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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": "Washington (CNN) -- Valerie Jarrett does not like to talk about herself. I know this because we've sat down on numerous occasions for interviews, going back to the early days of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. But this one was perhaps the most challenging because the focus was on her. She is fiercely loyal to Obama, as one of his closest friends. But she also advises him as president, with the title of Senior Adviser and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison. The ultimate insider does not spill the beans. But doing a series on the power players inside the White House would not be complete without looking at Jarrett's role. She has called her relationship with the president a \"mind meld.\" \"We're good friends who have known each other for a long time,\" Jarrett says. \"Eighteen years, you get a pretty good sense of him.\" Her first sense of him came in 1991 when Obama was a young law professor in Chicago, Illinois. Jarrett was interviewing his fiancée, the future first lady, Michelle Robinson, for a job in Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's office. The protective partner, Obama, was making sure Jarrett was on the up and up. Jarrett first explained the scene when I interviewed her in May 2008. \"They sat next to each other and when she was speaking he would just look at her with this adoring look,\"Jarrett said with a laugh, \"but he was really tough on me in the nicest possible way.\" The three became fast friends. Now Obama says he runs every important decision by Jarrett, trusts her completely and considers her family. When I bring this to her attention she accepts her role humbly. \"Well, I hope he would trust me the way any close friend does. He knows I have his best interest at heart and that I understand, because I'm part of the administration, the myriad of challenges he faces,\" Jarrett says. \"So I hope he views me a sounding board, someone who's going to be honest, direct and candid with him at all times.\" She laughs when I suggest perhaps she is his consigliere. \"You can tell I'm uncomfortable with this,\" she says when I try to get her to focus more on her role. She does not like to be singled out from the rest of the White House team. Instead she paints a picture of what it would be like if I were in an Oval Office meeting with the president. \"When everyone's done talking, if there've been a couple of people who've been quiet, he'll say, 'Well, Suzanne, what do you think of this issue?' \" Jarrett says. She describes his style in running the meetings as \"accommodating.\" \"He reads people very well. He's extraordinarily perceptive. He can tell from the body language if someone is uncomfortable with something,\" Jarrett says. But she can also read the president's body language when he's heard enough talk. \"He's not moody, but you can tell when he's ready for a conversation to end,\" Jarrett says. \"He enjoys making sure there is robust debate, but when he's finished with debate he's finished. He's ready to move on. So I can detect when enough is enough, let's bring in the next issue.\" Jarrett says newcomers to the administration have pulled her aside to get her take on how things were going. \"Particularly early on, people who didn't know the president as well as I did would come to me after a meeting and say 'What did he really mean? I know he said this, but what is he really thinking?' and I took such delight in being able to say he meant exactly what he said. That's who he is.\" It's the intangibles that Jarrett sometimes brings to the table. \"People are always looking for the hidden intent, the body language, and he is about as straight a shooter as you're going to ever come across. So I think part of what I do is go around and give people some comfort to really trust what he said. He meant exactly what he said. You can take him at face value.\" Jarrett says the president does not make deals after his meetings are done. People don't trail him through the back door trying to change his mind. \"That's just not the way he operates,\" Jarrett says. \"He likes to hear from everybody at the same time. Then he makes a decision.\" Jarrett's job includes acting as a liaison to the business community and conducting outreach to African-American groups. But it's her role as confidante to the president that makes her the ultimate insider. Jarrett sits in on Obama's daily briefings in the morning that deal with national security and the economy. She also attends policy meetings regarding the president's agenda on health care, energy and education. She facilitates and hosts small groups of CEOs to have lunch with Obama. And she heads the Office of Public Engagement as the president's contact with outside groups. Jarrett says she also spends \"a good deal of time\" with Michelle Obama both personally and professionally. Part of her portfolio is working closely with the first lady's team, \"making sure there's seamless interaction between the East and West Wings.\" Jarrett occupies the office previously used by Karl Rove and former first lady Hillary Clinton. She is often the only woman in the room in briefings with the president. But she dismisses talk of tension with \"the boys,\" as some of the male power players are referred to in the White House. \"We really do pull together as a team,\" Jarrett says. While Jarrett's ability to freelance as the president's senior adviser has rankled some, Jarrett says being inside the circle of power is a \"warm\" and \"inclusive\" environment. As for Obama's all-male pickup basketball games, Jarrett says that's not where the real power resides. \"I think what's really important is who does the president surround himself with and give substantial responsibilities to.\" Jarrett's got plenty of responsibility. Her challenge is separating her friendship with the president from her job. Often she takes her cues from where she stands. \"If we're in the Oval Office, I call him \"Mr. President.\" It's very formal. I think it's appropriate. It's not just deferential to him but to the office,\" Jarrett says. \"I really try to compartmentalize our friendship and what my role is outside the office, and my role as senior adviser.\" When I ask her if that's a difficult thing to do, requiring her to flip a switch, she says \"no.\" She says when she's in the Oval Office, they're all about business, outside, \"everything but business.\" \"The one thing I don't do is try to mix the two. I don't try to be his friend when we're having a business conversation and I try not to burden him with office issues when trying to have downtime,\" Jarrett says. When they're hanging out as friends, it's often indulging in their favorite pastime. \"We like to eat,\" Jarrett says with a hearty laugh. \"He's a healthy eater. I'm not. We have a lot of wonderful conversations around the dinner table -- something we've always enjoyed.\" But now that dinner table is in the White House. The movies they enjoy watching, they now take in at the White House movie theater. But despite that, Jarrett insists her longtime friend is the same. She says what she finds \"so appealing\" is he's still \"grounded.\" \"He has a very good sense of self, he's steady. His temperament is very predictable,\" she says. A year after Obama captured the White House, Jarrett is still in awe. \"Not a day goes by I don't pinch myself and treasure this experience and opportunity to serve this president who also happens to be my friend.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jarrett has known Barack and Michelle Obama for 18 years .\nShe's now a senior adviser in the Obama White House .\nObama says he runs every important decision by Jarrett .\nShe says she tries to keep business role, friendship separate ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The young girl whispered in a hushed tone. She looked down as she spoke, only glancing up from her dark round eyes every now and then. She wanted to tell more, but she was too ashamed. She was just 9 years old when, she says, Congolese soldiers gang-raped her on her way to school. The young girl on the right says she was raped by Congolese soldiers. She was just 9 when it happened. \"These two soldiers nabbed her, put a bag over her head and pulled her into the bushes. She explains it as, 'They got me,' \" says Sherrlyn Borkgren, who spent a month in the Democratic Republic of the Congo late last year. Borkgren, a wedding photographer and freelance journalist, traveled to the war-torn region of eastern Congo after being awarded the ShootQ Grant, a $10,000 award to free photographers from everyday life to pursue a project that raises awareness of an important global issue. Borkgren pauses when she speaks of meeting the girl. \"She was obviously very traumatized to repeat this out loud, and I don't think she had repeated it to anyone.\" The young girl lied to her about her age when they first spoke. \"She said she was 15 when she was raped,\" Borkgren says. \"I figured she probably wanted to say she was 15 because it's more acceptable than to say, 'I was 9 when they raped me.' \" The United Nations estimates 200,000 women and girls have been raped in Congo over the last 12 years, when war broke out with Rwanda and Uganda backing Congolese rebels seeking to oust then-Congo President Laurent Kabila. Rape became a weapon of war, aid groups say. \"It is one of the worst places in the world to be a woman or girl,\" says Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch who has spent the last 10 years focusing on Congo. \"These are often soldiers and combatants deliberately targeting women and raping them as a strategy of war, either to punish a community, to terrorize a community or to humiliate them.\" Most times, the women are raped by at least two perpetrators. \"Sometimes, that is done in front of the family, in front of the children,\" Van Woudenberg says. She sighs, \"What causes men to rape -- I wish I had an answer to that.\" Against this backdrop, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, one of the world's strongest voices for women's rights, traveled to Congo as part of her whirlwind trip to Africa. Watch Clinton detail expectations for Africa » . Clinton arrived in Goma in eastern Congo Tuesday where she is to meet with rape victims during her visit. \"I hope that here in the [Congo] there will be a concerted effort to demand justice for women who are violently attacked, and to make sure that their attackers are punished,\" Clinton said Monday after a tour of a Kinshasa hospital. Human rights groups are eager to see if Clinton pressures Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the son of Laurent Kabila, to do more to pursue charges against top army commanders accused of rape. \"Soldiers have committed gang rapes, rapes leading to injury and death, and abductions of girls and women,\" a report released last month by Human Rights Watch says. \"Their crimes are serious violations of international humanitarian law. Commanders have frequently failed to stop sexual violence and may themselves be guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity as a consequence.\" Van Woudenberg says punishment, unfortunately, is all too rare for sex crimes. \"If you rape, you get away with it,\" she says. According to the United Nations, there were 15,996 new cases of sexual violence registered throughout Congo in 2008. Nearly two out of every three rapes were carried out against children, most of them adolescent girls, the Human Rights Watch report says. A paltry 27 soldiers were convicted in military courts last year. Under the current court system, the military handles accusations of rape against its soldiers -- something aid groups say must be changed for real accountability. Since January of this year, aid organizations say there's been a surge of violence against civilians as a result of Congolese operations against Rwandan Hutu rebels, some of whom are believed to have participated in 1994's Rwandan genocide. The fighting has left more than 1.8 million people displaced in the volatile region, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Aid groups have started to see an uptick of rapes of men this year, although women and girls remain the primary targets. \"The brutality has increased on a huge scale,\" Van Woudenberg says. She says she interviewed one 15-year-old girl who was held in a hole for five months and gang-raped nearly every day. She had gone out shopping when soldiers approached. \"They asked me to take off my clothes, and I did. There wasn't much I could do,\" the girl told her. \"They took me into the bush. I stayed for five months with these people, and when I came back, I was five months pregnant.\" Van Woudenberg adds, \"Gosh, the brutality against the women and girls is unimaginable.\" Congo has taken some measures to try to curb the sexual violence. In 2006, its parliament passed a law criminalizing rape, with penalties ranging from five to 20 years. Penalties are doubled under certain circumstances, including gang-rape and if the perpetrator is a public official. Kabila's wife, Olive Lemba Kabila, has launched a public campaign speaking out against rapes of the nation's women and girls. The army has also started a zero-tolerance campaign in which commanders have emphasized to troops that they must respect human rights and protect civilians from harm, according to the U.N. In May, the United Nations handed over the names of five top military officers accused of rape. Two of the senior officers are now detained in the capital of Kinshasa and the three others must report to authorities under close observation. \"It's expected that a trial could happen soon,\" said U.N. spokesman Yves Sorokobi. \"It certainly is a big development. ... It's important. It's significant.\" Still more must be done, aid groups say, starting with the establishment of a special court made up of Congolese and international judges and prosecutors to investigate rape allegations. Borkgren, the photographer from Eugene, Oregon, says she went to the Congo after having a dream in which two women yelled at her to \"come over here.\" She won the grant and traveled there for four weeks, beginning in November of last year. She hitchhiked her way around the country, something she now admits was \"a little bit stupid.\" She says she once came face-to-face with soldiers when she was shopping at a market by herself. One of the men said he wanted to \"take me up to his camp.\" She still can't shake the looks of the local women who were there. \"That was interesting,\" she says. \"When the soldiers were harassing me, the women looked ashamed of the soldiers. And when they saw me tell them, 'No, go away,' the women looked at me quite surprised.\" Eventually, she found the girl who touched her heart -- \"the great, great kid.\" Borkgren first spoke with her father, who was initially reluctant to introduce her to his daughter. He explained that the family had gone to authorities, only to be ignored. Borkgren says that when she met the girl, they got along instantly. At times, the young child didn't know how to describe what happened. \"She would say, 'I don't understand what it is, and I don't know what words to use.' \" \"It just turned my heart to think that here's this little girl who doesn't even have the words to describe what happened to her, and has to live her life having had this violence put upon her. Just this thoughtless violence that she didn't deserve or ask for. It's so inhumane.\" Her images capture a glimpse into that world, of savagery and lost innocence. The soldiers and rebels carrying out the rapes, she says, are misguided people who need help. Caught in the middle are the innocents: women, girls and fathers struggling to get justice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "UN: 200,000 women, girls raped in Democratic Republic of Congo in last 12 years .\nPhotographer Sherrlyn Borkgren met a girl who detailed being raped by soldiers .\n\"Two soldiers nabbed her, put a bag over her head and pulled her into the bushes\"\nAid worker: Congo \"is one of the worst places in the world to be a woman or girl\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The global economic crisis has caused a spike in world hunger that has left more than a billion undernourished, United Nations agencies said in a new report. The report says the stabilization of financial markets has meant less investment in agriculture, food distribution. \"It is unacceptable in the 21st century that almost one in six of the world's population is now going hungry,\" said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme. \"At a time when there are more hungry people in the world than ever before, there is less food aid than we have seen in living memory.\" The report by the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization was released Wednesday, ahead of World Food Day on Friday. Nearly all the world's undernourished live in developing countries, according to the report. An estimated 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger in Asia and the Pacific. An additional 265 million live in sub-Saharan Africa while 95 million come from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Near East and North Africa. The final 15 million live in developed nations. Should developed economies be doing more to eradicate hunger, poverty? The number of hungry spiked as the global economic crisis took hold and governments pumped resources into stabilizing financial markets. The move meant smaller investments in agriculture and food distribution. \"World leaders have reacted forcefully to the financial and economic crisis, and succeeded in mobilizing billions of dollars in a short time period. The same strong action is needed now to combat hunger and poverty,\" said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the FAO. \"The rising number of hungry people is intolerable.\" The report calls for greater investment in agriculture to tackle long and short-term hunger by making farmers productive and more resilient to crises. \"We know what is needed to meet urgent hunger needs -- we just need the resources and the international commitment to do the job,\" Sheeran said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "World Food Programme: One in six of world's population is now going hungry .\nNearly all the world's undernourished live in developing countries .\nNumber of hungry spiked as the global economic crisis took hold, report says .\nCalls for greater investment in agriculture to tackle long and short-term hunger ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The reaction to Kanye West's hijacking of the microphone from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards came quickly and unequivocally. Kanye West took the microphone from Taylor Swift during her speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Celebrities and fans alike expressed their disapproval of West interrupting Swift's win for Best Female Video to tout his appreciation of nominee Beyonce. \"Taylor, I'm really happy for you,\" West said after grabbing the microphone from a clearly stunned Swift. \"I'll let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!\" Elliott Wilson, founder and chief executive officer of Rap Radar, sat in front of members of West's entourage at the live Sunday night awards show and said the mood quickly turned from one of surprised amusement to anger. Watch West grab the microphone from Swift » . \"At first, people weren't sure if it was kind of like a gag,\" Wilson said. \"You could feel everybody being nervous and not knowing if it was a prank or something. Then people started booing him really loud.\" Wilson said he believes that West -- who he said bounded on stage from his seat in the front row near Beyonce -- intended to have his say before allowing Swift to continue but said the rapper became angered by the crowd response in a moment that wasn't captured by the MTV cameras. \"The reaction to his tantrum was so strong ... and what happened was, he gave everybody the finger,\" Wilson said. Stars taking to Twitter returned the sentiment with some harsh words for the sometimes mercurial rap star. Singer Pink tweeted, \"Kanye West is the biggest piece of [expletive] on earth. Quote me,\" and Joel Madden of the band Good Charlotte tweeted, \"All i'm saying is Taylor Swift is a young chic and you just walk up and grab the mic.\" Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton said via Twitter that \"Taylor Swift deserved that award, damnit. It is what THE PEOPLE voted! My heart broke for her, she looked so sad at the end of that moment.\" Singer Katy Perry weighed in with \"F--- u Kanye. It's like you stepped on a kitten.\" VMA nominee Kelly Clarkson took to her blog to publish an open letter to West. \"What happened to you as a child?? Did you not get hugged enough??\" she asked. On Monday, \"Taylor Swift,\" \"VMAs,\" \"Kanye's\" and \"Beyonce\" were top trending topics on Twitter. Watch Swift respond to what happened » . Wilson, a noted hip-hop journalist, said there was a great deal of tension inside the event Sunday night before West and his girlfriend, model Amber Rose, left the show. \"It was almost like wrestling, when the good guy turns bad and the crowd turns on him,\" Wilson said. \"Every time his name was mentioned, people booed.\" Wilson said he believes that alcohol may have played a part in West's actions, given that the rapper appeared both on the red carpet and inside the arena with a bottle of cognac. Wilson added that West is well known for such behavior. He appeared uninvited onstage at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards, walked out of the 2004 American Music Awards after losing in the Best New Artist category and reportedly threw a backstage tantrum at the 2007 VMAs because he did not perform on the main stage. \"I think Kanye came in to be the bad boy, but he obviously had an emotional spaz moment because he is cool\" with Beyonce and her husband, Jay-Z, Wilson said. \"I think the alcohol blurred his judgment.\" Wilson said attendees at the awards show were allowed to have drinks at their seats. Emil Wilbekin, managing editor of Essence.com, said West may have gone too far with his antics this time. \"I think that it was not Kanye's place to speak for Beyonce or to ruin Taylor Swift's moment,\" Wilbekin said. \"It's OK for Kanye to rattle off about himself, but I think he crossed the line when he decided to speak for other people.\" Though West is known for having a healthy ego, Wilbekin said, his actions may be damaging the very legacy the rapper claims to want to leave. \"He's talked about wanting to be Elvis; he's talked about wanting to be the new king of pop,\" Wilbekin said. \"It's almost like he's overshadowing himself by getting in his own way with his mouth.\" West apologized to Swift via his blog. As for Swift, the young singer gave her acceptance speech after Beyonce graciously invited her onstage during her win for Video of the Year. West's disruption wasn't the only one the evening offered, Wilson said. During a performance by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, rapper Lil Mama rushed the stage. Wilson said that from his vantage point in the audience, the female rapper, who also serves as a judge on MTV's \"America's Best Dance Crew,\" was neither expected nor wanted as part of the performance. iReport: Is civility dead? The stars' behavior might have long-lasting consequences, Wilson added. \"I wouldn't be surprised if MTV banned alcohol [at the event] next year,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift's VMA acceptance speech .\nCelebs take to Twitter and blogs to express outrage .\nWest is well-known for shocking behavior .\nVMA attendee: \"Every time his name was mentioned, people booed\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MUTARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- A Zimbabwean court ordered a senior opposition politician back to jail Wednesday to await his trial, set to begin next week. Roy Bennett talks to the press in March 2009, a few moments after being released on bail. \"I commit the accused to prison,\" Magistrate Lucy Mungwari said as she announced the ruling in Roy Bennett's case to a packed courtroom in Mutare, about 185 miles southeast of the capital, Harare. Bennett, a Movement for Democratic Change politician and an ardent critic of President Robert Mugabe's policies, was arrested on February 13 -- just before he was to be sworn in as deputy agriculture minister in the new power-sharing government. He faces charges of possessing weapons for sabotage, banditry and terrorism. Initially he had been charged with treason. Immediately after the ruling, prison guards whisked away a visibly shocked Bennett, clad in khaki trousers, brown shoes and a checked shirt. \"We are really worried by this development,\" said Bennett's lawyer, Trust Maanda. \"We are trying all possibilities to have him released. We will be at the high court this evening to seek his liberty.\" State prosecutor Chris Mutangadura said the development was a \"natural effect of the law.\" \"It is procedural,\" Mutangadura said. \"He had to be indicted to the high court, and that means he loses his liberty until the trial resumes.\" \"If there is any defect in the process, the accused should raise it with the high court,\" said the magistrate, Mungwari. A spokesman for Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said the premier has tried to meet with Mugabe since hearing that Bennett was sent back to jail. Tsvangirai has not been granted access by Mugabe's employees, said spokesman James Maridadi. \"The prime minister has suspended the council of ministers' meeting he chairs on Thursdays,\" Maridadi said. \"... He is meeting his party leadership first thing on Thursday.\" The arrest of Bennett, a white coffee grower whose property was expropriated under the country's controversial land reform laws, came as other ministers where being sworn into the coalition government formed by Mugabe and Tsvangirai. The action almost derailed the power-sharing deal, which had been brokered by the regional Southern African Development Community after a hotly disputed election won by Mugabe last year. Bennett spent about a month in jail before the country's Supreme Court ordered him released on bail in March. Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nelson Chamisa called Wednesday's ruling \"a ridiculous and extraordinary development.\" He said it was a \"serious abuse of the law, which will affect the coalition government,\" and added, \"We are not going to sit and watch this abuse go on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bennett is a Movement for Democratic Change politician .\nHe is arrested before he was to be sworn in as deputy agriculture minister .\nHe faces charges of possessing weapons for sabotage, banditry and terrorism .\nPM is trying to meet with President Mugabe about the latest development ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A Sudanese journalist could receive 40 lashings after she was caught wearing trousers. Lubna al-Hussein was arrested with 18 other women this month for wearing indecent clothes. A Sudanese court began hearing Lubna al-Hussein's case Wednesday. It will continue the hearing August 4. At the time of her arrest, she was wearing pants, a blouse and a hijab, she said. Police accused her of wearing trousers that were too tight and alleged that her blouse was too transparent, al-Hussein said. Al-Hussein, who works for a newspaper and the media department of the United Nations mission in Sudan, said she did nothing wrong. She has been released to her home in Khartoum. The crime of wearing indecent attire has only one punishment under Sudanese law, a 40-stroke public flogging, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. \"This case is the official retaliation against the reporter for her writings criticizing the Sudanese regime and extremists,\" the organization said in a statement. Al-Hussein was arrested along with 18 others July 3 after Sudan's \"discipline police\" accused the women of wearing indecent clothes, al-Hussein said. Six were released, and 10 received the 40 lashes, she said. Al-Hussein and two others fought the charges and hired attorneys, she said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke out against the decision Wednesday, saying he was \"deeply concerned\" and would take every effort to protect his staff member. \"The flogging is against the international human rights standards,\" he said. \"I call on all parties to live up to their obligations under all relevant international instruments.\" CNN's Umaro Djau, Talia Kayali and Tracy Doueiry contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lubna al-Hussein's case is scheduled to continue August 4 .\nAl-Hussein, 18 others were rounded up this month for wearing indecent clothes .\nTen arrestees have received 40 lashes, al-Hussein says .\nAl-Hussein was told her pants were too tight, her blouse too transparent ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Had this custody drama played out in the United States, Christopher Savoie might be considered a hero -- snatching his two little children back from an ex-wife who defied the law and ran off with them. A Tennessee court awarded Christopher Savoie custody of his son, Isaac, and daughter, Rebecca. But this story unfolds 7,000 miles away in the Japanese city of Fukuoka, where the U.S. legal system holds no sway. And here, Savoie sits in jail, charged with the abduction of minors. And his Japanese ex-wife -- a fugitive in the United States for taking his children from Tennessee -- is considered the victim. \"Japan is an important partner and friend of the U.S., but on this issue, our points of view differ,\" the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said Tuesday. \"Our two nations approach divorce and child-rearing differently. Parental child abduction is not considered a crime in Japan.\" The story begins in the Nashville suburb of Franklin, Tennessee, with the January divorce of Savoie from his first wife, Noriko, a Japanese native. The ex-wife had agreed to live in Franklin to be close to the children, taking them to Japan for summer vacations. Savoie in March requested a restraining order to prevent his ex-wife from taking the children to Japan, saying she had threatened to do so, according to court documents obtained by CNN affiliate WTVF and posted on the station's Web site. A temporary order was issued, but then lifted following a hearing. \"If Mother fails to return to Tennessee [after summer vacation] with the children following her visitation period, she could lose her alimony, child support and education fund, which is added assurance to Father that she is going to return with the children,\" Circuit Court Judge James G. Martin III noted in his order on the matter. After that ruling, Christopher Savoie tried to have Martin recuse himself, as he was a mediator in the case prior to becoming a judge, said Marlene Eskind Moses, Noriko Savoie's attorney. But that request was denied, as Savoie earlier said he had no concerns about Martin hearing the matter. Following the summer trip, Noriko Savoie did return to the United States, and Christopher Savoie then took the children on a vacation, returning them to his ex-wife, his attorney, Paul Bruno, told CNN. Watch latest report on Savoie's situation » . But days later, on the first day of classes for 8-year-old Isaac and 6-year-old Rebecca, the school called Savoie to say his children hadn't arrived, Bruno said. Police checked Noriko Savoie's home and did not find the children. Concerned, Savoie called his ex-wife's father in Japan, who told him not to worry. \"I said, 'What do you mean -- don't worry? They weren't at school.' 'Oh, don't worry, they are here,' \" Savoie recounted the conversation to CNN affiliate WTVF earlier this month. \"I said, 'They are what, they are what, they are in Japan?' \" The very thing that Savoie had predicted in court papers had happened -- his wife had taken their children to Japan and showed no signs of returning, Bruno said. After Noriko Savoie took the children to Japan, Savoie filed for and received full custody of the children, Bruno said. And Franklin police issued an arrest warrant for his ex-wife, the television station reported. But there was a major hitch: Japan is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on international child abduction. The international agreement standardizes laws, but only among participating countries. So while Japanese civil law stresses that courts resolve custody issues based on the best interest of the children without regard to either parent's nationality, foreign parents have had little success in regaining custody. Japanese family law follows a tradition of sole custody divorces. When a couple splits, one parent typically makes a complete and lifelong break from the children. In court documents filed in May, Noriko Savoie denied that she was failing to abide by the terms of the couple's court-approved parenting plan or ignoring court-appointed parent coordinators. She added she was \"concerned about the stability of Father, his extreme antagonism towards Mother and the effect of this on the children.\" Noriko Savoie could not be reached by CNN for comment. Bruno said he helped Christopher Savoie pursue legal remedies to recover the children, working with police, the FBI and the State Department. \"We tried to do what we could to get the kids back,\" Bruno said. \"There was not a whole lot we can do.\" \"Our court system failed him,\" said Diane Marshall, a court-appointed parent coordinator who helped Savoie make decisions about the children. \"It's just a mess.\" But Moses, Noriko Savoie's attorney, told CNN that the children's father had other legal options. The International Association for Parent-Child Reunion, formed in Japan this year, claims to know of more than 100 cases of children abducted by non-custodial Japanese parents. And the U.S. State Department says it is not aware of a single case in which a child taken from the United States to Japan has been ordered returned by Japanese courts -- even when the left-behind parent has a U.S. custody decree. Facing such statistics and the possibility of never seeing his kids again, Savoie took matters into his own hands. He flew to Fukuoka. And as his ex-wife walked the two children to school Monday morning, Savoie drove alongside them. He grabbed the kids, forced them into his car, and drove off, said police in Fukuoka. Watch CNN panel discuss Savoie's legal options » . He headed for the U.S. consulate in that city to try to obtain passports for Isaac and Rebecca. But Japanese police, alerted by Savoie's ex-wife, were waiting. Consulate spokeswoman Tracy Taylor said she heard a scuffle outside the doors of the consulate. She ran up and saw a little girl and a man, whom police were trying to talk to. Eventually, police took Savoie away, charging him with the abduction of minors -- a charge that carries a jail sentence of up to five years. Bruno said if the situation were reversed and a Japanese parent had abducted a Japanese child and fled to America, U.S. courts would \"correct that problem, because it's a crime.\" He said he has \"concerns about Japan ... providing a place for people to abduct children and go to. The parent left behind does not have recourse.\" He added, \"the president and his administration should do something to correct this.\" The consulate met with Savoie on Monday and Tuesday, Taylor said. It has provided him with a list of local lawyers and said it will continue to assist. Meanwhile, the international diplomacy continues. During the first official talks between the United States and Japan's new government, the issue of parental abductions was raised. But it is anybody's guess what happens next to Savoie, who sits in a jail cell. CNN's Kyung Lah in Tokyo, Japan, and Aaron Cooper, Saeed Ahmed and Carolina Sanchez in Atlanta, Georgia, contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ex-wife's attorney says dad had other legal options besides grabbing kids .\nAmerican dad tries to snatch children from ex-wife who took them to Japan .\nShe is a fugitive in Tennessee, but has broken no law in Japan .\nFather, who has legal custody in U.S., charged in Japan with abduction ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- The Briton accused of hacking into U.S. government computers on Friday lost his court appeal to have his case heard in Britain, his legal team said. Briton Gary McKinnon is accused of carrying out the biggest ever U.S. military hacking operation. The decision means Gary McKinnon faces extradition to the United States, where he is wanted for allegedly hacking into computers at the Pentagon and NASA. His mother, Janis Sharp, promised to appeal. McKinnon, who has admitted breaking the law and intentionally gaining unauthorized access to computer systems, wanted to be tried in Britain rather than the United States. He planned to ask judges at the High Court in London to review a recent decision by the director of public prosecutions not to pursue legal action in Britain, a spokeswoman at the prosecutor's office told CNN July. The prosecutor's decision effectively cleared the way for McKinnon's extradition. The U.S. government says McKinnon carried out the biggest military computer hacking of all time, accessing 97 computers from his home in London for a year starting in March 2001 and costing the government about $1 million. McKinnon, currently free on bail in England, has said he was simply doing research to find out whether the U.S. government was covering up the existence of UFOs. Prosecutors in the United States and Britain disagree. \"These were not random experiments in computer hacking, but a deliberate effort to breach U.S. defense systems at a critical time which caused well-documented damage,\" Alison Saunders of the Crown Prosecution Service said in February. \"They may have been conducted from Mr. McKinnon's home computer -- and in that sense there is a UK link -- but the target and the damage were trans-Atlantic.\" U.S. federal prosecutors accuse McKinnon of breaking into military, NASA and civilian networks and accessing computers at the Pentagon; Fort Benning, Georgia; Fort Meade, Maryland; the Earle Naval Weapons Station in Colts Neck, New Jersey; and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, among others. In one case, McKinnon allegedly crashed computers belonging to the Military District of Washington. McKinnon is believed to have acted alone, with no known connection to any terrorist organization, said Paul McNulty, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. A U.S. federal grand jury indicted McKinnon on seven counts of computer fraud and related activity. If convicted, he would face a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count and a $250,000 fine. McKinnon's lawyer, Karen Todner, complained that the United States has never provided evidence to prosecutors or McKinnon's legal team to support their extradition request -- and in fact, under Britain's Extradition Act of 2003, U.S. prosecutors are not required to. McKinnon has previously said it was easy for him to access the secret files. \"I did occasionally leave messages in system administrators' machines saying, 'This is ridiculous,'\" McKinnon has said. \"(I left) some political diatribes as well, but also a pointer to say, you know, this is ridiculous.\" McKinnon was on the brink of extradition in August 2008, when the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, refused to reconsider the decision to send him to the United States, effectively clearing the way for his transfer. Shortly after that decision, however, McKinnon was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and he claims that diagnosis changed the case for extradition. It was on that basis that McKinnon made his appeals in Britain. Asperger syndrome is a form of autism that affects a person's social communication and interaction, according to Britain's National Autistic Society. Those affected often are of above-average intelligence and have fewer problems speaking than do those with autism. They sometimes have difficulty knowing when to start or end a conversation and can be very literal in what they say, with difficulty understanding jokes, metaphors and sarcasm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gary McKinnon admits intentionally gaining access to government systems .\nBriton accused of carrying out biggest ever U.S. military computer hacking .\nHe says he was researching whether U.S. was covering up existence of UFOs ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. schoolchildren still have work to do when it comes to mathematics, the secretary of education said Wednesday. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says U.S. schools need to be better equipped to teach math. Arne Duncan, releasing a report on the Department of Education's latest examination of how well American children are doing in mathematics, said no one should be satisfied with what it found. \"Today's results are evidence that we must better equip our schools to improve the knowledge and skills of America's students in mathematics,\" he said. \"More must be done to narrow the troubling achievement gap that has persisted in mathematics, and to ensure that America's students make greater gains toward becoming competitive with their peers in other countries.\" Fourth- and eighth-grade students from more than 7,000 public and private schools nationwide were tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress for the report, titled \"The Nation's Report Card: Mathematics 2009.\" Massachusetts students had the highest marks at both grade levels. Other high-performing states were Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire and New Jersey. The area with the lowest marks in both grades was the District of Columbia, though the report showed that the district -- along with Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont -- had improved its scores since the last tests were taken in 2007. The average scores were categorized at each grade level into four groups: below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced. According to the Department of Education, some of the skills required to achieve a basic level of understanding of mathematics at the fourth-grade level include performing simple computations with whole numbers; showing understanding of fractions and decimals; and solving simple real-world problems. To achieve a basic level of understanding at the eighth-grade level, students must be able work with whole numbers, decimals, fractions and percentages; be able to solve word problems and use diagrams, charts and graphs; and be able to solve simple algebra and geometry problems. Scores were slightly higher in the 2009 report than they were in 2007, but Duncan said more needs to be done. \"Our students need to graduate high school ready to succeed in college and the workplace,\" he said. The National Assessment of Educational Progress results \"are a call to action to reform the teaching and learning of mathematics and other related subjects in order to prepare our students to compete in the global economy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Department of Education takes look at how American kids are doing in mathematics .\nFourth- and eighth-grade students from more than 7,000 U.S. schools assessed .\nMassachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey ranked high .\nDistrict of Columbia had lowest marks in both grades, but its scores are up since '07 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "SARATOGA SPRINGS, New York (CNN) -- Two years ago, Dawn Warfield was drowning in debt. Dawn Warfield sold one of her two video stores to help reduce her debts. The average American household has $8,329 in credit card debt, according to the Nilson Report, a credit industry newsletter. Warfield had nearly 10 times that amount. At its worst point, her debt totalled nearly $80,000. She had 17 credit cards and admits that living beyond her means was part of the problem. \"I'll own up to that,\" she said. \"There is always unforeseen expenses, and when you are making the minimum payments on these credit cards, when you think you can't afford to make more than that, they don't go down.\" But Warfield's spending was not the only factor working against her. Watch Warfield describe how the debt piled up, and how she started paying it off » . She was in the middle of an expensive divorce and had been charging business expenses to her personal credit cards when she opened a second location of her video store. \"Every month I was writing out 17 checks,\" she said. \"And the interest rates ranged from like 6 percent to 33 percent. So it was impossible. \"I was transferring balances from one card to another, and every time I got a card to a decent interest rate, I felt like one of the cards would come off the promotional interest rate, and I was just never catching up.\" So Warfield took matters into her own hands. She sold the second location of her video store, stopped using her credit cards and decided it was time to get help. \"I sat down one day and I called each credit card one by one, and I asked each one to work with me ... to lower my interest rate.\" The credit card companies did not respond to her plea. Instead, she was directed to the debt management program of the nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Service, part of Money Management International. Counselor Eric Jackson helped Warfield analyze her bills and expenses and created a plan to help her get lower interest rates. Now she makes a single monthly payment. \"I don't even have to think about it, which makes it a lot easier for me, because when you have a lot of debt, it's not just financial, but it's emotional, you know, even physical,\" Warfield said. \"You think about it all the time.\" Adds Jackson: \"She's making her payments on time, they're posting to her creditor accounts, she has very low interest rates -- that was one of the benefits -- and she's definitely doing well. \"She is on track to get all her debts paid off in full within the five years.\" Today, Warfield is less than $40,000 in debt. \"I'm about halfway,\" she said. \"It hasn't been easy, but we're getting there.\" Are you fighting the recession, using innovative techniques to stay ahead in this economy or overcoming financial adversity? Share your story with us by sending an e-mail to [email protected] , and you could be profiled in an upcoming segment on CNN." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two years ago, Dawn Warfield had $80,000 in debt on 17 credit cards .\nThe video store owner was facing a divorce and expanding her business .\nShe also admits that living beyond her means was part of the problem .\nNonprofit counseling service is helping her get lower rates and pay off her debts ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- While investigators trudge through pig farms and remote villages in Mexico, searching for clues about the new swine flu, answers about the virus' origin may finally appear on a computer, based on genetic codes. A researcher investigates swine flu at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. At the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University, researchers are using public databases to trace the origins of the 2009 H1N1 virus. They've found that the closest relatives to the new virus are viruses that were isolated from pigs in the United States in the past few years. Their analysis, recently published in Eurosurveillance, suggests that the virus has at least two swine ancestors, one of them related to a virus isolated in North America in 1998. Still, the relatives are distant, and it's premature to conclude that the virus came from the United States based on this analysis, said Raul Rabadan, study co-author and assistant professor at Columbia. Influenza is like a small jigsaw puzzle with eight pieces, each with its own function, Rabadan said. The puzzle changes all the time, which is why exposure does not lead to total immunity and vaccines need to be updated yearly. When two viruses infect the same cell, they can create yet other viruses with pieces of each of the original strains. This process is called reassortment. The 2009 H1N1 virus is a reassortment of swine, human and avian genes. Rabadan and colleagues are finding the closest ancestors for each of the parts of the virus and then trying to understand how these parts may have combined in the past, a complicated question. It is impossible to know from the available data where geographically the 2009 H1N1 virus came from, but with more samples, researchers may be able to decipher more clues, he said. Just from looking at the genetic code, it is unknown what species is the virus' host, how easily it is transmitted and how deadly it is. \"We have a set of letters that you can try to map, and then you can try to see how this map is working, how would you know if a particular combination is giving you something? That's something that has to be solved.\" Although a 5-year-old boy in the small village of La Gloria, Mexico, is said to be \"patient zero,\" with the earliest confirmed case of 2009 H1N1, no one knows exactly how he contracted the virus. Read more about the boy . Some say that tracking the origin of the virus isn't as important as finding ecological weak points and bolstering surveillance. \"We may not be able to say precisely say, 'This pig farm spawned this virus' and all that, but I think it's very important to face the facts about what kinds of ecological settings are spawning danger,\" said Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. For influenza, the new ecological stress points mostly relate to industrial-scale livestock and, in the case of avian flu, backyard chicken farming, she said. In both of those cases, there are \"economic lives at stake\" in making decisions such as killing certain animals, she said. \"We have to figure out a way we can surveil those populations, surveil that ecology, without the industries at stake -- or, in the case of chickens, the small family farmer in Indonesia -- feeling that their livelihood is challenged just by the very fact that anybody's even trying to do surveillance,\" Garrett said. But the genetic lineage of the virus does offer useful clues, she said. Cooperation among the United States, Canada and Mexico in every step of the investigation has been profound, she said. By contrast, Indonesia has refused to share bird flu samples with the World Health Organization in the past. Some researchers say it's not surprising that a new virus such as 2009 H1N1 would seem to have its focal point in Mexico. A 2008 Nature study co-written by Peter Daszak, president of Wildlife Trust, an international organization of scientists, used computer modeling to find that hot spots for emerging infectious diseases include China, Southeast Asia, Mexico, parts of Brazil, Europe and the United States. The study showed that socioeconomic, environmental and ecological factors correlate with emerging infectious diseases and help identify \"hot spots\" for where they crop up. Now, researchers are looking at travel and trade patterns from Mexico to shed light on how the virus has spread. There's a large trade of pigs from the United States and Canada, as well as pig trades from other countries, each year into Mexico, he said. \"There's a lot of mixing, and a lot of potential for viruses,\" Daszak said. \"It's equally likely that it emerged in Mexico as it is in Canada and the U.S.\" The main driving factors for an emerging infectious disease are the demographics of people, livestock production and changing food production strategies, Daszak said. Although scientists know of several thousand viruses, more than a million viruses could be out there, assuming every vertebrate species on the planet has 20 viruses that no other vertebrate has, and there are 50,000 vertebrates, he said. The lesson from the swine flu outbreak is that \"we missed the boat,\" he said. While resources were thrown at avian flu in Southeast Asia, the newest virus has emerged at the United States' doorstep, he said. \"We should have been out there looking for these things happening,\" he said. \"We should have been working better with those pig farms or with in any industry in a hot zone.\" Anyone who is building pig farms or poultry farms in a hot zone of emerging infectious diseases should increase security, look out for new diseases in livestock or people, and investigate any novel diseases rigorously, he said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that each gene segment of 2009 H1N1 had its closest ancestor in swine influenza virus, and officials hypothesized that the reassortment of these genes occurred in pigs, said Nancy Cox, director of the CDC's Influenza Division. \"It doesn't necessarily mean that that's where it occurred, but that was our working hypothesis based on the genetic relationship of each of the gene segments,\" she said. Regardless of the outcome of 2009 H1N1, more infectious diseases will crop up over time, and there's no end in sight, Daszak said. \"When you're in a genetic arms race like this, we're always going to be fighting this battle,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of swine flu's relatives was isolated in North America in 1998 .\nExpert: Industrial-scale livestock production is an ecological stress point .\nResearcher: Better surveillance needed in hot zones of emerging diseases ." } ]

[ { "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) -- Investigators are looking into whether employees at the Los Angeles County coroner's office illegally leaked information about Michael Jackson's death probe to the news media, according to a sheriff's spokesman. Police stand outside the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office when Michael Jackson's body was there in June. Vivid descriptions of Jackson's corpse, which was in the coroner's custody for an autopsy, were published by tabloid newspapers in the days after his death. The Los Angeles County Supervisors office on Friday asked the sheriff to conduct a \"preliminary inquiry,\" which will determine whether there is enough evidence to launch a full investigation, said Steve Whitmore, a sheriff's spokesman. Whitmore did not provide details on what prompted the request. The Los Angeles Times quoted Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas as saying his office called the sheriff's department after reports that coroner's employees not involved in the Jackson death probe had viewed his death certificate in the office database. Ridley-Thomas has not responded to CNN requests for comment. The coroner's office is investigating the cause of Jackson's June 25 death. It has been waiting on toxicology lab results, but a final autopsy report is expected as soon as next week, a coroner's spokesman has said. Los Angeles police are also investigating the death. Detectives traveled to Houston, Texas, this week to search the medical office of Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal doctor. CNN's Sonya Hamasaki contributed to this report ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vivid descriptions of Jackson's corpse are published by tabloid newspapers .\nL.A. officials ask sheriff to conduct preliminary inquiry .\nA sheriff's spokesman did not say what prompted the request .\nThe coroner's office is investigating the cause of Jackson's June 25 death ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The two people who died and the 19 others who fell ill at a central Arizona resort after spending time in a sauna-like \"sweatbox\" were attending a program by self-help expert James Arthur Ray, authorities said Saturday. Two people died and were 19 injured after spending up to two hours inside this \"sweatbox\" at an Arizona resort. The dead were identified as James Shore of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Kirby Brown of Westtown, New York, Sheriff Lloyd Waugh told reporters. They were among the 50 or so visitors at the Angel Valley Resort near Sedona attending Ray's \"Spiritual Warrior\" program. Nineteen others were treated for injuries sustained in the sweatbox, a dome-like structure covered with tarps and blankets. Hot rocks and water are used to create steam in the enclosed environment. Waugh said investigators are looking into evidence that \"may turn this into a criminal prosecution.\" Investigators are looking into similar events held previously in other locations by Ray, who refused to speak with officers at the scene, Waugh said. A follow-up interview is expected to happen. Ray's publicist, Howard Bragman, did not immediately return calls from CNN on Saturday. Ray posted a noted late Friday on his Twitter page, saying: \"I'm shocked & saddened by the tragedy occurring in Sedona. My deep heartfelt condolences to family & friends of those who lost their lives.\" On Saturday he posted another message, saying he's \"spending the weekend in prayer and meditation for all involved in this difficult time; and I ask you to join me in doing the same.\" The self-help guru is widely known for his programs that claim to teach individuals to create wealth through all aspects of their lives -- financially, mentally, physically and spiritually. Ray, whose company is based in Carlsbad, California, has appeared on a variety of national programs, including CNN's \"Larry King Live.\" In that appearance, Ray was about to address 3,000 people in Phoenix, Arizona. Asked what he thinks about critics of his teachings, Ray told King: . \"Well, you know, it's interesting, Larry, because any time a new idea comes to the fore, it goes through three phases. It's first ridiculed. Then it's violently opposed. And then it's finally accepted as self-evident, normally after the opposition dies.\" Angel Valley Resort advertises itself as \"a place to relax and heal ... where powerful earth energies are present and active.\" It was founded in April 2002 by Michael and Amayra Hamilton, both of whom are teachers and counselors there. The resort is on 70 secluded valley acres 20 minutes from Sedona, surrounded by thousands of acres of national forest, according to the Web site. It has Internal Revenue Service nonprofit status as a religious organization, its Web site says. \"There are twenty marked vortexes and angel sites to experience connection with Earth and spirit, deep relaxation, and balancing,\" an online brochure says. \"Angel Valley offers two labyrinths and an Angel Wheel for going inward, finding answers and getting insights.\" No information about the sweat lodge could be found on the Web site Saturday morning, and numerous internal links were not functioning. The use of sweat lodges for spiritual and physical cleansing is a part of several Native American tribes' cultures. A traditional Native American sweat lodge is a small dome-like structure made up of willow branches carefully tied together and covered in canvas. Rocks are heated in a nearby fire pit and placed inside the lodge, and water is poured over them to create steam. \"We are curious to find out what happened there,\" Richard Moreno, a member of Pira Manso Pueblo tribe, told KPHO-TV. \"I've been participating in the sweat lodge since the age of 3 and I've never recalled being sick from being in the sweat lodge.\" Moreno told the station he has never been to a lodge that held more than 20 people." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Illnesses occur during event led by author James Arthur Ray, reports say .\nNEW: Evidence \"may turn this into a criminal prosecution,\" sheriff says .\nAbout 50 people had spent up to two hours inside the \"sweatbox,\" officials said .\nResort is nonprofit religious organization, Web site says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Honolulu, Hawaii (CNN) -- U.S. Navy hospital corpsman Francis Nicola received a unique Christmas gift Thursday: a phone call from his commander in chief. President Obama called Nicola, currently deployed in the Arabian Gulf, to extend a personal holiday greeting, according to a Navy spokesman. Nicola has served on the guided-missile frigate USS Rentz for one year. The Rentz is on an extended eight-month deployment, Public Affairs Officer Corey Barker noted in a statement. \"It was a great honor,\" Nicola said. \"The president passed his personal thanks to me and to the crew for our service over the holidays.\" Obama \"started the conversation off asking about my wife and my son Anthony,\" he added. \"He then went on to express his thoughts on being deployed away from them during the holiday period and hoped for my safe return to them in the coming months.\" The president's decision to call Nicola was the result of a submission by Nicola's commanding officer. \"Petty Officer Nicola's performance has been nothing short of flawless,\" said Cmdr. Jeff Miller, the Rentz's commanding officer. \"He quickly earned my trust [and] confidence.\" Nicola said he invited Obama \"for a day of burgers and basketball on the pier in San Diego,\" the Rentz's home port. Obama said he \"would try to take us up on that offer,\" Nicola noted. Nicola, who previously served on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, is the senior medical representative for over 220 crew members on the Rentz, Barker said. His duties include routine patient care and trauma response. Presidents have traditionally called members of the military during the holiday season. Obama told reporters Thursday that he was planning to call \"a few\" service members this year \"and wish them merry Christmas and to thank them for their extraordinary service.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Obama calls Navy corpsman Francis Nicola at sea to wish him merry Christmas .\nNicola is on board the USS Rentz in the Arabian Gulf .\nHis commanding officer submitted his name as candidate for presidential call .\nNicola says he invited Obama for burgers and basketball when the Rentz gets home ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Dan Kruse started to feel weak one day while hanging out with his friends in a park. The next day, the eighth-grader woke up completely jaundiced -- the whites of his eyes were yellow -- and he urinated blood. Dan Kruse, now 23, had food poisoning from E. coli bacteria as a teenager. Deeply concerned, his mother took him to the doctor, who told him to go to the hospital immediately. Doctors determined he had a severe form of food poisoning that made his kidneys shut down in a condition known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, caused by the bacteria E. coli. A priest gave him last rites, and doctors said he would most likely spend the rest of his life on kidney dialysis. \"I didn't go to the bathroom at all for seven to nine days because of my kidneys shutting down,\" said Kruse, now a Web developer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. \"I definitely almost died.\" But with the help of an experimental treatment involving medicine \"like a fine grain sand\" that he ate six times a day, Kruse began to improve, and made a full recovery without dialysis. Food poisoning from strains of E. coli is less common in the United States than salmonella, a bacteria that has caused more than 1,000 infections in a recent outbreak since April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tomatoes have been implicated in this outbreak, but many other foods, such as raw meat and poultry, can spread salmonella and other kinds of bacteria. Food borne illnesses result in more than 300,000 hospitalizations in the United States every year, according to the CDC. About 76 million cases of food borne disease occur annually in the United States, the CDC said. Salmonella and E. coli present themselves in such similar ways that doctors can't tell which is which without testing a stool sample. Learn more about the differences between salmonella and E. coli » . Both kinds of bacteria can lead to infections involving diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and sometimes a low-grade fever. In most cases, an infected person will recover within a week without medicine simply by staying hydrated, doctors said. People who experience voluminous, bloody and persistent diarrhea should seek medical attention, and may need antibiotics, said Dr. Jennifer Christie, gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at Emory University. When should you go to the hospital? When you're not able to tolerate fluids, vomiting so much that you can't keep anything down, or have profuse watery diarrhea, said Dr. Iris Reyes, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. A racing heart along with diarrhea and vomiting indicates dehydration, she said. People with compounding medical problems such as cardiac conditions or diabetes should also seek medical attention, doctors said. In some cases, especially among small children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems, the infection may become more severe and lead to long-term complications. Salmonella can lead to a condition called Reiter's syndrome that involves joint pain, eye irritation and painful urination. Chronic arthritis may result, regardless of whether a person takes antibiotics. A common strand of E. coli, often called E. coli 0157, can lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome, which makes bacterial toxins go into the bloodstream and destroy red blood cells. This can result in kidney failure as a result of damaged cells clogging tiny blood vessels, according to MayoClinic.com. That strain of E. coli is distinct from enterotoxigenic E. coli, which causes traveler's diarrhea. People traveling to developing countries of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia are at particular risk for traveler's diarrhea, but it usually resolves in a few days and is rarely life-threatening. Symptoms of food borne bacterial infections are also similar to those of some viruses, though bloody diarrhea is sometimes a telltale sign of bacteria. To prevent these infections, medical professionals emphasize the importance of washing your hands after handling raw meat, poultry, and uncooked eggs. You should also wash your hands after using the bathroom, touching pets or coming into contact with a person who has a bacterial infection. Read more tips about food safety » . While it is always a good idea to wash produce, a rinse doesn't always get rid of bacteria. In fact, you would have to scrub a vegetable for several minutes with antibacterial soap to kill the invisible offenders, Reyes said. \"In the operating room, surgeons scrub for at least several minutes to make sure there's no bacteria on their skin,\" she said. Food is the same way -- it would take a long time to actually make sure that no bacteria remains. The best solution is to just stay away from any foods, like tomatoes, that have been reported to be contaminated. You may be tempted to eat that piece of salami of indeterminate age sitting in your refrigerator. But if you do take a bite and it just doesn't taste right, Reyes has some advice for you: Stop eating. This may sound like a no-brainer, but Reyes said it's not unusual for people to contract food borne illnesses this way. \"Make sure your food looks good and tastes good before you eat it,\" she said. Cooking at high temperatures also kills bacteria, but people do not typically cook tomatoes and other produce, Reyes said. Avoid anything containing raw eggs, such as Hollandaise sauce, Caesar salad dressing, and undercooked French toast, Christie said. Food that has been sitting out for hours at picnics or buffets may also be contaminated, Reyes said. Hot food should typically be eaten hot, and meat should never cool below 140 F before reheating. Below 140 F, bacteria thrive and multiply, regardless of the time that the food has been sitting out. Similarly, cold foods like shrimp cocktail will go bad if allowed to warm. \"You want to avoid a situation when your bacteria find your food just as appealing as you do,\" she said. Kruse said he avoids alfalfa sprouts, which have been associated with E. coli outbreaks, but still eats meat. \"I love meat, I'm a meat eater. It was a fluke,\" he said. \"The doctors told me that the body will fight it off better\" since he had the infection as a teenager." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are about 76 million cases of food borne illnesses in the U.S. each year .\nSymptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and a low-grade fever .\nSalmonella and E. coli infections present similar symptoms initially .\nWashing hands after handling raw food is key to prevention ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The Wu-Tang Clan -- the New York hip-hop supergroup that spawned millions of album sales, nine solo acts and a few acting careers -- almost never was. If RZA, left, had been jailed or Method Man killed, Wu-Tang may have never formed, RZA says. Method Man, the group's most recognizable voice, was nearly killed before the band formed, Wu-Tang's chief producer, RZA, writes in his forthcoming memoir. Meth was walking to buy marijuana at 160 Park Hill Avenue in Staten Island -- the house in Wu-Tang's \"Protect Ya Neck\" video -- when RZA saw him across the street, he writes in the book. \"Come over here, yo!\" RZA beckoned, according to \"The Tao of Wu\" (Riverhead). \"He stopped and came running over. A few seconds later -- pow-pow-pow-pow-pow! -- a guy started shooting up the front of 160. A buddy of ours, Poppy, an innocent, school-going, nice guy -- he was shot and killed right there.\" Interactive: Where's the Wu been? » . It wasn't the only close call RZA said could have snuffed the band that rewrote the rule book for hip-hop acts. The year before the group formed in 1993, RZA was acquitted on an attempted murder charge that could have put him behind bars for eight years, he writes in \"The Tao of Wu,\" out Thursday. Expanding on the book's anecdotes in an interview with CNN, RZA explained that if he had been imprisoned or if Method Man, aka Clifford Smith, had been killed, the band never would have come to fruition. RZA, whose real name is Robert Diggs and whose stage name is pronounced \"Rizza,\" also talked about his role in the death of his cousin, Russell Jones, better known as Ol' Dirty Bastard or ODB. Two days before his 36th birthday in 2004, ODB died in a New York recording studio from an overdose of cocaine and painkillers. RZA writes in the book that he once witnessed ODB force his own son to watch him do drugs. RZA tried to leave, he writes, but ODB wouldn't let him. Now, RZA told CNN, he wishes he would've been tougher with ODB about his drug problem. Following are excerpts from the interview, which has been edited for language, flow and length: . CNN: Could your imprisonment or Method Man's death have derailed Wu-Tang's formation? RZA: Either one of those incidents could definitely have derailed it. Of course, myself being the abbot, the one who came with the idea, if I wouldn't have made it out of that tumultuous time -- it seemed like I wasn't going to make it out of it; there was a lot of odds against me -- but we stood strong, and self-defense made sense to the jury. We beat that ... It was the victory over that incident that made me change my whole direction. In a way, it's double-edged in that incident. One, if I would've lost that, yeah, Wu-Tang wouldn't have happened, but also it's the victory of it that inspired me and gave me the drive also to go and really get serious about Wu-Tang and the things I was dealing with. Same thing with Meth, he always brings it up ... that that day saved his life. He actually said, if it was anybody else calling him, he wouldn't have came. CNN: In the book, you cite lessons from Eastern religions, Christianity, Islam, [Nation of Islam offshoot] Five Percent, numerology, comic books, kung fu, chess. What would you say to someone who says it's difficult to reconcile these dogmas? RZA: Like it says in the Bible, \"In the beginning was the word, and the word became flesh\" -- if we go to the root of the word, we will find that, yeah, everything is similar. Everything is teaching us all the same path. It's just that one religion was good for these people because of their living conditions. In the Quran, they mention paradise being filled with wells, wells of water, and if you're in the desert and you've got a chance to get water and gardens -- as they describe paradise in the holy Quran -- if you're going to get gardens, that's the paradise that fits your situation. ... Everything they're saying relates to the people they're talking to. ... You remove the messenger and take the message. CNN: You say in the book that your penchant for violent lyrics in your younger years \"was a product of my history and environment\" and that it no longer represents you. But you also say you won't repudiate violence. Why not? RZA: One reason I haven't repudiated it is because when it's necessary, it's necessary. [The Bible's] Ecclesiastes tell us there's a time for everything -- a time for war, a time for peace -- so in times for war, there's time for violence. Then in [the Hindu scripture] Bhagavad Gita, it says Arjuna was talking, Arjuna didn't want to commit violent acts against an army that was attacking him. He couldn't find it in his heart to do it. It was people he loved. He didn't want to get into violence, but Krishna had to point out to him, \"Your duty is your duty.\" ... So, to me, violence in the light of justice is still violent, but I don't see it the same. It's because of justice that I don't repudiate violence because justice must be served somehow. CNN: ODB was a product of his environment as well. To what degree were you and other Wu-Tang members responsible for his death? RZA: The guys would say it's more me than them because they say that's my cousin and I was right there. If you let a man that you love or anybody -- man, woman or child that you love -- sit there and destroy themselves in front of you, you're neglecting them ... Everybody let him do what he wanted to do. ... There were times when I took his drugs and threw them down the toilet. When I do that, he would get so pissed off I don't see him for weeks after that. ... So it got to a point, I was like, \"[expletive] it, let him do his drugs\" just to have him around me, just to keep him there. ... But it's still neglect, yo. CNN: You say you ran Wu-Tang like a dictatorship in its first five years. I know you and Raekwon have had creative differences and Ghostface Killah is suing you over royalties. Ever regret the dictatorship approach? RZA: I don't regret it because it got us to the power we are. ... To me, in the beginning, the dictatorship led us to such a strong foundation that even though Wu-Tang seemed to be crumbling, it didn't fall because of the root foundation of one man's idea. But now as it's coming back together -- we're living in the twilight age of it right now -- it's still surviving because of the democracy of it. CNN: Wu-Tang is still around, but nothing like the heyday of the 1990s. Will we ever see a renaissance? RZA: Well, to me, Wu-Tang is beyond Wu-Tang Clan. ... It's just like hip-hop is beyond Grandmaster Flash, but Grandmaster Flash was one of the first guys to hit those turntables like that. ... The same thing with Wu-Tang. You'll see the difference in hip-hop from the moment we came in to before we came in. We changed it. We changed the whole structure. CNN: Have you accomplished everything you've set out to accomplish? RZA: I'm me and the me that's me is me and is going to continue to be me, and it's always reaching and growing. I'm grateful for what I've accomplished. I'm grateful for anyone who thinks I accomplished something and says, \"Well he did this; he did that.\" I'm proud to be accepted, but I feel like I've just scratched the surface for some weird reason. CNN's Kyle Almond contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wu-Tang producer: Attempted murder conviction also could have derailed band .\nRapper/producer/actor RZA talks of forming Wu-Tang Clan in upcoming memoir .\nRZA: Ol' Dirty Bastard made son watch him do drugs before 2004 fatal overdose .\nBook cites lessons from Christianity, Islam, numerology, kung fu, chess ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- More than two years after her death, Carol Anne Gotbaum's children are expected to receive a $250,000 settlement from an insurance company on behalf of the city of Phoenix, Arizona, and its police department. Carol Gotbaum, shown in an undated family photo, died accidentally, a medical examiner said. The 45-year-old Gotbaum accidentally strangled herself while in police custody after behaving erratically in a terminal at Phoenix's Sky Harbor airport when she missed her connecting flight, according to both family and police accounts. Gotbaum, the stepdaughter-in-law of New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, was traveling alone and unescorted on her way to an alcohol rehabilitation center in Tucson, Arizona. Gotbaum's family had originally sought $8 million but subsequently reduced that to $5.5 million. They accused the city and its police department of negligence in leaving Gotbaum chained and unattended in an airport police cell. Her three children, all still under age 10, will be the beneficiaries of the settlement once it is approved by a New York surrogate court, whose duties are to deal with issues concerning the deceased. According to the Phoenix Police Department, its insurance carrier had spent $500,000 so far on the case and anticipated spending another $750,000 in litigation. It was a financial decision by the insurance carrier to settle in order to minimize further costs, the department said. Witnesses reported that Gotbaum may have been drinking on her flight and had been drinking heavily in an airport bar just before the altercation with police. She had missed her connection and was bumped from another one after airline personnel would not allow her to use a boarding pass given to her by another passenger. She grew incensed, threw her phone and started running down the concourse yelling, \"I am not a terrorist,\" according to witness accounts. Police said they had no information regarding her physical or psychological state when they responded to a call from gate agents. In a security video she is seen struggling with officers as they drag her down a concourse. An internal police investigation and one by the city found that the police did not violate any laws. But Gotbaum's husband, Noah, filed suit claiming the officers were negligent in leaving her unattended in a disoriented state." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Carol Anne Gotbaum's children are expected to receive a $250,000 settlement .\nMoney comes from insurance company on behalf of police and city of Phoenix .\nGotbaum accidentally strangled herself while in police custody .\nWoman was taken into custody after acting erratically at airport ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(InStyle.com) -- Is anyone else besides Michelle Obama leaving the house these days? Because for the last week, you would have thought that Anne Hathaway, Gwyneth Paltrow and Halle Berry had gone into the Witness Protection Program. First lady Michelle Obama arrives with President Obama in London, England, for the G-20 Summit. During first lady Michelle Obama's whirlwind visit to Europe this past week, her refreshing take on American style has emerged. It is elegant, smart, appropriate and shows the first lady to be comfortable in her own skin. Coverage surrounding the first lady's wardrobe in Europe, from cardigans to kitten heels, has been relentless, riveting, fawning and, frankly, missing the objective of her strategically packed suitcase. No doubt about it, Michelle Obama scored big, looking terrific everywhere, delighting everyone -- probably no one more so than Mickey Drexler, CEO of J. Crew. But the post-game commentary sparked by each of her appearances has been hyperbolic when it hasn't been comical. See photos of the first lady's outfits » . You would have thought each of the first lady's \"face offs,\" as both American and British tabloids labeled her meetings with Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's first lady Sarah Brown, and France's Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, had been deliberately set up as counter-programming to C-SPAN's coverage of the budget negotiations in Congress. Watch Michelle Obama wow the world » . One wire service reporter asked me if Michelle, wearing a two-toned silk dress by Isabel Toledo, should have \"taken a bigger fashion risk\" when meeting the 83-year-old British monarch, who was all mumsy in blush pink. It was an afternoon tea, folks, not the Embassy Ball in \"My Fair Lady.\" Another wanted to know if I agreed that the first lady's now-sold-out J. Crew outfit, an embellished cream cardigan and mint-green jacquard skirt, was \"a little too down-market\" to meet the prime minister of England's wife, completely overlooking where the two women were headed after the photo op. Or would a bias-cut silk charmeuse dress have been a wiser choice for visiting a children's cancer ward? But the main event was going head-to-head with the former supermodel, pop-star first lady of France, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Except both women wound up wearing similar bow-tied coats -- Mrs. Obama's floral print number by the American designer Thakoon, and her counterpart's, a dove-gray look by the French house of Dior. Nevertheless, Tina Brown's TheDailyBeast.com went so far as to immediately declare the up-until-recently overtly scrutinized Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy \"over.\" The citizens of France might argue the point. More importantly, the press has been missing the over-arching point of our new first lady's wardrobe. Despite the declaration by many of the fashion community's talking heads that she is this generation's Jacqueline Kennedy, Michelle Obama's approach is quite different. True, Michelle's reception has been equally rapturous. But, Mrs. Kennedy's transatlantic mission nearly 50 years ago was to show the world that despite America's image of a country fueled by energy and youth, it was also one of elegance, poise and culture. In addition, whether speaking in English or French, Mrs. Kennedy purposely presented herself and her husband as children of privilege, embracing the aura of Camelot, which had cast them as American royalty. Conversely, what's most striking about each of Mrs. Obama's appearances is not the grandiose message, diverse labels or designers' origins. Rather, it is their unmistakable, uniform accessibility and appropriateness. Michelle Obama looks exactly like what she is: a modern American, working woman. Her outfits appear comfortable instead of buttoned up, her impression is pretty rather than formal, her silhouette based on sportswear -- the form of design that is at the heart of American fashion -- not politics. Add warmth, confidence, and openness and what the world is seeing -- besides someone who knows how to pack for a week -- is a woman they would want to know, to embrace as a neighbor or a friend. Though I'm still having trouble getting past those kitten heels (note to Michelle: You'd look so much better in a four-inch pump. Don't worry, your husband can handle it), what Michelle Obama has brilliantly accomplished in fairly record time is refashioning the image of Americans as relevant, approachable, relatable, and best of all, likable. When speaking to a group of school children in London, the first lady freely admitted, \"I like getting A's. I like being smart.\" She sure is. Get a FREE TRIAL issue of InStyle - CLICK HERE! Copyright © 2009 Time Inc. All rights reserved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During her visit to Europe, Michelle Obama shows her own American style .\nMrs. Obama shows her style to be elegant, smart, and appropriate .\nAn outfit from J. Crew that Obama wore has since sold out on the brand's Web site .\nMichelle Obama looks exactly like what she is: a modern American working woman ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- Nepal's government ordered the country's army chief of staff fired Sunday, touching off street protests and a split in Nepal's Maoist-dominated ruling coalition. General Rookmangud Katawal gestures after inspecting the guard of honour in New Delhi on December 12, 2007. But Gen. Rookmangud Katawal has refused to accept his dismissal, and Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav -- the constitutional commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces -- has told Katawal to remain in office, a presidential spokesman said. Nepal's Cabinet voted to dismiss Katawal after the military refused the government's order to stop recruiting about 3,000 new soldiers to fill vacant positions when it has yet to take in former Maoist rebels, as a 2006 peace deal required. The move prompted the Maoists' largest coalition partner to quit the government, the party's leader said. \"Without consensus, the ongoing peace process will not reach its logical conclusion and the drafting of the new constitution will not be possible,\" said Ishwor Pokharel, general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). \"The consensus that existed so far has come to standstill.\" Supporters of both sides in the dispute took to the streets for demonstrations Sunday. Despite sporadic clashes between the two factions, there were no serious injuries reported. The Maoists laid down their arms and won power in 2008 elections after an agreement that ended a decade-long insurgency. Under the deal, more than 19,000 former insurgents were to be integrated into the country's security forces. But two weeks ago, the government asked Katawal to explain why he went to the Supreme Court to challenge the government's refusal to extend the tenure of eight brigadier generals in March. Government spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara said Sunday that the government was not satisfied with Katawal's explanation and fired him -- three months before his scheduled retirement -- in a meeting that the Maoists' coalition partners boycotted. Pokharel said his party urged the Maoists not to fire Katawal without a consensus in the country's parliament. He said the Maoists, led by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, ignored that advice. \"We do not like the way the Maoists' way of functioning,\" Pokharel said. The Maoists hold 238 of the 601 seats in parliament, while Pokharel's party has 109. The Maoists could continue to hold power with the support of smaller parties, but Pokharel said his party is working to form a new ruling coalition. The Cabinet named an interim army chief, but presidential spokesman Rajendra Dahal told CNN that 18 parties in Nepal's parliament asked Yadav to keep Katawal on the job. There was no immediate reaction from the government on the president's decision." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepal's government orders army chief of staff fired after recruitment issue .\nMilitary refused to stop recruiting soldiers while it hasn't accepted ex-Maoist rebels .\nDismissal touches off street protests and a split in Maoist-dominated ruling coalition .\nGen. Rookmangud Katawal has refused to accept his dismissal ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Leaders representing 90 percent of the world's economic output were gathering Thursday in a U.S. city that has reinvented itself, hoping to bolster the global economy. Police boats pass under Greenpeace activists as they hang from a bridge near the G-20 summit. The Group of 20 will meet for two days to focus on the worldwide financial crisis, and plot how to avoid a repeat in the future. The White House is using the economic summit to showcase Pittsburgh -- a city that President Obama says has exhibited an innovative 21st-century recovery after a well-publicized downfall following the shuttering of much of the city's steel industry. Pittsburgh \"has transformed itself from the city of steel to a center for high-tech innovation -- including green technology, education and training, and research and development,\" the president said. Watch what summit means for Pittsburgh » . Most of the world leaders have come from New York, where they attended the start of the U.N. General Assembly. The G-20 gathering is Obama's first time hosting a major international summit. \"As the leaders of the world's largest economies, we have a responsibility to work together on behalf of sustained growth, while putting in place the rules of the road that can prevent this kind of crisis from happening again,\" the president said in a statement ahead of the gathering. The tightening of global financial regulations is expected to top the summit's agenda and comes as some major economies are beginning to recover. Germany, France and Japan have announced that they have emerged from recession, prompting hopes that the worst of the financial crisis may have passed. Watch city's preparations for protesters » . G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors agreed at a meeting this month not to start cutting back just yet on stimulus efforts. They fear it would put economies at risk for plunging back into recession. However, the economic outlook has improved enough that countries are being encouraged to start working on exit strategies, which will vary by nation. The ministers also have proposed a change in how bankers' bonuses are awarded. They said financial rewards should be based on long-term merit, instead of short-term risk-taking. Because of that, ministers oppose paying large bonuses upfront. A proposed bonus control mechanism would pay for results over a longer window for measuring profits. Bonuses would be forfeited if initial success doesn't hold up. The economic summit will be the third time in a year that the world's top industrial powers have gathered. They met in November in Washington and followed up with an April session in London. As the leaders headed to Pittsburgh, four people attached to a massive banner dangled from a Pittsburgh bridge Wednesday to protest the global economic meeting. iReport.com: Pittsburgh braces for protests . The banner hung from the West End Bridge over the Ohio River and read like a road sign: \"Danger: Climate Destruction Ahead. Reduce CO2 Emissions Now.\" Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, claimed responsibility for the stunt. On its Web site, the group said it wanted to send a message to G-20 leaders with the nearly 80-by-30-foot sign, calling for more attention to the issue of global climate change." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, plays host this week to G-20 summit .\nPresident Obama says city is example of how to weather recession .\nPittsburgh has reinvented itself from steel plant roots to new focus on green jobs ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- English contains more words than any other language on the planet and added its millionth word early Wednesday, according to the Global Language Monitor, a Web site that uses a math formula to estimate how often words are created. The Global Language Monitor says the millionth word was added to English on Wednesday. The site estimates the millionth English word, \"Web 2.0\" was added to the language Wednesday at 5:22 a.m. ET. The term refers to the second, more social generation of the Internet. The site says more than 14 words are added to English every day, at the current rate. The \"Million Word March,\" however, has made the man who runs this word-counting project somewhat of a pariah in the linguistic community. Some linguists say it's impossible to count the number of words in a language because languages are always changing, and because defining what counts as a word is a fruitless endeavor. Paul J.J. Payack, president and chief word analyst for the Global Language Monitor, says, however, that the million-word estimation isn't as important as the idea behind his project, which is to show that English has become a complex, global language. \"It's a people's language,\" he said. Other languages, like French, Payack said, put big walls around their vocabularies. English brings others in. \"English has the tradition of swallowing new words whole,\" he said. \"Other languages translate.\" The Internet, global commerce and global travel have accelerated the trend by putting English in contact with many other linguistic groups. This has made English more rich and more complex -- hence all of the new terms, he said. Still, Payack says he doesn't include all new words in his count. Words must make sense in at least 60 percent of the world to be official, he said. And they must make sense to different communities of people. A new technology term that's only understood in Silicon Valley wouldn't count as a mainstream word, he said. His computer models check billions of Web sites -- including the Global Top 5,000 media sites -- dictionaries, scholarly publications and news articles to see how frequently words are used, he said. A word must make 25,000 appearances to be deemed legitimate. Learn about how other languages stack up » . Payack said news events have also fueled the rapid expansion of English, which he said has more words than any other language. Mandarin Chinese comes in second with about 450,000 words, he said. English terms like \"Obamamania,\" \"defriend,\" \"wardrobe malfunction,\" \"zombie banks,\" \"shovel ready\" and \"recessionista\" all have grown out of recent news cycles about the presidential election, economic crash, online networking or a sports event, he said. Other languages might not have developed new terms to deal with such phenomena, he said. Language experts who spoke with CNN said they disapprove of Payack's count, but they agree that English generally has more words than most, if not all, languages. \"This is stuff that you just can't count,\" said Jesse Sheidlower, editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary. \"No one can count it, and to pretend that you can is totally disingenuous. It simply can't be done.\" The Oxford English Dictionary has about 600,000 entries, Sheidlower said. But that by no means includes all words, he said. For example, Sheidlower said \"great-great-great-great grandfather\" could be considered a word, but wouldn't be in the dictionary. There's a similar problem with numbers, which may be counted up by their pieces -- \"twenty\" and \"three\" -- but not always as a group, as in \"two-hundred twenty-three.\" Part of what makes determining the number of words in a language so difficult is that there are so many root words and their variants, said Sarah Thomason, president of the Linguistic Society of America and a linguistics professor at the University of Michigan. In the language of native Alaskans, she said, there are dozens of words for snow, but many of them are linked together and wouldn't be counted individually. Does that mean, she asked, that \"slush,\" \"powder\" and other snow words in English should be counted as one entry? Thomason called the million-word count a \"sexy idea\" that is \"all hype and no substance.\" Linguists and lexicographers run into further complications when trying to count words that are spelled one way but can have several meanings, said Allan Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray College in Illinois, and an officer at the American Dialect Society. \"The word bear, b-e-a-r -- is that two words or one, for example? You have a noun that's a wild creature and then you have b-e-a-r, [which means] to bear left or to bear right, and there's many other things,\" he said. \"So you really can't be exact about a millionth word.\" Payack said he doesn't consider his to be the definitive count, just an interesting estimation based on set criteria he has helped develop. \"It's always an estimation,\" he said. \"It's like the height of Mount Everest is an estimation. The height of Mount Everest has changed five times in my lifetime because as we get better tools, the estimates get better.\" He said the count is meant to be a celebration of English as a global language. And, while he says other languages are being stamped out by English's expansion, it's a powerful thing that so many people today are able to communicate with such a vast list of words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Web site estimates English got its millionth word at 5:22 a.m. Wednesday .\nEnglish accumulates new words from other languages and from its global reach .\nLinguists question group's formula, which estimates rate of new words .\nEnglish has more words than any other language, site says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "SPRING HILL, Tennessee (CNN) -- The town that Saturn put on the map is worried about its future and its residents hope the auto plant and jobs won't go the way of its most famous product. The move to shut down Saturn has left some in Spring Hill, Tennessee, disappointed and perplexed. General Motors announced this week that it would close its Saturn line after its sale to Penske Automotive Group fell through. At the end of \"Saturn Parkway\" in Spring Hill, Tennessee, sits the huge plant where -- as the ads touted -- \"a different kind of car company\" produced a \"different kind of car.\" The first Saturn, a red S-Series, rolled off the line in 1990 and it's still on display at the factory. The factory, along with the town, have played a major role in the company's image and advertisements, even hosting tours and \"reunions\" for Saturn car owners. At City Hall, the walls are decorated with old photos of the small town Spring Hill was before Saturn came to town and what it's grown into. \"I think people are very proud an American-made car was made here,\" area resident Barbara Williams said. Mayor Mike Dinwiddie credits most of the town's growth to the Saturn plant. \"GM, back in the mid 80's, is the reason this town began to grow in the first place,\" he said. Eventually, GM decided to move production elsewhere. The last Saturn made in Tennessee rolled off the line in 2007. After retooling, GM started building the Chevrolet Traverse in Spring Hill, but that production is now on its way out too. In November, it will be moved to a plant in Michigan, leaving Spring Hill's plant idle. The move to shut down Saturn has left some in town disappointed and perplexed. \"It's been a great car,\" remarked Keith Slep who runs an auto repair shop a few miles from the factory. Slep said he hoped Penske would have been able to keep the brand viable. \"He has a track record that won't quit of being a great business man and a good leader. I don't know what happened,\" Slep said. Williams said she was also stunned about the end of Saturn. \"I'm like everyone else, 'How can this happen?' GM has been a forerunner in the automobile industry, and it's just a really sad indictment on what is happening,\" she said. \"We are kind of curious as to why the decisions have been made that have been made,\" Dinwiddie said. \"I do know that what GM is trying to do now as a company -- as far as how they are trying to operate and what they are saying the improvements they need to make -- almost mirror what Saturn was 20 years ago.\" Resident Joyce Avello puts the blame squarely on the federal government. \"It's an abomination what the government is doing to the automotive industry ... Get it out of the government's hands. They don't know how to do cars. They can hardly do the government.\" As for the future of Spring Hill, Dinwiddie is optimistic. \"I have to believe the plant is going to come back. It all depends on the overall economy,\" he said. \"I hope that Americans start buying American products and start supporting the American auto manufacturing industry and if that happens, we'll get a product in this plant.\" Dinwiddie said he has been working with General Motors on a daily basis, and has invited President Obama and the auto recovery czar to come and tour the plant. \"I don't think they understand what this plant is capable of doing and once they see that, I think that they will be well aware of the situation, and I think they could probably give us some help,\" he said. At 94, G.W. Bowman has lived in Spring Hill most of his life and remembers stories of his grandfather collecting the mail in the area during the Civil War. With Saturn gone and the local plant preparing to idle, Bowman said, \"Of course, it's going to hurt, but it's not going to kill Spring Hill.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saturn's demise leaves Spring Hill, Tennessee, residents dismayed .\nTown was where the first Saturn rolled off assembly line in 1990 .\nGM announced plans to shut down Saturn brand after Penske fails to reach deal ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Elizabeth Taylor is having a \"procedure on her heart,\" she announced on her Twitter page Tuesday. Elizabeth Taylor has used Twitter to share personal information. \"It's very new and involves repairing my leaky valve using a clip device, without open heart surgery, so that my heart will function better,\" the famed actress wrote. \"Any prayers you happen to have lying around I would dearly appreciate. I'll let you know when it's all over. Love you, Elizabeth.\" The 77-year-old Oscar winner did not go into further detail about her heart condition or the medical procedure. She was briefly hospitalized this summer for \"scheduled testing,\" she said at the time. She checked out \"sore, but intact,\" the actress said in an online message posted July 17. Her publicist had denied tabloid rumors that her hospitalization was brought on by her grief over the sudden death of her close friend Michael Jackson in June. Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to publish what they are doing using 140 characters or less. Taylor posts regularly on her account, DameElizabeth, which has more than 155,000 followers. She opened the account this year at the suggestion of her close friend, author and actress Kathy Ireland, publicist Dick Guttman said. She posted emotional messages in July to counter rumors about how she was dealing with the news of Jackson's death. \"Although my grief over Michael could not be any deeper, I am not on suicide watch as some of the cheaper 'rags' would have you believe,\" Taylor wrote July 5. Taylor -- who uses a wheelchair because of scoliosis, or abnormal curving of the spine -- gave fans several days advance notice of her last hospitalization. The London-born movie star has won two Academy Awards for best actress: first for \"Butterfield 8\" in 1961 and then for \"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf\" in 1967." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth Taylor takes to Twitter to announce surgical procedure .\nActress did not go into detail about heart issue .\nShe has used Twitter to talk about coping with Jackson's death ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A man has been arrested in connection with the July shooting death of former boxing champion Vernon Forrest, Atlanta police said Tuesday night. Vernon Forrest, seen in September, was killed July 25 near an Atlanta gas station. Demario Ware, 20, turned himself in to police on Tuesday and is being held in the Fulton County jail on charges of murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault, Atlanta police said. Forrest, 38, was shot in a neighborhood southwest of downtown Atlanta on the night of July 25. Police and his longtime manager have said Forrest was robbed, leading to a confrontation in which he was shot several times. Forrest died of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso and thigh, the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office said. Information on what led police to suspect Ware in Forrest's death wasn't immediately available. The case still is under investigation, said Officer J. Polite Jr., Atlanta police spokesman. Forrest's longtime friend and manager, Charles Watson, said last month that Forrest was returning from the gym after a late workout when he and his godson stopped at a Southwest Atlanta gas station on the night Forrest was shot. While Forrest was at the gas station, a man snatched his wallet out of his hand after asking him for money, said Watson, who spoke to police and the godson. Atlanta police told CNN affiliate WSB-TV in July that Forrest chased the suspect and that gunfire was exchanged. Forrest was the International Boxing Council junior welterweight champion in 1995, the World Boxing Council continental welterweight champion in 1997, the North American Boxing Federation welterweight champion from 1998 to 2000, the International Boxing Federation welterweight champion in 2001, the WBC welterweight champion in 2002-2003, and the WBC light welterweight champion in 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, according to the BoxRec Web site. He was named the World Boxing Hall of Fame fighter of the year in 2002, according to BoxRec. CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Police: Man, 20, arrested Tuesday in connection with July killing of Vernon Forrest .\nForrest, 38, was robbed and then shot during confrontation, Atlanta police say .\nPolice: Suspect held on charges of murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault .\nForrest was former welterweight and light middleweight boxing champion ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Known for lederhosen, weisswurst and its beer festival, Munich is a city that counters these brassy cliches with a mix of art, history and style. From onion domes to beer halls, the city of Munich also has more than its fair share to entrance culture vultures. Don't be fooled by the chocolate box architecture in parts of the Altstadt (old town): Munich is the biggest city in the state of Bavaria with an ego to match -- no other state in Germany boasts its own \"national museum.\" Yet the city manages to mix regional traditions with a slice of urban savvy and sophistication. Visitors can take their pick from the cultural attractions and blend a little low and high culture together for a flying visit. The Altstadt is walkable and the place to begin a day with its mix of baroque and gothic architecture. The green onion domes of the Frauenkirche remain visible over the low-rise city center. Mostly destroyed during the Second World War, the Frauenkirche was rebuilt from its rubble and is worth a quick look inside for the peculiar windowless nave -- so designed after the architect made a pact with the devil, apparently. Nearby is Marienplatz and the fine gothic architecture of the new town hall with its ever-so-twee glockenspiel and animated chiming clock. From the Karlsplatz U-Bahn station to Marienplatz you'll find some \"any-town, anywhere\" shopping options, but push on towards Maximilianstrasse and you'll discover where the Munich money goes to splash the cash, although gaudy ostentation isn't a very Muenchner trait. For more down-to-earth shopping a few steps from Marienplatz is the Viktualienmarkt and Schrannenhalle, the former offering food and drink from across Europe and the re-built Schrannenhalle housing a buzzy mix of shops and places to grab a bite to eat. Alternatively the city is dotted with snack bars where you can grab a würst and hope for the best. From the boutiques and brands to the beer cellers. The city becomes a beer-lover magnet every autumn, when international boozers stagger into the city for the annual Oktoberfest beer festival. Things can get messy, but you can get a taste of the beer hall experience any time of year. There are a number of beer halls around the city, one on Marienplatz itself, although the most famous is the Hofbrauhaus a few minutes to the north. But if a darkened, boozy room with an oompah band and the sight of some ill-fitting lederhosen isn't your preferred choice for lunch, there are many cafes and restaurants around the Altstadt to cater for all tastes. Away from the traditional aspects of the city, Munich is a hub for high tech, high art and high rollers. BMW has its HQ here -- auto fans should motor over to its museum. The city also has more than its fair share of world-class cultural attractions. The Residence Museum, National Theater and Museum of Egyptian Art are just a few to be found between Marienplatz and the Hofgarten. Just to the north is one of Europe's largest city parks, the Englischer Garten, scene of the German tradition of the post-prandial walk. The park stretches about 5 km away from the city center. View photos of the Englischer Garten and more of Munich » . As you're walking through you can duck off to the west and you'll be close to Munich's cultural big hitters, the Pinakothek museums. The Pinakothek triumvirate have enough art and history to span hundreds of years, and take almost as long to see in their entirety. If you've only got a few hours it's a better idea to pick one. The latest edition is the Pinakothek der Moderne, which opened in 2002 and houses an impressive collection of 20th century and contemporary art in an almost equally impressive interior. If you've had your fill of art, take a short walk north and you'll hit the formerly bohemian residential area of Schwabing. Now more well-to-do, the area retains a bit of cultural mix, with the nearby university providing some youthful energy. Independent shops, cafes and bars are dotted around the streets, some catering for student budgets, others for those who paid off their student loans long ago. It's a fine area to stop for some afternoon coffee and cake -- The News Bar has a mix of the local demographic and Cafe Zeitgeist on Turkenstrasse is another choice spot. Further afield, there's the vast, but staid, Deutsches Museum on its own island in the middle of the River Iser, while to the west of the city is Olympic park. It's home to the Tollwood summer and winter festivals, but year round you can get a great view from the tower of the Olympic Stadium of the city and the former home to the city's two football clubs. The Allianz Arena, a huge swirl of a stadium that opened in 2005, is now the home of Bayern and lowly 1860 Munich. Football fans can visit the stadium with daily tours. From the masses to regal splendor, the Nymphenburg Palace was the summer residence of the Wittelbach dynasty that ruled Bavaria for over 700 years until 1919. The grand rooms should sate anyone's need for gold gilt and eighteenth-century grandeur. When evening comes, the city can accommodate those with a hunger for cosmopolitan dining as well as more traditional cuisine. For entertainment, theaters and the city's opera house provide more refined fare, while those in search of some more late-night, grungy fun can head to the complex of bars and clubs of the Kultfabrik -- a former industrial site now offering late-night kicks on an industrial scale. Better than Berlin? What do you think of Munich? Send in your travel tips for the Bavarian city using the Sound Off box below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The biggest city in Bavaria mixes local tradition and cultured sophistication .\nFrom beer halls to 17th-century palaces, visits can be tailored to suit all tastes .\nOktoberfest is an annual exception; city is home to a number of world-class galleries ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Health officials expect more than 3 million doses of H1N1 flu vaccine to be available in the first week of October. Three flu shot manufacturers were licensed by the FDA last week. \"3.4 million doses of vaccines will be available,\" said Dr. Jay Butler, who heads the 2009 H1N1 Vaccine Task Force at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. \"All of that vaccine is the inhalable vaccine,\" he said Friday. That form of vaccine is marketed in the United States as FluMist and is approved only for healthy individuals between the ages of 2 and 49. Pregnant women are not allowed to get this type of vaccine because it contains a live virus. Butler added that he thinks there some flu shots may be available in early October as well, but he had a hard number only for the inhalable vaccine. Flu shots contain an \"inactivated,\" or dead, virus. Take a quiz about the H1N1 flu » . The 3.4 million doses of vaccine that will be shipped at the beginning of October are the first of 195 million doses the U.S. government has purchased from five vaccine manufacturers, Butler said. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration licensed the vaccine from four of those companies. Sanofi Pasteur, Novartis and CSL Limited all manufacture flu shots, and MedImmune manufactures the inhalable vaccine. GlaxoSmithkline, which also is producing injectable flu vaccine, still needs to have its vaccine approved by the agency. Health officials report that the new H1N1 flu virus has not changed from what was seen earlier this year, so they are expecting the vaccine to be very effective. In some parts of the country, the vaccine can't some soon enough. The deputy director of the CDC's Influenza Division, Dr. Daniel Jernigan, said 21 states are now reporting widespread flu activity. \"It's a very strange thing for us to see that amount of influenza at this time of year\" rather than much later in the flu season. Jernigan said there's been only a small an increase in hospitalizations, mainly among young children and adults. But there has been a lot of activity in outpatient settings. Watch a report on the surprising spread of flu » . Until the vaccine becomes available, health officials have recommended steps that people can take to cut their chance of getting sick or, for those already sick, prevent the spread of the flu, including frequent handwashing, sneezing into a tissue or sleeve rather than into one's hand, and staying home when sick. Those who are at the highest risk of getting seriously ill -- pregnant women, children, young adults and people with chronic lung or heart disease or diabetes -- should be the first to get vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus. Health care workers and emergency medical personnel are also encouraged be vaccinated early. \"Our goal is to ultimately make the vaccine available to every American who wishes to be vaccinated,\" Butler said. \"The vaccine demand is hard to predict.\" Learn more about the H1N1 flu from the CDC . According to a CNN/Opinion Corp. poll conducted in late August, 66 percent of Americans plan to be vaccinated against H1N1 flu. Health care workers may not necessarily be among them. In the past, only about 40 percent of health care workers have been vaccinated against flu, according to the CDC." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inhalable vaccine available only between ages 2 and 49; not for pregnant women .\nSome flu shots will be available in early October as well .\nNew H1N1 has not changed much from earlier virus, officials say .\n21 states are now reporting widespread flu activity ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A Florida high school student was killed Tuesday by another student during an altercation at the school, officials said. One student was killed following an argument between first and second periods, police at the scene said. The incident occurred just after 9 a.m. at Coral Gables Senior High School in Coral Gables, the officials said. The school was placed on lockdown after the incident. Two students were arguing between the first and second period at the school, and one produced a weapon and killed the other, police at the scene told reporters. Miami-Dade Public Schools identified the victim Tuesday afternoon as Juan Carlos Rivera, 17. The students involved were both males, the district said. CNN affiliate WSVN reported the student was killed in the courtyard area of the school, where the 17-year-old was stabbed in the chest. A suspect was taken into custody just after the incident and was being interviewed, officials said. His name was not released. Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said students' parents were being contacted after the incident, and crisis psychologists were being made available to students, faculty and parents. Watch as bystanders gather at the Florida high school » . \"I think we need to understand that whether it's Liberty City, Opa-Locka or Coral Gables, children are responding to everyday stressful situations in very negative ways,\" Carvalho said. \"... Random acts of violence like the one we saw here today are almost not preventable.\" Coral Gables is about 8 miles southwest of Miami. CNN's Shawn Nottingham contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Victim identified in high school stabbing in Coral Gables, Florida .\nNEW: Juan Carlos Rivera, 17, was killed in altercation in school courtyard area .\nA male suspect is taken into custody, but police do not identify him .\nSuperintendent: Violent acts such as this \"are almost not preventable\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Garrison Keillor, author and host of the folksy radio show \"A Prairie Home Companion,\" was being treated Wednesday for a minor stroke he suffered over the weekend, a hospital spokesman said. Author Garrison Keillor attends an event in New York on November 18, 2008. Keillor, who turned 67 last month, was admitted to St. Mary's Hospital at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on Sunday night, spokesman Karl Oestreich said in a news release. \"He is up and moving around, speaking sensibly, working at a laptop, and it's expected he'll be released on Friday,\" Oestreich said. \"He plans to resume a normal schedule next week.\" The live variety show \"A Prairie Home Companion\" is aired on Minnesota Public Radio. Keillor launched the program on July 6, 1974, in a St. Paul, Minnesota, college theater before an audience of 12 people. According to a \"Backstage Chat\" on the show, Keillor got the idea for it from watching the Grand Ole Opry. Keillor, also a storyteller and satirist, has written 11 books, including three for children. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1994." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Garrison Keillor, 67, was admitted to a hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, on Sunday .\nSpokesman: \"He plans to resume a normal schedule next week\"\nKeillor is expected to be released from the hospital on Friday ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized Thursday after falling ill in her chambers, the court confirmed. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg became ill in her chambers on Thursday. Ginsburg, 76, felt faint, light-headed and fatigued about 4:50 p.m., around an hour after receiving a treatment for iron deficiency, the court said in a statement. She was monitored by an in-house physician, who performed blood tests and found her to be in stable health. Her symptoms improved, though she was taken to the Washington Hospital Center as a precaution at about 7:45 p.m., according to the court statement. Ginsburg had surgery in February for pancreatic cancer. She termed the removal of her cancer \"successful\" and was back on the bench 18 days later when the high court resumed oral arguments. Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Clinton, has been on the Supreme Court since 1993. She was the second woman appointed to the court." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ruth Bader Ginsburg feels faint, light-headed and fatigued about 4:50 p.m.\nThe 76-year-old Supreme Court Justice had treatment for iron deficiency hour earlier .\nShe's sent to Washington Hospital Center as a precaution at about 7:45 p.m." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The American man who swam to Aung San Suu Kyi's home in Myanmar said Thursday he still believes he did the right thing, even though his visit led to an extension of the pro-democracy leader's house arrest. John Yettaw told Aung San Suu Kyi he had a vision she would be murdered. John Yettaw, 53, swam across a lake to Suu Kyi's home in May and stayed for two days before authorities arrested him along with Suu Kyi and two of her staff. His presence violated the terms of Suu Kyi's house arrest -- which was about to expire -- leading a judge to extend it by another 18 months. But Yettaw said he made the trip to Yangon to save Suu Kyi from assassination, and that it was successful. What critics have described as a \"stunt\" brought enough attention to her plight, he said, to ensure that Suu Kyi could not be killed by the country's ruling military junta. Yettaw said on CNN's \"American Morning\" that he is \"grateful that she's alive, grateful that the entire world is watching and there's no way these generals are ever going to try to assassinate her.\" To many, however, his visit did more harm than good. Some thought he might be mentally ill to attempt what he did -- an idea he rejects, though he says he can understand why people believe it. But Yettaw said he had no idea that Suu Kyi would be arrested and put on trial for something that he would do. \"I wept every day and I've suffered every day\" because of the punishment she received, he told CNN. He called her sentence \"heartbreaking.\" The case of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been the symbol of the country's opposition for two decades, first came to Yettaw's attention when he was in Thailand and saw her photograph. \"I instantly had a premonition, or a vision, that I saw myself going through a lake and over a fence and was at a back door of a house,\" he told CNN. \"Then (I) Googled from there and realized she lived next to Inya Lake and I got a visa to get into Yangon. And I thought, since this has been presented to me, I'm going to make this happen.\" The retired bus driver and Vietnam veteran from Missouri told his wife only that he had a premonition he would become a political prisoner in Myanmar. She told her husband not to go, but he went anyway. In November 2008, Yettaw said, he managed to swim across the lake and leave scriptures from the Book of Mormon for Suu Kyi. But later he had a vision that Suu Kyi would be assassinated, so he decided to make another trip. That was the fateful trip on May 3. \"The second time that I came was the same route, in through the sewer tunnel and into the water,\" he said. \"But this time of year the water level was much lower and I had two bags filled with a lot of stuff, and so I had to military-crawl with these two bags and I got caught. Two soldiers spotted me. \"Fortunately, by the time they got close to me, I rolled over into the water with my bags which were tied together, and I literally was walking through the water and they were frightened. They, I don't think, saw me -- they saw this bag floating through the water and moving at a consistent rate, so they started throwing rocks at it. And inside I prayed, 'What do I do?' and the only response that I felt, inspiration, was 'keep walking.' And that's what I did.\" Yettaw managed to reach Suu Kyi's house and was able to explain that he had a vision she would be murdered. He said Suu Kyi didn't think he was crazy, and she was \"absolutely\" happy to see him. Yettaw was arrested and convicted of violating immigration laws, municipal laws, and the conditions of Suu Kyi's house arrest. He was sentenced to seven years of hard labor, though he was freed this month after U.S. Sen. Jim Webb traveled to Myanmar and intervened in his case. After his arrest, Yettaw said, he spent two and a half weeks under armed guard and was subject to interrogation at any hour of the day or night. Suu Kyi was initially sentenced to three years in prison after a military court found her guilty of violating her house arrest, but the head of the junta later commuted it to 18 months of home confinement. Suu Kyi's two housekeepers, who are her sole companions in her heavily guarded residence, also were sentenced to 18 months of house arrest to be served alongside Suu Kyi. The opposition leader told the court she didn't know Yettaw, was unaware of his plans to visit, and didn't report his intrusion because she didn't want him to get in trouble. Yettaw insists he saved Suu Kyi's life. He said the ordeal has made him value the rights people have in the United States. \"I'm so grateful we live in a country where we have freedom of speech, and over there (in Myanmar), where they speak the truth, they're killed and imprisoned,\" Yettaw told CNN. \"I want you to know that even on our worst day ... the United States is one of the greatest nations in the world.\" Suu Kyi was put under house arrest in 1989. The following year, her National League for Democracy party won more than 80 percent of the legislative seats in the first free elections in the country in nearly 30 years. The military junta disqualified Suu Kyi from serving because of her house arrest, annulled the election results and refused to step down. The government has said next year's scheduled elections will reintroduce democracy in Myanmar. But its rules forbids citizens who bore children with foreigners from running for office. That makes Suu Kyi ineligible because she married a British man and has two sons with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "John Yettaw: Made the trip to Yangon to save Suu Kyi from assassination .\nSaid he had no idea pro-democracy leader would be arrested and put on trial .\nYettaw had swam uninvited to Suu Kyi's house and stayed for three days .\nThe visit to her home violated her house arrest terms, Myanmar government says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(Entertainment Weekly) -- Punctuation promises comedy in \"The Informant!\" as if the title subject is a cartoon secret agent -- maybe Agent 86 in \"Get Smart.\" Matt Damon, as a corporate turncoat, offers up secrets in \"The Informant!\" But he's not. The whistle-blower worthy of an exclamation point in this groovy-looking, chuckle-baiting, fact-based movie from protean director Steven Soderbergh is Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a biochemist and well-placed executive at the agri-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in Decatur, Illinois. It's the early 1990s. The company man is helping expose ADM's alleged global price-fixing activities to the FBI, cooperating with the feds long enough to gather invaluable evidence. But what Whitacre doesn't confide to his FBI handlers, and what his wheat-colored jackets, Dilbert ties, and weakling mustache hide, at least at first, is that this inside source is not completely trustworthy. Damon, fattened up to fit his boxy suits, wears Whitacre's slack demeanor beautifully. The star -- who has quietly and steadily turned into a great Everyman actor -- is in nimble control as he reveals his character's deep crazies. Watch why Damon gained 30 pounds for the role » . Soderbergh's amused study of the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history is adapted from \"The Informant: A True Story,\" an amazing, deeply reported book by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald. That book told the story without editorial eye-rolling. But somewhere between Eichenwald's journalistic attention to detail and the bubbly, dialogue-besotted script by \"The Bourne Ultimatum's\" Scott Z. Burns, Soderbergh has chosen to apply an attitude of arch whoopee, a greasy veneer of mirth over what is, no joke, a serious mess of malfeasance and mental instability. It's tempting to laugh, but what's the joke: Whitacre? ADM? The FBI? The fashion trends of Decatur? Smarty condescension lurks behind the suburban bushes. Had a '90s date and place card not been supplied, I would have remained in an honest muddle about the era depicted on screen. And since Whitacre is subliminally likened to bumbling, fictional Maxwell Smart, that's probably as the filmmaker intended. The artistic choice is reinforced by a '70s-era \"Laugh-In\" aesthetic seen in everything from the smiley yellow novelty typography of the opening credits to the fancy rubber-chicken music served up in heaps of horns and whistles by essence-of-'70s composer Marvin Hamlisch. Sock it to me. Playing it straight and letting his Sam-Donaldson-meets-Spock hairdo suggest otherwise, Scott Bakula makes an appealing FBI agent with a deadpan grimace just this side -- or maybe it's the other side -- of \"Dragnet's\" Joe Friday. Comedian Joel McHale from E!'s \"The Soup\" plays the fellow agent who stares with big round eyes while his partner squints at Whitacre's successive leakages of truth/lie/ truth/lie. The always wonderful, huggable Melanie Lynskey, who stole the show in \"Away We Go,\" does more great wifely work as Ginger Whitacre, her husband's biggest booster. A valued subset of Soderbergh's audience is sure to dig iconic hipster comic brothers Tom and Dick Smothers in small roles. In fact, the wily pair would fit right in with an \"Ocean's Whatever\" cast of coolios, enjoying some retro-style ensemble fun, regardless of whether the audience does. Soderbergh is as smart, stylish, and attentive a filmmaker as they come. And there are moments in \"The Informant!\" when I can almost be convinced that the tonal feints he establishes at the intersection of joke and no-joke are seriously, thoughtfully meant to replicate the misaligned synapses in Whitacre's own head. iReport.com: Damon's latest worth checking out . But if that's the intention, Soderbergh ultimately made the choice to abandon interesting, dispassionate empathy for the more quick-fix payoff of amusement. As Whitacre goes through his days, Damon recites interior monologues of distracted observation in voice-overs meant to demonstrate how his character's unusual brain works. In \"The Informant!\", that brain -- screwy and yet capable of doing important undercover work -- free-associates like Ellen DeGeneres on a swing through Walmart. Cute, but as even Agent 86 would say in \"Get Smart\": Missed it by that much. EW Grade: B . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . Copyright 2009 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Informant!\" stars Matt Damon as corporate worker giving info to FBI .\nDamon's character is an untrustworthy provider, and actor's performance great .\nBut movie plays situations too much for laughs, says EW .\n\"The Informant!\" is directed by Steven Soderbergh ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Muslims around the world woke up Sunday and welcomed the end of a long month of fasting with hearty greetings of \"Eid Mubarak,\" or happy festivities. Egyptian women perform the Eid al-Fitr dawn prayer at a stadium in Mansura, 120 km north of Cairo. The faithful were ushering in Eid al-Fitr -- three days of celebrations that Muslims mark with joyous community prayers, acts of charity, visits from far-flung relatives, gift-giving and elaborate feasts. \"Think Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's -- all rolled into one. It's that huge for us,\" said Sajjad Aziz of Hoboken, New Jersey. Islam follows a lunar calendar, and the timing of Eid al-Fitr varies around the world depending on when the crescent of a new moon is sighted. So, while most countries -- including the United States -- observed Eid on Sunday, some will begin their celebrations on Monday. The night before Eid, entire communities gather on rooftops, scanning the sky with giddy anticipation. \"It only needs one sighting of the moon in the whole country, and the whole nation erupts in cheers,\" said Qazi Arif, 35, of Sirajgong, Bangladesh. \"It's a divine feeling, hard to describe.\" Eid al-Fitr bids goodbye to Ramadan -- a month of dawn-to-dusk abstinence from food, drinks and other sensual pleasures. Muslims believe the Quran, the religion's holy book, was revealed to Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan more than 1,400 years ago. The Eid is one of two major holidays in Islam, alongside another called Eid al-Adha. The latter commemorates the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, for God. On the morning of Eid, Muslims don new clothes and head to prayers that are often held in open fields to accommodate crowds too big to contain in mosques. Those who can afford it donate a small percentage of their possession or its equivalent to the poor and needy so they too can avail themselves for the celebrations. Feasts await at every house. \"It's a festival principally about community. We're even asked to take a different route when we walk back from prayers so that we can meet different sets of people to greet and celebrate with,\" said Wasim Iqbal of Karachi, Pakistan. For Muslims in North America -- and countries where they are the minority -- Eid is a more subdued affair. \"If you have family close by, then you can kind of capture the mood that you remember from back home,\" said Abdallah Gamal, a native of Egypt who lives in St. Louis, Missouri. \"But it's not the same.\" Because the U.S. Census does not ask about religious affiliation, it is difficult to gauge the Muslim population in the United States. The Pew Muslim American study conducted two years ago estimated it at 2.5 million, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations places it as high as 6 million. On Saturday, both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered greetings to American Muslims. \"We know there is more than unites peoples of faith than divides us,\" Clinton said. \"So as Ramadan draws to a close, let us hold on to that spirit of community throughout the year to achieve our common goals of peace, prosperity and stability.\" It is a message that Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, also shared during Eid prayers when he called on the Taliban to join the peace process in his war-weary country. The day wasn't one of universal comity, however. In Yemen, the government and rebels accused each other Saturday of breaking a cease-fire they both asked for to commemorate Eid. And Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei used his Eid sermon to launch another volley at the country's arch-rival Israel and at Western powers. \"We're not quite there, I'll will admit,\" said Mehreen Ali of Boston, Massachusetts. \"But have you seen an Eid prayer? Rows and rows of Muslims all prostrating together in unison. It's a feeling of such unity and brotherhood. You have to believe that with that spirit present, anything is possible.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eid al-Fitr marks end of Ramadan -- dawn-to-dusk abstinence from food, drinks .\nTiming of Eid varies around world depending on when crescent of new moon sighted .\nOn the morning of Eid, Muslims don new clothes and head to prayers .\nOn Saturday Barack Obama offered greetings to American Muslims ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Actor Michael Jai White thinks the negative connotation surrounding the term \"blaxploitation film\" is a bunch of jive. Michael Jai White stars in the new spoof \"Black Dynamite.\" \"The problem I have with the word is that it seems to encompass movies that don't fall under that category,\" White said. \"As soon as you hear the title 'Shaft' people think 'blaxploitation' and that is absolutely unfair because that film was made before the term even existed.\" White, the star and co-writer of the new movie \"Black Dynamite,\" would rather people focus on what he views as the positives of the genre of 1970s urban action films starring African-American actors. His new movie, which opened in limited release last weekend and will start going wider, follows the exploits of Black Dynamite, a former CIA agent who takes to the streets after his brother is killed by the mafia, orphanages are flooded with drugs and some bad malt liquor finds its way into the 'hood. It is both a spoof of, and homage to, the genre whose films like \"Black Caesar,\" \"The Mac,\" \"Foxy Brown,\" and \"Superfly\" have developed a cult following over the years. \"Black Dynamite\" caught the eye of Sony Pictures at the Sundance Film Festival and the studio acquired the rights to distribute the film. A viral marketing campaign helped whip up anticipation for the movie, which also features former late-night talk show host Arsenio Hall and \"In Living Color\" cast member Tommy Davidson as pimps. Director Scott Sanders said he has always been fascinated by the fact that while blaxploitation really only grabbed hold of the industry for about five years during the early 1970s, it was so influential. \"It was such an extreme genre with the look and the music and there were really no boundaries or rules,\" he said. \"It's always been a fascination for me given how much it influenced hip-hop, black culture and culture as a whole, given the brevity.\" White, best known for his roles in the films \"Spawn\" and Tyler Perry's \"Why Did I Get Married,\" said he is a huge fan of blaxploitation films and views his movie as a loving send-up. While he is aware that some of the films were unintentionally funny with their low-budget gaffes -- such as the appearance of mic booms in some scenes -- and their stereotypes, White said the genre is a valued part of the movie industry's history. \"These movies really saved Hollywood because the studio system was in trouble and they learned that they had a cash cow with these films,\" he said. \"Later they exploited it by making any movie and throwing the term 'black' in front of it and that's what made it exploitive.\" They also gave African-American actors a chance to work and reflected a people's pride following the gains of the civil rights era. Laurence Washington, managing editor and co-publisher of Blackflix.com, said the movies helped young, black fans like him realize that \"when we grow up we don't have to be train porters, busboys and waiters.\" The films instead portrayed handsome, brave and suave black heroes who always got the girl, Washington said. \"When the blaxploitation films came out in the '70s, black audiences had never had action film heroes they could identify with,\" he said. \"[The movies] also opened the door for today's black actors and directors to enter the mainstream.\" Darius James, author of \"That's Blaxploitation!: Roots of the Baadasssss 'Tude (Rated X by an All-Whyte Jury),\" said blaxploitation films were like any other film that appeal to a specific audience, such as the indie movies of Roger Corman and Russ Meyer. James said he grew up seeing civil rights workers beaten and hosed on television and the movies came out time when there was a sense of defiance and resistance against the marginalization of African-Americans. \"These films, black exploitation films, reflected that spirit,\" James said. White said he wishes there were more action films starring black actors these days. The films of the past were fearless and about true emotion, he said. \"The 'black is beautiful' movement had taken off and there was so much pride,\" White said. \"When they called each other 'brother' they meant it.\" \"The heroes were strong, sexy and they kicked ass.\" \"I ask 'Where is that now?' I would like people to look at our film and say: 'Where are the black actors like that now?' \" Jay Potts, the cartoonist behind World of Hurt -- which bills itself as \"The Internet's #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic\" -- said he hopes \"Black Dynamite\" furthers interest in the genre. And while \"blaxploitation\" is a convenient moniker to lump in films that may not have always had the best production value, Potts said they were a testament to an era. \"The films came out at a time when black people were learning about themselves and flexing their creative muscles,\" Potts said. \"To me, there was a lot of fun, had a lot of energy and while it always wasn't perfect by any means there was so much life in it that I hope people take another look.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Black Dynamite\" spoofs the blaxploitation genre .\nFilm stars Michael Jai White, who says he is a fan of the movies .\nDirector Scott Sanders says genre greatly influenced the culture .\nAuthor says films reflected a post civil rights era spirit ." } ]

[ { "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) -- Investigators have found the knife believed to have been used in the stabbing of a University of California, Los Angeles student in a chemistry lab, authorities said Friday. A student stabbing victim is recovering at UCLA Medical Center, authorities say. The 20-year-old, whose identity has not been released, is being treated at the UCLA hospital for multiple stab wounds, including ones to her neck, sustained in the Thursday attack. Police have arrested Damon Thompson, a 20-year-old UCLA senior, who is accused of stabbing the woman at the lab in Young Hall. He is being held on $1 million bail. The knife was found at the scene of the attack on Thursday, Detective Mike Pelletier told CNN, though he did not disclose details about the weapon. A statement Friday from the victim's family said, \"She is showing signs of improvement, and her surgeons expect a good result as she continues to heal.\" Last month, Connecticut authorities found the body of a 24-year-old pharmacology graduate student inside a wall of a lab building at Yale University. She had been strangled. Raymond Clark III, 24, a lab technician at Yale, is charged with murder in Annie Le's death. CNN's Monica Trevino and Sonya Hamasaki contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Police have not released name of woman student stabbed in chemistry lab .\nAnother UCLA student has been arrested in the case, is held on $1 million bond .\nVictim's family says she is recovering, \"showing signs of improvement\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Henry Olszewski was stoked in 2008 when he, along with millions of Americans, drafted New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to his fantasy football team. Tom Brady's season-ending knee injury last year sparked an idea at Intermarket Insurance. About eight minutes into the season, a 220-pound safety was blocked into Brady's knee, tearing two of the quarterback's ligaments. Brady's season ended, as did Olszewski's. \"That Monday, [Olszewski] came in the office, and he was bummed out,\" said Anthony Giaccone, president of Intermarket Insurance. \"He asked, 'Why can't we buy insurance for fantasy team players?' \" Thus spawned the brainchild for Fantasy Sports Insurance, which guarantees that NFL players won't miss a certain number of games. FSI will reimburse a fantasy player's entry fee if they do. It's one of a blitz of bizarre businesses cropping up in the $800 million industry of turning quarterback stats to greenbacks, said Paul Charchian, president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. See fantasy football's top 10 prospects » . Charchian is familiar with the wellspring of offbeat companies fueled by the fantasy football craze; he owns LeagueSafe, which stores league entry fees in a bank until it issues a payout to the winner at season's end. Other specialty businesses, he said, range from the obvious, such as trophy companies, to the esoteric, such as fantasy dispute resolution. You read the last one correctly. Web sites like fantasydispute.com and sportsjudge.com offer to mitigate fretful fantasy feuds. Think there was collusion in a trade or your league commissioner is playing favorites? Write up your dispute and send it to one of the sites. For $15, a lawyer will settle your quibble. For the uninitiated: Fantasy football players generally \"draft\" NFL quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends and team defenses and use their statistics each week to score points in head-to-head matchups. Countless variations have proliferated, as have magazines and Web sites beholden only to fantasy players. Sort the top picks by position at SI.com . The NFL has introduced the RedZone Channel, which flips between games where a team is on the verge of scoring, CBSsports.com has launched a live Web show called \"Fantasy Football Today,\" and cable's FX is scheduled to air a sitcom based on a fantasy football league this year. The stakes have skyrocketed as well. The World Championship of Football offers a $300,000 top prize. The Fantasy Football Open Championship's is $1 million. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that a group of well-heeled financiers has a 10-team league with a $100,000 entry fee. A June study by the research company Ipsos says three in 20 American men (and one in 20 women) play some fantasy sport. \"It takes the fans of one sports team and makes them interested in every game that's happening,\" said Jason Kint, senior vice president and general manager for CBSsports.com. \"It's a welcome escape, as much of sports is right now.\" Not all fans are enamored, however. ESPN's Colin Cowherd explained his aversion on his radio show last month, saying fantasy football was too time-consuming and, in his experience, for \"total nerds and geeks.\" \"I'm a gambler, lived in Vegas. My friends are gamblers. We don't play fantasy football,\" he said. \"We're busy. We have jobs. We have careers. We have lives. We don't have time for three-hour draft parties and an hour or two on the computer every week to update our fullback situation.\" But more than 22 million Americans and Canadians do, Charchian said, and the economic downturn doesn't seem to be sacking the industry. \"It's hard to get out. It's enmeshed in your social circle,\" he explained. Also, with most leagues costing less than $10 a week and with the average player spending nine hours weekly researching and tweaking his or her roster, \"the dollar-per-entertainment value is really advantageous,\" Charchian said. Fantasy players at CBSsports.com spent an average of 102 minutes per visit on the site, according to Nielsen data from last year. The site has more users willing to pay to play, whereas competitors like NFL.com and Yahoo! host predominantly free games, \"so it's more meaningful to them,\" Kint said. Kint could not divulge specific figures but said \"millions\" play CBSsports.com's free and pay games. Entry fees and related fantasy products make up about 30 percent of the site's non-advertising revenue, he said. Advertisers are getting wise to the \"coveted market,\" comprised largely of young, educated males, Kint said, as evidenced by the site's partnerships with Ford, Snickers, Buffalo Wild Wings and Dave & Buster's. \"When people are down and depressed, they look for escapes. Fantasy football fills that void like booze and anything else that kind of distracts you,\" said Ed Reichow, owner of Titlecraft, which builds custom trophies only for fantasy footballers. Reichow had the idea after a decade of making trophies for his personal fantasy league. He sold 70 trophies in his first year and is on track to sell more than 100 this year. They are handcrafted from materials such as cherry, Carpathian elm and Swarovski crystal and range in price from $129 to $799, he said. \"It's something you can really pass down if you want to,\" he said. \"And the wife isn't going to get upset if you put it on the mantle, because it's nicer than some of the furniture in the room.\" But what would the wife think about buying insurance policies on your fantasy football players? Some spouses must be OK with it because, FSI's Giaccone reported, business has been threefold what he expected -- this, despite that it costs considerably more, percentagewise, to insure a fantasy quarterback than it does a real quarterback. Chris Nash, an underwriter with Australia-based Sportscover, which insures athletes, said the average U.S. football player pays up to 4 percent of the sum insured. FSI's products range between 10 percent and 15 percent of the league entry fee. Despite the contrast, Giaccone described fantasy insurance as a must-have for fantasy die-hards. He went so far as to question the sanity of some fantasy players who might ignore his product. \"If you are playing fantasy sports and you have Tom Brady on your team, you'd be crazy not to insure him,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Magazines, Web sites, TV shows spin off $800 million fantasy football industry .\nTwo sites offer real lawyers to settle fantasy-sports disputes for $15 each .\nExperts: Game provides cheap entertainment, \"welcome escape\" from hard times .\nPrizes include $1 million, trophies made of Carpathian elm, Swarovski crystal ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Five members of a family were found slain in their Beason, Illinois, home, authorities said Tuesday, and they urged people in the area to be cautious until the killer is found. Police officers stand patrol outside the Gee household late Monday evening. \"This was a brutal homicide against an entire family and we are determined to identify and arrest those responsible,\" Logan County Sheriff Steve Nichols said in a news conference. He said authorities received a 911 call about a possible shooting at the home shortly before 4:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. ET) Monday. When law enforcement officials arrived, they discovered the five bodies, Nichols said. He identified the dead as Raymond Gee, 46; Ruth Gee, 39; Justina Constant, 16; Dillon Constant, 14; and Austin Gee, 11. One survivor, a 3-year-old girl, is in a hospital in Peoria, Illinois, he said. He did not identify the girl. The sheriff did not release the manner of death, but said autopsies were under way Tuesday. He warned people in the area to be cautious. \"Until we find this person, we would consider this person armed and dangerous,\" Nichols said. He did not release any further details, and it was not immediately clear if authorities had identified a suspect. \"Leads have been developed and are being vigorously pursued,\" he said, without elaborating. Beason is about 45 miles northeast of Springfield, Illinois. CNN's Kara Devlin contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This was a brutal homicide against an entire family,\" sheriff says .\nOne survivor, a 3-year-old girl, hospitalized in Peoria, Illinois .\nKillings occurred in Beason, Illinois, about 45 miles northeast of Springfield .\nThe latest on the investigation on tonight's Nancy Grace, HLN 8pm and 10pm ET ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar of Springdale, Arkansas, are the parents of 18 children, and their family is the focus of a TLC network reality series. Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar say they are grateful for their 18 children, and may have more. Joy Behar, guest host Thursday night on \"Larry King Live,\" asked the Duggars how they are able to stay debt free with such a large family and what they thought of Nadya Suleman, the single mother who recently gave birth to octuplets after having fertility treatments. Following is a transcript of their conversation. Joy Behar: Let me ask you something. What is your reaction to this octomom? Nadya Suleman, the story. What do you think about that? Michelle Duggar: Well, I just know from my own heart, I can't judge and look at her and judge her situation. I just know from my heart, and personally God changed our heart about children years ago. And so we've kind of gone about it the old-fashioned way. And so we are enjoying each one of the blessings that God has given us, and we're thankful for each one of them. Behar: Right, at least you guys enjoyed having the babies, you went through the sex then the giving birth. This woman didn't have any of that, except the giving birth, which must have been rough, don't you think? Michelle Duggar: Oh, my, I can't imagine. I had twins, but I have -- I just can't imagine having eight at once and the responsibility that that brings. Behar: Why do you suppose this woman has provoked such negativity? They have a \"USA Today\" Gallup poll saying 70 percent of those surveyed are unsympathetic to this woman. What is going on? Michelle Duggar: Well, you know, I feel like probably more than anything it's just the fact of the responsibility issues from their perspective, and I, you know, I imagine that's probably more of the animosity that's out there. And so -- but I do -- I just can't imagine, you know, her -- how she's going to handle that many little ones under the age of 8. That's a lot of little ones all at once. Jim Bob Duggar: We just need to pray for her. Behar: But you guys haven't experienced that kind of hostility for the children you have. Is that because you're married? Michelle Duggar: I don't know. I think maybe, you know, being that God's given ours one or two at a time and we've kind of done it the old-fashioned way, I don't know. We love them, we're enjoying them, and by God's grace we're taking care of them if he gives us one more. So I just think we're grateful. Behar: I understand that you guys are debt free. I can't even imagine how you pulled that off. ... How did you do that? Jim Bob Duggar: Well, back about 18 years ago, we saw Jim Sammons' financial seminar on DVD, and it was life-changing. At that point, we purposed to try to get out of debt and try to stay out of debt. And our family motto is to buy used and save the difference. We shop a lot at garage sales, thrift stores. Michelle Duggar: Auctions. We bought our industrial kitchen equipment that way, our vehicles that way, and so we really cut corners and we live very frugally. Jim Bob Duggar: That's right, we've never bought a new vehicle. So we do live -- we try to -- we know how to stretch a dollar. Behar: How many cars do you have? Jim Bob Duggar: We actually have probably about, what? Seven or eight right now? Michelle Duggar: We have a lot of drivers, which is great. Behar: Seven or eight cars, well, that's an expensive proposition, isn't it? Do you get public assistance of any kind? Jim Bob Duggar: No, we don't -- we've never had any public assistance. Just like our 21-passenger bus, we bought at a sealed-bid auction for $2,100, we bought an '04 Suburban at an auction for like $7,000. Instead of $40,000 on a vehicle we ... Behar: Yeah, I got it. I see what you're doing. But you have a book deal and a TV show. That's got to help. Do you think the octomom could get a TV show like you have? That might help her a lot. Michelle Duggar: I could not imagine having that many little ones and being busy with a show. I think for our situation, our children are a lot older and our heart is really to just share with other families, encourage them that children are a gift and enjoy them while you have them because they grow up really fast. And so ... Behar: Well, you keep having more. But you have plenty to still enjoy. They keep coming. I don't see that you're ever going to have an empty nest syndrome. They're going to be there. Michelle Duggar: I hope not. Behar: You guys will never be alone. Michelle Duggar: We look forward to grandbabies, then. That'll be fun. Behar: You know, let me ask you one more question about her. If she did get involved in doing a reality show like you guys are doing, do you have any advice for her? What kind of show should she have? Maybe she needs a baseball team or something. What advice could you give her? Michelle Duggar: I don't -- I really -- I don't know. Jim Bob Duggar: Yeah, I think it's a full-time job just taking care of the children while they're young. Maybe 10 years from now when the kids are 10 years old, that might be an option. But when they're all small, I think there's a lot of needs. And so, I think, she'll have her hands full. As I know when we had seven that were 7 and under, it was a very busy time. Behar: Are you going to have some more, Michelle? Jim Bob Duggar: I've always left it up to Michelle. Michelle Duggar: We'll see. We'll take it one at a time. I would love more, but we'll see if the Lord sees fit and blesses us with another one. Behar: Do you ever say to Jim Bob, get away from me, I have a headache? Jim Bob Duggar: Actually, I can't keep her away from me. Behar: Oh, boy. You guys are funny. OK, thanks so much for sharing your time with us yet again. Good luck to you both. Michelle Duggar: Thank you. Jim Bob Duggar: Thank you, Joy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have 18 children, are subject of reality show .\nThe Duggars have managed to stay debt-free by buying used and saving difference .\nMichelle on octuplets' mom: \"I just can't imagine having eight at once\"\nMaybe when octuplets are older, mom could handle doing reality show, Jim Bob says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(PopSci.com) -- Until last December, no one had ever seen the bottom of the Tasman Fracture, a trench that drops more than four kilometers below the surface of the ocean. A group of Australian and American researchers recently spent a month hundreds of kilometers southwest of the Tasmanian coast, exploring the fracture's depths. This funnel-shaped sea squirt, never before seen, will snap shut like a Venus flytrap around shrimp that are unfortunate enough to go near it. Jess Adkins, a professor at Caltech and one of the project's lead scientists, remembers sitting in his control room and watching the underwater life on his monitors with a sense of awe. Once, he says, none of the scientists or pilots said a word for 10 minutes straight as their submersible glided over an undiscovered coral reef full of urchins and sponges and sea stars. The researchers explored the fracture with Jason, a remotely-operated submersible the size of a small car. On loan from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, it carried a high-definition camera that weighed more than 500 pounds and beamed underwater video up to the ship through a long fiber-optic tether. At 3,000 meters below sea level, the crew saw thousands of sea spiders. At 3,500, millions of specimens of a new, purple-spotted sea anemone. At 4,000 meters, a single never-before-seen carnivorous sea squirt with a funnel-shaped body that snapped shut like a Venus flytrap around any shrimp unfortunate enough to brush against it. Back on land, the three new species (the anemone, the sea squirt, and a new kind of barnacle) have drawn the most attention, but it's the team's coral collection, some 10,000 pieces of it, that can tell us about the history of our climate and, perhaps, its future. A coral skeleton acts as a tape recorder of its environment. As it grows, the coral's chemical structure (specifically the weight of its oxygen molecules) varies depending on the temperature of the water around it. And, because the coral's uranium decays into thorium over time, it is conveniently datable. By charting different corals' ages and oxygen weights, researchers can map the ocean's changing temperature. During the coming months, expedition scientists will compare 40,000 years of oceanic and atmospheric records. The ocean's temperature and carbon dioxide levels are important because of their impact on our atmosphere. The watery part of the world absorbs and stores sixty times more CO2 than the atmosphere. Huge reservoirs of the ocean's CO2 lurk in its coldest, densest waters (found in the Tasman Fracture and off Greenland). Because cold water releases more CO2 into the air than warm water, the rate at which bottom water rises to the surface has a profound effect on the atmosphere above. Until recently, we had assumed that our climate was relatively stable. After all, for the past 10,000 years -- during which we developed the alphabet, electrical wiring, and microchip necessary for this article -- little has changed. But early-'90s research on Greenland's ice core proved that, over the past 100,000 years, climate stability has been the exception, not the norm. During the last glacial period, global temperatures fluttered up and down by as much as several degrees in as little as a decade. CO2 levels in the atmosphere changed along with the temperature, though more slowly. The researchers' ultimate goal is to see if changes in the ocean followed or proceeded changes in the atmosphere. Adkins suspects that the ocean (and in particular the depths of the ocean) played a part in triggering the climate's sudden fluctuations. He's sure, though, that we're adding more CO2 to the ocean now, in the form of burning fossil fuels, than it has ever held before. Given how little we know about how the ocean regulates the amount of CO2 in our air (we've mapped the surface of Mars, he points out, but not the ocean floor) he wonders if that's such a good idea. We do know that increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean makes it more acidic. And whether or not it sets off a climate shift of Pleistocenic proportions, acidification could kill the researchers' newly-discovered, awe-inspiring reef, along with others we haven't even found yet. There would be just as much ocean to study, but less to find. Copyright © 2009 Popular Science ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scientists studied the Tasman Fracture, a deep trench in the ocean .\nThey used a remote-controlled machine which sent back video .\nDiscoveries included a new anemone, the sea squirt and a new kind of barnacle ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- When an earthquake threatens to turn part of an ocean into fast-moving walls of water, tsunami warning scientists can do nothing for the first five minutes except wait for information. But within the next five minutes, they have to decide whether to issue a warning of danger. Brian Shiro has been a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for four years. And you thought your job was high pressure. \"If we see a set of circumstances and it fits into our criteria for [the] event, we just follow that criteria because we don't have much time to think. There isn't a lot of time for decision-making,\" said Paul Whitmore, director of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. \"Weighing back there [in your mind] also is the effect of your decision. If the effect of your decision is going to evacuate the entire West Coast waterfront, you don't want to take that lightly,\" he said. With Tuesday's tragic tsunami that engulfed villages in Samoa and American Samoa, the pace of events was so frenetic that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii --which tracks earthquakes and tsunamis for countries throughout the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and Caribbean Sea -- had already been alerted to the looming disaster by the time the seismometer evidence came in. \"The National Weather Service director in American Samoa called the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center a few seconds before the alarms went off here, so we had an advanced warning and we were already sitting at the computer, looking at the data in real time,\" said Brian Shiro, a Pacific warning center geophysicist. It can take 30 seconds to five minutes for information from earthquake sensors placed strategically around the globe to roll into the two U.S. tsunami warning centers. When there's a clear tsunami threat, the center's operation room -- built to accommodate the two workers on duty -- becomes flooded with people all jostling to offer assistance. The phone lines consistently ring and \"people are yelling at each other so everyone will be on the same page, and you don't miss something important that someone else caught,\" said Bill Knight, a West Coast and Alaska warning center scientist. Scientists must \"locate the earthquake and then determine based on the science data whether there should be just a normal bulletin or whether there should be a warning,\" said Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center. She added that it took the Pacific warning center 15 minutes to issue a warning for Tuesday's tsunami. This wasn't because the center's scientists were moving slowly, Shiro said, but a result of the sparse number of seismic stations in the Southwest Pacific region. The fewer stations there are, the longer it takes for scientists to receive adequate information. \"There was no delay yesterday,\" he said. \"You're only restricted by the earth itself and how fast the seismic waves can travel.\" As a result, workers at the two U.S. warning centers said they often have to make decisions based on incomplete information, erring on the side of caution by issuing a tsunami warning and canceling it later if more monitoring reveals a less dangerous situation. \"It can be a lot of pressure at first, and you have to get used to that,\" Shiro said. \"You do have a lot of responsibility on your shoulders: You have to act quickly and sometimes you have to issue your very first initial message based on incomplete information, because one of the important factors is time and you want to get it out.\" Since the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the question of time has become more critical to tsunami warning scientists. The staff has doubled at the Pacific warning center, and when they're \"on shift,\" they sleep in on-site housing, said spokeswoman Delores Clark. The warning centers have turned into 24/7 operations. Scientist Knight and director Whitmore at the West Coast and Alaska center said constantly being on call does not interrupt their personal lives; neither of them have kids at home. Shiro, on the other hand, has a 2-year-old son and has to strike a balance. At first, his wife and son stayed with him when he was on shift, sleeping at the on-site housing with him. When that proved too disruptive, his family instead began visiting for meals and a bit of quality time during his weekly two-day shift. The Pacific center's on-site housing is unique, created so the workers can react to a tsunami whether they're fixing a meal or fast asleep, and while it may pose a slight inconvenience, it's all part of the job, Shiro said. The workers, drawn to the position by a mutual love of geophysical science, consider themselves lucky to work in one of the few science fields that allows them to do research while making a difference in people's lives. Instances such as Tuesday's tsunami, which killed at least 130 people, provide them with perspective on the importance of their position and the need for more tsunami education. Shiro is encouraging the Pacific center to use social networking as a tool, considering the massive response he got after he tweeted live updates Tuesday. For Knight, it's getting the word out about what to look for when disaster is imminent. \"One of the reasons we have an outreach program is because we know that people can't wait for us to make a decision,\" Knight said. \"If the ground is shaking for more than 20 seconds, you're experiencing a large earthquake and the more likely it is that a tsunami is going to happen.\" International Tsunami Information Center director Kong, whose work emphasizes the need for better, more local warning systems and education around the globe, agreed. \"It's especially tragic when you know that a number of us were in American Samoa and Tonga in July talking about tsunamis, telling them that in the worst case scenario they would only have 10 to 20 minutes and asking them to plan the best they could,\" she said. \"We kind of have a feeling when we're issuing those messages that something like this might happen, and it's your worst nightmare when it does come true. It's not a good feeling the next day when the numbers start to increase,\" she said. \"We can't prevent the tsunami from happening; it's going to happen. We can only do our best right now and plan beforehand, because when it does happen, there's just no time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Time is always crucial when you work as a tsunami warning scientist .\nA warning can be issued anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes after a threat is identified .\nAt the Pacific warning center, workers live on site for two days to monitor data .\nAfter the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, warning centers operate around the clock ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Stewart Copeland and Sting get along great. Really. Stewart Copeland's background includes a wide range of musical influences, many of which emerged in the Police. OK, the Police's drummer and bassist may have argued from time to time. Perhaps even ferociously. And Copeland finds Sting's attempts to be a drum arranger annoying. OK, maybe infuriating. But, as he writes in his new book, \"Strange Things Happen\" (HarperStudio), \"We have discovered that we can be good friends -- as long as no one mentions music.\" Besides, Copeland adds in an interview, both Sting and guitarist Andy Summers \"are crap at drums.\" Watch Copeland dish on the band » . Copeland may be best known for the hitmaking musical trio, but he hasn't let the Police define him. The son of a CIA officer, he grew up in the Middle East and has let his musical fascinations range widely. He's written operas and dozens of film and television scores and is currently working on a concerto for the Dallas Symphony. (He also plays polo.) Copeland took some time to talk about his relationship with the Police, the importance of percussion and the social niceties of West L.A. private schools. The following is an edited version of the interview. CNN: The pace of the book makes it seem like you've been living \"A Hard Day's Night\" for the last 30 or 35 years. Is it really that busy? Stewart Copeland: Oh, it's pretty busy, but if it wasn't busy, I'd be stressed and anxious. In fact, this week I've got some down time, and I'm looking at the walls. CNN: It's been inescapable that people are focusing on the part of the book involving you and your fellow Police members. You say that you have a great relationship with Sting until music gets involved. Copeland: We get along in every way until it comes to music. ... [But] both of them are crap at drums, so at least I don't have that to deal with. CNN: So Sting is not much of a drummer, despite the fact that he has all these ideas. Copeland: Actually, he can play a bit of drums, but he's much better arranging drums than playing them. And I think I'd rather have him as a drummer than as an arranger of drums, even though he's quite brilliant at [arranging]. CNN: Has there always been that friction in the band? Copeland: Yes. With Andy, there's no friction at all; we get along great. ... And by the way, he's not the man in the middle, either. He's not a mediator. He's his own little volcano. He's a very sharp point to the triangle. But this conflict ... when we did the reunion tour, it was like everything was different, but nothing had changed. From the first 16 bars, we were straight back into where we left off. CNN: With the Police, the friction seems -- for lack of a better term -- healthy. Copeland: Well, it's that musical dichotomy that makes the band what it is. If we didn't have those beautiful, sensitive songs, we'd be lost. Those beautiful, sensitive songs have an extra kick to them because there's a madman in the group. CNN: Does the madman change, or is it always Sting? Copeland: Actually, all three of us have our moments. CNN: You grew up in the Middle East. Do you see any reflections of that in the way you play the drums, in the way you feel the beat? Copeland: Absolutely. I grew up surrounded by Arabic music. The central element of Arabic music is the baladi rhythm, which is just Arabic for \"country.\" And it has that drop on the three-beat. And it has that use of negative space. And it also has the very ornate use of the 16th notes, which are very expressive in Arabic music. And I suppose those are all factors that show up in the Police. CNN: You mentioned in the book that you put aside the sticks for many years until [Primus'] Les Claypool got you back into it. Copeland: Yes. The Police experience in the studio was so horrendous that my two colleagues actually managed temporarily to convince me that I had no talent and I was a menace to music. And I was distracted by composing. ... I wanted to play with all of those toys, and needed to shake off the rhythm label. And I think I was successful in doing that, to the detriment of my drumming career. CNN: Was picking up the sticks again like riding a bike? Copeland: Absolutely. The rhythm is still there. The pulse is still strong. The persnickety bits -- the finesse -- that took awhile to come back. CNN: You mention getting together with all-star bands with others -- Gene Simmons, Stephen Stills -- at your son's school. Is that common in L.A.? Copeland: Well, in Los Angeles in the west side here, there are three or four schools where all the alpha types send their kids. Between the three schools, we have all of the glitterati. CNN: Do you still find yourself a fan in those situations, seeing musicians you admire? Copeland: Not really. I'll get completely filled with fan fervor in listening to the music, but I've just learned so many times that the person is not the music. ... And also at these schools, everything is extremely downplayed. All of these alpha wives of these luminaries -- and the female luminaries themselves -- all go down to Gap especially to buy their school clothes. No bling, Gap clothing. It's all extremely dressed down and un-ostentatious. CNN: Is there a favorite or least favorite Police song you do? Do you get so that you think, \"If I have to play 'Roxanne' one more time ... \" Copeland: No, I still enjoy playing \"Roxanne.\" ... Some songs are more of a mountain to climb physically, [like] \"When the World Is Running Down.\" Andy takes a guitar solo that is so stratospheric, climbs so high and has such power, I get carried away. By the time he's finished, I am done. And I realize that I've just burnt every calorie, and I've got another 45 minutes of set to play. CNN: People don't realize how physically demanding it is. Copeland: But the thing is, when you're doing it, you're hardly aware of it as well, because you're sustained by 80,000 people freaking out. ... I don't want to get all metaphysical here or nothin', but something definitely happens. You are definitely empowered by the power of that huge audience. ... It pumps you up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stewart Copeland writes about his life in new book, \"Strange Things Happen\"\nCopeland says he and Sting get along fine when music isn't involved .\nBesides, he says, group's \"sensitive\" songs helped by \"madman\" in trio .\nCopeland grew up in Middle East, says rhythms of region part of his roots ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- Many among the thousands of evacuees from California's wildfires were suffering from stress and worry about their homes after seeking shelter at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, said a pair of Navy medical volunteers Wednesday. Navy medics Daniel Brautigam, left, and Jacob Hackfeld volunteered to help wildfire evacuees. The stadium -- home to the NFL's Chargers -- at one time housed 11,000 evacuees, but that number dropped to 7,500 this morning. Of the thousands of people who've been sleeping, eating and passing time at the arena, many are showing symptoms of stress, said Petty Officer Daniel Brautigam. Patients are showing \"a lot of smoke-induced nausea,\" he said. \"A lot of people are watching TV while they're here -- they're watching their houses burn.\" Brautigam said the word \"panic\" came to mind to describe how some evacuees were feeling. \"But it's not. People are just worried sick. That phrase alone explains it all.\" Watch sailors tell more about treating evacuees » . According to the San Diego's mayor's office, medical staff treated between 70 to 100 people since the stadium opened to evacuees. He said counselors are being made available to the evacuees at Qualcomm, where volunteers have also been providing food, tents and cots to families and others fleeing the fires. \"We've been working nonstop now for about 48 hours with a few hours of sleep in between -- just enough to get well-rested,\" said Brautigam. Brautigam and another sailor, Seaman Jacob Hackfeld, stepped forward on their own to offer medical services after their nearby base was evacuated. Hackfeld said he was \"sitting on my couch watching TV and I'm thinking to myself, why can't we come out here? The community provides for us -- the military. Why can't we give back to them all the things that they've given to us?\" Although both men said they helped in the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, they said the emergency response to both disasters was markedly different. \"Here you have complete organization,\" Brautigam said. \"You have a community coming together getting things done, helping people out -- cooperation between civilians, military, everybody. See dramatic photos of the disaster » . \"Here everybody comes together, and we're all just people. I think that's the most important thing that's going on right here right now. The main focus is just getting people the help that they need.\" About 300 convalescent patients who had been evacuated to Qualcomm from nearby facilities were expected to be returned later Wednesday, said George Biagi, spokesman for the San Diego mayor. More than 20 fires have scorched 400,000-plus acres from the Mexican border to northern Los Angeles County and inland into the San Bernardino Mountains since the weekend. Statewide, an estimated 950,000 people have sought refuge from the fires in shelters, hotels and at friends' homes. The National Weather Service said a red-flag warning for extreme gusty winds was in effect through 3 p.m. PT (6 p.m. ET) Wednesday, but forecasters said firefighters should see an end to the Santa Ana winds that have fueled the fires by Thursday. Some residents won't have to wait for Thursday to get home. People who evacuated earlier this week from Rancho Bernardo, Scripps Ranch and Del Mar Heights can go home immediately, San Diego emergency spokeswoman Lynda Pfieffer said Wednesday morning. The blazes have killed one person and injured at least 70 more. Thirty-four firefighters have been hurt, authorities said. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Kiran Chetry and Miriam Falco contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evacuees at San Diego arena treated for nausea, worried about homes .\nMedic: \"A lot of people are watching TV here -- watching their homes burn\"\nNavy medics step forward to offer services to some 12,000 wildfire evacuees .\nMedics describe conditions at Qualcomm Stadium as organized, cooperative ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "PESHAWAR, Pakistan (CNN) -- As a little girl, Maria Toor Pakay would beat up boys. Maria Toor Pakay has overcome unusual adversity to rank among the world's top 100 squash players. Now, she dispenses of anyone who takes her on within the walls of a squash court. Pakay, 18, is Pakistan's No. 1-ranked women's squash player. But what makes her story remarkable is that she hails from the country's tribal region of South Waziristan. The region, along the border with Afghanistan, is home to the Taliban. There, suicide attacks are a way of life. And the militants, bent on imposing a strict form of Islamic law, punish girls who attend school -- let alone play sports. \"They have no future,\" Pakay said. \"They spend their entire lives in four walls in their home. Their ability is destroyed.\" But Pakay wasn't like most girls growing up. She sported a buzz cut and mixed with the boys. \"If someone argued with me, I used to beat them up,\" she said. \"I wanted them to obey me all the time.\" Her father, Shams-ul-Qayum Wazir, knew early on that his daughter was different. \"I didn't want her talent to go to waste,\" he said. \"If I would've kept her in the village, all she could do was housekeeping.\" Watch Pakay talk about her life's mission » . So, Wazir packed up the family and moved to Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province. Here, Pakay picked up the racquet and swatted down the competition with ease -- first winning the Under-13 championship, then the Under-15, then the Under-17. In squash, players take turns hitting a ball to the front wall of a court, until one misses. Pakay, it turned out, rarely did. \"I thought nobody could beat me,\" she said. \"From the beginning when I played squash, I thought I could be a world champion.\" Today, despite the lack of a sponsor and few resources, Pakay has gone pro -- and is ranked 91st in the world. Her father's sacrifice, she said, made her success possible. \"I think I have a great father -- so broad-minded,\" she said. For his part, Wazir -- a teacher -- was more circumspect. \"I sacrificed because I want to promote a message of peace,\" he said. \"If the tribal people pick up a racquet instead of a gun, there would be peace.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maria Toor Pakay, 18, is Pakistan's No. 1-ranked women's squash player .\nShe hails from the country's tribal region of South Waziristan, home to the Taliban .\nThere, militants impose strict Islamic law, punish girls who even attend school .\nDespite risks, lack of a sponsor, Pakay has gone pro, is ranked 91st in the world ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Over-the-counter cold and cough medicines don't work for children under age 6, and giving the common medicine to young children cannot be recommended, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee said in October. An FDA panel has called for more studies on how cold medicines affect children. The panel of health experts, which looked at how safe and effective antihistamines, decongestants, antitussins and expectorants are in children, said it is not appropriate to take data from adults and apply it to children under 12. After a two-day hearing, the panel called for more studies about how the medicines affect children. Although the panel's recommendation is nonbinding, it could lead to changes in how cough and cold medicines are used. The votes are to be taken into consideration by FDA regulators, who might take action against the products at a later time. Dr. Jeff Jenkins, of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said it could take a year or even years for the agency to make a final decision on the recommendations. During the panel's meeting, the experts looked at a number of proposals, including whether multiple-symptom over-the-counter pediatric cough and cold medicines should be banned for children under 6 years old. FDA experts voted 13-9 that certain cold medicines with certain ingredients should not be used by young children. The committee said medicines with the same ingredients could be used by children ages 6 to 12. The experts voted unanimously to require that standardized dosing devices accompany all liquid medicines, in an effort to reduce the likelihood of excessive or unintentional overdosing. Separately, the committee voted to allow marketing of multiple-symptom products to children between the ages of 2 and 12 if new research showed the products to be safe and effective. Combination products can be particularly susceptible to problems with overdosing because parents sometimes don't realize they are duplicating ingredients. Committee members also emphasized the importance of proper and easy-to-read labels. Dr. Daniel Rausch, director of the pediatric hospital program for New York University, said that cold medicine is effective only at doses that are too strong for young children. Rausch recommends a more traditional treatment where dosing isn't a problem: chicken soup. \"A cold does not kill, so people should just relax,\" Rausch said. \"Kids get sick and there's nothing that people can do about it, but they will get better.\" About 800 pediatric cough and cold products are sold in the United States, many using multiple ingredients that have been marketed for use in children for some 30 years. Earlier this year, the FDA completed a review that found that between 1969 and the fall of 2006, there were 54 reported child deaths from decongestants and 69 from antihistamines. Watch one family's tragic ending » . Most of the deaths occurred in children under 2. In August, federal health officials recommended the \"consult your physician\" advice to parents on the labels of cold and cough medicines aimed at young children be replaced by a warning not to use the medications in children under 2 unless directed to do so by a health care provider. Before the FDA hearings, some of the leading manufacturers of cold and cough medicines announced a voluntary recall of more than a dozen cold medicines for infants. The Consumer Healthcare Products Association said the products were being pulled \"out of an abundance of caution.\" Potential misuse of the medications, not product safety, is driving the voluntary withdrawal, the group said. The American Academy of Pediatrics applauded last week's decision to pull those products, saying, \"These medicines are ineffective and can have serious side effects. There are other ways to treat cold symptoms.\" The AAP suggests: . When the drug industry voluntarily withdrew products last week, it insisted that when used as directed, the drugs are safe, and they work. \"Parents can continue to trust over-the-counter cough and cold remedies for their children,\" said Linda A. Suydam, president of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association. \"We strongly encourage parents to adhere to the recommended dosing instructions for all medicines, recognizing that the vast majority of adverse events associated with their use are due to inadvertent overdosing and misuse.\" Suydam said CHPA will be launching a major educational campaign for parents and caregivers in coming months. Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein headed the push that led to the FDA hearing. He became alarmed when four Baltimore children died after their parents gave them excessive doses of cold medicines. Until those deaths, he did not realize that a dose of cold medicine could turn into a life-and-death issue among young children, he said. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Panel: No evidence that the over-the-counter medicines help young children .\nMore study sought about how cough, cold medicines work in children .\nAbout 800 pediatric cough and cold products are sold in the United States .\nPediatrics group suggests \"other ways to treat cold symptoms\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A jury in Manhattan found the son of Brooke Astor and one of his lawyers guilty Thursday of scheming to bilk millions of dollars from the late philanthropist's estate. Anthony Marshall was convicted of bilking millions of dollars from the estate of his mother, Brooke Astor. The verdict, returned on the 12th day of deliberation, ended a six-month trial that featured as witnesses a Who's Who of New York's social elite. Anthony Marshall showed no visible reaction as he was found guilty of 14 of the 16 counts against him. His wife, Charlene, who many believed fanned his greed and instigated his mistreatment of his elderly mother, also did not seem to react. Marshall was convicted of the most serious charges -- first-degree grand larceny and scheming to defraud. One of the most serious convictions involved Marshall giving himself a $1 million-a-year raise for handling his mother's affairs, said Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann. Marshall's former lawyer, Francis Morrissey, was convicted of all five counts against him, including forgery and scheming to defraud Astor. Watch Marshall's attorney vow to appeal » . \"These defendants, two morally depraved individuals, preyed on a physically and mentally ill 101-year-old woman to steal millions of dollars -- dollars that she had intended to go to help the lives of ordinary New Yorkers,\" Seidemann said, echoing his closing argument to the jury. Astor, who had Alzheimer's disease, was 105 when she died in August 2007. The prosecution called nearly 70 witnesses -- Henry Kissinger, Graydon Carter, Barbara Walters, Vartan Gregorian and Annette de la Renta among them. Prosecutor Seidemann called the case \"disturbing,\" and said the trial told the story of \"how a son, an only son, would stoop so low to steal from his own mother in the sunset years of her life in order to line his own pockets and the pockets of his wife.\" Marshall, who is free on $100,000 bail, faces a maximum 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on December 8. Morrissey faces up to seven years in prison. Author Meryl Gordon, who has followed the Astor story for years, was in the courtroom when the jury returned its verdicts. \"It was an incredibly bad, intense time,\" she said from her cell phone before hopping on a subway. \"I was a little surprised that Charlene did not get visibly teary. I guess she was braced for it.\" Marshall, Astor's only child, was indicted on criminal charges in 2006. The case kicked off a tabloid feeding frenzy that fostered headlines such as \"Bad heir day,\" \"Mrs. Astor's disaster\" and \"DA's kick in the Astor.\" Through her late husband's Vincent Astor Foundation, Brooke Astor is credited with giving New York, where the Astors made their fortune, about $200 million. The Astor Foundation gave millions to New York cultural jewels -- including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library -- as well as lower-profile programs. Astor was often quoted as saying, \"Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around.\" \"Mrs. Astor stood in New York as a symbol of generosity. And this trial stands as a landmark for the nefarious impact of money and greed,\" said her longtime friend, Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. \"It will in many ways tarnish her memory,\" he said. \"It's a sad day, but at the same time, one good thing that will come out of this -- that Mrs. Astor would approve of -- is that the elderly cannot be abused.\" The case began when Marshall's son, Philip, filed a petition in 2006 asking the court to appoint a guardian for his grandmother. The court documents alleged \"elder abuse\" and were intended to remove Anthony Marshall's control of her affairs and transfer care to Astor's dear friend Annette de la Renta. He reacted to the verdict in an e-mail: . \"I hope this brings some consolation and closure for the many people, including my grandmother's loyal staff, caregivers and friends, who helped when she was so vulnerable and so manipulated,\" Philip Marshall wrote. \"I sincerely hope these sad circumstances contribute to the recognition of elder abuse and exploitation as a growing national problem.\" CNN's Ann O'Neill contributed to this story ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anthony Marshall faces up to 25 years in prison .\nMarshall swindled millions from mother in her declining years .\nProsecution witnesses included the cream of New York society .\nAstor's foundation gave $200 million to New York; she died at 105 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- An altercation between a South Carolina high school student and a school resource officer ended tragically Friday with the student dead of a gunshot wound and the officer hospitalized after being stabbed. Police officers in body armor vests are on the scene after violence at a school near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The incident took place about 8:25 a.m., and both the officer and the 16-year-old student were transported to Conway Medical Center, where the student died, said Sgt. Robert Kegler of the Horry County Police Department. The resource officer, who was a Horry County police officer assigned to the school, remains hospitalized, he said. Kegler had no other information. \"Anytime anything happens with a police officer like this, we ask an outside agency to come in to investigate,\" he said. \"In this case, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is taking the lead.\" Teal Britton, a spokeswoman for Horry County Schools, said the student had asked to see the officer at Carolina Forest High School in Myrtle Beach. \"They went into his office, and the door was shut, and then the struggle began,\" she said. School officials have \"no clue in terms of what might have brought that about.\" Britton also had no further information and said the Law Enforcement Division had asked that the high school refrain from discussing details. Neither Britton nor Kegler named the officer or the student. The state agency has not responded to requests for comment. Myrtle Beach is a popular vacation destination in northeast South Carolina, on the Atlantic coast. CNN's Carolina Sanchez contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Police confirm incident at South Carolina high school .\nStudent, 16, dies after struggle with school resource officer .\nSchool hasn't named student or officer .\nOfficer being treated for injuries at hospital, spokeswoman says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Susie Levitt's and Katie Shea's feet had had enough. Walking around Manhattan sidewalks between classes in their high heels was getting unbearable. Katie Shea and Susie Levitt, founders of \"CitiSoles,\" said walking around Manhattan in high heels was painful. Tal Raviv felt frustrated. While studying in Hong Kong in 2007, he found that adjusting to a new city was hard enough. Even more aggravating was trying to connect with friends on Facebook whose names were common. Jaun Calle and Adam Berlin were bored. Watching college football on television isn't as exciting as being there in person, they thought. Instead of just grinning and bearing it, all of these university students did something: They started their own businesses. Levitt and Shea created \"CitiSoles,\" a shoe company that makes a foldable shoe for when the pain of high heels gets unbearable. Raviv created \"DropCard\" an e-business card that lets users send more contact information than is commonly found on a business card. Calle and Berlin formed \"SEC Excursions\" a travel company that provides busing, tailgate parties and hotel accommodations to college football games. The recession and lack of experience might stop most adults in their tracks, but these students weren't discouraged. \"There is no better time [to start a business],\" said Christopher Hanks, director of the entrepreneurship program at the University of Georgia. \"During a depression or recession, innovation always increases.\" The dorm is the new garage . While the founders of Google built success in their garages, these college students found it in their dorms. In addition to their course work, studying for midterms and balancing extracurricular activities, they wrote business proposals and figured out financing. \"From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., I am in chemical engineering classes, and from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m., I work on DropCard, so I don't get much free time,\" said Raviv, 22. Levitt and Shea said launching their shoe business was essentially nonstop, and the work didn't end on Friday. And for Calle, the compromises in his academic and social life weren't a burden. \"We enjoy ourselves,\" said Calle, 21. \"We don't see it as a sacrifice.\" Hanks said these attitudes are typical of student entrepreneurs. They don't have the pressure of supporting themselves -- their living expenses are usually being paid for -- and they have a wide support system. \"They certainly have their advantages ... their enthusiasm level is really high,\" Hanks said. \"They don't know what they don't know.\" Hanks added that the excitement of creating a business revs up the students even more than the chance of getting rich. \"They get excited about 'wouldn't it be cool if we did that' versus the money,\" said Hanks. \"The journey is not as much as about the money as about the challenge.\" Figuring it out . None of these students followed a set formula for starting their businesses. Levitt and Shea used Alibaba.com, an online trade portal, to pitch their idea to suppliers and dipped into their savings for start-up money. An investment firm helped Raviv, and Calle and Berlin found investors. Levitt and Shea, both 22, took \"less than $10,000\" from their savings to start CitiSoles in 2008. That covered the cost of the shoes and a Web site designer. From there, they worked with suppliers and factories in Asia to scope out which would be the best fit for their company. The pair conducted market research and found nothing similar sold in the United States. \"It was all done online,\" Levitt said. \"We became nocturnal.\" The shoes, made of imitation leather, come with a compact carrying case. A patent for the shoe is pending. When the first order for 1,000 pairs, weighing over 400 pounds, arrived at Shea's Long Island home unexpectedly, Levitt said they were overwhelmed. A few days later, an article about their company appeared in the New York Daily News, but they weren't ready for the onslaught of orders. They quickly set up a PayPal account. \"From there, we got on the phone to boutiques, sent out retail kits and samples ... and now there are 17 boutiques around the nation selling them,\" said Levitt, who is studying economics and will graduate this fall. Her partner, Shea, double-majored in finance and marketing and graduated in May. Last summer, Raviv, along with two of his friends, applied for funding for their e-business cards with DreamIt Ventures in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. DreamIt is a \"business incubator\" that helps entrepreneurs launch companies. Raviv, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a chemical engineering degree in May, was honest with the investment firm when it asked how his e-business cards would make money. \"I actually don't know,\" Raviv told them. \"They said 'Perfect. Thank you. We know there is no possible way to know right now.' \" Raviv said the lack of a detailed business plan helped DreamIt see how it could assist them. They received $20,000 from DreamIt. DropCard initially targeted technology companies but went after \"old-fashioned\" businesses like car dealerships that proved to be more lucrative. DropCard is currently in trials with four companies to see how they can tweak their business plan. Feedback is instrumental in DropCard's growth. \"We refine everything instead of sitting back and strategizing,\" Raviv said. \"Let our customers write our business plan.\" Calle, a senior at the University of Georgia who is pursuing a degree in business administration, launched SEC Excursions with a mix of investors and help from the Terry College of Business Entrepreneurship Program at UGA. Hanks helped Calle and Berlin in fleshing out their idea and making it potentially profitable. Started in July 2008, the company found success in a trial trip to Baton Rogue, Louisiana, for the UGA-Louisiana State University matchup. The first trip offered a two-night stay at a hotel, busing to the game and a tailgate party. The packages, which don't include tickets to the games, vary from $100 to $300 a person. The company has contracts with bus companies and various hotel chains. It has student reps at four college campuses and plans to add more. Calle said the company's \"most loyal customers are in the Greek systems,\" but it's open to all students who wish to purchase a package. \"The students really like it because everything is planned for them,\" Calle said. \"We've heard nothing but good things.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Susie Levitt and Katie Shea created a foldable-shoe company called \"CitiSoles\"\nTal Raviv co-founded \"DropCard,\" a new take on the business card .\nJuan Calle and Adam Berlin created \"SEC Excursions,\" a travel agency .\n\"There is no better time\" to start a business, an entrepreneur expert says ." } ]

[ { "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) -- Indian tourism authorities will be holding English classes for auto-rickshaw drivers in New Delhi as the city prepares to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010. Auto-rickshaw drivers are being taught English ahead of the Commenwealth Games. More than 40,000 natural gas-fueled auto-rickshaws, or motorized three-wheeled taxis, run on the Indian capital's dilapidated roads, according to the city government statistics. The city is expected to host around 100,000 tourists during the Commonwealth Games scheduled from October 3-14 in 2010. About 9,000 athletes and officials of 52 Commonwealth countries are likely to participate. Some 8,000 auto-rickshaw drivers will be enrolled in the training program that will involve classes in yoga, life skills, first aid, spoken English and psychometric tests, federal Tourism Secretary Sujit Banerjee announced Tuesday. Each trainee will be paid Rs 200, or about $4, daily for attending the program spread over 200 sessions for a year. Indian auto-rickshaw drivers have often been accused of overcharging, refusing short trips and misbehavior. Traffic authorities have in the past opened a range of avenues for passengers to lodge their complaints -- such as on help lines, via text messages or simply calling a telephone number printed on the three-wheeled cabs. \"The India image that we strive to convey to a foreign tourist depends, to a large degree, on how good the taxi/auto-rickshaw (driver) that he or she meets is in his demeanor and conduct,\" Banerjee remarked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More than 40,000 auto-rickshaws ply roads of Indian capital .\nCity expected to host 100,000 tourists during Commonwealth Games .\n8,000 auto-rickshaw drivers will be enrolled in training program ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The Obama administration announced this week it is sending hundreds of federal agents and crime-fighting equipment to the Mexican border to try to make sure violence from Mexican drug cartels doesn't spill over into the U.S. Author John Gibler says the \"war on drugs\" approach with Mexico policy has been an absolute failure. John Gibler, author of \"Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt,\" appeared Friday on CNN's \"American Morning\" to talk about U.S. border security efforts. Following is a transcript of his conversation with CNN's John Roberts: John Roberts: You spent so much time along the border area there, going back and forth. The last three years, you've been down there pretty intensely. What is the situation like? John Gibler: Right now, in Ciudad Juarez, as you probably know, more than 7,500 army soldiers have arrived in the city and actually taken over the municipal police force. And that has obviously dampened the amount of incredible violence related to drug trafficking in the city, but fears on the ground are that simply the warring cartels packed up and left town for the time being or [have] gone underground while the army is out in the streets, and that they will be back. Meanwhile, the army is doing all of the municipal police force jobs, so they're effectively writing traffic tickets and driving around in cop cars. Roberts: All right, so you know that earlier this week, Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, announced this $700 million program, put more border agents and more [Drug Enforcement Administration] agents on the border along with some high-tech surveillance equipment to try to combat the war on drugs there. How effective do you think that plan will be? Gibler: Sadly, I do not think it will be effective. We're talking about a $30 billion a year industry just moving the drugs across the border. That is way too powerful for three more helicopters or 400 more border agents to really try and address. I think it is a deeply embedded social and economic problem that will have to be addressed with social and economic policy. Watch Gibler give his views on U.S. security efforts » . Roberts: So the president has reserved this idea of putting some troops down on the border there. I know that Gov. Rick Perry in Texas says that he wants to put 1,000 along the border. However, there in El Paso, where you are this morning, the mayor says, \"Whoa, we don't need any troops. Things are great here.\" Who's right? Gibler: Well, really, the mayor is right in a sense. If you look at 2008, 1,600 people were assassinated in Ciudad Juarez, and there were about 15 homicides that same year in El Paso. So, this whole idea of the violence spilling over is really, I think, kind of malformed or a bit sensationalizing the violence in Mexico, which is very real but the violence already exists in the United States, even though there isn't a national kind of political understanding or consciousness, if you will, about how that violence is related to drug trafficking and drug distribution. amFIX: Can the US win the war on drugs? Roberts: You know, we had Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron earlier this week. And he was talking about this idea of legalizing all drugs as a way to combat the drug war there in Mexico. What do you think of that idea? Gibler: I think it's time to consider all options, and I think it's evident -- more than evident that the \"war on drugs\" approach has been an absolute failure. It hasn't in any way stopped the amount of drugs being consumed in the United States or the drugs flowing over the border or the violence related to the illegal drug-trafficking industry. ... It's not that radical of a proposal. Even The Economist magazine led with an editorial about a week and a half ago about legislating or regulating drugs. Three former presidents of Latin American countries, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, recently released a report arguing also for really taking on the debate of legalization." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mexico's huge drug industry is too powerful for U.S. border efforts, John Gibler says .\nAuthor says social, economic policies are needed to battle Mexico's drug problems .\nIt's time to consider legalizing drugs, Gibler says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Described as \"an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane,\" Hurricane Bill was churning closer to the Atlantic island of Bermuda on Wednesday, forecasters said. Most forecast maps show Hurricane Bill passing to the west of Bermuda. Although Bill is not expected to make a direct hit on the island, forecasters cautioned that the storm is large and will generate large swells on Bermuda as well as the islands of the northeast Caribbean Sea over the next day or two. Swells may also affect the eastern United States on Friday and Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said. CNN meteorologists said Bill could cause cause dangerous rip tides and some coastal flooding in the northeast United States and could move very close to or make landfall in Newfoundland, Canada, early next week. In addition, Bill may strengthen further over the next couple of days, forecasters said. As of 5 p.m. ET, Bill's center was about 335 miles northeast of the Leeward Islands and about 970 miles south-southeast of Bermuda, the hurricane center said. \"It's a little too early to evaluate what kind of direct impact Bill may have,\" said Jack Bevin, a senior hurricane specialist. \"Most of the computer guidance has the storm passing between Bermuda and the U.S. coastline, then turning northeastward.\" Other models show Bill turning more sharply out to sea and not affecting any areas, he said. Bill's maximum sustained winds were at 135 mph Wednesday afternoon. It was moving northwest at near 20 mph and was expected to continue that motion over the next day or so, turning north-northwest by late Friday. Five-day forecast maps show Bill passing to the west of Bermuda before turning to the northwest. \"Bill is a large tropical cyclone,\" the National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 85 miles from its center, with tropical storm-force winds extending up to 230 miles out. CNN Radio's Andrew Spencer and Lee Garen contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Storm is not expected to make a direct hit on Bermuda .\nBut island, eastern United States could see large swells .\nCategory 4 hurricane's maximum sustained winds are at 135 mph ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suicide car bombing exploded outside the NATO headquarters in Afghanistan early Saturday, killing seven people and injuring 91 just five days before the country holds presidential elections, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. A car burns after the suicide blast outside NATO's Afghanistan headquarters. The massive bomb detonated near the main gate of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters. Among the wounded were several coalition service members, according to ISAF. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, an ISAF spokesman told CNN. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the front-runner in the polls, condemned the bombing. \"The enemies of Afghanistan, through such attacks in the run-up to the elections, want to spread terror among people, but they must know that Afghans are fully aware of the value of the elections and will cast their votes for the sake of security and peace in their country,\" Karzai said in a statement. But Ferishta, 21, who like many Afghans gives out only her first name, was deterred. \"After seeing today's events, I have no intention in voting,\" she said, wearing a blood-soaked shirt and connected to an intravenous drip. \"If we are not at peace, why should we vote, who should we vote for?\" One witness at the scene told CNN the explosion left a huge crater and damaged a coalition forces' vehicle. Billowing smoke rose over the city. \"The sound was like a very loud door banging right next to my ear,\" said CNN's National Security Analyst Peter Bergen. Watch Bergen describe blast . The attack occurred at 8:30 in the morning as people were heading to work and was particularly disturbing given the beefed-up security in Kabul ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial elections, only the second since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. The area around the ISAF headquarters is heavily fortified with concrete blast barriers and extra security forces. Watch more on Saturday's explosion » . Security has been a key concern as Afghans prepare to go to the polls next week. The Taliban has vowed to disrupt the voting. \"This will make people living in Kabul perhaps think twice about going out in the next few days,\" Bergen said. Earlier this week, Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. State Department's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the Afghan elections were critical to quelling a resurgence of the Taliban. \"Holding an election in a wartime situation is always difficult,\" Holbrooke said. \"Holding one when the enemy has said they're going to try to disrupt it makes it even more difficult.\" Despite Saturday's attack, ISAF spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician told CNN that NATO-led forces in Afghanistan remain confident the elections will be credible. \"There is a very robust security system in place,\" he said. This summer has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since 2001, particularly in troubled Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. U.S., British and Afghan troops there have been fighting Taliban militants to help provide protection for the upcoming elections. Watch more on Afghan preparations for elections » . Kabul, however, had experienced relative calm in recent months. The last such attack in the Afghan capital was in January when a suicide bomb exploded near the German embassy. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for that incident. CNN's Atia Abawi and Hugh Williams contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: At least 7 people killed, 90 hurt from blast in Afghanistan's capital .\nExplosion took place near NATO headquarters, U.S. Embassy .\nTaliban claims responsibility for explosion .\nBlast takes place just five days before presidential elections ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Jury selection began Monday in Kentucky for the trial of a former high school coach charged with reckless homicide in the heat-exhaustion-related death of a player. Pleasure Ridge Park football coach Jason Stinson has pleaded not guilty to reckless homicide. A grand jury in January charged Pleasure Ridge Park football coach Jason Stinson in the death of Max Gilpin, 15, who collapsed during a practice in August 2008 and died several days later. Stinson pleaded not guilty and was released without bail. The school has reassigned him to non-teaching duties. The case has stirred strong feelings beyond the Louisville suburb where Gilpin died. Some say the teen's death was a tragic accident; others insist it was the result of a criminal act. \"The best example I can give you is like someone shooting into a building not knowing anyone is in there, then killing somebody,\" Commonwealth's Attorney R. David Stengel told CNN affiliate WHAS in January. \"They didn't know they were in there, but they should have known that shooting into a building where people normally are is something dangerous.\" Current and former students reacted with shock to the indictment of Stinson, a beloved coach and teacher. \"Coach is amazing,\" former player Casey Ford told WLKY earlier this year. \"Coach truly cares about his players.\" Stengel said investigators interviewed almost 100 players, eight coaches, school officials and bystanders before the grand jury convened earlier this year. A summary of the interviews was provided to the grand jury. The grand jury denied Stinson's request to give testimony. Questions surrounding the case include what school officials did before and after the high school sophomore collapsed. Craig Webb, the school's athletic director, said in a deposition obtained by WLKY that he witnessed the incident and went over to assess Gilpin's condition. \"He was breathing,\" Webb said during the deposition, WLKY reported. \"You know, he had a pulse. And we -- I automatically thought we might have had an exhaustion situation. He was sweating profusely.\" Gilpin's body temperature reached 107 degrees, officials say. Witnesses said Stinson had denied the student water on the hot August day, WLKY reported. Gilpin was taken to a hospital where he later died. The parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against six coaches at the school. The suit claims they were negligent in their actions and that more than 20 minutes passed between the time Gilpin collapsed and the time one of the coaches called paramedics, according to WHAS. Stinson is the only person who has been charged with a crime. Days after he was charged, Stinson told supporters, who had gathered on his lawn to pray, that his \"heart is broken.\" \"Part of my life has been taken away,\" he said, according to WHAS. \"I no longer teach, and I no longer coach at the school that I love. ... \"The one thing people keep forgetting in this is that I lost one of my boys that day,\" he said. \"It was a boy that I loved and a boy that I cared for and a boy that meant the world to me. That's the thing that people forget. And that's a burden I will carry with me for the rest of my life.\" Gilpin's parents have released a statement saying they hope they will gain access to details of the investigation, including information they believe school officials have withheld from them citing confidentiality, the affiliate said. \"We intend to closely monitor the prosecution and expect anyone responsible for Max's death to be held accountable,\" the statement said, according to WHAS." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Former high school coach is charged with reckless homicide .\nPlayer Max Gilpin, 15, died of heat exhaustion .\nPlayer's body temperature hit 107 degrees at August '08 practice ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: Alejandra Lopez-Fernandini is a senior policy analyst in the Asset Building Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that seeks innovative solutions across the political spectrum. Alejandra Lopez-Fernandini says Americans have no choice but to increase the amount they save. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As the economy slows, millions of Americans will cut their budgets to stay afloat. This generates conflicting impulses: If I skip that morning coffee and granola, will my thriftiness put my local coffee shop out of business? Will that force America's granola farmers to lay off workers? What's a budget-conscious, patriotic and hungry girl to do? Not to worry, saving a few dollars now will not prolong the recession. And, more important, spending all your discretionary income will not end the recession. It's true that John Maynard Keynes' \"Paradox of Thrift\" suggests that, even while saving is beneficial to an individual, too much aggregate savings could deepen an ordinary recession. But in these extraordinary times, where banks and not just businesses are in desperate need of cash, this economic rule may not fully hold. More important, individuals need savings to be prepared for unanticipated expenses and income losses, especially now. The reality is that there is no bailout coming to you. And those getting the bailout might not be willing to lend to you, anyway. So now is the time to save. The money you save is your own personal safety net, what you tap when you have an unanticipated expense like a car repair or when you're between jobs, as many Americans find themselves nowadays. The past decade has seen Americans saving at historically low levels; we've substituted plastic for the piggy bank. But the days of cheap and easy access to credit have come and gone. We all need to save not because we want to but because we have to. For decades, our country's economy has flourished, but it relied too heavily on debt-driven consumer spending to power its growth. Excessive household debt, coupled with stagnating incomes and little to no personal savings, now places America in a precarious position. Compared with the 19 other major industrialized economies, the United States ranks dead last for personal savings. That's right, in 2003, the United States was the least thrifty nation among the G-20. Why is it important that we save more as a nation? Savings offers us the protection we need to make it through hard or uncertain times and to pay for important future needs such as a home, education or adequate retirement. Savings also creates pools of capital for investment purposes (who will fund the next neighborhood coffee shop?) and to keep interest rates low. It appears the current recession has scared us back to saving; we are no longer spending all of our disposable income. To ensure that the hopeful trend continues, government and employers should adopt a new generation of savings policies that are both innovative and simple. Common sense, along with research from the emerging field of behavioral economics, tells us why we aren't saving more already: . 1) We like instant gratification . Whether it's iPhones or our paychecks, we want everything, and we want it now. We are so short-term-oriented that many of us would rather have a fatter paycheck now than set aside some of that happiness, even if the funds will be greater in the future. 2) We tend to procrastinate . Once we start something (or fail to start something), it's really hard to change course. And we'd prefer a hassle-free world. Who doesn't, right? When it's hard just to figure out how to start saving, most people won't. However, the flip side is that when it's easy to start saving, a lot more people will. Think about current retirement savings. How many of us would open an account and make regular deposits if an employer didn't take it right out of our paychecks? When it comes to savings, we need someone to save us from ourselves. Smart savings policies should be automatic and utilize smart pre-made choices, or defaults. It would require action to NOT save. Of course, this type of policymaking underscores the importance of making the default choice a good one (an adjustable-rate mortgage with no down payment would be an example of a bad default). Employers can easily help their employees save for a rainy day, leveraging the payroll system and direct deposit to automatically send a small percentage of their paychecks to a savings account. This type of unrestricted savings is especially valuable for individuals who have limited liquid assets and who may otherwise be forced to meet emergency cash needs with high-cost payday loans. A truly transformative savings policy to broaden the base of American savers would encourage it from birth with Children's Savings Accounts. These \"start in life\" accounts would be \"seeded\" up-front with a modest initial deposit ($500), progressively funded for children born into lower-income households and restricted for specific asset-building uses like higher education, purchasing a home or starting a small business. For the economic health of the next generation, the United States should join the U.K. and Singapore, and others who are offering such lifelong savings accounts, and get some skin in the thrift game, too. We know it's plenty hard to save; it feels a lot like we're taking away what we've rightly earned. Taking advantage of windfall payments such as tax refunds is important, and so is removing the temptation to spend all of that refund. Tax filers can pre-commit a portion of their refund before it reaches their pocket to up to three accounts (including savings accounts!) with IRS Form 8888. Having accessible savings is critical to our personal and economic security. We must reorient the savings policy discussion to include the needs of shorter-term savers and consider policy that would make savings automatic and universal at birth. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Alejandra Lopez-Fernandini." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alejandra Lopez-Fernandini: America saves less than nearly all big countries .\nShe says crisis is forcing an increase in savings by American families .\nLopez-Fernandini: Government, firms should automatically encourage saving .\nShe says you can designate part of a tax refund to go into a savings account ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Space shuttle Discovery is set to launch next week on a mission to the international space station, NASA's Flight Readiness Review team said Wednesday. The space shuttle Discovery is brought by crawler to its pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 4. Launch is scheduled for 1:36 a.m. ET Tuesday, NASA said. However, launches often are delayed because of inclement weather or technical concerns. Discovery will carry a crew of seven astronauts as it ferries equipment to the space station. One of the astronauts, Nicole Stott, will remain on the space station as a flight engineer, replacing astronaut Timothy Kopra, who will return home aboard Discovery as a mission specialist, according to the NASA Web page for the mission. Discovery will also be carrying the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT) to the space station. The treadmill is named for fake newsman Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's \"The Colbert Report.\" Earlier this year, NASA conducted an online poll to name the space station's newest compartment, asking voters to choose one of four given options or offer their own suggestion. Colbert urged his viewers to suggest \"Colbert,\" which won. But Colbert and the space agency compromised to give the moniker to the treadmill instead. The new module was given the name Tranquility. \"I'm so proud my treadmill will be going into space to help trim down those famously fat astronauts. Lay off the Tang, Chubby!\" Colbert said in a statement. The mission will be Discovery's 37th to space, and the 30th shuttle mission dedicated to assembly and maintenance of the space station, NASA says." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NASA: Discovery slated to lift off Tuesday on mission to international space station .\nShuttle will carry a crew of seven, ferry equipment to the space station .\nAstronaut Nicole Stott will remain on the space station as a flight engineer .\nShuttle to deliver treadmill named after comedian Stephen Colbert ." } ]

[ { "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) -- A man distraught because he could not find work shot and killed his mother-in-law, his wife and three sons and then killed himself inside a home in an upscale San Fernando Valley neighborhood, police said. Police say Karthik Rajaram left suicide notes taking responsibility for the murders of his family. Authorities said the man had an MBA in finance but appeared to have been unemployed for several months and had worked for major accounting firms, such as Price Waterhouse. The two-story rented home is in a gated community in Porter Ranch, about 20 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The shootings were discovered after 8:20 a.m. Monday, after a neighbor called police to report that the wife had failed to pick her up to take her to her job at a pharmacy, Deputy Chief of Police Michel Moore said. Ed Winter, assistant chief from the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, identified the suspect as Karthik Rajaram, 45. Winter said the victims included Rajaram's mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, and his 19-year-old son Krishna Rajaram, a Fulbright Scholar and honor student at UCLA. Watch police remove body from home » . Also dead were Rajaram's wife, 39, Subasari Rajaram, and their two other sons, 12 and 7. Some of the victims had been shot more than once, and their identities were not immediately confirmed, he said. \"Due to the nature of their injuries, it's been a little difficult,\" Winter said, adding that there were no signs of a struggle. Police first found the mother-in-law shot in her bed in a downstairs bedroom, Moore said. Upstairs, the couple's eldest son was shot in the master bedroom; the wife in another bedroom with a gunshot wound to the head; the two younger sons in the bedroom they shared, both shot in the head. The 12-year-old was on the floor and the 7-year-old in bed, Moore said. Watch more on what police had to say about tragedy » . The suspect was also in that bedroom, a gun still in his hand. The killings are thought to have occurred after 6 p.m. Saturday, when the man was last reported seen, Moore said. Inside the house, police also found three letters, one to law enforcement acknowledging responsibility for the killings, a second to friends and relatives and a third that appears to be the suspect's will, Moore said. \"He attests to some financial difficulties, and he takes responsibility for the taking of the lives of his family members and himself as a result of those financial difficulties,\" Moore said. Neighbors, family and friends told police that the suspect, who had not worked for several months, had said in recent days he was having had extreme financial difficulties, Moore said. One of the letters, intended for friends and marked \"personal and confidential,\" detailed his financial transactions that resulted in \"an unfortunate, downward spiral,\" Moore said. \"His narrative is one of talking about this tragedy befalling him and his contemplation of an available exit or solution,\" Moore said. \"One is taking his own life and the other is taking the lives of his family and himself. ... He talked himself into the second strategy, believing that was, in effect, the honorable thing to do.\" Moore said the several-page narrative appeared to have been written over a period of time. \"This was something that was not a spur-of-the-moment type of event,\" he said. Moore said it was clear to police that the family members were close and \"had an affection for each other.\" He said the parents had given up their master bedroom to their eldest -- who was spending the weekend home from college -- \"out of respect.\" \"This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair, somehow working his way into believing this to be an acceptable exit.\" No neighbors reported having heard gunshots, and there was no sign of forced entry at the house, Moore said. Rajaram was involved in a financial holding company as part owner \"at least,\" Moore said. There is no evidence he had had any history of mental difficulties, nor was there an indication he had sought counseling, Moore said. Neighbor Trish Harrison, who lives three houses from the crime scene, said the family had lived in the community for about a year, but kept to themselves and had little interaction with neighbors. The parents were from India, she said. The Los Angeles Unified School District was making arrangements for crisis counselors to visit the schools attended by the two younger sons. CNN's Stan Wilson contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of man's three sons was Fulbright Scholar and honor student at UCLA .\nOfficer speaks of man \"who just got stuck in ... absolute despair\"\nFather had MBA in finance but seemed to have been unemployed for months .\nPolice: Man left three letters, including one taking responsibility for shootings ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The State Department on Monday continued to publicly downplay the threat North Korea presents to the United States with spokesman P.J. Crowley telling reporters North Korea \"represents an infinitesimal threat to the United States directly.\" A North Korean soldier looks at the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone earlier this month. The spokesman's statement followed comments from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview with ABC, broadcast Monday, in which she said the reason for the United States' low-key reaction to North Korea's recent missile test was that the United States wasn't \"going to give the North Koreans the satisfaction they were looking for, which was to elevate them to center stage.\" In that interview, Clinton said North Korea has a \"constant demand for attention,\" and she added, \"maybe it's the mother in me, the experience I've had with small children and teenagers and people who are demanding attention: Don't give it to them.\" After calling the direct threat to the U.S. \"infinitesimal,\" Crowley went on to say that \"North Korea, and its provocative actions, does represent a significant threat to the region and its actions recently have been unhelpful and potentially destabilizing.\" A senior U.S. official, who did not want to be identified, said there is a \"theoretical\" question of whether a North Korean missile could hit the United States. \"There's nothing in their recent development,\" he said, \"which would suggest that their technology is becoming more accurate.\" The United States says its primary concerns about North Korea's actions are its impact on security in the region and the risk of nuclear proliferation. Last week the United Nations imposed sanctions on a number of individuals, companies and goods connected with North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Taking aim at several key North Korean officials, it subjected them to a freeze on their assets and an international travel ban." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "State Department spokesman: Recent actions \"potentially destabilizing\" to region .\nSecretary of State Clinton: North Korea has \"constant demand for attention\"\nThat is why U.S. had low-key reaction to missile tests, Clinton says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To: Interested Parties From: John King Re: Monday Memo . Egyptain President Hosni Mubarak will visit the White House on Tuesday. (CNN) -- Health care remains, without a doubt, President Obama's top priority, though the week ahead will bring more of a public focus on international and security issues. One key dynamic to keep an eye on is the reaction among leading House Democrats to the latest indication the White House is prepared to accept a health care bill that lacks a robust \"public\" or government insurance option. \"Not the essential element,\" is how Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described the public option to us on CNN's \"State of the Union\" on Sunday.. \"Very difficult,\" is how veteran House Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas told us when asked how hard of a sell a health care bill absent a robust public option would be in among House Democrats. This might be a good time for Obama and former President Clinton to swap notes about 1993-94. Out of the box on Monday in Phoenix, Arizona, Obama addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention. It's a platform to share his views on the escalation of the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan just as U.S. forces begin to quicken their pace of withdrawal from Iraq. Back in Washington on Tuesday, a White House meeting with longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will turn attention to the Middle East, where the administration and traditional Arab allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia are unhappy with the lack of discernible movement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And Thursday's national elections in Afghanistan will keep a spotlight on the international stage and the uncertainties facing the Obama administration. It's safe to say the White House has profound worries about President Hamid Karzai's commitment to fight corruption and lead aggressively, but it's also safe to say the White House expectation is another Karzai term. The market closed down at the end of last week because of doubts the worst was over. This week offers a few interesting tests: . • Earnings reports on tap from companies that offer key glimpses of consumer spending -- among them Home Depot, Lowe's Target and Hewlett-Packard. • The Labor Department's Producer Price Index is released on Tuesday, along with Commerce Department figures on new housing starts. • And the report on economic leading indicators comes Thursday morning. And, finally, a few political notes for the week ahead: . • Fred Thompson and Bill Clinton will be lighting birthday candles on Wednesday. • Southern governors gather in Williamsburg, Virginia, with the economy and health care topping the agenda. • Mike Huckabee's political action committee gathers this week, through a series of house parties." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Monday, President Obama will have chance to discuss Afghanistan at speech .\nOn Thursday, Afghanistan's elections will keep trouble nation on forefront .\nOn Tuesday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will visit the White House .\nOn health care this week, watch how House Democrats react to latest moves ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Classes resumed last Thursday at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, and by Monday 47 students had swine flu, a college official said. The CDC recommends someone sick with the virus remain out of class for 24 hours after fever has abated on its own. Although that's less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the 27,000-member student body, and no one has died or been hospitalized, the school has moved into action. \"The sanitizer's out,\" said Todd Cohen, director of university relations. The university sent e-mails to faculty members asking them to create contingency plans so that sick students are not required to go to class, and to commuter students and their parents warning them that the students may have to be isolated if they fall ill. That same message has gone to students in dormitories. Arrangements are being made to isolate anyone who's sick in their rooms by moving out their roommates and dropping off meals, Cohen said. None of the school's cases of swine flu -- also called H1N1 -- has proven fatal or resulted in a hospitalization, he said, and none of the reported cases has been confirmed. Public health officials are simply assuming that anyone with flu symptoms has swine flu, because it's the only form of the virus in circulation, he said. The school's health center can do little for those who show up for help. \"They're basically told to go home and rest and get better,\" Cohen said. Vaccines are unlikely to help much this year. Supplies are not expected until late October, and require some five weeks from the first inoculation -- two are required -- before they become effective. \"By then, it's December and the semester is almost over,\" he said. So public health officials are focusing on more basic medical efforts. Students already overloaded with information at the start of the semester are being urged to sneeze into their sleeves, wash their hands frequently and stay home if they get sick, Cohen said. \"It really comes down to them taking personal action,\" he said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends someone sick with the virus remain out of class for 24 hours after fever has abated on its own. Firm figures on just how many people have the illness are tough to come by. Doctors are not required to report it to state or federal health officials, said Maggie Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. \"We've stopped accepting tests from county health departments,\" she said. Instead, the department is focusing on a surveillance system that will test only those sites deemed representative. Otherwise, Thompson said, the state's laboratories would become overwhelmed. \"There are just too many numbers.\" The state stopped counting laboratory-confirmed cases at 324: \"But that is just a fraction of what we think is going on,\" she said. \"There could be as many as 10,000 cases in Kansas already.\" KU students are not the only ones catching swine flu, Thompson said: \"If you called any university of this size around the country it's probably going to be about the same.\" At Auburn University in Alabama, 10 cases have been reported among the 24,000 students who started classes last Monday, a spokeswoman said. \"So far, everybody seems to be recovering,\" said Deedie Dowdle. The school's emergency management team was meeting this week to decide how to handle larger-scale absences, she said. \"I'm getting lots of reports of outbreaks in the Southeast Conference,\" said Dr. James Turner, president of the American College Health Association. \"I'm anticipating several thousand cases among college students this fall.\" Among the preparations are plans for mass vaccinations, he said. But with school just beginning, much remains unknown, he said. \"We are just kind of hunkering down right now waiting to see where this goes.\" Turner is also executive director for student health at the University of Virginia, where classes are slated to begin Tuesday. \"We're kind of bracing for what the week brings,\" he said. Turner said 63 students came down with swine flu during the summer session, and \"they all did fine.\" Last week, the CDC released tips for school administrators to follow. \"We're hoping we're on track to be ahead of this virus, to get the college-age population vaccinated once it becomes available in mid-October, and to keep students as safe and secure as possible,\" Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters in a conference call. Some U.S. colleges began reporting cases last April, after students returned from spring break. The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, which reported one case of H1N1 last spring, is taking extra precautions ahead of the fall semester. \"We are attacking the disease, from each person taking the responsibility for good hygiene and healthy habits,\" said Ann Kleva, the university's director of health services. The University of California has been stocking up on supplies for each of its 10 campuses over the past several months, university system officials said. Since mid-April, when swine flu was discovered, the CDC has tallied 522 deaths in the nation. \"We do know that H1N1 flu is circulating in the country right now,\" said Lisa Barrios, of the agency's division of adolescent and school health. \"For the most part, it's sporadic and regional.\" But she said the agency is not advising any schools to close. \"What we're doing is keeping a very close eye on what's happening with the flu during the fall and the winter,\" she said. The swine flu virus has captured the attention of public health experts because they worry it could mutate into a far more lethal form. \"If that does happen, then we may recommend that schools close, but right now we are not doing that,\" Barrios said. \"It's important to balance the risks with the benefits of keeping kids in schools.\" CNN's Emily Sherman, Leslie Wade, Miriam Falco and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this article." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five days into new year, U. of Kansas at Lawrence has 47 cases of swine flu .\nNo one has died or been hospitalized because of the illness .\nLast week, the CDC released tips for school administrators to follow .\nUniversities and colleges across the country are bracing for swine flu spike ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A Mississippi schoolteacher was sentenced to life without parole Wednesday for shooting and stabbing to death her lover's pregnant fiancee in 2006. Carla Hughes met the victim's fiance at the middle school where she was a teacher. The same jury that convicted Carla Hughes of two counts of murder Tuesday for the death of Avis Banks spared her life, declining to impose the death penalty. Mississippi is among the states that consider murdering a pregnant woman to be taking two lives. Madison County District Attorney Michael Guest asked the panel of nine women and three men to sentence Hughes to death based on the gruesome nature of Banks' murder. Banks, 27, was found lying in a pool of blood on November 29, 2006, in the garage of the Ridgeland home she shared with Keyon Pittman, the father of her unborn child. She was five months pregnant. She had been shot four times in the leg, chest and head, and then stabbed multiple times in the face and neck as she lay dying, according to medical testimony. Prosecutors alleged that Hughes killed Banks so she could have Pittman, a colleague at Chastain Middle School in Jackson, to herself. \"She took Avis Banks' life and the life of her unborn child because she wanted that life,\" the prosecutor said. The jury deliberated Wednesday for about an hour to decide on the sentence after hearing emotional testimony from seven defense witnesses, including her parents. \"Carla has been a kind, loving person all her life,\" said Carl Hughes, who adopted his daughter when she was 6 weeks old. \"I'm not asking you, I'm pleading with you, to spare my daughter's life,\" said Hughes, who is also a teacher. He said that the person portrayed by prosecutors as a cold-blooded killer was completely different from the accomplished honors student, equestrian and beauty pageant contestant that he knew and loved. Hughes' pastor and friends also took the stand to describe her work mentoring youths, volunteering at church and at the school where she met the victim's husband. Suspicion initially fell on Pittman, who admitted to having an affair with Hughes, a language arts teacher. A key prosecution witness, Pittman told the jury he began seeing Hughes one month after finding out his girlfriend was pregnant. He testified that the two met frequently in Hughes' home and even went out of town together, but he insisted the relationship was based solely on sex. Throughout the trial, defense lawyers maintained her innocence and attempted to cast blame on Pittman, portraying him as a womanizer seeking to avoid the burden of fatherhood. Prosecutors alleged the murder weapons connected Hughes to the crime. The defendant's cousin testified that he lent her a knife and a loaded .38 caliber revolver the weekend before Banks' death. Ballistics tests matched the bullets from Banks' body to the gun, which Hughes returned unloaded to her cousin after her first interview with police. None of Banks' relatives testified at the sentencing. Instead, the jury heard from a forensic pathologist, who described the nature of Banks' injuries. Madison County Deputy District Attorney John Emfinger urged the jury to look past Hughes' prior achievements and focus on the crime in rendering its sentence. \"In my mind, this overshadows everything else she's done in life. She took the lives of two people in that garage,\" he said in his closing argument Wednesday. \"When that door opened, (Avis Banks) was not met by a beauty pageant winner, she was not met by a member of the mayor's youth council, she was not met by a peacemaker. ... She was met by a stone-cold killer,\" he said. In Session's Jean Casarez contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Same jury that convicted Carla Hughes of murder declines to impose death penalty .\nProsecutors said gruesome nature of crime warranted death sentence .\nAvis Banks was five months pregnant when she was shot, stabbed multiple times .\nProsecutors alleged Hughes killed rival so she could be with Keyon Pittman ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- More than two dozen times in the past three years, authorities came to Phillip and Nancy Garrido's ramshackle home at 1554 Walnut Ave. in Antioch, California, a rural property where Jaycee Dugard is said to have been confined for 18 years. Jaycee Dugard was locked in a shed tucked under a blue tarp in her alleged captor's backyard. And each time, they left without learning of the secret shed where Dugard lived. The Garridos have pleaded not guilty to charges of abduction and forcible rape. They are being held without bail in the Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez, California. After she was abducted in June 1991, at age 11, Dugard's disappearance spawned a massive search that continued, on and off, for almost two decades. Federal agents remained committed to the case, chasing thousands of leads. But they apparently never had the Garridos on their radar. The case of the missing girl evoked deep emotions that rippled across the South Lake Tahoe community. Strangers threw fundraisers and parades to raise money for search efforts. Friends and neighbors wore T-shirts bearing images of Dugard's smiling face to give the case exposure. Elementary school students toted signs that encouraged the community to stay committed to the hunt for their classmate. All they wanted was to find little Jaycee Lee Dugard. And for some of that time, authorities were visiting the home of the couple now accused of abducting her. Watch an FBI agent talk about why clues were missed » . Interviews with public officials show that parole officers, law enforcement officials and firefighters visited the Garrido household but left without realizing that the kidnapped girl had grown to adulthood and was living in a soundproof shed hidden in the backyard. Two Dozen Contacts . There were at least 16 visits from parole officers and seven by the fire department. There was also one by the sheriff's office responding to an allegation that people were living in the backyard. State and local authorities have now begun internal investigations to find out why none of these visits uncovered the existence of Dugard, now 29, and her children, Starlet, 15, and Angel, 11. Their makeshift home of tents, tarps and sheds was tucked behind a 6-foot wall at the rear of the Garrido property. \"I feel confident the sheriff will use this as an example of how to do things better,\" said Federal Glover, a district supervisor for Contra Costa County who also heads the community's public safety committee. \"From this lesson, we will not have this type of missed opportunity occur again.\" One of the first red flags authorities might have caught was in 1993, two years after the kidnapping. Garrido, who had been released from prison after serving 11 years for a 1976 kidnapping, violated his parole in April 1993. It is unclear what he did or how the violation was flagged. As a result, he was placed in federal prison for one month and then released on house arrest for three months. He returned to the Antioch home, where he lived with his wife and his elderly mother. Violation Wasn't Reported to Nevada . But the parole violation was never reported to the state of Nevada, where the first kidnapping and rape had occurred, said Gail Powell, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Public Safety. \"The state of Nevada would have taken some action,\" Powell said. \"I don't know what, but some action could have meant putting him back in prison, pulling him off parole.\" In 1999, the California Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections agreed to take responsibility and authority for supervising Garrido's parole because he resided in that state. Garrido's most recent parole agent visited the home at least twice a month since December, according to California corrections officials. Sometimes the visits were unannounced, said Gordon Hinkle, a department spokesman. Parole officers also checked on Garrido frequently before 2008, Hinkle said, but he did not know how often or how many parole officers visited Garrido's residence. The parole agent who most recently entered Garrido's backyard didn't notice any children's toys or items to indicate that minors were living in the house. The agent saw a shed but assumed it belonged to a neighbor. \"There was a deceptive false impression,\" Hinkle said. \"If you were to be on the property walking around, you would have seen a big fence.\" Parole Officers Carry Big Caseloads . Hinkle said the parole officer performed his duties appropriately. The parole officer was also responsible for raising suspicions when two University of California Berkeley officers notified him that Phillip Garrido came in with his \"daughters.\" The parole officer called the Garridos in for questioning. California has one of the highest parolee-to-officer ratios in the country. State budget cuts are expected to strain the department this year, which could mean reducing the number of parole officers, Hinkle said. The officer assigned to supervise Garrido was also responsible for 39 other sex offenders. As recently as June, two months before Dugard was discovered with the Garridos, Contra Costa County firefighters responded to a fire on the property. They doused a car engine that had exploded into flames at the rear of the property, said department spokeswoman Emily Hopkins. They spent two hours there and then left. They also visited Garrido's property in fall 2007, after a neighbor reported fire coming from the backyard. In addition, they responded twice in 2008 and three times in 2009 to medical emergencies involving Garrido's elderly mother, Patricia Franzen. Fire department officials weren't sure whether more visits were made to the home, because computerized records date only to 2006. Neighbors Steered Clear . Neighbors who had encounters with Garrido said they didn't take the time to get to know him. Some said they knew that he was a sex offender, so they steered away from his house. Others ignored him because they thought he was strange. Betty Unpingco invited the entire neighborhood to her son's graduation party in spring 2006. She said Garrido attended and brought speakers for the party. When Unpingco and several adults noticed him talking to the high school girls, they asked him to leave. Later that night, she said, when they saw him waiting outside his home to speak to the girls, the adults escorted them home. Feeling uneasy after the party, Unpingco checked the sex offender registry and found Garrido's picture. \"It was just so bizarre,\" said Unpingco, who has 10 children. \"I warned my children to stay away from him and to always walk in twos.\" She did not notify police. In November 2006, another neighbor did call police, saying she saw people living in tents behind the Garridos' house. Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren E. Rupf said he didn't think the deputy who responded knew at the time that Garrido was a sex offender. The deputy spoke to Garrido in his front yard about the allegations, but Garrido convinced him otherwise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Officials visited Garrido home more than two dozen times in past three years .\nPhillip Garrido's parole officer checked up on him at least twice a month .\nGarrido violated parole in 1993, but offense wasn't reported to all the right agencies ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Serving a 36-year-old government-issue cake at an Army retirement ceremony sounds like a classic bureaucratic mistake, but there was no mistake about it. Retiring Army Col. Henry Moak uses a vintage P-38 to break the seal on government cake saved since 1973. Retiring Army Col. Henry Moak served it up himself -- at his own ceremony. Moak had saved the cake since 1973, when he got it while serving in Vietnam, and had long-standing plans to open it upon his retirement. Pound cake served in a can was standard fare in military C rations back then. Moak said it was his favorite, and he could not get enough of it. \"I would eat it any chance I could get, but not all of the meals came with pound cake,\" he said before opening it. In front of friends and family who attended his retirement ceremony Friday at the Pentagon, Moak eagerly opened the can. Answering the question of whether the anticipation was the same now as back then, Moak said, \"Yes, even more!\" \"I won't eat it if it's black and moldy,\" he told onlookers. \"You can hear the pop of the air coming out,\" he said referring to the vacuum seal on the can. To most people's surprise, the opened can revealed a still-edible yellow cake. The ceremonial sword used to cut Moak's real retirement cake was also used to dig into the can and cut out the cake. Moak took a bite and put up his thumb, \"It's good, it's still kind of moist,\" he declared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Retiring Army Col. Henry Moak treats himself to pound cake saved from 1973 .\nMoak says he always liked the cake and \"would eat it any chance I could get\"\nHe saved the C ration goodie to have alongside traditional retirement cake ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Palestinians on Tuesday urged the United Nations to \"punish\" Israel as a scathing U.N. report accused the nation of war crimes during its military offensive in Gaza last winter. A Palestinian boy kicks a football outside damaged homes in northern Gaza in January 2009. But Israel rejected the investigation as one-sided and shameful. The report accused Israel of committing \"actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity\" during its military incursion into Gaza from December 27 to January 18. Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who headed the U.N. investigation into the conflict, demanded that someone be held responsible for crimes committed during it. \"The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point,\" Goldstone said Tuesday. \"This is the time of action.\" He formally presented the report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday. It claims that the Israeli Defense Forces \"failed to take feasible precautions required by international law to avoid or minimize loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.\" Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the United Nations, called the report professional and unbiased. \"This report should not be another report to just document and archive,\" said Khraishi. \"My people will not forgive this council if they let these criminals go unpunished.\" But Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, questioned the report in strong language Tuesday, calling it one-sided and shameful. \"This report is based on carefully picked incidents, cherry-picked for political effect,\" Leshno-Yaar said. \"The authors of this fact-finding report had little thought about finding facts.\" Israel did not cooperate in the U.N. investigation, calling it flawed and biased. There is an ongoing dispute about the number of people killed in the three-week military offensive which Israel called Operation Cast Lead. The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights put the death toll at 1,419 and said that 1,167 of those were \"non-combatants.\" The Israeli military released its own figures earlier this year, claiming 1,166 people were killed and that 60 percent of those were \"terror operatives.\" A separate report released earlier this month by Israeli human rights organization B'tselem put the death toll at 1,387, claiming that more than half of those killed were civilians. Israel has said it \"had both a right and an obligation to take military action against Hamas in Gaza to stop Hamas' almost incessant rocket and mortar attacks upon thousands of Israeli civilians and its other acts of terrorism.\" Hamas is the militant Palestinian movement which governs Gaza. It rejects Israel's right to exist. The U.N. report said Israel fired the chemical agent white phosphorus in civilian areas, intentionally fired upon hospitals using high-explosive artillery shells, and failed to provide effective warnings to civilians or U.N. workers before attacks, all of which can be war crimes. It also claims that Israel used Palestinian civilians as human shields and deliberately attacked Palestinian food supplies in Gaza. The report recommends that the U.N. Security Council require the government of Israel to launch appropriate independent investigations into the findings of the report within three months. The findings also recommend that the alleged Israeli war crimes be explored by the International Criminal Court. Israel has launched a number of its own investigations into the conflict. The findings also call on Palestinian leadership to investigate alleged war crimes, for militants to respect humanitarian law, and for the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Palestinian militants in 2006, on humanitarian grounds. Representatives from Russia, Cuba and Egypt applauded the Goldstone report. The U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, said some of the recommendations in the report were \"deeply flawed\" and called for Israel and Palestinian authorities to be allowed to finish conducting their own investigations before passing judgment. A spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the Human Rights Council could draft a resolution on the issue by Friday. The group that prepared the report is called the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. Its 500-plus page report was released earlier this month and presented formally on Tuesday. CNN's Kevin Flower contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "U.N. group presents scathing report on Israel's conduct during Gaza offensive .\nPalestinians urge U.N. to address alleged crimes; Israel condemns report .\nReport accuses Israel of \"actions amounting to war crimes\" during offensive .\nReport finds Palestinian militants also committed war crimes ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A key Senate negotiator said Sunday that President Obama should drop his push for a government-funded public health insurance option because the Senate will never pass it. President Obama at a town hall meeting earlier this week pushing his health care reform plan. Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said it was futile to continue to \"chase that rabbit\" due to the lack of 60 Senate votes needed to overcome a filibuster. \"The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been,\" Conrad said on \"Fox News Sunday.\" His comment signaled a shift in the health care debate, with Obama and senior advisers softening their support for a public option by saying final form of the legislation is less important than the principle of affordable coverage available to all. At a town hall meeting Saturday in Colorado, Obama said the public option is just one of many issues critical to successfully overhauling the ailing health care system. \"All I'm saying is ... that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform. This is just one sliver of it,\" the president said. Asked Sunday if Obama would accept a bill lacking a public option, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president insists on more competition in the health insurance marketplace to offer consumers better choices. \"The bottom line ... is: Do individuals looking for health insurance in the private market have choice and competition?\" Gibbs said on the CBS program \"Face the Nation.\" \"If we have that, the president will be satisfied.\" Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius echoed Gibbs, telling CNN's \"State of the Union\" on Sunday that a final health care bill will include competitive choices for consumers in one form or another. \"There will be a competitor to private insurers,\" she said. \"You don't turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices and we need some competition.\" Opponents of overhauling the health care system argue the Democratic proposals under consideration by Congress go too far and will lead to a government takeover of the health care system. \"We have the best health care system in the world,\" Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama told \"Fox News Sunday.\" \"We need to expand it. We do not need to destroy it.\" At issue is how to provide coverage for an estimated 46 million uninsured people while reversing a climb in health care costs. Democratic proposals passed so far by House and Senate committees include a public insurance option, mandates for people to be insured and employers to provide coverage, and an end to insurance companies refusing to cover pre-existing conditions. Most Republicans oppose the public option and requirements for employers to provide coverage. They also call for limits on medical malpractice lawsuits -- something Democrats generally don't favor. However, the two parties generally agree on a number of provisions contained in the Democratic bills, including increased efficiency in Medicare and Medicaid and focusing on preventive health programs. Conrad is one of six Senate Finance Committee members -- three Democrats and three Republicans -- who are negotiating a compromise health care bill that would be the only bipartisan proposal so far. Instead of a public option, the negotiators are considering a plan proposed by Conrad to create nonprofit health insurance cooperatives that could negotiate coverage as a collective for their members. Conrad said such cooperatives would provide the competition sought by Obama and Democratic leaders to force private insurers to hold down costs and improve practices. The government would put up initial funding to provide required reserves but would have no other role, he said. \"It's not a public plan at all in terms of government running it,\" Conrad said. Shelby called the cooperative idea a \"step in the right direction\" and \"a far cry\" from other proposals, adding that Obama and Democratic leaders have \"read the tea leaves\" from town hall meetings around the country. However, Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas told CNN it would be \"very, very difficult\" to support a bill that lacked a public health insurance option. \"Without the public option, we'll have the same number of people uninsured,\" Johnson said in a \"State of the Union\" interview. \"If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people now, they'd be insured.\" She added that \"an option that would give the private insurance companies a little competition\" is \"the only way\" to be sure that insurance is available to low-income people and people without employer-provided coverage. Meanwhile, leaders of organizations representing America's doctors and senior citizens defended the proposed health care overhaul that their groups had opposed in past years. Dr. J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association, and John Rother of AARP -- formerly the American Association of Retired Persons -- told \"Fox News Sunday\" a comprehensive overhaul sought by Democrats was necessary. \"There are some moving parts that if you just do one and don't do the other, you're going to have unintended consequences,\" said Rohack, head of the nation's largest doctors' advocacy group. Rother, executive vice president of policy and strategy for the largest senior citizens' advocacy group, said properly addressing excessive health care costs and waste requires addressing both health insurance coverage and how health care treatment is delivered. Both men rejected accusations that a health care overhaul would bring rationing of health treatment based on bureaucratic measures such as cost and economic productivity of patients. \"There's a myth that rationing doesn't occur right now,\" Rohack said, noting that some companies currently deny coverage for pregnancy as a pre-existing condition. \"That's why this bill is so important,\" Rohack said. \"It gets rid of rationing happening right now\" and leaves decisions to patients and doctors. Rohack also condemned claims by some Republicans that a provision in one House bill would lead to so-called \"death panels\" encouraging euthanasia of senior citizens. \"That's absolutely wrong, it's a falsehood,\" he said, adding that the provision was intended to provide government support for consultations between patients and their doctors. Spreading of the \"death panel\" rumor by some conservative commentators and some Republican politicians prompted emotional opposition at town hall meetings across the country. Senate negotiators on a compromise bill say they have dropped the provision from their proposal due to potential misinterpretation of the intent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Democratic senator from North Dakota: Not enough votes to filibuster .\nSen. Kent Conrad: President Obama should not \"chase that rabbit\"\nConrad, working on bipartisan proposal, suggests nonprofit insurance co-ops .\nObama has been campaigning for a government-backed health care option ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The murder of rapper Dolla reverberated throughout the music industry on Tuesday as police sought a motive for the brazen killing. Rap artist Dolla was known as a nice guy who survived a rough childhood. The aspiring Southern hip-hop artist, whose real name was Roderick Anthony Burton II, was gunned down in the busy parking lot of the upscale Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles, California, on Monday afternoon. Police later arrested Aubrey Louis Berry, 23, at Los Angeles International Airport, a Los Angeles Police statement said. No other details were given about Berry. The 21-year-old rapper was based in Atlanta, Georgia. He was in Los Angeles to work on his debut album. Those who knew him said that despite coming from a rough background, Burton was extremely gracious and polite. \"Everything with Dolla was 'please' and 'thank you,' \" said Ant Rich, manager of A&R for Jive Records, who discovered the rapper for the label when Burton was 17 and helped sign him a year later. \"The streets did not define him at all. He was bigger than that.\" Dolla was a protégé of singer Akon, who collaborated with him on his first single, \"Who the F--- is That?\" which also featured another high-profile artist, T-Pain. Another Dolla song, \"Feelin' Myself,\" appeared on the soundtrack to the 2006 movie \"Step Up.\" According to his official MySpace page, Dolla was born in Chicago, Illinois, and his family relocated to Los Angeles soon after. He was 5 years old when he and his older sister, Divinity, witnessed their father committing suicide. After that incident, their mother moved the family to Atlanta, according to his biography. The Burton family released the following statement on Tuesday: . \"First and foremost we, the family, would like to thank everyone for all their kind thoughts and prayers. Furthermore, the family would like to note that rumored details of the shooting on popular Web/blog sites are false. \"Due to the circumstances of the situation, no other information will be released at this time. We are grateful for your continuous support and would be very appreciative if we could mourn this loss in private. \"Additionally, information released before and after this official statement are not confirmed nor should they be considered accurate.\" Rich said Dolla, who also did some modeling for P. Diddy's Sean John label, loved his family deeply. He was the guy with the great smile who would do things like offer to pick up the bill after a meeting with music executives, Rich said. \"You would tell him 'Look Dolla, you don't have to do that because we get reimbursed for this' and he would say 'No, no you got it last time, let me,' \" Rich said. \"The world lost a really good kid and he had the biggest heart.\" DeAngelo Jones books talent for BET and got to know Dolla after he performed at the network's \"Spring Bling\" event last year. He said the artist was humbled and grateful for the success he was starting to find in the industry. \"That energy was what drew me to him,\" said Jones, who stayed in touch with Dolla after the show and often ran into him at other events. \"A lot of times there are negative associations that go along with being a rapper, but he was not at all what the image of a rapper is portrayed to be.\" Jones said he was at the Beverly Center only a short time before the shooting occurred. Jones said it was unfortunate that Dolla's slaying is yet another incident that will link hip-hop with violence. \"Hip-hop gets such a bad rap, ever since the deaths of Biggie and Tupac,\" Jones said. \"[Dolla] just wanted to be successful, help other people and do the right thing. What's so hard for me is to see where his life was heading, because he was definitely on the right course.\" Jerry Barrow, senior editor for The Urban Daily, a publication devoted to African-Americans in pop culture, noted that it was unfortunate that Dolla is finding mainstream recognition posthumously. \"With his modeling and his music, he did more before the age of 20 than many people do,\" Barrow said. \"It's a shame that this is how many people are now discovering him and his music.\" Rashan Ali, a disc jockey with Atlanta's Hot 107.9 radio station, said the city has a thriving hip-hop community. Her station, which plays hip-hop, often has its lobby filled with aspiring artists trying to get their music heard. With the success of Atlanta-based artists like rappers T.I., Outkast, and Young Jeezy, more and more young people are drawn to the area to try and make the connections that will find them fame, Ali said. That Dolla was killed while pursuing his craft is especially sad, she said. \"[Dolla] was minding his business, in Los Angeles trying to record his music and this happens,\" Ali said. \"It's horrific and now a mother has to bury her child. It's senseless.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those who knew rapper Dolla mourn his loss .\nThe Atlanta-based rapper was killed at the Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles .\nFamily releases a statement asking for privacy to mourn .\nDolla, whose real name was Roderick Anthony Burton II, was 21 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly 40 years after members of a U.S. cavalry unit put their lives in peril to save 100 fellow soldiers trapped under blistering enemy fire in Vietnam, they received the Presidential Unit Citation on Tuesday. Veterans watch Tuesday's ceremony, which recognized members of a U.S. cavalry unit. It's an honor their captain says is long overdue. President Obama awarded the citation for extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry to 86 members of the Army's Troop A, First Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. \"These soldiers defined the meaning of bravery and heroism,\" Obama said at a White House reception honoring the group's heroics. \"It's never too late. You can never say it enough. ... We honor your service, and America is forever grateful.\" On March 26, 1970, the 120-member Troop A volunteered to rescue an American infantry company surrounded by an overwhelming enemy force at a site on the Cambodian border called the Dog's Face. The enemy had survived hours of aerial and artillery bombardment and was expected to kill or capture the 100 American infantrymen in Company C within hours. The Americans were running out of ammunition and could not move because of heavy casualties. There were no available landing zones for medical and rescue helicopters to touch down. Alpha Troop heard of their plight on a radio and rode in with an infantry company to rescue their comrades. \"Troop A skillfully penetrated four kilometers of nearly impassable jungle terrain and unhesitatingly mounted a fierce assault directly into the heavily fortified North Vietnamese army position,\" the presidential proclamation states. When the battle was over, more than 70 Americans lay dead or wounded. For retired Capt. John Poindexter, who led the rescue, the award is for all Vietnam veterans, many of whom came home to an unwelcome and sometimes hostile reception. \"The veterans of Alpha Troop feel very strongly that we stand in the stead of all veterans of the war of Vietnam,\" Poindexter told CNN before the ceremony. \"The fact is that we're being singled out for a very distinct honor, a very rare one, but it is our conviction that on any day in any other jungle in Vietnam, nearly every Vietnam veteran would have been willing to assume the task that we assumed on March 26, 1970, when we earned the Presidential Unit Citation.\" Poindexter had been trying to gain recognition for his men for the past seven years. Initially, he felt deep disappointment. In 2003, he discovered that the men he had recommended for decorations for their valor had not received those citations. Eventually, 14 men received individual decorations. That was not enough. \"My role in obtaining the PUC [Presidential Unit Citation] -- or in helping to obtain the PUC -- among the 200 persons who were involved in this matter over a seven-year period, was to be in the unhappy position of discovering that the men who I had recommended for decorations had not been recommended, had not been awarded those decorations,\" the retired captain said. \"The result of that was that we got 14 men decorated for their valor, but 14 men out of more than 120 who were engaged in the battle on that fateful day were only a pittance, only a minority, of those who might have been honored. Only a unit citation could honor all equally and impartially, and it was that task we set ourselves on nearly seven years ago. \" He believes lack of popular support for the war had much to do with it taking so long for Alpha Troop to be recognized. \"There's little question in our minds that the unpopularity of the war in Vietnam is a major contributing factor to the reception these men received when they returned to the United States and a major factor, in my opinion, in the silence that most of them have assumed since then,\" Poindexter said. \"Why talk about something that most people don't have a very high opinion of in all likelihood? And if that isn't true, nevertheless, it's what most of these men think. They were engaged in an unpopular venture that has bedeviled them for much of their adult lives.\" Now, the circle has been closed. \"It's a very elevating experience to see the men that I have not seen for 40 years since War Zone C in Vietnam,\" the former captain said. \"These are persons who have had success in life, and some have not had a lot of success in life, and to see how they've turned out, how they look these days, and to know I'll be with them in the White House [Tuesday] is a very fulfilling sensation for me. \"For me, the sensation of being honored is one of having closed an important chapter on my life in a very fruitful and rewarding way.\" The Presidential Unit Citation is awarded to armed forces units of the United States and allies for extraordinary heroism against an armed enemy on or after December 7, 1941. The unit must display such gallantry, determination and esprit de corps under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions so as to set it apart from and above other units participating in the same campaign." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "86 in Army's Troop A, First Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment recognized .\nCavalry saved 100 fellow soldiers trapped under enemy fire in Vietnam .\nLeader of 1970 rescue says award is for all Vietnam veterans .\nPresidential Unit Citation recognizes extraordinary heroism against armed enemy ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Hurricane Bill weakened Friday afternoon to a Category 2 hurricane, with its maximum sustained winds at 105 mph, forecasters said. Hurricane Bill is expected to pass between Bermuda and the U.S. East Coast over the weekend. As of 11 p.m. Friday, Bill's center was about 180 miles west-southwest of Bermuda, and about 545 miles east-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Its forward speed had increased to about 20 mph as it continued moving north-northwest, forecasters said. The storm was expected to gradually turn toward the north late Friday and into Saturday. See Bill's projected path » . If the storm follows its current track, it should pass over the open water between Bermuda and the U.S. East Coast on Saturday, forecasters said. Earlier Friday, Bill's outer bands began producing rain in Bermuda as the storm neared the British territory, the hurricane center said. Forecasters expect Bill to pelt Bermuda with 1 to 3 inches of rain, although up to 5 inches is possible. iReport.com: Bermuda's preparations . The storm also was beginning to affect the U.S. East Coast, where dangerous rip currents and battering waves were developing, said CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras. Rip currents form as wind and waves push water against the shore, where it is caught behind an obstacle such as a sandbar until it breaks free, sending a strong channel of water flowing away from the shoreline. The large swells are expected to affect most of the U.S. East Coast within the next couple of days, the hurricane center said. There were reports of waves at the center of the storm as high as 54 feet, Jeras said. With Bill advancing, the Bermuda Weather Service forecasts the storm tide will raise water levels by as much as 3 feet along the coast and produce large, battering waves. Large swells were affecting Puerto Rico, the island of Hispaniola and the Bahamas to the south, the agency said. Bermuda remained under a tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch. The warning means winds of at least 39 mph are expected within 24 hours, while the watch indicates winds of at least 74 mph are possible within 36 hours. Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 85 miles from the center and storm-force winds outward as much as 275 miles, the hurricane center said. Forecasters advised people along the New England coast and in the Canadian Maritime provinces to monitor Bill's progress." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hurricane Bill downgraded to Category 2 storm .\nHurricane expected to pelt Bermuda with 1 to 3 inches of rain .\nBattering waves developing on parts of U.S. East Coast .\nBill is expected to pass between Bermuda and East Coast ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck the Pacific near American Samoa, triggering towering tsunami waves that gushed over the island and leaving at least 22 people dead. The tsunami wave hit right in the middle of the harbor of Pago Pago, the capital. American Samoa Gov. Togiola Tulafono, speaking from Hawaii, said Tuesday's quake ranked \"right up there with some of the worst\" disasters on the island. He said about 50 people had been treated for injuries so far but he expected that number to rise. The quake hit the small cluster of South Pacific islands early Tuesday morning. By evening, Laumoli, standing outside the LBJ Tropical Medican Center morgue in the capital of Pago Pago, confirmed 22 deaths. \"I thought it was the end of the world,\" said Dr. Salamo Laumoli, director of health services. \"I have never felt an earthquake like that before.\" Laumoli feared more fatalities would turn up as rescue workers were still trying to access parts of the island severed by damaged infrastructure. Laumoli said people in outlying villages on one end of the main island have been cut off because the main bridge was washed away. \"Two or three villages have been badly damaged,\" he told CNN International. Listen to Laumoli speak about the impact of the quake and tsunami » . Tulafono cited extensive damage to roads, buildings and homes, and said he had spoken to the military about mobilizing reserve forces for assistance. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, canceled tsunami watches and warnings for American Samoa about four hours after the earthquake hit. However, a tsunami advisory is still in effect for for the coastal areas of California and Oregon. Watch report on end of tsunami warning » . The Japan Meteorological Agency also activated a tsunami advisory along its eastern coast. The precautionary alert means that the height of a possible tsunami wave would be less than a foot and a half. President Barack Obama \"declared a major disaster exists in the Territory of American Samoa\" late Tuesday and ordered federal aid to supplement local efforts. The declaration makes federal funding available to affected individuals. The tsunami waves hit right in the middle of the Pago Pago harbor, the capital, said Cinta Brown, an American Samoa homeland security official working at the island's emergency operations center. The water devastated the village of Leone. Watch a resident talk about what happened » . \"The wave came onshore and washed out people's homes,\" Brown said. The same happened on the hard-hit east and west sides of American Samoa, she said. The quake generated three separate tsunami waves, the largest measuring 5.1 feet from sea level height, said Vindell Hsu, a geophysicist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Preliminary data had originally reported a larger tsunami. Officials in the U.S. territory issued a clear call and were focusing on assessing the damage, Brown said. Reports of damage were still emerging, but a bulletin from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the waves \"may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicenter and could also be a threat to more distant coasts. Authorities should take appropriate action in response to this possibility.\" Tulafono, the governor, was on his way back home Tuesday night on one of two U.S. Coast Guard C-130 transport planes flying to American Samoa with aid. The Coast Guard also will transport more than 20 officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to American Samoa, said John Hamill, external affairs officer for FEMA in Oakland, California. The FEMA team will include a variety of debris experts, housing experts, members of the Corps of Engineers, and other disaster relief specialists, Hamill said. Tulafono told reporters Tuesday that it was hard being away from home when disaster came calling. It was a time, he said, for families to be together. Those who experienced the massive quake described it as a terrifying event. Brown was standing in a parking lot when her sports utility vehicle began rocking left and right. \"You could hear the rattling of the metal\" of a large chain link fence around the lot, Brown said. \"It shakes you because you know something else is coming,\" she said. CNN's Augie Martin, Mariano Castillo, Moni Basu, Tess Eastment and Nick Valencia contributed to this report ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: White House declares major disaster; orders federal aid .\nU.S. sending plane with aid, officials to help American Samoa .\nMagnitude-8.0 quake strikes near Samoan Islands early Tuesday .\nQuake struck at depth of 7.4 miles, triggered three 5-foot tsunamis ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Swimming legend Michael Phelps struggled in his attempt to adapt to the old-style racing suits at the World Cup short-course event in Sweden on Tuesday. The 14-time Olympic gold medal winner qualified for finals in only one of three events in Stockholm, his best result being seventh of eight to go through in the men's 100 meter medley. Racing for the first time since winning five golds and a silver at the world championships in July, the American missed out on the 100m freestyle after qualifying in 16th of 23 competitors. His time of 47.77 seconds was 1.84 seconds slower than the leading mark set by Sweden's Stefan Nystrand. The 24-year-old, who was disqualified in the 100m backstroke, set a time of 53.13 seconds in the medley. The fastest man, South African Darian Townsend, came home in 52.48. Phelps was one of the few swimmers to revert to the old-style suits, which will become mandatory after January 1 as world ruling body FINA seeks to rein in the high-tech costumes which have sent records tumbling at an incredible rate in the past two years. He will swim in the 100m butterfly and 200m medley heats on Wednesday, and then head to the next leg of the World Cup in Berlin at the weekend. In Stockholm on Tuesday, Chinese swimmer Jing Zhao set a new world record in the heats of the women's 50m backstroke, clocking 26.08 seconds. She beat the mark of 26.17 posted by Australia's Marieke Guehrer in the previous meet of the series in Moscow on November 6. In the men's 50m butterfly, South Africa's Roland Schoeman was first in a new World Cup record of 22.29." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Swimming star Michael Phelps struggles in old-style racing suits at World Cup short-course event .\nThe 14-time Olympic gold medal winner missed out on two of three finals in Stockholm .\nHe was one of the few to wear an old-style suit, which will be mandatory next year .\nPhelps has two more events on Wednesday before heading to the next leg in Berlin ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Singer Nelly Furtado is trying to cross over in a direction many artists don't ordinarily take. Singer Nelly Furtado says she enjoys diversity in music and broadening her fan base. With \"Mi Plan,\" the Grammy Award-winning singer is taping into a brand new market and fan base, almost a decade after she came to fame in 2000 with the single \"I'm Like a Bird.\" While the Canadian-born singer -- whose parents are Portuguese -- has sung in Spanish before, \"Mi Plan\" is the first time she has recorded an entire album in Spanish, a language she said she learned as a teen. It's seems like a natural progression for Furtado, an artist often noted for diversity in her sound. A few years after her breakthrough, Furtado teamed up with superproducer Timbaland for her 2006 album \"Loose,\" a collaboration that gained her scores of hip-hop and R&B fans as well, and spawned hits such as \"Promiscuous\" and \"Say It Right.\" \"Mi Plan\" pairs her with a few Spanish-language music artists, including Alex Cuba, Juan Luis Guerra, Julieta Venegas and La Mala Rodriguez, as well as English-language artist Josh Groban. The first single off the album, \"Manos Al Aire,\" made history as it marked the first time a North American artist reached No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart with a song that was originally written in Spanish, rather than a translated version of an English-language song. Furtado spoke with CNN about her passion for Spanish, why she feels like an artist reborn and the career path she hopes to take. CNN: What was the inspiration for the new album? Nelly Furtado: There were so many inspirations. The language was the biggest inspiration. I've sang so much in Spanish in the past, and also Portuguese. I get a lot of joy in singing in Latin languages. It expresses the Latin side of me. Watch Furtado talk about her new album » . My parents were born in Portugal and they raised us in Canada. We grew up speaking Portuguese and then I learned Spanish at the age of 14. I love being a multicultural artist, I love being a global artist. [The album] is almost like a literal reflection of that this time in the fact that it's all in Spanish and it's a completely original project written from scratch. CNN: So it's all new? Furtado: Yes. It feels like a rebirth of sorts. It's almost like a parallel world where I get to reinvent myself again as an artist, but in a very whole kind of way. It's been a lot of fun. CNN: You have such a loyal fan base. What do you hope they get from your latest project? Furtado: Just because I have collaborated with so many different people with so many different styles of music that I think my sort of goal or mantra my whole career has been to broaden the minds of my fan base. This album is just an extension of that. I'm an inclusive person and everyone is invited to the fiesta. I'm excited because I am meeting brand new fans for the first time who don't have any of my prior albums. Four albums in, it's a tough job to try to attract new fans and I think that's what I am doing with this new music. CNN: Did you consider it risky to do a Spanish-language album? Furtado: I like to take risks. I live for risk taking and challenges. I just find it so much more exciting and it keeps my job entertaining and interesting. Everyone is looking for that next challenge at work. Everyone wants that extra credential on their business card. If it's easy, it's not fun. CNN: How is performing in Spanish different? Furtado: When I express myself in Spanish or in Portuguese I feel very free. There are a lot of things you can say in a Spanish song that you can't say in an English song, especially from a feminine perspective. As a female, the moment you sing too passionately in English you are kind of labeled as an angry singer. In Spanish that doesn't happen. You can be dramatic as you want and it's accepted. So it's liberating. CNN: There are a lot of Spanish-speaking artists who want to cross over into the English-language market. How does it feel to be doing the reverse? Furtado: I think I'm capitalizing a little bit on the inroads I have already made in the Latin world through working with other established Latin acts. I dabbled in Spanish on my third album. I had two records on there in Spanish and I really enjoyed writing them and playing them live. I'm just going where my heart's at and following the passions. CNN: What's next for you? Furtado: It's interesting because when I got off the road from touring with my third album, \"Loose,\" I was exhausted. I tried to write some songs in English and no inspiration really came to me. Then I started writing songs in Spanish and it started flowing, so this album has been like a medicine of sorts. I'm so excited about music now. I can't wait to put out another project in English and further Spanish albums as well as Portuguese. The list is never-ending." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nelly Furtado's new album is sung completely in Spanish .\nThe singer worked with noted Latin artists on the project .\nFurtado, whose parents are Portuguese, finds performing in Spanish \"liberating\"\nFirst single made history on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The woman who made the 911 call that led to Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates' controversial arrest wasn't present at the so-called beer summit. Lucia Whalen, who called 911 to report a possible break-in, speaks to reporters Wednesday. But she got a shot of kindness and a taste of gratitude from Gates himself. Lucia Whalen received a bouquet of flowers at her office from Gates, according to Whalen's attorney, Wendy Murphy. \"She described them as amazing, and appreciated them very much,\" Murphy said of the bouquet. The attorney described the flowers as being a beautiful assortment of what she believed were different colored roses. There was a note included from Gates, the details of which Murphy would not divulge. She said the note characterized Gates's \"expression of gratitude\" for Whalen's action. An officer responding to a report of a possible break-in at Gates' Cambridge, Massachusetts, home arrested the professor on July 16 for disorderly conduct. The charge was later dropped. The arrest sparked a national debate about race and police relations. Whalen said an older woman with no cell phone told her that she was worried someone was trying to break into the home, and decided to call 911. Whalen never referred to black suspects when she called authorities about the suspected break-in. On Thursday, President Barack Obama -- who had weighed in on the controversy, saying initially that police acted \"stupidly\" -- sat down for a beer at the White House with Gates and the officer who arrested him. The meeting has been called the \"beer summit.\" After the meeting, Obama said in a statement he was thankful to Gates and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley for joining him at for \"a friendly, thoughtful conversation. \"Even before we sat down for the beer, I learned that the two gentlemen spent some time together listening to one another, which is a testament to them,\" the president's statement said . Obama's initial comments on the incident drew criticism and later he softened his stance, saying, \"I could've calibrated those words differently.\" Murphy told CNN that Whalen has been receiving other apologies and accolades from people all over the world, but so far, no beer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Henry Gates sends flowers to office of woman who accidentally called police on him .\nLucia Whalen \"appreciated them very much,\" her secretary says .\nWhalen called 911 after woman told her she suspected break-in at Gates' home .\nWhalen drew criticism for making call; says she'd do it again ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(Real Simple) -- Learn how to be plugged in without being impolite. (This is one user manual worth reading.) If you run into someone while you're listening to your iPod, remove both earbuds to talk to her, experts say. 1. You're walking down the street and listening to your iPod when you run into someone you know. Do you need to remove both earbuds to talk to her? Jodi R. R. Smith: If you're having more than a two-minute conversation, then, yes, both buds need to come out -- whether you turn off the device or not. And that goes for your Bluetooth earpiece, too. Jodi R. R. Smith is the president of Manner-smith Consulting, in Boston, Massachusetts, and the author of \"From Clueless to Class Act: Manners for the Modern Woman.\" Joni Blecher: Yes. People want to know that the person they're talking to is really paying attention to them. Joni Blecher is editorial director of LetsTalk.com. Her blog, Somethin' to Talk About, covers the latest technology. Sue Fox: Remember -- etiquette is all about making the other person more comfortable. How comfortable could your friend be trying to talk to you when you've got something in your ears? Sue Fox is the founder and president of EtiquetteSurvival.com, an etiquette consulting firm. 2. Is it rude to check your PDA at a friend's house? Blecher: A little bit. But if you arrive at a friend's home and explain that you need to check a few e-mails before you visit so you can give her your full attention, she will probably understand. Smith: It depends on how you're using it. If you're checking on something relevant to your visit, then no. If you find yourself perusing other e-mails, you will send the message that you're bored. Will Schwalbe: Think of your PDA as a crossword puzzle. Anywhere it's acceptable to work on a crossword puzzle, it's OK to check your PDA. Will Schwalbe is a coauthor of \"Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better.\" Real Simple: Tips for dealing with obnoxious co-workers . 3. How quickly must I respond to an e-mail? Are the standards different for work e-mails versus personal e-mails? Schwalbe: It's all about consistency. If you're going to deviate from what you usually do, use your out-of-office assistant or automatic-response setting to let people know why they might not be hearing from you as quickly as they're used to. You don't want them to think they've insulted you somehow or that you are ignoring them. Judith Kallos: Not responding quickly -- within hours and certainly by the end of the day -- to any e-mail might make the other side feel as though she's being overlooked. It's particularly important to respond promptly to business e-mails because that is professional and courteous. Judith Kallos oversees NetManners.com, a Web site dedicated to the topics of e-mail and Internet etiquette. Anna Post: The sooner you can reply properly, the better. Never leave someone hanging. Anna Post is the resident technology-etiquette expert at the Emily Post Institute, in Burlington, Vermont. 4. If someone calls you, can you e-mail the person back or send a text message if you're not in the mood to talk? What if you text or e-mail someone and the person calls you back? Pier M. Forni: Unless the person has requested something specific or you sense a tinge of urgency, there's nothing uncivil about replying with a \"Can we talk later?\" text message. Pier M. Forni is the author of \"The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude\" and a professor of Italian literature at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. Schwalbe: Think about what is the best way to respond. If someone called you to get directions somewhere, for instance, reply via e-mail so you can send along a map. Blecher: If you text someone because you don't want to talk and the person calls back, don't answer. If you do answer, the other person will sense your foul mood immediately and might get offended. Just text back that you can't talk now but will call later. Your friend will thank you. Real Simple: 18 common phrases to avoid in conversation . 5. Is using BCC (blind carbon copy) on an e-mail considered sneaky? Schwalbe: Yes, and it's dangerous too, because your BCC can be exposed if the blind recipient hits Reply All or forwards the e-mail to someone else. To protect yourself from this, forward the message separately with an explanation. Kallos: Using it to make someone look bad or e-tattle on someone is not appropriate. BCC is best used to protect your contacts' e-mail addresses from being exposed to strangers. Smith: BCC can be sneaky but also useful. If you feel that an e-mail discussion you had could turn into a larger issue, you could BCC your boss to make her aware of the situation. Just don't inundate her with copies of every e-mail you send. Get a FREE TRIAL issue of Real Simple - CLICK HERE! Copyright © 2009 Time Inc. All rights reserved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Remove iPod earbuds when you're talking to someone, experts say .\nAuthor: Anywhere it's OK to work on a crossword puzzle, you can check your PDA .\nThe sooner you can reply to an e-mail properly, the better, an etiquette expert says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sasha and Malia Obama had front row seats for Monday night's Kids' Inaugural Concert, but jumped on stage when the Jonas Brothers invited them up. Michelle Obama and her daughters pose with actress Keke Palmer at the Kids' Inaugural. Their mother -- incoming first lady Michelle Obama -- declared the show \"pretty cool.\" Thousands of kids -- mostly children of military families -- danced and yelled in Washington's Verizon Center as Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Bow Wow, the Jonas Brothers and others performed. \"Are we fired up in here?\" Michelle Obama asked as she took the stage halfway through the two-hour show. \"Are we ready to go?\" Obama called on the young people to play a part in their country's future now, in activities such as volunteering at shelters for the homeless, visiting elderly neighbors or writing letters of support to troops overseas. \"We all have something incredible to contribute to the life of this nation,\" she said, adding, \"And kids, this means you, too, right?\" Sasha, 7, kept her camera ready, getting photos of her favorite teen stars. While the Obama daughters have met many of the stars along the campaign trail in the past year, it was their first time to meet singer-actress Keke Palmer, a presenter at the show. Palmer, 15, said Michelle Obama told her \"she was really proud of me.\" Most of their backstage talk was about Palmer's movies and TV show, she said. Like the Obamas, Palmer is a Chicago, Illinois, native." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: At concert, Michelle Obama urges young people to get involved now .\nConcert features the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Bow Wow and Demi Lovato .\nBilly Ray Cyrus, Keke Palmer and Usher make introductions .\nDid you miss the show? It's available later on Disney.com ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A Florida court has approved the divorce of the father of Haleigh Cummings, a Florida girl who disappeared in February, and the girl's stepmother, a key witness in the case. Ronald Cummings divorced his wife, Misty, who was the last person to see his daughter, Haleigh. Ronald Cummings, 25, cites irreconcilable differences in ending his short marriage to his 17-year-old wife, whom he married more than a month after Haleigh went missing from her father's home in Satsuma, Florida, on February 9. Cummings has made several public pleas for information in her disappearance. Misty Cummings, then known as Misty Croslin, was the last person known to have seen Haleigh the night she disappeared from the family's rented mobile home. The teenager said she tucked Haleigh and her 4-year-old brother into bed about 8 p.m. and went to sleep herself two hours later, but awoke at 3 a.m. to find the girl missing and a cinder block propping open a back door. Ronald Cummings called police and reported his daughter missing when he returned from work at dawn. Investigators have said they do not feel Misty Cummings has told them everything she knows. \"The police have been telling me that I've been keeping Misty under my wing and that's why she hasn't talked to the cops,\" Ronald Cummings told a HLN's \"Nancy Grace\" producer earlier in October. \"So now, here you go, I divorced her. So now go find my baby.\" The Putnam County Sheriff's office said in August that \"the evidence and investigatory effort has minimized the likelihood that Haleigh's disappearance is the work of a stranger.\" Ronald Cummings and Crystal Sheffield, Haleigh's mother, are not considered suspects, police said. \"Investigators believe that Misty Croslin-Cummings continues to hold important answers in the case,\" the sheriff's office said in a written statement. \"She has failed to provide any sort of detailed accounting of the hours during the late evening and early morning of Haleigh's disappearance. Furthermore, physical evidence at the scene contradicts Misty's sketchy account of her evening activities.\" Croslin has not been named a person of interest or suspect in the case. In televised interviews, Croslin has said she does not know what happened to the little girl, while also saying she believed \"the other side of the family\" knows where she is. The couple lived together for about six months before marrying in March. Under the divorce settlement approved Thursday by a St. John's County court, both sides permanently and irrevocably waive any rights to alimony and other types of financial payments." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ronald Cummings, wife Misty finalize divorce after brief marriage .\nMisty Croslin was last person to see 5-year-old Haleigh Cummings .\nHaleigh Cummings disappeared from home in February while in Croslin's care ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The people who died Thursday at a spiritual resort in Arizona had spent time in a \"sweatbox\" similar to what Native Americans and other cultures have used for prayer and purification rituals throughout history. Two people died and were 19 injured after spending up to two hours inside this \"sweatbox\" at an Arizona resort. And those who use them say they can be dangerous if care is not taken. From Scandinavia to South America to Africa, people have come together in the sauna-like structures -- typically heated by pouring water on hot lava rocks -- for a variety of reasons, said Joseph Bruchac, writer and author of The Native American Sweat Lodge. He's part Abenaki, a tribe concentrated in the northeast United Staes, and part European. \"Each tribal nation has its own traditions, so one group might do it differently from another so you cannot generalize too much,\" said Bruchac, who runs an outdoor education center in Greenfield Center, New York. In North America, most Native American tribes use the term \"sweat lodge\" to refer to a dome-shaped structure where the intimate ritual of the sweat takes place, said Bruchac, who has his own sweat lodge on his property in the foothills of the Adirondacks. \"Sweat lodges are typically used for a ritual preparation, like before a hunt, or nowadays, people might do it before a wedding or dance or some kind of community event as a way of putting yourself in balance,\" he said. Bruchac noted that incidents like the one in Arizona tend to raise discussion in Native American communities over whether non-Natives should be allowed to adapt traditional ceremonies. \"It's a very meaningful ceremony. I can understand why people find it attractive,\" Bruchac said. \"But I consider it sacrilegious and foolish to do someone else's rituals without proper guidance or practice, especially in sweat lodges where you're raising people's body temperatures. With that many people, oxygen is going to be depleted, and if you have heart problems or breathing problems, you could faint or die.\" No information about the sweatbox at the Angel Valley Resort near Sedona could be found on the Web site Saturday. The two people who died and the 19 others who fell ill there were attending a program by self-help expert James Arthur Ray, authorities said Saturday. Authorities said between 50 and 60 people were in the structure for nearly two hours -- far exceeding the number who ordinarily would participate in a traditional sweat, according to Bruchac. In a typical ritual, the leader of the sweat gathers four to 12 friends, family members or guests inside the structure, usually made of willow and covered with blankets or canvas, he said. \"The person running the sweat has to be very aware of the people in the lodge because he takes control of them mentally, physically and spiritually,\" said Bruchac. \"The leader is responsible for them, so he has to be aware of their physical conditions and their motivations, their reasons for being there.\" After everyone is inside, a firekeeper heats stones, usually lava rocks, and brings them into the lodge, placing them in a hole in the ground and carefully pouring water over the stones to release steam. The technique of releasing the heat is done with great care so that no one is injured by the steam, which can burn skin or lungs if someone inhales it, said Father Raymond Bucko, Director of Native Studies at Creighton University. \"Nobody will make it so hot that no one can stand it,\" said Bucko. \"Religious leaders are very careful about people's health in the sweat. If they're not healthy, people can sit outside the sweat and pray and others can go in for them.\" A ritual of speaking or prayer may follow, depending on the group's intention for gathering. \"People talk and often there's lot of humor, but at any time if it's too hot, some one can say so and they will immediately open the door and people are encouraged to go out,\" he said. The Jesuit priest and cultural anthropologist participated in sweats with the Crow and Lakota people for nearly 30 years, until he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two years ago. \"It's not about toughing it out or proving anything. It really is a beautiful experience of people coming together, of intense prayerfulness.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sweat lodges are used in prayer and purification rituals across globe .\nDeaths raise concerns over non-Natives trying to adapt traditional ceremonies .\nTypical Native American sweat lodge used in ritual of prayer and purification .\nFirekeeper heats stones, places them in hole in lodge, pours water over them ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After a losing presidential campaign, it became clear to Edward \"Ted\" Kennedy that his true calling was to help shape the country's political future from the U.S. Senate. The turning point came in 1980 when Kennedy unsuccessfully challenged President Carter in the Democratic primaries. But Kennedy's loss was not necessarily such a bad thing, a top political historian notes. \"I think partly it related to that time when he, after 1980, he realized that he was not going to be president of the United States ... and that being a United States senator was a pretty important and powerful job in which he could do good,\" said Stephen Hess, author of \"America's Political Dynasties.\" Kennedy, 77, had represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate since his 1962 election when he was chosen to finish the unexpired Senate term of his brother, John F. Kennedy, who was elected president in 1960. The Massachusetts governor appointed Democrat Benjamin A. Smith to the seat following John Kennedy's presidential win. Political observers have said that Smith was a mere seat warmer until Ted Kennedy turned 30 -- the required age to become a U.S. senator. Watch how the youngest Kennedy brother carried on the family torch » . \"It's quite remarkable for a person who got there in 1962 at age 30 with no greater qualification for the office than his brother was president of the United States and the voters of Massachusetts respected that name,\" Hess said. And after nearly 50 years, Hess said Kennedy -- the patriarch of the first family of U.S. Democratic politics -- has truly \"made a substantial mark.\" Learn more about Kennedy's funeral arrangements » . Deemed by many as the \"Lion of the Senate,\" Kennedy was considered one of the most effective legislators of the past few decades, especially in his ability to cross party lines to get legislation passed. In 2001, Kennedy helped President Bush craft and pass education legislation with the No Child Left Behind Act. While facing some criticism from his party, Kennedy pushed ahead on an issue close to his heart. \"Kennedy realized how much more you could do when you engaged the opposition party and wanted to make the compromises or the agreements that could keep the peace on legislation,\" Hess said. Kennedy, Hess added, was good at coalition building because he was an engaging person who \"owned the Senate.\" Ted Sorensen, a speechwriter for President Kennedy, said that Ted Kennedy's legacy in the Senate \"is comparable and consistent with the legacy of his entire family for generations.\" That legacy, in addition to popularity among fellow senators, might be the reason why he had major roles in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act and the Kennedy-Hatch law of 1997. In 1994, Kennedy was instrumental in helping the Clinton administration with its plan to overhaul health care. The legislation, maligned by Republicans and conservatives, later failed. Fifteen years later, he continued his fight for comprehensive health care alongside the nation's first black president, Barack Obama. Kennedy, an early supporter of Obama's presidential campaign, seemingly handed the torch down to Obama before the \"Super Tuesday\" Democratic primaries by likening the senator from Illinois to his brother, the late president. But the man who spent much of his career helping others to get better health care, civil rights and education, now faced his own personal medical struggle -- the Kennedy patriarch had brain cancer. As that news broke in 2008, his colleagues on both sides of the aisle not only prayed for his recovery but also honored Kennedy's legacy. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, released a statement saying, \"Ted Kennedy has spent his life caring for those in need. Now it's time for those who love Ted and his family to care for them and join in prayer to give them strength.\" Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that while he \"sparred a lot\" with Kennedy, he knew \"firsthand what a formidable fighter he is, and I know that he will do all he can to battle this disease.\" Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, called Kennedy \"a legendary lawmaker, and I have the highest respect for him. ... When we have worked together, he has been a skillful, fair and generous partner.\" iReport.com: Share tributes to Kennedy . McCain and Kennedy often worked together on legislation throughout the years -- most notably on overhauling the nation's immigration laws. Many observers said they believe legislation on the issue progressed as far as it did because Kennedy's name was on it. But it has not always been an easy political road for Kennedy. After a July 18, 1969, party for those who had worked on his late brother Robert's presidential campaign, Kennedy drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Although he managed to escape, his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. Kennedy did not report the incident immediately and later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. The incident not only created a firestorm of controversy about the clout of the Kennedy family but also raised questions about the senator's honesty and judgment. The accident is something that opponents would use in future campaigns. But through it all, Kennedy survived politically and went on to become one of the longest-serving senators in U.S. history." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Edward \"Ted\" Kennedy had been U.S. senator from Massachusetts since 1962 .\nKennedy was considered one of the most effective legislators .\nA hallmark was the senator's ability to work across party lines, colleagues say ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Kate Gosselin last appeared on Larry King Live on May 10. A little more than a month later, on June 22, she and her husband Jon filed for divorce and announced their split that same day in a special edition of their show. Kate Gosselin says she and her kids would like to continue their TV show, but admits it will be up to the network. Gosselin returned to Larry King Live on Tuesday to discuss her sextuplets, the future of her show and how she feels about Jon. The following is an edited version of the interview: . Larry King: How much do they know about what's going on? The 9-year-olds probably do, right? Kate Gosselin: They understand the process. They're working through it, the same that Jon and I are. They're doing remarkably well. This has opened up a lot of discussions between them and myself. A lot of questions come my way, and we're dealing with it. They're doing very well considering. Watch Gosselin discuss the split » . King: Why did you agree to do this reality show in the first place? Gosselin: In the very beginning, we started filming a one-hour special. It was a way to document what was happening in our lives. At that time, there was a lot of local news stories. There were a lot of people in the country and the world, believe it or not, pulling for us. As you know, sextuplets are not born every day, so there was a lot of interest. We did the one-hour special to show everyone. I always pictured like the little old lady that was sitting at home who was praying for us, rooting for us and needing to know what happened to those babies that were born. So we did it for that reason as well as to collect the memories for ourselves. King: Why did you agree to do a regular reality show? You could have said that's the special, here's my life, goodbye. Gosselin: I could have. At that point, the one-hour special was a very good experience. The network, TLC, we were on Discovery Health at that time. Now, TLC is wonderful, supportive, and it was a great experience for us. So we, you know, really moved forward because of that reason. It was healthy and safe and fun. King: Do the kids talk to you about divorce? Gosselin: They do. And as any child, you know, when their parents are divorcing, the goal is peace and we've achieved that numerous times. The Fourth of July we spent together as a family. My goal is, no matter what the circumstance, no matter what place, you know, one of us is in, my goal is really peace and the best that it can be for the kids. King: Do they get counseling? Gosselin: We have not started that process, but I feel like it is a very normal thing to do. And absolutely, when the time is right. King: Jon is quoted in the new \"Us Weekly\": \"I wish I had a 9 to 5 job instead of the nightmare I'm living. This is 24/7. I don't even want to do taping the show anymore.\" What's your reaction to that? Gosselin: Jon's opinions and his goals are his. I know that, personally, for myself and the kids, this has been a good experience. It continues to be a good experience. And, you know, really the network has been extremely supportive, above and beyond, I feel, what they need to be. And I only experience good things. Everyone works. Everyone has a job. Everyone has what they're dealing with. And, generally speaking, this is the most flexible, workable, wonderful job for myself. King: How long have you been doing it now? Gosselin: We are in season 5. We started filming in August of 2005. King: Why is it such a good thing to have a private life public? Gosselin: It's been a source of huge -- for whatever reason -- inspiration for a lot of people. Many, many people -- many parents feel that their decisions are, maybe not, great decisions. Every parent has that, you know, parent guilt of my goal is to produce wonderful, productive individuals and put them out into society. That is the goal of a parent -- for us to show the world that we are not perfect, life is unpredictable, but life always goes on and there's always, always, always something to look forward to. And for me, that is raising my children to the best of my ability. King: But as an intelligent person, you also know to all good things, there are downsides. Gosselin: Absolutely. With every positive, there is a negative across the board in life. It's about choosing to see the positive and working with the negative. King: So what happens now? Are you and the kids going to do the show and Jon is out? Gosselin: I'm not the person to make that decision. I know that myself and the kids will continue the show. King: But if Jon says I don't want to do it anymore, I don't want to be part of it, I'm divorced, I don't need this, will the network say it's you and the kids? Gosselin: That would be a question for the network. King: Will the name of the show change? Gosselin: That would be a question for the network. King: And if they said forget it, that would be OK with you? If they said we'll continue, that's OK with you? Gosselin: That will be their decision. King: You've become famous worldwide over this. What's the downside of that? Gosselin: You know, I could really live without the following. King: Attention? Gosselin: Yes. I could live my whole life -- I would have to say that is absolutely the negative. I realize it comes with it. I know that it goes along with it. I'm smart enough to figure out that, you know, there's interest. It's going to be interest across the board. It's another learning lesson. King: You and Jon renewed your marriage vows a year ago this month in Hawaii. What happened? How do you go from renewing vows to filing for divorce in a year? Gosselin: It is a question I ask myself every day. I don't have the answer. King: But (Jon) made this decision? Gosselin: You know, it's just an issue that we discussed amongst ourselves. I don't feel like that is something that we need to discuss the details of. King: Yes, but when you get so famous, you and him and the kids, and then you leave out those details, don't you disappoint the audience that's come to expect more? Gosselin: My main concern is my kids. And I don't want them to see or hear anything on TV that I didn't discuss with them. And we discussed what they need to know at their developmental age groups. But I don't feel like I need to go any further than that at this time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kate Gosselin says sextuplets are doing well despite parents' breakup .\nGosselin says she doesn't know what led to split with husband Jon .\nGosselin wants to continue TV show, but says it's network's decision ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Author Frank McCourt, whose tragic childhood became creative grist for his first book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning \"Angela's Ashes,\" died Sunday, according to the Web site of his publisher, Simon & Shuster. He was 78. Frank McCourt won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for \"Angela's Ashes.\" McCourt taught creative writing to high school students in New York City for 30 years before achieving literary acclaim with the 1996 biography. \"Angela's Ashes,\" named after his mother, also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was translated and sold throughout the world. In the book, McCourt described a desperate childhood marked by severe poverty, malnutrition, neglect, infectious disease and loss. \"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood,\" he wrote. EW: A tribute to Frank McCourt . McCourt wrote the two other memoirs, \"Tis\" and \"Teacher Man,\" as sequels to \"Angela's Ashes,\" and penned the children's book \"Angela and the Baby Jesus.\" The author was born to Angela and Malachy McCourt on August 19, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrants. The family fled to Limerick, Ireland, four years later, during the Great Depression era, only to become mired in even more gut-wrenching poverty. Three of the couple's seven children died. Malachy McCourt, an alcoholic who managed to keep jobs only a few weeks at a time, left the family scrounging to survive. Yet, he also brought joy to his children, as the younger McCourt wrote in \"Angela's Ashes\": . \"Before bed we sit around the fire and if we say, 'Dad, tell us a story,' he makes up one about someone in the lane and the story will take us all over the world, up in the air, under the sea and back to the lane. Everyone in the story is a different colour and everything is upside down and backward. Motor cars and planes go underwater and submarines fly through the air. Sharks sit in trees and giant salmon sport with kangaroos on the moon. Polar bears wrestle with elephants in Australia and penguins teach Zulus how to play bagpipes.\" In October 2006, McCourt told the BBC that he saw his family's struggles as part of the human experience, without casting his father as a villain. He also expressed sorrow about his mother. \"First of all, I feel so sorry that I didn't understand more about her life and her misery and the deaths of three children,\" McCourt said. \"I had one daughter and if she had a cold, I was up all night. If she had the sniffles, I was running to her little crib or her bed. ... When I was growing up and as I grew to manhood, I really didn't understand my mother's pain.\" Asked about his Irish-American identity, McCourt told the BBC: \"I'm actually a New Yorker, because that's what I feel passionately about. ... New York is the place that gets me all excited.\" He returned to the United States at 19 and spent decades coming to grips with his youth. \"I dealt with my past, and my future and my present by writing about it. And it's really, it's a gift. I wish everybody had it, because it eases all kinds of distress,\" he told the BBC. McCourt is survived by his wife, Ellen, and other family members, including brother Malachy McCourt, who is an actor and writer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Publisher Simon & Shuster says the Pulitzer Prize-winning author has dead .\nMcCourt left the literary world riveted with his novel of growing up in poverty in Ireland .\nBefore literary fame, he taught creative writing to high school students in New York .\nDespite upbringing in Ireland, he said he felt like a New Yorker ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A Malaysian model, who was set to become the first woman to be caned in the southeast Asian country for drinking beer in public, had her sentence postponed Monday until the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno's punishment is unique in that she has opted to go through with it. Authorities had picked up Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, from her father's house Monday morning and were taking her to a prison in the eastern state of Pahang when the van turned around and brought her back. \"They sent her back to the house. They said the top official asked them not to bring her to Kuala Lumpur,\" said Kartika's father, Shukarno Abdul Muttalib. Authorities in Pahang said the delay would run until the month of fasting ends. Monday was the third day of Ramadan. An Islamic, or sharia, court in Pahang had fined Kartika -- a Muslim -- $1,400 (5,000 Malaysian ringgit) and sentenced her to six strokes with a rattan cane for drinking at a hotel bar two years ago. Kartika, a 32-year-old part-time model and mother of two, was visiting Malaysia from Singapore at the time. She pleaded guilty, paid the fine, and wanted her caning to be carried out in public. Watch more on Kartika's release » . She said she lost her job as a nurse in Singapore and took up part-time modeling to support her husband in raising their two children. Her son has cerebral palsy; her daughter a heart condition. \"I want to move on. This case has been hanging over me for a long time,\" she told CNN last week. On Monday morning, Kartika hugged her children, bade a tearful goodbye to the throngs of people gathered at her father's house, and boarded the van. She was to be taken to a prison on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. The caning would have been carried out within seven days of that, making her the first woman to be caned in Malaysia under sharia law. Kartika's punishment is unique in that she has opted to go through with it. Two other Malaysians sentenced to the same fate have filed appeals, the Syariah (Sharia) Lawyers' Association of Malaysia said. The case drew widespread attention and condemnation, in and outside Malaysia. The moderate Muslim country has a dual-track justice system, in which Islamic courts operate alongside civil courts. Muslims -- who make up about 60 percent of the 28 million who populate the country -- are forbidden from consuming alcohol. Other religious groups are exempt. Though caning is used as a supplementary punishment in Malaysia for at least 40 crimes, such as rape or immigration violations, it is not meted out by Malaysia's civil court for alcohol consumption. But the country's civil system also cannot overrule a sharia court sentence. In this respect, Kartika would have been the first woman to be caned for violating the country's religious laws. \"Regardless of whether or not such penalties fall under Syariah law or civil law, we believe that these should be repealed, as they go against the fundamental human right to be free from torture and violence,\" said Haslinah Yaacob, vice president for the All Women's Action Society. CNN's Anna Coren in Sungi Siput, Malaysia, contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Kartika Shukarno, a model, has sentence delayed until end of Ramadan .\nKartika was set to be first woman to be caned in Malaysia for drinking in public .\nShe pleaded guilty, paid a fine, and wanted her caning to be carried out in public .\nIslamic law dictates caning Muslims seen drinking alcohol; case caused uproar ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: Jeffrey Wright is a stage and screen actor who has won a Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe. Wright has appeared in \"Angels in America,\" \"Basquiat,\" \"The Manchurian Candidate,\" \"Syriana,\" \"W.\" and \"Casino Royale.\" Actor Jeffrey Wright says a nation that put a man on the moon should be able to take race out of policing. NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Obama expressed what many Americans feel regarding the recent arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis \"Skip\" Gates -- that the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police responded \"stupidly.\" Obama is catching some flak for that, but I applaud him for having had the courage to speak his heart and mind. I wonder if the president himself has ever experienced the blunt end of racial profiling, or if he personally knows of anyone other than Professor Gates who has. Among African-American males in this country, the small minority is those who have not or do not. Did some prior experience or knowledge inform his response about the Gates incident? I have no facts to back this up, but, to me, it seemed personal. If it was, I understand. I was arrested last July in Shreveport, Louisiana, outside a bar where dozens of members of the cast and crew of the movie \"W.\" and I had gathered to celebrate the end of filming. There was no bar brawl as widely reported -- nor even a pre-election political argument. Nine police cars and a fire engine responded; seven people were arrested. Two of the seven suffered minor head wounds at the hands of the Shreveport police. Josh Brolin and I were pepper sprayed by cops, and while face down in the street, I was made to feel the business end of a Taser. The truth of what led to the whole morass has never been accurately reported. I was asked to leave the bar by a white female bartender who took exception to a comment I made. As with Professor Gates, the police in my case backed unquestioningly the suspicion of a white woman that the black man she accused must be guilty of something. Once that die of accusation was cast, a ghost of racial bias, misperception, and the potential abuse of police authority was set free to make mischief. The bar was one of two places in downtown Shreveport that serves food after 10 p.m. A few nights before my arrest, I had gone there very late after work to grab a bite to eat. It was before closing, and there were a few customers and employees inside, but the door was locked. I knocked and asked, over the music streaming from inside, if I might buy a small pizza. The bartender insisted that they were closed. \"Whatever,\" I said with a shrug of resignation and walked back to my hotel room. Four nights later and in a festive mood, we gathered at this same establishment. Upon seeing the bartender who had a few nights before told me that the place was closed, I asked her for a drink, which she poured. I quipped, \"Ah you're going to serve me tonight!\" At that, she pulled the drink away and told me that I had to leave. I asked if she was kidding. She went on to say that if I didn't leave, she would call the police. As I stepped away to tell friends what had happened, a call was made to Shreveport police. Two cops, the first of many, arrived in minutes, and I was physically escorted outside although neither of them had the curiosity to ask what had transpired before they arrived. A mess ensued. To their credit, Josh and the others arrested followed me outside with a few others from our group. The cops physically released me and were seeming to be ready to let me go altogether when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw another member of the film crew driven headlong into the sidewalk by two newly arrived cops. Josh verbally objected to their actions, at which point a cop said to him, \"You too!\" I moved Josh away from the fray and held him. We were then pepper sprayed to separate us, after which Josh knelt in submission and was handcuffed. Disoriented and blinded by the pepper spray, I remained standing until I was kicked in the knee and forced to the ground. I did not completely relax one of my arms as it was twisted behind me, so I was tasered in the back of my ribs repeatedly, eventually handcuffed, left to lie in the street for several minutes, then arrested and hauled off to jail, and charged with impeding police. The six others were similarly charged -- and it all began with a joke. Nearly six months later, after a good-size storm kicked up in Shreveport over the incident, prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against all of us arrested that night. New Year's Day 2009 and the same week in which charges were dropped against us, in Oakland, California, Oscar Grant, a young father, was killed in a BART station, surrounded by cops and in the same position as I found myself down in Shreveport. It seems the BART cop may have pulled the trigger of his firearm thinking that it was his Taser. Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover is known as a law-and-order mayor. The day after the encounter, in the presence of his police chief, Glover apologized to me and privately acknowledged that while most Shreveport's cops were good, there were some \"devils\" among them. In public meetings regarding the \"W.\" incident, however, he held fast that the responding officers acted appropriately. Either Glover's public statement was dead wrong, or the joke was on us. Of course, public officials, particularly at the local level, are loathe to criticize law enforcement officers. On a certain level, it's understandable. Cops answer a noble and difficult calling. The pressure must be relentless, and I imagine a cop is largely underappreciated by most except those with whom he or she serves. A political pat on the back from the executive in charge must be a comforting thing in controversial times, and politicians prefer to duck behind the political safety of the blue wall of silence than upset the men and women who, like our nation's troops, are charged with placing themselves every day in harm's way to keep us safe. When he was mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani encamped himself behind that blue wall. After Amadou Diallo, living out the All-American, hard-working immigrant story, was brutally shot down on the steps of his Bronx apartment building, Giuliani refused to question the actions of the cops who fired 41 bullets in killing the unarmed young man. Is a politician's unwavering fidelity to law enforcement officers the best approach, or does it promote a police culture of impunity and retard progress on law enforcement issues? What if after the Diallo tragedy, political leadership in New York inspired the passage of serious legislation to keep in check the presumption of criminality that cops so often direct toward young men of color. What if that had led to similar acts nationwide around these issues? Gates might not be headline news today; Grant might not have died; and New York police Officer Omar Edwards, an African-American undercover officer shot down two months ago by a white fellow officer while chasing a suspect through a Harlem street, might be alive today to toss a football again with his son. iReport.com: \"Shame\" on Gates . I'm not presuming to blame Giuliani alone for what has become a systemic problem in our country -- that would be absurd, these issues predate him -- but when political leaders in this country express compassion only for those for whom they perceive it to be politically expedient or fail to challenge law enforcement and incarceration issues that cut to the core of the history and culture of race in America, they fail us all. They exemplify what U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder meant when he spoke of the cowardice with which we as a society approach race dialogue in this country. These are messy, even bloody issues, but the cost of not addressing them is too draining of our societal health. Among other things it fosters a society in which too many young Americans internalize the aura of criminality that's projected onto them and handcuff themselves to self-imposed limitations that stifle us all. Going to prison rather than to college becomes a rite of passage. They wear their pants below their behinds in solidarity with their friends, brothers, uncles or fathers who aren't allowed belts while incarcerated, though perhaps the low-hanging pants are a defiant gesture to society at large for continually presuming them to be miscreant. This past week the Apollo 11 crew was at the White House welcomed by the president of a new generation of dreamers. Our great nation put a man on the moon, but it can't train its cops to distinguish between an ordinary brown-skinned brother and a criminal. At its least injurious, as with Gates and myself, this leads to bruised pride and reputation; at its worst, Grant or Edwards gets killed. President Kennedy famously said, \"We choose to go the moon ... and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.\" Maybe properly educating, screening and training our nation's police is one of \"the other things.\" My son is 7 years old. May our generation have accomplished this other thing before he's a young man, and before we've sent a man to Mars. The challenge is one that many Americans are willing to accept -- one, that for the sake of our children, all Americans should be unwilling to postpone. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jeffrey Wright." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jeffrey Wright: President Obama catches flak for remarks on professor's arrest .\nWright applauds Obama for having courage to speak his mind .\nActor says he too was victim of arrest in which race played a part .\nHe says political leaders need to address race and policing ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(AOL Autos) -- Small cars continue to be hot sellers among buyers looking for fuel economy, style and all-around fun. See which cars are the winners in this list of best-selling small cars. The Honda Civic is popular for its fuel efficiency and affordability. 1. Honda Civic* . August 2008 Sales: 30,052 Change vs. Previous Year: 5.3% MSRP: $15,205 - $20,755 Invoice: $14,021 - $19,111 Fuel Economy: 34 mpg Hwy/26 mpg City . The Honda Civic is one of the most reliable and popular economy compact sedans/coupes in its class. For years it has set the quality and performance standard for the affordable, compact car market. *Includes Hybrid Model AOL Autos: Honda Civic . 2. Toyota Corolla* . August 2008 Sales: 29,443 Change vs. Previous Year: -3.4% MSRP: $15,350 - $18,860 Invoice: $14,198 - $17,067 Fuel Economy: 35 mpg Hwy/26 mpg City . The new Toyota Corolla is among the best of the compact sedans: reliable and economical yet refined and comfortable. *Includes Toyota Matrix AOL Autos: Toyota Corolla . 3. Ford Focus . August 2008 Sales: 16,387 Change vs. Previous Year: 23.4% MSRP: $14,995 - $17,970 Invoice: $14,091 - $16,648 Fuel Economy: 35 mpg Hwy/24 mpg City . Small, economical, and fun, the 2009 Ford Focus is a smart choice for those looking for a compact car. AOL Autos: Ford Focus . 4. Chevrolet Cobalt . August 2008 Sales: 15,281 Change vs. Previous Year: -26.6% MSRP: $15,010 - $22,775 Invoice: $14,184 - $21,522 Fuel Economy: 37 mpg Hwy/25 mpg City . The Chevy Cobalt is available as either a two-door coupe or a four-door sedan, each available in three trims: the LS, the LT and the SS Turbocharged. AOL Autos: Chevy Cobalt . 5. Mazda3* . August 2008 Sales: 10,970 Change vs. Previous Year: 4.4% MSRP: $14,490 - $20,595 Invoice: $13,590 - $19,283 Fuel Economy: 32 mpg Hwy/24 mpg City . The Mazda3 is a premium compact car, exciting to drive and look at, and equipped with unexpected luxury features, all at a reasonable price. *Includes MazdaSpeed3 AOL Autos: Mazda3 . 6. Hyundai Elantra . August 2008 Sales: 10,031 Change vs. Previous Year: 13.8% MSRP: $13,970 - $16,670 Invoice: $13,592 - $16,004 Fuel Economy: 33 mpg Hwy/24 mpg City . The Elantra is an economic compact car with handsome styling and nice lines. It's renowned in two areas, interior space and standard safety equipment. 7. Toyota Yaris . August 2008 Sales: 9,474 Change vs. Previous Year: 20.5% MSRP: $12,205 - $15,125 Invoice: $11,473 - $14,217 Fuel Economy: 36 mpg Hwy/29 mpg City . The Yaris manages to combine a well-tailored, roomy interior with agile performance and a fuel efficient engine in an entry-level car. 8. Nissan Sentra . August 2008 Sales: 9,207 Change vs. Previous Year: 1.4% MSRP: $16,140 - $20,570 Invoice: $15,275 - $19,181 Fuel Economy: 33 mpg Hwy/25 mpg City . The Sentra front-wheel drive 4-door sedan is a practical, roomy and economical car with several trims available to suit a person's needs. 9. Nissan Versa . August 2008 Sales: 8,015 Change vs. Previous Year: -5.2% MSRP: $12,990 - $16,210 Invoice: $12,539 - $15,634 Fuel Economy: 31 mpg Hwy/26 mpg City . The Versa is Nissan's entry-level car with the intention of attracting economy-minded buyers with its mileage, price and larger size than most other vehicles in its class. 10. Hyundai Accent . August 2008 Sales: 6,455 Change vs. Previous Year: 73% MSRP: $11,070 - $15,070 Invoice: $10,822 - $14,642 Fuel Economy: 33 mpg Hwy/27 mpg City . The Hyundai Accent sedan and hatchback are exceptional economy cars that offer attractive looks and outstanding value in a price-sensitive market segment. Best-selling small cars is based on August national sales data ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Small cars continue to be hot among buyers looking for fuel economy .\nHonda Civic is one of the most reliable and popular economy compact cars .\nSentra front-wheel drive 4-door sedan is practical, roomy and economical .\nYaris combines well-tailored, roomy interior with agile performance ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- One revolutionized women's hair in the 1960s. Another brought fear to Middle Earth. Another is a champion golfer who now designs courses all over the world. Christopher Lee is famous for playing Count Dracula and his roles in \"Lord of the Rings\" and \"Star Wars\" films. Vidal Sassoon, Christopher Lee and Nick Faldo are among those recognized this year on Queen Elizabeth's birthday honors list. Lee and Faldo will both receive knighthoods, meaning they can now be known as \"Sir Christopher\" and \"Sir Nick.\" Lee, 87, is famous for his portrayal of dark villains, starting with Count Dracula in a series of movies from the late 1950s until the 1970s. He gained a new generation of fans in in the past decade through is role as the bad wizard Saruman the White in the the \"Lord of the Rings\" trilogy, and as the evil Count Dooku in two \"Star Wars\" prequels. World-famous golfer Nick Faldo holds six major championship titles -- three from the British Open and three from the Masters. He has the record for the longest streak of majors played -- 48 -- dating to the 1987 British Open, according to the PGA Tour. Faldo is now almost as famous for designing golf courses as he is for playing the sport. He also serves as a television commentator. A knighthood is the highest honor, and recipients may use the title \"Sir\" before their names. The equivalent for women is to be awarded the title of \"Dame.\" They recognize a \"pre-eminent contribution\" in any field. Next come CBEs, or Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, which recognize contribution to a slightly lesser degree. Recipients may not use the title of sir or dame but may use the initials after their names. Sassoon will be awarded a CBE for his services to the British hairdressing industry. It recognizes a lifetime of achievement for Sassoon, who as a young boy spent years in a London orphanage after his father left and his mother could not afford to care for him. Later, after his mother dreamed of her son being in a barber shop, she apprenticed him to a local barber. That began a career that saw him develop two classic hairstyles of the Sixties -- the Bob and the even shorter Five-Point Cut -- along with an eponymous hair care line, range of hair care tools, and chain of salons. Also receiving a CBE is Jonathan Pryce, a Golden Globe-nominated actor who has had roles in the \"Pirates of the Caribbean\" movies, \"Ronin,\" and the James Bond film \"Tomorrow Never Dies.\" He won a best actor award in 1995 at Cannes for his part in the movie \"Carrington.\" Actor Alan Cumming will receive an OBE, or Order of the British Empire, awarded for notable achievement in any field. He was recognized for \"services to film, theater and the arts and to activism for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community.\" A large number of artists and others in creative fields are featured on this year's list. Andrew Motion, who was Britain's poet laureate until he stepped down this year, will receive a knighthood, and several names in fashion will also receive awards. Fashion designer Jeff Banks will receive a CBE; Frances Marie Corner, the head of the London College of Fashion, will receive an OBE; and MBEs will go to Christopher Bailey, the creative director at Burberry, and Natalie Massenet, the founder of online designer shopping site Net-a-Porter. Honors lists are published twice a year -- once on New Year's Day and once in June, to mark the queen's \"official\" birthday. The queen's actual birthday is in April but she celebrates it in June because the weather is better." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, golfer Nick Faldo honored by UK's queen .\n\"Dracula\" star Christopher Lee knighted in Queen Elizabeth's birthday honors list .\nActors Jonathan Pryce and Alan Cumming also honored ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(The Frisky) -- When I asked an old friend why she hadn't just broken up with her live-in boyfriend instead of beginning a messy affair with a married neighbor, she snapped, \"Don't be stupid -- nobody leaves a relationship without having another one in place.\" Overlappers refuse to end one relationship until they have another one in progress. Oh, please, I corrected her. Of course they do. People fall out of love or get angry and leave without a safety net all the time. But as I thought back, I realized that for as long as I knew her, she never had. Even when she pretty much hated the one she was with, she stuck it out until she'd lined up his replacement. I could never understand why. My friend is beautiful, successful and very smart; surely being single for a little while wouldn't end her world. Women aren't the only ones guilty of this. I know -- and have unfortunately dated -- plenty of men who careen from one girlfriend directly into another, often with a big fat overlap; connecting the two relationships like a murky Venn diagram. I understand that being single can be annoying and lonely sometimes, but there are plenty of good reasons not to be -- or date! -- an Overlapper. 1. Karma! While overlapping is definitely cheating, the difference is these types go into it with the sole purpose of transitioning into another relationship. But however you word it, Overlappers deceive one or both parties in order to get what they want. When you begin a relationship dishonestly, it usually comes back to bite you in the butt. At the very least, you will never be fully able to trust an Overlapper. Because -- as yet another cliche based in truth goes -- if he does it with you, he'll do it to you. 2. Drama! Breakups are never fun, however splits caused by infidelity are hands down the most explosive. If you're like my friend and her man (who, against all odds, actually left his wife), this means that instead of talking about hearts, flowers, and butterflies -- like other new couples -- you spend your nights plotting how to hide assets and whether or not your overpaid lawyer is enough of a shark. How romantic! 3. The Pressure! Though they may appear independent, people who can't be alone are that way because they need to see themselves reflected in someone else's adoring eyes. But when their mirror (aka, partner) develops a flaw (weight gain, job loss, etc.), their image of themselves reflects that. Being a narcissist, nothing less than perfection is acceptable, so they start looking for the next mirror. Got that, fatty? You'd better stay at the top of your game if you want to hang onto an Overlapper. 4. Not cute! \"I met my boyfriend when his puppy peed on my foot\" is the perfect example of a meet-cute story. It has all the key elements -- chance, humor, and, best of all, a cuddly puppy! \"I met my boyfriend because I was his kids' nanny and then his wife found out, which is how I got this black eye,\" is definitely not a tale you're going to want to share at parties. TM & © 2009 TMV, Inc. | All Rights Reserved ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some people afraid to be alone are guilty of dating overlapping .\nThey cheat on both partners while transitioning between relationships .\nOverlappers can't be trusted -- they might do it to you .\nBecause they're narcissistic, they'll trade you in for better model ." } ]

[ { "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) -- Michael Jackson's mother fired the lawyers helping her fight for control of her son's estate, but her new lawyer missed a key hearing where the judge gave more power to the men she is opposing. Katherine Jackson, with Michael in 2005, is challenging the appointment of Michael's estate trustees. Katherine Jackson replaced lawyers Burt Levitch and Londell McMillan with Adam Streisand, a lawyer known for his expertise in Los Angeles probate cases. \"The family came to a decision before they called me,\" Streisand said. \"They felt they needed a different perspective and fresh look at how this case was being approached.\" But Streisand arrived at court Thursday minutes after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff ended a hearing in which he granted a request from estate special administrators John Branca and John McClain for more authority to make deals on behalf of Jackson's estate. \"I want this estate to move forward and I want these creditors to be dealt with,\" Beckloff said. \"And while we are proceeding in this posture, I want Mrs. Jackson to have information about what is going on and I don't want to be in court all the time.\" The process of probate of Jackson's will, which named Branca and McClain as executors, has been slowed since soon after the pop star's June 25 death by numerous legal challenges filed by Katherine Jackson's lawyers, led by Levitch. Howard Weitzman, lead lawyer for the estate's administrators, expressed optimism that the two sides would be able to work better toward a settlement with Streisand in charge. The estate's administrators were able to make a series of deals expected to bring in at least $100 million to the estate this year, mostly through a documentary movie that premieres next week. Katherine Jackson's legal team has asked that a member of the Jackson family \"have a seat at the table\" as a third executor. They've also raised questions in sealed court papers about possible conflicts of interest that might prevent Branca and McClain from controlling the estate. Streisand said the Jackson family was frustrated with the inability \"to get this case going.\" He indicated Katherine Jackson still planned to challenge Branca and McClain's control of her son's wealth. Under the 2002 will, Michael Jackson's three children and his mother are the chief beneficiaries of his estate, while unnamed charities will share in 20 percent of the wealth. Streisand said when he met with Katherine Jackson and the children to discuss the case, they were united. He said Jackson patriarch Joe Jackson was not present at the meeting and he's never talked with him. Joe Jackson appeared frustrated earlier this month when he attended his first hearing in the probate process, suggesting the lawyers should be more aggressive in court. Streisand said the three Jackson children are doing \"absolutely wonderful.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Katherine Jackson hires probate lawyer Adam Streisand .\nJackson has been fighting for more control over her son's estate .\nMichael Jackson made John Branca and John McClain his executors .\nStreisand misses hearing in which executors are given more control ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Jack Borden would like you to consider working well past retirement age. As a 101-year-old attorney, he has the credibility to encourage it. Attorney Jack Borden, 101, says he's never thought about not working. \"What would I do?\" he said. Borden, who has been practicing law for the better part of 70 years, still spends about 40 hours a week at his office in Weatherford, Texas, handling estate planning, probate and real estate matters. Retire? Not while he's able to help folks. \"As long as you are capable, you ought to use what God gave you. He left me here for a reason, and with enough of a mind to do what it is I'm supposed to be doing,\" said Borden, who also has been a district attorney and Weatherford's mayor. He arrives at the practice he shares with his nephew at 6:30 a.m. He goes home for lunch at 10:45 a.m., rests in bed for 45 minutes -- doctor's orders after pneumonia a few years back -- returns to work by 12:45 p.m. and stays until at least 4. Not everyone who works past 65 does so because they want to. In a survey completed last month, 38 percent of respondents working past the age of 62 said they may have to delay retirement even further because of the recession, according to the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends project. But in answer to another question in the same survey, 54 percent of workers 65 or older said they're working now mainly because they want to. Seventeen percent said their main reason was money, and 27 percent said both factors motivated them. \"Some of them enjoy it, and some of them need the money. But even if they need the money, they also enjoy the work,\" said Cynthia Metzler, president of Experience Works, a nonprofit that helps low-income workers ages 55 and older acquire new job skills. The group, which operates in 30 states and also uses federal funds to pay participants a minimum wage to work community service jobs while they look for other work, last month named Borden as America's Outstanding Oldest Worker -- a title it bestows annually to a worker over 100. Last week, Borden was in Washington to participate in events the group was holding to mark National Employ Older Workers Week. When it comes to putting off retirement out of desire, Borden is hardly alone. Preston Brown, 70, is a police officer in Yakima, Washington. He's enjoying the challenges that come with patrolling streets full time, and the experiences are relatively fresh: The former marketing worker and real estate broker didn't join the force until he was 51. He was attracted to law enforcement as a teen but was told he was too short. The height requirements eventually changed, and after some friends persuaded him to go on a patrol ride-along, he began a process that landed him a job with Yakima police in 1990. Whatever is required, from report-taking to chases, he's up for it. \"From time to time there will be a physical confrontation ... and we can get involved in foot chases and vehicle chases. Usually the vast quantity is on night shift more than [my daytime shift], but still I'm involved in those,\" Brown said. Nineteen years later and still in good shape, he has no plans to stop. He likes the pay but he doesn't have to work: His wife of 53 years has a pension. He could be doing other things, such as playing racquetball and motorcycling with friends, but because he gets four days off after working five roughly 11-hour days, he already has time for that. \"When I wake up and prepare to leave for work, I'm looking forward to it,\" he said. \"It's challenging and exciting.\" In Anderson, South Carolina, customers at a Chick-fil-A restaurant might see 88-year-old Frank Childers fixing a door. His wife, Gertrude Childers, 88, might be carrying a tray to a table or refreshing someone's beverage. When Frank Childers retired from his insurance sales job in 1985, he looked forward to free time and fishing. \"I stayed retired for five years. I got tired of sitting around,\" he said. Frank Childers, who had some mechanical experience before working in insurance, took some jobs to stay busy. In 1998, Jon Holmes, the owner-operator of three Anderson Chick-fil-As, asked him to lead his maintenance staff, and Childers has been working there since. Gertrude Childers, a former mill worker, also was hired in 1998 to be a dining room hostess at one of the restaurants. She works 20 hours a week; her husband works about 30. They each said they enjoy the work and the people they've met. They don't have to work for the money, they said, but the pay doesn't hurt. \"It's nice to have your own money, because when I want to go shopping, I don't have to ask nobody,\" Gertrude Childers said, laughing. Experience Works says many low-income workers 55 and older need to find jobs but can't, in part because of the recession. It points to the age group's unemployment rate: It was 6.8 percent in August, up from 2.9 percent three years earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's still better than the rate for all age groups, 9.7 percent in August. Lynn Dusenbery, 62, faces many more years of work out of necessity. The Ashland, Wisconsin, resident sold her floral business four years ago to cover medical bills. Once hoping to retire at 65, she now has no savings, is uninsured, and -- living in a rural area with perennially high unemployment -- still hasn't found full-time work. \"I was a florist for 40 years. I came out with no skills that would get me by in the outside world,\" Dusenbery said. Dusenbery enrolled with Experience Works three years ago and has picked up computer skills and other training and part-time jobs with the group. She's looking for full-time work. As for Borden, work is still energizing and rewarding. \"If I were to quit, I might last a year, but probably not over six months,\" said Borden. \"I have to use a walker because of old age, so there's not much else I could do except sit in my house. Why do that when I can not only enjoy life, but help some people?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Texas attorney Jack Borden, 101, still works 40 hours a week .\nGroup named Borden \"America's Outstanding Oldest Worker\" for 2009 .\n\"If I were to quit, I might last ... not over six months,\" Borden says .\nPolice officer, 70, didn't become cop until he was 51 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- While some criticism targeting President Obama is racially motivated, the fight over health care isn't, former President Clinton told CNN. Former President Clinton says Democrats need to win the health care debate \"on the merits.\" \"I believe that some of the right-wing extremists which oppose President Obama are also racially prejudiced and would prefer not to have an African-American president,\" Clinton told CNN's Larry King in a wide-ranging interview that aired Monday evening. \"But I don't believe that all the people who oppose him on health care -- and all the conservatives -- are racists. And I believe if he were white, every single person who opposes him now would be opposing him then.\" Clinton discussed a variety of issues facing the Obama administration -- from health care to the war in Afghanistan -- on the eve of the fifth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. Regarding race, the former president was referring to an outburst from Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, who shouted, \"You lie!\" at Obama during the president's recent joint address to Congress and also former President Carter's assessment that racism is an obstacle for the current president. \"While I have devoted my life to getting rid of racism, I think this [health care] is a fight that my president and our party -- this is one we need to win on the merits,\" Clinton said. Watch Clinton say he thinks a health care bill will pass » . On the Arab-Israeli conflict -- which Clinton tried to address while in the White House -- the former president said it's an issue that first has to be addressed by the Palestinians and Israelis. Obama has set up meetings with leaders from both sides this week as the U.N. General Assembly meets in New York. \"First, it's more up to them than it is to President Obama,\" Clinton said. \"I think if we can just get them to start talking again around the two-state solutions, around restoring a sense of normalcy and creating a Palestinian state ... I think you would be surprised how quickly at least they would come down to all the same issues that they were down to in 2000 when I made my proposal.\" In August, Clinton made headlines when he traveled to North Korea to gain the release of two detained U.S. journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling. During his visit, Clinton met with reclusive leader Kim Jong Il, whose government is under U.N. sanctions for its efforts to develop a nuclear weapons program. Asked about how it felt to help the journalists, Clinton said, \"It was humbling, and it was a wonderful feeling. They're really fine young women.\" Clinton also discussed the conflict in Afghanistan, addressing top U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's report warning Obama that more troops are needed within the coming year or the nearly 8-year-old war \"will likely result in failure,\" according to a copy of a 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post. Obama has promised to ask \"tough questions\" before deciding whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan, saying it was necessary to have a clear strategy in place before deploying resources. \"My guess is that he will say, 'You may be right, general, but we still have this ongoing election count, let's wait until that happens, let's see what the new government's going to be, let's see if both the top two finishers are going to be in the government, which is a possibility,'\" Clinton said. \"And if that means there's going to be more broad-based support because we got everybody together right after the election was over, then it's clear that more soldiers will be even more effective.\" Clinton, a New York resident, also touched on a New York Times report that Obama administration officials have urged New York Gov. David A. Paterson to withdraw from the 2010 race. White House officials acknowledged to CNN that aides have conveyed to Paterson's camp they are aware of the governor's unpopularity and the political troubles it could cause. \"Well, first of all, I have no direct knowledge of it,\" Clinton said, adding later, \"The truth is I can't criticize either one of them.\" \"I think Paterson is in a tough spot, but he's done a better job than he's gotten credit for,\" he said. \"So he's done some good things. I think that he will do what he thinks is right for the people of New York in the end and for himself. I think the president understandably wants to hold on to the governorship of the fourth biggest state of the country.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ex-President Clinton says race not behind health care opposition .\nBut some extremists opposing President Obama racially prejudiced, Clinton says .\nClinton: \"It was a wonderful feeling\" to help U.S. journalists in North Korea ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The incessant banging on the door finally roused Ted Jackson from a deep sleep. Floodwaters roar across the highway in Paulding County, one of the hardest-hit in Georgia. He hustled out of bed and rushed to the door. There were his neighbors, surrounded by floodwaters the neighborhood is supposed to experience only once every 100 years. Jackson raced to his basement and the water level -- submerging nine of the 13 steps to the floor -- filled him with dread. His dog, a 2-year-old pomeranian, slept in a kennel down there. \"My first initial thought was my dog is dead ... he didn't have a chance,\" said Jackson of Powder Springs, Georgia, where he and the rest of the residents in the metro Atlantan subdivision spent Monday stranded by acres and acres of water. The dog, named J.J., died in the flooded basement. Jackson is just one of thousands of Georgia residents trying to salvage their homes after days of rain rushed deadly flood waters to their part of the world. Counties west of Atlanta, including Douglas, Paulding and Cobb, were among the worst hit. The National Guard was poised to enter the area if necessary. See photo gallery of flooding » . Aerial video of Powder Springs, near the Paulding-Douglas county line, showed scores of homes swallowed by muddy waters as the rain refused to subside. In one Powder Springs neighborhood, a fire truck floated near a cluster of two-story homes, with the charred remnants of one house smoldering a few yards from the failed response. Watch home burn, surrounded by water » . Cars, trucks, buses and campers were flung into the currents, sinking near bent signs, fallen trees and downed power lines. Rescuers started rowing through affected areas in inflatable boats. After flying over the disastrous scenes in Paulding and Douglas counties, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency in those and 15 other counties hit by floods. At least five flood-related deaths were reported across Atlanta-area counties -- three fatalities in Douglas, one in Gwinnett and one, a child, in Carrollton. A Douglas County hospital reported no running water. Just across the line, in Cobb County, the entrance of Georgia's largest amusement park, Six Flags, was sitting in water. Watch the flooding in Georgia » . Powder Springs resident Kim Harp woke up at about 4 a.m. Monday as her brother bounded up the stairs from his basement room, reporting water spilling into the home. The family scrambled to save photo albums and other personal valuable, but the water reached a depth of 2 feet in the basement less than two hours later. \"It just came so fast,\" Harp said, adding that the water was at head-level by midday. \"It really terrified us.\" Harp, who lives next door to Jackson, said she and her husband, three children and brother went to bed Sunday after another day of Georgia rains with little worry. After all, she said, the family has a 7-foot retaining wall in the backyard, and it's never even come close to a breach. Watch flooding victims flee » . \"It really wasn't a concern,\" she said. Now, without flood insurance, Harp has only one thing on her mind: Clean up. Still, \"where do you start?\" she asked. \"Where does the family go from here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Powder Springs resident Kim Harp: \"It just came so fast. It really terrified us\"\nScores of homes swallowed by muddy waters as the rain refused to subside .\nEntrance to Six Flags, Georgia's largest amusement park, sitting in water ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Watching the premiere of \"The Informant!\" -- the Matt Damon movie about a high-level FBI mole at a large multinational company -- was the mole himself, Mark Whitacre. Mark Whitacre, right, at the premiere of 'The Informant' with Matt Damon. The movie is a dark comic take on the three years Whitacre -- a former divisional president of Archer Daniels Midland, the US-based food additive giant -- spent working undercover to break a global price-fixing conspiracy. Whitacre recognized real episodes in his life on the big screen, such as trying to fix a hidden tape player during a meeting and his delusional belief he would be made CEO of the company as a reward for his undercover work. But what you won't see in the movie are the events of August 9, 1995, six weeks after an FBI raid blew the case into public attention. It was two days after ADM fired Whitacre and accused him of embezzling millions from the company. His FBI partners for the previous three years would no longer speak with him. On that day, Whitacre sat alone in his car with its engine running inside a closed garage and slowly lost consciousness. He was hoping to end his life as surely as he had ended his career. A gardener found him unconscious. Some scenes just can't be played for laughs. \"There was nothing comical in the reality of the story,\" said Whitacre, who eventually spent nearly nine years in prison for his role in the price-fixing scheme and revelations he siphoned off $9 million from the company while he was working for the FBI. For Whitacre, 'The Informant!' is a study in his own mental illness, as he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after hospitalization for his suicide attempt. His meeting with Damon at the premiere was the first time the pair met. Damon told him he hoped they portrayed his illness in a sensitive way, Whitacre said. \"He didn't want to talk to a 52-year-old Mark Whitacre while preparing for the role, the Mark Whitacre who went to prison, who has been treated for bipolar disorder, who is now COO of a company,\" said Whitacre, who is now an executive for a small food supplement maker. \"He wanted to portray the 35-year-old Mark Whitacre, otherwise it would make it difficult to portray the delusions I had at that time.\" The fix is in . For companies and regulators, the 1997 conviction of ADM was a landmark event, the first antitrust action in the United States since World War II and a case that has spurred price-fixing investigations around the world. \"As a result of this case, the Department of Justice and the FBI started looking around to see if they could find any other cases like this,\" said Dean Paisley, a retired FBI agent who supervised the undercover ADM work. \"This used to be relatively unusual until the (ADM) case came to light,\" said John Connor, a Purdue University researcher on cartel activity, who was an expert witness in the government's case against ADM. \"Back in 1993 you'd see maybe one or two global (price-fixing schemes) being discovered ... in the past three years or so, there are about 50 a year.\" Price-fixing schemes -- where a cartel of manufacturers inflate prices against market demand -- cost consumers untold millions each year. In the ADM case, it was found that in the three-year period of investigation the company's cartel activity with manufacturers in Japan and Korea inflated prices by at least $200 million. The ADM case resulted in a record $100 million fine in 1997 -- a figure long since dwarfed. Last month Japanese company Epson agreed to pay $26 million for its role in price-fixing LCD panels used in mobile phones in the U.S. Several other companies, including Sharp, LG and Hitachi, have already pleaded guilty in the case and paid fines of more than $600 million. Just last week, the Hungarian government fined Visa Europe, MasterCard and seven commercial banks a total of $10.4 million for price fixing bank fees (Visa and MasterCard are appealing that decision). Flawed heroes . A sign of cartel activity is usually a sharp and uniform increase in price with a contraction in demand. \"But, in fact, in the last 15 or 20 years (governments) have relied almost exclusively on whistle-blowers to make their cases,\" Connor said. And as Whitacre showed, whistle blowers often don't have noble motives. \"The movie should be taken very, very seriously,\" said Sam Antar, a CPA who turned government witness against his employer in the 1980's. \"In white-collar cases, the governments have to rely on informants ... in effect, relying on unsavory characters to make their case,\" said Antar, who now advises government agencies on white-collar crime. \"What happened in 'The Informant,' is he had an agenda to become head honcho of the company,\" Antar said. \"The mistake the FBI agents made in the movie is they fell in love with their witness. It turned out there was a dark side they didn't know about.\" Whitacre said he began stealing millions from the company while working for the FBI, in part, as a financial backstop in case things went wrong. \"I had this sense of false entitlement, like they owe me this ... after all, the company was stealing hundreds of millions.\" The stress of his double-life undoubtedly added to his mental woes, said Paisley, the original FBI supervisor in the case. He points out that undercover FBI agents receive surveillance training and are pulled for psychological evaluation once a year -- Whitacre received none of that. \"There were no provisions for similar checks and balances with Whitacre,\" Paisley said. \"He had no ideas what he was getting into when he agreed to cooperate ... we had no idea it would last three years.\" Although Whitacre has served his time, Paisley and other agents involved in his case are seeking a presidential pardon. \"He really screwed up by stealing,\" Paisley said. \"Be that as it may, how many hundreds of millions would have been stolen if (ADM) wasn't stopped by Mark Whitacre? He is a national hero, in my eyes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ADM price-fixing case was a landmark in global antitrust prosecution .\nGlobal price-fixing investigations have skyrocketed since the ADM scam .\nThese investigations depend on whistle-blowers who often have dark motives ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Determining the amount of troops necessary to win a war is never an easy decision for a commander in chief and his military commanders if history is any guide. The Obama administration is working on a strategic review of improving conditions in Afghanistan. And it's a dilemma President Obama faces as pressure mounts on him to decide what strategy will improve conditions in Afghanistan. The president and his top military, national security and foreign policy advisers are conducting an intensive strategic review of the U.S. military presence in the war-torn nation. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is calling for a counterinsurgency strategy that would add as many as 40,000 troops. But others in the administration want a different approach. Vice President Joe Biden has called for a counterterrorism strategy, which would focus on using special forces and technology to reduce the number of al Qaeda insurgents on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. If the president should listen to McChrystal and adopt a troop \"surge,\" the question remains: How many is enough? One expert said such a large number is needed to reduce violence throughout the country -- the 40,000 troops would allow the U.S. military to \"reverse the momentum of the insurgency, which has been on the rise,\" said Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War, who has advised McChrystal on Afghanistan. That number, Kagan said, would help fill in gaps around Kandahar in the southern part of the country where Taliban forces have amassed. But she warned that eventually, troops would also be needed to tamp down the insurgency in other parts of the country. \"If we had 40,000 more troops, it is likely that the initiative would be wrested from the enemy, and the U.S. and coalition forces would be able to mount a counteroffensive that would proceed in stages over time,\" she said. Even with more troops, the fight will be a tough one if the last few weeks are any indication. Just last week, eight U.S. soldiers were killed in an intense firefight with hundreds of insurgents in Nuristan province, a remote area in northern Afghanistan. It was the second deadliest attack in a single day so far in the war, which recently entered its ninth year. Read soldiers' accounts from the battle . The White House is getting pressure from all sides of this issue. Many on the right have said the president should take the advice of the commanders on the ground. Sen. John McCain, a staunch supporter of the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, said Sunday that any added military deployment in Afghanistan smaller than 40,000 troops \"would be an error of historic proportions.\" Asked whether he thought the war in Afghanistan could be won with fewer troops, the Arizona Republican said, \"I do not.\" \"I think the great danger now is a half-measure, sort of a -- you know, try to please all ends of the political spectrum,\" McCain told John King on \"CNN's State of the Union.\" \"And, again, I have great sympathy for the president, making the toughest decisions that presidents have to make, but I think he needs to use deliberate speed.\" Democrats are split over increasing troops. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said U.S. troops would be put in \"jeopardy\" if Obama does not listen to McChrystal. \"I don't know how you put somebody in who's as crackerjack as Gen. McChrystal, who gives the president very solid recommendations, and not take those recommendations if you're not going to pull out,\" she said on ABC's \"This Week.\" But Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Massachusetts, who also appeared on ABC, said that enlarging the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan would be a mistake. Watch more on the varying advice Obama is receiving from lawmakers » . \"We need to come up with a strategy that includes an exit strategy, because it'll also put pressure on the government of Afghanistan to step up to the plate, which it has not done so far.\" McGovern said adding more troops and resources will make the country go \"bankrupt.\" \"We have wars in Iraq, in Afghanistan, hundreds of billions of dollars that are all going onto our credit card. Our kids and our grandkids are paying for this.\" But the troop number argument is nothing new for presidents and their defense secretaries. Criticism surrounded then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as conditions in Iraq deteriorated and insurgents increased attacks on U.S. forces. He was largely criticized for not sending enough troops early in the Iraq war. Rumsfeld's plan, observers have said, was to win the war in Iraq with smaller troop numbers and a large emphasis on technology, which would in turn let democracy take root. At the beginning of the war in 2003, troops quickly filled the country, took out Saddam Hussein's government and gained control of Baghdad, the capital. The force was small, and success came quickly. But three years later, civil war broke out, and U.S. forces struggled to maintain control of cities they had once secured. Rumsfeld admitted in a 2006 CNN interview that no one was well-prepared for what would happen after major combat ended. \"Well, I think that anyone who looks at it with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight has to say that there was not an anticipation that the level of insurgency would be anything approximating what it is,\" Rumsfeld told CNN for the 2006 documentary, \"CNN Presents Rumsfeld -- Man of War.\" CNN's Tom Evans and Kate Bolduan contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The war in Afghanistan passed the 8-year mark last week .\nObama and his national security team are working on a new strategy .\nHis top commander there has reportedly called for 40,000 more troops ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The World Health Organization cautioned that the swine flu outbreak could gain momentum in the months ahead, despite claims by the health secretary of Mexico -- the epicenter of the outbreak -- that the virus \"is in its declining phase.\" The number of confimed cases of the H1N1 virus continue to multiply. As of early Monday, Mexican health officials reported 568 cases and 22 fatalities linked to the flu. WHO says it has confirmed 506 cases and 19 deaths in Mexico. The world has 985 confirmed cases of the virus, known to scientists H1N1 virus, in a total of 20 countries, WHO said Monday. The United States has reported 226 confirmed cases in 30 states. The U.S. cases include one death -- a Mexican toddler visiting relatives in the United States. According to WHO, Canada has 85 confirmed cases; Spain has 40; the United Kingdom has 15; Germany has 8; New Zealand has 4; Israel has 3; El Salvador has 2; France has 2; and Austria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, South Korea and Switzerland each have one. The outbreak is only about 10 days old, and even if the illness is declining, it could return, said Gregory Hartl, the WHO spokesman for epidemic and pandemic diseases, at a briefing Sunday. \"I ... would like to remind people that in 1918 the Spanish flu showed a surge in the spring, and then disappeared in the summer months, only to return in the autumn of 1918 with a vengeance,\" Hartl said. \"And we know that that eventually killed 40 million to 50 million people.\" Mexican authorities believe the most active period of the virus in Mexico was between April 23 and April 28, and Mexican Health Secretary Jose Cordova described the outbreak as being in decline in his country. In China, officials have quarantined 68 people, including 13 crew members, who were passengers of a Mexico City to Shanghai flight, which carried a passenger who tested positive for the virus, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Sunday. None of the other passengers has exhibited any flu-like symptoms, one health official said. About another 110 people who were on the Aeromexico plane went on to other destinations, and may face quarantines elsewhere, the news agency said. Fifteen have been quarantined at a Beijing hotel. Shanghai's airport is now barring other Aeromexico planes from landing there, a representative of the airline told CNN. Aeromexico is suspending flights to Shanghai until May 15, the representative said. The airline does not fly to Hong Kong or Beijing. In the United States, New York has the most confirmed cases, with 63, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Texas has 40; California has 26; Arizona 18; South Carolina 15; Delaware 10; Massachusetts and New Jersey each have seven; Colorado has four; Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin each have three; Connecticut, Kansas and Michigan each have two; Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Utah each have one. California officials suspended visitation and other \"nonessential activities\" at Centinela State Prison in Imperial County after an inmate was suspected of having swine flu. The case has yet to be confirmed with lab testing. On Sunday, health officials in North Carolina and Pennsylvania announced the first confirmed cases in those states, and Louisiana's governor said his state had seven confirmed cases. The cases from those three states were not immediately included in the CDC tally. In Washington, U.S. Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius, appearing on CNN's \"State of the Union,\" warned that even if the flu outbreak wanes, \"it could come back with greater force in the winter and fall, when we get into flu season.\" \"So, this is no time for complacency,\" she said. \"We want to stay out ahead of this.\" Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC's interim deputy director for public health, told reporters Sunday that she was \"heartened\" by Mexican authorities' reports but still is \"very cautious.\" \"I know that influenza can be surprising, and the time course here in the United States is later. We believe we're just on the upswing here, and in several parts of Mexico, cases began quite a while ago,\" Schuchat said. \"From what I know about influenza, I do expect more cases, more severe cases and I do expect more deaths,\" she added. \"And I'm particularly concerned about what will happen in the fall.\" Acting CDC Director Richard Besser, also speaking on \"State of the Union,\" said U.S. health officials are examining whether people who received flu shots for the swine flu in 1976 may have some level of protection from the current swine flu. \"That's going to play in very, very big as we move forward with our plans around vaccines, because that may help guide some of the issues around who is most at risk at getting this in the future,\" Besser said. Offering a general picture of the state of U.S. efforts to combat the virus, Besser said \"there are encouraging signs.\" \"We're not out of the woods yet,\" he said. \"But what we've learned about the virus itself -- it doesn't contain the factors that we know are seen in much more severe flu strains.\" While the new virus strain in the recent outbreak has affected humans, Canadian officials said it has shown up at a pig farm in Alberta, Canada. Officials said the pigs may have been infected by a Canadian farmer who recently returned from a trip to Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak. The pigs have since been quarantined. \"We have determined that the virus H1N1, found in these pigs, is the virus which is being tracked in the human population,\" said Dr. Brian Evans of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. iReport.com: How should H1N1 be handled? Evans and other officials said it is not uncommon for flu viruses to jump from humans to animals, and that it does not pose a risk for consuming pork. The number of pigs infected was not disclosed. The infected farmer had flu-like symptoms, but he is recovering, Evans said. Learn about the virus » ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "WHO has confirmed 985 cases of H1N1 virus worldwide .\nMexico says illness declining there; WHO warns it could return .\nMexico has largest number of confirmed cases, followed by U.S., WHO says .\nCanadian officials claim pigs at farm have been affected by virus ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNN) -- The girl sleeping in the bunk above me either had Swine Flu, SARS, Tuberculosis or some sort of perfect storm of all three, because she managed to hack and snort throughout the entire night in an almost exact pattern of: Hack. Hack. Hack. Snort. Snort. The sharks arrived and disappeared quickly. I only mention this because I had to be up at four 4 a.m. to get picked up for my day of shark cage-diving, and, clearly, I wasn't getting too much sleep. Not a good start. Nevertheless, I managed to get out of bed on time, and actually felt pretty decent as we drove two hours from Cape Town to some quiet fishing village where about 30 cold, tired backpackers squeezed onto an old boat and into the sea in search of great white sharks. Somebody had to say it: \"We're gonna need a bigger boat.\" But tight as it was on board, we survived, and soon found ourselves bobbing over the waves as small fish began to circle the chum. Eventually, the sharks came -- and they were amazing! More importantly, it was probably the closest I'll ever get to a great white without A) dying or B) soiling myself. See Jarrett's shark-diving adventure » . But just as quickly as the sharks arrived, they were gone. Cold and tired, an uncomfortable boredom overtook the tourists, interrupted only by the occasional roar of projectile vomit. As a scientific study, this symphony of motion sickness was about as fascinating as the sharks. As it turns out, the English seemed to be the ones most affected by the sea. Now, maybe this has something to do with their biology, or maybe this has something to do with England beating Croatia 5-1 in a World Cup qualifier the night before. Either way, I found it interesting that our friends across the pond were collectively becoming violently ill. One would have thought this would have attracted more sharks -- that fine, rich mixture of lager and pies -- but the seas remained great white-free. In all, it was sort of a bittersweet experience. Being that close to such spectacular sharks was a rare, lifetime opportunity, but of all my South African experiences, this was the most expensive and, in many ways, the least rewarding. Of course, I chalk this up mostly to the early start and cold weather, but, even at its best, I've definitely had better times in my life. That said, I'm glad I did it -- you know, before I die from a rare new strain of Swine-Flu-SARS-tuberculosis. Hack. Hack. Hack. Snort. Snort." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CNN.com's Jarrett Bellini is traveling in South Africa .\nReaders chose his destination and can share their travel suggestions .\nBellini will provide updates from South Africa on CNN.com and CNN.com Live ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Scientists have discovered the first confirmed Earthlike planet outside our solar system, they announced Wednesday. An artist's impression shows what the planet may look like in close orbit with its sun. \"This is the first confirmed rocky planet in another system,\" astronomer Artie Hatzes told CNN, contrasting the solid planet with gaseous ones like Jupiter and Saturn. But \"Earthlike\" is a relative term. The planet's composition may be similar to that of Earth, but its environment is more like a vision of hell, the project's lead astronomer said. It is so close to the star it orbits \"that the place may well look like Dante's Inferno, with a probable temperature on its 'day face' above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius) and minus-328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius) on its night face,\" said Didier Queloz of Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, the project leader. Hatzes, explaining that one side of the body is always facing the star and the other side always faces away, said the side \"facing the sun is probably molten. The other side could actually have ice\" if there is water on the planet. \"We think it has no atmosphere to redistribute the heat,\" Hatzes told CNN from Barcelona, Spain, where he is attending the \"Pathways Towards Habitable Planets\" conference. The astronomers were stunned to find a rocky planet so near a star, he said. \"We would have never dreamed you would find a rocky planet so close,\" he said. \"Its year is less than one of our days.\" The planet, known as CoRoT-7b, was detected early last year, but it took months of observation to determine that it had a composition roughly similar to Earth's, the European Southern Observatory said in a statement. Astronomers were able to measure the dimensions of the planet by watching as it passed in front of the star it orbits, then carried out 70 hours of study of the planet's effect on its star to infer its weight. With that information in hand, they were able to calculate its density -- and were thrilled with what they found, Hatzes said. \"What makes this exciting is you compare the density of this planet to the planets in our solar system, it's only Mercury, Venus and Earth that are similar,\" Hatzes, of the Thuringer observatory in Germany, told CNN. They were helped by the fact that CoRoT-7b is relatively close to Earth -- about 500 light years away, in the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn. \"It's in our solar neighborhood,\" Hatzes said. \"The thing that made it easier is it's relatively close, so it's relatively bright. If this star was much much farther away, we wouldn't have been able to do these measurements.\" At about five times Earth's mass (though not quite twice as large in circumference), it is the smallest planet ever spotted outside our solar system. It also has the fastest orbit. The planet whizzes around its star more than seven times faster than Earth moves, and is 23 times closer to the star than Mercury is to our sun. The planet was first detected early in 2008 by the CoRoT satellite, a 30-centimeter space telescope launched by the European Space Agency in December 2006, specifically with the mission of detecting rocky planets outside the solar system. At least 42 scientists at 17 institutions on three continents worked on the project. They are publishing their findings in a special issue of the Astronomy and Astrophysics journal on October 22 as \"The CoRoT-7 Planetary System: Two Orbiting Super-Earths.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The planet, known as CoRoT-7b, was detected early last year .\nIt took months to determine that it had a composition roughly similar to Earth's .\nThe planet is about five times more massive than Earth .\nAstronomer: It is so close to the star it orbits that it may \"look like Dante's Inferno\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Facebook's user base is nearly as large as the U.S. population and, for the first time, the site has turned a profit. Facebook now has 300 million users -- almost as many as the population of the United States. That was the double-barreled announcement Tuesday from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who thanked the site's users for helping its online community cross the 300 million threshold. There are about 307 million people living in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. \"We're just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone,\" Zuckerberg wrote on the company's blog. \"Because we want to make it as easy and fast as possible for the world to connect, one of the things we think a lot about is how to make Facebook perform even faster and more efficiently as we grow,\" he wrote. \"We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the Web.\" The social networking site, while popular with its exploding user base, has struggled to turn a profit. But Zuckerberg said the company became profitable last quarter, beating its goal of getting out of the red by the end of 2010. \"This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term,\" he wrote. In July, the California startup company announced it had hit the 250 million-user mark, which indicates it has grown by 50 million users in two months. That's more than 800,000 new users per day. About 70 percent of Facebook's users are outside the U.S., according to statistics posted by the company. The site started out as a portal for college students but has attracted the attention of baby boomers and older generations in recent years. Facebook says its fastest-growing demographic is people older than 35. Watch Randi Zuckerberg of Facebook's marketing team talk about the milestone » . Over the past year, the social network has seen a challenge from Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site. Many bloggers see recent updates to Facebook's interface as copied from Twitter's stripped-down design. As Facebook has grown, it also has drawn criticism from privacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which says people on Facebook unwillingly give up personal information to advertisers and Facebook application developers. In a video interview with Fortune, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said Facebook gives its users robust privacy controls. She also told Fortune that a new approach to online advertising has helped Facebook's revenue grow throughout the recession. \"Our advertisements are very much part of the user experience,\" she said. \"So the same way you can RSVP for an event on Facebook -- you know, a party your friend might throw -- you can RSVP for a movie premiere. And that's really a movie advertisement saying, 'Our movie is opening this weekend. Do you want to go?' \" After Zuckerberg's blog post went up Tuesday, more than 500 Facebook users commented, largely cheering him on. \"i [heart] facebook. mark, you are my hero!\" one user wrote. \"Today the Internet, tomorrow the world,\" said another. Technology blogs jumped on the news from Facebook, which was posted about 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday. MG Siegler at the blog TechCrunch wrote that it was inevitable that Facebook would pass the 300 million mark but that its finance news was more significant. New technologies probably are helping Facebook keep its computer server costs down, which is important because Facebook stores a lot of data, he wrote. The site is effectively the largest photo-sharing site online, he said. John Paczkowski, a writer for the Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD blog, said Facebook's financial announcement indicates the startup isn't thinking about selling out. \"It would seem then that Facebook has no interest whatsoever in selling itself off to Google or anyone else,\" he wrote. \"It would much rather go public.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Facebook announces it has 300 million users and has turned a profit .\nThat makes the social network roughly the size of the U.S. in population .\nCEO writes Facebook will be a \"strong independent service for the long term\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on a decades-old arrest warrant stemming from a sex charge in California, Swiss police said Sunday. Roman Polanski attends a film premiere in Paris, France, in June 2009. Polanski, 76, was taken into custody trying to enter Switzerland on Saturday, Zurich police said. A spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was arrested upon arrival at the airport. He has lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States and declined to appear in person to collect his Academy Award for Best Director for \"The Pianist\" in 2003. The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, acknowledging he had sex with a 13-year-old girl. But he fled the United States before he could be sentenced, and U.S. authorities have had a warrant for his arrest since 1978. Watch what happens now for Polanski » . Polanski was nominated for best director Oscars for \"Tess\" and \"Chinatown,\" and for best writing for \"Rosemary's Baby,\" which he also directed. He was en route to the Zurich Film Festival, which is holding a Polanski tribute this year, when he was arrested by Swiss authorities, the festival said. A provisional arrest warrant was issued last week out of Los Angeles, California, after authorities learned Polanski was going to be in Switzerland, Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, told CNN on Sunday. There have been repeated attempts to settle the case over the years, but the sticking point has always been Polanski's refusal to return to attend hearings. Prosecutors have consistently argued that it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow a man to go free who \"drugged and raped a 13-year-old child.\" The Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was put \"in provisional detention.\" But whether he can be extradited to the United States \"can be established only after the extradition process judicially has been finalised,\" a ministry spokesman said in an e-mail. \"It is possible to appeal at the federal penal court of justice against an arrest warrant in view to extradition as well as against an extradition decision,\" the spokesman wrote. \"Their decisions can be taken further to the federal court of justice.\" Gibbons said the extradition process will be determined in Switzerland, but said authorities are ready to move forward with Polanski's sentencing process, depending on what happens in Zurich. Polanski was accused of plying a 13-year-old girl with champagne and a sliver of a quaalude tablet and performing various sex acts, including intercourse, with her during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson's house. He was 43 at the time. Nicholson was not at home, but his girlfriend at the time, actress Anjelica Huston, was. According to a probation report contained in the filing, Huston described the victim as \"sullen.\" \"She appeared to be one of those kind of little chicks between -- could be any age up to 25. She did not look like a 13-year-old scared little thing,\" Huston said. She added that Polanski did not strike her as the type of man who would force himself on a young girl. \"I don't think he's a bad man,\" she said in the report. \"I think he's an unhappy man.\" Polanski pleaded guilty to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. There have been repeated attempts to settle the case over the years, but the sticking point has always been Polanski's refusal to return to attend hearings. Prosecutors have consistently argued that it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow a man to go free who \"drugged and raped a 13-year-old child.\" Polanski's lawyers tried earlier this year to have the charges thrown out, but a Los Angeles judge rejected the request. In doing so, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza left the door open to reconsider his ruling if Polanski shows up in court. Espinoza also appeared to acknowledge problems with the way Polanski's case was handled years ago. According to court documents, Polanski, his lawyer and the prosecutor thought they'd worked out a deal that would spare Polanski from prison and let the young victim avoid a public trial. But the original judge in the case, who is now dead, first sent the director to maximum-security prison for 42 days while he underwent psychological testing. Then, on the eve of his sentencing, the judge told attorneys he was inclined to send Polanski back to prison for another 48 days. Polanski fled the United States for France, where he was born. In the February hearing, Espinoza mentioned a documentary film that depicts backroom deals between prosecutors and a media-obsessed judge who was worried his public image would suffer if he didn't send Polanski to prison. \"It's hard to contest some of the behavior in the documentary was misconduct,\" said Espinoza. But he declined to dismiss the case entirely. Legal experts said such a ruling would have been extremely rare. Polanski's victim is among those calling for the case to be tossed out. Samantha Geimer filed court papers in January saying, \"I am no longer a 13-year-old child. I have dealt with the difficulties of being a victim, have surmounted and surpassed them with one exception. \"Every time this case is brought to the attention of the Court, great focus is made of me, my family, my mother and others. That attention is not pleasant to experience and is not worth maintaining over some irrelevant legal nicety, the continuation of the case.\" Geimer, now 45, married and a mother of three, sued Polanski and received an undisclosed settlement. She long ago came forward and made her identity public -- mainly, she said, because she was disturbed by how the criminal case had been handled. Following Espinoza's ruling earlier this year, Geimer's lawyer, Larry Silver, said he was disappointed and that Espinoza \"did not get to the merits and consider the clear proof of both judicial and prosecutorial corruption.\" He argued in court that had \"Mr. Polanski been treated fairly\" his client would not still be suffering because of publicity almost 32 years after the crime. Polanski's arrest Saturday came two days after one of his wife's killers died. The director's pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, and four others were butchered by members of the Manson \"family\" in August 1969. Polanski was filming in Europe at the time. By her own admission, Susan Atkins held the eight-months-pregnant Tate down as she pleaded for mercy, stabbing the 26-year-old actress 16 times. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen, Brooke Bowman, Karan Olson and Ann O'Neill contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In 1977 director Roman Polanski pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl .\nHe has lived in France for decades to avoid arrest if he enters the U.S.\nOscar winner was arrested en route to Zurich Film Festival, which was honoring him .\nPolanski won Oscar for best director for \"The Pianist;\" did not collect it in person ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- A baby made his way into the world this week in Indonesia at 19.2 pounds (8.7 kg) -- about three times the weight of an average newborn. The giant baby lies next to a more typically-sized newborn. Muhammad Akbar Risuddin, born Monday, is thought to be the heaviest baby born to date in Indonesia. \"I was very surprised. I thought it was twins,\" said Binsar Sitanggang, the lead doctor in the cesarean-section delivery at Abdul Manan Hospital in North Sumatra. \"It needed a longer time than normal to deliver this baby,\" Sitanggang said. \"He was hardly breathing when we took him out. But, thank God, he is healthy.\" His parents, Hananuddin and Ani, who like many Indonesians use only one name, have two other children. Both were big at birth but were not abnormally large. Their new addition is 24.4 inches (62 cm) long. \"We can compare this giant baby with a 9- to 10-month-old baby,\" Sitanggang said. \"Both his parents are tall and big, so there might be a genetic cause for this.\" Sitanggang said the baby has already developed a robust appetite, requiring instant milk as well as breast milk. The boy has become somewhat of a celebrity. Curious people streamed into the hospital Friday for a glimpse. Even the mayor came by and had the honor of naming the infant after himself. The world's heaviest baby was born in 1879 in Ohio and weighed 23.8 pounds (10.8 kg), but the baby died 11 hours later, according to Guinness World Records. The heaviest baby to survive was a boy born in 1955 in Aversa, Italy. He weighed 22.6 pounds (10.2 kg)." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Baby weighing 19.2 pounds (8.7 kg) born in Indonesia .\nBaby is three times the typical size of a newborn infant .\nDoctor who delivered baby: \"I was very surprised. I thought it was twins\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- She's petite, she's middle-aged, she's bookish, and if she gets a chance, she'll knock you on your keister. Beth Hollis, second from left, is a librarian who's become a MegaBeth, a roller derby dynamo. By day, she's Beth Hollis, a 53-year-old reference librarian in Akron, Ohio. By night, she's MegaBeth, an ageless dynamo on the roller derby rink. \"All my life, when I tell people I'm a librarian, they say, 'You don't look like a librarian,' \" Hollis said. \"And now that I'm a roller derby girl, they say, 'You don't look like a roller derby girl, either.' So I don't know where I fit in.\" Hollis has been fitting in at the Akron-Summit County Library for 27 years. \"She's my hero,\" said Diane Barton, 48, who has worked with Hollis at the library for 18 years. \"I just think it's so cool she's doing something so different and so active and so aggressive. You know how we are. We're librarians, so we tend to have that meek and mild stereotype.\" Watch her in action as Beth and MegaBeth » . Before discovering roller derby, Hollis had been casting about for a hobby. \"I tried knitting and literally got kicked out of the knitting class for just not being able to get the hang of it,\" she chortled. \"I guess it was just too soon for me to try knitting. I needed something that maybe was a little bit more physical for a hobby.\" Boy howdy. She visited a Rubber City Rollergirls practice last winter after telling her husband, Warren, a retired high school math teacher, that she was going to an audition. \"At that point, I just said, 'I don't care that I have an AARP card in my wallet; I'm going to go for this,' \" she said. Roller derby is a real sport, having ditched the campy, WWE-like spectacle seen on TV in the early 1970s. The Rubber City squad practices six hours a week and competes against teams in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. A roller derby match, called a bout, consists of two 30-minute halves. Each team has four blockers and one player called a jammer, whose job is to get past the other team's blockers on a 235-foot oval flat track and lap them to score points. Both teams are on offense and defense simultaneously, and the action is fast and rough. \"I think she's awesome,\" coach Brian \"Coachise\" Phillips said. \"She is 53, so she is our oldest girl on the team, but she works every bit as hard as every other girl on the team, and she is in as good a shape if not better than every other girl on the team.\" And she's an inspiration to the other players. \"It makes me actually excited to think that I could play ... for another 30 years, and that's awesome for me, because this is like my favorite thing to do,\" said Barb \"Barbonic Plague\" Brown, who at 21 is the youngest player on the team. Hollis has earned the respect of her team captain, too. \"She's so tiny -- she's probably like 5 feet 4 and maybe 110 pounds or so -- but when she's out there, she's MegaBeth,\" said Tracy \"Eighty-SixHer\" Soulsby, 40. \"I wouldn't say she's a very hard hitter, but she's a good blocker. Her strength is getting in people's way and then keeping them behind her, not letting them get around her.\" The MegaBeth legend grew during a June bout with the Glass City Roller Girls, a team from Toledo, Ohio. Hollis found herself contending with a 6-foot-1, 220-pound foe who goes by the name Pamazon. \"Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her just take out this one girl, and I remember, the crowd just went wild. It was fantastic!\" Brown recalled. \"I think that might be the highlight of her season,\" Phillips said. For her part, Pamazon -- aka Pamela Keppler -- said she's never been knocked down in a bout. \"To be completely honest, I don't remember MegaBeth that well from the bout,\" she said. \"I do remember talking with her at the after-party. We were all pretty surprised by her age, and I remember her saying that I knocked the snot out of her.\" The team draws capacity crowds of 500 to 600 at its bouts, where admission costs $8.50 to $12.50 and concessions are sold. \"It really makes it exciting when you've got all those people cheering,\" Hollis said. \"And as we progress through the season, it's obvious that we've gotten better ... and the fan support has just gotten louder.\" But the glory comes at a cost. Two Rubber City Rollergirls have suffered broken legs -- in practice! -- and one is about to return after breaking her shoulder and nose in a bout. \"It's inevitable that you're going to get scrapes; you get rink rash and bruises,\" said Hollis, who wears number 796.21 -- the Dewey Decimal library index number for skating. \"I took a pretty tough fall to my hip that had me a little concerned. As I said to my teammates, at my age when you break a hip, it's the beginning of the end.\" Asked whether she has hurt anyone else, the mother of two college graduates replied furtively: \"I hope so.\" Librarian Hollis isn't the only player smashing stereotypes. Among her teammates are teachers, a Starbucks manager, an accountant, a nurse practitioner, a barmaid and a couple of waitresses, most of whom are on the small side, Soulsby said. \"It's not just rough-and-tough, big, burly gals out on parole,\" Hollis said. Perhaps just to keep it real, the team does include one former repo driver (Valcano) and a heavy-equipment operator (BulldozeHer Bo). Barton, her fellow librarian, says there's something different about Hollis since she laced up her skates. \"It may just be my imagination, but she seems more confident in a way,\" Barton said. \"It has to empower you somehow.\" Hollis says it's good for people to test themselves with change. \"I encourage people to pursue things -- something like this -- that they think might be fun, and not to let stereotypes get in the way of whether or not they think they're going to fit in,\" she said. \"Because you never know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Librarian Beth Hollis breaks stereotypes and, occasionally, bones .\nAfter failing at knitting, she tries her hand (and elbows) at roller derby .\n\"MegaBeth,\" age 53, is among the fittest players on the team, coach says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "RAJASTHAN, India (CNN) -- Some call him the River Maker, others the Rainman of Rajasthan. His real name is Rajendra Singh. His nicknames come from his self-imposed mission to solve his state's water problems, one raindrop at a time. Rajendra Singh is trying to solve water issues in Rajasthan -- one of India's driest states. \"Today with global warming and climate change so many things are going on. Yes, this is the global problem. This is the modern problem. The solution is indigenous water conservation,\" Singh says. Singh lives and works in Rajasthan, one of the driest states in India. It is the country's largest state in land mass but has only about one percent of the country's water resources. Singh has spent the last 25 years of his life practicing what he preaches there. His message is always the same. He says rainwater is a resource we cannot afford to waste, instead we should capture and utilize it. \"If the drops come from the cloud, we can catch it!\" He says with his hands stretched to the sky. \"And that drop go[es] into the under[ground] aquifer and fulfills the aquifer. If that drop comes back so [it will] make springs, make a river.\" We caught up with him in Rajasthan's Alwar district. One of India's so-called \"princely states\" once ruled by Indian royalty. Back in the 1980s the government declared the area a dark zone: An area villagers could no longer pump up clean water because the water table had gotten so low. \"When there was a famine there was a drought I had to leave.\" Farmer Narin Joshi told us who has lived in the area his whole life. \"I had to work as a laborer in Delhi to make ends meet. There was no way I could earn any money here. I had to go.\" That meant leaving his wife behind to raise their children and try to keep them fed. \"If there is a harvest we benefit from the farm.\" His wife Kalawati Devi his wife says. \"And if there is no harvest we get nothing.\" For 10 years Joshi worked as a snack seller in Delhi sending back money to help his family survive. He says that all changed after Singh and his organization Tarun Bharat Sangh showed up. The group came to teach the villagers something their forefathers once practiced: The building of traditional dams called Johads. The dams are made of earth and rock. They are fashioned to capture the rain so the water will trickle down and replenish the aquifer eventually giving rise to water in the wells and bringing dead rivers back to life. But the work takes a community effort. One family is not enough to get it done. Singh says his role is to teach and motivate the community. \"There are more than 10-thousand water harvesting structures we [have] made in last 25 years. And all these structures came through the community effort. I just motivate and realize to the community and [the] community joined hands with us and they made it!\" It is easy to see the result when water becomes available again. Everything from water buffalo to majestic peacocks. Water snakes gather at the watering holes. Over the years Singh says his organization and the villagers of Rajasthan have revived seven rivers across the state helping more than a thousand villages. Now instead of traveling long distances carrying heavy vats of water, or migrating to the cities to make a living, the villagers can stay put and begin to enjoy their surroundings more. The availability of water brought the Joshi family back together again because the husband could finally make a living here. \"I have planted many kinds of trees. For my livelihood I do farming.\" He says \"My family and I are leading very peaceful lives.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rajendra Singh has devoted his life to solving Rajasthan's water problems .\nRajasthan is India's largest state and also one of the driest .\nSingh says rainwater is a resource we cannot afford to waste .\nTen thousand water harvesting structures have been made in the last 25 years ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A North Carolina man accused of plotting to wage holy war overseas also planned to attack the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, according to new charges announced Thursday. Daniel Boyd previously was charged with conspiracy to support terrorists and conspiracy to murder. The charge is one of three counts in a new indictment against Daniel Patrick Boyd, who authorities allege is the ringleader of a group of men charged with training in North Carolina for a \"violent jihad.\" Boyd and another man, Hysen Sherifi, are charged with conspiring to murder U.S. military personnel. \"Boyd undertook reconnaissance of the Marine Corps Base located in Quantico, Virginia, and obtained maps of the base in order to plan an attack on Quantico,\" the charges state. FBI agents found weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition and $13,000 cash in Boyd's Raleigh-area home, an FBI agent testified at an August bond hearing for the men, who were arrested in late July. The original indictment says the men practiced military tactics in a North Carolina county that borders Virginia. The latest indictment also charges Boyd, Sherifi, and Boyd's son Zakariya with possession of weapons in furtherance of a crime of violence, while Boyd faces an additional charge of providing a rifle and ammunition to a convicted felon. Boyd and seven others already have been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure people. One of the men is believed to have fled to Pakistan, and the remaining men are in custody. In August, a federal judge denied bail for the seven in custody, but expressed skepticism about the charges against them. Magistrate Judge William Webb said the defendants made a number statements espousing holy war, and said the statements could be interpreted in isolation as braggadocio. But he agreed to keep them in jail because some of them had amassed a large arsenal and engaged in firearms training." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daniel Boyd, another man charged with conspiring to murder U.S. military personnel .\nBoyd previously was charged with conspiring to provide support to terrorists .\nAuthorities allege Boyd led group training for holy war overseas .\nBoyd was arrested in July ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez revealed a deeply personal side in an interview Thursday night, saying he loves Jesus Christ and would have liked to play Major League baseball in Yankee Stadium. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez spoke highly of President Obama at the United Nations on Thursday. He also expressed a fondness for American people and culture, saying he likes the movie actor Charles Bronson and the poet Walt Whitman. He loves to sing, he said, though he does not do it well. And Chavez had kind words for the U.S. security detail protecting him during his visit to New York, saying he chatted with them while out walking and that they \"have been very gracious, very efficient and very attentive, very kind.\" In an exclusive interview with CNN's Larry King, Chavez spoke at length about a host of issues: relations between Venezuela and the United States and his hopes for improved ties with President Barack Obama; Iran, Israel and those who deny that the Holocaust existed; efforts to overthrow him and have him assassinated; criticism that he is power hungry and trying to silence critics. Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist, spoke with King a few hours after giving a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, in which he praised Obama but criticized some U.S. policies. Watch Chavez speak at the U.N. General Assembly » . When asked whether he is misunderstood in the United States, Chavez seemed to turn reflective. \"I'm a man with many defects,\" he said. \"I love. I sing. I dream. I was born in the poor countryside. I was raised in the countryside, planting corn and selling sweets made by my grandmother. My children, my two daughters are with me and I want a better world for my grandchildren, for your grandchildren. \"Now, they demonize me. But that's the start of these world campaigns to try to defend what you cannot defend -- a system that is destroying the world. ... I'm a Christian. I want the world of justice and equality. This is the only way to achieve peace.\" Chavez then talked about his religious upbringing and current faith. \"I was an altar boy,\" he said. \"My mother wanted me to be a priest. I am very Christian and Catholic. ... I'm very faithful. I believe in God, in Jesus Christ. I love Jesus Christ. I am a Christian. ... I cry when I see injustice, children dying of hunger.\" His comments were all the more remarkable because Chavez and the Catholic Church have been at odds since he came to power in 1999. The church has been one of his major critics, with Pope Benedict XVI and other church leaders expressing concern over what they see as attempts by Chavez to limit the church's influence. Chavez's efforts to change anti-abortion laws have been at the top of those concerns. Chavez, in turn, has referred to church leadership as a \"tumor.\" Speaking of other matters, Chavez said he hopes for improved relations with Obama, but \"we want relations based on respect, relations of peoples where we are respected.\" That has not been the case so far, he said. \"Most governments in the United States in a hundred years have not respected the peoples of Latin America,\" Chavez told King. \"They have sponsored coup d'etats, assassinations. It's enough. We want to be brothers and sisters. We want respect and equality.\" Chavez particularly criticized former President George W. Bush, whom he accused of orchestrating an assassination attempt on the Venezuelan leader during a short-lived coup in 2002. Chavez regained power within days. Watch Chavez discuss the alleged assassination attempt » . \"The Bush government toppled me,\" he said. \"They asked for my assassination. They disrespected us. ... I saw my assassins. ... I was a prisoner in Venezuela, being a president. They took me to the seaside. I was debating with those who wanted murder me. They received the order to kill me. However, at this very moment, a group of soldiers refused. They did not kill me, but I saw those who wanted to kill me, and the order came from the White House.\" Chavez also expressed concern that the United States, which he calls \"the empire,\" still would like to topple him. As he has numerous times in recent weeks, Chavez criticized U.S. plans to begin operating out of military bases in neighboring Colombia. The United States says it needs a presence in Colombia to fight drug traffickers. Chavez sees a sinister intent. When asked what country he fears would harm him, Chavez replied, \"The empire. The empire. Seven military bases ... in Colombia, that's a serious threat against Venezuela.\" Chavez also defended his relationship with Iran but denied having said that Iran would help Venezuela obtain nuclear technology. Iran has embarked on a nuclear program that the United States and other nations think will lead it to develop nuclear weapons before long. \"They have fooled you,\" Chavez said. \"I've never said that Iran is going to help us to have nuclear technology. ... That's a strategy to attack Venezuela and say that we are building an atomic bomb. That's the next accusation. And I'm going to say this now: Please, come on. That's crazy. That's crazy.\" Chavez said he does not agree with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contention that the Holocaust, in which 6 million European Jews were killed during World War II, never existed. \"But there also was another holocaust in South America,\" Chavez said. \"I do not deny the Jewish Holocaust. And I condemn it. But in South America, when the Europeans arrived, there were close to 90 million Indians; 200 years later, we only had four million remaining. That was a holocaust. And the Europeans denied this holocaust.\" Israel came under criticism from Chavez, who called it a \"small country with atomic bombs, and very aggressive country. ... They have massacred entire families. It is a war-mongering country.\" Turning to the situation in his own country, Chavez denied that he is trying to shut down critical media, such as the independent Globovision TV station. Government officials have levied several charges against the station, saying that it is disseminating false information and trying to foment dissatisfaction against Chavez. The Chavez government has repealed licenses for other independent TV and radio stations, and has threatened to do so against Globovision. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter this week joined human rights groups and others who have expressed concern over what they see as Chavez becoming too authoritarian. Chavez dismissed the criticism. \"Never in Venezuela have we had so much freedom of speech as now,\" he said. Pressed by King about whether he is going to shut down Globovision, Chavez answered, \"I do not know. It depends on them. If they keep on sponsoring coup d'etats, if they keep on calling for my assassination, if they keep on breaching the law even as well, it is not Chavez that's going to close them. I want to apply the law. We need to respect the law. It is the law. It's out of logic, and it's pure logic.\" As to Carter, Chavez said, \"Yes, I read that and I regret for him, because I think he's totally confounded and lost. It's a long time since he visited us. I respect him enormously, but I think he is wrong. He's a victim of so much falsehood in the world.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he loves Jesus Christ, U.S. people, culture .\nChavez says he hopes for improved relations with U.S. President Barack Obama .\nHe denies he is trying to shut down critical media in Venezuela .\nHe denies Iran would help Venezuela obtain nuclear technology ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- He's gone from being a backup dancer to the biggest thing in Asian pop culture, an actor and singer who has sold millions of albums. The 27-year-old South Korean has even faced down U.S. comedian Steven Colbert in a spoof dance-off. The comedy skit came about after Rain placed higher than him in Time Magazine's 2008 online poll of the 100 Most Influential People. As well as a sense of humor and dance moves that shook Colbert out of his satirical posture to praise, Rain is also known as one of the hardest working men in the entertainment business. Rain, real name Jung Ji-hoon, broke into the notoriously tough world of South Korean show business with JYP Entertainment when he was just 18 years old. He made his first mark in Hollywood last year with a role in \"Speed Racer\" appearing alongside Christina Ricci and Matthew Fox. As a singer with five albums to his name, he's faced thousands of screaming fans at concerts across the world, and recently he faced your questions. Watch the show and find out what makes Rain tick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Korean pop culture sensation will be on Talk Asia later this month .\n27-year-old has gone from backup dancer to appearing in Hollywood films .\nRain will be appearing with answers to your questions ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A 92-year-old woman with cocaine strapped to her body flew all the way from Brazil to Spain before police arrested her, in a wheelchair, at Madrid's airport. A Civil Guard spokeswoman says the 92-year old was apprehended at Madrid's Barajas Airport. They found 4.3 kilos, or nearly 9.5 pounds, of cocaine packets strapped to her legs and torso, and also arrested a 44-year-old female companion, who tried to escape on another plane, a Civil Guard spokeswoman told CNN Tuesday. The two women, both from Uruguay, were arrested Friday after arriving in Madrid on a flight from Sao Paolo, Brazil. But officials did not release details about the case until this week, after a judge had arraigned the two on drug trafficking charges. The judge ordered the younger woman to prison but sent the 92-year-old to a senior citizens' home in Madrid. Due to her advanced age, \"it's practically impossible\" that she would be tried or face jail time, said the Civil Guard spokeswoman, who by custom is not identified. Police did not identify the two women. Civil Guards became suspicious when the younger woman repeatedly told the older woman -- who had asked for an airport wheelchair in Madrid to traverse the terminal -- that if they rushed, they would make their connecting flight to Spain's Canary Islands. The Civil Guards, who run customs controls at the airport, stopped the woman in the wheelchair. The younger woman immediately fled, first trying to make the connecting flight, which by then had closed its doors, and then attempting to leave the airport terminal for the street. But she was stuck in the \"satellite,\" or second building, of Terminal 4, which is connected to the main building and the street by an underground train. Police caught up with her before she left the satellite terminal. The two would-be smugglers probably expected a cash payment and return flight tickets to Brazil from their drug trafficking contacts, the Civil Guard spokeswoman said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two women, both from Uruguay, arrested after arriving in Madrid on flight from Brazil .\nJudge arraigns two women, one a 92-year old wheelchair user, on drug charges .\nSpokeswoman: \"It's practically impossible\" wheelchair user would be tried ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Four police officers and a suspect were shot in a raid for firearms and narcotics early Thursday in central New Jersey, a local prosecutor's office said. The officers from the Lakewood Police Department's tactical unit were shot upon entering the property and returned fire, hitting suspect Jamie Gonzalez, said Ocean County Deputy Chief Prosecutor Michael Mohel. Gonzalez, 39, received multiple gunshot wounds and is in critical but stable condition, Mohel said. One officer was shot in the face and is being treated at an undisclosed hospital, the deputy chief prosecutor said. He's in serious but stable condition. Another officer was shot in the foot and is in stable condition. The other two officers sustained injuries after receiving gunshots to their bulletproof vests, Mohel said. Their names were not disclosed. The warrant for firearms and narcotics was served at 2:25 a.m. ET in conjunction with federal, state and local authorities. Lakewood is about 70 miles south of New York City. In July, another shootout in New Jersey left one police officer dead. Jersey City police officer Marc DiNardo died after being shot in the face in a raid. He was one of five officers injured in the shootout, and the two suspects involved were killed. CNN's Vanessa Juarez contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Police officers shot in raid for firearms and narcotics in Lakewood, New Jersey .\nSuspect also wounded after officers return fire, official says .\nLakewood is about 70 miles south of New York ." } ]