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Friday, February 22, 2013 – Daily News 7A WORLD BRIEFING Police believe hotel altercation sparked carto-car shooting LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Las Vegas Strip became a scene of deadly violence early Thursday when someone in a black Range Rover opened fire on a Maserati, sending it crashing into a taxi that burst into flames, leaving three people dead and at least six injured. Police believe an altercation earlier at an unspecified casino resort prompted the car-to-car attack in the heart of the Strip at Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road. The crossroads is the site of several major hotel-casinos, including Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Bally's. ''This doesn't happen where we come from, not on this scale,'' said Mark Thompson, who was visiting from Manchester, England, with his wife. ''We get stabbings, and gang violence, but this is like something out of a movie. Like 'Die Hard' or something.'' Police said they were contacting authorities in three neighboring states about the Range Rover Sport with dark tinted windows, distinctive black custom rims and paper dealer ads in place of license plates that fled the scene about 4:20 a.m. Flu vaccine doing poor job of protecting the elderly ATLANTA (AP) — It turns out this year's flu shot is doing a startlingly dismal job of protecting senior citizens, the most vulnerable age group. The vaccine is proving only 9 percent effective in people 65 and older against the harsh strain of the flu that is predominant this season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Health officials are baffled as to why this is so. But the findings help explain why so many older people have been hospitalized with the flu this year. Despite the findings, the CDC stood by its recommendation that everyone over 6 months get flu shots, the elderly included, because some protection is better than none, and because those who are vaccinated and still get sick may suffer less severe symptoms. ''Year in and year out, the vaccine is the best protection we have,'' said CDC flu expert Dr. Joseph Bresee. Biden urges action on gun control DANBURY, Conn. (AP) — Speaking at a conference on gun violence a dozen miles from the scene of the Connecticut school massacre, Vice President Joe Biden tried to rally support Thursday for the Obama administration's gun control proposals. Biden said the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown fundamentally altered the debate over gun control. ''America has changed on this issue,'' Biden said. The ''There is a moral price to be paid for inaction.'' Biden advocated a series of proposals, including universal background checks for gun owners, a ban on many military-style weapons and a limit on the size of magazines. He said the measures would save lives though he said there was no guarantee they would prevent all mass shootings. ''Fewer children will die,'' Biden said. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who organized the conference with two other members of the state's congressional delegation, said those measures are achievable. He said the Newtown shooting dramatically changed the prospects for gun control. ''Newtown has transformed America, and we need to build on that sense of urgency going forward,'' Blumenthal said. ''Preventing gun violence was thought to be untouchable politically two months ago. That unspeakable horror has given us unstoppable momentum.'' Also Thursday, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced that he wants to immediately ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, require background checks for the transfer of firearms and expand the state's assault weapons ban. He has expressed frustration that the state legislature has not acted more quickly to form a response to the Newtown tragedy. Smallest planet yet found outside solar system LOS ANGELES (AP) — Astronomers searching for planets outside our solar system have discovered the tiniest one yet — one that's about the size of our moon. But hunters for life in the universe will need to poke elsewhere. The new world orbits too close to its sunlike star and is too sizzling to support life. Its surface temperature is an estimated 700 degrees Fahrenheit. It also lacks an atmosphere and water on its rocky surface. University of California, Berkeley astronomer Geoff Marcy, one of the founding fathers of the planet-hunting field, called the latest find "absolutely mind-boggling." "This new discovery raises the specter that the universe is jampacked, like jelly beans in a jar, with planets even smaller than Earth," said Marcy, who had no role in the new research. It's been nearly two decades since the first planet was found outside our solar system. Since then, there's been an explosion of discoveries, accelerated by NASA's Kepler telescope launched in 2009 to search for a twin Earth. So far, 861 planets have been spotted and only recently have scientists been able to detect planets that are similar in size to Earth or smaller. While scientists have theorized the existence of a celestial body that's smaller than Mercury — the baby of the solar system since Pluto's downgrade — they have not spotted one until now. Nearest to the sun, Mercury is about two-fifths the Earth's diameter; the newly discovered planet and our moon are about a third the size of Earth. The teeny planet was detected by Kepler, which simultaneously tracks more than 150,000 stars for slight dips in brightness — a sign Over 25 years of experience of a planet passing in front of the star. The planet — known as Kepler-37b — orbits a star 210 light years away in the constellation Lyra. It's one of three known planets in that solar system. Discoverer Thomas Barclay of the NASA Ames Research Center in Northern California was so excited when he spied the moonsized planet that for days, he said he recited the "Star Wars" movie line: "That's no moon." It took more than a year and an international team to confirm that it was a bona fide planet. The discovery is detailed in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Scientists are looking for an Earth-size planet that's in the so-called Goldilocks zone — that sweet spot that's not too hot and not too cold where water, which is essential for life, could exist on the surface. While the newly discovered planet isn't it, "that does not detract from the fact that this is yet another mile marker along the way to habitable Earth-like planets," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, who was not part of the discovery team. Feuds, fiefdoms, betrayals underscore need for a manager pope VATICAN CITY (AP) — If evidence was ever needed that the next pope must urgently overhaul the powerful Vatican bureaucracy called the Curia, the scandal over Pope Benedict XVI's private papers is Exhibit A. The pope's own butler stole sensitive internal letters to the pontiff and passed them off to a journalist, who then published them in a blockbuster book. The butler did it, he admitted himself, to expose the ''evil and corruption'' in the Vatican's frescoed halls that he believed was hidden from Benedict by those who were supposed to serve him. And if that original sin weren't enough, the content of the leaks confirmed that the next pope has a very messy house to clean up. The letters and memos exposed petty wrangling, corruption and cronyism at the highest levels of the Catholic Church. The dirt ranged from the awarding of Vatican contracts to a plot, purportedly orchestrated by senior Vatican officials, to out a prominent Catholic newspaper editor as gay. Ordinary Catholics might not think that dysfunction in the Apostolic Palace has any effect on their lives, but it does: The Curia makes decisions on everything from bishop appointments to church closings to marriage annulments and the disciplining of pedophile priests. Papal politics plays into the prayers the faithful say at Mass since missal translations are decided by committee in Rome. Donations the faithful make each year for the pope are held by a Vatican bank whose lack of financial transparency has fueled bitter internal debate. And so after 35 years under two ''scholar'' popes who paid scant attention to the internal governance of the Catholic Church, a chorus is growing that the next pontiff must have a solid track record managing a complicated bureaucracy. Cardinals who will vote in next month's conclave are openly talking about the need for reform, particularly given the dysfunction exposed by the scandal. At least 12 killed, scores hurt in 2 explosions in Hyderabad HYDERABAD, India (AP) — A pair of bombs exploded Thursday evening in a crowded shopping area in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, killing at least 12 people and wounding scores of others in the worst bombing in the country in more than a year, officials said. The blasts occurred about two minutes apart at around 7 p.m. outside a movie theater and a bus station, police said. Storefronts were shattered, motorcycles covered in debris, and food and plates from a roadside restaurant were scattered on the ground near a tangle of dead bodies. Passersby rushed the bleeding and wounded out of the area. ''This is a dastardly attack, the guilty will not go unpunished,'' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. He appealed to the public to remain calm. The bombs were attached to two bicycles about 150 meters (500 feet) apart in Dilsukh Nagar district, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters in New Delhi. The district is a usually crowded shopping area near a residential neighborhood. When asked if the government had any suspects, Shinde responded: ''We have to investigate.'' Rapper Ja Rule leaves NY prison in gun case ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Platinum-selling rapper Ja Rule left an upstate New York prison Thurs- day morning after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession and headed straight into federal custody in a tax case. U.S. Marshals escorted the 36-year-old musician out of Mid-State Correctional Facility at 9:30 a.m. He was being held at the Oneida County Jail in central New York as he awaited word from the Federal Bureau of Prisons about where he'll serve time in the tax case. The rapper, who had been in protective custody because of his celebrity, has some time remaining on a 28-month sentence for tax evasion. Ja Rule, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, may have less than six months left and may be eligible for a halfway house, defense attorney Stacey Richman said. An order to pay $1.1 million in back taxes is one of the main reasons he wants to get back to work, she said. ''Many people are looking forward to experiencing his talent again,'' Richman said. Ja Rule scored a Grammy Award nomination in 2002 for the best rap album with ''Pain is Love.'' 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