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Jeb Bush To ‘Explore’ White House BidTALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Jeb Bush answered the

biggest question looming over the Republican Party’s nextcampaign for the White House on Tuesday, all but declar-ing his candidacy for president more than a year beforethe first primaries.

Bush, the son and brother of Republican presidents, isthe first potential candidate to step this far into the 2016contest, and his early announcement could deeply affectthe race for the GOP nomination.

He is the early favorite of the GOP’s establishmentwing, and his move puts immediate pressure on other es-tablishment-minded GOP contenders to start competingwith him for donors, campaign staff and national attention.

The 61-year old former two-term governor of Florida de-clared on Facebook he would “actively explore the possi-bility of running for president of the United States.”

While his statement doesn’t commit Bush to running,veterans of presidential politics described it as “a de factoannouncement” that ends months of speculation about hisintentions.

Sony Hackers Reference 9/11 In ThreatsNEW YORK (AP) — Hackers calling themselves

Guardians of Peace made ominous threats Tuesday againstmovie theaters showing Sony Pictures’ film “The Inter-view” that referred to the terrorist attacks of September11, 2001. The group also released a trove of data files in-cluding about 8,000 emails from the inbox of Sony Enter-tainment CEO Michael Lynton.

The data dump was what the hackers called the begin-ning of a “Christmas gift.” But GOP, as the group is known,included a message warning that people should stay awayfrom places where “The Interview” will be shown, includ-ing an upcoming premiere. Invoking 9/11, it urged peopleto leave their homes if located near theaters showing thefilm.

The Department of Homeland Security said there was“no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot againstmovie theaters,” but noted it was still analyzing the GOPmessages. The warning did prompt law enforcement inNew York and Los Angeles to address measures to rampup security.

“The Interview” is a comedy in which Seth Rogen andJames Franco star as television journalists involved in aCIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.Its New York premiere is scheduled for Thursday at Man-hattan’s Landmark Sunshine, and is expected to hit the-aters nationwide on Christmas Day. It premiered in LosAngeles last week.

Rogen and Franco pulled out of all media appearancesTuesday, canceling a Buzzfeed Q&A and Rogen’s plannedguest spot Thursday on “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”The two stars had just appeared Monday on “Good Morn-ing America” and Rogen guested on “The Colbert Report.”A representative for Rogen said he had no comment. Aspokeswoman for Franco didn’t respond to queriesTuesday.

Ex-Marine Wanted In 6 Killings DiesPENNSBURG, Pa. (AP) — An Iraq War veteran suspected of

killing his ex-wife and five of her relatives in a shooting andslashing frenzy was found dead of self-inflicted stab woundsTuesday in the woods of suburban Philadelphia, ending a day-and-a-half manhunt that closed schools and left people onedge.

Bradley William Stone’s body was discovered a half-milefrom his Pennsburg home, about 30 miles northwest ofPhiladelphia. The 35-year-old former Marine sergeant had cutsin the center of his body, and some kind of knife was found atthe scene, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa VetriFerman said.

Locked in a custody dispute so bitter that his ex-wifefeared for her life, Stone went on a gruesome, 90-minute killingrampage before daybreak Monday at three homes in threenearby towns, authorities said. He bashed in the back doorsof the first two homes and then smashed his ex-wife’s slidingglass door with a propane tank.

The killings set off the second major manhunt to transfixPennsylvania in the past few months. Eric Frein spent 48 dayson the run in the Poconos after the ambush slaying of a statetrooper in September.

“There’s no reason, no valid excuse, no justification forsnuffing out these six innocent lives and injuring anotherchild,” Ferman said. “This is just a horrific tragedy that ourcommunity has had to endure. We’re really numb from whatwe’ve had to go through over the past two days.”

Rover Detects Spikes Of MethaneCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Mars rover, Curios-

ity, has detected spikes of methane in the planet’s atmos-phere. That suggests something is producing or venting thescientifically tantalizing gas, but no one knows what.

Most of Earth’s atmospheric methane comes from animaland plant life, and the environment itself. So the Martianmethane raises the question of past or present microbial life.Or the gas elevations could come from geological sources,comet impacts or something else entirely.

The latest study, released Tuesday by the journal Science,indicates there’s less than half the expected amount ofmethane in the atmosphere around Curiosity’s location inGale Crater. But over a full Martian year, the rover measuredfairly frequent occurrences of elevated methane levels — ten-fold increases.

“This temporary increase in methane — sharply up andthen back down — tells us there must be some relatively lo-calized source,” the University of Michigan’s Sushil Atreya,part of the Curiosity team, said in a statement. “There aremany possible sources, biological or non-biological, such asinteraction of water and rock.”

BY RIAZ KHAN AND REBECCA SANTANAAssociated Press

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — In the dead-liest slaughter of innocents in Pakistan inyears, Taliban gunmen attacked a mili-tary-run school Tuesday and killed 141people — almost all of them students —before government troops ended thesiege.

The massacre of innocent childrenhorrified a country already weary of un-ending terrorist attacks. Pakistan’steenage Nobel Peace laureate MalalaYousafzai — herself a survivor of a Tal-iban shooting — said she was “heartbro-ken” by the bloodshed.

Even Taliban militants in neighboringAfghanistan decried the killing spree,calling it “un-Islamic.”

If the Pakistani Taliban extremistshad hoped the attack would cause thegovernment to ease off its military offen-sive that began in June in the country’stribal region, it appeared to have the op-posite effect. Prime Minister NawazSharif pledged to step up the campaignthat — along with U.S. drone strikes —has targeted the militants.

“The fight will continue. No oneshould have any doubt about it,” Sharifsaid. “We will take account of each andevery drop of our children’s blood.”

Taliban fighters have struggled tomaintain their potency in the face of themilitary operation. They vowed a waveof violence in response to the operation,but until Tuesday, there has only beenone major attack by a splinter groupnear the Pakistan-India border in Novem-ber. Analysts said the school siegeshowed that even diminished, the mili-tant group still could inflict horrific car-nage.

The rampage at the Army PublicSchool and College began in the morningwhen seven militants scaled a back wallusing a ladder, said Maj. Gen. AsimBajwa, a military spokesman. When theyreached an auditorium where studentshad gathered for an event, they openedfire.

A 14-year-old, Mehran Khan, saidabout 400 students were in the hall whenthe gunmen broke through the doorsand started shooting. They shot one ofthe teachers in the head and then sether on fire and shouted “God is great!” asshe screamed, added Khan, who sur-vived by playing dead.

From there, they went to classroomsand other parts of the school.

“Their sole purpose, it seems, was tokill those innocent kids. That’s whatthey did,” Bajwa said. Of the 141 people

slain before government troops endedthe assault eight hours later, 132 werechildren and nine were staff members.Another 121 students and three staffmembers were wounded.

The seven attackers, wearing vests ofexplosives, all died in the eight-hour as-sault. It was not immediately clear if theywere all killed by the soldiers or whetherthey blew themselves up, he said.

The wounded — some still wearingtheir green school blazers — floodedinto hospitals as terrified parentssearched for their children. By evening,funeral services were already being heldfor many of the victims as clerics an-nounced the deaths over mosque loud-speakers.

The government declared three daysof mourning for what appeared to bePakistan’s deadliest since a 2007 suicidebombing in the port city of Karachikilled 150 people.

“My son was in uniform in the morn-ing. He is in a casket now,” wailed oneparent, Tahir Ali, as he came to the hos-pital to collect the body of his 14-year-old son, Abdullah. “My son was mydream. My dream has been killed.”

One of the wounded students, Abdul-lah Jamal, said he was with a group ofeighth, ninth and 10th graders who weregetting first-aid instructions and trainingwith a team of army medics when the vi-olence became real. Panic broke outwhen the shooting began.

“I saw children falling down who werecrying and screaming. I also fell down. Ilearned later that I have got a bullet,” hesaid, speaking from his hospital bed.

Another student, Amir Mateen, saidthey locked the door from the insidewhen they heard the shooting, but gun-men blasted through anyway andopened fire.

Responding to the attack, armoredpersonnel carriers were deployedaround the school, and a military heli-copter circled overhead.

A little more than 1,000 students andstaff were registered at the school,which is part of a network run by themilitary, although the surrounding areais not heavily fortified. The student bodyis made up of both children of militarypersonnel as well as civilians.

Most of the students appeared to becivilians rather than children of armystaff, said Javed Khan, a government offi-cial. Analysts said the militants likely tar-geted the school because of its militaryconnections.

“It’s a kind of a message that ‘we canalso kill your children,”’ said Pakistanianalyst Zahid Hussain.

In a statement to reporters, Taliban

spokesman Mohammed Khurasaniclaimed responsibility for the attack,saying it was retribution for the mili-tary’s operation in nearby North Waziris-tan, the northwestern tribal regionwhere the group’s fighters largely havebeen based.

“We targeted their kids so that theycould know how it feels when they hitour kids,” Khurasani said. He said the at-tackers were advised not to target “un-derage” children but did not elaborateon what that meant.

In its offensive, the military said itwould go after all militant groups operat-ing in the region. Security officials andcivilians feared retribution by militants,but Pakistan has been relatively calm.

The attack raised the issue ofwhether this was the last gasp of a mili-tant group crippled by a government of-fensive or whether the militants couldregroup.

Hussain, the Pakistani analyst, calledthe attack an “act of desperation.”

The violence will throw public sup-port behind the campaign in NorthWaziristan, he said. It also shows thatthe Pakistani Taliban still maintains astrong intelligence network and remainsa threat.

The attack drew swift condemnationfrom around the world. U.S. PresidentBarack Obama said the “terrorists haveonce again showed their depravity.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerryadded: “The images are absolutely gut-wrenching: young children carried awayin ambulances, a teacher burned alive infront of the students, a house of learningturned into a house of unspeakable hor-ror.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi ofIndia, Pakistan’s longtime regional rival,called it “a senseless act of unspeakablebrutality.”

“My heart goes out to everyone wholost their loved ones today. We sharetheir pain and offer our deepest condo-lences,” Modi said in a series of tweetedstatements.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonsaid it was a “an act of horror and rankcowardice to attack defenseless childrenwhile they learn.”

The violence recalled the attack onMalala Yousafzai, who was shot in thehead by a Taliban gunman outside herschool in the Swat Valley for daring tospeak up about girls’ rights. She sur-vived to become a global advocate forgirls’ education and received her NobelPeace Prize last week, but has not re-turned to Pakistan in the two years sincethe shooting out of security concerns.

Pakistan Children KilledIn Taliban School Attack

PPI/ZUMA PRESS/TNSA wounded child is carried away from the scene after militants attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday.More than 100 people -- mostly students -- were killed and dozens of others injured in the attack.