Afghans seek policewoman's motive for killing U.S. contractor

IRANIAN PASSPORT

It appeared to be the first time that a female member of Afghanistan's security forces had carried out such an attack.

Virginia-based DynCorp International described the killing of its employee, police mentor Joseph Griffin, 49, as a tragedy.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said she had obtained an Afghan national identity card when she married her husband, an Afghan who works in the ministry's criminal investigation department.

The officials said the woman named as Narges seemed wracked with remorse over the shooting. They said she held an Iranian passport but offered no evidence that Iran may have orchestrated the attack.

Authorities were examining her phone records on Tuesday. At a press conference, Interior Ministry officials presented what they said was her Iranian passport, which identified her as Narges Rezaeimomenabad.

At least 52 members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have been killed this year by Afghans wearing police or army uniforms, in so-called insider attacks.

"This was a very organized shooting," said the top police official. "There must have been bigger hands involved... At this stage, we can only say that she could have been brainwashed either by the Taliban or al Qaeda."

"The loss of any team member is tragic but to have this happen over the holidays makes it seem all the more unfair," the company said on its website.

"She is in a terrible condition now and crying, sighing deeply and asking herself why she did it," said the top police official. "She keeps saying 'shoot me dead'."

"She is a religious person with a clean background. That's why we didn't have surveillance on her," said the top police official. "It's very difficult to have surveillance on thousands of people in the police force to see who is doing what."

There had been no indication that Narges posed any threat during her six years on the job and officials had believed she was dedicated to improving security in her troubled country.

They invested in the mother of three, sending her on a law enforcement training course in Egypt and giving her responsibility for promoting women's rights in the police force, senior police officials told Reuters.

Afghans seek policewoman's motive for killing U.S. contractor

KABUL (Reuters) - An Iranian-Afghan policewoman who killed a U.S. contractor at the police headquarters in Kabul may have been motivated by a personal grudge, said security officials, who were also probing possible Taliban or al Qaeda involvement.

Also known as green-on-blue attacks, the incidents have undermined trust between coalition and Afghan forces who are under mounting pressure to contain the Taliban insurgency before most NATO combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

"After she shot the American, she pointed her pistol to other policemen who rushed to arrest her. But her weapon jammed," one top police official told Reuters. "Her prime target could have been senior officials in the compound."

She arrived at police headquarters on Monday morning and headed to a bathroom where she loaded a pistol and hid it under her long scarf, they said. She then approached the American police trainer as he was walking to a canteen and shot him in the ribs.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Miriam Arghandiwal; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

Newly released documents show disgraced entertainer Jimmy Savile's fri

"It's common knowledge that Jimmy Savile with his fundraising had this sort of status as a hero, albeit an eccentric hero, for quite a long time," Dunton said.

LONDON - Classified documents being made public Friday detail how now-disgraced BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile was comfortable at the heart of the British government during his heyday in the 1980s, lunching with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at her country home, sending her jokey thank-you notes and lobbying for tax breaks and contributions for his charitable works.

The Savile letter to Thatcher is fawning: "I waited a week before writing to thank you for my lunch invitation because I had such a superb time I didn't want to be too effusive," he begins.

The papers include an unnerving handwritten note from Savile to Thatcher in which he claims that his "girl patients" are pretending to be jealous because of the time he spent dining with the prime minister.

Only with hindsight does the note seem in dubious taste. In recent months Savile — who died last year at age 84 — has been accused of being a serial abuser of hundreds of underage girls. Investigators have called him one of the worst sex offenders in British history and said he used his TV stardom and charity commitments to help him gain access to vulnerable teens.

The platinum-haired, garishly-dressed Savile received a knighthood from Thatcher's government and other honours. He was rumoured to be involved with child sex abuse, but was never charged with any crimes.

Savile's goals were serious. He was trying to persuade the prime minister to lessen the amount of time required before a charity could receive tax exempt status, and also lobbying Thatcher to make a governmental contribution to one of his favourite projects — the rebuilding of a spinal injuries unit at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

The staff also asks if Thatcher had agreed to appear on Savile's show, "Jim'll Fix It." She answers with a handwritten "No."

A 1981 Department of Health and Social Security memo suggests that a governmental contribution to the enterprise might be a good idea because the Savile money-raising appeal "has attracted the enthusiasm of people from all walks of life."

The National Archives file detailing some of Savile's dealings with the Thatcher government show not only his extraordinary access to the highest levels of government but also that Cabinet ministers took his role as a charity advocate seriously and discussed how best to deal with his requests. The file includes an April 14, 1980 letter from Thatcher to Savile that begins with the greeting, "Dear Jimmy." In it she discusses plans to change tax rules in a way that will give "considerable encouragement" to charities.

Mark Dunton, contemporary history specialist at the National Archives, said the file shows Savile enjoyed an open line of communication, and seemingly friendly relations, with Thatcher and other top officials who seem "obviously oblivious" to any issues surrounding Savile's personal behaviour.

Newly released documents show disgraced entertainer Jimmy Savile's fri

In notes to Thatcher, her staff asks the prime minister to clarify any personal commitments she might have made to Savile when he visited her country residence.

Police union seeks more help for Newtown officers

A gunman shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14 and slaughtered 20 first-graders and six educators. The gunman, who had also killed his mother that morning, committed suicide as police arrived.

Police union seeks more help for Newtown officers
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A spokesman for Newtown police, Lt. George Sinko, said the officers are generally holding up well.

"A couple of them are taking it harder than some of the other ones," he said. "The things that the officers had to experience underscores the need to support them in every way possible."

Brown said outside agencies have been meeting demands for counseling services, but it will be important to ensure support is in place over the long term. The officers who are not working also could use up available sick time by early January, he said.

The union, Council 15 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is seeking more generous assistance in talks with the town's insurer. It is also reaching out to lawmakers and the governor's office with proposals to modify state law and expand workers' compensation benefits for officers who witness horrific crime scenes.

Officials with the town's insurer, the Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Concerns about the potential cost to cities and towns have been an obstacle, but the issue is likely to resurface in the next legislation session, said state Rep. Stephen Dargan, a West Haven Democrat who is co-chairman of the legislature's public safety committee.

Authorities say the victims were shot with a high-powered, military-style rifle loaded with ammunition designed to inflict maximum damage. All the victims had been shot at least twice, the medical examiner said, and as many as 11 times. Two victims were pronounced dead at a hospital, while all others died in the school.

"The insurer for the town has taken a position that these officers are entitled to only what the statute allows. Unfortunately for these officers, the statute doesn't allow any benefits," said Eric Brown, an attorney for the union, which represents nearly 4,000 officers around Connecticut.

Brown said that the number of officers "critically affected" by the tragedy is below 15 and that a small number of them are not currently working.

"The emotional loads they're carrying far exceed anything they could imagine," Brown said.

Firefighters who responded to the scene at Sandy Hook also have described struggling with feelings of frustration and anguish, but said they were grateful they were spared from witnessing the scene that greeted police inside the school.

In the past, advocates have pushed to change the statutes on workers' compensation, which currently include provisions for officers who suffer mental impairment as the result of using or being subjected to deadly force — but not for those who witness crime scenes with mass casualties.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Some of the police officers who responded to the school shooting in Newtown are so traumatized they haven't been working, but they have to use sick time and could soon be at risk of going without a paycheck, a union official said Wednesday.

"We don't want it to be used in an abusive way, but the circumstances are so horrific in Newtown. We need to protect those first responders and give them all the help we can give them," he said.

Expansive memorials throughout the small New England town have become gathering points for residents and visitors alike. A steady stream of well-wishers have taken pictures, dropped off toys and fought back tears at a huge sidewalk memorial in the center of Newtown's Sandy Hook section that is filled with stuffed animals, poems, flowers, posters and cards.

Police continue to block the road…

Police have yet to offer a possible motive for gunman Adam Lanza's rampage.

Newtown officials plan to convert into a memorial the countless mementos paying tribute to the schoolhouse victims. Thousands of flowers, letters, signs, photos, candles, teddy bears and other items at sites around town will be turned into soil and blocks to be used in a memorial, The News Times in nearby Danbury reported.

Web-based info may not increase cancer screening

Perhaps following up with people to ask them about their experience on the website might improve their participation, he suggested.

Dr. Hamant Roy, director of gastroenterology research at NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston, Illinois, said one method that has been shown to be effective is simply having doctors spend time with their patients to talk about the cancer tests.

On the other hand, Weinberg said, "you might argue their participation in the study did manage to raise their interest level enough" to get screened.

"At the end of the day, something is better than nothing," he said, but compared to screening rates for breast cancer, the uptake for colorectal cancer screening was quite low.

"But one of the issues is they have to see more and more people with less and less time, so it gets really hard to have these discussions with patients," said Roy, who was not involved in the new study.

Roy called the numbers "dismal."

Only 24 percent had logged on, according to the researchers' records, and just 16 percent of the women remembered going to the website.

"It seems like the energy to get people over the hump to get colorectal screening is higher than simply passively going to a website. I think the website is maybe helpful, but there needs to be more help to get them over the edge," he said.

Not enough, however, to get most of the women to even access the website Weinberg's group had developed.

"It's disappointing that the web didn't have more effect," said Dr. David Weinberg of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, the report's lead author.

Included in the materials was information about the benefits of screening and harms of going unscreened, as well as background on the various types of colon cancer screen available: a stool test once a year, a sigmoidoscopy every five years or a colonoscopy every 10 years.

Among the women in the study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 73 percent had received a mammogram in the past year.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/VizaRR Archives of Internal Medicine, online December 17, 2012.

To see whether the web might provide an easily accessible and inexpensive alternative for getting people to comply with screening recommendations, Weinberg and his colleagues asked 865 women who were coming in for routine gynecology appointments to participate in the study.

Web-based info may not increase cancer screening

Although the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that adults between ages 50 and 75 get screened regularly for colorectal cancer, about 40 percent of people don't follow those guidelines.

To raise awareness of the recommendations and encourage people to go get screened, researchers have developed a variety of approaches, Weinberg said, including videos and printed materials. But none of these "have been tremendously successful," he added.

Weinberg still thinks there might be ways that the web could be helpful.

"I think that the web has great promise...the question is, how do you get people to look at it in the first place?" he said.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Offering women information on colon cancer screening via the web does not get them to take up screening any more effectively than printed materials, according to a new study.

All the women were eligible to get screened for colon cancer based on their age and health status.

Four months after the doctor visit, however, roughly 12 percent of the women - regardless of whether they received the extra information or not - had gotten a colon cancer screen.

Of those, 171 saw their doctor as normal, 349 also received printed materials about colon cancer screening at the time of their visit and 345 were offered access to a web site that contained the same information as the printed matter.

Roy agreed that it would be premature to toss out the web as a potential tool for increasing screening rates.

2 NY firefighters who survived gun ambush thankful

West Webster volunteer firefighters Joseph Hofstetter and Theodore Scardino, who had been in guarded condition, were being upgraded to satisfactory condition on Wednesday at Rochester's Strong Memorial Hospital, which released a statement from them saying they were "humbled and a bit overwhelmed by the outpouring of well wishes for us and our families."

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Federal authorities confirmed Wednesday they had traced the sale of the weapons, but they didn't release details.

Police Chief Gerald Pickering said investigators believe Spengler used the rifle to attack the firefighters because of the distance involved. He said police may never know Spengler's motive.

Investigators, meanwhile, traced the gunman's weapons and tried to confirm a body found in his destroyed house was his sister's.

Spengler spent 17 years in prison for beating his paternal grandmother to death with a hammer in 1980. He had been released from parole on the manslaughter conviction in 2006, and authorities said they had had no encounters with him since.

This undated image provided by…

Authorities said Spengler set a car on fire and touched off an "inferno" in his Webster home on a strip of land along the Lake Ontario shore, took up a sniper's position and opened fire on the first firefighters to arrive at about 5:30 a.m. on Christmas Eve.

The firefighters said their "thoughts and prayers" were with the families of colleagues Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka, killed by William Spengler Jr., a convicted felon barred from having guns. Funerals are set for the next few days for Chiapperini and Kaczowka.

A passing off-duty officer from the town of Greece was treated for shrapnel wounds from gunfire that hit his car.

A funeral Mass for Kaczowka, who worked as a Monroe County emergency dispatcher, will be held Monday in Rochester at St. Stanislaus Church, with burial at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

This undated image provided by…

Chiapperini, who also was a police lieutenant, was driving a pumper with Scardino on board when bullets blasted the windshield. He and Kaczowka died at the scene. Hofstetter was hit in the pelvis, and Scardino was hit in the shoulder and knee.

They believe remains found in the burned home are those of Cheryl Spengler, but that hadn't been confirmed, and it was unknown how she died. The Spengler siblings had lived in the home with their mother, Arline Spengler, who died in October. In all, seven houses were destroyed by the flames.

Investigators found a rambling, two- to three-page typed letter laying out Spengler's intention to destroy his neighborhood and "do what I like doing best, killing people."

2 NY firefighters who survived gun ambush thankful
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Hearses carrying the coffins of Chiapperini and Kaczowka were escorted to West Webster Fire Station 1, where they were met by emergency vehicles with their lights flashing in salute.

Spengler, 62, traded rifle fire with a Webster police officer who had accompanied the firefighters and then killed himself with a gunshot to the head.

There also was no word from authorities about how William Spengler, who served time for his grandmother's beating death, got three guns found with his body: a military-style Bushmaster .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver. The rifle, which had a combat-style flash suppressor, is the same make and caliber as one used by a gunman to massacre 20 children and six women at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school earlier this month.

Calling hours for the two men will be at Webster Schroeder High School on Friday and Saturday. A funeral for Chiapperini is scheduled for Sunday at the school, with burial in West Webster Cemetery.

This 2006 image provided by the…

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Two firefighters wounded by a gunman who set his upstate New York house ablaze and killed two of their colleagues in an ambush with weapons he wasn't allowed to own were on the mend Wednesday and said they were thankful for the support they've received.

Iraq- New protests break out in Sunni heartland_2

Associated Press writers Adam Schreck and Sinan Salaheddin contributed.

Many Sunnis see the arrest of the finance minister's guards as the latest in a series of moves by the Shiite prime minister against their sect and other perceived political opponents. Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, one of the country's highest-ranking Sunni politicians, is now living in exile in Turkey after being handed multiple death sentences for allegedly running death squads — a charge he dismisses as politically motivated.

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The U.N. mission in Baghdad said in a statement Wednesday that it "does not have any indication so far that treatment was obstructed by the Iraqi authorities." It noted that representatives for the refugee residents told U.N. monitors that Rahimian "appeared to be in good condition until the time of his death."

The unrest is part of a larger picture of sectarian conflicts that threaten the stability of the country, a year after the last U.S. troops left.

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It was the third major protest in less than a week in Anbar, Iraq's largest province, once the heart of the deadly Sunni insurgency that erupted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

"This sit-in will remain open-ended until the demonstrators' demands are met, and until the injustice against ends," cleric Hamid al-Issawi told The Associated Press at the protest. He accused al-Maliki's government of trying to create rifts between Sunnis and Shiites.

The political tensions are rising at a sensitive time. Iraq's ailing President Jalal Talabani is incapacitated following a serious stroke last week and is being treated in a German hospital. The 79-year-old president, an ethnic Kurd, is widely seen as a unifying figure with the clout to mediate among the country's ethnic and sectarian groups.

Al-Maliki has defended the arrests of the finance minister's guards as legal and based on warrants issued by judicial authorities. He also recently warned against a return to sectarian strife in criticizing the responses of prominent Sunni officials to the detentions.

"Injustice, marginalization, discrimination and double standards, as well as the politicization of the judiciary system and a lack of respect for partnership, law and constitution ... have all turned our neighborhoods in Baghdad into huge prisons surrounded by concrete blocks," he declared.

An Iraqi family make their way…

"These practices are aimed at drawing the country into a sectarian conflict again by creating crisis and targeting prominent national figures," the cleric said.

An organization representing the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq exile group on Monday accused Iraqi authorities of preventing 56-year-old Behrooz Rahimian from being hospitalized, and alleged that the U.N. failed to take sufficient steps to intervene. Iraq considers the MEK a terrorist group and wants its members out of the country.

Al-Issawi made an appearance at the rally, arriving in a long convoy of black SUVs protected by heavily armed bodyguards. He condemned last week's raid on his office and rattled off a list of grievances aimed at Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.

Protesters turned out Wednesday near the provincial capital Ramadi, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad. The city and nearby Fallujah were the scenes of some of the deadliest fighting between U.S. troops and Iraqi insurgents.

The demonstrations follow the arrest last week of 10 bodyguards assigned to Finance Minister Rafia al-Issawi, who comes from Anbar and is one of the central government's most senior Sunni officials. The case is exacerbating tensions with Iraq's Sunnis, who see the detentions as politically motivated.

Also Wednesday, the United Nations mission to Iraq said its monitors have determined that a hospital that treated a member of an Iranian exile group who died this week at a refugee camp near Baghdad did not consider his health condition serious enough to warrant hospitalization when he arrived for treatment in November.

In a recent statement, the prime minister dismissed the rhetoric as political posturing ahead of provincial elections scheduled for April and warned his opponents not to forget the dark days of sectarian fighting "when we used to collect bodies and chopped heads from the streets."

Demonstrators gathered along a highway linking Baghdad with neighboring Jordan and Syria. They held banners demanding that Sunni rights be respected and calling for the release of Sunni prisoners in Iraqi jails. "We warn the government not to draw the country into sectarian conflict," read one. Another declared: "We are not a minority."

Iraqis make their way through flooded…

RAMADI, Iraq (AP) — Thousands of Iraqi demonstrators massed in a Sunni-dominated province west of Baghdad Wednesday, determined to keep up the pressure on a Shiite-led government that many accuse of trying to marginalize them.

Iraq's majority Shiites rose to power following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, though the country's minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds do hold some posts in the government.

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VP says Chavez up, walking; doubts persist_1

Cuban state media published photos of President Raul Castro receiving Morales at the airport and said he came "to express his support" for Chavez, his close ally, but did not give further details. He left Sunday without making any public comments.

If he is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution calls for new elections to be held. Chavez has asked his followers to back Maduro, his hand-picked successor, in that event.

Danny Moreno, a software technician watching her 2-year-old son try out his new tricycle, was among the few people at a Caracas plaza who said she had heard Maduro's announcement. She said she saw a government Twitter message saying an announcement was coming and her mother rushed to turn on the TV.

Dr. Michael Pishvaian, an oncologist at Georgetown University's Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington, said it was an encouraging sign that Chavez was walking, and it indicated he would be able to return to Venezuela relatively soon. But he said the long term outlook remained poor.

Pierre Denis, who works at Venezuela's…

Over the weekend, Chavez's ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, made a lightning visit to Cuba that only added to the uncertainty.

Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Havana, Vivian Sequera in Caracas, Camilo Hernandez in Bogota, Colombia, and Paola Flores in La Paz, Bolivia, contributed to this report.

Chavez supporters reacted with relief, but the statement inspired more questions, given the sparse information the Venezuelan government has provided so far about the president's cancer. Chavez has kept secret various details about his illness, including the precise location of the tumors and the type of cancer. His long-term prognosis remains a mystery.

For the second day in a row Tuesday, Morales made no mention of his trip to Cuba during public events in Bolivia.

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Chavez first underwent surgery for an unspecified type of pelvic cancer in Cuba in June 2011 and went back this month after tests had found a return of malignant cells in the same area where tumors were previously removed.

Pishvaian and other outside doctors have said that given the details Chavez has provided about his cancer, it is most likely a soft-tissue sarcoma.

"It's possible (that he is walking) because everything is possible," Castro told AP. "They probably had him sit in up in bed and take two steps."

Dr. Carlos Castro, director of the Colombian League against Cancer, an association that promotes cancer prevention, treatment and education, said Maduro's announcement was too vague to paint a clear picture of Chavez's condition.

Dr. Gustavo Medrano, a lung specialist at the Centro Medico hospital in Caracas, said if Chavez is talking, it suggests he is breathing on his own despite the respiratory infection and is not in intensive care. But Medrano said he remained skeptical about Maduro's comments and could deduce little from them about Chavez's prognosis for recovery.

Maduro's near-midnight announcement came just as Venezuelan families were gathering for traditional late Christmas Eve dinners and setting off the usual deafening fireworks that accompany the festivities. There was still little outward reaction on a quiet Christmas morning.

But government officials have said the constitution lets the Supreme Court administer the oath of office at any time if the National Assembly is unable to do it Jan. 10 as scheduled.

Venezuelan officials said that, following the six-hour surgery two weeks ago, Chavez suffered internal bleeding that was stanched and a respiratory infection that was being treated.

Maduro's announcement came just hours after Information Minister Ernesto Villegas read a statement saying Chavez was showing "a slight improvement with a progressive trend."

Yet more questions surround Chavez's political future, with the surgery coming two months after he won re-election to a six-year term.

"He was in a good mood," Maduro said. "He was walking, he was exercising."

"It's unclear what they mean by exercise. Was it four little steps?" he added. "I think he is still in critical condition."

"I have no idea because if it was such a serious, urgent, important operation, and that was 14 days ago, I don't think he could be walking and exercising after a surgery like that," Medrano said.

Opposition leaders have argued that the constitution does not allow the president's swearing-in to be postponed, and say new elections should be called if Chavez is unable to take the oath on time.

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Venezuelan officials have said Chavez might not return in time for his Jan. 10 inauguration.

"It's definitely good news. It means that he is on the road to recover fully from the surgery," Pishvaian said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "The overall prognosis is still pretty poor. He likely has a terminal diagnosis with his cancer that has come back."

Sounding giddy, Maduro told state television Venezolana de Television that he had spoken by phone with Chavez for 20 minutes Monday night. It was the first time a top Venezuelan government official had confirmed talking personally with Chavez since the Dec. 11 operation, his fourth cancer surgery since 2011.

"We all said, thank God, he's okay," she said, smiling.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Vice President Nicolas Maduro surprised Venezuelans with a Christmas Eve announcement that President Hugo Chavez is up and walking two weeks after cancer surgery in Cuba, but the news did little to ease uncertainty surrounding the leader's condition.

Journalists had been summoned to cover his arrival and departure in Havana, but hours later that invitation was canceled. No explanation was given, though it could have been due to confusion over Morales' itinerary as he apparently arrived later than initially scheduled.

UN to Hold Arms Trade Treaty Conference in March

UN to Hold Arms Trade Treaty Conference in March

The U.N. General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to hold a conference in March to try to reach agreement on a U.N. treaty to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade.

A resolution approved late Monday by a vote of 133-0 with 17 abstentions will bring the 193 U.N. member states back to the negotiating table following their failure to reach agreement on a treaty in July.

Hopes of reaching a treaty in July were dashed when the U.S. said it needed more time to consider the proposed treaty — and Russia and China then also asked for a delay.

The co-sponsors of Monday's resolution — Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya and Britain — urged all countries to try to make the March 18-28 conference at U.N. headquarters a success.

Flacco throws 2 TDs in Ravens' win

Flacco throws 2 TDs in Ravens' winBALTIMORE (AP)
On their fourth try, the Baltimore Ravens finally got the victory they needed to win the AFC North.

Joe Flacco threw for 309 yards and two touchdowns, and the Ravens defeated the New York Giants 33-14 Sunday to capture their second straight division crown.

The Ravens (10-5) led 24-7 at halftime and cruised to the finish behind a short-handed defense that harassed quarterback Eli Manning and limited New York (8-7) to 186 yards.

Playing its second game with Jim Caldwell as offensive coordinator, Baltimore scored touchdowns on its first two possessions and amassed a season-high 533 yards - including 289 in the first half alone.

The victory ended a three-game skid for the Ravens and assured them of a home playoff game in the first weekend of January.

The defeat eliminated the defending Super Bowl champion Giants (8-7) from contention in the NFC East and severely damaged their chances of qualifying for a playoff berth.

New York has lost five of seven and was coming off a 34-0 defeat at Atlanta. In this one, Manning went 14 for 28 for 150 yards and was sacked three times.

Flacco, meanwhile, rebounded from a stretch in which he committed two turnovers in each of Baltimore's three straight defeats. He completed 25 of 36 passes, ran for a score and did not throw an interception or lose a fumble.

Flacco repeatedly picked on New York cornerback Corey Webster, who simply couldn't contain Torrey Smith or Anquan Boldin. Smith caught five passes for 88 yards and a touchdown, and Boldin finished with seven receptions for 93 yards.

Ray Rice ran for 107 yards and caught six passes for 51 yards and a touchdown. Backup Bernard Pierce gained 123 yards rushing as part of a running attack that generated 224 yards.

Baltimore's defense was also impressive despite the absence of injured linebackers Ray Lewis and Jameel McClain, along with safety Bernard Pollard.

Now, after ending its longest losing streak since 2009, Baltimore is assured of hosting a first-round playoff game during the first weekend in January.

New York, on the other hand, fell out of a first-place tie in the NFC East and will need a win over Philadelphia next week - along with help from other teams - to squeeze into the postseason

Baltimore's first drive ended with a 6-yard touchdown pass from Flacco to Smith. The play came after officials overturned a fumble by Jacoby Jones at the New York 5 following a replay review.

The 73-yard march featured a few new wrinkles from the Ravens' offense, most notably an option pitch from Flacco to Rice and third-string running back Anthony Allen's first catch of the season, a first-down grab at the New York 40.

After the Giants went three-and-out for a second straight time, Smith made an outstanding catch behind Webster for a 43-yard gain before Flacco scored from the 1.

Manning followed with a four-play, 77-yard drive highlighted by a 43-yard completion to Rueben Randle and a 14-yard touchdown run by David Wilson.

That, however, would be the extent of the New York offense until Domenik Hixon caught a 13-yard touchdown pass with 3:18 left. After scoring 52 against New Orleans on Dec. 9, the Giants have totaled only 14 points in the past two weeks.

The Ravens went up 17-7 midway through the second quarter. After Boldin burned Webster for 39-yard gain on a third-and-19, a replay erased a 9-yard touchdown catch by Jacoby Jones and forced Baltimore to settle for a field goal.

Late in the half, the Ravens moved 76 yards in seven plays for a 24-7 lead. Flacco went 5 for 5 for 68 yards, including a 27-yard touchdown pass to Rice.

Baltimore opted for ball control in the second half, and the Giants were powerless to stop them. After an exchange of punts at the start of the third quarter, the Ravens moved 82 yards in 16 plays, holding the ball for just short of eight minutes, before Justin Tucker kicked a 20-yard field goal.

The lead became 30-7 with 11:08 left when Tucker concluded a 13-play, 62-yard drive with a 30-yard field goal.

NBC news team freed in Syria after firefight

(Reuters) - An NBC news team was freed in Syria during a firefight at an Islamic rebel checkpoint five days after being ambushed and kidnapped by 15 heavily armed gunmen, correspondent Richard Engel said on Tuesday.

Engel, 39, who along with production crew members Ghazi Balkiz and John Kooistra disappeared after crossing into northwestern Syria from Turkey on Thursday, said their kidnappers were members of a militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Their ordeal ended when their captors, who frequently moved them bound and blindfolded between safe houses, on Monday night unexpectedly drove into checkpoint set up by an Islamist rebel group. Two of their kidnappers were killed in the ensuing firefight, and the three spent the night with the Islamist rebels, Engel told the network.

The three were kidnapped when they were driving with anti-Assad rebels in a rebel-controlled area, Engel, an American, told NBC's "Today" program from Antakya, Turkey.

A group of about 15 heavily armed men wearing ski masks "jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road," seized the three and put them in a container truck, Engel said.

The gunmen "executed" one of the rebels escorting the news team, Engel said. "Then they took us to a series of safe houses and interrogation places, and they kept us blindfolded, bound," he said.

"We weren't physically beaten or tortured. It was a lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed," and mock shootings, he said. "It was a very traumatic experience."

"We tried to joke around a little and keep our spirits up," Engel said, adding that they could peek under blindfolds but were not allowed to talk.

Engel's colleagues spoke of moments of despair as they worried about their families. "During the ordeal ... I made good with my maker, I made good with myself. I was prepared to die many times," Kooistra said.

NBC identified the rebels at the checkpoint as members of the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, a Syrian rebel group.

The network said it had not been able to contact them until they were freed. NBC had attempted to keep the crew's disappearance secret but several media outlets ignored the requested blackout.

GOVERNMENT MILITIA

There was no claim of responsibility and no request for ransom, NBC said, but Engel said of the captors: "This was a group known as the Shabiha. This is a government militia. These are people who are loyal to President Bashar Assad."

The kidnappers spoke openly about their loyalty to the government and their faith, he said, and were planning to exchange him and his team for four Iranian agents and two Shabiha members held by Syrian rebels.

Ahrar al-Sham, an extremist Salafist group that includes a large contingent of foreign fighters, has been at the forefront of rebel offensives in northern Syria.

Members of the group have told Reuters the unit wants to establish an Islamic caliphate in Syria, not a pluralistic democracy, when Assad is overthrown. But they have not shown hostility to Western journalists covering the conflict.

Engel has reported on the popular uprisings that swept the Arab world since 2011.

At least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, which started in March 2011 with street protests that were met with gunfire by Assad's security forces, and which spiraled into the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts.

(Reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Doina Chiacu)