered in Illinois were pistols, followed by revolvers and rifles. Machine guns come in a distant sixth.

Why so many guns? Gun laws in neighboring communities are not as strict, and firearms make their way into the city. According to a recent article by The New York Times, officials "seized 7,400 guns [in Chicago] in crimes or unpermitted uses last year (compared with 3,285 in New York City), and have confiscated 574 guns just since Jan. 1 — 124 of them last week alone."

And while Chicago residents are required to report the loss or theft of a handgun, that same law does not apply to all of Illinois, so a stolen firearm could easily make its way into Chicago without the owner ever reporting it missing.

The dynamics created in poor minority communities like those in Chicago combined with the sheer number of guns that make their way into such a city bear out in the overall statistics.

According to the Bureau of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey, African Americans were disproportionately represented among homicide victims and offenders between 1980 and 2008. They were six times more likely than whites to be homicide victims and seven times more likely than whites to commit homicides.

Latinos don't fare much better. According to the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy organization, "Today in America, every three hours a young person is killed by firearm violence. Every 14 hours, that teen or child is Latino."

Young Latinos are especially likely to be impacted by gang violence in places like Chicago. Nationally, Hispanics are also more likely than non-Hispanics to be victims of violent crimes committed by gang members.

The impact of guns on the Latino community may explain why they're inclined to favor increased gun control. According to the Pew Research Center, while 57 percent of whites think it's more important to protect the rights of Americans to own guns than to protect gun ownership, only 29 percent of Latinos feel the same way.

Holt would certainly like to see something change. Several days after his son was killed, he received a voicemail. It was then-Senator Barack Obama. The young lawmaker had called Holt to express his condolences and to promise that if there was anything he could do in the future to help curb gun violence, he was prepared to do it. The two never spoke on the phone, but Holt remembers the message.

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Suicide bomber kills guard at U.S. embassy in Turkey

ANKARA (Reuters) - A far-leftist suicide bomber killed a Turkish security guard at the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday, officials said, blowing open an entrance and sending debris flying through the air.

The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body after entering an embassy gatehouse. The blast could be heard a mile away. A lower leg and other human remains lay on the street.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the bomber was a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a far-left group which is virulently anti-U.S. and anti-NATO and is listed as a terrorist organisation by Washington.

The White House said the suicide attack was an "act of terror" but that the motivation was unclear. U.S. officials said the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. There was no claim of responsibility.

"The suicide bomber was ripped apart and one or two citizens from the special security team passed away," said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

"This event shows that we need to fight together everywhere in the world against these terrorist elements," he said.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the attack as a heinous act.

Turkish media reports identified the bomber as DHKP-C member Ecevit Sanli, who was involved in attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul in 1997.

KEY ALLY

Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Around 400 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Turkey over the past few weeks to operate Patriot anti-missile batteries meant to defend against any spillover of Syria's civil war, part of a NATO deployment due to be fully operational in the coming days.

The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War and launched rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

Deemed a terrorist organisation by both the United States and Turkey, the DHKP-C has been blamed for suicide attacks in the past, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square.

The group, formed in 1978, has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

The attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

"HUGE EXPLOSION"

U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone emerged through the main gate of the embassy shortly after the explosion to address reporters, flanked by a security detail as a Turkish police helicopter hovered overhead.

"We're very sad of course that we lost one of our Turkish guards at the gate," Ricciardone said, describing the victim as a "hero" and thanking Turkish authorities for a prompt response.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned the attack on the checkpoint on the perimeter of the embassy and said several U.S. and Turkish staff were injured by debris.

"The level of security protection at our facility in Ankara ensured that there were not significantly more deaths and injuries than there could have been," she told reporters.

It was the second attack on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The attack in Benghazi, blamed on al Qaeda-affiliated militants, sparked a political furore in Washington over accusations that U.S. missions were not adequately safeguarded.

A well-known Turkish journalist, Didem Tuncay, who was on her way in to the embassy to meet Ricciardone when the attack took place, was in a critical condition in hospital.

"It was a huge explosion. I was sitting in my shop when it happened. I saw what looked like a body part on the ground," said travel agent Kamiyar Barnos, whose shop window was shattered around 100 meters away from the blast.

CALL FOR VIGILANCE

The U.S. consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens to be vigilant and to avoid large gatherings, while the British mission in Istanbul called on British businesses to tighten security after what it called a "suspected terrorist attack".

In 2008, Turkish gunmen with suspected links to al Qaeda, opened fire on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, killing three Turkish policemen. The gunmen died in the subsequent firefight.

The most serious bombings in Turkey occurred in November 2003, when car bombs shattered two synagogues, killing 30 people and wounding 146. Part of the HSBC Bank headquarters was destroyed and the British consulate was damaged in two more explosions that killed 32 people less than a week later. Authorities said those attacks bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul, Mohammed Arshad and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Stephen Powell and Sandra Maler)

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US needs to keep up drone war against Qaeda: Panetta

WASHINGTON: The United States will have to keep up an open-ended drone war against Al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan and elsewhere to prevent another terror attack on America, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.

The assassination of Al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia with unmanned, robotic aircraft has provoked widespread criticism from human rights groups and some US allies, but Panetta said the US campaign has been effective.

Asked if the CIA "targeted killings" should be curtailed in coming years, Panetta told AFP in an interview Friday that there was still a need to continue the drone strikes more than a decade since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

"I think it depends on the nature of the threat that we're confronting. We are in a war. We're in a war on terrorism and we've been in that war since 9/11.

"The whole purpose of our operations were aimed at those who attacked this country and killed 3,000 innocent people in New York as well as 200 people here at the Pentagon," said Panetta, who is days away from retiring as Pentagon chief.

Before taking over as defense secretary, Panetta oversaw a dramatic increase in drone raids in Pakistan as head of the CIA from 2009-2011.

"I think we had a responsibility to use whatever technology we could to be able to go after those who not only conducted that attack but were planning to continue to attack this country," he said.

"It's been an important part of our operations against Al-Qaeda, not just in Pakistan, but also in Yemen, in Somalia and I think it ought to continue to be a tool we ought to use where necessary," he said.

"And also where we can use it in conjunction with other countries that are pursuing the same goal," said Panetta, citing Yemen's strong support for drone strikes.

The CIA drone bombing raids, by Predator and Reaper aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles, have caused an unknown number of civilian casualties and prompted accusations that Washington is carrying out extrajudicial killings in the shadows with no genuine oversight by courts or lawmakers.

Panetta, who as CIA director presided over the successful raid that killed Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, said the campaign still needed to be regularly reviewed but did not say he favored turning over the spy agency's drone war to the military.

Some critics have called for giving the US military authority over the drone air strikes, which would require openly reporting every operation.

"Having said that, we always need to continue to look at it, to make sure we develop the right standards, that we're abiding by the laws of this country, that we're doing it in a way that hopefully can be a little more transparent with the American people."

But he said "to protect this country" it was not enough to have operations carried out openly by the military.

Secret action led by the CIA was also needed "when you got those kind of operations where, because of the nature of the country you're in or the nature of the situation you're dealing with, it's got to be covert."

According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, between 2,627 and 3,457 people have been reportedly killed by US drones in Pakistan since 2004, including between 475 and nearly 900 civilians.

-AFP/ac

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Delhi gang rape: Court to frame charges against five accused today

NEW DELHI, A fast-track court here is likely to frame charges on Saturday against the five men who brutally assaulted, murdered and gang-raped a young woman in Delhi Dec 16, who died 13 days later in Singapore.

The counsels for accused and prosecution have concluded their arguments on charges against five of the six accused in the gang rape.

The Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) declared the sixth accused a minor last month, and his case will be heard by the board.

The five accused are: bus driver Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, fruit seller Pawan Gupta, gym instructor Vinay Sharma and bus cleaner Akshay Thakur. All of them are now in Delhi's Tihar Central Jail.

The hearing in the case had started Jan 21 at the fast-track court which was set up to try the case that had led to a nation-wide outrage against crimes against women.

The accused were formally charged in the Saket court 18 days after they gang-raped and tortured the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus, causing multiple-organ failure that led to her death.

They also assaulted her 28-year-old male friend. Both were thrown out of the bus after around 40 minutes, naked, bleeding and shivering. The friend is the main witness in the case.

The chargesheet, with annexures, runs into thousands of pages and includes the victim's statement, details of the accused, evidence and forensic reports.

Police have charged the five accused under 13 sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC): sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 376 (2)(g) (gang-rape), 377 (unnatural offences), 395 (dacoity), 396 (murder in dacoity), 365 (kidnapping or abduction with intent to secretly or wrongfully confine a person), 394 (hurting in dacoity), 201 (destruction of evidence), 120B (conspiracy), 34 (common intention), 412 (dishonestly receiving stolen property), and 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt).

All the accused were arrested between Dec 17-21 following a nationwide outcry over the crime, which also triggered protests in several cities. In Delhi, protesters clashed with security forces.

The union cabinet on Friday approved an ordinance for enhanced punishment in cases of crimes against women, including sexual assault, acid attacks, voyeurism and trafficking, as suggested by the Justice J.S. Verma Committee.

The government had recommended to President Pranab Mukherjee that an ordinance be issued.

The Verma Committee, set up by the government on Dec 23 to review laws to provide speedier justice and enhanced punishment in cases of aggravated sexual assault, submitted its report to the government Jan 23. The panel was set up after the Dec 16 incident.

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Healthier schools: Goodbye candy and greasy snacks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Goodbye candy bars and sugary cookies. Hello baked chips and diet sodas.

The government for the first time is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful, a change that would ban the sale of almost all candy, high-calorie sports drinks and greasy foods on campus.

Under new rules the Department of Agriculture proposed Friday, school vending machines would start selling water, lower-calorie sports drinks, diet sodas and baked chips instead. Lunchrooms that now sell fatty "a la carte" items like mozzarella sticks and nachos would have to switch to healthier pizzas, low-fat hamburgers, fruit cups and yogurt.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have made improvements in their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunch rooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. And food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has not been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools, and 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says surveys done by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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