Rusty rocks reveal ancient origin of photosynthesis

SUN-WORSHIP began even earlier than we thought. The world's oldest sedimentary rocks suggest an early form of photosynthesis may have evolved almost 3.8 billion years ago, not long after life appeared on Earth.

A hallmark of photosynthesis in plants is that the process splits water and produces oxygen gas. But some groups of bacteria oxidise substances like iron instead – a form of photosynthesis that doesn't generate oxygen. Evolutionary biologists think these non-oxygen-generating forms of photosynthesis evolved first, giving rise to oxygen-generating photosynthesis sometime before the Earth's atmosphere gained oxygen 2.4 billion years ago (New Scientist, 8 December 2012, p 12).

But when did non-oxygen-generating photosynthesis evolve? Fossilised microbial mats that formed in shallow water 3.4 billion years ago in what is now South Africa show the chemical fingerprints of the process. However, geologists have long wondered whether even earlier evidence exists.

The world's oldest sedimentary rocks – a class of rock that can preserve evidence of life – are a logical place to look, says Andrew Czaja of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. These rocks, which are found in Greenland and date back almost 3.8 billion years, contain vast deposits of iron oxide that are a puzzle. "What could have formed these giant masses of oxidised iron?" asks Czaja.

To investigate, he analysed the isotopic composition of samples taken from the oxidised iron. He found that some isotopes of iron were more common than they would be if oxygen gas was indiscriminately oxidising the metal. Moreover, the exact isotopic balance varied subtly from point to point in the rock.

Both findings make sense if photosynthetic bacteria were responsible for the iron oxide, says Czaja. That's because these microbes preferentially oxidise only a small fraction of the dissolved iron, and the iron isotopes they prefer vary slightly as environmental conditions change (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, doi.org/kh5). His findings suggest that this form of photosynthesis appeared about 370 million years earlier than we thought.

It is "the best current working hypothesis for the origin of these deposits", says Mike Tice of Texas A&M University in College Station – one of the team who analysed the 3.4-billion-year-old microbial mats from South Africa.

William Martin at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, agrees. "Anoxygenic photosynthesis is a good candidate for the isotope evidence they see," he says. "Had these fascinating results been collected on Mars, the verdict of the jury would surely remain open," says Martin Brasier at the University of Oxford. "But [on Earth] opinion seems to be swinging in the direction of non-oxygen-generating photosynthesis during the interval from 3.8 to 2.9 billion years ago."

This article appeared in print under the headline "Photosynthesis has truly ancient origins"

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US budget cuts can be avoided: Obama

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama insisted Friday that mandatory government budget cuts set to kick in on March 1 -- known as the sequester -- were not "inevitable."

The cuts to defence and domestic spending were mandated in an agreement between Obama and his Republican foes to end a previous budget battle.

"I never think that anything is inevitable, we always have the opportunity to make the right decisions," Obama told reporters following a White House meeting with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"Hope springs eternal."

The consequences of the threatened sequester were supposed to be so punishing that Democrats and Republicans would have no choice but to reach a deal to reduce the deficit.

Obama also attempted to reassure financial markets in case the cuts do go forward.

"Unlike issues like the debt ceiling, the sequester going into effect will not threaten the world financial system, it's not the equivalent of the US defaulting on its obligations," Obama said.

"What it does mean though is that if the US is growing slower, other countries are growing slower."

Obama wants to use a "balanced" mix of spending cuts and tax revenue increases achieved by closing loopholes used by the wealthy to cut the US deficit, and says he will not sign a bill that harms the middle class.

Republicans, who lost a previous showdown with Obama over raising tax rates for the rich, say the debate over hiking taxes is closed.

They say they are willing to close loopholes, but only in the context of a sweeping reform of the tax code, and maintain that Obama wants to use proceeds from any immediate revenue rises for more bloated government spending.

Hundreds of thousands of public employees and private contractors are threatened by the cuts.

- AFP/jc

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NYPD creates special team to recover stolen Apple devices

Smartphones are so common now that it's easy to forget criminals will steal them, if you give them the opportunity.

Apple device thefts in New York got so bad that the NYPD created a dedicated team to recovering stolen iDevices, the New York Post reported today.

The team works with Apple to obtain ID numbers -- known as an International Mobile Station Equipment Identity number -- for devices and track down the stolen goods.

The number of thefts in the city soared last year, according to a report from NYPD. The department found that iPhone and
iPad thefts rose 40 percent from a period of eight months. As of September, 11,447 cases were reported.

These numbers for "Apple picking" will continue to rise as smartphones and
tablets become ubiquitous with most day-to-day activities. Using apps on phones and tablets to check for news updates, weather reports, etc., are common for bustling metropolises like New York City, and elsewhere.

A Wall Street Journal reporter chronicled his own experience with an iPad theft on the subway that left him with a broken jaw. In Tech-savvy San Francisco one theft lead to a police foot chase and shots fired.

Consumers should take the proper precautions in case they loose their phones to the black market, where phones can fetch hundreds of dollars. Securing your phone with a good passcode and signing up for services like Apple's Find My iPhone service could offer piece of mind.

Thieves like to target those who are preoccupied with their phones, opting to grab the devices from owners' hands and then bolt. If you do end up a victim, police say it's best not to try and stop the criminals. Here is the NYPD's PSA alerting people to some common iDevice theft situations:

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Space Pictures This Week: Space Rose, Ghostly Horses

• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Space Rose

  Image courtesy T.A. Rector and H. Schweiker, UAA/WIYN/NOAO/NSF

  Planetary nebula Sh2-174 "blooms" like a rose in a picture released this week by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO).

  Nebulae are created when low-mass stars shed their outer layers at the end of their lives. The core of the dying star, called a white dwarf, usually remains at the center of the nebula.

  But not so for the oddly positioned Sh2-174: Its white dwarf is located in the right part of the nebula, in the blue gas pictured above. (See more nebula pictures.)

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Universal Delivery

  Photograph courtesy NASA

  An unpiloted resupply vehicle snapped this picture as it approached the International Space Station this week.

  The vehicle provided the 34 crew members on board with essential supplies, including oxygen, water, spare parts, even logistics equipment—2.9 tons of supplies in all. (See pictures of early U.S. spaceflight.)

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Everglades of Europe

  Image courtesy Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, EO-1/NASA/USGS

  The Danube cuts a jade path across part of the Danube Biosphere Reserve in the Ukraine on its way to the Black Sea in an image captured February 5 by NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite.

  Europe's largest river, the Danube spans 309,447 square miles (801,463 square kilometers) and winds its way through 19 countries.

  Called the "Everglades of Europe," the Danube delta is home to more than 300 species of birds and 45 species of fish, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. (See more river pictures.)

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Bird's-Eye View

  Image by Maurizio Cabibbo, My Shot

  Photographer Maurizio Cabibbo submitted this picture of the chaotic center of the Cygnus, or Swan, constellation on February 11 to the National Geographic photo community My Shot.

  Resembling a swan flying across the night sky, Cygnus is easily seen in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, according to NASA.

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Spirit Horses

  Photograph by Andre Erlich, Your Shot

  An aurora casts a ghostly glow over horses in northern Iceland in a picture submitted to National Geographic's My Shot photography community on February 18.

  Named after Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, the vivid beams of light from aurora borealis result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere. (See more aurora pictures: "Solar Flare Sparks 'Snakes,' 'Spears.'")

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Image courtesy SDO/NASA

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  

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Great Energy Challenge Blog

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Jodi Arias' Friends Believe in Her Innocence

Accused murderer Jodi Arias believes she should be punished, but hopes she will not be sentenced to death, two of her closest friends told ABC News in an exclusive interview.

Ann Campbell and Donavan Bering have been a constant presence for Arias wth at least one of them sitting in the Phoenix, Ariz., courtroom along with Arias' family for almost every day of her murder trial. They befriended Arias after she first arrived in jail and believe in her innocence.

Arias admits killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander and lying for nearly two years about it, but insists she killed Alexander in self defense. She could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Jodi Arias Testimony: Prosecution's Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Remains Calm Under Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Doesn't Remember Stabbing Ex-Boyfriend Watch Video

Nevertheless, she is aware of the seriousness of her lies and deceitful behavior.

The women told ABC News that they understand that Arias needs to be punished and Arias understands that too.

"She does know that, you know, she does need to pay for the crime," Campbell said. "But I don't want her to die, and I know that she has so much to give back."

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

The lies that Arias admits she told to police and her family have been devastating to her, Bering said.

""She said to me, 'I wish I didn't have to have lied. That destroyed me,'" Donovan said earlier this week. "Because now when it's so important for her to be believed, she has that doubt. But as she told me on the phone yesterday, she goes, 'I have nothing to lose.' So all she can do is go out there and tell the truth."

During Arias' nine days on the stand she has described in detail the oral, anal and phone sex that she and Alexander allegedly engaged in, despite being Mormons and trying to practice chastity. She also spelled out in excruciating detail what she claimed was Alexander's growing demands for sex, loyalty and subservience along with an increasingly violent temper.

Besides her two friends, Arias' mother and sometimes her father have been sitting in the front row of the courtroom during the testimony. It's been humiliating, Bering said.

"She's horrified. There's not one ounce of her life that's not out there, that's not open to the public. She's ashamed," she said.

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Mood-sensing smartphone tells your shrink how you feel

PEOPLE with anxiety, depression or stress are often asked to record their mood changes throughout the day, helping psychologists fine-tune their treatment. But they often forget, recording only sparse information at best. Now an emotion-sensing smartphone app that automatically generates someone's "mood diary" could give psychologists all the data they need.

It's the brainchild of Matt Dobson and Duncan Barclay, founders of speech recognition firm EI Technologies, based in Saffron Walden, UK. Instead of relying on people writing diaries, the app, called Xpression, listens for telltale changes in a person's voice that indicate whether they are in one of five emotional states: calm, happy, sad, angry or anxious/frightened. It then lists a person's moods against the times they change, and automatically emails the list to their psychologist at the end of the day.

To work, the app has to be always on, listening out for the user's voice once every second, whether they are talking to family, friends, colleagues or even pets. It also listens in on phone calls. If the user is silent, the app does nothing. Crucially for the users' privacy, it doesn't record their words, instead seeking out telltale acoustic features – like pitch – that are indicative of emotional state.

This kind of emotion recognition via voice pattern already works well and is a "hot area" of research, says Stephen Cox, head of the speech processing lab at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who is scientific adviser for the firm.

Initially, Xpression will send 200-millisecond-long acoustic snapshots to a remote server where a machine-learning system will work out a person's emotional state before sending it back to the app for storage. Factors like voice loudness, intensity, changes in pitch and speaking pace allow the system to accurately estimate somebody's emotional state. "We extract acoustic features and let the machine-learning system work it out," says Cox. This ability will be built into the app itself eventually, says Dobson.

There's a strong need for this kind of technology, says Adrian Skinner, a clinical psychologist with the UK's National Health Service in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. "With conditions like depression, people tend to stop doing things like filling in mood diaries. If this app gives us more complete diaries it could help us better find the day-to-day triggers that raise or lower a patient's mood," he says.

The firm is a finalist in a UK government competition to identify the nation's top mobile tech company, to be judged on 26 February. An insurance company has already expressed an interest in using the app to ensure the workplace stress therapy it pays for is effective. Clinical trials are due to take place later this year.

This article appeared in print under the headline "We know how you really feel"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Non-American or European Pope is good, poll finds

WASHINGTON: More than half of Catholics in the United States think it would be a good thing for the next pope to come from South America, Asia or Africa, a Pew Research Center poll said Thursday.

Another 20 per cent said it would not matter if Pope Benedict XVI's successor hails from a developing region of the world, while just 14 per cent thought it was a bad idea.

Pew's Forum on Religion and Public Life interviewed 1,504 Americans of all faiths, including 304 Catholics, shortly after the German-born pontiff's resignation announcement was made on February 11.

Fifty-one per cent of Catholic respondents said the next pope should "maintain the traditional positions of the Church."

Of those who thought he should take the Church in new directions, 15 per cent said he should get tougher on sex abuse and nine percent thought he should be more accepting of gays and marriage equality.

Just one percent believed he should be less strict about abortion.

Nearly one in four Americans are Catholics, making the Church the largest single denomination in the country -- and the United States the developed nation with the largest Catholic population.

- AFP/sf

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U.S. attorney: Criticism of Aaron Swartz prosecution is 'unfair'

Carmen Ortiz, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts

(Credit:
U.S. Department of Justice)

Carmen Ortiz, the embattled U.S. attorney who charged the late activist Aaron Swartz with multiple felonies, has responded to critics by saying complaints about any prosecutorial overzealousness are "inaccurate" and "unfair."

Ortiz, 57, said in a radio interview that a wave of criticism -- which includes a congressional investigation, a court Web site hack, and a petition demanding her removal from office -- is off-base and uninformed.

"I have heard some of the claims in terms of being overzealous, or lack of supervision" of prosecutors in the office, Ortiz, who was appointed by President Obama and has previously denied any wrongdoing, told Boston's WBUR radio in an interview aired yesterday. "And I think they're actually very inaccurate. They're unfair. And they're unwarranted."

WBUR and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly published a joint report into Ortiz's tenure that found "other prosecutions that parallel the Swartz case" that may "raise similar concerns about her hands-off leadership style, overzealousness, judgment and use of discretion at the grand jury and trial levels." In one case Ortiz's office brought, a federal judge threw out the charges against a defendant after declaring prosecutors' witnesses were so unbelievable that no jury would find them credible. In another, prosecutors accused a medical device company of defrauding surgeons but never talked to the alleged victims, who were prepared to testify for the defense.

"With respect to this notion that prosecutors pretty much run things here and that I don't make independent decisions -- that's completely absurd," Ortiz told WBUR. "We have a hierarchy of supervision. No AUSA in this office is able to bring a case, uh, just on their own." (An AUSA is an assistant U.S. attorney who reports to Ortiz.)

Swartz committed suicide on January 11 in New York. His family and friends have blamed Ortiz for filing 13 felony charges against the late activist for allegedly downloading academic journals he was authorized to access (but not access in such large quantities). "He was killed by the government," Swartz's father, Robert, said at his son's funeral.

Prosecutors accused Swartz of connecting a computer to MIT's network without authorization and retrieving more than 4 million academic journal articles from the JSTOR database. The advocacy group Demand Progress, which Swartz had helped create and which helped defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act a year ago, likened it to "trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library."

At the time the charges were filed, Ortiz compared Swartz to a common criminal in a press release. "Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar," Ortiz said. Last month, less than three months before his criminal trial was set to begin, Ortiz's office formally rejected a deal that would have kept Swartz out of prison. Two days later, Swartz killed himself.

If Swartz had stolen a $100 hard drive with the JSTOR articles, it would have been a misdemeanor offense that would have yielded probation or community service. But the sweeping nature of federal computer crime laws allowed Ortiz and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann, who reportedly wanted a high-profile computer crime conviction, to pursue felony charges -- even though local prosecutors reportedly were content with a stern warning.

The Boston U.S. Attorney's office was looking for "some juicy-looking computer crime cases, and Aaron's case, sadly for Aaron, fit the bill," Elliot Peters, Swartz's attorney at the Keker & Van Nest law firm, told the Huffington Post. Heymann, Peters said, thought the Swartz case "was going to receive press and he was going to be a tough guy and read his name in the newspaper."

Harvard law professor Larry Lessig, who knew Swartz and worked with him, gave a lecture this week titled "Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age." In it, Lessig called for a reform of U.S. computer crime laws, saying that "obviously first we need to fix" them, but also: "We have to fix dumb copyright. We're here in part because of dumb copyright laws."

In the WBUR interview, Ortiz said she didn't want to discuss Swartz's case in detail because of the congressional investigation. But she did say, in response to criticisms that Swartz was facing the possibility of decades in prison: "I will talk to you about proportion because that is important. We don't take our responsibility lightly. We try to, you know, do the right thing. We strive to do justice."

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Oldest Known Wild Bird Hatches Chick at 62

Wisdom, the oldest known wild bird, has yet another feather in her cap—a new chick.

The Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis)—62 years old at least—recently hatched a healthy baby in the U.S. Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, her sixth in a row and possibly the 35th of her lifetime, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) North American Bird Banding Program. (Related: "51-Year-Old Albatross Breaks N. American Age Record [2003].")

But Wisdom's longevity would be unknown if it weren't for a longtime bird-banding project founded by USGS research wildlife biologist Chandler Robbins.

Now 94, Robbins was the first scientist to band Wisdom in 1956, who at the time was "just another nesting bird," he said. Over the next ten years, Robbins banded tens of thousands of black-footed albatrosses (Phoebastria nigripes) and Laysan albatrosses as part of a project to study the behavior of the large seabirds, which at the time were colliding with U.S. Navy aircraft.

Robbins didn't return to the tiny Pacific island—now part of the U.S. Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument—until 2002, when he "recaptured as many birds as I could in hopes that some of them would be the old-timers."

Indeed, Robbins did recapture Wisdom—but he didn't know it until he got back to his office at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland, and checked her band number in the database.

"That was real exciting, because we didn't think the chances of finding one that old would be that good," Robbins said Wednesday in an interview from his office at the Patuxent center, where he still works.

Chandler Robbins counts birds in Maryland's Patuxent Research Refuge.

Photograph by David H. Wells, Corbis

Albatrosses No Bird Brains

Bigger birds such as the albatross generally live longer than smaller ones: The oldest bird in the Guinness Book of Animal Records, a Siberian white crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus), lived an unconfirmed 82 years. Captive parrots are known to live into their 80s. (See National Geographic's bird pictures.)

The Laysan albatross spends most of the year at sea, nesting on the Midway Atoll (map) in the colder months. Birds start nesting around five years of age, which is how scientists knew that Wisdom was at least five years old in 1956.

Because albatrosses defend their nests, banding them doesn't require a net or a trap as in the case of other bird species, Robbins said—but they're far from tame.

"They've got a long, sharp bill and long, sharp claws—they could do a job on you if you're not careful how to handle them," said Robbins, who estimates he's banded a hundred thousand birds.

For instance, "when you're not looking, the black-footed albatross will sneak up from behind and bite you in the seat of the pants."

But Robbins has a fondness for albatrosses, and Wisdom in particular, especially considering the new dangers that these birds face.

Navy planes are no longer a problem—albatross nesting dunes were moved farther from the runway—but the birds can ingest floating bits of plastic that now inundate parts of the Pacific, get hooked in longlines meant for fish, and be poisoned by lead paint that's still on some of Midway Atoll's buildings. (Also see "Birds in 'Big Trouble' Due to Drugs, Fishing, More.")

That Wisdom survived so many years avoiding all those hazards and is still raising young is quite extraordinary, Robbins said.

"Those birds have a tremendous amount of knowledge in their little skulls."

"Simply Incredible"

Wisdom's accomplishments have caught the attention of other scientists, in particular Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer in Residence, who said by email that Wisdom is a "symbol of hope for the ocean." (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

Earle visited Wisdom at her nest in January 2012, where she "appeared serenely indifferent to our presence," Earle wrote in the fall 2012 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review.

"I marveled at the perils she had survived during six decades, including the first ten or so years before she found a lifetime mate. She learned to fly and navigate over thousands of miles to secure enough small fish and squid to sustain herself, and every other year or so, find her way back to the tiny island and small patch of grass where a voraciously hungry chick waited for special delivery meals."

Indeed, Wisdom has logged an estimated two to three million miles since 1956—or four to six trips from Earth to the moon and back, according to the USGS. (Related: "Albatross's Effortless Flight Decoded—May Influence Future Planes.")

Bruce Peterjohn, chief of the North American Bird Banding Program, called Wisdom's story "simply incredible."

"If she were human, she would be eligible for Medicare in a couple years—yet she is still regularly raising young and annually circumnavigating the Pacific Ocean," he said in a statement.

Bird's-Eye View

As for Robbins, he said he'd "love to get out to Midway again." But in the meantime, he's busy going through thousands of bird records in an effort to trace their life histories.

There's much more to learn: For instance, no one has ever succeeded in putting a radio transmitter on an albatross to follow it throughout its entire life-span, Robbins noted.

"It would be [an] exciting project for someone to undertake, but I'm 94 years old," he said, chuckling. "It wouldn't do much for me to start a project at my age."

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Las Vegas Shooting Launches Multi-State Manhunt

An argument in the valet area of a Las Vegas hotel led to a deadly drive-by shooting on the occupants of a Maserati on Vegas' glitzy strip, initiating a multi-state manhunt for the black Range Rover from which the shots were fired.

Three people were left dead in the attack, including two who died when their taxi was struck by the careening sports car and exploded into flames.

"What happened is not just tragic, but underscores the level of violence we see sometimes here in Las Vegas as well as across America," Las Vegas Metropolitan Sheriff Doug Gillespie said at a news conference today. "Clearly, the suspects in this shooting have no regard for the lives and safety of others."

The altercation took place in the valet area of the Aria resort and casino. Gillespie said there is currently "no indication" what the squabble was about.

Gillespie said that authorities do not know how many people are in the SUV, but that they are considered armed and dangerous. He warned members of the public to stay away from it.

"You should not take action," he said. "Instead, call your local police department and alert them to the whereabouts of the suspect vehicle."

Authorities in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California are all on alert for the car.

"These individuals will be found," Gillespie said. "They will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun/AP Photo

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Dallas Courthouse Shooting Manhunt Intensify Watch Video

The Range Rover SUV shot at two people in the Maserati, which caused a multi-car crash. Police have not released the model of the Maserati, but the price of a new Maserati ranges from $123,000 to $142,000.

Police said that they believe a group of men riding in a black Range Rover Sport SUV pulled up alongside the Maserati around 4:20 a.m. today and fired shots into the car, striking the driver and passenger, according to Officer Jose Hernandez of the Las Vegas Metropolitan police department.

The Maserati then swerved through an intersection, hitting at least four other cars. One car that was struck, a taxi with a driver and passenger in it, caught on fire and burst into flames, trapping both occupants, Hernandez said.

The SUV then fled the scene, according to cops.

Gillespie said investigators are in the process of gathering video footage from hotels, casinos and the taxi cabs that were at the intersection.

The driver of the Maserati died from his gunshot wounds at University Medical Center shortly after the shooting, according to Sgt. John Sheahan.

The driver and passenger of the taxi both died in the car fire.

At least three individuals, including the passenger of the Maserati, were injured during the shooting and car crashes and taken to UMC hospital for treatment.

Authorities said the Maserati passenger, identified only as a man, sustained only a minor injury to his arm. He is speaking to and cooperating with police.

They do not yet know whether the cars had local plates or were from out of state.

No bystanders were hit by gunfire, Hernandez said.

"We're currently looking for a black Range Rover Sport, with large black rims and some sort of dealership advertising or advertisement plates," Hernandez said. "This is an armed and dangerous vehicle."

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority had no immediate comment about the safety of tourists in the wake of the shooting today.

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