Sixty-five found executed in Syria's Aleppo: activists

BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 65 people were found shot dead with their hands bound in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday in a "new massacre" in the near two-year revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.

Opposition campaigners blamed the government but it was impossible to confirm who was responsible. Assad's forces and rebels have been battling in Syria's commercial hub since July and both have been accused of carrying out summary executions.

More than 60,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the Syrian war, the longest and deadliest of the revolts that began throughout the Arab world two years ago.

The U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday the fighting had forced more than 700,000 people to flee. World powers fear the conflict could increasingly envelop Syria's neighbors including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, further destabilizing an already explosive region.

Opposition activists posted a video of a man filming at least 51 muddied male bodies alongside what they said was the Queiq River in Aleppo's rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood.

The bodies had bullet wounds in their heads and some of the victims appeared to be young, possibly teenagers, dressed in jeans, shirts and trainers.

Aleppo-based opposition activists who asked not to be named for security reasons blamed pro-Assad militia fighters.

They said the men had been executed and dumped in the river before floating downstream into the rebel area. State media did not mention the incident.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says it provides objective information about casualties on both sides of Syria's war from a network of monitors, said the footage was evidence of a new massacre and the death toll could rise as high as 80.

"They were killed only because they are Muslims," said a bearded man in another video said to have been filmed in central Bustan al-Qasr after the bodies were removed from the river. A pickup truck with a pile of corpses was parked behind him.

STALEMATE

It is hard for Reuters to verify such reports from inside Syria because of restrictions on independent media.

Rebels are stuck in a stalemate with government forces in Aleppo - Syria's most populous city which is divided roughly in half between the two sides.

The revolt started as a peaceful protest movement against more than four decades of rule by Assad and his family, but turned into an armed rebellion after a government crackdown.

About 712,000 Syrian refugees have registered in other countries in the region or are awaiting processing as of Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency Said on Tuesday.

"We have seen an unrelenting flow of refugees across all borders. We are running double shifts to register people," Sybella Wilkes, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters in Geneva.

On Monday, the United Nations warned it would not be able to help millions of Syrians affected by the fighting without more money and appealed for donations at an aid conference this week in Kuwait to meet its $1.5 billion target.

Speaking ahead of that conference, Kuwait's foreign minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khaled al-Sabah said on Tuesday there was concern Syria could turn into a failed state and put the entire region at risk.

Aid group Médecins Sans Frontières said the bulk of the current aid was going to government-controlled areas and called on donors in Kuwait to make sure they were even-handed.

MISSILES

In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, insurgents including al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters captured a security agency after days of heavy fighting, according to an activist video issued on Tuesday.

Some of the fighters were shown carrying a black flag with the Islamic declaration of faith and the name of the al-Nusra Front, which has ties to al Qaeda in neighboring Iraq.

The war has become heavily sectarian, with rebels who mostly come from the Sunni Muslim majority fighting an army whose top generals are mostly from Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Assad has framed the revolt as a foreign-backed conspiracy and blames the West and Sunni Gulf states.

Fighting also took place in the northern town of Ras al-Ain, on the border with Turkey, between rebels and Kurdish militants, the Observatory said.

In Turkey, a second pair of Patriot missile batteries being sent by NATO countries are now operational, a German security official said on Tuesday.

The United States, Germany and the Netherlands each committed to sending two batteries and up to 400 soldiers to operate them after Ankara asked for help to bolster its air defenses against possible missile attack from Syria.

(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall in Kuwait, Sabine Siebold in Berlin and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Read More..

US Senate confirms Kerry as next secretary of state

WASHINGTON: The US Senate on Tuesday confirmed Senator John Kerry as the next secretary of state, approving President Barack Obama's pick to replace Hillary Clinton by a wide majority.

The Senate voted 94-3 in favour of Kerry, after the chamber's Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination earlier in the day.

His nomination was pushed through the Senate in a matter of days, given the clear bipartisan support for the 69-year-old veteran Democratic lawmaker, who spent 28 years in the Senate.

Kerry -- a senator from Massachusetts best known outside the United States for his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign -- was nominated last month by Obama to take over from Clinton as the nation's top diplomat.

He is known to have long coveted the job, but almost lost out to US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who had been seen as Obama's first choice.

But she withdrew from consideration for the post under Republican fire over the administration's response to the September 11 attack on a US mission in Libya that left four Americans dead.

Earlier, Kerry said he was "humbled" and gratified by the support from the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he himself chairs.

"They've been wonderful, they've been really superb," he said of his committee colleagues, adding, "I'm very wistful about it, it's not easy" leaving.

Clinton, 65, is expected to leave her post Friday, amid swirling speculation about whether she will run for the presidency in 2016. For now, she has said only that she is looking forward to some rest after four gruelling years.

At his confirmation hearing last week, Kerry called for "fresh thinking" as he outlined his foreign policy agenda and plans for relations with Iran, China and the Middle East.

"American foreign policy is not defined by drones and deployments alone," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"We cannot allow the extraordinary good that we do to save and change lives to be eclipsed entirely by the role that we have had to play since September 11th, a role that was thrust upon us," he said.

The decorated Vietnam veteran turned anti-war activist has built impeccable credentials during his time in the Senate. He has sat down with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, soothed nerves in Pakistan and visited the Gaza Strip.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Intellectuals come out in support of Ashis Nandy

NEW DELHI: The paradox of a champion of social justice being booked under the caste atrocities law has prompted an array of intellectuals and artistes to come out in support of academic Ashis Nandy from India and abroad. They include Romila Thapar, Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, Aparna Sen, Shabana Azmi, Sharmila Tagore, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Charles Taylor, Rajeev Bhargava and Yogendra Yadav.

Referring to his controversial statement at the Jaipur Literature Festival, an online petition signed by them said: "While Nandy's deliberately ironic remark on corruption in the OBC and SC/ST political elites as a form of equality may not be to the liking of all, we have no doubt that it was meant to question the upper caste-middle class notions of morality rather than denigrate marginalized and subaltern groups."

In a tacit admission that his statement was open to diverse interpretations, the petition addressed to the government said that Nandy had evolved "a distinctive and provocative style of making claims, comments and arguments". Although he has over the years "affirmed the rights of marginalized groups and communities to assert and express themselves in their unique ways", the petition added that Nandy's own method has been "to illuminate through anecdote, aphorism and irony".

Lamenting the illiberal demands for his arrest, the petition signed so far by over 300 persons said: "In a country where intellectual freedoms are shrinking every day, the right of thinkers like Ashis Nandy to argue and articulate unconventional views must be protected at all costs."

Other signatories to the petition include Arjun Appadurai, Nandita Das, Alok Rai, Zoya Hasan, Leela Gandhi, Achin Vinaik, Nandini Sundar, Lawrence Liang, Pranab Bardhan, Shamndad Basheer, Kamal Chenoy, Dilip Menon and Sumit Sarkar.

In a similar expression of support to the besieged scholar, Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association (JTSA) alleged that the crisis had been created by "media violence and culture of intolerance". According to JTSA, a section of the media "in the garb of safeguarding the dignity of the underprivileged has not only harmed that further but has also disgraced the eminent intellectual by forcing an apology out of him".

Denying the suggestion that he had held backward communities responsible for widespread corruption, JTSA said that those who were familiar with Nandy's work would know that "the accusation is farthest from the truth". It said: "Not only has he been grossly misunderstood but the accusation is an affront to his decades long deeply sensitive scholarship including that on the backward communities."

Meanwhile, Kancha Ilaiah, well-known scholar on Dalit issues, reportedly said: "Ashis Nandy made a bad statement with good intentions. However, as far as I know, he was never against reservation. The controversy should end here."

Read More..

Soldier with new arms determined to be independent

BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.

Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after getting a double-arm transplant.

Wounded by a roadside bomb in 2009, the former soldier said he could get by without legs, but he hated living without arms.

"Not having arms takes so much away from you. Even your personality, you know. You talk with your hands. You do everything with your hands, and when you don't have that, you're kind of lost for a while," the 26-year-old New Yorker told reporters Tuesday at a news conference at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Doctors don't want him using his new arms too much yet, but his gritty determination to regain independence was one of the chief reasons he was chosen to receive the surgery, which has been performed in the U.S. only seven times.

That's the message Marrocco said he has for other wounded soldiers.

"Just not to give up hope. You know, life always gets better, and you're still alive," he said. "And to be stubborn. There's a lot of people who will say you can't do something. Just be stubborn and do it anyway. Work your ass off and do it."

Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, head of the team that conducted the surgery, said the new arms could eventually provide much of the same function as his original arms and hands. Another double-arm transplant patient can now use chopsticks and tie his shoes.

Lee said Marrocco's recovery has been remarkable, and the transplant is helping to "restore physical and psychological well-being."

Tuesday's news conference was held to mark a milestone in his recovery — the day he was to be discharged from the hospital.

Next comes several years of rehabilitation, including physical therapy that is going to become more difficult as feeling returns to the arms.

Before the surgery, he had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

"We'll get it back together. We've been through a lot worse than that," his father, Alex Marrocco, said.

For the next few months, Marrocco plans to live with his brother in an apartment near the hospital.

The former infantryman said he can already move the elbow on his left arm and rotate it a little bit, but there hasn't been much movement yet for his right arm, which was transplanted higher up.

Marrocco's mother, Michelle Marrocco, said he can't hug her yet, so he brushes his left arm against her face.

The first time he moved his left arm was a complete surprise, an involuntary motion while friends were visiting him in the hospital, he said.

"I had no idea what was going through my mind. I was with my friends, and it happened by accident," he recalled. "One of my friends said 'Did you do that on purpose?' And I didn't know I did it."

Marrocco's operation also involved a technical feat not tried in previous cases, Lee said in an interview after the news conference.

A small part of Marrocco's left forearm remained just below his elbow, and doctors transplanted a whole new forearm around and on top of it, then rewired nerves to serve the old and new muscles in that arm.

"We wanted to save his joint. In the unlucky event we would lose the transplant, we still wanted him to have the elbow joint," Lee said.

He also explained why leg transplants are not done for people missing those limbs — "it's not very practical." That's because nerves regrow at best about an inch a month, so it would be many years before a transplanted leg was useful.

Even if movement returned, a patient might lack sensation on the soles of the feet, which would be unsafe if the person stepped on sharp objects and couldn't feel the pain.

And unlike prosthetic arms and hands, which many patients find frustrating, the ones for legs are good. That makes the risks of a transplant not worth taking.

"It's premature" until there are better ways to help nerves regrow, Lee said.

Now Marrocco, who was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, is looking forward to getting behind the wheel of his black 2006 Dodge Charger and hand-cycling a marathon.

Asked if he could one day throw a football, Dr. Jaimie Shores said sure, but maybe not like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

"Thanks for having faith in me," Marrocco interjected, drawing laughter from the crowd.

His mother said Marrocco has always been "a tough cookie."

"He's not changed that, and he's just taken it and made it an art form," Michelle Marrocco said. "He's never going to stop. He's going to be that boy I knew was going to be a pain in my butt forever. And he's going to show people how to live their lives."

___

Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and AP writer David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., contributed to this report.

Read More..

Obama's Immigration Plan to Have More Direct Path

President Barack Obama is expected to lay out his principles for immigration reform in a speech in Las Vegas today that will include a potentially quicker path to citizenship than the bipartisan plan a group of senators unveiled earlier this week.

The president will offer some new details about the White House's immigration reform plan, which expands on a blueprint it released in 2011, a senior administration official told ABC News. But for now Obama will stop short of offering his own piece of legislation because of the progress made by the Senate "Gang of Eight."

See Also: Senate Wants Immigration Bill Passed in Months

The White House has sounded positive notes about the Senate group's plan thus far, but the specifics that Obama announces are expected to have some key differences that might cause concern for some Republican senators who have signed onto the senate deal.

Like the senators' plan, Obama's proposal calls for a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. The senators' plan would grant "probationary legal status" immediately to eligible undocumented immigrants, but would not allow them to apply for permanent legal status, or a green card, until the border is deemed to be secure. Think of that as a trigger system.

On the other hand, administration officials told media outlets that they believe a path to citizenship needs to be more straightforward. They believe a trigger system, like the one in the senate plan, could lead to a state of legal limbo for the undocumented immigrants who receive legal status, The Washington Post reported.

'Lucha Libre' Wrestler: Crusader Against Illegal Immigration Watch Video

The border-security-first plan, however, is essential to Republican senators who signed onto the Senate "Gang of Eight" deal.

"I will not be supporting any law that does not ensure that the enforcement things happen," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the group, told conservative blogger Ed Morrissey on his web radio show.

See Also: 3 Flashpoints in the Senate Immigration Blueprint

Obama's plan is likely to include language that would allow same-sex bi-national couples to have the same rights as heterosexual couples, BuzzFeed and The Washington Post reported. Under current law, gays and lesbians who are married to U.S. citizens under state laws cannot obtain a green card. Obama's plan would allow them a path to citizenship, but the issue is not mentioned in the Senate "Gang of Eight" proposal.

As noted by the Post, that language may anger Christian groups who have signaled they would support comprehensive immigration reform.

But the White House remains optimistic about the progress that has been made so far. An official described the senators' announcement as a "breakthrough" to ABC News because it wasn't clear whether Republicans would sign on to any path to citizenship.

Some observers couched the Senate group's decision to come out with his plan a day before Obama as an attempt to outfox the White House politically. But administration officials told media outlets they remain generally pleased with the plan and believe that the president's speech could build momentum for a final bill.

Updated, 12:15 PM

The White House reiterated that the president was very encouraged by the Senate's proposal since it includes a pathway to citizenship that is endorsed by Republicans, who have previously opposed immigration reform that includes such a path.

"Our focus is that this is a positive development," White House spokesman Luis Miranda told ABC/Univision. "We feel very positive that there is a proposal in the first place and that it is consistent with what the president has supported in the past."

The White House clarified that it is withholding judgment on language in the Senate framework that requires a border security "trigger" to obtain a green card until actual legislative language is released by the senators.

"What we have said is that there needs to be a clear path to citizenship," said Miranda. "We'll wait to see what they flesh out."

ABC's Reena Ninan contributed reporting.

Read More..

Egyptian protesters defy curfew, attack police stations

CAIRO/ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian protesters defied a nighttime curfew in restive towns along the Suez Canal, attacking police stations and ignoring emergency rule imposed by Islamist President Mohamed Mursi to end days of clashes that have killed at least 52 people.

At least two men died in overnight fighting in the canal city of Port Said in the latest outbreak of violence unleashed last week on the eve of the anniversary of the 2011 revolt that brought down autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Political opponents spurned a call by Mursi for talks on Monday to try to end the violence.

Instead, huge crowds of protesters took to the streets in Cairo, Alexandria and in the three Suez Canal cities - Port Said, Ismailia and Suez - where Mursi imposed emergency rule and a curfew on Sunday.

"Down, down with Mohamed Mursi! Down, down with the state of emergency!" crowds shouted in Ismailia. In Cairo, flames lit up the night sky as protesters set police vehicles ablaze.

In Port Said, men attacked police stations after dark. A security source said some police and troops were injured. A medical source said two men were killed and 12 injured in the clashes, including 10 with gunshot wounds.

"The people want to bring down the regime," crowds chanted in Alexandria. "Leave means go, and don't say no!"

The demonstrators accuse Mubarak's successor Mursi of betraying the two-year-old revolution. Mursi and his supporters accuse the protesters of seeking to overthrow Egypt's first ever democratically elected leader through undemocratic means.

Since Mubarak was toppled, Islamists have won two referendums, two parliamentary elections and a presidential vote. But that legitimacy has been challenged by an opposition that accuses Mursi of imposing a new form of authoritarianism, and punctuated by repeated waves of unrest that have prevented a return to stability in the most populous Arab state.

WEST UNNERVED

The army has already been deployed in Port Said and Suez and the government agreed a measure to let soldiers arrest civilians as part of the state of emergency.

The instability unnerves Western capitals, where officials worry about the direction of powerful regional player that has a peace deal with Israel. The United States condemned the bloodshed and called on Egyptian leaders to make clear violence is not acceptable. ID:nW1E8MD01C].

In Cairo on Monday, police fired volleys of teargas at stone-throwing protesters near Tahrir Square, cauldron of the anti-Mubarak uprising. Demonstrators stormed into the downtown Semiramis Intercontinental hotel and burned two police vehicles.

A 46-year-old bystander was killed by a gunshot early on Monday, a security source said. It was not clear who fired.

"We want to bring down the regime and end the state that is run by the Muslim Brotherhood," said Ibrahim Eissa, a 26-year-old cook, protecting his face from teargas wafting towards him.

The political unrest in the Suez Canal cities has been exacerbated by street violence linked to death penalties imposed on soccer supporters convicted of involvement in stadium rioting in Port Said a year ago.

Mursi's invitation to opponents to hold a national dialogue with Islamists on Monday was spurned by the main opposition National Salvation Front coalition, which rejected the offer as "cosmetic and not substantive".

The only liberal politician who attended, Ayman Nour, told Egypt's al-Hayat channel after the meeting ended late on Monday that attendees agreed to meet again in a week.

He said Mursi had promised to look at changes to the constitution requested by the opposition but did not consider the opposition's request for a government of national unity.

The president announced the emergency measures on television on Sunday: "The protection of the nation is the responsibility of everyone. We will confront any threat to its security with force and firmness within the remit of the law," Mursi said.

His demeanor in the address infuriated his opponents, not least when he wagged a finger at the camera.

Some activists said Mursi's measures to try to impose control on the turbulent streets could backfire.

"Martial law, state of emergency and army arrests of civilians are not a solution to the crisis," said Ahmed Maher of the April 6 movement that helped galvanize the 2011 uprising. "All this will do is further provoke the youth. The solution has to be a political one that addresses the roots of the problem."

(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo and Abdelrahman Youssef in Alexandria; Writing by Edmund Blair, Yasmine Saleh and Peter Graff)

Read More..

Cycling: UCI disbands independent Armstrong commission

LONDON: The International Cycling Union (UCI) announced Monday it had disbanded the independent commission it had set up to investigate any alleged involvement by the global governing body in the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

The UCI said it had pulled the plug on the commission, which only met in public for the first time last week, because both the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the United States Doping Agency (USADA) had refused to co-operate with its inquiries and thus any report it produced would be dismissed "as not being complete or credible".

UCI president Pat McQuaid said they had been left with little choice but to disband the three-member commission consisting of chairman Philip Otton, a former judge in England's Court of Appeal, British Paralympic champion Tanni Grey-Thompson and Australian lawyer Malcolm Holmes.

"As I said last Friday, we have listened carefully to the views of WADA, USADA, and cycling stakeholders and have decided that a truth and reconciliation process is the best way to examine the culture of doping in cycling in the past and to clear the air so that cycling can move forward," McQuaid explained in a statement.

"Over the weekend I spoke to John Fahey, president of WADA. He confirmed WADA's willingness to help the UCI establish a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC), as well as saying that WADA had no confidence in the existing independent commission process."

It was an investigation by USADA that led to Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and comments in their decision regarding the UCI's alleged complicity in his drug-taking that led cycling chiefs to set up the independent commission.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Telangana Cong MPs to send resignation to Sonia

HYDERABAD: At least seven Telangana Congress MPs precipitated matters on Monday saying that they would send their resignations to party president Sonia Gandhi, even as ministers from the Telangana region said they would wait before they take a similar step. Their decision to send their resignations to Sonia and not the Speaker is being seen as an ultimatum to the Congress high command to act before it's too late.

The decision by the MPs to quit was taken at a meeting organized by G Vivekananda, with other MPs, Madhu Yaskhi Goud, Ponnam Prabhakar, S Rajaiah, Manda Jagannatham, Gutha Sukhender Reddy and Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy present. The MPs said they would be faxing their resignations to Sonia.

"The resignation letter will be on the regular Lok Sabha format. These will be despatched to the party president with a request to forward them to the Speaker in case there is no decision on Telangana in the next few days," said Manda Jagannatham, MP.

The MPs said they will tell Sonia through their letter that it would be difficult for them to continue in the party considering the delay in forming Telangana. "Because of the Congress's inability to address the Telangana issue as per the commitment made to the people, continuing in the party will be difficult. This we will put on record in a separate letter to the party president. We will annex our resignations to this letter," Gutha said.

Indicating that Telangana Congress was not responding to TRS's call to quit, one MP said they would participate in the movement but join hands with forces who were fighting for social Telangana.

Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy said the Congress high command had "disappointed.. and shown disrespect to the people and humiliated all those who pinned their hopes on the Congress for a separate state."

Meanwhile, panchayat raj minister K Jana Reddy said they have confidence in the high command, because of which they are prepared to give it more time. He said they would quit and join people on the streets the moment Telangana was denied.

"We believe that Telangana is becoming a reality very soon. Our hopes will not be belied. If we fail to convince the party leadership on Telangana, we would join the movement as per the wishes of the people," Jana Reddy said.

Read More..

Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant

On Facebook, he describes himself as a "wounded warrior...very wounded."

Brendan Marrocco was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, and doctors revealed Monday that he's received a double-arm transplant.

Those new arms "already move a little," he tweeted a month after the operation.

Marrocco, a 26-year-old New Yorker, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. He had the transplant Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday.

Alex Marrocco said his son does not want to talk with reporters until a news conference Tuesday at the hospital, but the younger Marrocco has repeatedly mentioned the transplant on Twitter and posted photos.

"Ohh yeah today has been one month since my surgery and they already move a little," Brendan Marrocco tweeted Jan. 18.

Responding to a tweet from NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, he wrote: "dude I can't tell you how exciting this is for me. I feel like I finally get to start over."

The infantryman also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

The military sponsors operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it. Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.

"He was the first quad amputee to survive," and there have been four others since then, Alex Marrocco said.

The Marroccos want to thank the donor's family for "making a selfless decision ... making a difference in Brendan's life," the father said.

Brendan Marrocco has been in public many times. During a July 4 visit last year to the Sept. 11 Memorial with other disabled soldiers, he said he had no regrets about his military service.

"I wouldn't change it in any way. ... I feel great. I'm still the same person," he said.

The 13-hour operation was led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins. It was the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant done in the United States.

Lee led three of those earlier operations when he worked at the University of Pittsburgh, including the only above-elbow transplant that had been done at the time, in 2010.

Marrocco's "was the most complicated one" so far, Lee said in an interview Monday. It will take more than a year to know how fully Marrocco will be able to use the new arms.

"The maximum speed is an inch a month for nerve regeneration," he explained. "We're easily looking at a couple years" until the full extent of recovery is known.

While at Pittsburgh, Lee pioneered the immune-suppression approach used for Marrocco. The surgeon led hand-transplant operations on five patients, giving them marrow from their donors in addition to the new limbs. All five recipients have done well, and four have been able to take just one anti-rejection drug instead of combination treatments most transplant patients receive.

Minimizing anti-rejection drugs is important because they have side effects and raise the risk of cancer over the long term. Those risks have limited the willingness of surgeons and patients to do more hand, arm and even face transplants.

Lee has received funding for his work from AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a cooperative research network of top hospitals and universities around the country that the government formed about five years ago. With government money, he and several other plastic surgeons around the country are preparing to do more face transplants, possibly using the new immune-suppression approach.

Marrocco expects to spend three to four months at Hopkins, then return to a military hospital to continue physical therapy, his father said. Before the operation, he had been fitted with prosthetic legs and had learned to walk on his own.

He had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

Despite being in a lot of pain for some time after the operation, Marrocco showed a sense of humor, his father said. He had a hoarse voice from the tube that was in his throat during the long surgery and decided he sounded like Al Pacino. He soon started doing movie lines.

"He was making the nurses laugh," Alex Marrocco said.

___

Associated Press Writer Stephanie Nano in New York contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Army regenerative medicine:

http://www.afirm.mil/index.cfm?pageid=home

and http://www.afirm.mil/assets/documents/annual_report_2011.pdf

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

Read More..

Grand Jury Wanted to Indict JonBenet's Parents

A grand jury believed there was enough evidence in 1999 to indict John and Patsy Ramsey on charges relating to the still-unsolved killing of their beauty queen daughter JonBenet Ramsey, ABC News sources say.

Six-year-old JonBenet was found dead in the basement of her family's upscale Boulder, Colo., home Christmas Day 1996. Suspicion fell on her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, but they insisted an intruder was to blame and they were never prosecuted.

In an interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters after her death, both of the girl's parents denied that they had killed her. They were eventually cleared by prosecutors.

JonBenet Ramsey Case: New Grand Jury Report Watch Video

After meeting for more than a year, a grand jury found sufficient evidence to indict the couple on charges of child abuse resulting in death, as first reported Sunday by the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper and confirmed by two separate sources by ABC News.

"This grand jury, in effect, came up with a compromise finding, 'No, it's not murder,' but, 'Yes, we think they were responsible' for the death based on abuse," ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams said.

PHOTOS: JonBenet Ramsey: Never-Before-Seen Photos

But District Attorney Alex Hunter refused to sign off on the grand jury's decision, saying there was too little proof.

"I and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time," Hunter said then.

Hunter believed a conviction would be impossible. Abrams said that he agrees with the decision.

"I've seen the majority of the case files and I think Alex Hunter made the right call," he said. "I think there simply was not enough evidence to move forward."

Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 after a battle with ovarian cancer. John Ramsey remarried. His attorney told ABC News that Hunter is "a hero who wisely avoided a miscarriage of justice."

The case is still officially open but, as in 1996, investigators seem no closer to solving the crime this year, when JonBenet would have turned 23.

Read More..