Newtown residents ready to step out of media glare

Hundreds of reporters from around the world converged on Newtown, Conn., after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary …NEWTOWN, Conn.-- Message to the media: It's time to go away.

That's what many residents here have been saying about the media since Monday, when funerals began for more than two dozen adults and children killed in last week's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"There are people who should be able to get to these funerals," Janice Butler of Newtown told Yahoo News on Wednesday, standing a few hundred yards from the entrance to the school where Friday's shootings took place. "But some of them can't because you all are here."

At the Newtown General Store, when a member of the media thanked a store employee for breakfast sandwich, she replied, smiling, "Thank you for leaving."

In the first days after the tragedy, most reporters here were respectful of the town's 27,000 residents, sharing in their shock and grief while trying to cover it. And most residents and shop owners seemed to understand that it was a major news story of deep interest to many readers and viewers.

Figs Restaurant here welcomed TV host Geraldo Rivera for two meals late Saturday afternoon. By Tuesday, though, the restaurant had stationed one of the cooks in the parking lot, barring media from parking there.

Also Saturday, a Newtown teacher offered use of his bathroom and WiFi to several reporters. And the back dining room of the Iron Bridge bar in Sandy Hook became an ABC News bureau on Sunday, where network staff watched President Barack Obama's speech at the interfaith vigil at Newtown High School.

But on Monday, the Newtown Bee posted a note on its Facebook page, imploring its colleagues and journalists in the media to leave families of the dead alone. "PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THE VICTIMS," the note said.

"We acknowledge it is your right to try and make contact," the paper added on Facebook, "But we beg you to do what is right and let them grieve and ready their funeral plans in peace."

Several local residents visited the page, adding their voices to the chorus of criticism.

"We want our town, our lives back," Dennis Brinkmann wrote. "You did your job, now leave us be."

"Journalists should be reporters not voyeurs," wrote another.

"We did turn to you when it was unfolding, because we needed to know what was going on, but now leave," Dorene Doran wrote. "We need to give these families time to themselves. Don't worry they will seek you out if they want to talk to you."

"As I drove down Main Street today I was upset at the number of cameras just aimed at the door to the funeral home," Gail Lovorn wrote, suggesting the community erect a screen to block the view. "The last thing these families need is to see their family and friends in these tender moments broadcast for the world to see."

On Tuesday night, a man walking up Church Hill Road carried a sign that read: "Dear Media, GTFO!"

There are signs that the media swarm is beginning to ease.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who arrived Saturday, left Newtown after his broadcast on Tuesday night. Most of the satellite trucks that lined the center of Sandy Hook, steps from a makeshift memorial and less than a half mile from Sandy Hook Elementary, were gone on Wednesday. The parking lot at Treadwell Park, where nearly close to 100 satellite trucks were parked on Saturday, sat empty, too.

The Starbucks next to Saint Rose of Lima Church on Church Hill Road served as a makeshift international media center since the funerals began. On Wednesday, it was filled with residents heading to services for 7-year-old victim Daniel Barden--no media in sight.

But not everyone in Newtown wants to see the media gone.

"Please, please don't leave," a Sandy Hook resident named Dennis told Connecticut Public Radio's Colin McEnroe on Wednesday. "Because I know that people on the outside are feeling the same thing that the people on the inside are feeling. And it's ... it's just helplessness. So the more information they can get--as long as it's correct information--it might help them a little bit. It might, you know?"

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New attacks on polio teams in Pakistan kill 2

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen shot dead a woman working on U.N.-backed polio vaccination efforts and her driver in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, just a day after similar attacks across the country killed five female polio workers.

The killings prompted the world health body to suspend the vaccination campaign in two of Pakistan's four provinces on Wednesday.

The attacks are a major setback for a campaign that international health officials consider vital to contain the crippling disease but which Taliban insurgents say is a cover for espionage.

In Wednesday's attack, the woman and her driver were gunned down in the northwestern town of Charsadda, said senior government official Syed Zafar Ali Shah. He said gunmen targeted two other polio teams in the same town, but no one was wounded in those attacks.

Earlier in the day in the northwestern city of Peshawar, gunmen shot a polio worker in the head, wounding him critically, said Janbaz Afridi, a senior health official. There were also attacks Wednesday on polio workers in the cities of Charsadda and Nowshera, but no casualties were reported there.

Maryam Yunus, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization in Pakistan, said their polio staff have been pulled back from the field and asked to work from home until the campaign ends later Wednesday.

On Tuesday, WHO and UNICEF condemned the attacks, saying they deprive Pakistan's most vulnerable populations — specifically children — of basic life-saving health interventions.

"We call on the leaders of the affected communities and everyone concerned to do their utmost to protect health workers and create a secure environment so that we can meet the health needs of the children of Pakistan," the statement said.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is endemic. Militants accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim the vaccine makes children sterile.

The Taliban in the lawless northwestern tribal region also blame the U.S. drone strikes for their opposition to the vaccinations.

On Tuesday, gunmen killed five female polio workers in a spree of attacks in several southern and northwestern cities, at the time prompting authorities to suspend the vaccination campaign in the southern Sindh province. The three-day campaign, which started on Monday, continued in the northwest and elsewhere in the country.

So far no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on polio teams.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has witnessed scores of attacks, most of them blamed on the Taliban. On Saturday, Taliban suicide bombers attacked a Pakistani air force base in Peshawar, killing four people.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack but distanced themselves from attacks on the polio teams.

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Cassadee Pope wins Season 3 of 'The Voice'

NEW YORK (AP) — Cassadee Pope, who was country singer Blake Shelton's protege on the third season of NBC's "The Voice," has won the show's competition.

The 23-year-old singer is stepping out into a solo career after performing with a band called Hey Monday. Her victory over Scottish native Terry McDermott and long-bearded Nicholas David was announced at the end of a two-hour show Tuesday.

"The Voice" has grown into a hit for NBC and was the key factor in the network's surprising success this fall.

The show's status was affirmed by the stream of hitmakers who performed on the finale. They included Rihanna, Bruno Mars, the Killers, Smokey Robinson and Peter Frampton.

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma

WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.

Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?

For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.

"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.

"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.

Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.

Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.

There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.

Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.

Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.

In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.

Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.

But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.

Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.

To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.

Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.

When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.

Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.

Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.

Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

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More funerals as gun control debate swirls

NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Six more victims of the Newtown school shooting will be honored at funerals and remembrances on Wednesday, including the school principal who was killed with 20 of her students and five other staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The massacre of so many children, most of them just 6 or 7 years old, has shocked the United States and the world, renewing debate over gun control in a nation where the right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution and fiercely defended by many.

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old shooter, carried hundreds of rounds of ammunition in extra clips and shot his victims repeatedly, one of them 11 times. He also shot and killed his mother before driving to the school, and then killed himself.

The family of Principal Dawn Hochsprung invited mourners to visit at a local funeral home on Wednesday afternoon, though the burial was due to be private at an undisclosed time.

Another of the teachers, Victoria Soto, was among those to be buried at a funeral on Wednesday.

Funerals were also scheduled for 6-year-old Charlotte Bacon, 7-year-old Daniel Barden and 6-year-old Caroline Previdi, while the family of 7-year-old Chase Kowalski invited mourners to a public visitation and prayer vigil.

The surviving children from Sandy Hook Elementary faced another day at home as school authorities and parents made plans for an eventual return to a different location - the unused Chalk Hill School in nearby Monroe, where a sign across the street read, "Welcome Sandy Hook Elementary!"

At Sandy Hook itself, well wishers and mourners had left tributes such as candles, flowers and stuffed animals. A heavy rain that fell most of Tuesday had soaked many of them and extinguished some of the candles, leaving a smell of burned wax in the air as police continued their investigations inside.

They have said the investigation could take months and have revealed nothing yet about Lanza's motive.

Well wishers came to the town from as far afield as Iowa. Beth Howard said she had driven 17 hours from Eldon, Iowa, in an effort to do whatever she could to help. She joined a group of people from New Jersey who decided to bake pies for residents of the town to show their solidarity and support.

"It has already made the trip worthwhile," said Howard, describing the smiles she got from local residents.

The first of many funerals was held on Monday and two children were laid to rest on Tuesday. Most of the town's schools reopened on Tuesday, but there was no immediate word on when the Sandy Hook students would be back in the classroom.

The impact of the shooting was felt in the business world on Tuesday when private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP said it would sell its investment in the company that makes the AR-15-type Bushmaster rifle that was used by Lanza.

The powerful gun industry lobby, the National Rifle Association, broke its silence on Tuesday for the first time since the shootings, saying it was "shocked, saddened and heartbroken" and was "prepared to offer meaningful contributions" to prevent such massacres.

The NRA uses political pressure against individual lawmakers and others to press for loosening constraints on gun sales and ownership across the United States while promoting hunting and gun sports.

The group, which said it had not commented until now out of respect for the families and to allow time for mourning and an investigation, planned a news conference on Friday.

The massacre prompted some Republican lawmakers to open the door to a national debate about gun control, a small sign of easing in Washington's entrenched reluctance to seriously consider new federal restrictions.

(Additional reporting by Greg Roumeliotis, Edith Honan, Dan Burns, Patricia Zengerle, David Ingram, Chris Francescani; Writing by Claudia Parsons; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Gunmen kill 6 polio workers in Pakistan

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen killed six people working on a government polio vaccination campaign in two different Pakistani cities on Tuesday, officials said. The attacks were likely an attempt by the Taliban to counter an initiative the militant group has long opposed.

The attacks came a day after an unknown gunman killed a volunteer for the World Health Organization's anti-polio campaign in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi.

Five of the polio workers killed Tuesday were also gunned down in Karachi, said Sagheer Ahmed, the health minister for surrounding Sindh province. Four of the dead were women. Two male workers were wounded, and one eventually passed away, said Ahmed.

The attack on the polio workers was well-coordinated and occurred simultaneously in three different areas of the city, said police spokesman Imran Shoukat.

The government suspended the vaccination campaign in the wake of the shootings, said Ahmed. The campaign started on Monday and was supposed to run until Wednesday, he said.

Gunmen on a motorcycle also shot to death a woman working on a government anti-polio campaign in a village near the northwestern city of Peshawar, said Janbaz Afridi, a senior health official in surrounding Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Taliban have spoken out against polio vaccination in recent months, claiming the health workers are acting as spies for the U.S. and the vaccine itself causes harm. Militants in parts of Pakistan's tribal region have also said the vaccination campaign can't go forward until the U.S. stops drone attacks in the country.

The shootings in Karachi on Tuesday all took place in areas mainly populated by ethnic Pashtuns. The Taliban are a Pashtun-dominated movement, and many militants are reported to be hiding in these communities in Karachi.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is endemic. The virus usually infects children living in unsanitary conditions, attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze.

The government, teaming up with U.N. agencies, is on a nationwide campaign to give oral polio drops to 34 million children under the age of five.

But vaccination programs, especially those with international links, have come under suspicion in the country since a Pakistani doctor ran a fake vaccination program last year to help the CIA track down Osama bin Laden.

Also Tuesday, two men on a motorcycle hurled hand grenades at the main gate of an army recruiting center in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, wounding 10 people, police said.

The injured in the attack in the garrison town of Risalpur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa included civilians and security personnel, senior police official Ghulam Mohammed told The Associated Press. The police have launched a manhunt to trace and arrest the attackers, he said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a string of assaults in recent days that illustrate the continued challenge Pakistan faces from militants despite military operations against the Pakistani Taliban and their supporters.

Tuesday's attack came a day after a car bomb exploded in a crowded market in Pakistan's northwestern town of Jamrud near the Afghan border, killing 17 people and wounding more than 40 others.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is located on the edge of Pakistan's tribal region, the main sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban in the country. The province has witnessed scores of attacks, most of them blamed on the Taliban.

Ten Taliban fighters armed with rockets and car bombs attacked the military section of an international airport in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday night, killing four people and wounding over 40 others. Five of the militants were killed during the attack and the other five died Sunday after hours-long shootout with security forces.

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Associated Press writer Jamal Khan contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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Zooey Deschanel, rocker husband finalize divorce

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has finalized Zooey Deschanel's divorce from her rocker husband of roughly three years.

Court records show a judge finalized the actress' divorce from Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Gibbard and Deschanel, who stars in Fox's "New Girl," were married in September 2009. They had no children together.

The actress filed for divorce in December 2011 after separating two months earlier.

The judgment does not provide financial details of the breakup, although it states that the former couple's marriage cannot be repaired by counseling or mediation.

Deschanel was nominated last week for a Golden Globe for her work on "New Girl."

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

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Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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Newtown students to return to classes

NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - The schools of Newtown, which stood empty in the wake of a shooting rampage that took 26 of their own, will again ring with the sounds of students and teachers on Tuesday as the bucolic Connecticut town struggles to return to normal.

But among the normal sounds of a school day - teachers reading to children, the scratch of pencil on paper - students will hear new ones, including the murmur of grief counselors and the footsteps of police officers.

Four days after 20-year-old Adam Lanza strode into Sandy Hook Elementary school and gunned down a score of 6- and 7-year-olds, in addition to six faculty and staff, that school will remain closed. It is an active crime scene, with police coming and going past a line of 26 Christmas trees that visitors have decorated with ornaments, stuffed animals and balloons in the school colors of green and white as a memorial to the victims.

The massacre - one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history - shocked Americans, prompting some lawmakers to call for tighter restrictions on guns and causing school administrators around the country to assess their safety protocols.

Newtown police plan to have officers at the six schools scheduled to reopen on Tuesday, trying to offer a sense of security to the students and faculty, many of whom spent the weekend in mourning. Newtown Police Lieutenant George Sinko acknowledged it may be difficult to ease the worries of the roughly 4,700 returning students and their families.

"Obviously, there's going to be a lot of apprehension. We just had a horrific tragedy. We had babies sent to school that should be safe and they weren't," Sinko said. "You can't help but think ... if this could happen again."

DAY FOR 'HEALING'

Newtown High School Principal Charles Dumais, in an e-mail to parents, said schools in the district would open two hours later than usual, with counselors available to students and their families.

"This is a day to start healing," Dumais said.

While school officials have not yet decided when Sandy Hook students will resume their studies, the building that they will move into - the unused Chalk Hill School in the nearby town of Monroe - already showed signs of preparation.

On a fence opposite the building, a green sign with white lettering proclaimed "Welcome Sandy Hook Elementary!"

In Washington, the massacre prompted U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday to call a White House meeting with advisors to discuss ways to respond, a first step toward fulfilling the pledge he made a day earlier in Newtown. The administration's plans to curb violence include but are not limited to gun-control measures, a spokesman said.

Police have warned it could take months for them to finish their investigation into the attack, which started when Adam Lanza killed his mother, Nancy, at home, before driving to the school armed with a Bushmaster AR 15 rifle and two handguns. After shooting 26 people at the school, he turned his gun on himself when he heard police approaching.

In total, 28 people died in the incident.

Many of the students and faculty of Sandy Hook and its neighbors will still have funerals to attend.

The first two victims, Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto, both 6, were buried on Monday, with the boys' bodies laid out in white coffins. Jack was dressed in a New York Giants jersey with his favorite player's number, while mourners left a teddy bear outside Noah's service.

More funerals were expected on Tuesday, for victims including James Mattioli and Jessica Rekos. Each was 6 years old.

"It's still not real that my little girl, who was so full of life and who wants a horse so badly and who's going to get cowgirl boots for Christmas isn't coming home," Krista Rekos, Jessica's mother, told ABC News on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Peter Rudegeair and Edward Krudy; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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NKorea displays Kim Jong Il a year after his death

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.

Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.

Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.

North Korea also unveiled Kim's yacht and his armored train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.

North Koreans paid homage to Kim and basked in the success of last week's launch of a long-range rocket that sent a satellite named after him to space.

The launch, condemned in many other capitals as a violation of bans against developing its missile technology, was portrayed not only as a gift to Kim Jong Il but also as proof that his young son, Kim Jong Un, has the strength and vision to lead the country.

The elder Kim died last Dec. 17 from a heart attack while traveling on his train. His death was famously followed by scenes of North Koreans dramatically wailing in the streets of Pyongyang, and of the 20-something son leading ranks of uniformed and gray-haired officials through funeral and mourning rites.

The mood in the capital was decidedly more upbeat a year later, with some of the euphoria carrying over from last Wednesday's launch. The satellite bears one of Kim Jong Il's nicknames, Kwangmyongsong, or "Lode Star," a moniker given to him at birth according to the official lore.

North Koreans across the country stopped in their tracks at midday to bow their heads and honor the former ruler as the national flag fluttered at half-staff along streets and from buildings.

Pyongyang construction workers took off their yellow hard hats and bowed at the waist as sirens wailed across the city for three minutes. Earlier, Kim Jong Un attended a solemn ceremony to reopen the sprawling granite mausoleum where his father and his grandfather lie in state in separate halls.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the frigid plaza outside, newly transformed into a public park with lawns and pergolas. Geese flew past snow-tinged firs and swans dallied in the partly frozen moat that rings the vast complex in Pyongyang's outskirts.

Speaking outside the mausoleum, renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the military's top political officer, Choe Ryong Hae, said North Korea should be proud of the satellite, calling it "a political event with great significance in the history of Korea and humanity."

Much of the rest of the world, however, was swift in condemning the launch, which was seen by the United States and other nations as a thinly disguised cover for testing missile technology that could someday be used for a nuclear warhead.

The test, which potentially violates a United Nations ban on North Korean missile activity, underlined Kim Jong Un's determination to continue carrying out his father's hardline policies even if they draw international condemnation.

Some outside experts worry that Pyongyang's next move will be to press ahead with a nuclear test in the coming weeks, a step toward building a warhead small enough to be carried by a long-range missile.

Despite inviting further isolation for his impoverished nation and the threat of stiffer sanctions, Kim Jong Un won national prestige and clout by going ahead with the rocket launch.

At a memorial service on Sunday, North Korea's top leadership not only eulogized Kim Jong Il, but also praised his son. Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korea's parliament, called the launch a "shining victory" and an emblem of the promise that lies ahead with Kim Jong Un in power.

The rocket's success also fits neatly into the narrative of Kim Jong Il's death. Even before he died, the father had laid the groundwork for his son to inherit a government focused on science, technology and improving the economy. And his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the policy of putting the military ahead of all other national concerns have also carried into Kim Jong Un's reign.

In a sign of the rocket launch's importance, Kim Jong Un invited the scientists in charge of it to attend the mourning rites in Pyongyang, according to state media.

The reopening of the mausoleum on the anniversary of the leader's death also follows tradition. Kumsusan, the palace where his father, Kim Il Sung, served as president, was reopened as a mausoleum on the first anniversary of his death in 1994.

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Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea. Follow Jean Lee, AP's bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul, at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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