Danny Puff

CHICHEN ITZA, Mexico (Reuters) - Thousands of mystics, hippies and spiritual wanderers will descend on the ruins of Maya cities on Friday to celebrate a new cycle in the Maya calendar, ignoring fears in some quarters that it might instead herald the end of the world.

Brightly dressed indigenous Mexican dancers whooped and invoked a serpent god near the ruins of Chichen Itza late on Thursday, while meditating westerners hoped for the start of a "golden age" of humanity.

"I see it as a changing of an energy, the changing of a guard, the changing of universal consciousness," said Serg Miejylo, a 29-year-old gardener originally from Connecticut.

Wearing sandals, smoking a rolled-up cigarette and sporting blonde dreadlocks, Miejylo is among those joining the festivities at Maya sites in southern Mexico and parts of Central America.

But while people here were celebrating, the close of the 13th bak'tun - a period of some 400 years - in the 5,125-year-old Long Calendar of the Maya has raised fears among groups around the world that the end is nigh.

A U.S. scholar once said it could be seen as a kind of "Armageddon" by the illustrious Mesoamerican culture, and over time the idea snowballed into a belief that the Maya calendar had predicted the earth's destruction.

Fears of mass suicides, meteorites, huge power cuts, natural disasters, epidemics or an asteroid hurtling toward Earth have circulated on the Internet ahead of December 21.

Chinese police have arrested about 1,000 people this week for spreading rumours about December 21, and authorities in Argentina restricted access to a mountain popular with UFO-spotters after rumours began spreading that a mass suicide was planned there.

In Texas, video game mogul Richard Garriott de Cayeux decided to throw his most elaborate party ever at midnight - just in case the Earth did come to an end.

Maya experts, scientists and even U.S. space agency NASA insist the Maya did not predict the world's end and that there is nothing to worry about.

"Think of it like Y2K," said James Fitzsimmons, a Maya expert at Middlebury College in Vermont. "It's the end of one cycle and the beginning of another cycle."

A NEW DAWN?

New Age optimism, stream-of-consciousness evocations of wonder and awe, and starry-eyed dreams of extra-terrestrial contact have descended on the ancient sites this week - leaving the modern Maya bemused.

"It's pure Hollywood," said Luis Mis Rodriguez, 45, a Maya selling obsidian figurines and souvenirs shaped into knives like ones the Maya once used for human sacrifice.

In Chichen Itza, below a labyrinth of gray and white Maya pillars, a circle of some 40 tourists sat meditating silently on Thursday.

At one point, a woman in a pink shirt said "the golden age is truly golden" and asked the group to find a form of light to take them to another dimension. The meditation then resumed.

Moments earlier, indigenous dancers wearing white linen, bright feathers and beads shook maracas and the seed pod of the flame tree to the beat of drums at the foot of the Temple of serpent god Kukulkan, a focal point of Friday's celebrations.

"We ask all the brothers of the Earth that Kukulkan dominates the hearts of the entire world," said one of the dancers, raising his arms towards the sky.

The Maya civilization reached its peak between A.D. 250 and 900 when it ruled over large swathes of what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. The Maya developed hieroglyphic writing, an advanced astronomical system and a sophisticated calendar.

DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS

There is a long tradition of calling time on the world.

Basing his calculations on prophetic readings of the Bible, the great scientist Isaac Newton once cited 2060 as a year when the planet would be destroyed.

U.S. preacher William Miller predicted that Jesus Christ would descend to Earth in October 1844 to purge mankind of its sins. When it didn't happen, his followers, known as the Millerites, refereed to the event as The Great Disappointment.

In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult, believing the world was about to be "recycled," committed suicide in San Diego to board an alien craft they said was trailing behind a comet.

More recently, American radio host Harold Camping predicted the world would end on May 21, 2011, later moving the date forward five months when the apocalypse failed to materialize.

Such thoughts were far from the minds on Friday of gaudily attired pilgrims to Chichen Itza seeking spiritual release.

"What I hope is that I let go of all the old belief system and all the past and I just enter into a new reality that is even better," said Flow Lesur, 48, a Frenchwoman now living in California who teaches underwater yoga in her spare time.

Faun Rouse, a 78-year-old visitor from Colorado, was thinking of a different kind of inner contentment when asked how she would mark the coming of a new epoch. "With a big steak and lobster dinner, then fly back on Saturday," she said.

(Additional reporting by Karen Brooks, Jilian Mincer and Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Dave Graham, Kieran Murray and Philip Barbara)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One week after a school shooting that shocked Americans - with many of the 27 victims buried and time allowed for prayers and investigation - the National Rifle Association will dive in to the fierce national debate about gun control.

The largest U.S. gun rights lobby plans a well-coordinated public entrance to the conversation on how to prevent such tragedies, starting with a rare news conference on Friday at a hotel across the street from the White House.

NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre and President David Keene will then appear on separate Sunday television talk shows for their first interviews since gunman Adam Lanza killed his mother, 20 young children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, last Friday.

Inside and outside the NRA, an organization with powerful ties to politicians in Washington, expectations are the group will offer condolences and condemn the killings but offer little in the way of compromise over gun laws.

The group kept largely quiet in the first days after the Connecticut shooting, citing "common decency" and the need to allow time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts. It broke its silence on Tuesday to say it wanted to contribute meaningfully to prevent another massacre and announced its plans for the Friday news conference.

"They will talk about how terrible the violence is, about helping the victims, about violence in society," said Robert Spitzer, a professor at the State University of New York at Cortland and author of "The Politics of Gun Control."

Spitzer said he did not expect the NRA media blitz to lay out specific plans because so many within the organization consider the right to own guns absolute.

"If they did, it would contradict the path they have been following for about the last 35 years," he said. "Much of their membership would declare war on their leaders."

One NRA board member, Houston lawyer Charles Cotton, said the NRA should not say much until it hears more from gun-control supporters like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"You can't say specifically what you want to do before you sit around a table and talk about it," Cotton told Reuters.

NRA board member Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman, said he was skeptical any new law would make a difference.

"None of the laws that the gun control folks want to put into place would have prevented this shooting. I think that's where we all start from," he said. Even proposed bans on guns known as assault weapons would not cover all semi-automatic rifles, he said.

America's unique gun culture means there are hundreds of millions of firearms in the United States for hunting, self-defense and leisure, as well as illicit uses. No one knows how many guns there are because there is no national registry.

About 11,100 Americans died in gun-related killings during 2011, not including suicides, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 19,766 suicides by firearms in 2011, the CDC said.

POLITICAL PRESSURE

The NRA uses political pressure against individual lawmakers in Congress and in state legislatures to press for loosening restrictions on gun sales and ownership while promoting hunting and gun sports.

Gun-control proponents have been pushing for tighter gun controls since the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre, the fourth mass shooting in the United States this year.

President Barack Obama has vowed to present a detailed plan in January. On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden held the first meeting of an interagency effort among Cabinet members and law enforcement officials.

"The president is absolutely committed to keeping the promise that he will act," said Biden, who authored a crime bill in 1994 that included a ban on some semiautomatic rifles that has since expired. "We have to take action," he said.

Democrats in Congress who favor gun control have called for quick votes on measures to ban assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, hoping that the slaying of the 6- and 7-year olds in Newtown might be enough to win over more lawmakers.

Lanza used a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle, police said.

The NRA's power is partly due to its large and active membership, which reportedly has been growing rapidly since the Newtown shootings. NRA officials did not immediately comment, but Fox News, citing a source within the organization, said the group has been adding 8,000 new members a day.

FLOODING LAWMAKERS WITH CALLS

The NRA is frequently described as having 4 million members, although nonprofit groups are not required to disclose their membership or how they define the term.

At key moments, such as before votes in Congress, many of those members flood lawmakers' offices with calls - a tactic few organizations can pull off, and one that the NRA's opponents want to imitate.

Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group co-led by Bloomberg, said his group orchestrated tens of thousands of calls that jammed White House phones on Wednesday.

"It's the kind of thing that makes a difference in public policy. It's the kind of thing the NRA does very well," Glaze said. "And that's the kind of movement that we have to build if we're going to make any kind of difference."

There is a vast difference in resources of the organizations lining up in the gun debate.

During 2011, the NRA spent $3.1 million on lobbying lawmakers and federal agencies, while all gun-control groups combined spent $280,000 - a ratio of 11-to-one - according to records the groups filed with Congress.

Some of the NRA's money goes to Washington lobbying and law firms not usually associated with gun rights. SNR Denton, for instance, represents not only the NRA but major insurance, food and pharmaceutical companies. Lobbyists there did not return calls.

On another measure, that of spending on political campaigns, gun-control organizations have been more competitive. Independence USA PAC, a vehicle for Bloomberg's personal fortune on issues including gun control, spent $8.2 million on the 2012 election, compared to the NRA's $18.9 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Violence, named for President Ronald Reagan's press secretary James Brady who was injured in a 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan, spent $5,816 on the election, much lower than the $1.7 million it spent on the 2000 election, according to the center.

(Additional reporting by Edith Honan and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Howard Goller, Claudia Parsons and Philip Barbara)

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom chief executive Rene Obermann has unexpectedly announced he will step down at the end of 2013 and be succeeded by finance director Timotheus Hoettges.

Hoettges, 50, said on Thursday he was not planning major changes to strategy and would continue Obermann's drive of investing in the United States and Germany as the firm battles to return to revenue growth against a tough economic backdrop.

"I have worked with Obermann for 12 years, and I don't expect to change a lot in the way that we do things," he told journalists during a conference call.

He is, however, expected to bring a fresh spark to Germany's former state telecoms monopoly, as he is considered by analysts to have the energy to take on challenges and an ability to absorb knowledge. But he has a big job ahead of him.

The European telecoms industry is struggling with sluggish economic growth, costly investments and cut-throat competition, and on top of that Deutsche Telekom has had its hands full with trying to fix its troubled T-Mobile USA business.

The German government, Deutsche Telekom's biggest shareholder with a 32 percent stake, said it welcomed the choice of Hoettges as new CEO because it promised continuity.

"The chief strategist so far becoming the new captain indicates that the course will be held," a spokesperson for the finance ministry told Reuters.

Hoettges joined the group in 2000 after playing a central role in the merger of VIAG AG and VEBA AG to form E.ON, now Germany's biggest utility.

In 2009, he was promoted to finance chief at Deutsche Telekom and, among other things, oversaw the move to put its British mobile business in a joint venture with France Telecom,.

"Hoettges is extremely good as a CFO, he's well respected by investors, but it remains to be seen whether he has the vision and political clout to succeed as CEO," Espirito Santo analyst Will Draper said.

Hoettges said the company had not yet decided on a new finance director to replace him.

THE ENGINE ROOM

Obermann was the youngest-ever chief executive of a German blue-chip firm at the time when he took over in 2006, aged only 43. He gained a reputation for being eager to keep unions and politicians happy and wary of making big strategic decisions.

One of his boldest moves was a deal to sell T-Mobile USA, to AT&T, but it collapsed last year amid concerns from competition regulators, dealing a blow to Obermann's reputation.

T-Mobile USA was a growth engine for Deutsche Telekom in its early days but is a rundown asset now that has been haemorrhaging customers. Deutsche Telekom is now trying to merge the business with smaller rival MetroPCS.

Obermann said he was leaving to work for a smaller company where he was "closer to the engine room" than he could be at an international corporation, without providing details.

Analysts were split over whether to believe Obermann's assurances that he was leaving of his own volition.

"If the board or the main shareholders were unhappy about the CEO's performance, they probably would have appointed an outsider, not the CFO, who also has been responsible for what has happened at the company over the last few years," Exane BNP analyst Mathieu Robilliard said.

Espirito Santo's Draper meanwhile said: "Obermann has had a lot of opportunity to fix the U.S. and yet it still remains Deutsche Telekom's biggest problem."

Obermann also disappointed investors with a bigger than expected dividend cut announced earlier this month as the company's investment drive eats away cash.

European peers Telefonica, the Netherlands' KPN, Telekom Austria, and France Telecom had already cut their dividends earlier this year, hurt by a weak economy and fierce competition that has driven down prices.

Deutsche Telekom shares closed 0.5 percent higher at 8.63 euros, outperforming a 0.2 percent fall in the STOXX Europe 600 European telecoms index.

(Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Rene Wagner; Editing by Mark Potter and Helen Massy-Beresford)

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian Islamists are planning a mass protest in Alexandria on Friday in a move likely to raise tensions on the eve of a divisive referendum that will determine the political future of the Arab world's biggest nation.

The Muslim Brotherhood called for the rally after a violent confrontation between Islamists and the liberal, secular opposition in Egypt 's second city last week ended with a Muslim preacher besieged inside his mosque for 14 hours. Rival factions were armed with clubs, knives and swords.

The run-up to the referendum on a new draft constitution has been marked by often violent protests in which at least eight people have died.

The constitution is backed by President Mohamed Mursi and his Islamist allies as a vital step in Egypt's transition to democracy almost two years after the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

The opposition, facing defeat in the referendum, has called for a "no" vote against a document it views as leaning too far towards Islamism.

The first day of voting on December 15 resulted in a 57 percent majority in favor of the constitution. The second stage on Saturday is expected to produce another "yes" vote as it covers regions seen as more conservative and likely to back Mursi.

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, said a "no" vote meant taking a stand against attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood, Mursi's political base, to dominate Egypt.

"For the sake of the future, the masses of our people should strongly and firmly say 'no' to injustice and 'no' to the Brotherhood's dominance," the Front said in a statement.

POLL WITHIN TWO MONTHS

The constitution must be in place before elections can be held. If it passes, the poll should be held within two months.

Mursi and his backers say the constitution is needed to advance Egypt's transition from decades of military-backed autocratic rule. Opponents say it ignores the rights of women and of minorities, including the 10 percent of Egyptians who are Christian.

Demonstrations erupted when Mursi awarded himself sweeping powers on November 22 and then fast-tracked the constitution through a drafting assembly dominated by his Islamist allies and boycotted by many liberals.

The referendum is being held over two days because many of the judges needed to oversee polling stayed away in protest. In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of those voting.

Adding to the uncertainty as the final round of the referendum approaches, Egypt's chief prosecutor suddenly announced that he was retracting his decision to quit.

Prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim , appointed by Mursi when he assumed his new powers, said he had changed his mind because his resignation on Monday was under duress.

Ibrahim had quit after more than 1,000 members of his staff gathered at his office to demand he step down because his appointment by the president, rather than by judicial authorities, threatened the independence of the judiciary.

After he announced he was staying, several prosecutors announced they were suspending work and would stage an open-ended protest outside Ibrahim's office.

(Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Thousands of mourners on Wednesday packed a Los Angeles theater to pay their final respects to Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera more than a week after her death in a plane crash .

Rivera, 43, best known for her work in the Mexican folk Nortena and Banda genres, died after the small jet she was traveling in crashed in northern Mexico on December 9.

Rivera's family, dressed in white, led the memorial service eulogizing the singer. A bank of white roses was displayed in front of Rivera's bright red coffin and a brass band performed musical interludes.

More than 6,000 people crowded into the theater about 30 miles north of her childhood home in Long Beach, California. Tickets for the service at the Gibson Amphitheatre sold out within minutes, organizers said.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants , Rivera was called the " Diva de la Banda ." She sold about 15 million albums and earned a slew of Latin Grammy nominations during her 17-year career.

"Jenni made it OK for women to be who they are," her manager Pete Salgado said at the service. "Jenni also made it OK to be from nothing, with the hopes of being something."

Rivera had five children, the first at age 15, and was married three times. Her third husband was baseball pitcher Esteban Loaiza . Rivera's private life influenced her songs, which often referenced living through hardship.

"She's a fighter and she knows it's in all of us," Rivera's son Michael said between video tributes.

In recent years, Rivera branched out into television, appearing on a reality television show and serving as a judge on the Mexican version of the singing competition "The Voice." Television broadcaster ABC was reported to be developing a comedy pilot for the singer.

Rivera's plane crashed in mountains south of Monterrey killing all seven on board.

The singer was to perform in the city of Toluca, 40 miles southwest of Mexico City, in central Mexico after a concert in Monterrey. It is not clear what caused the crash.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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One of the touted benefits of "Plan B" is that it only raises taxes for those making $1 million or more. As Eric Cantor said this morning , the plan would raise revenue "without hurting many small businesses" or taxpayers.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Thursday. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas But a closer look at the tax impacts of Plan B shows that while it raises taxes on most million-plus earners, it also raises takes for many low-income earners.

The non-partisan Tax Policy Center found that the average taxpayer earning $1 million or more in cash income would see their taxes go up by an average of $72,000. A small number of those million-plus earners will see a tax cut, due to an anomaly in the Alternative Minimum Tax.

But lower income earners will also see a tax hike. People making between $10,000 to $20,000 will see their taxes go up by an average of $262. People making $20,000 to $30,000 will see their taxes go up by $219. ( Read more : How Much Would Taxing the Rich Raise? )

Granted, those are minor increases. But drilling down deeper, you find that some of those low-income earners could see a sizable increase. One in five of Americans who earn less than $20,000 a year will see an increase of $1,070 -- a sizeable amount for low-income earners.

In fact, the only taxpayers who will get an overall tax cut under Plan B are those who earn between $200,000 and $1 million. People making between $200,000 and $500,000 will see an average tax cut of $301. Those making between $500,000 and $1 million will see their taxes go down by $164.

The reason is that Plan B has two parts - raising taxes on high earners and eliminating deductions for low earners. The plan raises the tax rate for those making $1 million or more to 39.6 percent from its current rate of 35 percent. It would also raise the capital gains and dividend tax rates for those earners to 20 percent from 15 percent.

( Read more : The Five Largest Landowners in America )

Yet Plan B also eliminates many of the Obama-led tax credits that largely benefit low-income earners, including the 2009 enhancements to the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and others. Repealing these credits hurts families with children the hardest, according the Tax Policy Center.

This is not to say that Plan B is good or bad. But its true impact on taxes is broader than many in the House would lead us to believe.

More From CNBC Super-Rich to Congress: Tax Us When We're Dead New Fiscal Cliff Situation Is 'Worst-Case Scenario' Cantor: US House Republicans have votes for tax, spending 'Plan B' Also Read

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The Big Pit National Coal Mining Museum has installed 200 solar panels (Wikicommons) Not everyone is sold on green energy. But one recent convert is an institution dedicated to the legacy of fossil fuels: England s Big Pit National Coal Museum has installed 200 solar panels to help offset energy costs .

"Coal is such an important part of Wales heritage, and yet green energy will play a major part in its future. A solar powered coal-mining museum is a fantastic way to celebrate this national journey," Peter Walker, the museum's manager told Renewable Energy World.

"But it s far from just symbolic the museum will benefit from huge reductions in energy bills and a solid return from the feed-in tariff.

The new solar panels will reportedly save the museum approximately $650,000 over the next 25 years, minus the $115,000 cost of installation.

The museum site first opened operations as a coalmine back in 1810 and officially ceased production in 1980. It reached its commercial peak in 1929, employing nearly 1,400 local residents from Wales. It first opened to visitors in 1983 but did not officially become a museum until 2003.

The museum itself has received much acclaim over the years . In 200, UNESCO named the museum a national heritage site, and in 2004 it received the Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year. As part of the tour, visitors are able to travel some 300 feet underground into the former mine to experience what life was like for coal miners.

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A sea otter recently born into captivity (Australian Associated Press) The long war between otters and the U.S. federal government is finally over , and the otters have won.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has abandoned its plan to relocate otters from coastal waters reserved for commercial fisherman.

For the past 25 years, the government agency had been working to relocate the otters, but was finally forced to admit the program had been a failure.

"As a result," it allows sea otters to expand their range naturally into Southern California," reads a notice published in the Federal Register.

In the late 1980s, the federal government attempted to relocate about 140 otters from Southern California s Point Conception to a location in Central California. However, some of the otters simply swam back to their original habitat while others died shortly after being moved. Officials say part of the plan was to establish a reserve colony of otters in case a natural disaster were to strike their main habitat.

An August 2012 release from the U.S. Geological Survey says the wild otter population has been decimated from its previous heights, while efforts to rebuild the population have been slow. Only a reported 2,792 sea otters exist in the wild, down from as many as 16,000 before hunting dwindled their numbers.

"Just as the polar bear has become symbolic of protecting the Arctic, so is the status of the sea otter emblematic of the health of the Central California Coast," USGS Director Marcia McNutt said in the release. "These annual surveys and the associated studies to understand the drivers for population changes are critical factors in ensuring the continuing survival of not just the sea otter, but the entire complex ecosystem for which this icon is integral."

And as the L.A. Times notes, while the announcement of the failed otter relocation program may annoy local fisherman, it was celebrated by local conservation groups.

"It's long overdue," Jim Curland, advocacy program director for Friends of the Sea Otter , told the paper.

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UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (AP) Jenni Rivera 's "celestial graduation" was marked by festive music, heartfelt speeches in Spanish and English and passionate chants of "Jen-ni! Jen-ni!"

Rivera's children and famed singers Olga Tanon and Joan Sebastian performed during the nearly 2 -hour Christian-themed memorial service Wednesday at the Gibson Amphitheatre, where thousands of fans gathered to salute the " Diva de la Banda " who died in a plane crash Dec. 9.

One fan, Veronika Flores, drove nearly eight hours from her home in Woodland, Calif., near Sacramento, to be united with other fans at the service.

"I just came to say goodbye to a Latina woman, La Gran Senora," she said, invoking the name of one of Rivera's most beloved songs.

Mexican singers Marco Antonio Solis and Ana Gabriel and actors Lou Diamond Phillips and Kate del Castillo were also among the guests at Wednesday's service.

A red casket sat onstage amid a sea of white roses as images of Rivera played on three big screens. Family members embraced and kissed the casket at the conclusion of the service, and thousands of fans lined up to lay more white roses atop it.

While most of the speeches and songs were delivered in Spanish, Rivera's children spoke in English, often directly to their late mother.

"We're not here to mourn the death," said son Michael, 21. "We're here to celebrate the life and graduation of a singer, an entertainer, a diva, a fighter, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, and more than anything, a mother the best mother."

He then called for 27 seconds of silence for the victims of the massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Rivera's youngest child, 11-year-old Johnny, was heartbreakingly poised as he said, "The person that everyone's talking about is my mom."

"Mama, I've been crying so much these last few days. I miss you so much," said the little boy, wearing a red bow tie like many of his family members. "I hope you're taking care of my dad and I hope he's taking care of you, too."

Rivera's second husband, Juan Lopez, died in 2009. The couple divorced in 2003.

Rivera's brothers and sisters spoke lovingly of the singer, calling her "the queen of queens," ''perfectly imperfect" and an "eternal diva." Her father said Rivera's "happiness, smile and care for the public will never be forgotten." He then performed a song he wrote about his daughter, a woman who rose from humble roots to become "la Diva de la Banda."

One of Rivera's brothers said his sister "made it OK for women to be who they are. Jenni also made it OK to be from nothing with the hopes of being something."

The family asked that Latin radio stations play Rivera's song "La Gran Senora" at noon Thursday in her honor.

The service was closed to most media, although a broadcast of the proceedings was made available. A reporter from The Associated Press obtained entry to the venue.

The burial will be private.

Rivera's last album before her death, "La Misma Gran Senora," topped the Latin albums chart this week, selling 27,000 copies the best sales week for any Latin album this year. Rivera also holds three spots on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Rivera and six other people died Dec. 9 in a northern Mexico plane crash that remains under investigation. Rivera, a mother of five children and grandmother of two, was 43.

Rivera sold more than 15 million copies of her 12 major-label albums. Her soulful singing style and honesty about her tumultuous personal life won her fans on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. She was also an actress and reality TV star.

Born in Los Angeles, Rivera launched her career by selling cassette tapes at flea markets. By the end of the 90s, she won a major-label contract and built a loyal following.

Many of her songs deal with themes of dignity in the face of heartbreak, which Rivera spoke of openly with her fans.

She had recently filed for divorce from her third husband, was once detained at a Mexico City airport with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, and publicly apologized after her brother assaulted a drunken fan who verbally attacked her in 2011.

"She was a fighter, a woman who can push boundaries," said Flores. "That's why I liked her, because I'm just like her."

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the days since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a shell-shocked nation has looked for reasons. The list of culprits cited include easy access to guns, a strained mental-health system and the "culture of violence" the entertainment industry's embrace of violence in movies, TV shows and, especially, video games .

"The violence in the entertainment culture particularly, with the extraordinary realism to video games , movies now, et cetera does cause vulnerable young men to be more violent," Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said.

"There might well be some direct connection between people who have some mental instability and when they go over the edge they transport themselves, they become part of one of those video games ," said Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, where 12 people were killed in a movie theater shooting in July.

White House adviser David Axelrod tweeted, "But shouldn't we also quit marketing murder as a game?"

And Donald Trump weighed in, tweeting, " Video game violence & glorification must be stopped it is creating monsters!"

There have been unconfirmed media reports that 20-year-old Newtown shooter Adam Lanza enjoyed a range of video games , from the bloody "Call of Duty" series to the innocuous "Dance Dance Revolution." But the same could be said for about 80 percent of Americans in Lanza's age group, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Law enforcement officials haven't made any connection between Lanza's possible motives and his interest in games.

The video game industry has been mostly silent since Friday's attack, in which 20 children and six adults were killed. The Entertainment Software Association, which represents game publishers in Washington, has yet to respond to politicians' criticisms. Hal Halpin, president of the nonprofit Entertainment Consumers Association , said, "I'd simply and respectfully point to the lack of evidence to support any causal link."

It's unlikely that lawmakers will pursue legislation to regulate the sales of video games ; such efforts were rejected again and again in a series of court cases over the last decade. Indeed, the industry seemed to have moved beyond the entire issue last year, when the Supreme Court revoked a California law criminalizing the sale of violent games to minors.

The Supreme Court decision focused on First Amendment concerns; in the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that games "are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature." Scalia also agreed with the ESA's argument that researchers haven't established a link between media violence and real-life violence. "Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively," Scalia wrote.

Still, that doesn't make games impervious to criticism, or even some soul-searching within the gaming community. At this year's E3 the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the industry's largest U.S. gathering some attendees were stunned by the intensity of violence on display. A demo for Sony's "The Last of Us" ended with a villain taking a shotgun blast to the face. A scene from Ubisoft's "Splinter Cell: Blacklist" showed the hero torturing an enemy. A trailer for Square Enix's "Hitman: Absolution" showed the protagonist slaughtering a team of lingerie-clad assassins disguised as nuns.

"The ultraviolence has to stop," designer Warren Spector told the GamesIndustry website after E3. "I do believe that we are fetishizing violence, and now in some cases actually combining it with an adolescent approach to sexuality. I just think it's in bad taste. Ultimately I think it will cause us trouble."

"The violence of these games can be off-putting," Brian Crecente, news editor for the gaming website Polygon, said Monday. "The video-game industry is wrestling with the same issues as movies and TV. There's this tension between violent games that sell really well and games like 'Journey,' a beautiful, artistic creation that was well received by critics but didn't sell as much."

During November, typically the peak month for pre-holiday game releases, the two best sellers were the military shooters "Call of Duty: Black Ops II," from Activision, and "Halo 4," from Microsoft. But even with the dominance of the genre, Crecente said, "There has been a feeling that some of the sameness of war games is grating on people."

Critic John Peter Grant said, "I've also sensed a growing degree of fatigue with ultra-violent games, but not necessarily because of the violence per se."

The problem, Grant said, "is that violence as a mechanic gets old really fast. Games are amazing possibility spaces! And if the chief way I can interact with them is by destroying and killing? That seems like such a waste of potential."

There are some hints of a growing self-awareness creeping into the gaming community. One gamer Antwand Pearman, editor of the website GamerFitNation has called for other players to join in a "Day of Cease-Fire for Online Shooters" this Friday, one week after the massacre.

"We are simply making a statement," Pearman said, "that we as gamers are not going to sit back and ignore the lives that were lost."

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