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[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A 13-year-old Chinese girl tried to commit suicide because she wanted her family to donate her liver to her cancer-stricken father, state media reported Thursday. The girl, Chen Jin, swallowed more than 200 sleeping pills after she discovered a medical note in her mother's purse that said her father was dying of liver cancer and had three months left to live, the news agency Xinhua said. Jin's mother returned home after visiting her husband in the hospital to find the front door locked. The mother climbed in through a back window and found two empty bottles of sleeping pills. \"Mom, I'm sorry I couldn't stay with you any longer,\" read a note that the teen had left next to her. \"Please give my liver to dad and save him after my death.\" The incident occurred January 24 in Jiangsu province in east China. The teen was taken to the same hospital as her father, where she remains in intensive care, drifting in and out of consciousness, Xinhua said. Doctors say that even if she pulls through, she will need surgery for burns she suffered from an electric blanket on her bed when she lost consciousness, the China Daily newspaper said. According to Chinese media reports, the family -- whose monthly income is about 1,000 yuan ($146) -- has already spent nearly 100,000 yuan ($14,600) in medical expenses since the father was diagnosed with cancer more than a month ago. The mother, who is also in poor health, retired early more than eight years ago. The woman told China Daily she is now trying to keep her husband from learning of their daughter's desperate act of love." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A 13-year-old Chinese girl tried to commit suicide to save her cancer-stricken father .\nGirl swallowed more than 200 sleeping pills when she learned of father's liver cancer .\nThe teen remains in intensive care, drifting in and out of consciousness ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Barack Obama's inauguration marks a profound manifestation of the Rev. Martin Luther King's dream, civil rights leaders say, but the movement would be foolish to drop its guard now. Christine King Farris sits next to a photo of her brother as she reads to kids to commemorate his birthday Thursday. King did not fight tirelessly and ultimately give his life so African-Americans could take office; he fought for the disenfranchised and downtrodden, no matter their color, said Charles Steele, president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King and Steele's father helped found. \"President-elect Barack Obama is just a piece of the puzzle,\" he said. \"This tells us that we are at a station, but it's not our destination. We've got to get back on the train.\" Steele said he worries that those who espouse King's dream may grow lackadaisical because an African-American has taken the reins of the free world. But it is imperative, he said, that they \"march now more than ever before.\" Steele points to 1963, when tens of thousands of protesters converged on Washington to demand equal rights. It was there King delivered his \"I Have a Dream\" speech from the Lincoln Memorial steps. President Kennedy's administration was considered the most receptive ever to the concerns of the civil rights movement, Steele said. But rather than sit back and hope Kennedy did the right thing, King and thousands stormed Washington to lay out demands that later would yield the Civil Rights Act and National Voting Rights Act. Those down for the cause today must do the same with Obama, Steele said. \"Back in the '60s we were fighting for President-elect Barack Obama; we just didn't know it was him,\" Steele said. \"It was civil rights, not politics, that got us to this position, and we can't forget that.\" Andrew Young remembers pickets outside City Hall the day he took office as Atlanta's second black mayor in 1982. Young, a former King lieutenant, said he was initially confused when he noticed some of the protesters were his supporters. \"I said, 'I haven't changed.' They said, 'Yes, you have. You're in charge,' \" recalled Young, who also has been a U.S. congressman and U.N. ambassador. \"They were there reminding me I was the man.\" Obama, too, needs to be reminded of the concerns of the African-American community, Young said, warning civil rights supporters not to assume Obama owes them something. \"He is one of the fruits of our labors,\" Young said, \"and all he has to do is plant more seeds and grow more trees that bear more fruit.\" Young's words rang true with Kee-Shawn Smith, 19, a sophomore at the historically black Clark Atlanta University. She said King and Obama have \"set the way\" for African-Americans and it's time to concentrate on race, the human one. \"America gives you that one thing -- opportunity,\" she said. \"A lot of African-Americans have to realize we have the same opportunities as any other race, any other culture. ... People should take strides to do better than [Obama].\" Neither Obama's election nor the King holiday represent that \"we just want African-Americans to have this. It's more a global perspective,\" said Jeffrey Harrell, 20, a junior at Morehouse College, another historically black school. \"It's about everybody.\" Today, there are still immigrants and women fighting for rights, there are people who are hungry and others without homes, Harrell said. \"Until everyone is able to take part in what's called the American dream, the struggle's not done,\" he said. Harrell also said he was struck by the timing of the inauguration, which falls the day after the King holiday, and he wasn't alone in his belief that it was more than coincidental. \"It shows it's supposed to be this way,\" he said. His words struck a theme, as poet and author Maya Angelou called the timing \"amazing\" and said it was as if \"someone in the outer sphere\" planned it. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a close friend of King's who will deliver the benediction at Obama's inauguration, said the timing of the two events \"reflects the mysticism of the movement.\" Details: Is it coincidence or \"divine order\"? » . Young chuckled upon hearing Lowery's words relayed and added, \"I always say that coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. ... I can't think of a nicer birthday present for Martin Luther King.\" King's only living sibling, Christine King Farris, told CNN that she, too, felt the timing was \"in divine order.\" Watch Christine King Farris talk about her brother, Obama » . King Farris spent part of Thursday morning, her brother's birthday, reading to children at the national park bearing his namesake. She read tales about the shenanigans of a mischievous young King and his brother, Alfred Daniel -- M.L. and A.D. -- who once conspired to get out of music practice by loosening a leg on the piano stool. The prank sent the piano instructor crashing to the floor, King Farris recounted, to the giggles of elementary and preschool students. But she also spoke of her brother's prophecy when he once told their mother, \"One day, I'm going to turn this world upside down.\" Farris said afterward it's important that children understand that though King is portrayed as larger than life, he was once a child like them. It's a necessary lesson in a nation that has struggled with the concept of \"equitable opportunity.\" \"It's going to take some time because it deals with attitudes and, really, the upbringing of children and young people to understand that although we are different in color, in hue and so forth, we are still together. We should be like brothers and sisters,\" she said. Setting aside race and working together is paramount to the success of Obama's presidency, Angelou said, and with each day it grows more vital. \"We needed President-elect Obama desperately, and he needs us,\" she said. \"We need to be up and doing. ... What he needs are a lot of foot soldiers. He needs a lot of us going out trying to help, to allow him to become the president he's come here to be.\" CNN's John Blake contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "SCLC president says King supporters must \"march now more than ever before\"\nAndrew Young: \"I can't think of a nicer birthday present for Martin Luther King\"\nMaya Angelou: \"We needed President-elect Obama desperately, and he needs us\"\nMartin Luther King Jr.'s sister spends his birthday teaching lesson to children ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad has announced he has pulled out of a peace deal in the violence-plagued Swat Valley, saying the government is not serious about implementing Islamic law, or sharia, in the region. Supporters of cleric Sufi Mohammad gather as they march during a peace rally in the Swat Valley. Mohammad brokered the cease-fire in late February between the Pakistani government and his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, who commands the Taliban in Swat Valley. With the deal, the area would come under sharia law, which -- under the Taliban's strict interpretation -- would prevent women from even being seen in public without their husbands or fathers. Mohammad has set up a protest camp at the headquarters of his son-in-law's Taliban-aligned group, Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), according to a police official. The headquarters are located in Batkhelah in the Malakand agency of North West Frontier Province. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Mohammad expressed frustration that President Asif Ali Zardari had not signed off on the peace deal. He blamed the Pakistani government for any bloodshed that might follow. Watch how peace talks have hit a hurdle » . Mohammad's pullout does not automatically mean the deal is over. The Taliban, itself, has not announced whether or not it too is pulling out. A lawmaker with the Awami National Party (ANP) of the North West Frontier Province -- where Swat is located -- said he did not expect fighting to resume. \"God willing, there won't be anything that happens to take this [peace] out of our hands,\" said Hashem Baber of the ANP. The province's government will send a contingent to meet with Mohammed and hear his complaints. \"We'll meet and talk and if they have an complaints, we'll try to push those away and solve the situation to get back to the peace deal,\" Baber said. Critics of the cease-fire have called it a major concession by the Pakistani government in an attempt to hold off Taliban attacks. Indeed, after the deal went into effect, Fazlullah proclaimed himself the Emir of Swat. Swat Valley was once one of Pakistan's biggest tourist destinations. It is near the Afghanistan border and is 186 miles (300 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad. The central government has long exerted little control in the area, but it launched an intense military offensive in late July to flush out militants from areas of the North West Frontier Province . As retaliation for the military presence, the Taliban carried out a series of deadly attacks, beheadings and destruction of girls' schools. They also continued to gain ground, setting up checkpoints throughout the area. Sufi Mohammad was released from jail last year by Pakistani authorities after he agreed to cooperate with the government. He was detained in 2002 after recruiting thousands of fighters to battle U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Fazlullah took over TNSM during Sufi Mohammed's jail stint and vowed to continue his fight to impose fundamentalist Islamic law in the region. Last May, Pakistan's government announced it reached a peace deal with militants in Swat Valley. In the months that followed, the Taliban seized control of the region and carried out a violent campaign against government officials, including local politicians. The head of the secular Awami National Party -- which represents the region -- was forced to flee to Islamabad amid death threats from the Taliban. Pakistan is under enormous pressure to control the militants within its borders, blamed for launching attacks in neighboring Afghanistan where U.S. and NATO forces are fighting militants. The United States -- using unmanned drones -- has carried out several airstrikes inside Pakistan on suspected militant targets, including one on Wednesday that killed three suspected Taliban militants in the tribal region. Such incursions have infuriated many Pakistanis and their leaders. Pakistan's military operation in the region is unpopular among Pakistanis, but efforts to deal diplomatically with militants have not worked in the past. Pakistan's previous leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, reached a cease-fire deal with militants in South Waziristan in 2006 which was widely blamed for giving al Qaeda and the Taliban a stronger foothold in the region. CNN's Zein Basravi contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pro-Taliban cleric pulls out of peace deal in violence-plagued Swat Valley .\nCleric says Pakistani government not serious about implementing Islamic law .\nMohammad brokered cease-fire between Pakistani government and son-in-law ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Sen. John McCain on Tuesday proposed lifting the ban on offshore drilling as part of his plan to reduce dependence on foreign oil and help combat rising gas prices. Sen. John McCain says it's time for the federal government \"to put our own reserves to use.\" \"The stakes are high for our citizens and for our economy,\" McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, said at a press conference Tuesday in Houston, Texas. Hours later, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said President Bush on Wednesday will ask Congress to lift the ban on offshore drilling. Bush has long called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration, but Perino said he now wants to go further. \"For years, the president has pushed Congress to expand our domestic oil supply, but Democrats in Congress have consistently blocked such action,\" she said. Earlier in the day, McCain, describing the high price of fuel, confused the cost of gallons versus barrels, which drew laughs from the crowd and the candidate himself. He quickly corrected himself. \"And with gasoline running at more than $4 a barrel ... a gallon ... I wish ... $4 a gallon, many do not have the luxury of waiting on the far-off plans of futurists and politicians,\" he said. \"We have proven oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. And I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use.\" McCain's plan would let individual states decide whether to explore drilling possibilities. Watch a McCain adviser describe the proposal » . The proposal could put McCain at odds with environmentalists who say it is incongruous with his plans to combat global warning. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a McCain ally, opposes offshore drilling. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist had expressed opposition to exploring coastal waters, but he said this week he supports McCain's plan to lift the moratorium and would not rule out letting his state choose to drill offshore. \"It's the last thing in the world I'd like to do, but I also understand what people are paying at the pump, and I understand the drag it is on our economy,\" Crist told the St. Petersburg Times. \"Something has to be done in a responsible, pragmatic way.\" The current law, which has been in effect since 1981, covers most of the country's coastal waters. Many officials from coastal states oppose offshore drilling because of the risk of oil spills. Environmentalists want offshore drilling to stop to protect oceans and beaches from further pollution. \"The next president must be willing to break with the energy policies, not just of the current administration, but the administrations that preceded it, and lead a great national campaign to achieve energy security for America,\" McCain said Tuesday. McCain on Monday said incentives could possibly be provided for states that choose to permit exploration off their coasts, adding that \"exploration is a step toward the longer-term goal.\" Tuesday's discussion marks the first in a series of talks about America's energy security that McCain will hold during the next two weeks as he lays out his plan to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil. McCain opposes drilling in some parts of the wilderness and says those areas must be left undisturbed. \"When America set aside the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we called it a 'refuge' for a reason,\" he said. McCain also criticized the energy policy of Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama. \"He says that high oil prices are not the problem, but only that they rose too quickly. He doesn't support new domestic production. He doesn't support new nuclear plants. He doesn't support more traditional use of coal, either,\" McCain said. \"So what does Sen. Obama support in energy policy? Well, for starters, he supported the energy bill of 2005 -- a grab bag of corporate favors that I opposed. And now he supports new taxes on energy producers. He wants a windfall profits tax on oil, to go along with the new taxes he also plans for coal and natural gas. If the plan sounds familiar, it's because that was President Jimmy Carter's big idea too -- and a lot of good it did us.\" McCain argues that a windfall profits tax will only increase the country's dependence on foreign oil and be an obstacle to domestic exploration. \"I'm all for recycling -- but it's better applied to paper and plastic than to the failed policies of the 1970s,\" he said. Obama on Tuesday blasted McCain for changing his stance on offshore drilling. \"John McCain's support of the moratorium on offshore drilling during his first presidential campaign was certainly laudable, but his decision to completely change his position and tell a group of Houston oil executives exactly what they wanted to hear today was the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades,\" he said. \"It's another example of short-term political posturing from Washington, not the long-term leadership we need to solve our dependence on oil,\" he said. Democratic Florida Sen. Bill Nelson also criticized McCain's plan, saying it would ruin his state's tourism industry and would not solve the problem. \"I thought John McCain was serious when he said he wanted to make America less dependent on oil. I didn't think he was a flip-flopper. He knows that more drilling isn't the solution to high gas prices,\" Nelson said Tuesday. Obama said a windfall profits tax would ease the burden of energy costs on working families. He also wants to invest in affordable, renewable energy sources. Controversy over offshore drilling surfaced in the United States in 1969, after a crack in the seafloor led to a huge oil spill off Santa Barbara, California. During the 1970s, when many Arab nations launched an oil embargo, many U.S. officials pushed for the exploration of offshore drilling of the coastal United States. Environmentalists responded with loud protests. CNN White House Correspondent Ed Henry contributed to this report ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "President Bush plans to ask Congress to lift offshore drilling ban Wednesday .\nMcCain says he opposes ban; states should decide .\nCurrent law bans drilling in most of the United States' coastal waters .\nMcCain would consider incentives for states that allow coastal exploration ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- Britain's foremost aviation showcase celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. The Spitfire is one of the aircraft from Farnborough's inaugural show getting airborne once again to celebrate the airshow's 60th year. The 46th Farnborough International Airshow will commemorate the first show ever held in 1948 at this year's event in Hampshire which runs from July 14 to 20. \"As we look back on the past 60 years, we also are excited to continue looking forward to the next 60 years,\" said John Cairns, Head of Services at Farnborough International Limited (FIL) which runs the biennial airshow. To mark the occasion, Farnborough's world-renowned flying display will include aircraft which flew at the first show like the Swordfish, Spitfire, Sea Hawk and Sea Fury. Adding a modern twist to the mix will be the debut of The Blades, the world's only globally accredited aerobatic airline. The airshow was first established as a way for the British public to see and learn about the best of aviation. Staying true to its original purpose, on both Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 July -- Farnborough's \"public weekend\" -- there will be a four-and-a-half-hour flying display. Highlights include perennial favourites the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force aerobatic team who will close the show with their aerial gymnastics, as well as the debut of the Aero Sekur Shooting Stars, an Italian ladies' parachute team who will be providing daily skydiving displays. \"Farnborough, in essence, has always been about innovation, and I am delighted that to a long line of distinguished 'Farnborough Firsts' I am able to add some very worthy new firsts, including the first ever women's parachute team to appear at the Airshow; the world's first aerobatic airline and the first business aviation jet to have been developed at Farnborough,\" continued Cairns. As well as displaying aircraft for the public, Farnborough has also established itself as one of the world's premier showcases for the aviation business world. This year, 1,500 companies from 35 countries as diverse as Colombia and Bahrain will be exhibiting planes and other technologies in a show that is predicted to be Farnborough's biggest to date. On the trade days which run from Monday 14 to Friday 18 July, business attendees will be able to see the world's latest aerospace innovations in the air. A full range of civil, business and defence aircraft will take part in flying displays. These include the Airbus AB380; HAL helicopters; the Kestrel JP10 (originally conceived at Farnborough airfield); the MiG 29; the EADS Eurofighter; the F 16 and F18; the MB 346; the AB 609; MB 311. In 2006, Farnborough trade week accumulated $42 billion worth of orders including $550 million in business aviation orders. The Airbus A380 also made its UK debut at Farnborough that year. \"Our intention has always been to build on the success of the 2006 event, and to ensure that this year's show delivers an incomparable business service for our exhibitors and their customers, ensuring that they can gain maximum benefit and opportunity from attending Farnborough Airshow -- whether that is taking orders, making sales or developing new business,\" said Amanda Stainer, the Airshow's Exhibition and Events Director. To find out more about Farnborough International Airshow go to: www.farnborough.com/ ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Farnborough International Airshow celebrates its 60th year in 2008 .\nFlying displays will include Spitfire and Sea Hawk planes which first flew in 1948 .\nAerospace industry will be represented by 1,500 companies from 25 countries .\nProfessionals will be able to see the MiG 29 and the F 16 fighter jets in the air ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The Czech Republic's practice of surgically castrating convicted sex offenders is \"invasive, irreversible and mutilating\" and should stop immediately, the Council of Europe's Anti-Torture Committee said in a report made public Thursday. The central European country castrated at least 94 prisoners in the 10 years up to April 2008, when investigators from the Council of Europe, a human-rights forum, visited the Czech Republic. The Council of Europe condemned the practice as \"degrading.\" The procedure is being performed even on first-time, non-violent offenders, such as exhibitionists, its investigation revealed. Prisoners have to request castration under Czech law, but many fear they will be jailed for life if they do not, the investigation found. \"In practically all the cases, these patients indicated that their application was at least partially instigated by fear of long-term detention,\" the report said. \"Some patients claimed that the treating sexologist had explicitly told them that surgical castration was the only available option to them and that refusal would mean lifelong detention.\" And it warned that some \"significantly\" mentally retarded people had been castrated. \"In at least five cases, legally incapacitated offenders were surgically castrated,\" the report said. \"In all of these instances, the court-appointed guardian had signed the consent form; in two cases, the guardians were mayors.\" The investigators found only two convicts who had spontaneously volunteered for castration, while others they interviewed said mental health staff specializing in sexuality had recommended it. \"The other patients interviewed indicated that the treating sexologist had suggested surgical castration, in several cases within a week of the patient's admission to hospital,\" the report said. \"Some of the sexologists interviewed by the delegation themselves affirmed that for certain patients there was no alternative treatment to surgical castration.\" The Czech Republic defends the practice as voluntary, saying castration aims permanently to reduce testosterone levels in order to diminish the offender's sexual urges. The process, officially called \"therapeutic testicular pulpectomies ... are performed upon a written request of an adult man,\" the Czech government responded. It said the operation had to be approved by a committee of experts. \"Prior to the performance of such intervention, the patient must express his consent with its performance. Castration is considered with respect to men who cannot manage their sexual instincts and are sexually aggressive,\" the Czech government said, saying the Council of Europe had not proven its case sufficiently for the country to abandon castration. It argues the procedure is effective in reducing repeat offenses. But the Council of Europe questioned the statistics on repeat offenses and said even if they were correct, castration was not an appropriate way to reduce recidivism. \"The committee's delegation came across three cases in which sex offenders had committed serious sex-related crimes, including serial rape and attempted murder, after they had been surgically castrated,\" the human-rights group said. \"Surgical castration is no longer a generally accepted medical intervention in the treatment of sex-offenders,\" the report said. It said candidates for castration often received information about the procedure which was too technical to understand -- or no information at all. \"Several patients who had undergone surgical castration told the delegation that they would never have applied for surgical castration had they been properly informed,\" the report warned. It condemned the practice as \"an irreversible intervention that always leads to infertility and, in the long run, a significantly increased risk of osteoporosis,\" also warning of possible depression and changes in appearance. It said it was impossible to determine how many people had been castrated in keeping with a 1966 law. The Council of Europe delegation visited the Czech Republic from March 25 to April 2, 2008. It issued its report and the Czech response on July 23, 2008. It made them public on Thursday at the request of the Czech government, it said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Council of Europe says Czechs should abolish it castration law for sex offenders .\nCoE says some choose castration fearing refusal means long jail sentences .\nGroup alleges some choosing castration include non-violent and first offenders .\nCzech Republic defends procedure as voluntary and effective ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN -- Relations between Arab nations and the United States hinge on American leaders living up to their rhetoric about commitment to lasting peace in the Mideast, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal told CNN Saturday. Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal talks with CNN's Nic Robertson about U.S. relations with Arab nations. \"President Obama, in his statement yesterday, said that he's genuinely making the effort to accomplish a peaceful resolution,\" al-Faisal, who served as Saudi ambassador to the United States from 2005 to 2007, told CNN's Nic Robertson in an interview Friday. \"We've heard this before,\" al-Faisal said. \"We need to see implementation. We need to see facts on the ground change. We need to see rhetoric change. We need to see presence on the ground.\" He said he was encouraged by Obama's appointment of George Mitchell as Mideast envoy, saying, \"Mitchell comes with a track record of success.\" But he suggested Mitchell spend some time in the region to make real progress. \"American envoys, when they've dealt with the Middle East, have always come and gone,\" he said. \"I think it would be wise for Sen. Mitchell ... to pitch his tent in Ramallah or in Jerusalem, let's say, and spend a year, two, perhaps three years on the ground dealing with the daily aspects of making peace there.\" Watch as al-Faisal talks about how the U.S. and the Mideast could build trust » . The United States' backing of Israel, in light of the latest Israeli military operations in Gaza, does not improve its standing in the Arab world, he said. \"What happened in Gaza, people have called it a tragedy,\" al-Faisal said. \"I'd go further and say it was a catastrophe in all aspects of that word. The killing and the destruction was so barbaric by Israel, and unprecedented in a such a small area like Gaza. They [Israelis] claim that they were very careful about collateral damage and they targeted only Hamas, as they call them, militants and operatives. Well, look at the figures. \"More than 400 children killed out of 1,300 [total deaths]. That doesn't show any precision of targeting. Israel claims that these are mishaps of war. If they are mishaps of war, well, why should you have a war? \"I think this is one of the issues that makes the relationship between the Arab world in general and Saudi Arabia in particular threatened when it comes to dealing with the United States,\" al-Faisal said. \"... And President Bush, I think callously and unforgivably, gave Israel a green light to do everything that they wanted to do in Gaza without restraint.\" U.S. and Israeli officials should recognize that operations like the recent one only serve to strengthen Hamas, as \"Israel is a radioactive element in the area. Anyone it touches becomes heroic and legitimate ... because he or she is a victim.\" Al-Faisal said he believes the United States and Israel should negotiate with Hamas. Reminded that the two nations consider Hamas a terrorist organization, he said, \"I think this is another of the things that has to be reviewed by President Obama.\" He believes that negotiations with Hamas should not undermine the Palestinian Authority, saying the authority's President Mahmoud Abbas \"in my view, is the most tailor-made Palestinian leader for making peace and bringing stability and security to the Palestinian people.\" Israel's operation in Gaza came after what it said was a barrage of rockets fired by Hamas militants into southern Israel. Asked how to stop the rockets, al-Faisal said he thinks the key is to bring Hamas into the political fold. \"Put it the other way,\" he said. \"How can we convince Israel itself not to provoke Hamas into firing rockets?\" Israel claims that Hamas fired first, and al-Faisal said these claims underscore the importance of having someone on the ground like Mitchell. \"To see who is telling the truth in a case like that is needed, and a necessity today, more than at any other time,\" he said. The United States has called for nations like Saudi Arabia to accept Israel and normalize relations with the nation, he said, but Israel must make the first move. \"Israel has to normalize relations with Palestine before Saudi Arabia will normalize relations with Israel. Everybody asks us to recognize Israel and to normalize ... nobody asks Israel to recognize Palestine and normalize relations with Palestine. I think that's unfair.\" Arab nations stand ready to make peace with Israel, he said, but Israel has not demonstrated an equal willingness. \"That's the pity of it.\" He said Obama should ask Israel to accept the Arab peace plan. \"And when the Israelis accept the Arab peace plan, the Arab world has already set up a mechanism to deal with that issue. They've chosen Egypt and Jordan to sit down with the Israelis and deal with the Arab peace initiative.\" Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told CNN the nation does not publicly discuss contacts with Arab nations with which it has no official diplomatic relations. Israel welcomed the Saudi peace initiative, he said, and is willing to negotiate with all Arab countries, including the Palestinians. Asked about his confidence in Obama, al-Faisal said, \"I'll have confidence when I see things done on the ground, and President Obama can do something and gain the confidence and support of the Arab and Muslim nations by showing that he has done things on the ground and not simply expressed a wish for that.\" If not, he said the Arab world's relationship with the United States is at stake. \"Popular sentiment, already America is at its lowest level in the history of its engagement with the Arab and Muslim world,\" he said. \"In terms of government relations, that is something that will have to be decided by the leaderships in the Arab world and America, but it's not a pretty picture.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal says U.S.-Arab relations hinge on U.S. role in peace .\nSays U.S. lost Arab support by backing Israel in Gaza \"catastrophe\"\n\"Israel is radioactive in region ... Anyone it touches becomes heroic, legitimate\"\nAl-Faisal believes U.S. and Israel should negotiate with Hamas ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- A Zimbabwe High Court judge is trying to take the country's first lady to court, accusing her of using political muscle to wrest from him a farm he was given during the land seizures. Judge says Grace Mugabe, pictured with her husband, effectively took his farm by force. The matter has not been given a date, however, amid reports that other judges have been refusing to hear it. High Court Judge Ben Hlatshwayo is suing a company owned by Grace Mugabe, wife of President Robert Mugabe, for grabbing Gwina Farm in Banket, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of Harare. The farm is near Mugabe's rural home. The judge said he acquired the farm in December 2002 as part of President Mugabe's controversial land grabs, in which Mugabe took land from white commercial farmers and distributed it to black Zimbabweans. In an affidavit, filed at the High Court in Harare, the judge said the \"unlawful conduct\" by Grace Mugabe's company, Gushungo Holdings, amounted to spoilation -- or taking of the farm by force. He said emissaries of the first lady have been visiting the farm frequently and issuing instructions to workers, according to court documents. \"There is clearly no lawful basis for such interference, which conduct, by its very nature, amounts to spoliation,\" Hlatshwayo wrote in the papers. Lands and Resettlement Minister Didymus Mutasa said the judge had been given alternative land as compensation for the farm that Grace Mugabe wants to have. Mutasa opposes the judge's affidavit. Hlatshwayo said he had been operating his farm in \"quiet, undisturbed, peaceful possession, occupation and production\" since it was allocated to him. Since the land grabs, Zimbabwe has been facing acute shortages of food that critics say is a result of Mugabe giving the land to inexperienced peasant farmers. But Mugabe blames the West for the shortages, saying Western countries are sabotaging him after he took the land for his people. Mugabe says the land reform was meant to reverse colonial imbalances remaining after British rule. The legal wrangle comes after Grace Mugabe was accused of assaulting a journalist in Hong Kong who wanted to take photos of her while she was on a shopping spree. Lawmakers were supposed to debate a bill next week for a constitutional amendment that would create the new posts called for under the deal, including the post of prime minister for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The delay could prolong the country's political and economic crisis. The delay comes a day after the MDC accused Mugabe's ZANU-PF of backtracking on the implementation of a power-sharing deal the party signed with Tsvangirai in September. Tsvangirai agreed last week to join the unity government if \"outstanding issues\" were addressed. While government officials could not be reached for comment, Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was quoted by the state media as saying the delay in debate on the constitutional-amendment bill would push back next week's deadline. A coalition government is seen by many as a panacea to halt the meltdown of Zimbabwe's economy. The country is also facing its worst humanitarian crisis, with acute shortages of all essentials such as fuel, food, electricity and public-health delivery system. A ravaging cholera outbreak has affected 65,000 people and claimed close to 3,500 lives since its outbreak in August." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Zimbabwe High Court judge sues country's first lady over seized farm .\nJudge accuses Grace Mugabe of using political muscle to wrest from him farm .\nJudge said he acquired farm in 2002 as part of controversial land grabs .\nFormation of Zimbabwe unity government delayed as debate postponed ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- For more than a year, the criminal justice students jotted details of Chandra Levy's final movements onto a huge timeline taped to a classroom wall, culled the Internet and public records for scraps of information, and pored over the model skeleton laid out on a table in their lab at Bauder College in Atlanta, Georgia. Antonio Wilson, from left clockwise, Lashaun Bates, Jennifer Gosdin and Charna-Marie Dixon. They spent hours with the slain intern's mother, Susan Levy, who flew from her home in California to Atlanta just to talk to them. Chandra Levy had studied criminal justice in college, too. They began with a list of five suspects, then narrowed it down to one. On December 28, they mailed their findings to the police chief in Washington, D.C. They never heard back. But on Saturday, the text and phone messages began to fly. There's a suspect, they told each other with excitement. An arrest is imminent. \"It completely validates 15 months of work,\" their teacher, Sheryl McCollum, said that Saturday morning. \"We knew this case was solvable. There was no reason for it not to be solved.\" Meet the members of the campus crime club » . A week ago, the police chief in Washington, D.C., called Levy's parents and told them a suspect in the 2001 slaying soon would be arrested. \"I got a call from the Washington police department, just to give me a heads up that there's a warrant out for the arrest,\" said Susan Levy, the victim's mother. She added that police did not provide a name, but sources later identified him to CNN as Ingmar Guandique. Guandique is serving a 10-year prison sentence for two assaults in Washington's Rock Creek Park that occurred around the time of Levy's disappearance. Levy's remains were found in the park. For the Bauder College students, the break in the case was no cause for self-congratulations. They can't disclose their findings to the public. It's part of the deal they make at the start of each investigation. Even though they couldn't name their suspect, or even discuss details of what they found, they didn't carry themselves like people who had missed the mark when they met with CNN on Monday. There were big smiles and, in more reflective moments, small tears. Antonio Wilson and Jennifer Gosdin, two students who last year shared logs of their progress with CNN, said they hoped Levy's mother, father and brother can now find some comfort and peace. If they were able to help the Levys in some way, they are glad. Wilson, who hopes to be a probation officer, said he got more out of the experience than he ever expected. \"It's not my area, but I loved it,\" he said. \"Once you get involved in it, it becomes personal,\" Gosdin agreed. For Naomi Barkley and La-Shawn Bates, the case got personal when they met Susan Levy. \"You could see the hurt in her face,\" Bates recalled. \"You can't help but want to make it right for her. McCollum was in Florida with her family when the news of a suspect broke. She was on the phone with Susan Levy before the sun came up in California. Yes, Levy said, it's true, adding that she was grateful to the students for keeping people focused on her daughter's case, McCollum recalled. McCollum worked as a victims' advocate in the criminal justice system in Fulton County, Georgia, for 25 years before taking a teaching job at Bauder College. In 2005, she launched the Cold Case Investigations Research Institute. It's a fancy name for a campus crime club. The students aren't graded, and they don't receive class credits. But the payoff for the hours they invest includes hands-on experience working real cases and access to experts and criminal justice professionals. Using real-life cases is the best way to groom the next generation of crime-solvers, McCollum believes. Many of the 850 students at Bauder College juggle full-time jobs and families with their course work. About 80 of them are members of the crime club. They are joined by students at two other campuses: Auburn University-Montgomery and Faulkner University in Alabama. Auburn students examined crime scene and geographic details, while Faulkner students delved into the victim's profile. The Bauder students focused on the suspects. Past cases include Tupac Shakur, the hip-hop artist gunned down in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Wayne Williams, the man convicted in the Atlanta child murders case. Students found the Williams case solvable, but Shakur's slaying was ruled \"undetermined.\" The Levy investigation was deemed \"solvable.\" It seemed to carry special meaning for the students. \"With Chandra, she was a criminal justice major at one time, and she had aspirations of going into the federal government; a lot of our students do as well,\" McCollum said at the outset of the project. \"The students became completely dedicated once they met the family members of the victims,\" McCollum said. \"The victims are real people, the cases are real cases, and the research is real investigative work.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Group can't divulge whom it named as a suspect in Chandra Levy case .\nArrest warrant \"completely validates 15 months of work,\" professor says .\nProfessor recalls Levy's mother being grateful that students kept spotlight on case .\nAbout 80 students at Bauder College are members of crime club ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Natasha Richardson, the Tony Award-winning stage actress and member of the famed Redgrave acting clan, died Wednesday from injuries suffered in a ski accident. She was 45. Comedian Joan Rivers says actress Natasha Richardson had \"such a family.\" On Wednesday night's \"Larry King Live,\" comedian Joan Rivers remembered Richardson for her marriage to actor Liam Neeson and used her sharp wit to recall her own skiing experience. The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity: . Larry King: You knew Natasha Richardson. What was your reaction? Joan Rivers: Oh, [it] shouldn't have happened. We were more acquaintances than friends. But we spent one amazing day on a boat with my whole family and she and Liam and the boys. And they were such a family. King: What was the occasion? Rivers: We were all in the Caribbean, and we all kind of knew each other from dinner parties and so forth. And we met at the airport, and we said, \"Oh, let's get together, with the kids.\" And it was one of those wonderful days. We laughed and talked and had lunch, and the kids were jumping off the boat and we were drinking wine. She was just amazing and darling. King: Have you seen her work on Broadway? Rivers: I've seen her work. I love actresses who go back and forth. I always have such great respect for someone who goes to Broadway and then film and goes back again. I saw her in \"The Philadelphia Story\" years ago in London when she won an award. She was very young in a musical version of that. King: What was your read on them as a couple that day? Rivers: Totally happy, totally devoted to each other. That's what kills me. I mean [it] just shouldn't have happened. ... And they made such a good-looking couple, too. He doted on what she said, she doted on -- it was just perfect. King: How did you learn of this yesterday? Rivers: One of our mutual friends called me and said, do you know about -- I just saw them recently in the thing that Prince Charles gave in England, and a mutual friend said, did you heard about what happened to Natasha? I said, what are you talking about? And he said, she's brain-dead. Watch King talk to celebrities about Richardson » . King: So you knew yesterday? Rivers: I knew yesterday. And I knew yesterday that she was brain-dead. And I was told, which is, again, so dear, that they kept her alive purposely to bring her back to New York, so that the boys could say goodbye to her before -- . King: Really? Rivers: Yes. King: That's both beautiful and sad. Rivers: Look at this, it gets me crazy. It's sad. King: Do you ski? Rivers: I had a terrible fall about 12 years ago. And I lay there in the snow and I said to myself, \"If I get up, I'm not coming back and I got up.\" King: You're like, \"Goodbye.\" Rivers: Goodbye. And I swear to you, I laid on the ground and I go, \"If everything works, that's it. That's it.\" King: You've heard the doctor. What do you make of this? There must have been something previously. It was a slight fall? Rivers: You don't know; you hit your head wrong. You walk out of your house and it's over. We all know that, especially at this age. You understand that it's over, it's gone. It's just not that [Richardson's] age, not with a good marriage, not with two young boys. It shouldn't be. King: John Kennedy said life isn't fair. Rivers: It isn't. It isn't. And anyone who doesn't get up in the morning and say, \"How lucky I am,\" is an idiot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Joan Rivers says Natasha Richardson and her family sailed in Caribbean together .\nStage actress and husband Liam Neeson were \"totally devoted,\" Rivers recalls .\nRivers says life can be taken in a flash: \"You walk out of your house and it's over\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- The collective cry throughout India of \"Jai ho\" (May you win) received a resounding answer when composer A.R. Rahman took home two Oscars for the movie \"Slumdog Millionaire.\" Composer A. R. Rahman, \"The Mozart of Madras,\" celebrates his double Oscar win -- for Best Score and one for the song \"Jai Ho\" from the film. Rahman's wins -- one for the song \"Jai Ho\" and the other for Best Score -- were just two reasons for Indians to erupt in boisterous celebrations Monday morning. \"Slumdog,\" which was shot in the streets and slums of Mumbai bagged eight golden statuettes in total, including one for Best Sound Mixing. Indian Resul Pookutty shared it with fellow sound editors who worked on the film. \"This is the finest hour of Indian cinema in the global scenario,\" said Anand Sharma, the country's junior external affairs minister. Indians crowded around television sets in dorm rooms, restaurants and homes, exhaling in relief as Rahman's name was announced as the winner. They high-fived each other, hugged, shrieked and wept. \"I cannot describe this feeling,\" said Nikhil Jyonti, a Mumbai resident. \"I'm bursting with pride for India.\" In the Mumbai slum of Dharavi, where many of the scenes in \"Slumdog\" were shot, a television was set out for the street children to watch the ceremony. Few in the teeming slum of one million people had heard of the Oscars, but they knew Rahman's win was a source of pride for the country. Danny Boyle's rags-to-riches film tells the story of a tea-boy at a Mumbai call center who earns a spot in the Indian version of the quiz show \"Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?\" He raises the suspicion of the show's host when, despite the lack of a formal education, he begins to answer the increasingly difficult questions with ease. The movie also won four Golden Globes and a host of honors at other award shows. While the overwhelming sentiment was one of pride Monday, the movie has faced backlash from many Indian movie critics who took exception to its depiction of Mumbai's underworld without highlighting any of the city's achievements. Among the most notable criticisms was one offered by Amitabh Bachchan, considered the most successful movie star in Bollywood history, and a former real-life host of the Indian \"Millionaire.\" The film,\" he said, \"projects India as the third world's dirty underbelly ... and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots.\" But most Mumabikers, still reeling from a terrorist attack in their city in November, embraced the movie while looking for something positive to root for. They found that in Rahman, a composer who has consistently broken barriers in his musical scores for dozens of Bollywood hits and is known as the \"Mozart of Madras.\" Rahman has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide -- more than the Beatles -- but has remained relatively unknown in Europe and the United States. Director Spike Lee used one of his songs in his 2006 heist film, \"Inside Man.\" Many hope the Oscar win will bring Rahman greater exposure. Rahman and Pookutty, however, aren't the first Indians with Academy Awards to their names. In 1992, legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray received an honorary award for his contribution to world cinema. And in 1982, Bhanu Athaiya shared an Oscar for costume design for the movie \"Gandhi.\" CNN's Saeed Ahmed and Harmeet Shah Singh contributed to this report ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "India celebrated composer A.R. Rahman winning two awards at last night's Oscars .\nRahman won Best Score and Best Song for the film \"Slumdog Millionaire\"\nIndian Resul Pookutty also won Best Sound Design for \"Slumdog Millionaire\"\nIndian-made documentary \"Smile Pinky\" won Best Documentary Short ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Transportation Security Administration is looking into a report that Louisiana Sen. David Vitter had an angry altercation with an airline worker at Washington Dulles International Airport last week. Louisiana Sen. David Vitter reportedly went into a \"tirade\" with a Washington Dulles International Airport worker. The agency is not doing a formal investigation, TSA spokesman Sterling Payne told CNN, but it is gathering information to determine if one is needed. \"We are looking into the reported incident,\" Payne said. An aide to Vitter said Friday morning the Republican senator had not been contacted by the TSA and maintains the media account of the incident is overblown. Roll Call had a report in its gossip column earlier this week, based on an unnamed eyewitness, that Vitter arrived at the airport 20 minutes before his United Airlines flight was scheduled to depart. The door to the boarding bridge was already closed, but Vitter opened it anyway, triggering an alarm. The paper said an airline worker warned him not to enter the walkway, which led to a \"tirade\" by Vitter who \"remained defiant.\" The source told Roll Call the senator left the area before airport police arrived. Vitter has refused to answer reporters' questions about the incident, but in a statement Wednesday described his actions more innocently and the Roll Call report \"silly.\" \"After being delayed on the Senate floor ensuring a vote on my anti-pay raise amendment and in a rush to make my flight home for town hall meetings the next day, I accidentally went through the wrong door at the gate,\" he said. \"I did have a conversation with an airline employee, but it was certainly not like this silly gossip column made it out to be.\" Vitter has been the subject of unwelcome headlines before. In 2007, he was linked to a Washington, D.C., prostitution ring. He denied allegations he had relationships with prostitutes, but apologized for \"a very serious sin.\" Joel DiGrado, Vitter's spokesman, said the congressman would not comment further on the issue. CNN's Mike Ahlers contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "TSA gathers information about alleged incident involving Louisiana Sen. David Vitter .\nVitter reportedly had angry confrontation with airport worker .\nVitter says media account of incident is overblown ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Hundreds of thousands of visitors to the National Mall crowded Metro stations around Washington on Tuesday, slowing movement to a crawl after the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. A security tower stands over the crowd that came to watch Barack Obama's inauguration. \"All of our stations are overcrowded,\" said Lisa Farbstein, spokeswoman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. \"It's taking hours for people to get back into the stations.\" Police were holding people outside some Metro stations until there was room for them to get in, Farbstein said. But as evening fell and celebrations moved indoors, observers said crowd flow on the Metro system was smoother, if still an effort in patience. As of 7 p.m. Tuesday, the Metro had counted 973,285 passenger trips, setting a record with several hours and many miles yet to go. \"Throughout the weekend, we've effectively dealt with record-breaking crowds,\" said Metro General Manager John Catoe. \"By 5 p.m., people had taken nearly 874,000 trips, breaking yesterday's ridership record with nine more hours of service to go.\" Monday's 866,681 passenger trips had been the Metro record. The Metro numbers were just one record-setting tally in a day that lived up to expectations in sheer crowd size alone. Crowds on the National Mall were so large that the National Park Service began closing portions of it by 9 a.m., three hours before Obama took his oath of office. A crowd of 1.5 million people packed the Mall for the inauguration, according to an analysis of satellite imagery provided to CNN by IHS Jane's, a leading information provider on defense, international risk and national security. Officials said the massive security for the event was running smoothly, although there had been what they described as minor miscommunications, such as a Metro station entrance being closed when it was not supposed to be. The crowd was orderly, and there had been no reports of major incidents or concerns. FBI spokesman Jason Pack said there had been no arrests related to the inauguration so far. FBI and partner agencies investigated about a dozen reports of suspicious incidents or people, but none was anything serious. About 957 people visited the medical tents on the mall for various first-aid needs. Some security screening lines ran slowly, officials said, but there had not been any major systemic problems. Earlier in the day, federal officials were reviewing an unspecified threat to disrupt the inauguration, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The FBI was investigating two \"streams of intelligence\" suggesting that Somalia-based terrorist organization Al Shabaab may have been plotting an attack timed to coincide with the event, the FBI and Homeland Security said in a joint threat advisory obtained by CNN. Security officials made some readjustments to inauguration security as a precaution and did not change the threat level, an administration official said. The ceremony went off without incident. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice designated al-Shabaab, also known as the Mujahedeen Youth Movement, a \"Foreign Terrorist Organization\" in February. The State Department calls it \"a violent and brutal extremist group with a number of individuals affiliated with al Qaeda. Many of its senior leaders are believed to have trained and fought with al Qaeda in Afghanistan.\" Also Tuesday, a false alarm prompted police to temporarily close a 25-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike, authorities said. Investigators had received a tip that a man headed to Washington was threatening the inaugural, but they eventually determined \"there is no danger to the public,\" FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver said. Two law enforcement sources said the man's mother phoned in a tip to authorities saying her son was traveling in a vehicle containing a bomb. New Jersey State Police stopped a man in a vehicle on the highway Tuesday afternoon, questioned him and searched his vehicle, several law enforcement sources said. Officials said he never posed a threat. It's unclear what, if any, action might be taken against the mother. Tuesday in Washington, tens of thousands of police officers, federal agents and National Guardsmen were deployed on land, water and in the air in an unprecedented effort to make sure the inauguration was secure. The security effort involved Secret Service agents; 8,000 police officers from the District of Columbia and other jurisdictions; 10,000 National Guardsmen; about 1,000 FBI personnel; and hundreds of others from the Department of Homeland Security, the National Park Service and U.S. Capitol Police. Another 20,000 members of the National Guard were ready to respond if there was an emergency, said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Security planners drew up procedures to deal with improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers and the use of a weapon of mass destruction. A recent intelligence assessment, however, said a lone wolf would pose the greatest potential threat. Chertoff said an individual or small group planning to do harm is difficult to detect. \"Whether the motivation is racism or some psychological disorder ... in an open society, it is impossible to keep a single individual from doing some damage,\" he said. Watch the anti-sniper detail prepare » . Federal officials acknowledged that the inauguration of the first African-American president could make an attractive target. Since Obama's election, the number of threats against him has increased, according to a recent federal intelligence assessment. The FBI has been especially aggressive in examining white supremacist groups. They have ramped up their anti-Obama comments, officials said, but it appears to be more talk than action. Because inaugural events are spread over four days, security is especially challenging. Organizers say they started their security planning the day after the last inauguration and ramped up their efforts in July. CNN's Jeanne Meserve, Pam Benson, Kevin Bohn, Carol Cratty and Rob Frehse contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Metro stations packed; some wait hours to get home .\nPossible plot from Somali group; threat level remains same .\n58 agencies are involved in the massive inaugural security effort .\nBecause of crowding, parts of National Mall were closed off at 9 a.m." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist and a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Read his column here . Ruben Navarrette says Mexico isn't a failed state, but the fate of its drug war is important for US. SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- You may have heard the rumor that, as a result of a bloody drug war that has claimed more than 7,000 lives since January 2007, Mexico is on the verge of being declared a \"failed state.\" Drawing a lot of its oxygen from cable demagogues and talk radio, the chatter intensified several weeks ago when the Pentagon issued a report warning that our neighbor -- along with Pakistan, no less -- could face a \"rapid and sudden\" collapse because \"the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels.\" How's this for pressure? The police chief in Ciudad Juarez resigned last week after drug traffickers began to make good on their promise to kill police officers in that city until the chief stepped down. The Mexican drug war is the real deal, and so is the threat to both Mexico and the United States. The casualties are mounting. The killings are becoming more brutal, and now include the beheading of soldiers. The cartels are essentially terrorizing the Mexican people in the hopes of convincing them to put pressure on the government to relent in its efforts to put the bad guys out of business. Take it from someone who has known Mexican President Felipe Calderon since before he took the job -- back when we were in graduate school together nearly a decade ago -- that's not going to happen. Calderon was brave enough to take on the drug cartels by arresting their leaders, confiscating their product, and -- most importantly -- seizing the large shipments of cash that they need to operate. And he's smart enough to know that letting up on the pressure before the task is done would only make matters worse and basically hand Mexico over to the drug lords . Meanwhile, there is no question that Americans will pay a price if the drug violence spills over the border. Just a few days ago, the U.S. State Department issued a blunt travel advisory warning Americans with plans to travel in Mexico to be extra careful. \"Recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades,\" the advisory reads. \"Large firefights have taken place in towns and cities ... and during some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area.\" Firefights will put a crimp in the tourist industry. But, Mexicans are quick to point out the irony. Here Americans are worried about their safety in Mexico when one of the reasons the Mexican government is having such a difficult time fighting the drug cartels is because the enemy has plenty of money and guns. And both are coming from the north. According to most estimates, about 90 percent of all the cocaine flowing into the United States comes from Mexico and about 90 percent of the guns seized in drug-related violence come from the United States. Former President George W. Bush and Congress deserve credit for pushing through $400 million in emergency aid in the Merida Initiative to help the Mexican government fight the cartels. And even though Mexico is still waiting for delivery of most of those funds, there were signals this week that the Obama administration understands the stakes involved. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced new measures to prevent the violence from spreading to this side of the border and told Congress that the issue demands the \"utmost attention.\" Attorney General Eric Holder called the drug cartels a \"national security threat\" to the United States and said Americans \"simply can't afford to let down our guard.\" Even so, this business about Mexico on its way to being a \"failed state\" is just a lot of hot air. The rumors of our neighbor's demise have been greatly exaggerated. A country of 110 million people, Mexico is still a functioning democracy with press freedoms and bold leaders, like Calderon, who are tackling the issue of drug violence head on. There is plenty of reason for optimism. Frankly, one reason the doomsday talk about Mexico catches on is because it distracts Americans from our own problems. I learned a long time ago that, for many of my countrymen, Mexico serves a purpose in tough times by providing something to which we can feel superior. Even with the banking bailouts, mortgage crisis, a plummeting stock market and rising unemployment, the thinking goes, we can at least be grateful that we're not Mexico. For Mexican-Americans like me, that's cold comfort. I expect a lot more of my country -- the United States -- than I do the country that my grandfather left behind a hundred years ago when he legally immigrated north. And right now, what I expect is for all Americans to realize -- and for the Obama administration to never forget -- that it's impossible to feel safe when there is a wildfire in the neighborhood. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ruben Navarrette: Mexico's drug war is serious, but it's not a \"failed state\"\nHe says the United States has a lot at stake in the outcome of the fight .\nNavarrette: Mexico's president is smart and brave and knows he can't surrender .\nThe country has a big population, free press and bold leaders, he says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- An e-mail from one of the crewmen aboard the Maersk Alabama tells a gripping tale of sailors fighting back against pirates who had taken over their ship. Crewman Matt Fisher hopes other ships can learn lessons from the Maersk Alabama takeover and recapture. It also contains some of the lessons they learned and hope to pass on to others who could face the same danger. Crewman Matt Fisher sent the e-mail to a fellow sailor aboard another Maersk ship. The U.S.-flagged Alabama was already heading to Kenya when he sent it, but it was before the U.S. Navy rescued the cargo ship's captain, who was held hostage on a lifeboat by the four pirates. \"The pirates got up to the bridge very quickly once they were onboard,\" Fisher wrote. \"We had a locked cage door over the ladder well from main deck, but it only took a second for them to shoot it off. They then got to the bridge up the outside ladders.\" Fisher said that Capt. Richard Phillips and three other sailors were on the bridge when the pirates arrived, adding that he didn't know why they stayed. The rest of the crew, Fisher said, headed below and took positions in the engine and steering areas. One sailor kept watch in the engine control room, he said, while another \"was out on deck tracking the pirates' movement.\" \"We kept swinging the rudder side to side,\" Fisher wrote. \"The pirates' boat capsized, though I'm not sure exactly when or what caused it. After about 20 minutes, the engine was killed, I don't know by whom.\" After the engine was killed, the sailors shut off the power to the ship as well as the fuel line to the ship's emergency diesel generator. \"I think this was critical,\" Fisher wrote. \"The pirates were very reluctant to go into the dark.\" Fisher said the sailors were safe where they were, since the pirates had no grenades and would never have been able break through with only firearms. The only problem, he said, was the heat and a shortage of water. \"In the future, we will store food and water in various spots for emergency usage,\" he said. \"I think we will also run a fresh water line into the steering gear.\" Fisher said the sailors were able to sneak up to the engine room water fountain and filled some bottles, and the sailor who'd been on deck tracking the pirates dropped fruit and sodas from the ship's galley through a standpipe to the hidden sailors. At one point, Fisher wrote, the pirates sent one of the four sailors who had remained on the bridge to hunt for the other crew members -- unescorted. He escaped and joined his comrades. Later, one of the pirates escorted another sailor into the engine room, again searching for the missing crew members, but one of the sailors \"was able to jump him in the dark and we took him prisoner.\" \"No one else came down into the E/R (engine room),\" he said. \"As the day went on, the pirates became desperate to get out of there.\" Phillips finally talked the pirates into taking a small boat used for rescuing a sailor who falls overboard. The three remaining pirates and the captain went down into the boat, and the sailors, now in control of their ship again, dropped food, water and fuel to them. But the small boat wouldn't start. The sailors on board the ship dropped the lifeboat into the water and took it -- and their prisoner -- to the stranded boat with the pirates and the captain, intending to trade boats and prisoners. \"We were supposed to exchange their guy for the Captain, but they ended up keeping him,\" Fisher wrote. \"They motored off in the lifeboat. They had no way of getting back aboard, so we followed them.\" A few hours later, the USS Bainbridge arrived on the scene. Watch crew arrive in the United States » . \"We stayed close by for some time, but then the Navy asked us to head out,\" Fisher said. \"I heard that several other pirate vessels were heading our way and the Navy wanted us out of the way. That's about it.\" Eventually, Navy SEALs shot and killed three of the pirates aboard the lifeboat. Phillips was freed, and the remaining pirate was taken prisoner. But the Maersk Alabama, with U.S. Navy protection aboard, was nearing Mombasa, Kenya, by that time. At the end of his e-mail, Fisher went over the what the Alabama's crew had learned. \"Have a well-fortified location with food and water supply. Kill all the lights. Leave the alarms going, the noise helped cover our movements through the house. Flashlights and radios are very handy, as well as the sound-powered phone.\" \"It was a pretty stressful situation,\" Fisher wrote. \"I have to say I am impressed with how the entire crew responded. We didn't have anybody who wanted to give up.\" Fisher also said he was \"pretty confident\" that his captain would come out of the ordeal \"OK.\" Watch Capt. Phillips arrive in Kenya » . \"They have to know that if they kill him they'll be done,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Matt Fisher, crewman on Alabama, sent e-mail to sailor on another Maersk ship .\nFisher tells how crew hid from the pirates and eventually overtook them .\nKey lesson: \"Have a well-fortified location with food and water supply\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and slapping did not violate laws against torture when there was no intent to cause severe pain, according to a Bush-era memo on the tactics released Thursday. Attorney General Eric Holder says government workers who followed protocol won't be prosecuted. \"To violate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering,\" said an August 2002 memo from then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee to John Rizzo, who was acting general counsel for the CIA. \"Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture. ... We have further found that if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent,\" Bybee wrote. The Bybee opinion was sought on 10 interrogation tactics in the case of suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. The memo authorized keeping Zubaydah in a dark, confined space small enough to restrict the individual's movement for no more than two hours at a time. In addition, putting a harmless insect into the box with Zubaydah, who \"appears to have a fear of insects,\" and telling him it is a stinging insect would be allowed, as long as Zubaydah was informed the insect's sting would not be fatal or cause severe pain. \"If, however, you were to place the insect in the box without informing him that you are doing so ... you should not affirmatively lead him to believe that any insect is present which has a sting that could produce severe pain or suffering or even cause his death,\" the memo said. Other memos allowed the use of such tactics as keeping a detainee naked and in some cases in a diaper, and putting detainees on a liquid diet. On waterboarding, in which a person gets the sensation of drowning, the memo said, \"although the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death, prolonged mental harm must nonetheless result\" to violate the law. Authorities also were allowed to slap a detainee's face \"to induce shock, surprise or humiliation\" and strike his abdomen with the back of the hand in order to disabuse a detainee's notion that he will not be touched, the memos said. Bybee noted in the memo that the CIA agreed all tactics should be used under expert supervision. Other memos said waterboarding can be used only if the CIA has \"credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent\" and if a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent, disrupt or delay an attack, and other methods fail to elicit the information. Another memo to Rizzo, from Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury on May 10, 2005, noted that nudity could be used as an interrogation technique. \"Detainees subject to sleep deprivation who are also subject to nudity as a separate interrogation technique will at times be nude and wearing a diaper,\" it said, noting that the diaper is \"for sanitary and health purposes of the detainee; it is not used for the purpose of humiliating the detainee and it is not considered to be an interrogation technique.\" \"The detainee's skin condition is monitored, and diapers are changed as needed so that the detainee does not remain in a soiled diaper,\" the memo said. Another Bradbury memo laid out techniques and when they should be used in a \"prototypical interrogation.\" \"Several of the techniques used by the CIA may involve a degree of physical pain, as we have previously noted, including facial and abdominal slaps, walling, stress positions and water dousing,\" it said. \"Nevertheless, none of these techniques would cause anything approaching severe physical pain.\" All of the CIA techniques were adapted from military \"survival evasion resistance escape\" training, according to a May 30, 2005, memo from Bradbury to Rizzo. \"Although there are obvious differences between training exercises and actual interrogations, the fact that the United States uses similar techniques on its own troops for training purposes strongly suggests that these techniques are not categorically beyond the pale,\" the memo said. The memo said waterboarding and other techniques were used on Zubaydah; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and identified as \"KSM\" in the memo; and another suspected al Qaeda leader, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. \"The CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including KSM and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques,\" the memo said. \"These legal legal memoranda demonstrate in alarming detail exactly what the Bush administration authorized for 'high value detainees' in U.S. custody,\" said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement. \"The techniques are chilling. This was not an 'abstract legal theory,' as some former Bush administration officials have characterized it. These were specific techniques authorized to be used on real people.\" In releasing the memos in response to a public records request from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, the Obama administration informed CIA officials they will not be prosecuted for past waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. Attorney General Eric Holder promised in a separate statement that officials who used the controversial interrogation tactics were in the clear if their actions were consistent with the legal advice from the Justice Department under which they were operating at the time. \"My judgment on the content of these memos is a matter of record,\" President Obama said in a statement released from the White House. Obama prohibited the use of \"enhanced interrogation techniques\" such as waterboarding shortly after taking office in January. Such techniques \"undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer,\" he said Thursday. The president said that while United States must sometimes \"protect information that is classified for purposes of national security,\" he decided to release the memos because he believes \"strongly in transparency and accountability\" and \"exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release.\" Obama argued that \"withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time.\" \"This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States,\" he said. He added that the officials involved in the questionable interrogations would not be subject to prosecution because the intelligence community must be provided \"with the confidence\" it needs to do its job. The president pledged to work to ensure the actions described in the memos \"never take place again.\" CNN's Kate Bolduan and Terry Frieden contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Memo: To violate torture law, must have intent to inflict severe suffering .\nObama says releasing memos vital to maintaining transparency, accountability .\nLegal memos offered guidance to CIA on \"enhanced interrogation\"\nNo prosecution for actions consistent with memos, official says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met Thursday in Cairo amid escalating cross-border violence between Israel and Hamas. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni meets Thursday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. The session follows the end of a tenuous 6-month-long cease-fire between the Israeli military and Hamas militants in Gaza. Egypt mediated the first truce and is trying to negotiate an extension despite what Israel says are dozens of rockets fired by Hamas into the Jewish state this week. Livni criticized Hamas after her meeting with Mubarak. \"Hamas needs to understand that Israel's basic desire to live in a tranquil region doesn't mean that Israel is willing to accept ongoing shooting at its population,\" she said, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. \"Enough is enough. We cannot accept this situation, and the situation will change.\" Egypt expressed concern about a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, an Israeli Foreign Ministry statement said. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said this week that it would help countries and organizations deliver aid through Egyptian territory to Palestinians in Gaza. Livni also met with the head of Egyptian intelligence Thursday and is scheduled to talk with the Egyptian foreign minister. Israeli military officials said Hamas militants fired more than 65 rockets into southern Israel on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Israeli air force said it killed a Hamas militant who was part of a group launching the rockets into Israel. An Israeli police spokesman said no one had been injured in the latest barrage of rocket attacks. But emergency workers with Magen David Adom, Israel's Red Cross agency, treated 57 people suffering from shock, half of them children, an agency official said, adding that 200 ambulances were standing by in the area. \"I think the circumstances are extremely tragic, that Muslim zealots of Hamas have decided to shatter and ruin the Christmas celebrations of the Christian brothers in the Holy Land, both in the West Bank and of course in Gaza itself,\" Israeli Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog said. \"If things deteriorate further, then of course we'll have to take necessary action, which will be very painful,\" Herzog said, adding that civilians had gathered in shelters in southern Israel to try to stay safe amid the rocket attacks. Asked about the possibility of Israel coming up with a new strategy, Herzog responded, \"The new strategy could be, of course, an all-out conflict against Hamas, which is a possibility that voices in Israel are calling for. We are trying to show restraint.\" Hamas is a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization whose military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, has admitted responsibility for terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians as well as attacks against the Israeli military. Israel and the U.S. State Department consider Hamas a terrorist organization, though it also operates an extensive social services network in the territories. Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said, \"Our position is clear: We will answer quiet with quiet, and we will answer attacks with measures designed to protect our people.\" Olmert has threatened to respond to the ongoing attacks. The truce between the Hamas government in Gaza and Israel expired Friday. Under the Egyptian-brokered deal, Hamas agreed to end militant attacks on Israel from Gaza, and Israel agreed to halt raids inside the territory and ease its blockade on humanitarian goods. In reality, the truce had started breaking down two months ago. Rocket attacks by militants became more frequent, and Israel resumed airstrikes inside Gaza. \"We really appreciate the Egyptian efforts. ...,\" Herzog said. \"The Egyptians have tried endlessly and tirelessly in the past few weeks to bring Hamas back to cease-fire mode.\" Olmert said Sunday that Israel will \"take the necessary measures\" to respond to the rocket attacks and \"will know when to respond correctly and with the necessary responsibility.\" \"A responsible government is neither eager for battle, nor does it shy away from it,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hold talks .\nMeeting follows end of cease-fire between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza .\nIsrael: Hamas militants fired 65-plus rockets into southern Israel on Wednesday .\nIsraeli prime minister has threatened to respond to ongoing attacks ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The French Navy captured 11 suspected pirates off the coast of Kenya Wednesday, the French Ministry of Defense announced. The French frigate Nivose, pictured last year patrolling the Gulf of Aden. The Navy tracked the pirates overnight after they attacked a ship called the Safmarine Asia. The French launched a helicopter from the frigate Nivose to head off the attack Tuesday night, then seized the suspected pirates Wednesday morning, the statement said. Both the European Union and the United States have been patrolling the region since an upsurge in piracy off the coast of Somalia last year. U.S. snipers killed three pirates holding a U.S. ship captain hostage Sunday. The captain, Richard Phillips, was held in a lifeboat for days after his ship, the Maersk Alabama, was seized last week . But pirates in Somalia vowed revenge, saying that an attack on another ship, the Liberty Sun, was a response to the killing of Phillips' captors. \"It was a revenge,\" Hassan Mohamud told a Somali journalist. \"The U.S. ship escaped by a matter of chance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "French Ministry of Defense says they were captured off the coast of Kenya .\nNavy tracked pirates overnight after they attacked ship called the Safmarine Asia .\nHelicopter launched from frigate Tuesday night; 11 captured Wednesday ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- George Harrison's closest friends and family gathered in Hollywood on Tuesday to dedicate the late Beatle's star on the Walk of Fame. From left, musicians Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Paul McCartney join Harrison's relatives for dedication of his star. \"There's someone here from every important stage of George's life and career,\" Harrison's widow, Olivia, said. Harrison, who was 58 when he died of cancer in 2001, becomes the second Beatle with a Hollywood star. John Lennon was the first. The new star is next to the iconic Hollywood headquarters of Capitol Records, the distributor of much of Harrison's music for the past five decades. Tuesday's ceremony coincided with the Capitol/EMI announcement that it will release Harrison's first solo greatest hits collection -- \"Let it Roll: Songs by George Harrison\" -- on June 16. Actor Tom Hanks said the world changed for him in January 1964 when he heard his first Beatles song. \"That's when we escaped the doldrums and moved on to a brighter, better, more joyful future,\" Hanks said. Superstar musicians Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, Joe Walsh and Jeff Lynne attended the star's dedication, but they did not address the crowd. Scores of Harrison fans showed up for the event, with some traveling from as far as Liverpool, England. \"We all have deep feelings for George, because he was such a deep-feeling person,\" Olivia Harrison said. \"He was a beautiful, mystical man, living in a material world,\" she said. \"He was funny as the day is long and just as perplexing.\" His son, Dhani, 30, joked about his father's star. \"It's good, it's lovely and it's nice and shiny and I'm glad it's not outside of Frederick's of Hollywood,\" he said. Harrison was just 15 when schoolmate Paul McCartney asked him to join his and John Lennon's band, the Quarrymen. The band evolved into the Beatles and the rest is history. Harrison played lead guitar and sang for the Beatles. Songs penned by Harrison included \"Taxman,\" \"While My Guitar Gently Weeps,\" \"Something\" and \"Here Comes the Sun.\" Harrison was a pioneer of what has since become a tradition of rock stars supporting charitable causes with their music. In 1971, he helped organize the star-studded \"Concert for Bangladesh\" at New York's Madison Square Garden. In addition to his post-Beatles solo career, Harrison played with several groups -- most notably the Traveling Wilburys, alongside Petty, Lynne, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan. CNN's Denise Quan contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harrison's star next to Hollywood headquarters of Capitol Records .\nHarrison, who died of cancer in 2001, is second Beatle with star after John Lennon .\nSome fans travel from as far as Liverpool, England for dedication of Harrison's star .\nHarrison penned many Beatles songs before launching successful solo career ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- NASA scientists say new data provided by twin spacecraft analyzing the sun will help them more accurately predict how so-called solar tsunamis wreak havoc on our planet. NASA says new data on so-called solar tsunamis will help predict how they will affect our planet. The tsunamis -- powerful explosions known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs -- produce solar cosmic rays that can interfere with technology, causing power blackouts and disrupting air traffic communications and cell phone networks. NASA says images captured by its twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft have enabled scientists to map the tsunamis in 3D to examine their structure, velocity, mass and direction. The solar ejections, its says, can release billions of tons of high-velocity plasma into space, producing a shockwave that generates cosmic rays which then plow into our atmosphere. These can create the brightly-colored auroras, more commonly known as the Northern or Southern lights, but also have more damaging effects, posing particular threats to spacecraft and astronauts. Solar physicist Angelos Vourlidas of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington said the new data from the STEREO craft -- launched into orbit in October 2006 -- will revolutionize the study of cosmic weather patterns. \"Before this unique mission, measurements and the subsequent data of a CME observed near the sun had to wait until the ejections arrived at Earth three to seven days later,\" he said in statement. \"Now we can see a CME from the time it leaves the solar surface until it reaches Earth and we can reconstruct the event in 3D directly from the images.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NASA says new data will enable scientists to map solar tsunamis in 3D .\nSolar ejections can wreak havoc on Earth, causing power and radio blackouts .\nNew data could help predict what effects the phenomena will have, NASA says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Roy Bennett, the former Zimbabwean opposition activist who was arrested Friday shortly before he was due to become a Cabinet minister, has been charged with conspiracy to commit banditry, sabotage and terrorism, his lawyer told CNN. Roy Bennett, left, pictured with MDC leader Morgan Tzvangirai, is also the party's treasurer. The Movement for Democratic Change nominated Bennett to be deputy minister of agriculture in a national unity government with President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, which has ruled the country since independence in 1980. Bennett was arrested on Friday while on his way to South Africa, where he has been living for three years. Bennett, who is also the party's treasurer, was pulled from an aircraft at the airport in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, the MDC said. Police accuse him of funding the acquisition of weapons to commit the crimes he is charged with. Bennett will appear in the Mutare magistrate's court on Monday, his lawyer Trust Maanda told CNN. Bennett, a white coffee grower, is an old foe of Mugabe's government. His farms were seized during the country's controversial land reform program. He has previously being jailed for assaulting Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa in parliament. Hundreds of party members and supporters Friday surrounded the Mutare police station where Bennett was being held, the party said. The incident happened the same day that other MDC ministers in the new unity government took their oaths of office. The swearing-in eventually took place but was delayed, the MDC said, because Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party wanted to appoint more ministers than they were allowed in the new government. Under the power-sharing deal signed in September, the ruling ZANU-PF party gets 17 cabinet posts and the MDC gets 13. Mugabe brought a \"bloated\" list of 22 Cabinet ministers to the swearing-in ceremony, but the MDC leadership insisted Mugabe stick to the 17 agreed Cabinet posts. The stalemate lasted for more than an hour, until Mugabe's party agreed that only 17 of their proposed ministers take office. CNN's Nkepile Mabuse contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "New Zimbabwean minister gaces accusations of banditry, sabotage and terrorism .\nRoy Bennett pulled from aircraft as he was about to fly to South Africa .\nMDC supporters rallied at police station where Bennett was held ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Yes, she is 28. Yes, she is a Sunday school teacher, and yes, her name is Melissa Huckaby. Melissa Huckaby of Manteca, California, is also a 28-year-old Sunday school teacher. But the woman from Manteca, California, said she wants people to know that she is not that Melissa Huckaby. This Melissa Huckaby lives about 14 miles from Tracy, California, where the other one was arrested and accused of raping and killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu. That hasn't stopped national talk shows from calling her and people from threatening her, forcing her friends to bring guns to church in an effort to protect her. Her MySpace page has been mistaken so many times for the one of the murder suspect that she has had to shut it down, Huckaby said. \"They hear the name, and a lot of people think it's me,\" Huckaby told CNN affiliate KOVR-TV. \"I was getting hate mail.\" Even Melissa Huckaby of Manteca has noticed the similarities with her namesake in nearby Tracy. Watch how the Manteca woman deals with the confusion » . Not only are they the same age and both teach Sunday school, the two women resemble each other slightly. Melissa Huckaby of Tracy is accused of killing an 8-year-old playmate of her 5-year-old daughter. Melissa Huckaby of Manteca has two daughters -- 8 and 5. But that's where the similarities end, the Manteca woman said, noting that she's never even received a speeding ticket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They hear the name, and a lot of people think it's me,\" woman tells TV station .\nMelissa Huckaby shares name and age of suspect in 8-year-old girl's slaying .\nWoman receives hate mail, threats; she takes MySpace page down .\nManteca, California, woman says she's never even gotten a speeding ticket ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Rapid-fire TV news bulletins or getting updates via social-networking tools such as Twitter could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists say. Scientists say updates on networking tools such as Twitter are often too quick for the brain to fully digest. New findings show that the streams of information provided by social networking sites are too fast for the brain's \"moral compass\" to process and could harm young people's emotional development. Before the brain can fully digest the anguish and suffering of a story, it is being bombarded by the next news bulletin or the latest Twitter update, according to a University of Southern California study. \"If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality,\" said researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. The report, published next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition, studied how volunteers responded to real-life stories chosen to stimulate admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain. iReport.com: Growing pains for Twitter, Facebook? Brain scans showed humans can process and respond very quickly to signs of physical pain in others, but took longer to show admiration or compassion. \"For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people's social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and refection,\" said Immordio-Yang. She said the study raises questions about the emotional cost, particularly for young people, of heavy reliance on a torrent of news snippets delivered via TV and online feeds such as Twitter. She said: \"We need to understand how social experience shapes interactions between the body and mind, to produce citizens with a strong moral compass.\" USC sociologist Manuel Castells said the study raised more concerns over fast-moving TV than the online environment. \"In a media culture in which violence and suffering becomes an endless show, be it in fiction or in infotainment, indifference to the vision of human suffering gradually sets in.\" Research leader Antonio Damasio, director of USC's Brain and Creativity Institute, said the findings stressed the need for slower delivery of the news, and highlighted the importance of slow-burn emotions like admiration. Damasio cited the example of U.S. President Barack Obama, who says he was inspired by his father, to show how admiration can be key to cultural success. \"We actually separate the good from the bad in great part thanks to the feeling of admiration. It's a deep physiological reaction that's very important to define our humanity.\" Twitter, which allows users to swap messages and links of 140-characters or less, says on its Web site that it sees itself as a solution to information overload, rather than a cause of it. This function, It says, \"means you can step in and out of the flow of information as it suits you and it never queues up with increasing demand of your attention.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "USC study says rapid-fire Twitter and news updates are too fast for brain .\nScans show humans respond rapidly to pain, but not compassion, admiration .\nScientists say reliance on news snippets could harm moral compass ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- It was inevitable that a tragedy on the scale of Hillsborough, when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death during an FA Cup semifinal with Nottingham Forest, would have a transformative effect on English football. A Liverpool supporter Wednesday, outside Anfield. Ninety-six fans died from the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. But there was little reason to believe 20 years ago that, rather than being pushed even further towards the margins of society, the sport was on the brink of a revolution that would give birth to a global sporting phenomenon. Even before Hillsborough, it had seemed as if there was something irredeemably rotten at the heart of English football. Hooliganism, a scourge synonymous with the English game, had receded from its peak in the 1970s but English clubs were outlawed from European competition after rampaging Liverpool fans caused a wall to collapse at Brussels' Heysel Stadium before the 1985 European Cup final, causing the deaths of 39 people, mostly supporters of the Italian side Juventus. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, showing little understanding or patience for the traditions of the sport, had virtually ghettoized fans, promoting a scheme to have each supporter issued with an identity card. On the field, sides such as Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest were renowned for their attractive play but elsewhere a corrosive cult of long ball football pervaded the game. That trend seemed to find vindication when arch-exponents Wimbledon, who in the course of a decade had bullied and scrapped their way through four divisions to reach the top flight, defeated Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final, prompting match commentator John Motson to declare that \"the Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club.\" With its clubs banned from Europe, many top British players opted to leave England altogether -- Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes to Barcelona, Glenn Hoddle to Monaco, Chris Waddle to Marseille -- adding further to the sense of terminal malaise. Hillsborough had not been caused by hooliganism but the tragedy was a product of the environment that hooliganism had created; stadiums resembling decrepit fortresses, the fans caged inside steel bars and heavy-handed policing which treated all supporters equally -- as potential troublemakers. Coupled with Heysel and a fire at Bradford in 1985 in which 56 fans died, it also served to reinforce the belief that going to a football match was something which could put your life in danger. In \"The Last Game: Love, Death and Football,\" a book examining the lasting impact of the events of 1989 on the sport, author Jason Cowley describes Hillsborough as English football's \"psychological moment, the point of no return.\" \"The culture of the game had to change definitely if football was ever to be perceived as anything more than the preserve of the white, working class male, a theatre of hate and of violence, often racist and misogynistic excesses, if it was to survive at all,\" says Cowley. English football not only survived but within a few years had reinvented itself, in the elite \"Premier League\" division of the country's top clubs at least, as an internationally recognized super brand capable of attracting the world's best players and broadcast around the planet. The engine for this transformation, in the wake of Hillsborough, was the Taylor Report, an inquiry into the causes of the disaster which called for the steel fences inside grounds to be dismantled and for the phasing out of the traditional terraces of standing fans with all-seater stadiums. Initially clubs received government funding to help them meet the costs but the sport was about to receive an injection of cash that would radically change its financial prospects. Despite its poor reputation, there remained a huge appetite for televised football -- ironically, itself a by-product of the fact that many supporters were no longer going to matches. Realizing this, the country's top clubs broke away from the game's traditional power structure, setting up the Premier League and selling TV rights for £191 million ($286 million) to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's newly established satellite television venture, BSkyB. The money was a shot in the arm for football, while Sky's coverage regenerated interest in the sport by repackaging it as something shiny, exotic and exciting. On a Europe-wide scale, the replacement of the old knockout format European Cup with the Champions League achieved something similar, creating a clique of continential superpowers. The television rights boom also convinced many in the sport that football could actually be profitable. Some clubs raised more cash by floating on stock markets and others, such as Bolton, Middlesbrough and Sunderland, invested in shiny flying saucer-like new stadiums. But the success of the Premier League also owed something to events on the pitch. If Hillsborough marked a nadir for English football, the 1990 World Cup in Italy -- and Paul Gascoigne's tears during the national side's epic semifinal defeat by West Germany -- offered a moment of catharsis that rekindled many casual fan's residual love for the game. Subtle changes to the rules implemented worldwide by FIFA, including banning back passes to goalkeepers, automatic sendings off for professional fouls and changing the offside rule to give the benefit of the doubt to forward players, gradually made the game a more attractive spectacle. Meanwhile, the emergence of Alex Ferguson's young and exciting Manchester United team as the Premier League's dominant force, perfectly captured the spirit of the new age yet grounded the game in the traditions of the past. Finally, the 1995 Bosman Ruling, which granted players across Europe freedom of movement when out of contract, and the end of restrictions on the number of foreign players teams could field, created an international transfer market which lifted the horizons of the English game and brought genuine world class stars including Eric Cantona and Dennis Bergkamp, and eventually Cristiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres, to the Premier League. Still, for many football fans, the glamour and wealth of the Premier League, with its homogenized stadiums and corporate entertainment suites -- in which clubs are bought and sold by global plutocrats from Siberia to Texas via Thailand and Abu Dhabi -- represents a betrayal of the sport's traditional values. \"There's still a powerful nostalgia among fans of my generation for a lost, less aggressively commercial era of football, when the game seemed less cynically concerned with exploiting the loyalty of those who pay to watch and with selling itself to a global audience,\" says Cowley. Yet in a week when four Premier League sides featured in the quarterfinals of the Champions League and public appetite for the game appears insatiable, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that English football is in a better state than anyone who witnessed the horror at Hillsborough 20 years ago could ever have dared believe. More importantly, it is virtually inconceivable to imagine the circumstances in which 96 fans died ever being repeated in an English stadium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "English football has been transformed in 20 years since Hillsborough tragedy .\nDisaster created impetus for all-seater grounds, improvements in infrastructure .\nTop clubs also benefited from creation of Premier League and sale of TV rights .\nThe English Premier League is now the world's most watched sporting league ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- It was inevitable that a tragedy on the scale of Hillsborough, when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death during an FA Cup semifinal with Nottingham Forest, would have a transformative effect on English football. A Liverpool supporter Wednesday, outside Anfield. Ninety-six fans died from the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. But there was little reason to believe 20 years ago that, rather than being pushed even further towards the margins of society, the sport was on the brink of a revolution that would give birth to a global sporting phenomenon. Even before Hillsborough, it had seemed as if there was something irredeemably rotten at the heart of English football. Hooliganism, a scourge synonymous with the English game, had receded from its peak in the 1970s but English clubs were outlawed from European competition after rampaging Liverpool fans caused a wall to collapse at Brussels' Heysel Stadium before the 1985 European Cup final, causing the deaths of 39 people, mostly supporters of the Italian side Juventus. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, showing little understanding or patience for the traditions of the sport, had virtually ghettoized fans, promoting a scheme to have each supporter issued with an identity card. On the field, sides such as Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest were renowned for their attractive play but elsewhere a corrosive cult of long ball football pervaded the game. That trend seemed to find vindication when arch-exponents Wimbledon, who in the course of a decade had bullied and scrapped their way through four divisions to reach the top flight, defeated Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final, prompting match commentator John Motson to declare that \"the Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club.\" With its clubs banned from Europe, many top British players opted to leave England altogether -- Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes to Barcelona, Glenn Hoddle to Monaco, Chris Waddle to Marseille -- adding further to the sense of terminal malaise. Hillsborough had not been caused by hooliganism but the tragedy was a product of the environment that hooliganism had created; stadiums resembling decrepit fortresses, the fans caged inside steel bars and heavy-handed policing which treated all supporters equally -- as potential troublemakers. Coupled with Heysel and a fire at Bradford in 1985 in which 56 fans died, it also served to reinforce the belief that going to a football match was something which could put your life in danger. In \"The Last Game: Love, Death and Football,\" a book examining the lasting impact of the events of 1989 on the sport, author Jason Cowley describes Hillsborough as English football's \"psychological moment, the point of no return.\" \"The culture of the game had to change definitely if football was ever to be perceived as anything more than the preserve of the white, working class male, a theatre of hate and of violence, often racist and misogynistic excesses, if it was to survive at all,\" says Cowley. English football not only survived but within a few years had reinvented itself, in the elite \"Premier League\" division of the country's top clubs at least, as an internationally recognized super brand capable of attracting the world's best players and broadcast around the planet. The engine for this transformation, in the wake of Hillsborough, was the Taylor Report, an inquiry into the causes of the disaster which called for the steel fences inside grounds to be dismantled and for the phasing out of the traditional terraces of standing fans with all-seater stadiums. Initially clubs received government funding to help them meet the costs but the sport was about to receive an injection of cash that would radically change its financial prospects. Despite its poor reputation, there remained a huge appetite for televised football -- ironically, itself a by-product of the fact that many supporters were no longer going to matches. Realizing this, the country's top clubs broke away from the game's traditional power structure, setting up the Premier League and selling TV rights for £191 million ($286 million) to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's newly established satellite television venture, BSkyB. The money was a shot in the arm for football, while Sky's coverage regenerated interest in the sport by repackaging it as something shiny, exotic and exciting. On a Europe-wide scale, the replacement of the old knockout format European Cup with the Champions League achieved something similar, creating a clique of continential superpowers. The television rights boom also convinced many in the sport that football could actually be profitable. Some clubs raised more cash by floating on stock markets and others, such as Bolton, Middlesbrough and Sunderland, invested in shiny flying saucer-like new stadiums. But the success of the Premier League also owed something to events on the pitch. If Hillsborough marked a nadir for English football, the 1990 World Cup in Italy -- and Paul Gascoigne's tears during the national side's epic semifinal defeat by West Germany -- offered a moment of catharsis that rekindled many casual fan's residual love for the game. Subtle changes to the rules implemented worldwide by FIFA, including banning back passes to goalkeepers, automatic sendings off for professional fouls and changing the offside rule to give the benefit of the doubt to forward players, gradually made the game a more attractive spectacle. Meanwhile, the emergence of Alex Ferguson's young and exciting Manchester United team as the Premier League's dominant force, perfectly captured the spirit of the new age yet grounded the game in the traditions of the past. Finally, the 1995 Bosman Ruling, which granted players across Europe freedom of movement when out of contract, and the end of restrictions on the number of foreign players teams could field, created an international transfer market which lifted the horizons of the English game and brought genuine world class stars including Eric Cantona and Dennis Bergkamp, and eventually Cristiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres, to the Premier League. Still, for many football fans, the glamour and wealth of the Premier League, with its homogenized stadiums and corporate entertainment suites -- in which clubs are bought and sold by global plutocrats from Siberia to Texas via Thailand and Abu Dhabi -- represents a betrayal of the sport's traditional values. \"There's still a powerful nostalgia among fans of my generation for a lost, less aggressively commercial era of football, when the game seemed less cynically concerned with exploiting the loyalty of those who pay to watch and with selling itself to a global audience,\" says Cowley. Yet in a week when four Premier League sides featured in the quarterfinals of the Champions League and public appetite for the game appears insatiable, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that English football is in a better state than anyone who witnessed the horror at Hillsborough 20 years ago could ever have dared believe. More importantly, it is virtually inconceivable to imagine the circumstances in which 96 fans died ever being repeated in an English stadium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "English football has been transformed in 20 years since Hillsborough tragedy .\nDisaster created impetus for all-seater grounds, improvements in infrastructure .\nTop clubs also benefited from creation of Premier League and sale of TV rights .\nThe English Premier League is now the world's most watched sporting league ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- South Africa has refused the Dalai Lama a visa to attend an international peace conference in Johannesburg this week, a presidential spokesman said. The Dalai Lama fled China in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. The Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Laureate did not receive a visa because it was not in South Africa's interest for him to attend, said Thabo Masebe. South Africa thinks that, if the Dalai Lama attended the conference, the focus would shift away from the 2010 World Cup -- the global soccer championship it will host next year. \"We cannot allow focus to shift to China and Tibet,\" Masebe said, adding that South Africa has gained much from its trading relationship with China. The Dalai Lama's fellow laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said he would boycott the event. Watch the controversy surrounding South Africa's decision » . Former president F.W. De Klerk, another laureate, backed Tutu, saying in a statement that he would also not participate in the conference if the Dalai Lama remained excluded. De Klerk said that the decision to refuse the visa made a \"mockery\" of the peace conference. \"The decision to exclude the Dalai Lama is irreconcilable with key principles on which our society is based including the principles of accountability, openness and responsiveness and the rights to freedom of expression and free political activity,\" he said. \"South Africa is a sovereign constitutional democracy and should not allow other countries to dictate to it regarding who it should, and should not admit to its territory - regardless of the power and influence of the country.\" A representative of the Dalai Lama said he was not surprised by the decision. The Tibetan government in exile thinks that China has pressured many countries to refuse a visit by the Dalai Lama, according to Chhime Chhoekyapa, an aide in Dharamsala, India. The Dalai Lama fled China in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. The peace conference was billed as an opportunity to showcase South Africa's role as a human-rights champion ahead of its hosting of soccer's World Cup next year. It was to bring together Noble Laureates and top soccer officials. In addition to Tutu and De Klerk, laureates Nelson Mandela and Martti Ahtisaari, Sepp Blatter, president of soccer's international governing body, and actress Charlize Theron were invited to attend. The event had the blessing of the Nobel Committee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spokesman: \"Not in South Africa's interest for him (Dalai Lama) to attend\"\nSouth Africa says it is worried focus will switch away from 2010 World Cup .\nIt added South Africa has gained much from its trading relationship with China .\nFellow laureate Desmond Tutu said he would boycott the conference ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- More than 2,100 registered North Carolina sex offenders were found on the social networking site MySpace, the state attorney general's office said Tuesday. North Carolina bans sex offenders within the state from social networking sites where children are members. In response to a subpoena from state Attorney General Roy Cooper, \"MySpace turned over the names, IP and e-mail addresses of 2,116 convicted North Carolina sex offenders found on its social networking Web site,\" Cooper's office said in a written statement. Cooper has requested similar information from Facebook, another popular social networking site, the statement said. MySpace has told North Carolina authorities that the sex offenders it identified have been removed from the site. North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation is sharing the sex offenders' information with all 100 sheriffs in the state, Cooper's office said. \"It's no secret that child predators are on these Web sites,\" Cooper said in the statement. \"Turning over information about these predators to law enforcement helps, but MySpace, Facebook and other social networks need to do much more to protect kids online.\" North Carolina passed a law last year banning sex offenders within the state from social networking sites where children are members, making it a felony offense. Sex offenders on social networking sites is not a new issue. Last month, Newsweek magazine reported that Facebook said it had removed 5,585 convicted sex offenders from its site between May 2008 and January 2009. MySpace also announced it had removed 90,000 sex offenders in a two-year period, the magazine said. Last June, the Texas attorney general's office said it had arrested seven convicted sex offenders who violated their parole conditions by creating MySpace profiles, according to an article on the TechNewsWorld Web site. Cooper and Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general, for more than three years have led a group of attorneys general in working to make social networking safer, Cooper's office said. The group is pushing social networks to use technology such as age and identity verification to better protect users who may be children. After discussions with the group, MySpace became the first social networking site to develop technology aimed at finding and removing sex offenders, the North Carolina statement said. Cooper is pushing Facebook to take similar steps. But, Cooper's office said, \"the information provided by MySpace does not include sex offenders who have not been convicted, are not registered or may be using aliases on the site. Cooper remains concerned about other sex offenders on the site who may be lying about who they are, and is continuing to ask MySpace to do more to protect children on the site.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Site provided names, IP and e-mail addresses of offenders it found, AG says .\nSimilar information requested from Facebook networking site, he says .\nMySpace says that sex offenders it identified have been removed from site .\nNorth Carolina officials sharing sex offenders' data with all sheriffs in the state ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- They could probably smell him coming for miles. Circus performers Andrea and Daniel Raffo with their son, Davian. \"Breakfast, boys,\" Daniel Raffo proclaimed as his cats jumped with excitement in their cages. Raffo set down his wheelbarrow, filled with Grade A beef. Using a pitchfork, he fed his Bengal tigers. It's the morning ritual at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Raffo is the show's tiger trainer. He's a fifth-generation circus performer from Argentina. On this morning, the show awakes in Miami, Florida. \"You get up in the morning; you wash the animal, clean it up; you feed them, then you play with them a bit,\" Raffo said. \"And then during the day, you spend some time with your family.\" He lives in a trailer with his family so he can stay close to the tigers. He, wife Andrea and son Davian are all on a two-year tour with Ringling Bros. But why would anyone live on the road like this, with a 4-year-old? Andrea is also part of the circus, performing an aerial ballet, hanging by her hair high above the crowds, just like her mother and grandmother, who taught her the act. \"I can finish my act and then go up and see my son, so it's good, 'cause we're always together,\" Andrea Ayala Raffo said. The Raffos keep a home in Florida but are rarely there. \"Home is actually my trailer, when we travel, and have dinner every night and watch TV. That's really my home,\" Andrea Raffo said. And these lives on wheels come with real family needs. Just outside Section 405 at Miami's American Airlines arena, across from the Mexi-go Taqueria and Nacho Time food stands, school is in session. Jonathan Leiss is a licensed teacher with the circus. He uses a nationally recognized home-schooling curriculum. He pitches a one-room schoolhouse in every city where the show pitches its tent, for all of the school-age children of the circus. School is open five days a week. He teaches all the subjects, and every one of his students gets personal attention. \"I would describe it as a rigorous curriculum,\" he said. \"We don't want to allow anything to slip through the cracks because we're traveling. This is a real school.\" Leiss added, \"If I was teaching in a public high school, I could have 120 students. That's a lot less opportunity to really address what each student needs.\" Katherine Stuart is one of the students. The 8-year-old is growing up quickly, surrounded by circus people from 32 countries. One of the performers is teaching her Spanish. She says she likes to wash the elephants, and she loves the travel. \"You can see all these different places and what it looks like, and I also wanted to know what each state looked like, so I get to do it,\" she said. Katherine's dad is Mike Stuart, the general manager. With his wife, Mary, and son Tylar, 3, he hits about 36 cities a year. When CNN arrived at his temporary office at the Miami arena, Katherine was reading with Mike. Tylar was with Mom, playing a \"Blues Clues\" game on the computer. \"This is a 24/7 job, so I make time pretty much every day to sit with my kids, go out with my kids,\" Mike Stuart said. The Stuarts, like most of the 350 circus members, live on a train, with all of a home's amenities. But finding a park or a playground is a must for them. \"I have a house in Massachusetts. I probably see it once a year, maybe for a week or two,\" Stuart said. \"But, more or less, we travel on the train. It's year-round, basically. ... So really, home is wherever the circus takes me.\" One disadvantage is that the kids do not have a lot of friends to play with. But the family is always together. \"I think there's a lot of people who travel for their jobs, that are not fortunate enough to travel with family, where this job allows us to be able to do that,\" Mary Stuart said. The Stuarts believe that their lives and the lives of their children have been enhanced by the real-world learning experiences. \"Instead of just reading it in books, they're going to see these things, and to me, that's more fulfilling,\" Mike Stuart explained. Citing privacy reasons, the circus did not allow CNN to see the train. With any traveling family, there will inevitably be spiritual needs. Sister Dorothy Fabritze is a full-time circus worker and Catholic nun who holds religion classes, working across cultures, sharing the circus lifestyle. \"I saw that these people needed to find that they too were a parish, that they too were a community,\" she explained. \"We can support and walk with each other in this journey that we call life.\" Fabritze arranges for clergy to visit the circus weekly. She's a former missionary who spent 16 years in Papua New Guinea. Here, she says, she hopes to be a biblical presence amid the glitzy backdrop and colorful characters, from acrobats to clowns to animal trainers. \"Some come asking for Bible study. We'll do that. Some come forward and say, 'My child needs the sacrament, with confession and communion. Can you help me?' Of course I can,\" she explained. For about two years, Fabritze also worked backstage, opening and closing the curtain between acts, for 800 shows in two years. She remembers those times as \"God moments.\" \"They knew that I'd be there, and they would just come over and in the darkened area just talk to me about whatever they wanted to talk, and wonderful things happened. Wonderful spiritual things happened, just because I was there,\" she said. And although things may sometimes seem, quite literally, a bit upside down here, it's just life under the big top at the greatest show on Earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dad is a tiger tamer, Mom hangs by her hair, and they travel with son .\nLife with a traveling circus includes one-room school and religious classes .\nCircus general manager and family travel to 36 cities each year .\nParents say children learn from traveling, meeting workers from other countries ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The operation on Ronaldo's injured left knee \"went well\" but the Brazilian striker faces a lengthy rehabilitation as he bids to save his football career. Ronaldo leaves the field in agony after suffering his latest injury blow against Livorno. Ronaldo had surgery in Paris on Thursday, the two-hour operation perfomed by Dr. Eric Rolland with Dr. Gerard Saillant, who carried out a similar repair to his right knee in 2000, in attendance. \"The operation went well,\" said Saillant. \"The intervention was of the same type as the one in 2000. The healing period should last nine months,\" he said in sports paper L'Equipe. Ronaldo was injured playing for AC Milan in a 1-1 draw with Liverno on Wednesday night and teammate Clarence Seedorf gave CNN a graphic description of the incident. \"It was like a film I already saw,\" said the Dutch star who was on the pitch when Ronaldo suffered his previous serious injury. \"I saw his reaction, I was frozen by the reality, a bad, bad thing. My heart went out to him because it was his second injury. I hope he has the will to come back,\" added Seedorf. Ater the two-hour operation at Pitie-Salpetriere hospital, the three-time FIFA World Player of the Year is likely to need about 10 days of physical therapy, L'Equipe said. Ronaldo, 31, has battled serious injuries throughout his career, and has played sparingly since joining Milan from Real Madrid in January 2007. Wednesday's match was only his fifth in Serie A this season after injuring his thigh during preseason training on July 31. He returned in November, but has been in and out of the team due to a series of recurring problems. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ronaldo recovers in Paris following surgery on his ruptured left knee tendons .\nThe surgeon who performed the two-hour operation said it went \"very well\"\nRonaldo sustained injury playing for AC Milan against Livorno on Wednesday ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(Parenting) -- How to weigh whether to have another child -- and what to know about raising an \"only\" Couples feel more pressure to have second child than first, says one expert. My husband and I decided to be a one-child family long before our son Oliver was born. With several years of reproductive-health scares behind me, conceiving a child felt like a Powerball win; I didn't need another chance at the jackpot. Scott thought we could avoid the inevitable slings and arrows of sibling warfare. We both hail from large families, in which continuation of the family name is assured through siblings and cousins. We were content with our decision, and our families took it well, too. A few months after Oliver was born, I bagged up my maternity clothes for a tag sale, and Scott started researching permanent birth-control options. But one afternoon while absentmindedly sorting through blue and green baby clothes, the thought hit me like a punch: \"I'll never sort through pink clothes.\" For years I'd imagined myself the mom of a daughter. After all, it had been a popular refrain throughout my adolescence (\"I'll never tell my daughter what I think about her clothes,\" I'd intone to my mother). And I secretly hoped that my daughter would continue the tradition of attending my all-women alma mater. It wasn't that I was disappointed with a son. To be honest, I was relieved the day we found out we were having a boy because I could work the experience of being the older sister to three younger brothers to the fullest. Hearing the door clang shut on my fantasy daughter, however, made me doubt. When acquaintances asked, \"So, are you having any more?\" my voice quivered when I answered no. A woman in my local mothers' group worried aloud, \"How would you feel if something happened to Oliver and you didn't have any more children?\" Did I really need another child as an insurance policy? One night when the anxiety felt particularly overwhelming, I asked Scott, \"Is it okay if we hold off on that vasectomy for a while?\" \"It's normal to wonder if you're making the right choices and decisions, no matter how many kids you have,\" says Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., author of I'm OK, You're a Brat! Setting the Priorities Straight and Freeing You From the Guilt and Mad Myths of Parenthood. \"Even if you decided to have two or more children, you'd wonder if your life would have been easier with only one child.\" Choosing to have one . Haseena Correia of Valley Stream, New York, mom to Zachary, 2, has long planned to have one child. \"Once I understood how much work it takes to have a career and raise a child at the same time, I pretty much decided one was all I could handle,\" she says. Correia says being a one-child family allows her the right balance. \"It gives me the joy of being a mother, but it's not too overwhelming to the point where I don't have any time for myself or my husband,\" she says. Financial barriers were also a factor in their decision. \"With a mortgage, skyrocketing taxes, and two cars, we have to be a two-income family. Having another child is financially just not an option for us,\" she says. At some point, parents will need to ponder: . • Can we cope emotionally and physically with another child? • How will we juggle another child with our jobs? • Where do we want to be in three years? Five? • How will another child affect our finances? What about our marriage? • If we wait any longer to decide, will our choices be limited by our age? There are social and emotional pressures to consider, too. \"If your friends are having second -- and third -- children, you can feel left out,\" says Susan Newman, Ph.D., author of Parenting an Only Child. \"Or you or your spouse may want more kids, but the other doesn't.\" Sorting out our feelings on most of these things was actually easy for me and Scott. (It was the emotional pull that gave me second thoughts.) We have similar goals for the future, and we realized that with our temperaments, one child would be best for our marriage. We're happy for our friends who are having second and third children, but for us, Oliver completes our family. When you don't have a choice . Sometimes the twists and turns of life narrow your choices or eliminate them completely. Jennifer Lawler of Eudora, Kansas, always thought having four kids sounded perfect. But when her daughter Jessica was born with life-threatening health problems and Lawler's uterine fibroids compromised future pregnancies, she and her husband knew Jessica would be their only child. Lawler says, \"Raising our daughter was going to take a lot of emotional, physical, and financial resources. If I had any more children, I didn't think I could handle it.\" Time made the situation easier. \"It's a process of acceptance,\" says Lawler. \"One thing that was helpful for me was not to focus on the past or the future. I put my energy toward making this the brightest moment. There were times when we thought Jessica wouldn't live, talk, or walk. She's done all those things, so I feel relief and gratitude.\" Answering to everyone . As you work out what's best for your family, you'll face some tough questions all around: . • From yourself: Laura Miller of Ottawa, Kansas, mom to Emma, 6, is undecided about having more children. \"If finances and circumstances ever allow, we might have another child,\" she says. \"But we're happy the way our family is now.\" She admits she still has fears. \"My husband and I both have brothers and sisters --I can't imagine not having them to lean on. But after we're gone, Emma will be alone.\" In my darkest moments, I've been known to worry about the unthinkable: With no other children, what would I do if I lost Oliver? But, of course, parents of onlies don't own the front and center on worry. \"Parents fear for all their children,\" says Newman. \"Families with a number of children are equally devastated and blown apart when a child dies -- the pain is no less just because you have others.\" We need to accept that something so dramatic as death is highly unlikely and try not to live our lives in a state of anxiety. • From others: \"The pressure to have a second child is often greater than for the first,\" says Newman. But the fact is that the friends, family, and even strangers who are exerting pressure aren't the ones who'll be caring for these future children till they reach adulthood. After Lawler's daughter was born, she answered her questioners with \"We're going to take care of Jessica.\" Sometimes intrusive questions and opinions can drive us nuts, which is why it can be helpful to look within before lashing out. \"When you are affected by this pressure, it means you're looking for that person's approval,\" says Jeffers. \"Ask yourself, 'Why am I reacting this way? Am I afraid of criticism from this person?' As soon as you stop needing their approval, you can relax and appreciate the decision you made.\" Once a mom is feeling calmer, she can answer the critics with, say, \"I understand you really want this, but it's not right for me\" or \"Well, thanks for passing on your ideas.\" • From your child -- it happens: Many onlies will ask -- loudly, often -- for a little brother or sister, or wonder aloud why they're stuck being an only child. A straightforward answer is the best bet, says Lise Youngblade, Ph.D., associate director of the Institute for Child Health Policy at the University of Florida in Gainesville. \"The last thing parents want to do is get into a negotiation,\" she says. Instead, respond with something like \"We've decided that our family size is just right. There are lots of different kinds of families, and this is how ours is.\" With an older child, you can point out that many of the advantages he enjoys as an only -- his own specially decorated bedroom, for instance, or the one-on-one time he has with Mom and Dad -- may be things he wouldn't have with a brother or sister. You can also try asking your child what he thinks would be the benefits of having a sibling. It could be as simple as having a bunk bed. If a child's demands don't abate, Jeffers points out that \"children complain, period.\" Parents with two or three kids sometimes hear, \"Mommy, it's time to send the baby back to the hospital.\" In my case, it took me time to say goodbye to my fantasy daughter, but when Oliver was 18 months old, I finally said to Scott, \"Let's do it,\" on the vasectomy. I'm very happy with my son and our decision, and I've looked for other ways to indulge my daughter needs. I volunteered as a Big Sister and counseled a 15-year-old on boyfriends. When I spot cute girly-girl dresses, I buy them for my friend's daughters. And I console myself that when I go through menopause, there won't be two hormonal women under this roof. E-mail to a friend . Try a FREE TRIAL issue of Parenting Magazine - CLICK HERE! Copyright 2009 The Parenting Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some couples decide to have one child .\nHealth, financial, emotional issues to consider .\nPressure to have second child greater than for first .\nMom: A \"process of acceptance\" when you can't have another child ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- The chairman of India's UB Group, which includes Bangalore-based Kingfisher Airlines and United Breweries, made the winning $1.8 million bid on a number of Mahatma Gandhi's personal items on auction. Mahatma Gandhi was known for his peaceful opposition to tyranny, which led to India's independence. Vijay Mallya was expected to return the items to the Indian government, according to CNN-IBN, CNN's sister station in India. Controversy surrounded the sale Thursday of Gandhi's items -- among them his metal-rimmed glasses, pocket watch, sandals, bowl and plate -- prompting the seller, James Otis, to ask that the items be withdrawn from the auction. India voiced strong objections to the auction. Its Ministry of External Affairs said the bidding would \"commercialize and thereby demean the memory of the Father of the Nation and everything that he stood for in his life, beliefs and actions.\" On Tuesday, a New Delhi court issued an injunction to stop the sale. Watch the auction stoke high interest » . But the Antiquorum auction house in Manhattan went ahead with the auction as scheduled. The Indian government had rejected an offer from Otis, who had asked the Indian government to expand its spending on the poor in exchange for the items. India's government already spends a large amount of money on the country's disadvantaged sectors, India's culture minister Ambika Soni told reporters Thursday. Still, the government had hoped Otis would not allow the public to bid on the items. Soni, the culture minister, said that India's government exercised several options to stop the auction at the Antiquorum in New York. Gandhi, who waged a long struggle against British rule in India, was assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu fanatic on January 30, 1948. He is still widely revered for his insistence on non-violent protest to achieve political and social progress. Many Indians believe selling Gandhi's items for profit is outrageous. \"I feel very sad about it because Gandhi himself never believed in private possessions,\" said Varsha Das, director of India's National Gandhi Museum, using a term of endearment for Gandhi. \"He gave away everything. He did not even have a home to live in.\" CNN's Harmeet Shah Singh contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mallya expected to return items to Indian government, CNN-IBN reports .\nIndia's Ministry of External Affairs: Bidding would \"commercialize\" Gandhi's memory .\nControversy prompted seller James Otis to ask that items be withdrawn from auction ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The Georgia company whose peanut products have been blamed for a nationwide salmonella outbreak shipped some products even though they had tested positive for the bacteria and no other tests indicated they were safe, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The FDA confirmed Friday the Peanut Corp.'s Blakely, Georgia, plant shipped tainted product without retesting. Previously, Peanut Corporation of America had said it shipped products only after subsequent tests on them came back negative. Items made with its peanut products have been linked to more than 500 cases of illness, including eight deaths. The agency said the company's management told FDA inspectors last month during an inspection of the plant that they shipped products that first had tested positive for salmonella, but only if they later had tested negative. But, it said, \"FDA determined that certain information provided by PCA management during the inspection was not consistent with the subsequent analysis of the company's records.\" As a result, the agency amended its report Thursday. \"In some situations the firm received a positive salmonella test result, followed by a later negative result, and then shipped the products,\" said the FDA report, which was included in an e-mail to CNN. \"In some other situations, the firm shipped the products [which had already tested positive] before it had received the [second] positive test results.\" Watch Senate hearing on food safety amid peanut recall » . In some cases, it said, \"no additional testing appears to have been done.\" No one from the company returned a call seeking comment. Federal authorities have initiated a criminal investigation into the company." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Government confirms PCA shipped salmonella-tainted product without further testing .\nPCA had said it shipped products only after subsequent tests returned negative .\nFDA: Data provided by company \"not consistent with the subsequent analysis\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship bound for Mombasa, Kenya, was attacked Tuesday by Somali pirates, according to a NATO source with direct knowledge of the matter. Pirates attacked The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship, but were unable to board. \"The pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the vessel, which sustained damage,\" said a statement from New York-based Liberty Maritime Corporation, which owns the vessel. The ship was carrying U.S. food aid for African nations, the statement said. The pirates never made it onto the ship and the vessel is now being escorted by a coalition ship, still bound for Mombasa, officials said. Two senior defense officials said the Liberty Sun was being escorted by the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge. It is the ship carrying Richard Phillips, the captain of the container ship Maersk Alabama, which was hijacked last week. Phillips spent days as a hostage of the pirates before being rescued Sunday. Katy Urbik of Wheaton, Illinois, said her son, Thomas, was aboard the Liberty Sun at the time of the attack. She shared the e-mails he sent as the ship came under fire. \"We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets,\" said one e-mail sent Tuesday afternoon. \"We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt. [A] rocket penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire, too, but put out. \"Navy is on the way and helos and ships are coming. I'll try to send you another message soon. [G]ot to go now. I love you mom and dad and all my brothers and family.\" \"My heart stopped after I realized there wasn't going to be a 'just kidding' after his comment,\" Katy Urbik said. About 1½ hours later, Thomas Urbik sent another e-mail to his mother, which said, \"The navy has showed up in full force and we are now under military escort ... all is well. I love you all and thank you for the prayers.\" In an e-mail only hours before the attack, Urbik's son tried to assure his mother that his crew was safe and taking precautions. \"Don't worry too much. I am fine and we are being well monitored by the U.S. Navy, who is demanding we send them a report every six hours on our position and status,\" Thomas Ubrik's e-mail said. He added, \"We in fact are going to be the second American ship to arrive into Mombasa after the Maersk Alabama. It should be interesting to say the least. ... We have had several drills to prepare ourselves to secure ourselves in the engine room. [W]e can do it pretty quick by now.\" The company said the ship had dropped off food aid last week at a Sudanese port and the ship was going around the Horn of Africa to reach Kenya when it came under attack. However, the exact location of the attack remained unclear. Earlier Tuesday, pirates off the coast of Somalia seized two freighters, proving they remain a force to contend with just days after the U.S. Navy dramatically rescued an American captain held by other pirates. First, pirates in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday hijacked the MV Irene EM, a 35,000-ton Greek-owned bulk carrier, according to a NATO spokesman and the European Union's Maritime Security Center. The crew of the Greek carrier was thought to be unhurt and ships have been warned to stay clear of the area for fear of further attack, the Security Center said. Later Tuesday, pirates on four skiffs seized the 5,000-ton MV Sea Horse, a Lebanese-owned and Togo-flagged vessel, said Cmdr. Chris Davies of NATO's Maritime Component Command Headquarters in Northwood, England. Details about the ship and its crew weren't immediately available. NATO has an ongoing anti-piracy mission off Somalia called Operation Allied Protector. The mission involves four ships covering more than a million square miles, Davies said. A U.S.-led international naval task force, Combined Task Force-151, is also patrolling in the region. Tuesday's hijackings came two days after sharpshooters from the U.S. Navy SEALs killed three pirates who had been holding Phillips hostage on the water for days. Phillips had offered himself as a hostage when pirates attacked the Alabama on Wednesday, officials said. The ship had been on its way to deliver aid to Mombasa, Kenya. A fourth pirate had been aboard Bainbridge when the shootings occurred and was taken into custody. Watch the tough tactics the Navy uses » . The incident follows four freighters being seized over the past two days by pirates off the Somalian coast, proving they remain a force to contend with. Pirates on Monday hijacked two Egyptian fishing boats carrying a total of between 18 and 24 people, the Egyptian Information Ministry told CNN. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry is working to end the hijacking, the ministry said. Egyptian boats are known to use Somali waters illegally for fishing, taking advantage of the lawless state of the country and the lack of enforcement of its maritime boundaries. Those who have tracked pirate activity in Somalia say it started in the 1980s, when the pirates claimed they were trying to stop the rampant illegal fishing and dumping that continues to this day off the Somali coast. Piracy accelerated after the fall of the Somali government in the early 1990s and began to flourish after shipping companies started paying ransoms. Those payments started out being in the tens of thousands of dollars and have since climbed into the millions. Some experts say companies are simply making the problem worse by paying the pirates. CNN's Mike Mount, Barbara Starr and David McKenzie contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Crewman e-mailed hours before attack that Navy was monitoring the ship .\nCrewman e-mails, \"We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets\"\nFour freighters seized in last two days .\nGreek 35,000-ton bulk carrier and Lebanese-owned, Togo-flagged both seized ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The Baptist minister who was fatally shot Sunday as he led services at a church in suburban Saint Louis, Missouri, was carrying out work he believed in fervently, a church official said Monday. The Web site for First Baptist Church of Maryville includes a photo of slain Pastor Fred Winters. \"I believe that he would want us to know that he died doing exactly what he believed passionately about,\" Worship and Music Pastor Mark Jones told reporters outside First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois, about Pastor Fred Winters, who was killed the day before. Jones expressed gratitude for an overwhelming response from the public that has included more than 1,000 e-mails of support. They will be compiled \"into a huge book of love\" to be given to Winters' widow, he said. Investigators have charged Terry J. Sedlacek, 27, with first-degree murder in the killing. Sedlacek was further charged with two counts of aggravated battery related to the stabbing of parishioners Terry Bullard and Keith Melton. Their wounds were not life-threatening, said Illinois State Police spokesman Ralph Timmins. Sedlacek himself was seriously wounded in the melee, Timmins said Sunday. Asked what led Sedlacek to the church, Jones said, \"We're scratching our heads on that one.\" Watch response of grieving church » . Jones said another church official visited Sedlacek's family on Monday. \"We wanted them to know that we're praying for them, we're praying for the attacker,\" Jones said. Speaking of Sedlacek, Jones added, \"Maybe he, too, needs to go back to the Bible and read the book and ask the question, 'Is this really God's word? Do I need to reconsider some things?' \" Watch aftermath of shooting in church » . Winters and the gunman exchanged words before the gunman fired four shots during Sunday morning services, hitting the minister's Bible and then hitting Winters himself, said Illinois State Police Director Larry Trent. \"The only thing we know is that the suspect said something to the pastor, and the pastor said something back to him -- we don't know what that was,\" Trent told reporters Sunday. \"It was almost as if the pastor may have recognized him, but we're not sure about that at all.\" Trent said the gunman's .45-caliber pistol jammed after he shot Winters. The man then pulled out a knife before being subdued by some of the approximately 150 worshippers attending the church in southern Illinois. \"When he was tackled by two of the members, we don't know whether he fell on the knife, injuring himself at the time, or whether [his injury] was self-inflicted during the struggle,\" Trent said. Watch police describe \"heroic action\" of parishioners » . Trent said police were trying to determine a motive in the shooting, noting that church members did not recognize the gunman. Last August, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch profiled Sedlacek in a story it did about Lyme disease. His mother, Ruth Abernathy, told the newspaper he began acting strangely during his junior year in high school; he seemed confused and stopped participating in activities that had interested him. The newspaper identified him as a resident of the Troy, Illinois, in suburban St. Louis. Abernathy told the paper her son was initially diagnosed with mental illness and then later diagnosed with Lyme disease. Lyme disease diagnosis, effects and treatment has caused disagreement in the medical community. A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that mental illness associated with Lyme disease is highly unusual, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America said Lyme disease \"is not known to cause violent behavior.\" But a study published in 2002 in the American Journal of Psychiatry and carried out in the Czech Republic found that 36 percent of 900 psychiatric subjects had antibodies to the bacterium linked to Lyme disease, versus 18 percent of 900 healthy control subjects. The Illinois shooting is believed to be the nation's first in a church since July, when a 58-year-old man opened fire in a Knoxville, Tennessee, church during a children's play. Two people were killed and six wounded in the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Jim Adkisson told police he targeted the church because of its \"liberal teachings,\" according to court papers. Adkisson pleaded guilty last month in a deal that allowed him to avoid the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without parole, court officials said. CNN's Miriam Falco contributed to this story." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Fred Winters \"died doing exactly what he believed passionately about\"\nWhat led to attack? \"We're scratching our heads,\" says Music Pastor Mark Jones .\nTerry J. Sedlacek , 27, charged with murder in Winters' death, aggravated battery .\nPolice: Attacker, two worshippers who tried to subdue him suffered knife wounds ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The mountain gorillas in a national park in Congo appear to be hanging on well despite such dangers as civil warfare and poaching, according to an ongoing census. Park rangers conducting the census in November. Workers have identified 75 \"habituated\" gorillas in Virunga National Park, three more than there were in the last census nearly a year and a half ago, said Samantha Newport, the park communications director. Habituated gorillas are those who are accustomed to contact with humans. They are easier to spot than non-habituated gorillas, thought to number around 120. Newport said the census should be completed by around January 20 and officials hope that more habituated gorillas will be identified. She said the fact that gorillas have survived amid civil war in the region is \"nothing short of a miracle.\" Laurent Nkunda's Tutsi armed force that had been fighting Congolese soldiers and their militia allies has had control of large swaths of the 8,000 square-kilometer park. The gorilla section is in a strategically important area near the borders of Rwanda and Uganda. Officials have long said that the 250-square kilometer gorilla reserve in the southern part of Virunga National Park is where around 200 of the world's 700 mountain gorillas live." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Census of mountain gorillas in DR Congo doing well despite war, poaching .\nSo far, 75 gorillas found which are accustomed to human contact .\nThat's three more than last census and conservationists hope to identify more ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN Student News) -- Students will examine Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous \"I Have a Dream\" speech. Also, they will compose responses to Dr. King in which they compare his historic vision of racial equality in the United States to the reality of present-day life. Procedure . In class discussion, have students define the following terms: racism, prejudice and discrimination. Have them give examples of each. Inform students that, on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shared his vision of racial equality in America in his historic \"I Have a Dream\" speech. Then, point out that in his speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of being judged not by the color of one's skin, but by the content of his or her character. Direct your students to read or watch Dr. King's famous \"I Have a Dream\" speech and discuss its content in class. Then, challenge each student to compare Dr. King's dream to the reality of life in the U.S. in the year 2009. Direct each student to compose a response to Dr. King, explaining what life is like in the U.S. today and to what extent his dream has been realized. (Encourage students to be creative in their responses. For example, students could write a letter, a speech, a song or a poem, or produce a brief video.) After students share their responses to Dr. King, pose the following questions for class discussion: . Correlated Standards . Social Studies . II. Time, Continuity and Change Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the ways human beings view themselves in and over time. X. Civic Ideals and Practices Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the ideals, principles, and practices of citizenship in a democratic republic. The Curriculum Standards for Social Studies (http://www.socialstudies.org/standards/strands/ ) are published by the National Council for Social Studies (http://www.socialstudies.org/ )." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Students will examine Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s \"I Have a Dream\" speech .\nStudents will compose responses to the speech based on life in 2009 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The woman and children held captive in a cellar for years by their incestuous father will take years to recover from their disturbing ordeal, doctors warned Wednesday as the family at the center of the case remained in psychiatric care. The bathroom used by Elizabeth Fritzl, who was held captive for more than two decades, and her three children. Members of the Fritzl family will also be offered the chance to adopt new identities in an effort to help them lead normal lives, officials said. Hans-Heinz Lenze, the head of local social services said the family was \"doing as well as can be expected in the circumstances\" and said any change of identity would be the family's decision. Elizabeth Fritzl -- now 42 -- spent more than two decades in the windowless basement after being drugged, handcuffed and locked up by her father, Josef Fritzl, as an 18-year-old. Repeatedly raped, she gave birth to seven children by Fritzl, one of whom died as an infant. Three of the children -- Kerstin, 19; Stefan, 18; and Felix, 5 -- remained imprisoned underground with their mother. The other three lived in an apartment upstairs with Fritzl and his wife who believed Elizabeth had abandoned them after running away from home. Elizabeth and five of the children were continuing to receive treatment at a local clinic near Amstetten after being reunited on Sunday. Kerstin, whose hospitalization at the weekend finally brought the family's plight to the attention of authorities, remained in a coma at a nearby hospital. \"It is astonishing how easy it worked that the children came together, and also it was astonishing how easy it happened that the grandmother and the mother came together,\" clinic director Berthold Kepplinger said. But Kepplinger warned that the family would require extensive counseling. \"We're talking of 20 years of darkness, incest and its effects and other illnesses they might have suffered from.\" Kepplinger said the two sets of children were tentatively getting to know one another, adding that the two boys who had lived underground had an unusual way of communicating with each other. A policeman who had accompanied the boys to hospital after their discovery on Sunday said the pair had \"screamed with excitement\" during the car journey as they experienced the outside world for the first time. \"The two boys appeared overawed by the daylight they had never experienced before,\" said Chief Inspector Leopold Etz. \"The real world was completely alien to them... We had to drive very slowly with them because they cringed at every car light and every bump. It was as if we had just landed on the moon.\" In an interview with the Austrian newspaper, Oesterreich, psychiatrist Max Friedrich, who treated the abducted teenager Natascha Kampusch, estimated it would take \"between five and eight years\" for the children to recover from their experiences. Another psychologist, Bernd Prosser, told Austrian television that it would be impossible for the four held prisoner underground to lead normal lives. \"I am afraid it is too late for that.\" Kampusch, the Austrian girl abducted as a 10-year-old and held captive in a basement for more than eight years until she escaped in 2007, also offered her help to the family on Tuesday, but questioned the decision to move them from the cellar into psychiatric care. \"Pulling them abruptly out of this situation, without transition, to hold them and isolating them to some extent, it can't be good for them,\" said Kampusch, now 20, in an interview with Austrian TV station Puls 4. \"I believe it might have been even better to leave them where they were, but that was probably impossible. This case is not like mine, where that was not my environment. They were born there and I can imagine that there is a strong attachment to that place.\" E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Austrian family held captive in a cellar will take years to recover, doctors say .\nFamily are undergoing treatment at a local psychiatric clinic .\nChildren kept underground may never lead normal lives, psychiatrist warns .\nFamily have been offered opportunity to adopt new identities ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Witnesses caught up in the terrorist attack on Mumbai have spoken of how they ran for their lives, smashed windows to escape and sheltered in hotel rooms as the horror that has claimed more than 100 lives unfolded. An Indian police officer directs people leaving the Taj Mahal after gunmen attacked the hotel overnight Wednesday. One of the targets for the gunmen was the Taj Hotel, one of Mumbai's most famous landmarks. Anthony Rose, an Australian visiting Mumbai to produce a travel show, told CNN Thursday that he checked into the Taj hotel just a minute before attackers stormed into the lobby Wednesday night. \"They came in with all guns blazing,\" Rose said. \"It was just chaos.\" Watch Rose's comments on terror attacks » . Rose and others found refuge in a hotel ballroom, where they waited for six hours hoping to be rescued. Although they could hear explosions and gunfire nearby, there were no sirens or police evident, he said. Watch how terror attacks have shaken India. » . Help never arrived and the group were forced to smash a thick glass window and climbed down to the street on curtains. \"As soon as the hotel was on fire, we knew we had to go,\" Rose said. Meanwhile Manuela Testolini, founder of the In A Perfect World children's foundation and ex-wife of music icon Prince, described how she saw someone shot in front of her at the Taj before sheltering with 250 other terrified people in the darkened ballroom. Watch Testolini describe her escape » . Testolini was eating dinner at a restaurant across the street from the Taj when she saw the gunmen approach. \"We heard some gunshots,\" she said. \"My colleague saw someone get shot just outside of the glass doors of the restaurant. Obviously, that prompted us to jump up and run.\" Testolini left all her possessions and scurried through the kitchen of the restaurant to the sound of gunshots behind her, before heading with colleagues and restaurant staff to a darkened ballroom in the Taj. There they waited for two hours, listening to constant bullet barrages and grenade attacks outside. Another witness, Yasmin Wong, a CNN employee, was also staying in the Taj Hotel. She said she hid under her bed for several hours after she was awoken by gunfire. Watch Wong's comments on attack » . She then received a phone call from the hotel, telling her to turn her lights off, put a wet towel by the door and stay in her room until told otherwise. So Wong sat in the dark, watching smoke rise outside her hotel window. \"I saw a guy outside the window above me who had smashed the window and was hanging out,\" Wong said. \"At that point, authorities told us to run out of the hotel.\" Wong said she passed dead bodies in the hotel's halls as she searched for an exit, finally leaving through the pool entrance. Wong said: \"I thought it was going to end but it seemed to never end.\" Meanwhile Mark Abell spoke to CNN from a hotel room near the Taj. Watch Abell describe attack on Taj » . \"I came back from dinner last night at nine with a colleague, came into the lobby,\" Abell said. \"The security fences weren't operating; the hotel shook with an immense blast. Three or four minutes later, there was another large blast, the whole building shaking. \"I looked outside to see a crowd running. It was chaos, gunshots; it looked all very, very nasty.\" The Oberoi Hotel, which also has a reputation as one of Mumbai's most famous hotels, was also targeted by the gunmen. Gautam Patel was staying in the Trident Hotel, which is adjacent to the Oberoi, when the attacks began. Watch Patel describe the evacuation » . \"I was up on the 11th floor and while I was on a conference call, I heard two large noises, and they sounded like thuds from within the room, and that's when we realized that there was something serious happening. \"When I heard the two thuds, that's when I looked out window and onto my left I could see the Oberoi Hotel -- there was a restaurant in the Oberoi Hotel -- which was under flames,\" Patel said. \"We left our room, walked down the fire exit, the hotel staff met us down at the bottom of hotel and put us into large banquet hall where we saw about 150 to 200 people. The lights were out, so we were just told to huddle there until we heard further.\" \"We stayed there for about one hour, that's when we heard another large two bangs. We couldn't tell if they were from outside or within the hotel, then we heard some gunfire. Twenty, 30 minutes past that, one of the senior advisers of the hotel mentioned we would be escorted to the back of the hotel, put into groups of 10 people and told to run to the neighboring cinema hall, where we would be safe. \"I think most of the activity was happening in the lobby,\" Patel said. \"People were talking, rumoring about the fact that terrorists were in the hotel, so there was a search by room-to-room, so I think the activity was happening in the hotel and the front of the hotel.\" New York-based filmmaker Smriti Mundhra and her parents were staying in an apartment near the Oberoi. Watch Mundhra talk about the scene outside her door » . \"We're all safe in our apartment right now, following instructions by the police to stay at home with the doors locked and away from windows,\" Mundhra told CNN. \"Just as we were getting ready for bed last night, I heard a little bit of commotion on the street and some police sirens and didn't really think much of it. Then my parents came in and told me something was going on in the neighborhood. So we watched the news and realized essentially there's a terrorist attack happening just outside our door.\" \"We've been indoors since we've been hearing things from out of the window -- bombs and police sirens and all kinds of chaos,\" Mundhra continued. \"I've been watching in on TV and it's very hard to connect the two, that all of that is happening right outside our doors. \"We haven't really been in touch with our neighbors, we've just been locked down in to our apartment. \"We were told to stay indoors, not leave our houses, stay away from windows. I know that the people who are in buildings surrounding the Oberoi have been advised to keep lights off and windows and blinds closed and we've done all of that, and just keeping an eye on our family.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Witnesses speak of their horror at being caught in Mumbai terror attacks .\nHotel guests describe how they saw people shot in front of them, fled for their lives .\nWitness at Taj: \"They came in with all guns blazing. It was just chaos\"\nDiner: \"My colleague saw someone get shot just outside of the glass doors\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi walks Anjali Rao through the streets of Tokyo. She stunned global cinema audiences with her controversial and Oscar-nominated performance as a lonely deaf girl in the film \"Babel.\" Rinko Kikuchi is one of Japan's hottest young actresses and models, recently working with Karl Lagerfeld as the new face of Channel. Despite her success, she remains an unconventional figure in Japan, at odds with the traditional demure image of the Japanese woman and forging a career on her own terms. Talk Asia follows her on a modelling assignment, discusses how her life has changed since \"Babel\" and revisits the unique location of one of the film's most important scenes. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rinko Kikuchi was Oscar-nominated for her performance in the film \"Babel\"\nShe has recently worked with Karl Lagerfeld as the new face of Channel .\nShe challenges the traditional demure image of the Japanese woman ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- More timely now than when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2008, \"Sunshine Cleaning,\" an agreeable, midrange independent film, makes light work of heavy burdens. Amy Adams gets to work cleaning up as Rose in the indie comedy \"Sunshine Cleaning.\" Sisters Rose (Amy Adams) and Norah (Emily Blunt) struggle with menial jobs and periods of unemployment. Together, they're also coping with the nasty emotional residue of their mom's long-ago suicide -- a trauma that is likely responsible for their current troubles. Self-esteem isn't a strong suit for either of them. As \"Sunshine Cleaning\" dawns, they're both scraping by. If Norah is out of work before we've settled into our popcorn, she's not overly concerned by her situation. Rose, on the other hand, is desperate to graduate from cleaning other people's middle-class homes. It's not just that the humiliation of laundering for her old cheerleader team is getting her down; she needs the money to put her \"difficult\" kid (Jason Spevack) into the kind of school that will give him a chance. It's Rose's married boyfriend -- and old high school sweetheart -- Mac (Steve Zahn) who spies a new niche for the sisters. A homicide detective, he's watching the cleaning crew bag the blown brains of a shotgun enthusiast when he overhears the proprietor of the building grousing about the \"three grand\" it's costing him. Granted, blood and intestinal juices aren't everybody's cup of tea, but that kind of return sure beats washing Mrs. Johansson's drapes for $30 an hour. \"CSM: Crime Scene Maid\" isn't a job you're likely to find down at the employment office, but somebody must be doing the dirty work. Rose and Norah -- incorporated -- find that the stench takes some getting used to, and there's a whole new arsenal of cleaning fluids to master, but they get to work with a positive attitude and like to think they're doing their bit to put the world right. From this unusual setup, the movie might have skewed in any number of ways. The sisters might have uncovered evidence of corruption and murder, for instance, perhaps implicating Mac? \"Sunshine Cleaning\" is nowhere near so abrasive or generic as such a scenario. Written by Megan Holley and directed by Christine Jeffs (\"Sylvia\"), it instead puts a sympathetic, gentle comic gloss on the characters' fundamentally forgivable foibles and imperfections. Norah tracks down the daughter of one suicide (Mary Lynn Rajskub) to present her with mementos that should have been destined for the junkyard. Blunt's edgy performance keeps us guessing. Norah's a bit of a flake, but she's animated by her anger and her rebellious streak. If she's hard to read, it's because she's still young and doesn't know herself yet. Rose is easier to understand. She's determined to seize this chance to dig herself out of the hole and recapture the promise she used to see in herself. Adams has a knack for putting a brave face on things -- something about the way she tilts her chin up while her mouth goes in three directions at once. She keeps our rooting interest in Rose alive even when her choices seem misguided or naive. A subplot concerning Rose's son bonding with Joe (Alan Arkin), the sisters' lovable but infuriating father (you know the kind: He buys bulk orders of shrimp off the back of a truck) tips us too far into the realm of indie quirk. The character is a useful sounding board, and an amusing grouch, but it's just about impossible to imagine this man bringing up these girls. Ironically, for a movie that's marketed with the one-liner \"Life's a messy business,\" Holley's script has been polished to within an inch of its life. Emotions are experienced most vividly when they're raw, but in \"Sunshine Cleaning,\" feelings come filtered through neat-and-tidy grace notes. The film flirts with dangerous material, but it's too intent on putting the sunny side up to get its hands dirty. The way director Jeffs tells it, not only is suicide painless it can be positively feel-good. That's not to say there isn't a lot to enjoy in this well-acted and humanistic comedy. Buoyed by its up-and-coming stars and its optimistic message, it should do very nicely with discriminating audiences. ... It might even clean up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom Charity: Up-and-coming stars, optimistic message buoy \"Sunshine Cleaning\"\nTwo struggling sisters become a crime-scene cleanup crew .\nMovie presents feelings in neat-and-tidy packages, reviewer says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- If a bed and 14 other antiques up for sale in New York next week look familiar, it might be that you saw them in a movie. An American Renaissance gilt, carved, inlaid and ebonized bed is expected to go for $500,000. Pieces of furniture owned by two very rich 19th-century Americans were destined for a trash pile before they were rescued for the silver screen. They will find new life on the auction block next week. Made by the Herter Brothers in the 1870s, the furniture sat in Warner Brothers' Hollywood props department since 1942, when the studio bought it at an estate auction for a fraction of the original cost. Warner Brothers, owned by CNN parent Time Warner Inc., could get $2 million from the auction, and it means valuable space will be cleared out in the props department storage. One studio source said using such expensive -- although authentic -- props on movie sets doesn't make business sense. Jon King, director of Bonham's, the New York auction house that will put the furniture on sale next Thursday, said he did not have the studio's permission to reveal in which movies the furniture might have been used. You can watch post-1942 Warner Brothers period films to find them. \"You have to go slow-motion and stop and start an awful lot,\" King said. \"I would imagine that if any of these were in movies they might steal the scene away from the actors,\" said King, an expert in 19th-century furniture. A New York Times article about the furniture, published in 1995, said it appeared in Warner Brother's \"Saratoga Trunk,\" a 1945 movie starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. Few records were kept over the decades to track the pieces' appearances, a studio source said. King said he saw Herter Brothers furniture from the same estate in Alfred Hitchcock's \"Psycho,\" filmed in 1960 on Universal's lots. Universal bought its furniture at the same 1942 estate auction that Warner Brothers attended. The studio sold its collection years ago, King said. The furniture -- in American Renaissance and American Aesthetic styles -- was made with \"very exotic and very expensive materials\" for two very rich California men -- Gov. Milton Slocum Latham and railroad magnate Mark Harper, King said. The most dramatic piece is an ornate bed commissioned for the master bedroom at Latham's Menlo Park, California, home. It could sell for $500,000, King said. \"A lot of people in the field regard that as the finest bed ever made in the 19th century in America,\" King said. \"Basically, the quality of carving and the number of things going on in there in the bed, it's just amazing.\" Changing times and tastes made the furniture obsolete for anything but a period movie by 1942. Movie studios were scouring the country for cheap furniture for their props departments, King said. But recent decades have see a steep rise in values for Herter Brothers craftwork, he said. King said next week's sale is significant for collectors because \"this is the last studio collection.\" The Herter Brothers -- German immigrants who set up their furniture-making shop in New York City after the Civil War -- also made furniture for the White House, where some pieces remain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The furniture was owned by two wealthy 19th-century Americans .\nStudio bought it at an estate auction in 1942 for a fraction of its original cost .\nAuction house not allowed to reveal in which movies the furniture was used .\nYou can watch post-1942 Warner Brothers period films to find the antiques ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- Liverpool and England midfielder Steven Gerrard has denied assaulting a man during a nightclub brawl last month, a court in Southport, northern England, heard on Friday. Gerrard leaves court on Friday after pleading not guilty to actual bodily harm and affray. Gerrard, 28, issued a not guilty plea to affray and assaulting company director Marcus McGee, 34, at the Lounge Inn, Southport, after Gerrard scored twice in Liverpool's 5-1 win at Newcastle, reported the UK's Press Association. The Liverpool captain was charged with occasioning actual bodily harm and affray along with co-defendants John Doran, 29, and Ian Smith, 19. Dozens of photographers were kept back from the magistrates' court entrance in a penned area as Gerrard arrived in a dark blue suit. Nick Evans, prosecuting, asked for the case to be heard next on April 3 after a 10-week break to prepare it. But after submissions from the defense solicitors including Gerrard's, Richard Green, the magistrates adjourned the case back to the court at Southport on March 20. Gerrard, a father of two young daughters, spoke only to confirm his name and address and say he intended to plead not guilty along with the other defendants." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard denies assault charges in court on Friday .\nAlleged incident came hours after Gerrard scored twice in win at Newcastle .\nGerrard pleaded not guily and will return to the court in Southport on March 20 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Australian Tim Cahill dealt Liverpool a desperate and potentially damaging blow with the goal that salvaged a 1-1 draw for bitter rivals Everton and stopped the Reds returning to the top of the Premier League. Tim Cahill earned Everton the point they deserved with a header three minutes from the end to deny Liverpool. Liverpool had grabbed the lead when Steven Gerrard, captaining the Anfield club for the 250th time, swept home a low drive midway through the second half for his 14th goal of the season. But Cahill earned Everton the draw their contribution deserved when he met Mikel Arteta's 87th minute free-kick with a powerful header from inside the six-yard box. Spain striker Fernando Torres returned to Liverpool's starting line-up for the first time since November following hamstring problems, for the 209th Merseyside derby. And Torres should have broken the deadlock in the first half when he surged between Joleon Lescott and Phil Jagielka only to prod his shot against a post from a few meters. Referee Howard Webb was kept busy as the tackles flew in and he lectured Phil Neville, Joleon Lescott and Arteta after a series of fouls on Gerrard. Webb later refused Liverpool a penalty two minutes after the interval when Torres went down theatrically after being nudged by Jagielka. Everton believed they were entitled to a spot kick when Martin Skrtel looked to send Victor Anichebe tumbling. The referee again waved away the appeals, and the complaints were still raging on the pitch -- and the touchline -- as Liverpool surged away for Gerrard to crash home a 30-yard drive to put the hosts ahead after 68 minutes. It had been more than 10 hours since Everton had conceded a goal and it looked as though it would be enough to send Liverpool back to the top ahead of Manchester United. Cahill had other ideas -- and the sides will go through it all again on Sunday when Liverpool host Everton in an FA Cup fourth round clash." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Australian Tim Cahill denies Liverpool win with late goal as Everton draw 1-1 .\nLiverpool had grabbed the lead when Steven Gerrard struck after 68 minutes .\nMerseyside rivals clash again on Sunday at Anfield in FA Cup fourth round ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "PARIS, France (CNN) -- Police evacuated a major department store in central Paris Tuesday after finding five sticks of dynamite inside, French police told CNN. Paris's Printemps department store, which has been hit by a security alert, pictured last month. CNN affiliate BFM-TV reported the dynamite was not rigged to explode, but police did not immediately confirm the report. French news agency AFP said it received a letter in the mail Tuesday morning, claiming to be from an Afghan revolutionary group and saying that a bomb was at the renowned Printemps department store. The news agency alerted the police, who evacuated the store, AFP told CNN. The letter specified three locations where explosives had been placed, and urged the news agency to contact the police \"quickly or you will have blood on your hands,\" according to a copy of the letter obtained by CNN which AFP confirmed was accurate. \"I assure you that this is not a prank,\" the letter said. The bomb squad found the dynamite around 11 a.m. (5 a.m. ET), police said. It is not clear if the explosives were found where the letter said they would be. See where Printemps is located in Paris » . AFP said the letter was signed by a group called \"Front Revolutionaires Afghan,\" or Afghan Revolutionary Front. BFM-TV reported the group is calling for the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan by the end of February 2009. \"Make sure the message is relayed to your president of the republic that he withdraw his troops from our country (Afghanistan) before the end of February 2009 or we will strike again your capitalist department stores but without warning,\" the letter said. It is the second time in a week that AFP has received a warning about the store. The agency said it received a phone call from a similar Afghan group a few days ago regarding the store, but at the time, police chose not to evacuate. Printemps, one of France's most renowned stores, is popular with tourists and locals alike and located on the Boulevard Haussman. Most of the store reopened later in the day, although the area where the dynamite was found remained closed. Jim Bittermann, CNN's senior European correspondent based in Paris, said: \"These kind of stores at this time of year are absolutely packed with shoppers.\" He added that France has a considerable number of troops in Afghanistan. In August, 10 French soldiers were killed in fighting near the Afghan capital Kabul. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said earlier this year that his government was willing to commit more troops to the war in Afghanistan. \"We cannot afford to see the Taliban and al Qaeda returning to Kabul,\" Sarkozy said during a state visit to the UK in March. \"Whatever the cost, however difficult the victory, we cannot afford it. We must win.\" Paula Newton, CNN's international security correspondent, said that the group involved was previously unheard of. \"This may be termed a hoax attack but it will cause real anxiety on the ground.\" CNN's Jim Bittermann and Niki Cook contributed to this report ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bomb squad found the suspicious package around 11 a.m. (5 a.m. ET)\nPolice: Could not confirm French TV reports that package contained dynamite .\nPrintemps is an upscale department store on the Boulevard Haussman .\nAlert came after letter from group claiming Afghan links, criticizes Sarkozy ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- William Potts picks up his daughters from school every day. People consider him a generous neighbor and a good father. William Potts smuggled a firearm aboard a flight, hijacked the plane and forced the crew to fly to Cuba. But few know how this eccentric American ended up in Cuba. \"I came to Cuba 25 years ago. I hijacked an airplane,\" said Potts, who was convicted of air piracy. Potts says he was enthused by Fidel Castro and his revolution. He imagined a racial and social utopia that could be replicated in his own country. In 1984, he smuggled a firearm aboard a commercial flight and forced the crew to fly to Havana, Cuba. No one was injured. \"In my revolutionary naivete, I came looking for military training,\" he says. Instead, he ended up in jail. He spent 13 years behind bars in Cuba. In 1971, the United States and Cuba signed an agreement in which each government agreed to prosecute hijackers or return them to the other country. Potts, who married after being released from prison, is now divorced and lives on the outskirts of Havana with his two daughters, ages 4 and 7. He makes some money letting his neighbors use his prized Internet connection. But the New Yorker is homesick and says his elderly parents need help. \"I committed a crime and paid for it,\" he says. \"Now what I want is to return home because I have to attend to my family.\" Watch Potts explain why he thinks he deserves a pardon » . He says the time is right. Potts wrote a letter to President Obama asking for a pardon that would let him return to the United States without fear of being jailed. There are thought to be 700 American fugitives hiding in Cuba. Members of the Black Panthers, Puerto Rican independence movement members and common criminals have sought sanctuary on the island. For the most part, they try to go unnoticed. Perhaps the most famous is black activist Assata Shakur, who was convicted for killing a police officer in New Jersey in 1973 but escaped from prison in 1979 and ended up in Cuba. Potts says he wants to leave behind his radical days and expects that Obama will finally allow him to do that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "William Potts hijacked a plane 25 years ago and forced crew to fly to Cuba .\nPotts served 12 years in a Cuban jail and now lives outside Havana .\nPotts asking Obama for pardon to allow him to return to U.S. to care for family .\n\"I committed a crime and paid for it,\" he says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The United Nations humanitarian chief Wednesday criticized a two-day pause in the fighting between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels as \"inadequate.\" U.N. Nations humanitarian chief John Holmes said he would have liked a \"proper humanitarian pause.\" John Holmes, the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told reporters that the 48-hour break in hostilities was not sufficient, even as fighting resumed in the northeast of the country. The brief cessation of hostilities was announced by the Sri Lankan government on April 12 and allowed the U.N. and its partners to bring in necessary aid, said Holmes. He said he would have liked a \"proper humanitarian pause\" that lasted longer than two days, but hoped the break allowed for some progress to occur. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon had originally welcomed the announcement by the Sri Lankan government. However, Ban also expressed his concern that, \"This is less than the full humanitarian pause of several days I had pressed for.\" But Ban added that the pause \"is nevertheless a useful first step and an opportunity to move towards the peaceful and orderly end to the fighting now so badly needed.\" The government of Sri Lanka has been battling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) rebels in a civil conflict that has lasted nearly 25 years. The LTTE has been declared a terrorist organization by 32 countries, including the United States and the nations of the European Union. As many as 70,000 people have been killed since the conflict officially began in 1983. The most pressing concern now, according to Holmes, is the fact that over 100,000 people are currently crowded in a \"very small pocket of land\" that is about five square miles, or about twice the size of New York's Central Park. \"It is a very small area indeed for what we believe is very large number of people\" Holmes explained. The crowded population, primarily comprised of Tamil civilians, is subject to the continuing Sri Lankan government assaults. The British and French foreign ministers released a joint statement as well on Wednesday, claiming that the LTTE is also using Tamil civilians as human shields. Holmes also called attention to the fact that the press has been barred from covering the civil strife in Sri Lanka. Ultimately, Holmes and the United Nations would like to see a peaceful end to the hostilities, but \"its pretty clear, frankly, that a ceasefire as such is not something available at present circumstances.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "U.N. humanitarian chief criticizes a two-day pause in fighting as \"inadequate\"\n48-hour cessation of hostilities announced by Sri Lankan government on April 12 .\nCeasefire allowed the U.N. and its partners to bring in necessary aid .\nSri Lankan government has been battling LTTE rebels for nearly 25 years ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "OXON HILL, Maryland (CNN) -- Crew members of the Maersk Alabama, safely back in the United States after being attacked by pirates last week off Somalia, recounted their ordeal Thursday. Navy personnel recover the lifeboat from which Maersk Alabama Capt. Richard Phillips was rescued Sunday. \"They start firing before they climb, with AK-47,\" crew member Zahid Reza said. \"I was scared for my life. I was almost close to that. And they tried to shoot me many times,\" he said, pointing to his head. \"Pointing gun all over. Here, there, in the back.\" Pirates tried three times to board the U.S.-flagged cargo ship before their fourth attempt was successful, fellow crew member William Rios said, adding that the groups of pirates were different but that he thinks they were working together. Rios said he was working on deck when he was called back to lock down the ship. Then, he said, there were gunshots, and an alarm went off to alert all crew members to wake up and get on deck. \"We went to our training,\" he said, declining to provide details: \"If I tell you all what we did, pirates, they would know.\" Watch the crew praise their captain » . The pirates intended to ask for a $3 million ransom, Reza said. He said he and the ship's chief engineer took one of the pirates hostage. Reza said he persuaded the pirate -- whom he described as a young man, maybe 18 or 19 -- to trust him, pointing out that he is Bangladeshi and the pirate was Somali. \"His name is Abdul,\" Reza said. \"I told him, 'Trust me. I am Muslim; you are Muslim.' \" He told Abdul he would take him to the engine room to find more crew members. When they got there, the room was dark, he said, and he didn't know the ship's chief engineer was in there. He said the chief engineer jumped the pirate first, then Reza stabbed him with his knife, and the two men tied the pirate's hands and feet. Reza said he intended to kill the youth, but the chief engineer told him, \"No, we need him alive.\" Watch Reza talk about wanting to kill the pirate » . \"He was fighting me and chief engineer, to get away from us. A lot of yelling, shouting and screaming.\" Rios said he went to the lifeboat, where Capt. Richard Phillips was being held, to exchange Abdul for Phillips but was unsuccessful. The captain -- who offered himself as a hostage in exchange for the freedom of his crew -- was rescued by U.S. Navy SEALs on Sunday. The SEALs, on the nearby guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, fatally shot three pirates and rescued Phillips. A fourth pirate was arrested. \"I feel great they got killed,\" Reza said. \"I am happy.\" He said he was proud of the Navy. Phillips arrived in Mombasa, Kenya, aboard the Bainbridge on Thursday. The crew arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland overnight. Watch crew arrive in U.S. » . Rios said Phillips is \"outstanding; he's extraordinary; he's [a] very brave man.\" Another crew member, John White, said they were \"damn lucky to be alive.\" Rios called for more security in the Gulf of Aden. \"Put more military to patrol the waterway for us transporting material back and forth,\" he said. \"... All the countries got to get involved with this.\" Reza echoed the call. \"I think government should get involved,\" he said. \"They should think about our safety, yes. ... This piracy is getting bigger and bigger.\" CNN's Paul Courson, Virginia Nicolaidis and Dugald McConnell contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Maersk Alabama crew tell about pirates' takeover of ship .\nNEW: Crew member says he gained confidence of, tried to kill pirate .\nNEW: \"I feel great they got killed,\" crew member says of pirates .\nNEW: Crew calls for international effort to secure shipping lanes ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A 23-year-old Mexican beauty queen and seven men were taken into custody late Monday after being found in vehicles containing weapons and cash in central Mexico, police said Tuesday. Laura Zuniga and seven men were found in vehicles with guns and $50,000, Mexican police say. Laura Zuniga and the men were traveling in two vehicles that contained AR-15 assault rifles, handguns, cartridges and $50,000 in cash, said Luis Carlos Najera Gutierrez de Velazco, secretary of public security for the state of Jalisco. The eight were stopped in Zapopan, outside Guadalajara, and will face arms charges and an investigation by a federal organized crime team, Najera said. Police, who had received a tip that a group of armed men were in a home, \"detected\" the vehicles as they were traveling to investigate the call, Najera said. One of the men in the vehicles was 29-year-old Angel Orlando Garcia Urquiza, who is Zuniga's boyfriend and the brother of \"one of the greatest capos of narcotraffic,\" Najera said. Najera said Urquiza's brother, Ricardo Garcia Urquiza, is a member of the Juarez cartel and already was in police custody. All eight were filed before the news media Tuesday. Zuniga, wearing blue jeans and a gray sweater, raised her handcuffed wrists to cover her face in a police picture. Zuniga is from Culiacan in the state of Sinaloa, a center of drug activity. In July, she won the title Nuestra Belleza Sinaloa. That gave her the right to compete two months later in the national Nuestra Belleza Mexico in Monterrey, where she won \"The Election of the Queens,\" one of five special recognitions, and came in third overall. In October, she won the title \"Hispanoamerican Queen 2008\" in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. According to the Nuestra Belleza Mexico Web site, she is to represent Mexico in next year's Miss International contest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mexican police: Laura Zuniga, seven men face arms charges, federal probe .\nZuniga, men found in vehicles with weapons, $50,000, police say .\nZuniga won state beauty contest, finished third in national competition .\nShe won \"Hispanoamerican Queen 2008\" title in October ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- More than half the Christian population has fled the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in reaction to a campaign of killings and intimidation, according to the United Nations. Christian women attend a religious service Sunday at a church in Baghdad. An estimated 13,000 Christians have left because of oppression the U.S. government blames on al Qaeda in Iraq. Mosul, in Nineveh province, is one of the last Iraqi cities where al Qaeda in Iraq has a significant presence and routinely carries out attacks. An estimated 2,300 families have fled Mosul this month, but the exodus has started to ebb, Nineveh province's Deputy Gov. Khasro Goran said Tuesday. No Christian family has left the city over the past seven days, and at least 100 families returned to their homes in and around Mosul during that time, Goran said. Authorities said they believe Christian demonstrations earlier this month may have prompted the attacks. Hundreds of Christians took to the streets in Mosul and surrounding villages and towns demanding adequate representation on provincial councils, whose members will be chosen in local elections in January. The violence that followed those protests left at least 14 Iraqi Christians dead and prompted the Iraqi government to dispatch more security forces to patrol the city. Violence has declined as a result, Iraqi officials said. Last week, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said the anti-Christian attacks and threats are partly \"due to elements of al Qaeda that still enjoy some ability to operate up there.\" \"This is an attempt, it appears, to try to inflame tensions and fault lines that exist between religious and sectarian groups,\" Morrell said. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is helping many of the displaced families, most of whom have fled to nearby villages in Nineveh province. About 400 others have crossed into Syria, but many have said they no longer feel safe there, according to the refugee agency. Syria already hosts more than 1 million Iraqi refugees. The U.N. agency said many of the Iraqi Christians told stories of intimidation and death threats. \"One woman said she and her mother left Mosul early last week, two days after someone called one of her colleagues at work and said that all Christians should leave the city immediately or be killed,\" according to a UNHCR news release. \"She said she was unnerved but decided to leave only after hearing reports that 11 people had been killed at a checkpoint by militiamen dressed as police officers. She and her mother escaped with a couple of bags and all the money that they had in the house -- they did not dare go to the bank to remove their savings.\" A nurse told UNHCR that the threats against Christians in Mosul began months ago \"with phone calls, letters and messages left on doors.\" In other violence Tuesday in Mosul, four police officers were killed and four wounded when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. Gunmen in cars ambushed police as they were on their way to start work in west Mosul's al-Amil neighborhood, the official said. Also Tuesday in Baghdad, six civilians died and 23 were hurt in four bombings, the official said. In eastern Baghdad, in the Shiite al-Baladiyat neighborhood, a roadside bomb exploded Tuesday afternoon, killing one civilian and wounding five others, the official said. Earlier, a parked car exploded near a busy outdoor market in the western al-Jihad neighborhood, killing at least five people and wounding 11 others, the Interior Ministry official said. No other details were available about the blast. Two roadside bombs exploded in central Baghdad's al-Nahdha commercial area, wounding seven people, the official said. The first blast hurt four civilians, while the second wounded three, the official said. Also Tuesday, the Iraqi army and police discovered 20 decomposed bodies in the basement of an abandoned house in Tal Afar, a town about 43 miles (70 kilometers) west of Mosul. There was no indication of how the victims -- who could not immediately be identified -- were killed, the official said. Authorities discovered the bodies after receiving tips from local residents. CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Authorities find 20 decomposed bodies in basement of Tal Afar house .\nIntimidation, killings chase 13,000 Christians from Mosul, U.N. agency says .\nExodus is slowing, and some have returned, Iraqi official says .\nFour police, five civilians killed Tuesday in Mosul and Baghdad, ministry says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- After a week when he could not be traced, Egyptian striker Amir Zaki is back at his Premier League club side Wigan Athletic in northern England. Wigan and Egypt striker Amir Zaki has mended relations with his club manager. According to Wigan manager Steve Bruce the two have patched up their differences after he launched a verbal tirade against the 26-year-old striker. Zaki told Al-Hayat TV that the pair \"ended up laughing\" about his absence -- when he failed to return from international duty and had a hamstring strain which no one knew the seriousness of. But, it wasn't all laughs a week ago. On Wigan's club Web site, Bruce had said of Zaki: \"I just feel it's time that we went public on just what a nightmare he has been to deal with. I can honestly say that in all my time in football I have never worked with someone as unprofessional. \"I have already fined him the maximum allowed but this just seems to have no effect,\" Bruce said. After giving Zaki a fine for his misdemeanor the Wigan manager also revealed it was the fourth time he had gone AWOL after international duty. Are players selling their fans and clubs short when they go AWOL? How do you think should they be punished by clubs? Zaki's case certainly isn't the first high profile instance of a player going missing. Inter Milan striker Adriano sparked kidnap fears after failing to return earlier this month, following a World Cup qualifier in South America. It was not the first time the Brazilian had failed to report back to his club following international duty. After a two-week absence, Adriano later announced he was taking a break from professional football at a news conference in Brazil. He told reporters: \"I've lost the happiness of playing. I wouldn't like to go back to Italy, I want to live in peace here in Brazil. \"I don't know if I'm going to stay for one, two or three months without playing. I'm going to rethink my career.\" Other notable cases include Nigerian forward Ayegbeni Yakubu, who failed to return to club duty at Premier League side Everton after the African Cup of Nations last year. When he returned to Everton,Yakubu was hit with a maximum £80,000 fine. Manager David Moyes said at a news conference at the time: 'Yakubu's back in it now. That episode has ended. He let us down by not coming back. But it's over and we've moved on.\" German club Schalke fined defender Rafinha a record $1million for making an unauthorized trip to the Beijing Olympic Games and spending a total of 35 days away. One of the most bizarre examples was that of Moroccan defender Youssef Rossi, who surprised everyone when he returned to training at Dunfermline Athletic a year after having his wages stopped by the Scottish club. Rossi had previously gone AWOL from the club and returned to training with Raja Casablanca back in his homeland." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Egyptian striker Amir Zaki was AWOL after failing to return to Wigan .\nWigan manager Steve Bruce described Zaki as \"unprofessional\"\nAdriano went AWOL for two weeks and later said he was taking a break from football .\nHow do you think AWOL players should be punished by their clubs?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A day before embarking on a trip to Latin America, President Obama described his planned talks with Latin American leaders as discussions among equals. President Obama refuses to criticize Latin American leaders. \"Times have changed,\" Obama told CNN en Español Wednesday. Referring to his planned meeting later this week with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, he said, \"My relationship with President Lula is one of two leaders who both have big countries, that we are trying to solve problems and create opportunities for our people and we should be partners. \"There's no senior partner or junior partner.\" Obama and Lula da Silva are among leaders scheduled to attend the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. Obama refused to criticize the leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, who have taken measures to change their constitutions to extend their holds on power. \"I think it's important for the United States not to tell other countries how to structure their democratic practices and what should be contained in their constitutions,\" he said. \"It's up to the people of those countries to make a decision about how they want to structure their affairs.\" Asked how he plans to interact with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of the United States who once described former President George Bush as the devil, Obama offered no criticism. \"Look, he's the leader of his country and he'll be one of many people that I will have an opportunity to meet.\" Though he said he believes the United States has a leadership role to play in the region, Obama qualified that role, saying, \"We also recognize that other countries have important contributions and insights. We want to listen and learn as well as talk, and that approach, I think, of mutual respect and finding common interests, is one that ultimately will serve everybody.\" Asked about Cuba, Obama, who recently eased restrictions on travel and sending money to the island, offered a prod and a carrot to Havana. \"What we're looking for is some signal that there are going to be changes in how Cuba operates that assures that political prisoners are released, that people can speak their minds freely, that they can travel, that they can write and attend church and do the things that people throughout the hemisphere can do and take for granted,\" he said. \"And if there is some sense of movement on those fronts in Cuba, then I think we can see a further thawing of relations and further changes.\" Obama sought to distance his administration from that of his predecessor, noting that he plans to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where \"some of the practices of enhanced interrogation techniques, I think ran counter to American values and American traditions.\" He said his team has spoken with the Spanish government about a Spanish judge's call for an investigation into the role of Bush administration officials in the detention of five Spaniards at Guantanamo. But he did not dwell on his predecessor's legacy. \"I'm a strong believer that it is important to look forward and not backward and to remind ourselves that we do have very real security threats out there.\" Though the U.S. image abroad may have suffered in recent years, \"there's a reason why there are consistently so many immigrants to our country from Latin America,\" he said. Obama lauded Mexican President Felipe Calderon, with whom he is to meet Thursday in Mexico City, as having done \"an outstanding and heroic job in dealing with what is a big problem right now along the borders with the drug cartels.\" He vowed that the United States can be counted on to help. \"We are going to be dealing not only with drug interdiction coming north, but also working on helping to curb the flow of cash and guns going south,\" Obama said. Obama described himself as \"a strong proponent of comprehensive immigration reform,\" and said he has met with the congressional Hispanic Caucus \"to try to shape an agenda that can move through Congress.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Obama heading to Summit of Americas this week in Trinidad and Tobago .\nHe says U.S. should not tell \"countries how to structure their democratic practices\"\n\"We want to listen and learn as well as talk,\" Obama says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Archaeologists believe they have unearthed only a small fraction of Egypt's ancient ruins, but they're making new discoveries with help from high-tech allies -- satellites that peer into the past from the distance of space. The enclosure wall of the Great Aten temple in Egypt, as seen from the QuickBird satellite. \"Everyone's becoming more aware of this technology and what it can do,\" said Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who heads the Laboratory for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. \"There is so much to learn.\" Images from space have been around for decades. Yet only in the past decade or so has the resolution of images from commercial satellites sharpened enough to be of much use to archaeologists. Today, scientists can use them to locate ruins -- some no bigger than a small living room -- in some of the most remote and forbidding places on the planet. In this field, Parcak is a pioneer. Her work in Egypt has yielded hundreds of finds in regions of the Middle Egypt and the eastern Nile River Delta. Parcak conducted surveys and expeditions in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt in 2003 and 2004 that confirmed 132 sites that were initially suggested by satellite images. Eighty-three of those sites had never been visited or recorded. In the past two years, she has found hundreds more, she said, leading her to amend an earlier conclusion that Egyptologists have found only the tip of the iceberg. \"My estimate of 1/100th of 1 percent of all sites found is on the high side,\" Parcak said. These discoveries are of no small significance to the Egyptian government, which has devoted itself anew to protecting archaeological sites from plunder and encroachment. The Supreme Council of Antiquities has restricted excavation in the most sensitive areas along the Nile -- from the Great Pyramids at Giza on the outskirts of Cairo to the carvings of Ramses II in the remote south. Antiquities officials hope the move will encourage more surveys in the eastern Nile Delta in northern Egypt, Parcak said, where encroaching development in the burgeoning nation of 82 million poses the greatest threat to the sites. Old and modern methods . Parcak's process weds modern tools with old-fashioned grunt work. The archaeologist studies satellite images stored on a NASA database and plugs in global positioning coordinates for suspected sites, then tramps out to see them. Telltale signs such as raised elevations and pot shards can confirm the images. As a result, the big picture comes into view. \"We can see patterns in settlements that correspond to the [historical] texts,\" Parcak said, \"such as if foreign invasions affected the occupation of ancient sites. \"We can see where the Romans built over what the Egyptians had built, and where the Coptic Christians built over what the Romans had built. \"It's an incredible continuity of occupation and reuse.\" The flooding and meanders of the Nile over the millennia dictated where and how ancient Egyptians lived, and the profusion of new data has built a more precise picture of how that worked. \"Surveys give us information about broader ancient settlement patterns, such as patterns of city growth and collapse over time, that excavations do not,\" said Parcak, author of a forthcoming book titled \"Satellite Remote Sensing and Archaeology.\" The vagaries of climate in the region make satellite technology advantageous, too. \"Certain plants that may indicate sites grow during certain times of the year,\" Parcak said, \"while sites may only appear during a wet or dry season. This is different everywhere in the world.\" Archaeologists working in much more verdant climates, such as Cambodia and Guatemala, also have used the technology to divine locations of undiscovered ruins. They have been able to see similarities between the vegetation at known sites and suspected sites that showed up in fine infrared and ultraviolet images covering wide areas of forbidding terrain. \"For the work I do [in Egypt], I need wet season images as wet soil does a better job at detecting sites with the satellite imagery data I use,\" Parcak said. \"I can pick the exact months I need with the NASA satellite datasets.\" Benefits of a bird's-eye view . Remote subsurface sensing has been used in archaeology in one form or another for years, though the term \"remote\" doesn't necessarily imply great distance. Typically, a surveyor has wheeled a sensing device over a marked-out area to determine what lies below. The sensing devices employ any of an array of technologies, such as Ground Penetrating Radar. They bounce signals off objects below the surface and translate the data into images that a scientist's trained eye can decipher. Multispectral imaging encompasses technologies that \"see\" what the human eye can't, such as infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Scientists have used it for years to study the Earth's surface for a variety of purposes. Until resolution of these images improved, though, the only way to produce a sharp image was to be relatively close to the ground. For those lugging unwieldy gear across jungle and desert, an effective bird's-eye view can change the world. It lets them leave behind the days and days of meticulous \"prospecting\" and get results from airplane-mounted sensors or, later on, a flyover by an advanced satellite. One of the most advanced is called QuickBird, which has been in orbit since 2001 and can provide high-resolution images of 11-mile-wide swaths. The satellite can collect nearly 29 million square miles of imagery data in a year, according to DigitalGlobe, which developed and operates QuickBird. The company, based in Longmont, Colorado, is working on an upgrade. WorldView-2, to be launched in 2009, will offer sharper resolution of visual and multispectral images than QuickBird, according to the company's Web site. In the end, though, a tool is only as useful as its wielder. \"Most of the advances have come through processing on the ground by end users such as Dr. Parcak,\" said DigitalGlobe spokesman Chuck Herring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sharper resolutions allowing scientists to use satellites to locate ruins sites .\nPictures from commercial satellites have been sharp enough only for past decade .\nImages have helped archaeologist Sarah Parcak find hundreds of Egyptian sites .\nColorado company's new, advanced imaging satellite to be launched in 2009 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reached an important milestone Wednesday in her quest to pay the debt from her failed 2008 presidential bid: For the first time in eight months, her campaign committee reported having more money in the bank than it owes. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's campaign committee reported owing $2.3 million in debt at the end of March. On a day most Americans were preoccupied with filing their federal income taxes, Clinton's campaign committee filed finance documents with the Federal Election Commission, reporting a total of $2.3 million in debts at the end of March, compared with $2.6 million in the bank. The nation's top diplomat has been steadily chipping away at unpaid campaign bills since suspending her White House bid in June 2008, when her debt peaked at $25.2 million. That amount covered $12 million owed to vendors, as well as the $13.2 million she loaned her campaign from personal funds. Clinton's campaign was unable to repay that personal loan by the time the Democratic National Convention convened in Denver, Colorado, last August, the deadline mandated by the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The former New York senator was forced to forgive the entire loan amount. Her campaign owed $6.4 million to 16 creditors at the end of November; $5.9 million to five creditors at the end of December; and the current $2.3 million owed to just one creditor at the end of March. That creditor is Penn, Schoen & Berland, a political consulting and polling firm that advised Clinton during her presidential bid. The firm's president, Mark Penn, was Clinton's senior campaign strategist until he stepped down last April amid revelations that he had lobbied on behalf of Colombia for a U.S.-Colombia trade deal that Clinton opposed. Penn remained involved with the campaign. Earlier this year, Clinton and her supporters raced to pay as much of the debt as possible by the time she was confirmed and sworn in as the nation's 67th secretary of state on January 21. As of that date, Clinton became subject to a federal law known as the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from personally soliciting or accepting political contributions. The Hatch Act allows others to keep raising money on Clinton's behalf, without her direct involvement. This week, longtime Clinton ally James Carville, a CNN contributor, sent a fundraising e-mail to Democrats on behalf of Clinton's campaign, requesting contributions of as little as $5 in exchange for a chance to win one of several prizes, including spending a day with former President Bill Clinton. \"I won't spend a lot of time trying to convince you to help Hillary,\" Carville e-mailed. \"I know what she means to you, and I'm sure you know how important it is for her to have her campaign pay off all its obligations.\" It's unclear whether the campaign will use the $2.6 million in the bank to clear its $2.3 million in debts in the short term. Continued fundraising indicates that it will not. Additional operating expenses and other outlays could emerge. Any extra money from the campaign could be donated to political causes or returned to donors. Clinton's campaign reported raising $938,000 in contributions in the first three months of 2009. In addition to tapping traditional fundraising, the campaign also generated money by selling or renting various campaign assets to other organizations. It received $2.6 million from Clinton's \"Friends of Hillary\" U.S. Senate campaign committee for the sale of unspecified assets and an additional $2.2 million from renting out its lists of campaign supporters. Organizations that have rented Clinton's lists include the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the inaugural committee of then-President-elect Barack Obama, and the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation. Those organizations each paid $274,297. Clinton's political action committee, HillPAC, rented the lists for $822,492. Among the Democratic candidates who have rented Clinton's campaign lists are Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln; Virginia gubernatorial candidate and former Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe; New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was appointed to fill Clinton's seat; and New York congressional candidate Scott Murphy, who hopes to succeed Gillibrand in the U.S. House." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hillary Clinton owes $2.3 million in campaign debt from failed 2008 presidential bid .\nHer campaign committee reported having $2.6 million in bank at end of March .\nClinton ally James Carville recently sent fundraising e-mail to Democrats ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- Editor's note: Watch MainSail on CNN International at the following times: Thursday 16th April at 1230 GMT; Saturday 18th April at 0700 and 1730 GMT; Sunday 19th April at 0300 and 0730 GMT; Monday 20th April at 0300 GMT. CNN's MainSail anchor Shirley Robertson has won two Olympic gold medals in an extremely successful sailing career, but, she has never climbed to the top of a huge mast. Tall task: MainSail host Shirley Robertson takes on the world's biggest aluminium mast . Until now, that is. On this month's MainSail programme, Shirley reaches the top of the tallest aluminium mast in the world - aboard the 56 meter Perini Navi vessel, Salute. The mast reaches a remarkable 250 feet (76 meters) into the air, and even with a small swell and light breeze, the top of the mast can swing through as much as ten meters -- five meters each side -- of its center point. Going up the mast is a dangerous job, but it is also a common necessity on any large yacht -- whether it be to check the rigging or complete a repair. Shirley has to wear all of the appropriate safety equipment for the climb -- which she has to do alone. Fortunately for Shirley, she doesn't have a big fear of heights and she receives some expert instruction, too. Watch Shirley climb the mast » You can also watch the full MainSail show and catch up with the latest news and features on the MainSail homepage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CNN's MainSail host Shirley Robertson is a double Olympic gold medalist .\nRobertson has never climbed a big mast before this .\nShe takes on the 250 foot mast aboard the 56-meter yacht Salute ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- The YouTube and Carnegie Hall generations collided Wednesday night in New York City as a nearly sold-out audience looked on in amazement. Images from musicians' videos are projected during the YouTube Symphony Orchestra concert in New York. Almost 100 musicians from around the world -- the world's first symphony orchestra comprised of members who auditioned solely online -- played their debut gig. They may have forever changed the audition process in their journey. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra bore a new era of classical performance at Carnegie Hall, and according to a YouTube employee, that's exactly what they wanted to do. \"We hope this is game changing in the sense it redefines audition space, it brings people closer together and lets them collaborate, transcending geographical and linguistic boundaries,\" said marketing manager Ed Sanders. Participants were chosen from more than 3,000 YouTube video submissions from more than 70 countries and territories spanning six continents, according to a press release. Watch orchestra play » . Their YouTube channel has received more than 15 million page views thus far with members hailing from more than 30 countries. The symphony orchestra's members participated in the three-day Classical Music Summit at Julliard and their Carnegie Hall debut served as the finale. Michael Tilson Thomas directed the performance and also served as the artistic adviser and conductor to the orchestra. He refined and nurtured each member through their musical selections online until the entire orchestra met in the real world a few days ago. \"For us it's somewhere between a classical music summit conference and a scout jamboree with an element of speed dating thrown in,\" Thomas said. While some participants traveled from as far as South Korea, Malaysia and Lithuania, bass player Kurt Hinterbichler lives in New York City. A theoretical physicist working on his doctorate at Columbia University, Hinterbichler was enamored at being chosen to participate. \"Carnegie Hall is still sort of the unofficial pinnacle of achievement of the classical music world,\" he said. \"You know once you've made it to Carnegie Hall you've really made it.\" So, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? \"Upload, upload, upload [YouTube videos],\" joked Thomas, updating the old \"practice, practice, practice\" punchline. Violin player Jennifer Lindsay, who is a systems engineer by day, said she was floored when she learned she was selected. \"YouTube gave me this opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall. There's no other way that someone like me who is not even a professional musician would have ever made it.\" World-renowned composer Tan Dun created a piece especially for the orchestra titled \"Internet Symphony No. 1, Eroica.\" Dun told YouTube his inspiration for this piece came from the streets of many international cities. \"On the streets of New York, London, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, I heard the street noise...then I thought this is the spirit beyond, this is the spirit of today.\" Dun has also created music for the movie \"Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon\" and the Beijing Summer Olympics. The symphony orchestra played to a Carnegie Hall audience that was almost 90 percent of capacity. Audience members seemed to love not only the performance, but the idea as a whole. Peter Newton and his wife were on vacation in New York from London and decided to attend the concert. \"The mixture between the music and democracy... it's interesting that at the end of the day, you bring them together for this performance,\" he said. Aaron Polsky attended the performance in support of his sister, who helped organize it. He was amazed at how limitless the performance seemed. \"I think it's great... there are really no boundaries other than owning a computer and an Internet connection.\" Musicians Lindsay and Hinterbichler both said they had no doubts the event would be a success. \"Absolutely do not underestimate the motivational power of playing at Carnegie Hall,\" Lindsay said. Hinterbichler agreed, \"We've got world class conductors, it will come together.\" In the spirit of YouTube, Travis Threlkel designed videos that accompanied all 15 musical selections. The lights in the room changed from green to red during some segments to match the mood of the selection. Dun said he thought the concert would be a hit with the Internet community. \"The whole world tonight is Googling around what's happening in Carnegie Hall,\" he said. Hinterbichler said he still did not grasp the vast reality of the situation. \"It's going to be one of those life experiences you know. I probably won't know what it means until ten years down the line when I look back at it,\" he said. So, what will the folks at YouTube come up with next? \"There should be a live Internet performance [by the orchestra],\" said Newton, the audience member. After Wednesday night, that certainly seems like a possibility." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The YouTube and Carnegie Hall generations collided Wednesday in New York City .\nYouTube Symphony Orchestra played a live concert to an amazed audience .\nOrchestra assembled from musicians around the world who \"auditioned\" online .\nSo, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? \"Upload, upload, upload videos\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- President Obama visits Mexico with many issues on the table, but reinstating the ban on assault weapons in the U.S. isn't likely to be one on which the two countries can reach agreement. Mexican federal police officers this week display an arsenal seized near the U.S. border. Mexican officials say criminals use assault weapons from the U.S. in the violent border region. Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., say reinstating the ban would stop the deadly flow of weapons across the border. Under the Clinton administration in 1994, Congress banned possession of 19 military-style assault weapons. The ban was allowed to expire 10 years later during the Bush administration. Earlier this year, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that Obama would like to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons, noting, \"I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico at a minimum.\" Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month that as a senator, she supported a measure to reinstate it. And the urban policy section of the White House Web site says Obama and Vice President Joe Biden \"support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.\" Obama still supports reinstating the ban, as he did during the presidential campaign, but there are no plans to reintroduce it anytime soon, according to an administration official. Obama thinks more can be done to stop the illegal flow of weapons to Mexico within existing laws, the official said, noting that the president has taken steps to deploy more law enforcement to curb the illegal flows of drugs, weapons and cash in both directions across the border. The administration is unaware of any broad-based efforts in Congress to reinstate the ban, the official said. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CBS on Thursday that reinstating the ban \"simply is not part of the plan that we're talking about here.\" Watch what Napolitano says about drug violence » . The Obama administration says the U.S. shares responsibility for the situation in Mexico, but as far as the ban goes, \"there's a lot on our plate,\" White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. Watch what's on the table for Obama's trip to Mexico » . Gun rights advocates stress that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to own firearms without restriction. Gun control supporters interpret the amendment to mean that states shall keep militias but that an individual's right to own firearms may be restricted. Those who support the assault weapons ban as a way to curb violence cite figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that say American gun sellers supply the Mexican drug cartels with 95 percent to 100 percent of their guns. But others say that claim cannot be substantiated -- and argue that less that 20 percent of weapons used in crimes in Mexico are traced to the U.S. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association of America, says U.S. rights are not the cause of Mexico's wrongs. In a commentary on CNN.com, LaPierre wrote that to believe U.S. freedoms are fueling the violence \"you have to believe these butchers and beheaders break every Mexican law they want except Mexican gun laws, which they honor -- while they break American gun laws.\" \"Everything Mexico's murderous thugs are doing is already illegal. At issue is not the absence of law, but the absence of political will to enforce the laws that both nations already possess,\" he wrote. On the other side, however, there are those who say loopholes in America's gun laws fuel violence in both Mexico and the United States. \"We need to realize that the Mexican drug cartels are arming themselves here because our gun laws have loopholes so large that criminals and gun traffickers can easily drive gun-laden trucks through them,\" former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, daughter of the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, wrote in a commentary for CNN.com. \"We need to prevent Mexican criminals and the traffickers who supply them from buying guns by changing our gun laws and strengthening U.S. law enforcement's ability to crack down on corrupt gun dealers.\" On the eve of Obama's arrival, Calderon told ABC he thought the weapons ban was \"very good legislation.\" \"During that period, we didn't suffer a lot, like we suffered in the four or five years,\" he said. And Sarukhan told CBS this weekend, \"There's a direct correlation between the expiration of the assault weapons ban and our seizures of assault weapons.\" He said, \"We cannot determine how Congress and the administration will move on this. What we will say is that this is one of the instruments by reinstating the ban that could have a profound impact on the number and the caliber of weapons going down to Mexico.\" Obama was to meet Thursday with Calderon in Mexico City ahead of his trip to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. But Mexico isn't the only consideration when it comes to gun control. In the United States, gun control is a wedge issue -- and one that can carry serious political ramifications. Democrats tend to shy away from remarks that could be interpreted as anti-gun, especially in swing states and districts. (Remember the frenzy that ensued after then-candidate Obama said people in small towns get bitter and \"cling to guns or religion\"?) Democrats are usually thought of as the party more likely to enforce ownership restrictions, while Republicans are associated with ownership rights. As a candidate, Obama promised, \"I'm not going to take away your guns.'' Any other message would have been unpopular in the traditionally Republican states he won such as North Carolina and Virginia. Other Democrats, such as Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virginia, also are getting elected with the help of NRA supporters. Even so, with a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat-controlled Congress, there's been a surge in requests for background checks of potential gun buyers, according to the FBI, and some gun owners say they think restrictions are somewhere on Obama's to-do list. Asked Thursday if it's just too politically difficult now to reinstate the ban, Gibbs said, \"I think the president believes that we can have a greater outcome in the short term working to enforce the laws that are on our books.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mexico: U.S. ban on assault weapons would curtail flow of weapons into country .\nBan instituted in 1994 during Clinton era and expired 10 years later .\nPresident Obama has no immediate plans to try to reinstate ban, official says .\nObama meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Police in Boston, Massachusetts, are searching for a man suspected in the murder of one woman and the armed robbery of two others, all of whom, they say, he may have met through their Craigslist ads for personal services. Julissa Brisman, 26, was described as \"a really sweet, goofy, energetic kid.\" Officers discovered New York resident Julissa Brisman, 26, unconscious with multiple gunshot wounds at Boston's Copley Marriott Hotel on Tuesday night. She was transferred to Boston Medical Center, where she died shortly afterward. Police said Brisman, a model, offered massages via Craigslist, a popular online classified ad service. The confrontation between Brisman and her killer seems to have begun as an attempted robbery, police said. \"It appears that there was a struggle between the victim and the suspect in the threshold of the hotel room immediately prior to the shooting,\" the Boston Police Department said in a statement on its Web site. Police speculate the man may also be responsible for the recent robberies of two other young women who offered personal services via Craigslist. Four days before Brisman's slaying, a 29-year-old woman was robbed at gunpoint at a Westin Hotel in Boston. Police spokesman Joe Zanola would not disclose the details of her Craigslist ad but said she and Brisman were \"involved in similar professions.\" On Thursday night at a Holiday Inn Express in Warwick, Rhode Island, a man tied up and demanded money from a 26-year-old dancer who had posted a Craigslist advertisement, according to Warwick's police chief, Col. Stephen McCartney. The robbery was interrupted when the woman's husband entered the room. After pointing his gun at the husband, the suspect fled, according to McCartney. He said that no conclusions could be made but allowed that the incident \"may be related to similar crimes occurring in the Boston area.\" Matthew Terhune, a photographer who met Brisman when he took pictures of her for a calendar last year, described her as \"just a really sweet, goofy, energetic kid.\" He added that she was enrolled in Alcoholics Anonymous and was contemplating counseling fellow recovering addicts. He had been unaware of her side job as an Internet masseuse. Surveillance videos from the hotel where Brisman was murdered showed a tall, clean-cut young blond man in a black windbreaker leaving the property, said the Boston Police Department, which is asking the public's help in identifying the man. Representatives from Craigslist did not respond to a request for comment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "26-year-old died after attack at Boston hotel on Tuesday .\nPolice say she posted Craigslist ad offering massages .\nMan may be behind two recent robberies, they say .\nBoston police seek public's help identifying man on video ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Is cheese the answer for Cayuga County, New York? Larry Rosenbaum surveys the field where he hopes to build a high-end specialty cheese factory. Like small towns all across America, this agricultural community is suffering, with unemployment approaching 10 percent. Entrepreneur Larry Rosenbaum thinks he can do his part to turn things around. For a decade, the insurance man by trade has been dreaming of building a factory for high-end specialty cheese. One key selling point: His product would meet the strictest standards of the Jewish and Muslim faiths. Rosenbaum says the demand for kosher and halal cheese is high but the selection is slim. So he's been eyeing a plot of barren farmland between Aurelius and Auburn -- two Cayuga towns -- as the future home of a $40 million, 64,000-square-foot factory that would churn out feta and brie. The goal is for his company, Saratoga Cheese Corp., to produce 30 million pounds of cheese in the first year and distribute it domestically and internationally. \"It's the beginning of a trend of bringing back manufacturing industry to New York,\" said Rosenbaum. According to the Public Policy Institute of New York State, manufacturing in New York declined more than 30 percent between 1997 and 2007. Watch Rosenbaum talk about his plans » . Rosenbaum estimates that Saratoga Cheese Corp. would bring 75 factory jobs and 150 temporary construction jobs to the region. Plans also include 50 yeshiva work-study students to be placed on participating farms. In addition, several rabbis and imams would supervise production. If Saratoga Cheese can get off the ground, it could mean a boost for local farmers like Dale Hemminger, who has agreed to supply kosher milk to Saratoga Cheese Corp. Hemminger says it could be a crucial new market for his milk. And though he was at first skeptical of Rosenbaum's plan, Hemminger says he admires Rosenbaum's vision. But that vision is still $10 million short of becoming reality. Rosenbaum has secured $30 million in government grants, loans and private funding, but needs $40 million before Saratoga Cheese Corp. can break ground. Given the recession, securing the final amount is proving no small feat. According to Bill Teator, a board member of Saratoga Cheese Corp., the best-case scenario is a combination of investment by a kosher dairy company and private lending. Teator says that though investors are confident about the business plan, the economic environment makes it tough to secure the needed cash. But support from local lawmakers is abundant. Republican state Sen. Michael Nozzolio is optimistic that Saratoga Cheese Corp. will find a home in his 54th District. And with an estimated $140 million in local revenue hanging in the balance, there's reason to hope. Recession or not, Rosenbaum is steadfast in his belief. For him, it's not a question of if the factory will get built, but when. \"We're not going to quit until we make it,\" says Rosenbaum. It's a persistence that is necessary in a recession that has proved legendary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Entrepreneur has long dreamed of building high-end specialty cheese factory .\nHe sees plot of barren farmland as future home of $40 million feta-and-brie plant .\nKey selling point: Product would meet strict standards of Jewish, Muslim faiths .\nHe hopes factory can help turn around declines in manufacturing, employment ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- The lawyer for the main suspect in last year's deadly terrorist attack in Mumbai was removed Wednesday, delaying the high-profile trial that was set to begin. Soldiers patrol in Mumbai on the eve of the trial of a key suspect in last year's attacks in the Indian city. The trial start for Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, is expected to be moved to Thursday as officials scramble to settle the lawyer issue. Kasab is thought to be the only one of 10 gunmen to survive the three-day siege, which killed more than 160 people in November. As the trial was to begin, the judge removed attorney Anjali Waghmare because she also was representing a witness in the case. Waghmare argued that she had no idea that the person was a witness in the terror case, and she was representing this person in a different case. But the judge declared that it was a conflict of interest. An Indian court appointed Waghmare two weeks ago to represent Kasab, and it was unclear who would replace her. Kasab demanded that his attorney be replaced with a Pakistani lawyer. But the judge denied that request and said that a Pakistani lawyer may be able to be brought in as a consultant from outside the courtroom. Kasab, a Pakistani national, faces more than a dozen charges, including murder, conspiracy to wage a war against the nation and terrorism. During the proceedings Wednesday Kasab seemed relaxed and smiled many time at the large crowd of journalists in the courtroom. Kasab also requested newspapers to be brought in so that he could see what the media was writing about him. Prosecutors last month accused him of trying to delay the trial by insisting that the 11,000-page document detailing the charges against him -- which was written in English and the local Marathi language -- be translated into Urdu, the official language of Pakistan. The court rejected his request. Wednesday's trial was to take place in a makeshift court set up in a jail where Kasab -- who has been communicating with the judge via videolink -- is being held. Indian authorities have long blamed the Mumbai attacks on Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a Pakistan-based militant outfit, but the group has denied responsibility. The violence initially heightened tensions between the two nuclear states. India has urged Pakistan to destroy what it calls terrorist infrastructure in that country. The two nations are longtime rivals that have fought three wars since their independence from the British, and conducted countering nuclear weapons tests in 1998. CNN's Sara Sidner contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Main suspect's lawyer removed as she represents a witness in the case .\nTrial was to start Wednesday, unclear when court proceedings will resume .\nMohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, is accused of being the only gunmen to survive siege .\nThe November siege targeted victims at Mumbai hotels, hospitals, railway stations ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- After a week when he could not be traced, Egyptian striker Amir Zaki is back at his Premier League club side Wigan Athletic in northern England. Wigan and Egypt striker Amir Zaki has mended relations with his club manager. According to Wigan manager Steve Bruce the two have patched up their differences after he launched a verbal tirade against the 26-year-old striker. Zaki told Al-Hayat TV that the pair \"ended up laughing\" about his absence -- when he failed to return from international duty and had a hamstring strain which no one knew the seriousness of. But, it wasn't all laughs a week ago. On Wigan's club Web site, Bruce had said of Zaki: \"I just feel it's time that we went public on just what a nightmare he has been to deal with. I can honestly say that in all my time in football I have never worked with someone as unprofessional. \"I have already fined him the maximum allowed but this just seems to have no effect,\" Bruce said. After giving Zaki a fine for his misdemeanor the Wigan manager also revealed it was the fourth time he had gone AWOL after international duty. Are players selling their fans and clubs short when they go AWOL? How do you think should they be punished by clubs? Zaki's case certainly isn't the first high profile instance of a player going missing. Inter Milan striker Adriano sparked kidnap fears after failing to return earlier this month, following a World Cup qualifier in South America. It was not the first time the Brazilian had failed to report back to his club following international duty. After a two-week absence, Adriano later announced he was taking a break from professional football at a news conference in Brazil. He told reporters: \"I've lost the happiness of playing. I wouldn't like to go back to Italy, I want to live in peace here in Brazil. \"I don't know if I'm going to stay for one, two or three months without playing. I'm going to rethink my career.\" Other notable cases include Nigerian forward Ayegbeni Yakubu, who failed to return to club duty at Premier League side Everton after the African Cup of Nations last year. When he returned to Everton,Yakubu was hit with a maximum £80,000 fine. Manager David Moyes said at a news conference at the time: 'Yakubu's back in it now. That episode has ended. He let us down by not coming back. But it's over and we've moved on.\" German club Schalke fined defender Rafinha a record $1million for making an unauthorized trip to the Beijing Olympic Games and spending a total of 35 days away. One of the most bizarre examples was that of Moroccan defender Youssef Rossi, who surprised everyone when he returned to training at Dunfermline Athletic a year after having his wages stopped by the Scottish club. Rossi had previously gone AWOL from the club and returned to training with Raja Casablanca back in his homeland." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Egyptian striker Amir Zaki was AWOL after failing to return to Wigan .\nWigan manager Steve Bruce described Zaki as \"unprofessional\"\nAdriano went AWOL for two weeks and later said he was taking a break from football .\nHow do you think AWOL players should be punished by their clubs?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Capt. Richard Phillips, whose capture and dramatic rescue in the pirate-infested waters off the coast of Africa last week captivated the nation, returned home to Vermont on Friday. Capt. Richard Phillips says, \"I'm not the hero. The military is the hero. Thank them.\" Phillips landed shortly after 4:30 p.m. at Burlington International Airport. He was met by family members, who climbed the steps of his plane to greet him. He then strolled across the tarmac with his family, his arm wrapped around his daughter, Mariah, who wiped away tears. \"I just want to thank you for your prayers and support of my family while I was gone,\" Phillips said after landing in Vermont. \"I'm just a bit part. I'm a seaman like all the other seamen out there.\" Watch Phillips' happy homecoming » . Close-up camera shots of Phillips on Friday showed what appeared to be rope burns on his forearms, presumably from being tied by the pirates. Phillips spoke for a short time and mostly thanked the military for saving him. \"I'm not the hero,\" he said. \"The military is the hero. Thank them.\" Watch Phillips thank military, Maersk » . He offered no details of what happened to him during his time as a hostage besides calling it \"indescribable.\" He also took the time to thank crew members on his ship. \"We did it. I told you it wasn't going to be 'if'; it was going to be 'when,' \" he said. \"We did what we were trained to do. We're just seamen. [We] do the best with what we've got, and my crew did an excellent job, and I'm so proud of them that they're all home and they're with their loved ones.\" Watch how crews train for pirate attacks » . He had just completed an 18-hour flight out of Mombasa, Kenya, on a jet owned by Maersk. Family members said they planned to spend some quality time together later Friday at their home in Underhill, Vermont -- Phillips' mother-in-law was making brownies and his best friend planned to bring over chicken pot pie and Phillips' favorite beer, they said. Phillips offered himself as a hostage last week, when four pirates boarded his U.S.-flagged ship, the Maersk Alabama. The pirates held him aboard a lifeboat for several days in a standoff against the U.S. Navy. Navy sharpshooters shot and killed three pirates, freeing Phillips. The other pirate had been taken into custody. The captain's wife, Andrea, also spoke at his homecoming, calling it \"one of the happiest moments of our lives.\" She said she was extremely proud of his bravery, but also acknowledged the captain would say he was just doing his job. \"I have always been proud to call myself an American,\" Andrea Phillips said. \"Today, I'm even prouder. To everyone who has been involved in this that made this day possible, I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Through this past week, having Richard back safe was all that my family and I ever wanted. Now our prayers have been answered, and we have a lot of people to thank.\" The 53-year-old Vermont native was praised Thursday by engineer John Cronan, one of the 19 other crew members. \"He went above and beyond the call to ensure our safety,\" Cronan told CNN's \"Larry King Live.\" \"I can't thank that man enough. He is the reason I'm here tonight.\" Watch Cronan tell King about the experience » . Asked whether she wants to see Cronan continue working as a merchant mariner, Cronan's fiancee said it was up to him. \"John and I have an agreement,\" said Heather Giardinelli, who works as a pharmaceutical marketing researcher. \"He doesn't tell me how to do my job, and I won't tell him how to do his.\" Asked whether he plans to return to sea, Cronan said, \"Yes, sir. However, the Staten Island Ferry has become much more appealing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Capt. Richard Phillips: \"I'm a seaman like all the other seamen out there\"\nWife: \"Having Richard back safe was all that my family and I ever wanted\"\nPhillips spent five days as hostage after Somali pirates assaulted ship .\nMaersk crew member: \"I can't thank that man enough\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Male singers regularly photographed wearing a hat are usually covering up a receding hairline. Jason Aldean has had six Top 10 country singles. His new album, \"Wide Open,\" is just out. But not Jason Aldean. He has a full head of hair, and wears a cowboy hat to signify his commitment to country music. The same is true for his well-fitting jeans and cowboy boots. It's a formula that seems to be working. The 32-year-old rising star has just notched his sixth Top 10 country single with \"She's Country,\" the lead track off his third CD, \"Wide Open\" (Broken Bow). We caught up with the Georgia native in his dressing room before a recent sold-out show at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, California. The following is an edited version of the interview. Jason Aldean: Definitely a cowboy hat in L.A. makes you stand out a little bit. CNN: It's a fashion statement in L.A. Aldean: It is! You've got to wear it with confidence, too. Watch Aldean talk about his new album » . CNN: Are you nervous about your new album? Aldean: I wouldn't say I'm nervous. If you have an album that you're kind of on the fence about, then yeah, you would be kind of a little nervous. CNN: Have you ever had one of those -- or if you had, would you admit it? Aldean: When we went in to record the second album (2007's \"Relentless,\" which went gold), I think it was a good album, but I felt like I was under a lot of pressure recording that album -- more than the other two. You hear people talking about the sophomore slump and all that stuff, and so I think all that stuff sort of got to me after a while. Combined with being on the road 200 to 250 days [a year], I just didn't have that much fun recording it. I was exhausted. And so going into this third album, I just feel like mentally, I was back in the right place. CNN: As an artist, do you ever really think you got it right? Aldean: If at any point you're recording an album and you think it's the greatest thing that you've ever done, and you'll never be able to top it, then you should probably quit. Michael Jackson -- he made \"Thriller,\" so I can see why he might have said, \"I'm done.\" But even he kept making records. CNN: Were you a Michael Jackson fan growing up? Did you moonwalk as a kid? Aldean: Of course! I had my glove and everything. Used to wet my hair so it looked like a Jheri curl. (Cracks up) CNN: Who else did you listen to as a kid? Aldean: Guns N' Roses -- the '80s rock stuff. Then I was into John Mellencamp, and Bob Seger and a lot of the Southern rock stuff -- the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band. I listened to a lot of different kinds of music. CNN: Are you finding that the economy has affected ticket sales? Is it harder to sell out shows these days? Aldean: I think everybody has kind of seen a little bit of a hit. We're no different. We've tried to make it more affordable for people to come to a show with lower ticket prices [most of the time in the $20-40 range]. Maybe go in and play a show for less money than we would normally go in to play a show for, just so people can afford to come out and buy a ticket. I mean, you're looking at 200 bucks if you've got a wife and two kids -- and then by the time you come there and buy a couple of T-shirts, or some drinks or whatever, you're spending three, four hundred dollars, and right now, people are a little hesitant to do that. CNN: What do you consider an expensive ticket? Aldean: If Elvis was still around, I don't know if I'd pay 80 bucks to go see him. I surely would not pay 80 bucks to go see me! CNN: From a financial standpoint, touring is more important to an artist than selling records these days. Aldean: The music industry is so different now than it was even when I hit the scene in 2005. If you go to Wal-Mart and you want a song, you've got to buy the whole album for ten bucks -- or you can go to iTunes, and if you want a song, you can pay a dollar to get it. So in return, the record label is going to make less money, which is us making less money to pay them back. The way it works is the record label basically fronts the money for us to record an album. As the money comes back in off of that, they take that and repay the debt that we owe them. So if they're not making enough to repay that debt, they're not going to keep us employed on the label for very long. CNN: As an artist, do you worry about that? Aldean: Oh, absolutely. I think every artist worries about that. As a consumer, I think iTunes is a great thing. As an entertainer, not so much. I would much rather have somebody buy an album as a whole. Bad thing about purchasing singles -- if you have an artist you like and you keep doing that, there's not going to be music enough for you to go and get, because they're not going to have a deal anymore. But who knows? Record labels may one day be out all together, and people may be making their own music and selling it on their Web sites. CNN: That seems to benefit established artists more than up-and-coming ones. Aldean: Radio's really accepted us, and proven that they're really going to play my stuff as long as I give them something good to play. Fans are coming out to the show, so I mean what more could I ask for? My original plan when I got started in this deal was just to be able to make a good living for my family and play music. I've been able to do that, which is all I've ever wanted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jason Aldean riding high with new hit, \"She's Country\"\nGeorgia native conscious of ticket prices, giving value .\nAldean: \"[I] would not pay 80 bucks to go see me!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: Journalist Karl Penhaul spent several weeks tracking the gangs of the Mexican underworld, the corrupt officials who support them and the cops trying to halt the violence. This is the last of three exclusive reports. The first focused on the violent rules gangs live by and the second looked at how gangsters are honored in death. Forensic investigators and federal police dig bodies out of mass graves in the desert near Juarez. JUAREZ, Mexico (CNN) -- Heat waves shimmer over the desert. A team of forensic experts clad in white overalls excavate three shallow graves. The sand gives up nine bodies -- seven men and two women. At least one of the victims' hands were cuffed behind their back. Others had been trussed up with duct tape. The stale stench reveals that the corpses had been dumped there several days earlier and were decomposing fast. That grisly find in mid-March came a week after thousands more soldiers had been deployed to Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. The arrival of the soldiers and more federal police agents had coincided with a short lull in the killings. Snapping photos of the scene from behind the police line was Lucio Soria, photographer for Juarez's main newspaper, El Diario de Juarez, and its sister paper, PM. PM is a perfect example of Mexico's so-called \"red press,\" newspapers that specialize in covering violence. Soria seems like a perfect ambassador. \"I've gone for a week and a half without taking pictures of dead people. I was thinking 'Hell, what am I going to do?' At this rate I'll end up taking pictures for the social pages,\" he said. Soria realizes snapping pictures of blood and gore may seem heartless. But he stays cheerful, cracking dark jokes with colleagues, all while listening to police communications on a radio scanner and searching for clues about where to find the next drug war victim. \"It might seem ugly, but that's our job,\" Soria said. He and fellow photographers have been busy in recent months. Last year, Juarez became the poster city for Mexico's narco-violence, with more than 1,600 gang killings. Watch musicians play \"narco-ballads\" honoring hitmen » . This year, Mayor Jose Reyes is trying to turn a page on the killings and make Juarez a showcase for solutions. Military and federal police convoys patrol the streets around the clock. Cops armed with AR-15 assault rifles, identities obscured by ski masks, hang off pickup trucks that speed around in twos and threes. Watch cops round up gang suspects » . Soldiers strike a warlike pose behind heavy machine guns mounted on American-made Humvees. Whether it's working depends on whom you ask and how hard you read between the lines. \"I think this is very effective because it closes transport routes for the movement of [cartel] personnel and weapons,\" said a state officer, assigned to guide us, at a federal police checkpoint. The officer, known only by his call sign Trojan One, seemed confident. The agent in command of the checkpoint was less convinced. \"Of course organized crime is trying to avoid us. I'm not sure what methods they use to operate. We don't know how they work,\" said the officer, identifying himself only as Aztec One. On another day we ran into a three-truck federal police operation staking out a house in a middle-class Juarez neighborhood. See photos of police, gang life in Mexico » . The commander said his men believed they had made what he termed a \"major\" cocaine bust. When I met him they had already been waiting almost 24 hours for a judge to issue a search warrant. When they gained access they discovered some 500 half-gram bags of cocaine. In Juarez those bags sell for around $8. Now do the math, 500 half-gram bags at possibly 60 percent purity means around 150 grams of pure cocaine -- hardly a major strike in the drug war. Reyes' solution has been to hand the military all civilian police functions, even down to traffic control. Mexico's military has little experience in urban warfare, little experience in policing and has been unable to shake a decades-old reputation for human rights abuses. When I bump into Reyes at a transfer-of-command ceremony at city hall I ask him what he's doing about alleged corruption and complicity among politicians and businessmen, who permit the cartels to move their shipments and help launder the proceeds. \"My opinion in Juarez is that that kind of political corruption does not exist,\" he said adamantly. Two weeks later, in Monterrey, I caught up with outspoken lawyer Raquenel Villanueva. She knows a thing or two about politicians colluding with Mexico's mafia. Watch how drug lords pay tribute to a highway bandit, looking for luck » . Mexican media have dubbed her the \"devil's advocate\" for her role in defending a string of senior cartel figures and their hitmen. Last year, she was detained for 90 days, accused her of being a member of the Gulf Cartel. She was freed without charge. Throughout her career, she's survived four assassination attempts and taken 10 bullets, two of them in the head. Her office is crammed with religious iconography: crosses, paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a four-foot-high wooden statue of Saint Jude Thaddeus. Two bullets are encrusted in the effigy after the last attempt on her life in 2000. \"I know about official corruption and exactly who is doing what because my clients tell me,\" she said. \"To win the drug war you have to tell the Americans to take better care of their young people, tell them to stop being so cold and materialistic,\" Villanueva lectured. \"Then you have to end corruption and that means changing the government cabinets of half the countries in the world.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Border city of Juarez last year had more than 1,600 gang killings .\nMayor turns to military to control trafficking, violence .\nOpinions vary on whether tactics are working .\nLawyer puts some blame on \"materialistic\" Americans ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- An archeological team is set to break new ground in its excavation of an Egyptian temple where doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony may be buried. An excavation of an Egyptian temple my reveal where doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony are buried. A ground-penetrating, radar survey of the temple of Taposiris Magna and its surrounding area, west of Alexandria, was completed in March, following three years of digging, according to a statement from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Taposiris Magna is one of the ancient towns located on Lake Mariut, which is today called Abusir. According to the council, the radar revealed three possible spots of interest where a tomb might be located. Recently, the team discovered a large, previously unknown cemetery outside the temple enclosure. \"The discovery of this cemetery indicates that an important person, likely of royal status, could be buried inside the temple. It was common for officials and other high-status individuals in Egypt to construct their tombs close to those of their rulers throughout the Pharaonic period,\" according to the council. The expedition has so far turned up 27 tombs, 20 of them shaped like vaulted sarcophagi, and seven simple burial chambers that are reached by staircases. Inside these chambers, the team found 10 mummies, two of them gilded. Other discoveries include an alabaster bust of Cleopatra, and 22 coins bearing her \"beautiful\" image, according to council Secretary-General Zahi Hawass. The discovery contradicts some recent reports that describe her as unattractive, he said. \"Among the most interesting finds is a unique mask depicting a man with a cleft chin. The face bears some similarity to known portraits of Mark Antony himself,\" Hawass said. The love story of Antony and Cleopatra has been a favorite theme for writers and filmmakers. The 1963 Oscar-winning movie of the couple starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who themselves became star-crossed lovers. Cleopatra ruled Egypt between 51 B.C. until her suicide in 30 B.C., following Mark Antony's naval defeat against Caesar's adopted son Octavian at Actium in the Mediterranean. Mark Antony, once a general in Caesar's army, killed himself before Cleopatra took her own life, after being falsely informed that Cleopatra already had died." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Archeologists to search three sites that may contain tombs of Cleopatra, Mark Antony .\nBust of Cleopatra, 22 coins bearing her image have been found so far .\nAntony, Cleopatra committed suicide in 31 B.C. after battle of Actium ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- NASA scientists say new data provided by twin spacecraft analyzing the sun will help them more accurately predict how so-called solar tsunamis wreak havoc on our planet. NASA says new data on so-called solar tsunamis will help predict how they will affect our planet. The tsunamis -- powerful explosions known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs -- produce solar cosmic rays that can interfere with technology, causing power blackouts and disrupting air traffic communications and cell phone networks. NASA says images captured by its twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft have enabled scientists to map the tsunamis in 3D to examine their structure, velocity, mass and direction. The solar ejections, its says, can release billions of tons of high-velocity plasma into space, producing a shockwave that generates cosmic rays which then plow into our atmosphere. These can create the brightly-colored auroras, more commonly known as the Northern or Southern lights, but also have more damaging effects, posing particular threats to spacecraft and astronauts. Solar physicist Angelos Vourlidas of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington said the new data from the STEREO craft -- launched into orbit in October 2006 -- will revolutionize the study of cosmic weather patterns. \"Before this unique mission, measurements and the subsequent data of a CME observed near the sun had to wait until the ejections arrived at Earth three to seven days later,\" he said in statement. \"Now we can see a CME from the time it leaves the solar surface until it reaches Earth and we can reconstruct the event in 3D directly from the images.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NASA says new data will enable scientists to map solar tsunamis in 3D .\nSolar ejections can wreak havoc on Earth, causing power and radio blackouts .\nNew data could help predict what effects the phenomena will have, NASA says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department threw aside diplomatic language Tuesday, attacking Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for creating what it calls a \"catastrophe\" by throwing many international aid workers out of the country. President Omar al-Bashir ordered the expulsion of aid groups after he was indicted on war crimes charges. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a direct challenge to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Tuesday, warning that he and his government \"will be held responsible for every single death that occurs in\" the refugee camps of the Darfur region. Al-Bashir ordered the expulsion of 13 international aid groups from the Sudan earlier this month after he was indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes. While other aid groups remain in Sudan, the United Nations said the 13 expelled groups provided roughly half the assistance delivered in Darfur. Nearly 300,000 people have died in the Darfur conflict, and millions are homeless, according to the U.N. Calling the situation in Darfur \"horrendous,\" Clinton said President Obama's administration will appoint a special envoy for Sudan \"in the coming days.\" On Wednesday, retired Air Force Gen. J. Scott Gration was appointed as U.S. special envoy for Sudan, the White House announced in a written statement. \"Sudan is a priority for this administration, particularly at a time when it cries out for peace and for justice. The worsening humanitarian crisis there makes our task all the more urgent,\" President Barack Obama said in the statement. \"General Gration's personal and professional background, and his service to the country as both a military leader and a humanitarian, give him the insights and experience necessary for this assignment.\" Gration, a former fighter pilot, served as assistant deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for international affairs. Fluent in Swahili, he was raised partly in Africa, where his parents were missionary teachers . Clinton said the real question now is what kind of pressure can be brought to bear on al-Bashir and the government in Khartoum to make them understand \"that they will be held responsible for every single death that occurs in those camps.\" State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters, \"It's just a catastrophe that Bashir has created. We're going to continue to make this case and we're imploring others to make this case that he needs to reverse that decision he took. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, could possibly be at risk and it's irresponsible, the action he took, and he needs to reverse it and reverse it immediately. People's lives are at risk.\" Clinton said countries that support al-Bashir's expulsion order \"have the responsibility to persuade the government in Sudan to change its decision to let the aid workers back, or they must replace with money and personnel those who have been expelled so that innocent lives are not lost and further undermined.\" Clinton said the United States is \"very concerned\" and is looking for more effective ways to convince the Sudanese government that \"they have assumed an even greater sense of responsibility and infamy in the eyes of the world by turning their backs on these refugees whom they created in the first place.\" Wood said it is clear that Bashir is the sole person at fault. \"Bashir is to blame for this crisis on the ground,\" he said. His actions have only made things a lot worse. We are trying to get him to reverse this decision. We want to call on all those who have influence with the government of Sudan, institutions like the African Union, the Arab League, to do what they can to get Bashir to reverse his decision.\" Obama, during his election campaign, made the crisis in Darfur a major focus. Since then, some have criticized him for putting it on the back burner. Seeking to rebut that view, Wood listed all recent steps the administration has taken to resolve the situation. Last week, he said, Obama discussed the deteriorating situation in Sudan with U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon. U.S. officials have been meeting in New York, Washington and Khartoum with delegations from what Wood called \"like-minded nations.\" Last weekend, the U.S. charge d'affaires in Sudan met with UNAMID (the African Union/United Nations operation in Darfur) and visited a camp for internally displaced people. And last week in New York, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice spoke with the president of South Sudan and the Sudanese ambassador to the U.N. Wood said the U.S. has been reaching out to the Arab League, the African Union and other countries with influence on Sudan, trying to convince them the decision to expel some aid groups \"not only costs lives but serves to further isolate the country.\" Asked whether the U.S. supports a move to defer the ICC indictment of Bashir, Wood said it does not support \"any deferral.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "State Department says Sudan president throwing out aid agencies is \"catastrophe\"\nHillary Clinton warns Sudan president will be \"responsible for every single death\"\nOmar al-Bashir wanted aid groups out after indictment on war crime charges .\nSpokesman: Bashir must reverse decision because \"people's lives are at risk\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England -- Painfully hot, they make your eyes water, your heart race and can turn your face embarrassingly red. Chilies have been used for many millenia both for their medicinal benefits and exciting falvor. Once only a staple of cuisine from far flung regions of the world, chilies can now be found in almost any dish around the globe. Last week an Indian woman wolfed down 51 \"ghost chilies,\" -- the world's spiciest -- in two minutes and smeared the seeds on her eyes for an entry into the Guinness World Records. Anandita Dutta Tamuly, 28, achieved the bizarre and fiery undertaking in the Indian north-eastern state of Assam. She was cheered on by British chef Gordon Ramsay, who also attempted a bite of the hot stuff before begging for water. A single seed can cause watering eyes, as well as a burning sensation in the mouth that can last up to five hours. A chili's spiciness is measured in Scoville units; the number of times a chili extract must be diluted in water in order for it to lose its heat. The \"ghost chili\", also known as bhut jolokia, has more than 1 million Scoville units, while Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units and jalapeno peppers from 2,500 to 8,000 units. Chilies have formed part of the diet in the Americas since approximately 7,500 BC and owe most of their fame to their sometimes unbearably spicy flavor. But they have also long been recognized for their health benefits. Scientific research --and legend-- have attributed health wonders to chilies over the years. Diego Alvarez Chanca, a physician on explorer Christopher Columbus' second voyage to the West Indies in 1493, first wrote about the pepper's medicinal effects back in 1494. Below we look at effects eating chilies has on the body. Skin . Other than for its flavor-enhancing qualities, chili is, oddly enough, used to fight the summer heat. As the chili causes extreme sweating and blood rushing to the face, it cools the body down when the sweat evaporates, making it useful for combating heat. These same heat inducing properties are said to have a cumulative effect and over time are believed to alleviate pain when used in treatments for anything from arthritis and psoriasis to shingles and severe burns. Brain . The substances that give chili peppers their intensity when eaten or applied on the skin are called capsaicinoids. When consumed, capsaicinoids connect with pain receptors in the mouth and throat that are normally responsible for sensing heat. Once activated by the capsaicinoids, these receptors send a message to the brain that the person has consumed something hot. The brain responds to the burning sensation by raising the heart rate, increasing perspiration and releasing endorphins, called the body's \"natural painkillers\" and \"happy hormones.\" Stomach . Chilies have long been associated with soothing the digestive system, by acting as stomach cleansers. According to the UK Food Guide, chili helps to settle stomach upset and encourages the production of good digestive acid. Chili aficionados believe the fruits can also induce weight loss because the substance that makes them \"hot\" speed up the body's metabolism. However, one study by the American Institute of Cancer Research performed in Mexico showed in 2003 that a high consumption of chilies (approximately nine to 25 jalapeno peppers per day) is in fact associated with stomach cancer. Immune system . Red chilies contain high amounts of carotene and vitamin C. It is said that chilies contain more vitamin C than citrus fruits. Chili peppers are also a good source of vitamin B6 and are very high in potassium, magnesium and iron, giving them a reputation for naturally boosting the body's immune system. Heart and other cardiovascular effects . A 2006 study published in the British Journal of Nutrition showed that after adding chili to the diet, bad cholesterol, that can often lead to heart problems, took a longer time to develop into heart diseases." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An Indian woman last week wolfed down 51 \"ghost chilies\" in two minutes .\nThe ghost chili has 1 million Scoville units, the measurement of a chili's heat .\nChilies have also long been recognized for their health benefits ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Every dog has his day, but Sir Lancelot -- or at least his carbon copy -- has a second one. Edgar and Nina Otto show off 10-week-old Lancey, a clone of \"the most human of any dog we've ever had.\" A Boca Raton, Florida, couple paid a California firm $155,000 to clone their beloved Labrador retriever, who died from cancer a year ago. The clone, a 10-week-old puppy dubbed Lancey, was hand-delivered to them earlier this week by Lou Hawthorne, chairman of BioArts International, a biotechnology company. \"One minute with Lancey and you know he's special. He's both extremely aware and very sweet,\" Hawthorne said in a BioArts statement. Edgar and Nina Otto said they began thinking about cloning Sir Lancelot about five years ago. \"I said 'Well, you know, it wouldn't hurt to have his DNA frozen,' and that's what we did,\" Nina Otto told CNN affiliate WPBF. The Ottos were one of five families to bid and win a BioArts auction for a chance to clone their family dog, according to a BioArts statement. Lancey is the world's first commercially cloned dog, the company said; the Ottos are the first of six current clients to receive their clone. Sir Lancelot's DNA sample was sent to the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in Seoul, South Korea, which provides cloning services to BioArts. Researchers there put the DNA into an egg, and Lancey was born November 18, according to BioArts. The Ottos said they have had many beloved dogs over the years -- and have nine others currently -- but maintain Sir Lancelot was special. \"Sir Lancelot was the most human of any dog we've ever had,\" Edgar Otto said in the BioArts statement. \"He was a prince among dogs.\" In an interview with WPBF, Edgar Otto said Sir Lancelot \"was a very, very, very special dog to us. And we've given a lot more to the Humane Society than we've ever spent on this project.\" Watch the Ottos talk about Lancelot and Lancey » . For its part, the Humane Society of the United States says it's against the commercial cloning of animals. \"Given the current pet overpopulation problem, which costs millions of animals their lives and millions in public tax dollars each year, the cloning of pets has no social value and in fact may lead to increased animal suffering,\" the organization said on its Web site. \"For those looking to replace a lost pet, cloning will not create an animal identical to the one who is gone; cloning cannot replicate an animal's uniqueness. Cloning can only replicate the pet's genetics, which influence but do not determine his physical attributes or personality.\" The Ottos, however, said replicating Sir Lancelot's genetics is enough for them. Edgar Otto said he realizes Lancey might not be just like their departed dog, but \"if he's different, we're not going to love him any less.\" Edgar Otto is the son of the late Edwin Otto, who was part of the founding of NASCAR and a \"motorsports pioneer,\" according to www.ottomotorsports.com." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Couple won auction to clone family dog, biotech company says .\nLancey is world's first commercially cloned dog, company says .\nDNA of deceased dog sent to S. Korea, and cloned puppy born November 18 .\nHumane Society says it's against commercial cloning of animals ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- An archeological team is set to break new ground in its excavation of an Egyptian temple where doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony may be buried. An excavation of an Egyptian temple my reveal where doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony are buried. A ground-penetrating, radar survey of the temple of Taposiris Magna and its surrounding area, west of Alexandria, was completed in March, following three years of digging, according to a statement from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Taposiris Magna is one of the ancient towns located on Lake Mariut, which is today called Abusir. According to the council, the radar revealed three possible spots of interest where a tomb might be located. Recently, the team discovered a large, previously unknown cemetery outside the temple enclosure. \"The discovery of this cemetery indicates that an important person, likely of royal status, could be buried inside the temple. It was common for officials and other high-status individuals in Egypt to construct their tombs close to those of their rulers throughout the Pharaonic period,\" according to the council. The expedition has so far turned up 27 tombs, 20 of them shaped like vaulted sarcophagi, and seven simple burial chambers that are reached by staircases. Inside these chambers, the team found 10 mummies, two of them gilded. Other discoveries include an alabaster bust of Cleopatra, and 22 coins bearing her \"beautiful\" image, according to council Secretary-General Zahi Hawass. The discovery contradicts some recent reports that describe her as unattractive, he said. \"Among the most interesting finds is a unique mask depicting a man with a cleft chin. The face bears some similarity to known portraits of Mark Antony himself,\" Hawass said. The love story of Antony and Cleopatra has been a favorite theme for writers and filmmakers. The 1963 Oscar-winning movie of the couple starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who themselves became star-crossed lovers. Cleopatra ruled Egypt between 51 B.C. until her suicide in 30 B.C., following Mark Antony's naval defeat against Caesar's adopted son Octavian at Actium in the Mediterranean. Mark Antony, once a general in Caesar's army, killed himself before Cleopatra took her own life, after being falsely informed that Cleopatra already had died." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Archeologists to search three sites that may contain tombs of Cleopatra, Mark Antony .\nBust of Cleopatra, 22 coins bearing her image have been found so far .\nAntony, Cleopatra committed suicide in 31 B.C. after battle of Actium ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Cristiano Ronaldo's sixth-minute strike saw holders Manchester United become the first English team to win in Porto, reaching the semifinals of the Champions League 3-2 on aggregate in the process. Ronaldo scores in spectacular style as Manchester United reached the Champions League semis. The European Player of the Year fired a spectacular 35-yard strike into the top corner as United remained on course to become the first team to retain the Champions League -- and will now face Premier League rivals Arsenal for a place in the final in Rome. The stunning goal was Ronaldo's 20th of the season but only his second in the Champions League since scoring the opener in last year's final in Moscow. After drawing the first leg 2-2 at Old Trafford, Porto only needed a low-scoring draw to reach the last four, but in truth they never looked threatening against a United defense superbly marshalled by Nemanja Vidic and the returning Rio Ferdinand. In fact, had Vidic been able to keep his close-range effort under the crossbar after John O'Shea had got the faintest of touches to a Ryan Giggs corner just before the interval, United would surely have completed their task in the first 45 minutes. \"We were very solid at the back tonight and that stability helped us,\" United manager Sir Alex Ferguson told Sky Sports. \"The return of Rio Ferdinand alongside Vidic was a major boost and scoring an early goal helped settle us. It was a great strike by Cristiano and although we didn't score a second goal, I thought we never looked in danger of conceding,\" he added. The result puts Ferguson head-to-head with his old foe, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, for a place in the final against either Chelsea or Barcelona. It also keeps alive United's dreams of claiming an astonishing five trophies this season after also winning the English League Cup and the Club World Cup." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manchester United beat Porto 1-0 to reach the Champions League semifinals .\nCristiano Ronaldo scores a sixth-minute stunner to put holders into last four .\nUnited become first English team to win in Porto and now face rivals Arsenal ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The Mojave boneyard in the California desert is where old airplanes go to die -- a wasteland of decrepit planes, titanic heaps of titanium and aluminum waiting to be scrapped for metal in India or China. Plane boneyards are a rich source of spare parts for MotoArt to create their functional furniture. But for Dave Hall and Donovan Fell, the boneyard is only the beginning. They own MotoArt, a company based in California that turns old aircraft parts into high-end furniture and functional art. From beds and desks to light fixtures and wall partitions, Hall and Fell say they are doing more than reinventing cast-offs from retired planes, they're creating pieces of aviation history. \"Once they are gone we can never get them back again,\" said Hall of the abandoned planes at Mojave. \"So what we like to do is actually take these aircraft parts and preserve them and give them a second life in some really fun, functional art.\" MotoArt began in 2000 when Hall and Fell, former co-workers at an architectural sign company in Los Angeles, collaborated on an art exhibition that showcased Fell's polished B-17 bomber propeller sculptures. See before and after photos of recycled plane parts » . \"We sold out the entire show, and the gearheads all loved it,\" said Fell. It was then that the duo realized their unique art project could have a much wider audience. Encouraged by the success of the exhibit, the duo began exploring the nearby Mojave boneyard for more than just propellers -- B-25 rudders for desks, 747 jet engine cowlings for beds, F-4 ejection seats for, well, ejection seats. \"Who's never wanted an ejection chair?\" laughs Fell, sitting in the company's studio in Los Angeles, where the MotoArt team bring back the treasures they find in the Mojave Desert. Watch Dave Hall at work at the Mojave boneyard » . The duo's most popular pieces of 'functional art' are their desks, ranging from the sleek 8-foot DC-9 tail stabilizer desk, which retail at around $15,000, to the imposing 14-foot DC-4 conference table, which costs a whopping $60,000. According to Hall, hundreds of hours are sometimes spent cutting, sanding, polishing and surfacing a single piece. It took the MotoArt team 220 hours to turn a single 747 cowling, the large shiny aluminum strip covering a jumbo jet engine, into a spectacular 8.5-foot diameter chrome receptionist's desk. Hall said it takes hundreds of hours to produce a fuselage partition, from using a chainsaw to slice 10-foot sheets out of the main section of a plane, to polishing and readying it for the showroom floor of the Dutch carmaker Spyker, which has commissioned MotoArt to create exhibitions for the company around the world. Hall and Fell began the company out of their garage, and now have 15 employees and a 12,000 square-foot studio with a showroom that could double as an aviation museum. \"It's like a larger version of my room when I was 10 years old,\" says Fell of the MotoArt headquarters. But MotoArt is anything but child's play -- in just nine years the company has carved out a niche in the high-end furniture market, creating a multi-million dollar business thanks to a wide range of corporate clients. The company counts Boeing, Microsoft, Red Bull and the United States government as happy MotoArt customers, as well as a number of airplane enthusiasts and celebrities. But for Hall and Fell, it is the preservation of the planes that gives them the greatest satisfaction. \"It's heartbreaking to see these planes that have serviced our country for decades being crunched up and destroyed, and it gives us a little piece of heart that we are able to recycle this and give it a second life,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Men at MotoArt search boneyards for old plane parts to recycle into furniture .\nThey use B-25 rudders for desks, 747 jet engine cowlings for beds .\nMotoArt prides itself on preserving aviation history with functional art ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- Legendary football coach and broadcaster John Madden is retiring, he announced Thursday. John Madden appears at the TV Critics Association Press Tour in Beverly Hills, California, in 2008. \"It's been such a great ride ... the NFL has been my life for more than 40 years, it has been my passion -- it still is,\" he said in a statement released by NBC Sports. Madden, 73, was a Hall of Fame coach for the Oakland Raiders, but is best known to millions as an ebullient football commentator. He won 16 Emmy awards for outstanding sports analyst/personality, NBC said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Legendary football coach and broadcaster John Madden announces he is retiring .\n\"The NFL has been my life for more than 40 years, it has been my passion,\" he says .\nMadden is best known to millions as an ebullient football commentator ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Nearly two centuries ago Wednesday, Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed an obscure redistricting law that helped his party stay in office and, more importantly, codified one of the most enduring legacies in U.S. politics: gerrymandering. The U.S. House of Represenatives, home to many beneficiaries of gerrymandering. Now a part of an American lexicon often heard in Washington's K Street bars and among \"inside-the-beltway\" crowds, the term is seen as a combination of the governor's name and the word \"salamander,\" because of the salamander-like shape one electoral district took on after the redistricting. Elected governor in 1810, Gerry signed the redistricting bill two years later, enabling greater and perhaps disproportionate Republican representation in the Massachusetts legislature. The controversial move has become a favorite across the country among incumbent parties, which pack opposition voters into districts already lost in an effort to minimize the opposition's influence over the state's broader electorate. But some political analysts cry foul. \"In the end, democracy comes out the big loser,\" former federal prosecutor Edward Lazarus wrote in a 2004 column for CNN. \"The effect of such partisan gerrymandering is to block new entrants into high political office and to make the result of almost every congressional election a foregone conclusion. This, in turn, effectively disenfranchises all those voters who don't support the preordained winner,\" he wrote. In 2006, the Supreme Court threw out part of a Texas congressional map, but found the overall redistricting plan orchestrated by House Republicans acceptable. The redistricting helped Republicans in Texas defeat four Democratic congressmen in the 2004 elections. The court ruled that the redistricting plan, promoted by then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, unfairly weakened the voting strength of Latinos in two congressional districts. \"A state may not trade off the rights of some members of a racial group against the rights of other members of that group,\" wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy. \"The question is therefore not whether line-drawing in the challenged area as a whole dilutes minority voting strength, but whether line-drawing dilutes the voting strength of the Latinos in [Texas'] District 23.\" The court ordered that District 23 be redrawn. States are constitutionally required to redraw congressional districts every 10 years in line with population shifts documented by the U.S. Census Bureau, a part of the Department of Commerce. This year, controversy re-emerged when President Barack Obama announced a decision to cross party lines and nominate U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire, to run the Commerce Department. The move sparked criticism from leaders of minority groups concerned that the Census Bureau under Gregg, who voted to abolish the Commerce Department in 1995, might lack the resources needed to accurately count minorities. The White House promised to work directly with bureau's director to assuage those concerns, but that response drew further criticism from House Republicans concerned about greater executive influence in the Census Bureau. In a letter to the president, House Republicans Patrick McHenry and Darrell Issa described the White House as \"circumventing the secretary of commerce\" and called it \"both outrageous and unprecedented,\" suggesting the Obama administration could affect U.S. census results and congressional districting due out in 2010. The move, they say, could insulate Democratic congressional power. The White House said it recognizes the importance of an accurate census count \"free from politicization\" and added it \"has not proposed removing the census from the Department of Commerce.\" \"From the first days of the transition, the census has been a priority for the president, and a process he wanted to re-evaluate,\" it said in an earlier statement. The method through which the Census Bureau collects data has long been a topic of partisan bickering. Republicans have generally favored the \"door-to-door\" approach, which actually is done primarily by self-enumeration through the U.S. mail. Democrats commonly prefer a statistical sampling method meant to fill in \"population gaps\" they say occur because some members of minority groups and homeless populations are missed by the door-to-door approach. A 1999 Supreme Court ruling said statistical sampling could not be applied to the redistribution of congressional seats, but it did not put gerrymandering of the political landscape entirely off limits. So, almost 200 years after Elbridge Gerry helped coin the term, gerrymandering remains a key part of American politics. CNN's Bill Mears and Keating Holland contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Term coined after Massachusetts Gov. Gerry signed redistricting law in early 1800s .\nPolitical parties can use tactic to pack opposition voters into districts already lost .\nGerrymandering still a key part of American politics .\nIt's already becoming an issue with the 2010 census looming ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal safety officials want the Federal Aviation Administration to immediately ground a type of small sports aircraft, saying six of the planes have broken up in flight in the past three years, killing 10 people. The National Transportation Safety Board questions the safety of the Zodiac CH-601XL. In an urgent letter to the FAA, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board says there is \"substantial circumstantial evidence\" that aerodynamic \"flutter\" preceded some, if not all, of the fatal accidents, and that more accidents are likely to occur if action isn't taken. Flutter is a condition in which airflow around the plane causes unsafe structural vibrations. The vibrations can quickly cause the plane to break up if it is not sufficiently dampened, the safety board said. The aircraft involved is the Zodiac CH-601XL, a single-engine, two-seater that was designed by Zenair Inc. It is built by various manufacturers and also sold as a kit. In making its recommendation, the safety board said it reviewed six fatal accidents, including crashes in Spain and the Netherlands, and said flutter is the likely cause of the accidents. The board said it also considered other incidents that did not result in deaths. The NTSB said two other countries, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, have grounded the aircraft. The FAA had no immediate response to the safety board's recommendation. A Zenair official did not immediately return a reporter's phone call. But the NTSB letter says Zenair contends that the flutter problem can be addressed by proper cable tension, and asserted that a November 2005 certification flight test confirmed the plane is protected from flutter. But the safety board said the type of testing used may not be adequate to uncover all susceptibility to flutter. The NTSB said the FAA certified the CH-601XL as a Special Light Sport Aircraft in 2005. This type of certification does not require that the FAA approve the airplane's design. Instead, the airplane model is issued an airworthiness certificate if the manufacturer asserts that the plane meets industry-accepted design standards and has passed a series of ground and flight tests. The safety board is asking the FAA to prohibit further flight of the Zodiac CH-601XL until the board can determine that the airplane is no longer susceptible to aerodynamic flutter. \"The NTSB does not often recommend that all airplanes of a particular type be prohibited from further flight,\" NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker said in writing comments. \"In this case, we believe such action will save lives. \"Unless the safety issues with this particular Zodiac model are addressed, we are likely to see more accidents in which pilots and passengers are killed in airplanes that they believed were safe to fly.\" The safety board also found that the stick-force gradient -- a measure of the force applied to the control stick and the increase in lift that results -- was not uniform throughout the range of motion, particularly at high vertical accelerations or increased gravitational forces. The lessening of the gradient at high gravitational force could make the airplane susceptible to being inadvertently over-controlled by the pilot, which could create a condition in which the airplane is stressed beyond its design limits, leading to an in-flight structural failure. CNN's Mike M. Ahlers contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "National Transportation Safety Board questions safety of the Zodiac CH-601XL .\nOfficials: Six planes have broken up in flight in past three years, killing 10 people .\nZenair, designer of plane, has said proper cable tension addresses issue .\nFAA had no immediate response to the safety board's recommendation ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Over 28,000 Liverpool fans marked the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster in a special memorial service at Anfield on Wednesday. Liverpool supporters at the Kop end paid their respects in an emotional afternoon at Anfield. A total of 96 supporters died on April 15, 1989 before the FA Cup semifinal between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday's stadium, the worst-ever tragedy in English sporting history. To commemorate the anniversary, the city of Liverpool came to a standstill at 3.06 pm (1406 GMT) with the bells of the two cathedrals and its civic buildings ringing out in memory of those fans who lost their lives. On Anfield's famous Kop, 96 candles were lit while commemorations took place at Hillsborough and also in Nottingham. Watch fans mark Hillsborough » . Members of the current Liverpool team stood somberly as hymns were played before a roll call of the dead was read out. Club legend Kenny Dalglish, who was Liverpool manager at the time of the disaster, then read a short prayer. The mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotherham, who was at the game 20 years ago, helped organize the emotional memorial. \"Hillsborough affected so many lives, not just on Merseyside but across the whole of the UK,\" he said. \"I attended the match 20 years ago and the passing years do not diminish the importance and the poignancy of this occasion.\" Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, whose 10-year-old cousin Jon-Paul Gilhooley was the youngest victim of the tragedy, spoke of his feelings this week. \"Time has gone by, but the scars will never ever be healed and the fans will never ever forget. So you can always rely on our supporters to be there for you when you need them.\" The Liverpool fans died in a crush which started just before the kick-off as the gate at the Leppings Lane End was opened with terrible consequences. The match started but when the scale of the tragedy became clear, it was swiftly abandoned at 3.06 pm. In the immediate aftermath, the British government commissioned Lord Justice Taylor to conduct an inquiry which would have a far-reaching impact on football. Taylor was deeply critical of the police operation at Hillsborough, but his most significant recommendations were the removal of perimeter fencing and the creation of all-seater stadia. His report also cleared Liverpool fans of blame for the tragedy after lurid tabloid headlines provoked revulsion on Merseyside. Prime minister Gordon Brown paid reference to the controversy in an interview released on Liverpool's official television channel. \"It was wrong for people to blame, as some did, Liverpool fans on that day,\" he said. \"That's probably what matters most -- that people understood that the behavior of Liverpool fans in helping each other was magnificent. \"Let's never forget the fans who cruelly lost their lives on a day when we know the people of Liverpool were trying to help each other,\" he added. However, the people of Liverpool are still angry and bitter at the lack of justice for those who died -- and that frustration surfaced when Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport took to the stand to address the crowd. As Burnham spoke, the crowd rose as one to sing \"Justice for the 96\". The Kop chant boomed around the stadium and Burnham, an Everton fan, was left in no doubt about the strength of feeling over the lack of accountability from officialdom over the tragedy. Fittingly, the ceremony was concluded with Gerry Marsden leading the fans in singing Liverpool anthem 'You'll Never Walk Alone'." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A special memorial has marked the 20th anniversary of Hillsborough tragedy .\n96 Liverpool supporters died in crush at the Leppings Lane End of the stadium .\nThe Taylor Report into the deaths led to all-seater grounds in English football ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The French navy on Wednesday captured 11 suspected pirates off the coast of Kenya, Franc'e mnistry of defense announced, while other pirates who had held a Greek vessel for nearly a month let it go. Pirates attacked The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship, but were unable to board. The navy tracked the pirates overnight after they attacked a ship called the Safmarine Asia, then seized them at dawn Wednesday morning, the ministry said in a statement. The Greek-flagged Titan cargo ship was carrying a load of iron to South Korea when pirates seized it. Twenty-four crew members were on board -- 17 Filipinos, three Greeks, three Romanians and a Ukrainian. They are in good health, said Tilemahos Gasteratos, spokesman for the Greek Merchant Marine Ministry. The European Union, NATO and the United States have been patrolling the region since an upsurge in piracy off the coast of Somalia began last year. U.S. snipers on Sunday killed three pirates holding hostage a U.S. merchant ship captain. Richard Phillips was held in a lifeboat for five days after his ship, the Maersk Alabama, was attacked last week. The freed Maersk crew members are expected to return to the United States on Wednesday evening. Pirates in Somalia vowed revenge. Pirates said an attack Tuesday on another U.S.-flagged merchant ship, the Liberty Sun, was in response to the killing of Phillips' captors. \"It was a revenge,\" Hassan Mohamud told a Somali journalist. \"The U.S. ship escaped by a matter of chance.\" \"We sent out 14 boats full of well-armed men and we are looking for vessels of U.S. and French nationals,\" said Mohamud. He is a pirate leader based Gara'ad in Puntland, a semi-autonomous Somali region with a long coastline along the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. \"The U.S. and French governments should know this because they started the aggression on us,\" he said. Other pirates in the region have also vowed revenge. Two days before Phillips was rescued, the French military freed four hostages, including a child, who had been held by pirates for nearly a week on a yacht off Somalia's coast. In that operation, a hostage and two pirates were killed, the French Defense Ministry said. Three pirates were captured. Separately, a court in Puntland sentenced 27 Somali pirates to prison after the judge said they had been caught red-handed. Shiekh Mohamed Abdi Aware, the presiding judge, read the verdict to the media. He said that each of the pirates would face three years in prison. A crew member aboard the Liberty Sun managed to e-mail his mother while the ship was under fire. \"We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets.\" Katy Urbik said her heart stopped as she read that in an e-mail from her son Thomas. \"We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt. [A] rocket penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire too but put out,\" the message from her son continued. \"Navy is on the way and helos and ships are coming. I'll try to send you another message soon. [G]ot to go now. I love you mom and dad and all my brothers and family.\" amFIX: Full interview with Katy Urbik . Ubrik, of Wheaton, Illinois, said her son e-mailed again half an hour later. \"The Navy has showed up in full force and we are now under military escort ... all is well. I love you all and thank you for the prayers,\" his message said. The ordeal followed a tense week for the family, said Ubrik, who had closely followed news of the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama and the kidnapping of its captain. She said of receiving her son's shocking e-mail: . \"My heart stopped as soon as I realized there wasn't going to be a 'just kidding' after his comment. Because I had heard from his earlier [Tuesday] morning, saying they had a plan with the Navy, they were being monitored, they had been practicing drills to get into the engine room.\" \"I opened up my e-mail and it was one of those surreal moments where, am I really reading this?\" After the thwarted attack on the Liberty Sun, the vessel was being escorted by the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge -- the same ship carrying Phillips after his dramatic rescue Sunday. Watch the tough tactics the Navy uses » . About 20 U.S. citizens are aboard the Liberty Sun. The ship was delivering humanitarian supplies from the U.N. World Food Programme, CARE and other groups, two senior defense officials told CNN. Pirates off the coast of Somalia seized two other freighters Tuesday. First, they hijacked the MV Irene EM, a 35,000-ton Greek-owned bulk carrier, according to a NATO spokesman and the European Union's Maritime Security Center. The crew of the Greek ship was thought to be unhurt, and ships have been warned to stay clear of the area for fear of further attack, the security center said. Later Tuesday, pirates on four skiffs seized the 5,000-ton MV Sea Horse, a Lebanese-owned and Togo-flagged vessel, Cmdr. Chris Davies said from NATO's Maritime Component Command Headquarters in Northwood, England. Further details about the ship and its crew weren't immediately available. The two freighters seized Tuesday are the third and fourth vessels to be hijacked in two days off the Somali coast. Pirates on Monday hijacked two Egyptian fishing boats carrying a total of between 18 and 24 people, the Egyptian Information Ministry told CNN. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry is working to end the hijacking, the information ministry said. Piracy accelerated after the fall of the Somali government in the early 1990s and began to flourish after shipping companies started paying ransoms. Those payments started out being in the tens of thousands of dollars and have since climbed into the millions. Some experts say companies are making the problem worse by paying the pirates. About 16,000 ships a year pass through the region, according to the French Foreign Ministry. CNN's Pierre Meilhan, Christine Theodorou, Niki Cook, Mike Mount and Chuck Johnston contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Pirates had held Greek ship and its load of iron for nearly a month .\nFrench navy tracked pirates overnight after they attacked a merchant ship .\nGreek 35,000-ton bulk carrier and Lebanese-owned, Togo-flagged freighters seized .\nPirates: Attack Tuesday on the Liberty Sun was a response to the killing of pirates ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt Thursday announced his intention to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate, a move that sets up what is likely to be a showdown between two prominent families in one of the country's most politically divided states. Former House Republican Whip Roy Blunt announced he will run for a Missouri Senate seat. Making the official announcement in St. Louis, Missouri, the former House Republican whip indicated he would run on a platform of keeping Democratic control of both Congress and the White House in check. \"Common sense and open debate are in danger of being suppressed by the overreaching liberal monopoly in Congress and the White House,\" he said, according to prepared remarks. \"Never has Washington been in greater need of hearing from people who work hard, pay their taxes and want solutions to urgent economic problems and the ongoing threat of terrorism.\" \"My sense is Missourians and Americans are not well served by one-party rule,\" Blunt also said, citing the massive stimulus measure signed by President Obama that won little Republican support. Blunt's announcement comes two weeks after Democrat Robin Carnahan jumped into the race. Carnahan is another Missourian with prominent name recognition who enjoys widespread support. \"The Missouri Senate race is shaping up to be one of the most competitive races of the cycle,\" said Nathan Gonzalez, political editor of the Rothenberg Report. \"It has attracted two of the biggest names of the state that has a history of closest elections.\" Both Blunt and Carnahan are seeking the Senate seat set to be vacated by longtime Missouri Republican Kit Bond. Blunt, a six-term congressman representing the state's conservative southwestern corner, is a longtime Missouri politician with high name recognition across the state and solid support among his party's conservative base. He has run for statewide office several times during his nascent political career, having served as secretary of state for two terms before losing the Republican primary for governor in 1992. His son Matt also served as the state's governor from 2005-2009, but ultimately decided not to seek another term because of low approval ratings. Blunt faces a state that has become increasing Democratic in the last several election cycles. The state's other Senate seat went Democratic in 2006 with Claire McCaskill's narrow win, and Democrat Jay Nixon was elected governor of the state in 2008. But Republicans still hold edges in the state's House and Senate chambers and have a majority of the state's nine congressional seats. While Blunt is likely to enjoy the support of the party's establishment, he could face a competitive primary challenge from former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, a vocal critic of her party's leadership who narrowly lost a bruising primary bid for governor last year. Even though she is not particularly popular in her party, Steelman's message of reform could resonate if the GOP's national approval ratings remain low throughout the next two years. \"Republicans would like to avoid a primary in the Senate race, but she's not the kind of person they will be able to just shove out of a race,\" Gonzalez said. \"She relishes in being in an outsider role.\" But should Blunt make it to a general election facing Carnahan, the race will likely become a hard-fought and high-profile battle of two powerful political names. Carnahan's father, Mel, served as governor of the state from 1993-2000 and died in a plane crash while running for the U.S. Senate. Carnahan still won the seat, defeating then-Republican Sen. John Ashcroft, and Carnahan's wife Jean held the post for two years. Carnahan's brother is also a U.S. congressman representing the outskirts of St. Louis. But national Democrats are eager for a match-up against Blunt, who was a protégé to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and has been linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. \"As one of the faces of the same old Republican Party, Roy Blunt enters this race with a whole lot of baggage and a whole lot of questions to answer,\" said Eric Schultz, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's communication's director. Democrats will also highlight Blunt's stalwart support of former President Bush, especially when it comes to economic policies. \"I'd hate to be him, and explaining my votes on the Bush positions,\" DSCC chairman Bob Menendez said of Blunt last week. \"They got their ideas into law. It created one of the worst economies I have ever seen.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ex-Republican whip wants to keep Democratic control in check .\nDecision comes two weeks after Democrat Robin Carnahan announced bid .\nBoth candidates have high name recognition in Missouri ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- Lillo Brancato Jr., an actor who appeared in \"The Sopranos,\" was acquitted of the 2005 killing an off-duty New York City police officer but found guilty of attempted burglary. Lillo Brancato Jr. appeared on \"The Sopranos\" and played alongside Robert De Niro in \"A Bronx Tale.\" Brancato, 32, was also acquitted of two counts of burglary, but could face three to 15 years in prison on the attempted burglary charge. He has already served three years, according to his attorney, Joseph Tacopina. Police officer Daniel Enchautegui, 28, was killed trying to break up a burglary attempt at his neighbor's house in the Bronx in December 2005. During the trial, Brancato said there was not a break-in. Brancato said he knew the owner of the home, and that he and friend Steven Armento, 51, were drinking at a strip club when they decided to go hunt for valium. Brancato told the jury that the owner, a Vietnam veteran, gave him permission to come to his house and take painkillers or other pills whenever he wanted. Brancato admitted to breaking a window at the home, but said it was strictly because he was going through intense heroin withdrawal that night and he said he was trying to wake up his friend to get the drugs. When Brancato and Armento entered the home, the next door neighbor -- Enchautegui -- came outside to investigate. That's when prosecutors said Armento shot the officer through the heart with his .357 Magnum. Armento was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in November. The jury in that trial took less than six hours to convict Armento. Enchautegui was shot in the chest by Armento when he interrupted the alleged robbery, but managed to shoot both suspects multiple times before dying. \"This jury spoke loud and clear, that Lillo had nothing to do with the murder of this police officer,\" Tacopina said. Brancato appeared on six episodes of the hit HBO series \"The Sopranos\" as a wannabe mobster in 2000. As a teen, Brancato starred alongside actor Robert De Niro in \"A Bronx Tale.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lillo Brancato Jr. played a wannabe mobster on \"The Sopranos\"\nBrancato faces up to 15 years for attempted burglary conviction .\nActor said homeowner allowed him to come and get drugs when needed .\nAs a teen, Brancato starred alongside actor Robert De Niro in \"A Bronx Tale\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Chen Xiao had pretty much given up making her own decisions and so decided to throw open her life to the whims of China's hundreds of millions of Internet users, known in China as netizens. Beijing resident Chen Xiao decided to put her life up for sale after an unhappy 2008. \"It's your right to arrange Chen Xiao's life, and it's my obligation to serve you,\" read her online shop. Since December, Chen has been allowing others to decide what she will do each day, because, for the most part, last year was awful, she said. Her hometown was hit by blizzards, her country rocked by a devastating earthquake, friends divorced and her clothing shop went bankrupt. \"Every time I had a plan for what I wanted my life to be like, nothing would come of it. It was very disappointing. I figured if other people came up with things for me to do, I might stumble upon something new and better,\" she told CNN. What she stumbled upon was not only a new life but a new way to make a living. She charges about $3 an hour, and she's been asked to do almost everything from delivering pet food to caring for stray cats to taking a hot lunch to a homeless man. What surprised her the most was not so much the varied requests but being able to find happiness in the process. \"If somebody asks you to do something, something simple, and you do it, it can make you very happy. You can change from a gloomy person to a very bright one. It can help give you a new sense of self-esteem,\" she said. So far, the most meaningful assignment she was given was attending a child's birth -- the father was a complete stranger who just wanted someone to take pictures and share the moment. There are limits to what she will agree to do. She will not do anything illegal, immoral or violent, but she said that has not stopped some from asking. \"When I first started there was this man who would send me these really disgusting text messages. His words were over the top... nauseating,\" she said. There was also a man who wanted to meet her for a few private hours at a ski chalet. When she turned up with a friend to take photographs, he backed out and then demanded a refund, but Chen refused. In many ways she is just a glorified errand girl, but with a unique China twist. Chen is another example here of how in China the Internet is crossing over from cyberspace to the real world. Chen does not know how much longer she will keep taking cyberrequests. For now it is a good way to survive the financial crisis when many others are losing their jobs and businesses are going broke. \"When people stop needing me, I'll go back to my original life. But I don't know what will come,\" she said. China's netizens will most likely make that decision for her as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "26-year-old Chen Xiao put her life online, asking people to fill it with tasks .\nDecision came when she discovered she didn't know what to do with her life .\nCharging $3 per hour, Chen has attended births, met strangers among other tasks .\nChen will not do anything illegal, immoral or violent ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On CNN's \"State of the Union,\" host and chief national correspondent John King goes outside the Beltway to report on the issues affecting communities across the country. This week, King traveled to North Carolina to look at the financial crisis' impact on health care. Doug Pegram, of North Carolina, is one of many unemployed Americans struggling with medical bills. WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (CNN) -- For Doug Pegram, it is on the one hand simple math: His medical bills cost roughly $300 a month and a health insurance policy would cost $550. \"Two or three hundred dollars goes a long way,\" Pegram said. Especially when you are living on unemployment benefits. Simple math, and a huge gamble: Pegram has a rare disorder, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, that in some patients can be life-threatening. \"If anything happens, that's another story,\" Pegram told us. \"But you have to do what you have to do sometimes, and you just hope for the best. And do it.\" Watch Pegram describe his tough choices » . Life on the edge started in November, when Pegram lost his job at Hanesbrands Inc., the clothing manufacturer where he had worked for three years. Ironically, Pegram's job as a senior analyst included writing reports for Hanes management on sales and economic trends. \"Every couple months, it [layoffs] went through the company and a few people here and there and it got worse and worse,\" he said. \"I knew it was in the future somewhere.\" Now, he is looking for a job and keeping his fingers crossed his condition doesn't worsen. Ehlers-Danlos is a group of inherited disorders that affect connective tissues. In Pegram's case, it means constant pain in his legs and some other joints. \"One type is you can have heart failure if you don't get checked out, so it's pretty serious that you actually go to the doctor,\" Pegram said. His monthly visit costs $150 -- and patients like Pegram who are without insurance are asked to pay up front. His medications run about $126 at a discount pharmacy. Pegram has old bills showing that when he was at Hanes and insured, the same medication cost the insurance company $68 because of its discount. His doctor also accepted a lower negotiated rate from the insurer. \"So everything is inflated,\" he said of his medical costs now. He could have signed up for the COBRA health coverage available to workers as they lose their jobs. It was that policy Pegram said would have cost him $550 or \"almost half of what you get every month\" in jobless benefits and leave him \"not able to pay for a place to live, and food, and all that.\" Watch President Obama's summit on health care » . In an interview at his condo, we asked Pegram: \"Should you be doing more? If you had insurance, would you be doing more, seeing more doctors?\" \"Yes, I would be.\" \"And what's the risk of not doing that?\" \"I could go downhill quicker. It's a debilitating condition, so eventually I could, I don't know.\" Yet he is remarkably upbeat about his health and about the prospects of finding a job before his benefits run out in a few months. \"I think I will find something before then,\" Pegram said, while conceding he might be forced soon to lower his sights and look for work that pays less than his Hanes position as long as it provides health care coverage. The jobless rate in the Winston-Salem metropolitan area was 7.6 percent in December 2008, up from 4.4 percent one year earlier. With the higher unemployment comes increases in the number of residents without health insurance. Dr. Bruce Wham has been a practicing dentist for 26 years and an amateur economist for the past year or so. \"Most people feel like it is going to get worse before it gets better,\" Wham said when we visited his practice. \"Talking to patients, talking about automobile purchases, any kind of renovations of houses, even education -- sending their kids to college, there is a lot of concern about purchasing those things or how they are going to do those things and dentistry is sometimes considered more of a luxury than a necessity and we get pushed to the back lot.\" One way Wham can tell if a longtime patient is about to lose his or her job is if they suddenly schedule treatments and repairs they had been putting off. It is a sign they are about to lose their insurance coverage. \"Especially if there is something that they need to get done or have been 'treatment-planned' for and they have been told by the dentist, the hygienist, to replace this, yes, they are more likely to want to come in and get that done as soon as they can,\" Wham said. The flip side: A patient who needs major work who instead endures the pain, or asks Wham if there is a cheaper, though perhaps temporary, solution. \"If there is anything that can be delayed or pushed back, that is what they are doing. They are asking us, 'Is there any way that we can hold off? Is there anything less involved, less costly until I get my job, until I know my insurance is going to be back?' in effect. \"And so we do a lot of that, not necessarily temporary restorations, but things that might not last as long and that may not be as costly to try to tide people over for the short term.\" So it maybe is not in the best interest of the patient in the long term, but maybe better on their wallet in the short term? \"Better on their wallet. That is exactly right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As jobless rate rises, so does the number of people without health insurance .\nNorth Carolina patient pays twice as much for medication than when he was insured .\nDentist says economy causes some patients to consider treatment a luxury ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Thousands of mourners filled a Tracy, California, high school gym Thursday to remember slain 8-year-old Sandra Renee Cantu. Sandra Cantu, 8, had been missing almost two weeks before her body was found. The little girl made national headlines after she went missing March 27 from a mobile home park in Tracy where she lived with her family. She was on her way to a friend's home and her playful skipping down an alley was caught by a surveillance camera. Police later found her body stuffed into a suitcase and submerged in a pond at a nearby dairy farm. Photos of Sandra, flowers and stuffed animals covered the front of the stage. Family members, friends and state dignitaries memorialized the child during a ceremony that lasted just over an hour. The printed program called the memorial service \"A Celebration of Life,\" and organizers said they hoped the service would help ease the pain the community has suffered since Sandra's disappearance. \"We are left with the haunting image of her skipping on the streets of Tracy. But today she is skipping on the streets of gold, into the arms of a loving God\", said Brent Ives, mayor of Tracy. Cindy Sasser, principal at Jacobsen Elementary School told mourners, \"We should all strive to be like Sandra -- always smiling, wanting to help, to look out for others and to be caring.\" The service included a video that showcased some of the family's favorite photos. People from across California attended, filling the gymnasium, cafeteria and the football stadium at West High School. Melissa Huckaby, 28, a Sunday school teacher who lived in the same mobile home park as Sandra's family, has been charged with murder, kidnapping, the performance of a lewd and lascivious act on a child under 14, and rape by instrument. If convicted, she would face the death penalty or life in prison without parole, San Joaquin County District Attorney James Willett said this week. A private memorial service for Sandra was held Wednesday. Her casket, signed by classmates, was taken to a nearby burial site by a horse-drawn carriage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Photo montage shown at service for Sandra at a high school in Tracy .\nGirl, 8, disappeared March 27; her body was found in suitcase on April 6 .\nPolice arrested Melissa Huckaby, 28, and charged her with killing and raping Sandra .\nIf convicted, Huckaby faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(InStyle.com) -- So you're finally ready to settle down and make that marriage proposal? There's no better time to do it than engagement season, which, lucky for you, is now! Get inspired by these uber-romantic celebrity proposals. Brandon Routh popped the question to Courtney Ford while on a picnic. Tia Mowry and Cory Hardrict . Although the set of a slasher movie seems an unlikely place for romance to bloom, that's just where it happened for actors Tia Mowry and Cory Hardrict. Shortly after shooting began in 1999 on their film \"Hollywood Horror,\" the co-stars started spending time together. Seven years later, on Christmas Day 2006, Hardrict, 32, told Mowry, 30, that he wanted to give her a promise ring. Then, as her entire family looked on, the \"Lincoln Heights\" actor yelled, \"Psych!\" and got down on one knee to present her with a 1.5-carat diamond engagement ring. Antonio Pierce and Jocelyn Maldonado . Antonio Pierce, an NFL linebacker, met Jocelyn Maldonado during a celebrity appearance at an ESPN Fantasy Football Draft. Maldonado, a model at the event, instantly caught his eye. Pierce and Maldonado (who now hosts Mets Weekly) were inseparable over the next six months. In February 2007, Pierce treated Maldonado to a helicopter ride above Manhattan, New York, before dining at Brooklyn's The River Café. Famous for its chocolate Brooklyn Bridge cake, Pierce conspired with the restaurant's manager to place the engagement ring atop the confection, which was covered with pink rose petals. Howie Dorough and Leigh Boniello . Backstreet Boy Howard \"Howie\" Dorough got more than he bargained for after hiring Leigh Boniello to be the band's webmaster in December 2000. Boniello went on tour with the group and quickly grew close to Dorough. Six years later, the couple attended a New Year's Eve party at the New Jersey home of Boniello's father. \"I figured, what better timing,\" says Dorough, \"because all of her family was going to be there, including her 92-year-old grandmother.\" Just before the stroke of midnight, Dorough made a toast and presented Boniello with a custom-designed three-stone diamond engagement ring. Brandon Routh and Courtney Ford . Three years before actor Brandon Routh donned those famous blue tights, he tended bar at Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood. During a party there in 2003, actress Courtney Ford repeatedly poured out the drinks he made her as a ruse to chat him up. \"I kept asking him for another drink, telling him the one before was too strong,\" she recalls. In 2006, Routh purchased the 3-carat diamond ring that had caught Ford's eye during an earlier visit to Neil Lane. But since the two were traveling for the Superman Returns press tour, Routh asked Gilbert Adler, one of the film's producers, to hold the ring until they arrived in England. \"Poor man!\" says Routh. \"He carried it around for two and a half weeks.\" Finally, while picnicking in Glastonbury, Routh popped the question. Roselyn Sanchez and Eric Winter . Roselyn Sanchez and Eric Winter became friends after meeting at a party in 2006 and Sanchez immediately pegged him as perfect husband material. She found out for certain that he felt the same way just two days before Christmas 2007, under a full moon at midnight, in a bay off the coast of the Puerto Rican island Vieques. The two were seated in a double kayak, taking in the bioluminescent organisms shimmering in the water all alone, except for a tour guide in a second kayak. The scene should have been pure bliss, except that Sachez was concerned when their guide speedily paddled away. \"The guy knew to take off so Eric could propose, but imagine how I felt floating in this huge bay in the middle of the night with nobody around,\" Sanchez explains. \"I started calling back, 'Senor, hello! Come back!' until I realized something was going on.\" After an \"amazing speech,\" Winter pulled out a 4.3-carat brilliant-cut diamond ring by Michael Barin, Sanchez's favorite jeweler. But her joy was soon laced with anxiety over the fact that such a costly bauble was surrounded by acres of sea. \"I said, 'Put it away, please. I don't want it to drop in the water!'\" Anna Chlumsky and Shaun So . Actress Anna Chlumsky, 27, best known for her role in \"My Girl,\" was awaiting her seven-year anniversary with college sweetheart and army reservist Shaun So, 28, and hoping he might pop the question. While they were having breakfast at a café in her neighborhood a week before their anniversary, Chlumsky described a cocktail ring a friend was selling. So, who had been carrying an engagement ring for two weeks in anticipation of the perfect moment, pulled out the 1-carat, cathedral-mounted, radiant-cut bauble and asked, \"Does it look anything like this?\" Guiliana DePandi & Bill Rancic . It started out all business: Giuliana DePandi was interviewing Bill Rancic, first-season winner on \"The Apprentice\" and co-host of the Chicago, Illinois, TV show \"In the Loop with iVillage.\" But when the cameras stopped rolling in April 2006, a whirlwind -- and adventurous -- romance began. Eight months later, when Rancic, 36, popped the question during a chopper flight over Chicago, complete with champagne, Giordano's deep-dish pizza (DePandi's favorite) and Michael Bublé tunes piped into the headset. \"Bill told me we were going to look at Christmas lights,\" says DePandi. \"It was dark in the helicopter, so I didn't really get a look at the ring until the next day, when I went into shock for the second time,\" she says of the 4-carat cushion-cut diamond in a micro pavé setting Rancic helped design. Jeri Ryan and Chistophe Eme . \"He was hot!\" Shark star Jeri Ryan, 39, recalls of first glimpsing her future husband, Christophe Emé, 38, at a food-related charity event four years ago. \"He looked good in his chef's hat, and he had this ornery little spark in his eye that I really enjoy.\" After dating for two years, the couple opened Ortolan, their celebrated French restaurant in Los Angeles, California. The proposal came soon after. \"One night, Christophe covered my eyes and took me into our bedroom,\" recalls Ryan. There the die-hard romantic had placed candles, champagne and a canvas painted with the messages \"And you come with me forever\" in French and \"Grow old along with me\" in English. Emé then presented Ryan with a made-to-order cushion-cut solitaire set in pavé diamonds. Jason Priestley and Naomi Lowde . Fate has looked after Jason Priestley. On Valentine's Day 2000 the actor met Naomi Lowde, a makeup artist from Hertfordshire, England, while walking back from a play rehearsal in London. \"I was smitten,\" says Priestley, now 36. The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum and Lowde, 27, immediately began dating, and in 2002 they moved back to California together. That's when fate took another turn: On August 11, 2002, Priestley was driving his race car on a Kentucky track when he hit a wall at 180 mph. Though he sustained three skull fractures, a broken back and a bleeding artery in his neck, he pulled through. \"It was a tough time, but it was also magical because we kept each other's spirits high,\" says Lowde. \"We pushed two beds together in the hospital and put Swifty, our French bulldog, in the middle. We were together 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for three months.\" In May 2004 Priestley arranged another trip to London, England -- to the very street corner where he and Naomi first met, where he presented her with an emerald-cut, three-diamond ring by Steven Pomerantz. Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell . What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas -- and for Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell, that's not a bad thing. Nearly four years ago the two ran into each other poolside at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. \"I was working on a documentary, and Jerry offered to help,\" recalls Romijn, 35. \"He spent a week operating the microphone, but later he told me he would have done anything. I don't think he really cared about the project, if you know what I mean.\" For their first date the couple went to see the Blue Man Group with friends, and O'Connell had Romijn in stitches. \"It was this whole Jerry show in my ear. That's how it is with Jerry. You get sucked into it!\" Evidently: A year and a half later, on September 18, 2005, O'Connell, 33, proposed to Romijn in New York with a diamond ring from Simon G. \"I got down on one knee, asked her to marry me and said, 'You better say yes' a couple of times -- there was a little bit of a pause on her part,\" says O'Connell. Romijn's take? \"Not true!\" Get a FREE TRIAL issue of InStyle - CLICK HERE! Copyright © 2009 Time Inc. All rights reserved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tia Mowry and Cory Hardrict got engaged on the set of a slasher movie .\nBackstreet Boy Howard \"Howie\" Dorough proposed on New Year's Eve .\nRebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell first met in Las Vegas, Nevada .\nJason Priestley proposed on the street corner where he and Naomi Lowde met ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Van Johnson, whose boyish looks and earnest manner made him a Hollywood heartthrob in the 1940s and '50s, died Friday in an assisted-care facility, a friend told CNN. Van Johnson and Judy Garland in \"In the Good Old Summertime,\" one of many musicals in his lengthy career. Johnson, 92, died around 11 a.m. of natural causes at the Tappan Zee Manor in Nyack, New York, where he had lived for seven years, said Wendy Bleiweiss. Johnson's career stretched over six decades and across genres, from comedies and war films, such as \"The Caine Mutiny\" and \"30 Seconds Over Tokyo,\" to Broadway musicals and television shows, including a guest spot as the Minstrel on the campy 1960s series, \"Batman,\" according to Turner Classic Movies' Web site. The red-haired, freckle-faced actor's youthful charm earned him a huge teen following in his heyday. He became known as the \"voiceless Sinatra,\" despite a singing voice that landed him roles alongside June Allyson and Judy Garland in \"Two Girls and a Sailor\" and \"In the Good Old Summertime,\" according to TCM.com. Johnson was born August 25, 1916, to a plumber and housewife in Newport, Rhode Island. He was 16 years old when he left Rhode Island for New York City so he could forge a career in acting, Bleiweiss said. A few years later, he got his break from Lucille Ball, she said. \"She saw this redhead kid and said, 'Let's give him a break. He seems like he can do some acting,' \" Bleiweiss said. Johnson made his Broadway debut in 1936 in \"New Faces of 1936\" before legendary director-playwright George Abbott hired him as a chorus member and understudy to the three male leads in Rodgers and Hart's \"Too Many Girls\" in 1939. The next year, Abbott cast him as a chorus boy and Gene Kelly's understudy in Rodgers and Hart's groundbreaking musical \"Pal Joey,\" according to TCM.com. His film debut followed in 1940 with a role in the chorus of \"Too Many Girls.\" While en route to a screening in 1942, he was in a car wreck that left him with a metal plate in his head and kept him out of the military. But that didn't stop him from acting in war films. Two years later, he received top billing in \"Two Girls and a Sailor.\" Other big roles included \"A Guy Named Joe,\" \"Brigadoon\" and \"The Caine Mutiny.\" In 1947, Johnson married former actor Eve Lynn Johnson, who had previously been married to a close friend of Johnson's, Keenan Wynn. The two did not have children and divorced in 1968, according to TCM.com . Johnson had a daughter, Schuyler Van Johnson, by another woman, according to TCM.com. As Johnson entered middle age, his features grew heavy but he still managed to find offbeat roles in films including \"The Bottom of the Bottle,\" an unabashed melodrama in which he played an alcoholic, and \"23 Paces to Baker Street\" as a blind detective. As film roles became scarce, Johnson filled the gaps with stage work. He appeared in \"The Music Man\" in London, England, in 1961 and returned to Broadway in 1962 for \"Come on Strong.\" In Woody Allen's 1985 comedy, \"The Purple Rose of Cairo,\" Johnson played one of the actors trapped inside the film screen in a parody of sorts of films from the 1930s. In 1987, Johnson was praised for his work in the Broadway production of \"La Cage aux Folles.\" He last appeared on stage four years ago in \"Love Letters\" in a community theater in nearby Suffern, New York, but decided afterward that he would do no more, Bleiweiss said. \"He said he had seen it and done it all and now he was just going to sit back and take it easy. Those were his words,\" she said. Johnson retained much of his youthful energy as he grew older, and became a frequent interview subject on the old days of Hollywood and his lengthy career, TCM.com said. Bleiweiss said she met Johnson when he moved into the home, where she was a case manager at the time. \"He still was tall and striking,\" she said. \"He was one of the all-time old actors.\" His ability to communicate was hampered by the loss of his hearing. Instead, he passed the time by painting, needlepoint and crocheting, she said. Though he didn't cook, he loved watching cooking shows and reruns of \"The Golden Girls,\" she said. Bleiweiss said Johnson was estranged from his daughter and stepchildren for most of his life, but children brightened his day. \"When he saw them, he'd smile and wave to them,\" she said. \"It always brought a smile to his face.\" A private service will be held." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Johnson died Friday morning at 92 in an assisted-living facility in Nyack, New York .\nHis career stretched over six decades and across genres, from war films to musicals .\nJohnson's youthful charm earned him nickname the \"voiceless Sinatra\" in his heyday .\nHe got top billing in \"Two Girls and a Sailor;\" praised for role in \"La Cage aux Folles\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- For three years, family, friends and her college sorority sisters have been looking for Jennifer Kesse, wondering what happened to her. Jennifer Kesse would be 26 now. She has been missing since January 24, 2006. Last week, on the third anniversary of Kesse's disappearance, an inmate in a Florida prison said he might have the answer. David Russ, a convicted killer being held at the Seminole County Jail, spoke last week with the missing woman's father, Drew Kesse, claiming he had information that could lead to a break in the case. Details are being withheld from the public. In a jailhouse phone call with CNN, Russ hinted he'd eavesdropped on other inmates. He also was outspoken about his skepticism toward investigators. \"The investigators have messed this case up from the beginning and cannot be trusted,\" he said. That's why he asked to speak directly with the missing woman's father, he said. Orlando police are just as skeptical of Russ. They said he provided information they already had. \"His information is not some big break in the case,\" said Sgt. Barbara Jones of the Orlando Police Department. \"We are still hoping for new tips that could lead us to finding Jennifer Kesse.\" The 24-year-old financial adviser was just back from a Caribbean vacation with her boyfriend and was getting back into her routine. She went to work at her new job, came home to her new condominium and called her parents. Watch an update on the case » . At 10 p.m., she called her boyfriend, who lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Then, her family believes, she went to bed. The next morning, she got up and showered for work. Her clothes were neatly laid out on her bed, her family says, suggesting she may have tried on a few outfits before deciding what to wear to the office. Then, she disappeared, her family said. She did not show up for work that Tuesday morning and her employer reported her missing. Police found Kesse's Chevy Malibu two days later. It was parked in a gated lot about one mile down the road from the condominium complex where she lived. Inside the vehicle, police found some of Kesse's personal items, but her purse, wallet, two cell phones and briefcase were missing. The car doors were locked and the car keys were not found. Police later released a video surveillance tape of the car being parked in the lot by someone other than Kesse. The grainy video partially shows a person walking away from the car, past a parking lot gate. Police are uncertain if this person of interest is a man or a woman, because the image is partially obscured by the gate. The person is described as 5 feet 4 inches, with a short haircut, wearing light-colored clothes and dark shoes. The video is time and date-stamped at noon on the day Kesse disappeared. Forensic tests on the vehicle came back inconclusive, Sgt. Jones said. No blood or other trace evidence was found to show that Kesse had been injured in the vehicle. Drew Kesse said that every Tuesday, landscapers worked at the condo complex near his daughter's parking space. The landscapers said they didn't see Kesse leaving her apartment and getting into her car, which she did every weekday morning between 7:30 and 7:45 a.m. \"The only theory we could come up with is that she walked out her front door and was kidnapped somewhere between her front door and the parking lot where her car was. We think since the landscapers didn't see her, she must not have even made it out of the hallways or stairwells of the condo complex,\" Drew Kesse said. He added that there weren't any surveillance cameras in the hallways or stairwells at the time his daughter was living there. Sgt. Jones said investigators have developed forensic evidence from Kesse's car that could someday match with a person of interest and identify a suspect. Police have also released a photo of a green clover tattoo on Kesse's left hip. Anyone with information leading to Jennifer Kesse or the person responsible for her disappearance is asked to call the tip line at 1-800-423-TIPS. The reward is $10,000. Kesse would be 26 years old and has blonde hair, green eyes, is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 125 pounds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inmate calls missing woman's father, says he heard other inmates talking .\nPolice say inmate's information is nothing new .\nJennifer Kesse was 24, disappeared three years ago near Orlando, Florida .\nInformation? Call 1-800-423-TIPS. A $10,000 reward is offered ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Terrorists are likely to use a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world in the next five years, a blue-ribbon panel assembled by Congress has concluded. Police watch over travelers at New York's Grand Central Terminal before Thanksgiving. They are more likely to use a biological weapon than a nuclear one -- and the results could be devastating, the chairman of the commission told CNN. \"The consequences of a biological attack are almost beyond comprehension. It would be 9/11 times 10 or a hundred in terms of the number of people who would be killed,\" former Sen. Bob Graham said. He cited the flu virus that killed millions of people in 1918 as an example. \"Today it is still in the laboratory, but if it should get out and into the hands of scientists who knew how to use it for a violent purpose, we could have multiple times the 40 million people who were killed 100 years ago,\" he said. Watch how officials worry about a biological terror attack » . The U.S. government \"needs to move more aggressively to limit\" the spread of biological weapons, the commission said in its report. Graham warned that such measures would be costly, but were necessary. \"The leadership of this country and the world will have to decide how much of a priority ... they place on avoiding the worst weapons in the world getting in the hands of the worst people in the world,\" he said. \"It is not going to be cheap. It is not going to be accomplished without some sacrifices. It won't be accomplished without putting this issue ahead of some other competing national and international goals. But I think our safety and security depend upon doing so,\" he added. Graham said a biological attack was more likely than a nuclear one because it would be easier to carry out. Biological weapons \"are more available,\" he said. \"Anthrax is a natural product of dead animals. Other serious pathogens are available in equally accessible forms.\" \"There are so many scientists who have the skills to convert a pathogen from benign, helpful purposes into an illicit, very harmful weapon,\" he added. But the commission warned that there is also a threat of nuclear terrorism, both because more countries are developing nuclear weapons and because some existing nuclear powers are expanding their arsenals. \"Terrorist organizations are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons,\" said the report, which was published Tuesday on the Internet and will be officially released Wednesday. CNN obtained a copy of the report Monday evening. It cited testimony before the commission from former Sen. Sam Nunn, who said that the \"risk of a nuclear weapon being used today is growing, not receding.\" The report recommends a range of measures, including increased security and awareness at biological research labs and strengthening international treaties against the spread of biological and nuclear weapons. \"Many biological pathogens and nuclear materials around the world are poorly secured -- and thus vulnerable to theft by those who would put these materials to harmful use, or would sell them on the black market to potential terrorists,\" the report warned. The commission expressed particular concern about the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, and about Pakistan, which it described as \"the intersection of nuclear weapons and terrorism.\" While observing that Pakistan is a U.S. ally, the report said, \"the next terrorist attack against the United States is likely to originate from within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas\" in Pakistan. The tribal areas lie in northwest Pakistan where the government exerts little control; the United States says it is a haven for militants from both Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. Congress created the commission to investigate and report on WMD and terrorism in line with a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission, which compiled a report on the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Commissioners heard testimony from more than 250 experts from around the world over the course of their six-month investigation. CNN's Jeanne Meserve contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Next terror attack on U.S. likely to originate in Pakistan tribal areas, report says .\nTerrorists with biological weapons could kill millions, panel's chairman says .\nBiological attack more likely than nuclear attack, report says .\nNumber of nations with nuclear weapons also growing, panel says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli forces shelled a house where they had ordered about 100 Palestinian civilians to take shelter, killing about 30 people and wounding many more, witnesses told the U.N. Ambulance drivers wait for Israel and the Red Cross to give them the green light Thursday to leave Gaza City. Israel Defense Forces said it is looking into the allegations. \"Credible eyewitness accounts\" described the incident, which occurred in the volatile Gaza City suburb of Zeitoun, said Allegra Pacheco, deputy head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the Palestinian territories. Pacheco spoke to CNN on Friday. Witnesses reported that \"about 100 civilians were evacuated\" to a house Sunday, and the structure was shelled Monday, she said. The witnesses told the U.N. that two of the survivors said their children died. \"There was no order given to move civilians from one building into another,\" Israeli security sources said. However, Pacheco said, \"The eyewitness accounts that we have received state that the IDF ordered them to go into this house.\" See images from the conflict (Warning: graphic images) » . Officials are simply passing along witness reports and not making \"accusations of deliberate actions or any legal conclusions on the part of the IDF,\" Pacheco said. \"There needs to be further fact-finding on what occurred in this house,\" she said, adding that U.N. officials have yet to speak to the IDF and the Israeli government. Her remarks came a day after the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a blunt press release saying ambulances obtained access to several houses in Zeitoun \"affected by Israel shelling,\" days after they asked to go into the neighborhood. The release slammed Israel -- an uncharacteristic move for the agency, which is known for its neutrality and quiet, behind-the-scenes activities. According to the release, the ICRC had wanted \"safe passage for ambulances\" to the neighborhood since Saturday, but didn't receive IDF permission until Wednesday. The ICRC and the Palestine Red Crescent Society \"found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were 12 corpses lying on mattresses,\" the ICRC said. Watch how the conflict is taking a toll on children » . Rescue teams found 15 wounded people and three corpses in other houses, said the ICRC, which casts the shelling as a single incident. \"The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable,\" the ICRC said. Pacheco said she could not say if the incident witnesses described to the U.N. was the same incident in the ICRC report. But they took place in the same area, she said. \"In the Zeitoun area, it's been a closed area, and there has been fighting and there have been injured. There are other homes and buildings where there were injured who were not evacuated,\" she said. Witnesses told the U.N. they had been calling for ambulances to collect dead and wounded people in the Zeitoun buildings, she said. \"This was very much similar to what the ICRC reported yesterday as to what the medical personnel found when they went into the neighborhood,\" Pacheco said. The Israeli army built earthen walls that made ambulance access to the neighborhood impossible, the ICRC said. \"The children and the wounded had to be taken to the ambulances on a donkey cart,\" the ICRC said. Pierre Wettach, the ICRC's head of delegation for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, called the shelling incident \"shocking.\" See how the Gaza conflict unfolded » . \"The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded,\" he said in the ICRC news release. Pacheco on Friday described \"a serious protection crisis\" in Gaza where civilians are \"very vulnerable\" to death and injury. \"There is no safe space for civilians. There are no bomb shelters, safe havens, places to flee,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Israeli sources denied it ordered civilians moved \"from one building into another\"\nRed Cross uncharacteristically says Israel failed to abide by humanitarian law .\nChildren, wounded taken to ambulances on a donkey cart, Red Cross says .\nU.N. says it's not casting blame; it's unsure if U.N., Red Cross reports are the same ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: Nafees A. Syed, a junior at Harvard University majoring in government, is an editorial editor at The Harvard Crimson as well as a senior editor and columnist for the Harvard-MIT journal on Islam and society, Ascent. She is chairwoman of the Harvard Institute of Politics Policy Group on Racial Profiling. Nafees Syed says President Obama's early words and actions send a powerful, positive signal to Muslims. CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- President Obama has given the Muslim community around the world the message we have been waiting for. He reassured Muslims in America that \"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers.\" For those like me who were critical of his standoffish attitude toward Islam during his campaign, this signaled a welcome change. Even more important was his subsequent statement: \"To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.\" In traveling throughout Western Europe in the past two years, I heard several anti-American comments; these Europeans were challenging me, a Muslim, about American foreign policy in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. In Muslim countries, I've heard admiring comments about how great it must be to live in a rich country like America, followed by accusations that, \"your President Bush doesn't like us Muslims.\" As a Muslim-American, I have found myself in a difficult position. In America, I've had to explain Islam to other Americans, and abroad, I've had to explain America to those in the Muslim world. Obama has done all Americans a favor by extending a hand of friendship to the Muslim world. For me personally, it has alleviated the pain of witnessing the country I love engage in a foreign policy that I could not approve of as a Muslim and as an American -- a foreign policy that created mutual distrust between Americans and Muslims. And Obama has followed up on his statements with actions. In his first steps as president, Obama has initiated the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison, called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq and appointed former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, well-respected for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process, as special envoy for the Middle East. For the past few weeks, I've heard overwhelming praise from Muslims for Obama's recent actions. Obama has recognized a key fact that former President George W. Bush did not: Muslims in America and elsewhere are strongly affected by the situation of other Muslims in the world. There is a popular saying of the Prophet Mohammed's that the Muslim community is like one body: If one part hurts, the entire body feels the pain. Muslims are very aware of this message and, in the last 20 years, three conflicts have continuously dominated the Muslim consciousness: Chechnya, Kashmir and, most notably, Palestine. Obama recognized this when he chose his first interview as president to be with a reporter from Al-Arabiya, indicating he would actively engage Arab media. The Palestinian-Israeli issue dominated the interview, with Obama promising to work toward a solution involving both sides of the conflict. To understand the challenge Obama faces in changing America's role in the conflict, one must realize the situation he walked into as president. Muslims around the world were watching the suffering of innocent Palestinian civilians in a Gaza military campaign conducted with a green light from the Bush administration. Obama is essentially trying to rebuild a relationship that has been destroyed. However, Obama's tone of respect and not condescension, a clear break with the past, improves the chances that such a relationship could arise. His interview with Al-Arabiya was filled with reassuring statements that America is \"ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest,\" that \"the language we use has to be a language of respect.\" After years of hearing rhetoric of \"a crusade\" and \"Islamofascism\" from the U.S. government, Obama's policy of listening, not dictating, has generated optimism in the Muslim world. I am sure that the Muslim world will respond with goodwill as well. Already, Obama is very well-respected there for his intelligence, eloquence and experience living in the largest Muslim country, Indonesia. Muslims abroad are just as willing as those in America to taste his message of hope and change. To win over the skeptics abroad, Obama will just have to do what he is doing in America: reach out to all sides for solutions and follow up his words with concrete action. In the meantime, the next few weeks will see Muslims around the world taking the hand America is extending after a long hiatus. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Nafees Syed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nafees Syed: Obama is reaching out to Muslim world with words, actions .\nShe says Muslims worldwide have a shared concern about key issues .\nSyed: Obama's interview with Al-Arabiya talked of respect and partnership .\nShe says Bush administration used harsh language of crusade, Islamofascism ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A struggling German soccer team is offering a refund to its fans who traveled to another city to watch it suffer a 4-0 loss. Cottbus are second from the bottom of the German Bundesliga. More than 600 Energie Cottbus supporters saw their team suffer its sixth loss in seven games when it received a 4-0 drubbing Friday at the hands of another team, Schalke. Cottbus are second from the bottom in the German Bundesliga's ranking and is in danger of being relegated to a lower league at the end of the season. The team posted a Web statement Saturday headlined, \"Sorry, Energie Fans!\" In it, the team said its players \"did not manage at any time to stand up to a high-class opponent with our particular qualities of passion, dedication and one-on-one duels.\" \"Certainly one can lose at Schalke,\" the team manager Steffen Heidrich said in the statement. \"Nevertheless we did not put up enough defense against the class of the individuals of this opponent.\" The team said it will announce details in the coming weeks of how fans can receive a refund on their admission ticket. \"I welcome the apologetic gesture of the team to its fans,\" Heidrich said. \"Real compensation must actually be given in the coming matches.\" CNN's Ben Brumfield contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More than 600 supporters watch their team suffer its sixth loss in seven games .\nEnergie Cottbus are second from the bottom in its league's ranking .\nThe team will announce details of how fans can receive a refund on their ticket ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will leave her post by noon on January 20, the day President-elect Barack Obama is to be sworn in to office. Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has resigned effective January 20. In an e-mail to the staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, outgoing HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt asked Gerberding and several other senior officials from his team to submit their letters of resignation. \"She did so, and it was accepted, and it is effective January 20,\" CDC spokeswoman Karen Hunter said. Leavitt explained his move this way: \"The next phase of Transition involves the departure of our team on January 20, and the arrival of President-elect Obama's team later that day,\" his e-mail said. \"In order to create a clear path for leadership transition, I am attaching a list of senior leaders who will become the acting heads of their respective agencies and offices (or in some cases, remain as heads of their respective agencies and offices) until the new administration appoints individuals to various leadership positions.\" In addition to the change at CDC, Assistant HHS Secretary Charlie Johnson will serve as acting secretary, Leavitt said. CDC's Chief Operating Officer William H. Gimson III will take over as interim director at the agency until the next HHS secretary appoints a new one, the e-mail added. Gimson and Gerberding were traveling and unavailable for comment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dr. Julie Gerberding will leave her post by noon on January 20 .\nOutgoing HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt asked her for resignation .\nChief Operating Officer William H. Gimson III will take over as interim director ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BAIDOA, Somalia (CNN) -- Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed Tuesday appointed a new prime minister -- but the previous prime minister is refusing to accept his dismissal. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, in a photo from August, could face sanctions from Kenya. The Somali parliament on Monday backed Nur Hassan Hussein, who has been prime minister for about 13 months, in his power struggle with the president. Tuesday, the president named Mohamed Mohamud Guled, a close ally of the transitional federal government, as the new Somali prime minister. The move is likely to deepen the political impasse in a country already struggling with an Islamist revolt, a refugee crisis and rampant lawlessness that has fueled a wave of piracy off the Horn of Africa. Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991. The United Nations-backed transitional government took office after Ethiopian troops ousted an Islamist government at the end of 2006, but controls little of the country outside the southwestern city of Baidoa. Yusuf said Sunday he was firing Hussein for being ineffective. Hussein said the president did not have the power to fire him. The vast majority of members of parliament backed Hussein Monday in a vote of confidence. But Tuesday Yusuf announced he had \"decided to appoint the new premier to pull the country out of the current violence and non-functioning government.\" He said Guled would form a Cabinet, which the president would appoint without asking parliament to confirm it. Kenya warned it could impose sanctions against Yusuf on Tuesday, saying the power struggle between him and Hassan endangers peace efforts in Somalia. Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula singled out Yusuf in a sharply worded statement that called his current standoff with Hassan \"totally destructive, unhelpful to the region and to Somali society in general.\" Wetangula said Yusuf and his family could face targeted sanctions over his Sunday decision to sack Hassan. \"President Abdullahi Yusuf is a party to the summit deceleration and the Djibouti peace process and should not therefore take any unilateral decisions which hinder the attainment of peace in Somalia,\" Wetangula said. \"The current peace initiatives are at a critical stage and require support of all the peace loving Somalis and the region as a whole. The deviation from this path is certainly to bound to jeopardize the peace process.\" Kenya is a major player in international efforts to stabilize Somalia. The chaos in Somalia has driven sharply higher numbers of desperate people to seek passage across the Gulf of Aden, with smugglers packing as many as 150 people into boats as small as 25 feet (8 meters) for the crossing, according to a spokesman for the aid group Doctors Without Borders. \"It is a very, very dangerous journey and the smugglers are very, very cruel with the refugees,\" Andreas Koutepas, a field coordinator for the group in Yemen, told CNN's \"Inside Africa.\" \"We have many incidents of stabbing or people suffocating and just being thrown in the sea.\" In addition, smugglers want to avoid detection by the Yemeni coast guard -- \"So sometimes they just disembark people in deep water,\" Koutepas said. \"And since most of the people cannot swim, they just drown.\" At least 24 people have drowned off Yemen in December so far, he said, and another half-dozen are unaccounted for. But since many of the refugees \"consider themselves already dead\" if they remain, \"They take their chances with this trip, no matter how dangerous the trip is. It's a quite tragic situation.\" CNN correspondent David McKenzie and journalist Mohamed Amiin Adow contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed fired country's prime minister on Sunday .\nPM refuses to leave; parliament backs him; Yusuf appoints new PM .\nKenya threatens sanctions on Yusuf, says he's undermining peace efforts .\nSomali has been without effective central government since 1991 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "STOCKHOLM, Sweden (CNN) -- Four men behind a Swedish file-sharing Web site used by millions to exchange movies and music have been found guilty of collaborating to violate copyright law in a landmark court verdict in Stockholm. A Pirate Bay server, confiscated by police last year, on display in Stockholm's Technical Museum. The four defendants -- Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundstrom, three founders and one patron of The Pirate Bay -- were sentenced to one year in jail and also ordered to pay 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) in damages to several major media companies including Warner Brothers, Columbia, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony BMG and EMI. The defendants are free without restrictions while they appeal the judgment. The Pirate Bay allows users to exchange files including movies, music, games and software, but does not host the files itself. It claims more than 3.5 million registered users. The court case, which involved both a criminal case and a civil claim brought by the media companies, marks a key victory for anti-piracy campaigners, who had long targeted the Web site. Should the perpetrators of Internet piracy be punished? Have your say . The year-long prison terms are for violating Swedish law, while the damages are compensation to the media giants in the civil case -- though the court ordered the men to pay just one-third of the 110 million kronor ($13 million) which the companies had asked for. Friday's verdict did not include an order to shut down The Pirate Bay site. Its owners have consistently shrugged off legal threats and police raids, posting letters from entertainment industry lawyers on their Web site with mocking responses. When Dreamworks studio demanded that the site act over file-sharing of Dreamworks' movie \"Shrek 2,\" The Pirate Bay threatened to sue for harassment and lodge a formal complaint \"for sending frivolous legal threats.\" \"It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are ... morons,\" the response continued, suggesting that studio representatives perform a sexual act. The response closed with an obscenity. Site owners dismissed the effects of a police raid in 2006, saying the site had been down longer on other occasions due to illness or drunkenness than when \"the U.S. and Swedish government forces the police to steal our servers ... yawn.\" But Magnus Eriksson, who in 2003 co-founded the \"loosely formed group of theorists, artists and programmers\" that spawned The Pirate Bay, says there are serious issues at stake. He does not think copyrighted material should be free for everyone, \"but that it already is.\" \"The control over what people communicate is lost and we have to adapt to this new state of things,\" he said via e-mail. \"To monitor all communications, fight all new digital technologies and spread a culture of fear in what should be a free and open communication network is not a desirable option.\" Entertainment companies claim The Pirate Bay has hurt their box office profits, part of an annual loss the Motion Picture Association of America claims to be about $6 billion a year worldwide. \"Hollywood studios are businesses. They're there to make money,\" said association lawyer Thomas Dillon. \"It costs $100 million to make a feature film, so of course they're quite keen to get some back. So I don't accept this argument that there's some benefit to culture in allowing people to make copies of commercial films and getting them for free.\" Monique Wadsted, a Swedish lawyer for the MPAA, said The Pirate Bay was also harming individual artists. A victory for the entertainment companies \"will, of course, be for all authors all around the world, some kind of redress... because what is going on now is actually a plundering of the author's works,\" she said via e-mail. \"If some authors find it good to market their products using file-sharing or whatever, they are free to do that,\" she added. \"But that is not what is happening at the moment. What's happening at the moment is that authors' and rights holders' works are file-shared against their will and that is not acceptable.\" She argued that The Pirate Bay \"is specifically tailored for copyright infringement.\" The prosecution claims the site provides a search engine that helps people find and download copyrighted material including movies, music and games -- in effect, enabling copyright theft. The site's supporters say they're doing nothing wrong under Swedish law because the site doesn't actually put the copyrighted material on the Web site. Internet piracy and illegal downloading from peer-to-peer systems are some of the biggest piracy problems in Europe, the MPAA argues. Internet piracy is growing at a faster rate in Europe than anywhere else in the world, the MPAA says, because of increased broadband use, weak laws, and lenient public perceptions. Sweden's official efforts to battle online piracy have been weak, the MPAA says. Eriksson, the co-founder of the group that led to The Pirate Bay, says the MPAA's argument that file-sharing hurts movie studio revenues is \"nonsense.\" \"Cinema is doing better than ever,\" he said by e-mail. \"They only claim this because they calculate losses by looking at the number of downloads and imagining that all of them would have been a purchase if they hadn't been downloaded first.\" Eriksson said what was at stake in the Swedish courtroom was the future of the Internet itself. \"The Internet revolution meant that we created a global network where any digital entity could connect and exchange information with any other,\" he said. \"Anti-piracy efforts must be seen in the light of a counter-revolution against this that goes all the way to the very infrastructure of the net.\" He suggested that even if The Pirate Bay is convicted of facilitating making works public through its indexing service, which he does not expect, Internet piracy will not stop. \"The prosecution can't understand that The Pirate Bay is just one stratification of a social and technological change that is decentralized,\" he said. \"Piracy does not have a head that you can cut off, and The Pirate Bay is just a technology allowing communication, a part of the Internet infrastructure.\" CNN's Neil Curry in Stockholm, Sweden, and Mairi Mackay in London, England, contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four men sentenced to a year, fined $3.6M in Sweden over file-sharing Web site .\nProsecutors said The Pirate Bay lets users download copyrighted material .\nSite allows users to exchange movies, music, games, but does not host the files .\nSupporters said The Pirate Bay doesn't put copyrighted material on Web site ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal law enforcement authorities are discussing what to do with the lone surviving pirate captured Sunday off Somalia's coast after a successful military rescue abruptly ended a five-day hostage standoff at sea. A Kenyan police officer guards the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama at a Mombasa port Sunday. According to sources familiar with the case, U.S. government officials are weighing potential legal hurdles they may face if the young Somali captive is flown to New York or Washington to face federal criminal charges. Officially, the government is virtually mum on the discussions. \"The Justice Department continues to review the evidence and other issues to determine whether to seek prosecution of this individual in the United States,\" said Dean Boyd, spokesman for the Justice Department National Security Division. Sources who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss the matter said the detained Somali youth remains in military custody, but is likely to be turned over eventually to the FBI for transport to the United States. Watch how the Navy deals with pirates » . New York-based FBI agents are assisting Nairobi-based agents in collecting evidence and conducting interviews. Some officials say it appears most likely the captive initially would be flown to New York to stand trial. However, sources stress no decisions have been made on when or where the young pirate would face justice. Investigators face the early and potentially difficult task of determining whether the Somali suspect is at least 18 years of age. Initial reports from the Horn of Africa have indicated the young man is anywhere from 16 to 19 years old. Officials note that authoritatively establishing his identity and date of birth in a lawless country, where records are often lost or burned, if they ever existed at all, may be problematic. Even if officials determine the Somali youth is a juvenile, he could be presented to a magistrate in a U.S. District Court. Justice Department records indicate such occurrences are rare, with juveniles accounting for less than 1 percent of criminal defendants. The latest available figures show among the thousands of federal prisoners, about half of the 200-plus defendants 17 or younger are held for trial as adults, while the other half are detained as juveniles. Whether adult or juvenile, the Somali captive could be charged under an international treaty to which the United States is a signatory that carries penalties of up to life in prison. Watch how U.S. could deal with captured pirate » . The 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation has been used to prosecute pirates in other countries. The agreement allows for pirates and hostage takers on the high seas to be prosecuted in any country which signed the treaty, without regard to which national flag a ship was flying. Former FBI official and CNN contributor Tom Fuentes, who supervised international operations for the FBI, recalls agents providing critical help in winning the conviction in a Kenyan courtroom of 10 pirates captured in 2006 with the help of the U.S. military. The USS Nassau had come to the aid of an Indian ship on which pirates were holding 16 Indian hostages. Shots were fired, prompting the pirates to surrender. \"The government of Kenya wanted to prosecute the case, so the Justice Department and State Department agreed to that. We said 'Let's teach them to fish',\" Fuentes said. Watch report on pirates' deadly new goal » . He said FBI agents ended up spending six months working with Kenyan authorities on how to conduct interviews, handle and protect evidence, and shape a prosecution that would stand up in any courtroom in the world. The pirates were convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. Officials familiar with the current case say the lone Somali suspect in U.S. military custody could be turned over to Kenya or another country in the region if barriers to a U.S. prosecution appear to be daunting. However, because the ship was U.S.-flagged and the seized sea captain was a U.S. citizen, federal authorities will want to prosecute the case on U.S. soil if at all possible, according to one federal law enforcement official. Another official said it was probable that if a charge against the Somali is filed in a U.S. court, the action would be filed under a court seal and kept secret from the public until the suspect suddenly appears in court to hear the charge read by a magistrate judge. Officials indicate such developments are not likely to occur soon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Legal hurdles abound if Somali captive is flown to United States for prosecution .\nSuspect in U.S. military custody could be turned over to Kenya or another country .\nComplicating issue is suspect's age, reportedly between 16 and 19 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- President Obama's friendly interactions with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has set off a wave of controversy, but analysts said the leaders' next steps will show if relations have truly improved or if Obama was overstepping boundaries. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presents a book to President Obama at the Summit of the Americas. Chavez and Obama were both at the Summit of the Americas, which ended Sunday in Trinidad and Tobago. On the first day, Obama reached out his hand to Chavez and was seen smiling and patting the Venezuelan leader on the shoulder as the two shook hands. \"With this same hand I greeted Bush eight years ago, I want to be your friend,\" Chavez said, his office reported. On the second day, as cameras jockeyed for position, Chavez got up and gave Obama a book, \"The Open Veins of Latin America,\" which documents centuries of American abuse in the region. After the exchange, the book skyrocketed to become one of Amazon's best-sellers. Obama joked about the move at a news conference Sunday, saying while he had meetings with all the leaders involved, \"I think it's just that President Chavez is better at positioning the cameras.\" \"And in all these conversations, here's what I emphasized, that we're not going to agree on every issue, but that, as long as we are respectful of democratic processes, as long as we're respectful of principles of sovereignty for all nations, that we can find areas where we can work in common,\" he said. Relations between the United States and Venezuela grew progressively worse under the presidencies of Chavez and George W. Bush. Chavez -- whose anti-U.S. rhetoric has included calling Bush the \"devil\" -- announced Saturday he is considering naming an ambassador to the United States, signaling a potential shift in the tense relations between the two nations. Chavez expelled the American ambassador in September, prompting the United States to expel Venezuela's ambassador. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, told CNN on Sunday it was \"irresponsible\" for Obama to have been seen \"laughing and joking\" with Chavez. \"This is a person who is one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world,\" Ensign said on \"State of the Union.\" \"He is a brutal dictator, and human rights violations are very, very prevalent in Venezuela. And you have to be careful.\" Watch criticism of the meeting » . Republican Newt Gingrich joined the criticism Monday, saying enemies of the United States will use Obama's friendly encounter with Chavez as propaganda. \"Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and being with the president as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he is acceptable,\" the former House leader said on NBC's \"Today\" show. But Democrats such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota downplayed the moment, saying, \"All the president did was shake his hand like George Bush [did].\" Obama's senior adviser said Sunday the administration isn't worried about how the gesture is perceived. \"I'm not concerned about the message that it sends. I'm concerned about what flows from it. Words and handshakes are nice, but they're not enough,\" David Axelrod said on CBS' \"Face the Nation.\" Stephen Hayes, a CNN contributor and writer for the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, said it's not the handshake that irks Republicans but that Obama \"seemed to actually be enjoying it.\" \"Conservatives at least were looking for something from the president who would have said, 'Hey, enough is enough, we want to go forward. We want to put the arguments of the past in the past, but you've got to own up to the arguments you've made,' \" Hayes said Monday on CNN. Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center's Americas Program, said Obama was trying to send a message that he wants to start a new beginning with Latin America. \"So President Chavez is also responding to this new atmosphere, this new style and attitude that Obama is presenting and needed to respond in kind,\" she said. McCoy, who briefly spoke with Chavez at the summit, said he told her he is ready to give Obama a chance and see if they can have a more cooperative relationship. But she said, \"I don't expect it's going to be smooth sailing. President Chavez's whole foreign policy is predicated on challenging U.S. leadership.\" Obama went into office arguing that relations with Latin America had turned sour and that the U.S. needed to form new partnerships. David Gergen, CNN's senior political analyst, said Obama is trying to make good on that pledge. \"I think most political advisers would tell the president, you know, it's fine to shake hands, hold the smiles,\" he said, adding that the gesture shows some inexperience on Obama's part. \"What the real test here is going to be in policies and in the actions. And I think Barack Obama has to somehow make a balance between being open, reaching out and also not surrendering or retreating on basic American principles and on showing some toughness,\" Gergen said. William Bennett, a CNN contributor and Republican strategist, agreed it's too early to tell if anything has changed. \"Image is one thing. Reality is another. Substance is another. Things that need to get accomplished is another. That will be the test,\" Bennett said. Obama said Sunday he didn't know how the images from this weekend would play politically, and he indicated he really didn't care. \"One of the benefits of my campaign and how I've been trying to operate as president, I don't worry about the politics. I try to figure out what's right in terms of American interest, and on this one I think I'm right,\" he said. CNN's Kristi Keck, Suzanne Malveaux and Alexander Mooney contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "President Obama, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez shake hands at summit .\nGOP senator: It's \"irresponsible\" to be seen \"laughing and joking\" with Chavez .\nIt's OK to shake hands, but Obama shouldn't seem too friendly, CNN analyst says .\nResponding to critics, Obama says, \"I don't worry about the politics\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Shark attacks on humans were at the lowest levels in half a decade last year, and a Florida researcher says hard economic times may be to blame. Fewer people in the water means less chance for sharks to attack, ichthyologist George Burgess says. Sharks attacked 59 people in 2008, the lowest number of attacks since 57 in 2003, according to George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File, part of the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. There were 71 attacks in 2007. \"One can't help but think that the downturn in the economy played a part in it,\" Burgess said. Fewer people, especially outside of the United States, have the resources to go to the beach, he said. \"To have a shark attack, you have to have humans and sharks in the water at the same time,\" Burgess said. \"If you have a reduction in the number of people in the water, you're going to have a reduction in the opportunities for people and sharks to get together.\" \"We noticed similar declines during the recession that followed the events of 2001, despite the fact that human populations continued to rise,\" the ichthyologist said. Sharks killed four people in 2008, Burgess said: one in California, one in Australia and two in Mexico. Forty-one of the 59 attacks worldwide came in the United States, and 32 of those occurred in Florida. Surfers accounted for 57 percent of shark attacks, swimmers and waders were the targets in 36 percent of the attacks, and divers the rest, he said. Burgess said the U.S. tends to see more attacks because of a large number of surfers, who are a favorite target of sharks. And neither the economy nor the attacks tend to keep American surfers from practicing their sport. \"All they have to do is drive to the beach with the board and get into the water, and the rest is free,\" he said. And while an attack may make them a bit more wary, he said, \"I've yet to find a surfer who says he or she won't go back into the water after a bite or a nip.\" When the economy improves, shark attack numbers are likely to go up again, according to Burgess, predicting the number of attacks in the next decade will surpass those of the past 10 years. \"We're putting so many people in the water that humans are dictating the shark attack situation,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sharks attacked 59 people worldwide in 2008, Florida researcher reports .\nFour people killed by sharks last year .\nEconomic downturn means fewer people hitting beaches, researcher says .\nSurfers account for 57 percent of shark attacks ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The massacre of students and a teacher within the seemingly safe hallways of Columbine High School reverberated so strongly that its reflection can be found in the creations of multiple artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers over the past decade. \"Elephant,\" musician Marilyn Manson, and the bestseller \"Nineteen Minutes\" entered the spotlight post-Columbine. \"It wasn't the first school shooting, but it became the extreme case,\" said Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. \"The word 'Columbine' became a word that represented something much, much larger than that particular high school.\" Columbine, in some ways, represents the broad insecurity triggered by extreme acts of violence. Littleton, Colorado, is as picturesque as the set of a family film. And thanks in part to the 24-hour news cycle, the world witnessed scenes that appeared to be out of a movie: bloodied victims escaping through windows and frightened teens scurrying to safety as law enforcement descended. Film critic Desson Thomson said films such as Gus Van Sant's \"Elephant\" do not have to reach far into the American psyche to tell a tale of horror in a post-Columbine world. \"Columbine is now a little like the way 9/11 is engrained in our cultural perspective, so that something like 'Elephant' doesn't even have to directly allude to it,\" he said. \"Because we were so immersed in Columbine...the filmmakers know that the audience has that reference point, so it doesn't take much to even poke at that for all of that dimension to come swimming through our consciousness.\" \"Elephant,\" which won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, dramatized a normal day at a high school that is about to become the scene of a planned mass slaughter by a pair of friends. Television shows such as \"Law & Order\" and \"Cold Case\" also delved into the lives of fictitious teens on murderous rampages. But music is the one medium that seemed almost primed for an interpretation of the day's events. Shock rocker Marilyn Manson weathered speculation that his songs may have influenced the pair of young murderers. He addressed the issue in a Rolling Stone magazine article in 1999. \"When it comes down to who's to blame for the high school murders in Littleton, Colorado, throw a rock and you'll hit someone who's guilty,\" Manson wrote. \"We're the people who sit back and tolerate children owning guns, and we're the ones who tune in and watch the up-to-the-minute details of what they do with them.\" The spotlight on Manson didn't discourage other artists from referencing Columbine in their songs, music videos and lyrics. Genres from rock to rap reflected on the tragedy. Manson himself released an album titled \"Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)\" that contained songs alluding to the massacre. In the single \"The Nobodies,\" Manson appeared to reiterate statements from his first-person piece in Rolling Stone with the lyrics \"Some children died the other day, We fed machines and then we prayed, Puked up and down in morbid faith,You should have seen the ratings that day.\" Music, TV and film were not the only media that reacted to the shootings. In 2005, an independent video game developer released \"Super Columbine Massacre RPG!,\" a role-playing game that allowed users to imagine themselves as the Columbine gunmen and act out the violence. Scott Steinberg, publisher of DigitalTrends.com, said the game is not indicative of the game market as a whole. He pointed out that that 85 percent of video games are rated \"E for everyone\" \"E10 plus\" or \"T for Teen.\" Fewer violent video games are being produced today, Steinberg said, despite the perception that the industry mostly produces \"spray and slay\" entertainment. \"The industry is becoming a lot more sensitive in realizing that we have a medium that reaches more people than ever,\" Steinberg said. iReport.com: How did Columbine affect you? Littleton, Colorado, was also very much on the mind of bestselling author Jodi Picoult when she came up with the idea for her popular 2007 novel \"Nineteen Minutes.\" \"I have three children and I was watching all of them, at different points in their school careers, being bullied,\" she said. \"It got me wondering why, in a post- Columbine world, we haven't figured this out yet.\" Picoult's novel told the story of a bullied, alienated high school student who commits an act of violence. Records have since been released disputing that Klebold and Harris were outcasts or the targets of bullying. Picoult said it was powerful for her to speak with Columbine survivors. She received a standing ovation from families in Littleton during a book event held there. \"It was really moving,\" she said. \"You realize that the people who want to talk about it the most are the people who lived through it. The one thing I think we have learned, and the one thing I thing pop culture is good for, is the more that we see it pop up, the more we are reminded that this is a worthy subject.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Columbine tragedy provided fodder for several creative works .\nMusicians, writers, filmmakers and game developers responded with projects .\n\"Elephant\" an example of film that tackled the tragedy .\nMarilyn Manson responded to allegations his music helped inspire massacre ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(Travel + Leisure) -- Alice Temperley likes to camp. Which is why the British fashion designer, who escapes her London workshop to rusticate in a tepee on her Somerset country estate, was recently commissioned by One & Only Le Saint Géran to erect a similar structure on their beach in Mauritius. \"It's escapism to the nth degree,\" says designer Bill Bensley of the tents at the Four Seasons Tented Camp, in Thailand's Golden Triangle. The 17-foot-high tepee is decked out with beads, streaming ribbons, and embroidered patches -- a look Temperley likens to \"a jewelry box that glistens in the sand.\" The resort offers cookouts by the tent -- marshmallows included -- served by a liveried butler. By any definition, this is an indulgent experience, but given its availability in a structure originally designed for the life nomadic, it signals a shift in our perception of both luxury and escapism. Suddenly, a heightened sense of well-being may owe less to four sheltering walls than to a temporary shedding, not just of our inhibitions but also of all the weighty paraphernalia that clutters up a sedentary life. Tents pitched in far-flung locales have always had romantic cachet -- who could forget Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in \"Out of Africa.\" And now there's a trend of textile pleasure domes being adapted for use in diverse settings across the globe. \"They provide an experience that you could miss in an ordinary concrete box,\" says designer Bill Bensley of the tents at the Four Seasons Tented Camp, in Thailand's Golden Triangle. \"Guests can hear the sound of elephants munching their way through the jungle. It's escapism to the nth degree.\" Travel + Leisure: See the world's best tented camps . That sentiment is evident in Bensley's design for the resort. He drew inspiration from northern Thailand's hill-tribe villages as well as camps he visited in Botswana, and he filled the 15 tents with metal craftwork from local artisans, along with explorer-themed antiques (an old compass, rifles, primitive fishing tools). Like Temperley, Nairobi-based fashion designer Anna Trzebinski is also dabbling in the world of hotels, opening the tented Lemarti's Camp near Kenya's Laikipia Plateau last year. She stitches tents of locally loomed cotton in the same workshop where she creates beaded tunics and accessories inspired by indigenous Kenyan designs. Set on platforms above a river bend, the camp's tents are furnished with tables and beds built with wood from dhow boats, and decorated with African-themed found objets d'art: crocodile skulls, elephant shoulder blades, beaded walking sticks and clubs. \"For me, a tent should be the veil between you and Mother Africa, a sheer shield to protect but not in any way disconnect you from her presence. To be under canvas on a comfortable bed, with the smell of acacia blossoms -- in the old safari days this was intoxicating enough, but now we have the ability to improve on the concept.\" And that's exactly what Banyan Tree is doing with one of its latest resorts, the Banyan Tree Maldives Madivaru, on a coral atoll in the Maldives. Created by Dharmali Kusumadi, one of the group's head designers, it's by far the most cosseting tented property available today. Only 18 guests at a time can stay on the private island. Rooms come in the form of three conjoined tents facing a cobalt-blue lagoon: a king-size platform bed dominates the air-conditioned sleeping tent, while the bathing pavilion has a claw-foot tub. A butler and massage therapist are at guests' beck and call. Spas, too, are employing tents to help travelers abandon worldly cares. In Arizona's Sonoran Desert, Miraval Tucson Resort & Spa guests take treatments in one of six new tents styled by Irish-born designer Clodagh. \"For me, a tent evokes impermanence,\" she says. \"It reflects the impermanence of the spa treatment as well.\" Set in a botanical garden shaded by paloverde trees, each of the tents has natural cleft-stone flooring, an acacia-wood bench, and walls made of saguaro and ocotillo cacti. Tipping the indulgence scale, Taj Hotels' Rambagh Palace, in Jaipur, has put up two new spa suite tents patterned after a 16th-century Mughal encampment. When India's royalty went camping, their tasseled tents were made of velvet and embroidered silk. Devised by husband-and-wife hotel design team Amit and Shalini Gehlot, the billowing pavilions contain handwoven carpets, royal pennants, and love swings made from salvaged shesham wood. And if that's not adequate escapism, this month Taj opens Banjaar Tola, a safari lodge with 18 tented suites in the bamboo forests of Madhya Pradesh, a four-hour drive from Jabalpur. Created by one of India's top architects, Sanjay Prakash, each tent has bamboo floors, solar-powered heated pools, and traditional artwork from nearby Chattisgarh. Definitely fit for a mogul on the move. Planning a beach getaway? Don't miss Travel + Leisure's guide to Affordable Beach Resorts. Copyright 2009 American Express Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. Shane Mitchell is a special correspondent for Travel + Leisure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A resort in Mauritius commissioned a 17-foot-high tepee from a fashion designer .\nTextile shelters are being adapted for use in diverse settings across the globe .\nThe tented Lemarti's Camp near Kenya's Laikipia Plateau opened last year ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- In the wake of the tragic shootings at Columbine High School, some schools across the country turned themselves into near-fortresses. Kindergarden students huddle beneath desks in a lockdown drill. Such drills have become common. They installed metal detectors and security cameras, banned backpacks, required students to carry IDs and posted police in the hallways -- all in the name of keeping students safe. Now, 10 years after those highly publicized shootings in which two young men killed 13 people and themselves, school security has taken another dramatic turn. Some of the noticeable security measures remain, but experts say the country is exploring a new way to protect kids from in-school violence: administrators now want to foster school communities that essentially can protect themselves with or without the high-tech gear. \"The first and best line of defense is always a well-trained, highly alert staff and student body,\" said Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, an Ohio-based firm specializing in school security. \"The No. 1 way we find out about weapons in schools is not from a piece of equipment [such as a metal detector] but from a kid who comes forward and reports it to an adult that he or she trusts.\" See how many homicides have occurred in schools since 1992 » . The Obama administration plans to create secure schools indirectly, by improving overall education, getting kids more involved in their studies and strengthening school communities, said William Modzeleski, a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Education who handles school security. The trend is reflected in security funding, some of which comes from federal grants. Allocations for the Department of Education's Safe and Drug-Free Schools program were cut by a third between 1999 and 2008, to about $294.8 million last year. And a program that has put about 6,300 police officers in public schools since Columbine was scrapped by the U.S. Department of Justice after 2005, according to Corey Ray, a spokesman for the department. Ray said he's hopeful President Obama's stimulus package will put more police officers in schools. They act as law enforcement officers as well as counselors and mentors to students, he said. Meanwhile, money for a school counseling grant program has increased since Columbine, with $52 million set aside for this fiscal year, compared to $20 million in 2000, the first year the program was funded, according to budget numbers compiled for CNN by the Department of Education. So while there's more money available for counseling, there's still been a steady decline in federal spending for other aspects of school security. Some critics say a lack of available funding for high-tech security upgrades may be behind the shift toward less-costly and more indirect violence prevention measures. \"Right now, the economic situation is affecting [school security funding]. Particularly the technology components of security are going to suffer because there's just not going to be the money to do these kinds of things,\" said Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. \"We're in the process of laying off teachers and staff.\" Trump, the security consultant in Ohio, said schools have lost their focus on security since Columbine. But he added that many effective security programs cost little or no money -- only the time it takes to train teachers and students how to spot potential problems and how to react if a shooting were to occur. While metal detectors may not be the best tools to prevent school shootings, they still can be useful in some crime-ridden school districts and, along with security cameras, should not be abandoned entirely, Modzeleski said. Some evidence suggests strong school communities -- where kids feel like they can come forward with problems -- can prevent violent crime. A 2008 Secret Service report found that in more than 80 percent of instances of school violence, at least one person, usually a fellow student or peer, had knowledge of the attackers' plans. If people who suspect a problem feel comfortable enough in school to tell a teacher or a principal, then attacks could be prevented, Modzeleski said. After Columbine, many states and school districts made quick moves to increase school security, experts say. Modzeleski said this was a \"kneejerk\" reaction to the tragic, but rare, event; and a decade later, policies are settling into a middle ground. \"Immediately after any of these incidents I think there's the immediate rush for more security,\" he said. \"That's what I would call the kneejerk reaction to any type of these events: 'We need more cops; we need more metal detectors; we need more cameras.' After that settles in, I think people come to their senses and say, 'Hey, if we're going to keep our kids safe in schools, we need more than that.'\" iReport.com: How did Columbine affect you? After Columbine, some states started requiring schools to prepare for school shootings with lockdown drills, much in the way they prepare for fires or other disasters. About once a month in Fort Wayne, Indiana, public and private school students pull down window shades and huddle in the back corners of dark classrooms while their schools go into lockdown mode, said John Weicker, security director at Fort Wayne Community Schools. A school administrator roams the halls to make sure all doors are locked and all students are hidden from what might be a school shooter if this scenario was not a drill. \"You're training the kids,\" Weicker said. Similar drills -- which, in some states, are attended by armed and masked SWAT teams -- are now practiced routinely in nearly three-quarters of schools, according to a recent survey of 445 administrators funded by the American Association of School Administrators. It's difficult to say whether these policies are working, but by some measures, school safety has improved in the decade since Columbine. Watch parents remember children lost at Columbine » . On average, there have been about half as many deaths per year since Columbine as in the seven school years before the tragedy, according to a 2007 report from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In the school year immediately following the Columbine shootings, the number of in-school homicides dropped from 33 in the 1998-1999 school year to 13 in the 1999-2000 year, the report says. Several experts say the tragedy brought awareness to the issue of school security, which on the whole has been positive. They worry, however, that attention has been waning in the past few years. A 17-year-old student in Fort Wayne, Indiana, however, said that while he is reassured by tight school security, it's a good thing that the Columbine shootings rarely enter his mind. \"There's a couple times that we'll talk about it in like a history class,\" said Travis Armstrong, a high school junior. \"Because that did happen back a while ago, and therefore it is considered history.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "10 years after Columbine, schools are taking a new look at security .\nImmediately after the shootings, schools added cameras and metal detectors .\nNow they're trying to foster safer and better school communities .\nMeanwhile, overall funding for school security has dropped by about a third ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- One evening last winter, Mike Harris was watching his local TV news when he saw a segment that caught his attention: Parents were using software to monitor their kids' cell phones. As more kids carry cell phones, some parents use software to monitor their calls and texts. Harris, an investigator for the Child Sex Internet Investigations Unit in Jefferson County, Colorado, thought the service could be a new tool for combating sexual predators. Equipping his phone with the software, Harris posed as an underage child on social-networking sites and began luring pedophiles. He immediately got results. Since then, Harris has made 83 arrests of alleged sexual predators -- 44 of them with the help of the monitoring program. \"It makes life easy for me as an investigator. It saves me hours of time, which obviously means I have more time to go out and catch offenders,\" he said. The software also documents text messages and other data that can be used in court, he said. \"Now all I have to do is go into the account and pull everything out that was done between that sex offender and me.\" Programs such as My Mobile Watchdog and Mobile Spy are becoming increasingly popular with parents as more school-age children are carrying cell phones. Parents say the services help them protect their kids against predators and also reduce \"sexting,\" the growing practice of using mobile phones to share sexually explicit text messages and pictures. In 2008, Jessica Logan, a Cincinnati, Ohio, teen, hanged herself after her nude photo, meant for her boyfriend, was sent to teenagers at several high schools, exposing her to ridicule and taunts. The monitoring programs work like this: Once a child's phone is equipped with the software, the parent or law enforcement officer creates a list of contacts -- close relatives, trusted friends -- who are authorized to communicate with the minor's phone. An online file, accessed by the parent, stores all activity related to the child's phone, including text messages and shared photos. Any unauthorized number that contacts the child's phone gets flagged, and the parent or guardian receives a real-time text message alerting them to the infraction. Parents pay a monthly fee -- about $10 -- for the service, which only works on so-called \"smart phones\" with Web access. My Mobile Watchdog also will alert parents if their child has removed the software from their phone. eAgency Mobile Solutions of Newport Beach, California, is the creator of My Mobile Watchdog. Bob Lotter, the company's CEO, said he never imagined the software would become a tool for authorities cracking down on online sexual predators. \"The threat is huge,\" Lotter said. \"There are so many different ways out there for child predators [to find victims] -- through Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook and a host of other sites.\" A Lakewood, Colorado, woman said she outfitted her 12-year-old daughter's phone with monitoring software after the girl was sexually assaulted by a man she met on MocoSpace, a mobile chat network. \"I wasn't going to take away her cell phone, and I knew I had to do something,\" said the woman, whose first name is Wendy. CNN.com is not printing her last name in accordance with its policy of not identifying the victims of sexual assault. Wendy said the service has given her more peace of mind and her daughter a greater awareness of the responsibilities of having a cell phone. Other parents haven't been so transparent. James Green of Sulphur, Louisiana, equipped his daughter's cell phone with monitoring software but didn't tell her what it was. He told her the icon was a GPS system. \"I wasn't going to get my 15-year-old a cell phone and not know how she was using it,\" Green said. Over time, Green found the software wasn't just useful for tracking his daughter's behavior; it also helped him discover more about the nature of his child. \"It's good to know how she's treating people and how others are treating her,\" Green said. \"I think it's a caring father that wants to know what's going on in her life ... wanting to know how she feels.\" When Green's daughter discovered the software on her phone, she wasn't angry, he said. \"She understood that I cared about her.\" A Chandler, Arizona, mother found that monitoring her daughter's phone calls and texts gave her new insight into her daughter's life. \"We talk a lot more about what's going on in her life,\" said Trisha, who requested her last name not be published. \"It's really opened up communication between the two of us.\" Some privacy advocates might object to parents digitally eavesdropping on their kids without their children's consent. But an Asheville, North Carolina, mother, who fitted her son's phone with the software without his knowledge, disagrees. \"I monitor my employees at the workplace,\" said the woman, who owns a small business and asked that her name not be disclosed. \"And this is my son. So to me it's not like I'm wiretapping him. Besides, privacy in my house is earned.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colorado officer uses cell-phone monitoring software to catch sexual predators .\nInvestigator has made at least 44 arrests with the help of the service .\nSoftware is increasingly popular with parents as more kids carry cell phones .\nService provides parents with online record of kids' calls, texts and shared photos ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: CNN contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose forthcoming book is \"Late Edition: A Love Story.\" Bob Greene says kin of Columbine victims don't have the luxury of moving on after the 10th anniversary is marked. (CNN) -- The weddings that will never be held. The birthdays when there will be no one to embrace. The first jobs that will never be greeted with a parent's proud smile of congratulations. Those are the things -- the sacred things, perhaps the sole things -- that we should pause to think about Monday. Because while the rest of the world considers anew the meaning of what happened 10 years ago at the school in Littleton, Colorado, the people who matter -- the only people who truly can fathom the meaning -- are the people with the wounds in their hearts that will never quite heal: . The mothers and fathers of the children who were murdered. The brothers and sisters who were left with the empty and soundless spaces in their homes and in their lives. For the rest of us, it's all guesswork, and the anniversary provides a circumscribed time to think about it somberly. But by tomorrow we will have moved on to other concerns, while the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers -- the grandfathers and the grandmothers -- will return to that which they can never wish away: . The weddings that won't ever come. The birthdays when there is only silence. Is it possible to break that April day from 10 years ago into its incremental elements, as if by doing so we will be able to find a possible future remedy? If we think enough about the saturation of our society with violent images, from the movies we watch to the video games our children play to the stories on the evening news -- is that what can explain Columbine? If we dissect the live television coverage of that day when millions stared for hours on end -- was it those unblinking pictures that made the scenes still so hard to shake? Is there a resolution to be discovered in debates about the guns that were used, the need for security checkpoints? Those are all just details, not answers. Those are merely facts to be noted. What is worth paying attention to is that we, as a people, have developed, without really wanting to or knowing we were doing it, the thousand-yard stare that you see in the eyes of certain homicide detectives who have been doing their jobs for a very long time. It is a look of utter numbness -- a look that is the opposite of cynical, a look of sorrowful surrender. It is a look that says, of the bearer of those eyes: . My eyes are dead because I know that what they have witnessed is only prologue. My eyes show nothing because they must be prepared for what they know they will be seeing again. To encounter those eyes -- to see the thousand-yard stare -- in a police officer is one thing. But to see it in a country. ... Yet that is what the many years of nonstop killings have done to us. Columbine -- that word, that label -- is the way we sum up this kind of thing, but labels like that are at core our way of conceding our inability to process the despair. There was murderous madness that came before Columbine, and murderous madness that came after. We tell ourselves on each new occasion that what has happened is shocking, but the word has become all but meaningless. The only genuinely shocking thing would be if the cruelty and the killings were to somehow suddenly cease. We can blame all of this on our modern times veering out of control, if we wish, but it really speaks of something more elemental and dark, of factors beyond our earthly understanding. The most deadly attack upon sons and daughters at a school did not occur at Columbine 10 years ago, or at Virginia Tech two years ago. On May 18, 1927, in Bath Township, Michigan, 44 people, most of them elementary school pupils in their classrooms, were slaughtered by a man who set off a series of bombs and then killed himself to raise his toll to 45. He was a member of the local school board; he was angry about a tax assessment. The madness and the heartache do not belong to a certain era or to a certain place on the map. Nor do the heartache, and the unending echoes of days like those, belong to the rest of us, however honorable we may wish our intentions to be. We -- the rest of us -- will move on by tomorrow. The anniversary will be over. Leaving the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers. And the lesson? The lesson we never seem to learn? It can be found in words that have been quoted and paraphrased many times, in many languages, over many centuries. But still we can't seem to get it right. What is it that we seek? Something that sounds so simple, something like a prayer: . To tame the savageness of man, and make gentle the life of the world. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bob Greene: Kin of Columbine victims live with the pain every day .\nGreene: Most Americans see such violence with numb eyes and can look elsewhere .\nThe pain of these incidents predated the horror of Columbine, Greene says .\nHe says people eternally have sought to tame human savagery ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Police in Boston, Massachusetts, are searching for a man suspected in the murder of one woman and the armed robbery of two others, all of whom, they say, he may have met through their Craigslist ads for personal services. Julissa Brisman, 26, was described as \"a really sweet, goofy, energetic kid.\" Officers discovered New York resident Julissa Brisman, 26, unconscious with multiple gunshot wounds at Boston's Copley Marriott Hotel on Tuesday night. She was transferred to Boston Medical Center, where she died shortly afterward. Police said Brisman, a model, offered massages via Craigslist, a popular online classified ad service. The confrontation between Brisman and her killer seems to have begun as an attempted robbery, police said. \"It appears that there was a struggle between the victim and the suspect in the threshold of the hotel room immediately prior to the shooting,\" the Boston Police Department said in a statement on its Web site. Police speculate the man may also be responsible for the recent robberies of two other young women who offered personal services via Craigslist. Four days before Brisman's slaying, a 29-year-old woman was robbed at gunpoint at a Westin Hotel in Boston. Police spokesman Joe Zanola would not disclose the details of her Craigslist ad but said she and Brisman were \"involved in similar professions.\" On Thursday night at a Holiday Inn Express in Warwick, Rhode Island, a man tied up and demanded money from a 26-year-old dancer who had posted a Craigslist advertisement, according to Warwick's police chief, Col. Stephen McCartney. The robbery was interrupted when the woman's husband entered the room. After pointing his gun at the husband, the suspect fled, according to McCartney. He said that no conclusions could be made but allowed that the incident \"may be related to similar crimes occurring in the Boston area.\" Matthew Terhune, a photographer who met Brisman when he took pictures of her for a calendar last year, described her as \"just a really sweet, goofy, energetic kid.\" He added that she was enrolled in Alcoholics Anonymous and was contemplating counseling fellow recovering addicts. He had been unaware of her side job as an Internet masseuse. Surveillance videos from the hotel where Brisman was murdered showed a tall, clean-cut young blond man in a black windbreaker leaving the property, said the Boston Police Department, which is asking the public's help in identifying the man. Representatives from Craigslist did not respond to a request for comment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "26-year-old died after attack at Boston hotel on Tuesday .\nPolice say she posted Craigslist ad offering massages .\nMan may be behind two recent robberies, they say .\nBoston police seek public's help identifying man on video ." } ]