Danny Puff

A sign welcoming Sandy Hook students is displayed across the street from Chalk Hill School. (Dylan Stableford/Yahoo!

MONROE, Conn. Sandy Hook Elementary School teachers, students and parents are preparing for an emotional return to school on Thursday at a repurposed facility here, less than a month after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults including principal Dawn Hochsprung at their school in Newtown, Conn.

On Wednesday, a day before classes are set to resume, students and parents are scheduled to attend an open house at Chalk Hill School, a former middle school that workers have prepared to house the Sandy Hook children. School officials say they have tried to completely re-create classrooms in an effort to make students as comfortable as possible.

Parents are being encouraged to attend school with their children on Thursday.

"I want to reassure you that we understand many parents may need to be near their children on their first day(s) of school and you will be welcome," interim principal Donna Page wrote in a letter to parents. "That being said, we encourage students to take the bus to school in order to help them return to familiar routines as soon as possible. Parents choosing to join their children may come to school after our 9:07 a.m. opening and will be welcome in the classroom or the auditorium throughout the day."

To "ensure a safe and secure environment," Page continued, "we ask that no more than one adult family member accompany his/her child."

[Related: Scenes from Newtown, Connecticut]

Some of the therapy dogs that have blanketed Newtown in the wake of the shootings will also be present at the school to comfort the children. Ten golden retrievers from Chicago's Lutheran Church Charities, which were sent to Newtown to comfort survivors last month, traveled back to Newtown on New Year's Day to prepare for the school's reopening.

Other public schools in Newtown reopened within a week of the shootings, but Sandy Hook Elementary has remained closed since Dec. 14, when 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza shot his way into the school and opened fire before turning a gun on himself. Lanza also killed his mother in their Newtown home before going on the rampage, one of the deadliest in U.S. history.

"I want parents and families enduring the loss of their precious children to know their loved ones are foremost in our hearts and minds as we move forward," Page also wrote. "We recognize your needs are paramount in our preparations and planning. Your strength and compassion has been and will continue to be an inspiration to me and countless others as we work to honor the memory of your precious children and our beloved staff."

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) South Korean pop star Rain is facing questions after paparazzi photos showed him out on the town with a top actress.

Seoul's Defense Ministry said Wednesday it is investigating whether Rain broke military rules by meeting actress Kim Tae-hee while on duty.

Rain is fulfilling his compulsory army service as an entertainer for the military. He is not allowed to have private meetings while outside his Seoul base for official duties such as recording and performing.

The ministry says a brief lockup in a military jail cannot be ruled out as a penalty.

Kim's agency admits that the two have dated for a month. Rain's agency neither denies nor confirms it.

Rain joined the military in October 2011 and is scheduled to be discharged in July.

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PASADENA, Calif. (AP) Thousands of people in Southern California are lining the route of the 124th Rose Parade in Pasadena.

The die-hards staked out their spots early Monday with folding chairs, hammocks and portable barbeque grills. They brought in the new year by throwing marshmallows, shaving cream and tortillas, and then hunkered down to stay warm in sleeping bags.

The parade features floats covered with flowers and plant material and marching bands from across the country. It will be broadcasts around the world.

College student Brandy Grueter (GROO'-ter) spent the night on the sidewalk with her younger brother and saved spots for about 20 friends and family. She says she slept 20 minutes but would rally enough energy once the parade started.

The pre-dawn line at a Starbuck's stretched around the block.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) Gov. Tom Corbett scheduled a news conference for Wednesday to announce the filing of a federal lawsuit against the NCAA over stiff sanctions imposed against Penn State in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

The news conference announcing the filing in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg was set to be held at the university's State College campus.

A person associated with the university and knowledgeable about the matter told The Associated Press that it is an antitrust action. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the lawsuit hasn't been filed.

The university agreed in July to the sanctions, which included a $60 million fine that would be used nationally to finance child abuse prevention grants. The sanctions also included a four-year bowl game ban for the university's marquee football program, reduced football scholarships and the forfeiture of 112 wins but didn't include a suspension of the football program, the so-called death penalty.

In announcing the news conference, Corbett, a Republican, did not indicate whether his office coordinated its legal strategy with state Attorney General-elect Kathleen Kane, who is scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 15.

Kane, a Democrat, ran on a vow to investigate why it took state prosecutors nearly three years to charge Sandusky, an assistant under legendary football coach Joe Paterno. Corbett was the attorney general when that office took over the case in early 2009 and until he became governor in January 2011.

State and congressional lawmakers from Pennsylvania have objected to using the Penn State fine to finance activities in other states. Penn State has already made the first $12 million payment, and an NCAA task force is deciding how it should be spent.

The NCAA, which declined to comment Tuesday on the planned lawsuit, has said at least a quarter of the money would be spent in Pennsylvania.

Republican U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent called that an "unacceptable and unsatisfactory" response by the NCAA to a request from the state's U.S. House delegation that the whole $60 million be distributed to causes within the state.

Last week, state Sen. Jake Corman, a Republican whose district includes Penn State's main campus, said he plans to seek court action barring any of the first $12 million from being released to groups outside the state.

Sandusky, 68, was convicted in June on charges he sexually abused 10 boys, some on Penn State's campus. He's serving a 30- to 60-year state prison term.

Eight young men testified against him, describing a range of abuse they said went from grooming and manipulation to fondling, oral sex and anal rape when they were boys.

Sandusky did not testify at his trial but has maintained his innocence, acknowledging he showered with boys but insisting he never molested them.

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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Venezuela's vice president is returning home Wednesday from a visit with Hugo Chavez in Cuba and says the ailing president's condition remains "delicate" three weeks after his cancer surgery.

With rumors swirling that Chavez had taken a turn for the worse, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday that he had met with the president twice and had spoken with him.

"He's totally conscious of the complexity of his post-operative state and he expressly asked us ... to keep the nation informed always, always with the truth, as hard as it may be in certain circumstances," Maduro said in the prerecorded interview in Havana, which was broadcast Tuesday night by the Caracas-based television network Telesur.

Both supporters and opponents of Chavez have been on edge in the past week amid shifting signals from the government about the president's health. Chavez has not been seen or heard from since the Dec. 11 operation, and officials have reported a series of ups and downs in his recovery the most recent, on Sunday, announcing that he faced new complications from a respiratory infection.

Maduro did not provide any new details about Chavez's complications during Tuesday's interview. But he joined other Chavez allies in urging Venezuelans to ignore gossip, saying rumors were being spread due to "the hatred of the enemies of Venezuela."

He didn't refer to any rumors in particular, though one of them circulating online had described Chavez as being in a coma.

Maduro said Chavez faces "a complex and delicate situation." But Maduro also said that when he talked with the president and looked at his face, he seemed to have "the same strength as always."

"All the time we've been hoping for his positive evolution. Sometimes he has had light improvements, sometimes stationary situations," he said.

Maduro's remarks about the president came at the end of an interview in which he praised Venezuelan government programs at length, recalled the history of the Cuban revolution and touched on what he called the long-term strength of Chavez's socialist Bolivarian Revolution movement.

He mentioned that former Cuban President Fidel Castro had been in the hospital, and praised Cuba's government effusively. "Today we're together on a single path," Maduro said.

Critics in Venezuela sounded off on Twitter while the interview was aired, some saying Maduro sounded like a mouthpiece for the Cuban government. In their messages, many Chavez opponents criticized Maduro for the dearth of information he provided, accusing him of withholding key details about Chavez's condition.

Chavez's political opponents have complained that the government hasn't told the country nearly enough about his health, and have demanded it provide the country with a full medical report.

Even some of his supporters say they wished they knew more.

"We're distressed by El Comandante's health," said Francisca Fuentes, who was walking through a downtown square with her grandchildren Tuesday. "I think they aren't telling us the whole truth. It's time for them to speak clearly. It's like when you have a sick relative and the doctor lies to you every once in a while."

Chavez has been fighting an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer since June 2011. He has declined to reveal the precise location of the tumors that have been surgically removed. The president announced on Dec. 8, two month after winning re-election, that his cancer had come back despite previous surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

"There's nothing we can do except wait for the government to deign to say how he is really," said Daniel Jimenez, an opposition supporter who was in a square in an affluent Caracas neighborhood.

Jimenez and many other Venezuelans say it seems increasingly unlikely that Chavez can be sworn in as scheduled Jan. 10 for his new term. If he dies or is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution says a new election should be held within 30 days.

Before his operation, Chavez acknowledged he faced risks and designated Maduro as his successor, telling supporters they should vote for the vice president if a new presidential election was necessary.

Maduro didn't discuss the upcoming inauguration plans, saying only that he is hopeful Chavez will improve.

The vice president said that Chavez "has faced an illness with courage and dignity, and he's there fighting, fighting."

"Someone asked me yesterday by text message: How is the president? And I said, 'With giant strength,'" Maduro said. He recalled taking Chavez by the hand: "He squeezed me with gigantic strength as we talked."

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Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda contributed to this report.

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Ian James on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ianjamesap

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NEW YORK (AP) The Metropolitan Opera may have pretty much turned opening night over to the glamorous Anna Netrebko, but New Year's Eve belongs to a very different diva Joyce DiDonato.

Last year the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano headlined a starry lineup in the baroque pastiche "The Enchanted Island." On Monday night she brought a gala audience to its feet with a luminous performance in the title role of Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda."

Never before performed at the Met, this second opera in the composer's so-called "Three Queens" trilogy portrays the lethal conflict between Mary, deposed queen of Scotland, and Queen Elizabeth I of England.

From the moment she makes her entrance in the second scene, singing of her joy in strolling outside her prison in Fotheringay Castle, DiDonato rivets attention. She imbues every syllable with a concentrated eloquence that makes her compact voice seem larger than it is. She displays seemingly effortless command of coloratura embellishments throughout a wide vocal range. And she is equally impressive in fiery outbursts and in hushed, long-held phrases like the ones she spun out as she sang through the chorus in the final scene.

The opera's dramatic heart is a confrontation between the two queens that never took place in history but that figures in the Friedrich Schiller play on which the libretto is based. Mary at first abases herself in hope of winning a pardon; then, as Elizabeth hurls insults, her pride reasserts itself and she seals her doom by denouncing her rival as "figlia impura di Bolena" ("impure daughter of Anne Boleyn") and "vil bastarda" ("vile bastard").

DiDonato was impressive in this scene when she sang the role for the first time last spring in Houston, but her performance Monday night was even better more confident and more filled with vocal and dramatic shadings. There was a wonderful touch when, after she had spent her fury, she allowed herself a beatific smile, as if to convey: "There! I said it and I'm glad!"

Of course, it takes two to stage a confrontation, and DiDonato's partner at the Met is Elza van den Heever, a South African soprano making her debut. She has a voice that's impressive in many respects, with a large and vibrant upper register. But she tended to fade out in the lower part of her range, where much of Elizabeth's music lies.

More damagingly, she was victimized by a quirk of David McVicar's production that has Elizabeth lurching awkwardly about the stage for much of the evening, as if thrown off balance by John Macfarlane's elaborate period costumes. Perhaps this bizarre gait is intended to contrast with Mary's immaculate poise, but it mainly proves distracting.

The opening scene in Elizabeth's palace is garishly staged, with what look like red rafters hanging down from the ceiling and gratuitous acrobats in devil costumes, but once past this, matters improve. For the scene outside Fotheringay, Macfarlane fills the stage with spindly trees barren of leaves and provides a painted backdrop that evokes a cloudy landscape. The final tableau is also striking: Mary, shorn of her long hair and wearing a simple red dress, climbs a staircase with her back to the audience to meet her executioner and the chopping block.

Though the two queens dominate the opera, there are some other characters, and they are all in extremely good hands. Having the elegant tenor Matthew Polenzani take on the thankless role of the ineffectual Leicester is luxury casting indeed. Bass Matthew Rose is warmly sympathetic as Mary's confessor, Talbot; baritone Joshua Hopkins sings with robust tone as her nemesis, Cecil; and mezzo Maria Zifchak lends her customary strong support as Mary's attendant, Anna.

Maurizio Benini conducts a lithe and lively performance of the score, even if he can't quite disguise the fact that the second half of the opera is decidedly anti-climactic.

There are seven more performances, including a matinee on Saturday, Jan. 19, that will be broadcast live in HD to movie theaters around the world.

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian stocks hit a five-month high and the dollar fell as a last-minute deal ended the U.S. "fiscal cliff" crisis that threatened a U.S. recession and roiled world financial markets.

The U.S. Congress approved extending lower Bush-era tax rates to all but the nation's wealthiest households in a budget deal that stops automatic implementation of $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases.

The bill's passage in Congress allayed earlier concerns over complaints from a number of Republicans that spending cuts were still not adequately addressed.

The temporary reprieve that the deal offers the U.S. economy also sets up Wall Street for a strong start to trading which resumes later in the day.

Asian stock markets cheered the developments as a major risk for investors, namely a slump in global growth, appeared to have receded for now.

The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index of stocks jumped 1.8 percent. Chinese shares in Hong Kong jumped 3 percent as last month's rally spilled over into the new year.

"If the fog caused by the fiscal cliff disappears, there will probably be moves toward putting risk back on," said Satoshi Okagawa, senior global markets analyst for Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in Singapore.

In South Korea, where data showed manufacturing activity rose for the first time in seven months in December, the KOSPI index was up 1.6 percent while Australian shares rose to their highest level in 19 months.

Asian stocks outside Japan rose nearly 20 percent last year as a combination of improving economic data from China, easing worries about a euro zone blow-up, and global central bank easing that encouraged investors back into equity markets.

Sakthi Siva, Asia strategist for Credit Suisse, said in a note to clients that 2013 could see similar returns for Asian equities, given a solution to the fiscal crisis.

"As we move into 2013 we retain our bullish bias, and our theme is whether markets could catch up with earnings," said Siva, adding that markets in China and India could offer the most upside given the mismatch between index levels and earnings expectations.

OIL, EURO UP

Risky assets across the board got a lift with crude oil futures up 0.9 percent and copper futures in London jumping 1.7 percent.

The euro rose to $1.3261 against the U.S. dollar.

The safe-haven U.S. dollar edged lower, falling 0.4 percent against a basket of major currencies .

The Australian dollar, a currency that tends to benefit when optimism about the outlook for the global economy increases, rose to $1.0470.

The Japanese yen continued its slide as investors wagered the Bank of Japan would have to take ever-more aggressive easing steps to support the economy and satisfy the new government.

The yen fell to 87.17 against the dollar to its weakest level since July 2010.

The Japanese currency also dropped to depths not seen in more than four years against the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

(Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in SYDNEY and Masayuki Kitano in SINGAPORE; Editing by Eric Meijer)

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian stocks hit a five-month high and the dollar fell as a last-minute deal ended the U.S. "fiscal cliff" crisis that threatened a U.S. recession and roiled world financial markets.

The U.S. Congress approved a rare tax increase on Tuesday that will hit the nation's wealthiest households in a bipartisan budget deal that stops the world's largest economy from falling into recession.

Early on Tuesday the U.S. Senate passed a bill that aims to avoid the cliff's automatic implementation of $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases.

The bill's passage in Congress allayed earlier concerns over complaints from a number of Republicans that spending cuts were still not adequately addressed.

Asian stock markets cheered the developments as a major risk for investors, namely a slump in global growth, appeared to have receded for now.

The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index of stocks jumped 1.7 percent. Chinese shares in Hong Kong jumped 2.9 percent as last month's rally spilled over into the new year.

"If the fog caused by the fiscal cliff disappears, there will probably be moves toward putting risk back on," said Satoshi Okagawa, senior global markets analyst for Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in Singapore.

In South Korea, where data showed manufacturing activity rose for the first time in seven months in December, the KOSPI index was up 1.5 percent.

Asian stocks outside Japan rose nearly 20 percent last year as a combination of improving economic data from China, easing worries about a euro zone blow-up, and global central bank easing that encouraged investors back into equity markets.

Sakthi Siva, Asia strategist for Credit Suisse, said in a note to clients that 2013 could see similar returns for Asian equities, given a solution to the fiscal crisis.

"As we move into 2013 we retain our bullish bias, and our theme is whether markets could catch up with earnings," said Siva, adding that markets in China and India could offer the most upside given the mismatch between index levels and earnings expectations.

OIL, EURO UP

Risky assets across the board got a lift with crude oil futures up 0.8 percent and copper futures in London jumping 1.7 percent.

The euro rose to $1.3267 against the U.S. dollar.

The safe-haven U.S. dollar edged lower, falling 0.4 percent against a basket of major currencies .

The Australian dollar, a currency that tends to benefit when optimism about the outlook for the global economy increases, rose to $1.0470.

The Japanese yen continued its slide as investors wagered the Bank of Japan would have to take ever-more aggressive easing steps to support the economy and satisfy the new government.

The yen fell to 87.17 against the dollar to its weakest level since July 2010.

The Japanese currency also dropped to depths not seen in more than four years against the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

(Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in SYDNEY and Masayuki Kitano in SINGAPORE; Editing by Eric Meijer)

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SEOUL (Reuters) - LG Electronics Inc started taking orders on Wednesday for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) televisions, hoping to take the initiative over its rival Samsung in the next-generation technology.

LG and Samsung showcased 55-inch OLED TVs a year ago but, priced five times higher than liquid-crystal display (LCD) equivalents, they have yet to reach store shelves.

The technology is considered the future of consumer electronics displays and promises to change the way people use TVs, computers, tablets and smartphones.

OLED is more energy efficient and offers higher contrast images than LCD. It is so thin that future mobile devices will be unbreakable and will be able to be folded or rolled like paper.

LG, the world's No.2 TV manufacturer, said it would start delivery of the new TVs from early February, with plans to display them at 1,400 retail outlets in South Korea.

They would be launched in the U.S., Europe and other Asian markets during the first quarter of 2013.

The 55-inch model would sell for 1.1 million won ($1,000)-- nearly four times that of LG's LED-backlit LCD model and around five times that of more common LCD versions.

OLED displays are already used on Samsung's popular Galaxy S and Note smartphones.

But OLED panel makers such as LG Display and Samsung Display have yet to address manufacturing challenges to lower costs to compete against LCD panels. ($1 = 1070.5750 Korean won) (Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Stephen Coates and Paul Tait)

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NEW YORK (AP) Hundreds of hardy swimmers rang in 2013 with a plunge into the icy sea off Brooklyn's Coney Island, an area struggling to recover from Superstorm Sandy.

Members of the Ice Breakers and the Coney Island Polar Bear clubs and other brave bathers stripped down to their trunks or dressed in costumes for the annual New Year's Day splash.

Some people hit the surf dressed only in bikinis or briefs. One woman dressed as a mermaid. Another swimmer wore a hat with horns. Temperatures outside were in the 30s, and people screamed at the shock of the cold water.

This year, Polar Bear club members and others were raising money for Sandy relief efforts. The area was badly flooded by the late October storm.

The Ice Breakers try to raise awareness of water pollution.

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