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(CNN) -- In an age when many people become celebrities through looks or connections, Jennifer Hudson's rise to fame came the old-fashioned way: through talent, hard work and a close-knit family. Jennifer Hudson is in a new movie, "The Secret Life of Bees," and recently released her first solo album. At a time when the singer is in a new movie, "The Secret Life of Bees," and recently released her first solo album, Hudson is now back in the public eye largely due to a family tragedy. Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, and brother, Jason Hudson, were found shot to death Friday in their Chicago home. The body of the singer's missing 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, was found in an SUV on Monday morning. Julian's stepfather, William Balfour, was detained over the weekend for questioning in connection with the case, a police spokesperson told CNN. He was subsequently transferred to prison on a parole violation charge, the spokesperson said. Balfour's mother has acknowledged that her son has been questioned about the shootings, but said he had nothing to do with the crime. No charges had been filed against anyone in connection with the murders. iReport.com: Reaction to Hudson family tragedy . The tragedy is a sad turn for the 27-year-old actress and singer, who first earned national notice for her performances on "American Idol" in 2004 and won an Oscar for best supporting actress for 2006's "Dreamgirls." Hudson's singing career began in her church choir in the South Side Chicago neighborhood of Englewood when she was a child. She remained devoted to singing all the way through Chicago's Dunbar Vocational High School, where there is now a Jennifer Hudson Room. (She's in good company; Dunbar's alumni include Lou Rawls and two of the Staple Singers.) "People would say it was unusual for such a small girl to have such a big voice," she told Reuters in 2006. "They would say, 'She sounds like she's grown.' " After finishing school, she performed in the musical "Big River" at a Chicago-area dinner theater and took a job on a cruise line. In 2003, she auditioned for "American Idol" in Atlanta, Georgia, and managed to earn her way to the top-rated show with a performance of "Easy to be Hard," the "Hair" ballad popularized by Three Dog Night. "Idol" proved to be an uneven experience for Hudson. After the show narrowed down its 12 finalists, she started slowly, at times almost being voted off, but eventually her song choices -- including Elton John's "Circle of Life" and Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" -- made her one of the favorites. Sir Elton himself believed she was the "best of the lot." 'Idol' friend speaks out about Hudson case . In the end, Hudson didn't even come close to making "Idol's" final two, being voted off midway in the show's run. However, her performances had established her as a talent to watch, and in May 2005 -- several months after finishing the traditional post-"Idol" group tour -- she was contacted by a casting agency about the part of Effie, the tragic soul of "Dreamgirls." In the musical, which concerns an all-girl trio much like the Supremes, Effie is a weight-challenged musical powerhouse who begins as the group's leader but is dropped as both performer and lover by the group's manager for the more statuesque singer Deena. The role features the musical's showstopping song, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," and won Jennifer Holliday a Tony Award when "Dreamgirls" ran on Broadway. Hudson was unfamiliar with "Dreamgirls" when she auditioned, but she allegedly beat out almost 800 other women for the role -- including her former "Idol" rival, Fantasia Barrino, who had been the third-season winner. The role's high-pitched emotions were a challenge, Hudson told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2006. "I had to find a way into it," she said to the newspaper. "[Director] Bill Condon sent me into 'Diva 101.' He told me I was too nice. So I'd come into the room angry, but tell all the ADs, 'Bill told me to do this. This is Effie and not Jennifer.' I had to learn how to separate myself from the character with that attitude. That was Bill's main concern. Effie had to have that edge." Her performance won her across-the-board raves. Variety compared her turn to Barbra Streisand's award-winning debut in "Funny Girl," among others. It also led to a host of awards, including supporting actress honors from the New York Critics Circle, Golden Globes, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and -- finally -- the Academy Awards. At the Oscar show, Hudson tearfully thanked her grandmother, whom she described as her "biggest inspiration." Julia Kate Hudson, who sang at Pleasant Gift Missionary Baptist Church, where Hudson got her start, died in 1998. Since winning the Oscar, Hudson has been a mainstay of celebrity magazines, which have broadcast news of her engagement to "I Love New York 2" contestant David Otunga, regularly singled her out as an example of a healthy plus-sized body type and held her up as an "Idol" made good. She's continued her movie career with performances in "Sex and the City: The Movie" and "The Secret Life of Bees," both of which came out in 2008. She sang the national anthem at the Democratic National Convention in August at the personal request of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign. According to many reports, Hudson has remained humble amid all the attention. She remains devoted to the church -- "Church is where I'm from. It will always be my favorite place to sing, and that's where I'd like to go back to," Hudson told the Sun-Times -- and uses her against-all-odds biography to inspire others. "I've had a similar journey as Effie," Hudson told the Sun-Times. "Me being a part of 'Idol,' her being part of the group. ... We both go through our journeys, trying to hold on to our dream and achieve our goal. We have hardships, but we prevail at the end." | Jennifer Hudson's rise to fame came the old-fashioned way .
Hudson's mother, brother, nephew found dead in Chicago, Illinois .
Singer beat out more than 800 other women for role in "Dreamgirls"
Hudson's first national recognition came on "American Idol" | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "3b1ca8e6f5d79ff89cd477b62a832309b7d3028f"} | 1,509 | 65 | 0.536222 | 1.429747 | 0.51277 | 4.254545 | 23.163636 | 0.872727 |
(CNN) -- French Prime Minister Francois Fillon unveiled further details Monday of a 26 billion-euro ($33 billion) business stimulus package which his government hopes can stall falling growth and prevent the country joining other major European economies in recession. Up to 1,000 projects will benefit from the package, which was first proposed by President Nicolas Sarkozy in December and approved by French lawmakers last week. Around 20 billion euros of the total amount will be spent over the next 12 months. Businesses will receive 11.4 billion euros while the same amount will be invested in public projects with social housing identified as a priority. The final 4 billion euros will be spent on improving France's transport, energy and postal service infrastructure. The package is expected to stimulate economic growth of around 1.3 percent, Fillon said. France has so far avoided the worst of the recession that has gripped many of its western European neighbors, including Germany and the UK. But unemployment rose by a further 45,000 in December after surging by 64,000 in November, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Monday, adding that she would be "very surprised" if France experienced positive growth in 2009. Speaking to CNN this weekend at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Lagarde, defended the case for public spending in the face of fears that stimulus packages amounted to storing up unmanageable debts for future generations. "When the house is on fire we don't look at what can be built, Lagarde said. "We need to kick start (the economy) and we need to restore confidence." | French government to spend $33 billion in effort to bolster economy .
French PM Fillon hopes package will stimulate 1.3 percent in 2009 .
Unemployment rose by 45,000 in December, according to French finance minister . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "74cde23c933ad6243bb276efc925d4c9afbabc1a"} | 334 | 47 | 0.606 | 1.48274 | 0.888118 | 1.625 | 7.45 | 0.825 |
(CNN) -- Two international journalists, along with their Somali colleague and a driver, were kidnapped Saturday, a journalists' organization in Somalia said. A young fighter mans a gun on the beach of Kismayo. The photographer asked not be identified. Amanda Lindhout, a Canadian journalist, and Nigel Brenan, an Australian photojournalist, had been in the country just three days when militia men snatched them outside the capital city of Mogadishu, the National Union of Somali Journalists said Sunday. The kidnappers also took Abdifatah Mohammed Elmi, a Somalian photojournalist who was acting as the pair's translator, and their driver, the journalists' union said. The four were on their way back after conducting interviews at a refugee camp. Officials do not know if the journalists are being held for ransom and who is behind the abductions. "No formal claim of responsibility was made," the journalists' group said. "As well, there have been no demands." Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and sparked brutal clan infighting. Somalia's current transitional government is trying to maintain control of the capital, with the help of Ethiopian forces. On Friday, fighters from the Islamic group Al Shabab took control of the southern port town of Kismayo after three days of clashes. The fighting left at least 89 people dead, 207 wounded and displaced some 5,500 people, triggering a humanitarian crisis. Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to install the transitional government in Mogadishu after a decade and a half of near-anarchy. The invasion had the blessing of the United States, which accused Islamists of harboring fugitives from the al Qaeda terrorist movement. But the Ethiopian troops quickly became embroiled in an insurgency led by the Islamists. And as guerrilla attacks mounted, efforts to replace the Ethiopians with an African Union-led peacekeeping mission faltered. The conflict displaced hundreds of thousands of Somalis, further worsening a humanitarian crisis that dates back to the collapse of the country's last government in 1991. The situation has been exacerbated by drought, continual armed conflicts in central and southern Somalia, and high inflation on food and fuel prices. | Two international journalists and Somali colleague and driver kidnapped .
Canandian Amanda Lindhout and Australian Nigel Brenan seized .
The group had been conducting interviews at a refugee camp . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "18771989f9eb80310173483a9192d5f50598c6a1"} | 538 | 48 | 0.506904 | 1.456524 | 0.500281 | 2.75 | 12.84375 | 0.875 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Leading Republicans warned Sunday that the Obama administration's $800 billion-plus economic stimulus effort will lead to what one called a "financial disaster." The country will "pay dearly" if it executes the president's stimulus plans, Sen. Richard Shelby says. "Everybody on the street in America understands that," said Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee. "This is not the right road to go. We'll pay dearly." Shelby, of Alabama, told CNN's "State of the Union" that the package and efforts to shore up the struggling banking system will put the United States on "a road to financial disaster." But Lawrence Summers, the head of the administration's National Economic Council, said Republicans have lost their credibility on the issue. Watch Republicans criticize the stimulus bill » . "Those who presided over the last eight years -- the eight years that brought us to the point where we inherit trillions of dollars of deficit, an economy that's collapsing more rapidly than at any time in the last 50 years -- don't seem to me in a strong position to lecture about the lessons of history," Summers told ABC's "This Week." President Barack Obama, his advisers and the Democratic leaders of Congress argue the roughly $830 billion measure will help pull the U.S. economy out of its current skid. Much of the package involves infrastructure spending, long-term energy projects and aid to cash-strapped state and local governments. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the measure is likely to create between 1.3 million and 3.9 million jobs by the end of 2010, lowering a projected unemployment rate of 8.7 percent by up to 2.1 percentage points. But the CBO warned the long-term effect of that much government spending over the next decade could "crowd out" private investment, lowering long-term economic growth forecasts by 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent by 2019. In a concession to Republicans, about a third of the bill involves tax cuts. But the measure is expected to have only minimal GOP support when it goes to a scheduled vote early this week. Watch South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford warn of "disastrous consequences » . The version of the bill that passed the House of Representatives had no Republican votes. "We need to spend money on infrastructure and on other programs that will immediately put people to work. But this is not it," said Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, last year's GOP presidential nominee. Senators reached a tentative agreement Friday on a compromise bill largely negotiated by a handful of moderate Republicans whose votes are needed to prevent a filibuster. But McCain told CBS' "Face the Nation" that the package should have been about half the size of the one now before senators, and should be balanced between tax cuts and spending. "We're going to amass the largest debt in the history of this country, by any measurement, and we're going to ask our kids and grandkids to pay for it," he said. The stimulus bill includes about $45 billion in transportation spending, much of which can be spent on projects "that can be implemented immediately," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told CNN. LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, said he would talk to his former colleagues on Capitol Hill "and do all that I can to persuade them that this bill really will put people to work." He said he invited state transportation chiefs to Washington for a Wednesday meeting on how to create jobs using funding from the stimulus bill. "There aren't going to be any boondoggles. This money will be spent correctly, by the book, with no shortcuts," LaHood said. The administration is also readying a second phase of the financial bailout program launched by the Bush administration last fall. Shelby said Obama and his advisers need to address the staggering problems in the U.S. banking system first. "Until we straighten out our banking system, until there is trust in our banking system, until there's investment there, this economy is going to continue to tank," he said. Shelby also has been critical of other efforts by the federal government to help the struggling economy, including legislation that would have provided a bailout to the auto industry. But Sen. Kent Conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told CBS the current recession -- which has already produced an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent -- is in danger of a deep downturn "like we saw in the Great Depression." "If there is a failure to give a significant boost to this economy, this crisis will only deepen and become far more serious," said Conrad, D-North Dakota. | Sen. Shelby: Package plus bank bailout will put U.S. on "a road to financial disaster"
Shelby: Economy "will continue to tank" unless banking system is addressed first .
Crisis will deepen without significant economic boost, Democratic senator tells CBS .
Sen. McCain: We need to spend money to create jobs, but not this way . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8545add91629b26a3a93cac3ec399afff81d5fe3"} | 1,039 | 77 | 0.489989 | 1.429855 | 0.56781 | 2.029851 | 13.656716 | 0.80597 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The humble mobile phone is driving a new revolution which some experts hope could bring fairer elections and democracy to some African states. During the 2006 local government elections in Senegal, Radio Sud used reporters and correspondents with cell phones to call in what they saw. Many African countries have struggled against rigged elections and authoritarian rule since gaining independence last century. However, African observers say the growth of simple communication technologies like cell phones are assisting many states to progress towards open and fair elections in increasingly democratic systems. Senegal is one of a number of African countries to hold successful elections by keeping voting and counting in check through independent communication. Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said many African nations now had a "very open society" and the increasing success of elections owed a lot to the existence of mobile phones. "With communication and cell phones, this is where it is difficult to cheat in elections now. You are announced at the district level and cell phones go wild so by the time you go to the capital, if you have changed the figures, they will know and you will be caught out." According to experts, cellphones are particularly important for Africa due to a lack of some other technologies. Visiting African political expert at Indiana University, Sheldon Gellar, said cellphones were much more accessible than the internet in most parts of Africa, and therefore had greater potential to influence transparency. "Internet provides groups in society with means to communicate, organize and obtain good information which is not controlled by government -- but, only a tiny percentage of African populations have access to internet." Just this month CNN reported dramatic increases in cell phone usage in African nations. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, there are just 10,000 fixed telephones but cellphone subscribers have soared to more than a million in the last five years. Gellar told CNN the key benefit of cell phones was that they allowed independent media, especially radio, to provide accurate coverage of elections and make it more difficult for ruling parties to cheat and get away with it. "During the 2006 local government elections in Senegal, Radio Sud used reporters and correspondents with cell phones to call in what they saw. I remember hearing one reporter describing how a local party boss was illegally taking a ballot box on his truck from the polling station. This was reported live as it was happening." Civilians and independent election observers outside the media have also taken advantage of cell phones to monitor elections. Bob LaGamma, executive director of Council for a Community of Democracies, said the 2007 Nigerian election was another example of technology being used effectively. LaGamma described a technique of "parallel reporting", whereby independent observers spread news of local vote counts and any irregularities. This technique was also used in the Zimbabwe elections this year, which he said caused Robert Mugabe to delay announcement of election results. "Parallel reporting was important in Zimbabwe. It kept them from coming straight out and reporting a false result. "All of this technology is very important and gives a powerful new tool that cuts the ability for cheating," LaGamma said. Gellar said other computing technology, though more sparse, could also have a positive impact towards building democracies. He told CNN computers could be used to ensure parliament has access to national budget information and spending patterns, and in urban and rural communities they could provide citizens with data concerning the functions of the government and offer people an opportunity to contact their elected representative. Despite the positive developments brought by cell phones and other communication technology, there have still been problems with numerous elections in recent years. Leonardo Arriola, Associate Professor at University of California, Berkeley, is wary about the potential of the technologies to make some situations worse. He said there could be both good and bad aspects to it. "The more transparency and the more information that can be circulated outside the hands of government is a good thing ... but the other side of that is that a lot of misinformation can get out that way also," Arriola said. Although there has undoubtedly been positive progress with cell phone technology, most scholars and observers agree that pockets full of mobile handsets will not be enough to build stable democratic states and hold future fair elections. "It doesn't mean anything unless you have all of the means of verifying the results. If you have a ruling authoritarian regime which is determined to cheat, they will do it," LaGamma said. Gellar sees the technology as necessary, but not sufficient for progress. "Africans have been able to organize without technology. Freedom of association -- the right to organize autonomous organizations and function freely -- is more important than access to new technology in fostering democracy. "That said, new technology can be a powerful tool in improving communications between citizens and governments, between civil society organizations and the public. Informed citizens are essential to good functioning of democracies," he said. Gellar said a number of other factors needed to progress before a state could move towards a more democratic model of governance. According to Gellar these changes include: strengthening independent media; growing and ensuring freedom of civil society; decentralizing power, ceding more control to local governments; empowering women; improving judicial systems to ensure independence and power to punish. Gellar said new technology could help achieve those goals to some extent, as communication was the key to overcoming oppression. "Authoritarian regimes want to control and monopolize the flow of information. African authoritarian regimes don't have the power and resources to completely control information disseminated through traditional means -- as oral communications are still the main means of disseminating information," Geller explained. Gellar said the changes being brought about by cell phones and other communication technologies could well play a part in bringing more participatory governments to the continent. "New technology is not a panacea, but it can speed up processes of democratization and should be encouraged," he concluded. | Election processes are being checked with the help of cell phones .
Cell phones are more accessible to Africans than the internet and telephones .
Technology could help push more countries towards democratic models .
Experts agree more than technology will still be required to see change . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "0df814d8bb76641e21693a7935845ea628132449"} | 1,302 | 56 | 0.503839 | 1.530186 | 0.915453 | 1.372549 | 22.313725 | 0.823529 |
(CNN) -- Key structural changes have been identified in the brain images of some patients with mild cognitive impairment which could help determine who's at greatest risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, studied MRI scans of 84 patients with Alzheimer's disease, 175 patients with mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, and 139 images of healthy brains. "Our initial goal was to locate similarities in the patients with Alzheimer's disease to those with MCI, in the hopes of finding a method to predict [MCI patients'] likelihood of developing the disease," said lead study author Linda McEvoy, assistant project scientist at UCSD's department of radiology. Neuroimaging results for the patients with Alzheimer's disease were as expected, according to the study, which was published online in the journal Radiology. Atrophy, which is loss of brain tissue, was visible throughout the brain. The temporal and parietal lobes, which affect cognitive function, saw the most damage. What surprised researchers were the differences in images from the MCI patients. More than 50 percent of the brains in the MCI group showed atrophy similar to the Alzheimer's disease patients. The other half of the MCI patients showed only small amounts of tissue damage. Watch Dr. Gupta explain the findings » . "Although the symptoms for the entire MCI group were primarily memory problems, other parts of the brain were impacted in over half the group," McEvoy said. "And even though these patients [with Alzheimer's-like atrophy] don't have problems with their cognitive function now, their MCI will likely develop to that in the future." Researchers also evaluated the brains of the MCI group one year after initial testing. They found that patients who earlier had mild cognitive impairment plus signs of atrophy were getting worse. Twenty-nine percent of the group had since been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and the others had begun to show signs of more serious cognitive decline. The condition of patients in the MCI group whose scans showed minimal signs of atrophy the previous year remained about the same. "Only 8 percent of this group had developed Alzheimer's disease. The rest of the patients were stable and their symptoms had not increased," McEvoy said. Bill Thies, chief medical and scientific officer for the Alzheimer's Association, underscored the significance of these findings. "What this study really shows is how different people with MCI can be, despite having similar symptoms. We can now use this information to create new treatments," he said. There are several drugs on the market that treat the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, but none that prevent its progression. Clinical trials may be able to use this data to select a better pool of candidates when testing new drugs. "If they use a MCI patient with loss of brain tissue, someone who we now know is progressing fast towards Alzheimer's disease, we'd be able to quickly figure out if drug 'X' is slowing things down or not helping at all," Thies added. In addition, researchers hope that within the next few years patients could regularly be tested by their physicians to determine their risk of developing Alzheimer's. "If nothing else it would be good information for their family members to have early on, to be better prepared for the future." McEvoy said. Over 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease and an estimated three and a half million have mild cognitive impairment. | Key structural changes seen in brain scans of some patients with memory loss .
One year later, many patients with brain changes had developed Alzheimer's .
Memory-loss patients without these changes were mostly stable one year later .
Brain scans could identify who gets Alzheimer's, help with drug testing . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "125fa4fa5d93c3237909f033d9466172fdc674fc"} | 749 | 66 | 0.534219 | 1.350316 | 1.001737 | 1.423729 | 11.237288 | 0.813559 |
CNN Student News -- Welcome to CNN Student News, a daily commercial-free, ten-minute broadcast of the day's news geared for middle- and high-school students. CNN Student News can be found on air and online, and whether you're brand new to the program or a longtime viewer, we've got new things in store for you. CNN Student News anchor Carl Azuz. You've already found our new homepage, CNNStudentNews.com, where you can access the show and free related curriculum materials, including Learning Activities, Discussion Questions, Newsquizzes and One-Sheets. CNN Student News airs on CNN Headline News at 4 a.m. You can record the show from 4:00-4:10 a.m. Eastern time on Headline News. (Check your local listings for channel number). If you'd prefer, you can download CNN Student News to your desktop or iPod. Go to the CNN.com Podcast page and look for the Student News podcast. Once you've signed up for the free subscription, every episode will automatically be downloaded to iTunes. In addition to CNN Student News, each week, CNN offers educators a commercial-free edition of "CNN: Special Investigations Unit," "CNN Specials" or its award-winning documentary program "CNN Presents," along with a corresponding free curriculum guide on CNNStudentNews.com. You can record these CNN Classroom Edition programs from 4:00-5:00 a.m. Eastern time on Mondays on CNN. (A short feature begins at 4:00 a.m. and precedes the program.) And if you want to be the first to know what's coming up on CNN Student News and CNN Classroom Edition programs, you'll want to sign up for our CNN Student News Daily Education Alert. Registration is quick and simple. Just click here to subscribe. | CNN Student News is the day's news for middle- and high-school students .
CNN Student News airs daily on CNN Headline News from 4:00-4:10 a.m. EST . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "bb793bd352d5f327ca8581d1fae45012b0bcc665"} | 405 | 45 | 0.62914 | 1.403223 | 0.117682 | 4.515152 | 10.181818 | 0.939394 |
(CNN) -- China has killed 13,000 birds in the country's far northwest to control what it called an epidemic of bird flu, state media reported Tuesday. Since the end of 2003, the H5N1 virus has infected birds in over 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. Five hundred fowl that had died in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region tested positive for the H5N1 virus, according to China's Ministry of Agriculture. In late January, China confirmed its sixth case of bird flu in a human. The ministry said at the time that, although further human bird flu cases were possible throughout China, there wouldn't be a large-scale outbreak, state run news agency Xinhua and CCTV reported. The country also announced it was setting up a nationwide network to test for the H5N1 virus. Following a bird flu outbreak in late January, India culled more than 4,000 birds in the remote northeastern state of Sikkim. Health officials also detected dozens of cases of upper respiratory infection among humans, but none of the patients had any history of handling sick poultry, a government spokesperson said. Sikkim borders Nepal and China. Since the end of 2003, the H5N1 virus has infected many species of birds in more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. It has not been found in birds in North or South America or the Caribbean, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Human-to-human transmission of avian flu is rare, but the virus has passed from poultry to humans in some cases. It has killed more than 200 people since 2003. China reported its first human-to-human infection case in 2005. Of the 34 cases confirmed to date in the country, 23 had been fatal, the World Health Organization said in late January. | China kills 13,000 birds in northwest to control what it calls an epidemic of bird flu .
500 fowl that died in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region tested positive for H5N1 .
In late January, China confirmed its sixth case of bird flu in a human .
The virus has killed more than 200 people since 2003 . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "28cad16dcd769677b7e2b21ffe113822efd192a5"} | 397 | 79 | 0.726944 | 1.550451 | 1.340814 | 7.360656 | 5.639344 | 0.901639 |
(CNN) -- A Phoenix, Arizona, elementary school bus careened out of control for nearly a mile Wednesday evening, causing more than a dozen accidents and sending at least 26 people to the hospital. A Phoenix, Arizona, school bus crossed over several lanes of traffic, crashing into several vehicles on Wednesday. Phoenix police officer James Holmes told CNN the bus struck two cars at an intersection as it approached an overpass on Interstate 10. The bus later crossed into oncoming lanes, causing a chain reaction of collisions. At least two cars overturned, and several passengers in the vehicles had to be cut out of the wreckage, authorities said. Holmes said the bus carrying 45 students came to a stop a mile from the first accident scene. He said panicked children began jumping from the bus and fled into the neighborhood. Watch children describe frenzy of being on out-of-control bus » . Officers had to round up the students and used media reports to ask for help in looking for them. By late Wednesday, police thought they had located everyone. No injuries were reported to any of the children on board. Police were interviewing the driver, trying to determine what caused the accident. CNN affiliate KPNX reports the bus driver lost consciousness before the crash. Twenty-six passengers in the other cars, including several children, were being treated at hospitals. Some of the injuries were serious, but none was thought to be life-threatening. | Out-of-control school bus crashes into dozens of cars in Phoenix, Arizona .
Panicked children jumped from bus, fleeing into neighborhood .
At least 26 people treated at area hospitals . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "a100128fde5ad8cf889c050f5e54c72d700535d9"} | 304 | 46 | 0.696738 | 1.55566 | 0.92293 | 2.078947 | 7.342105 | 0.815789 |
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The police chief in Cancún has been relieved of his duties and placed under house arrest while he is investigated in the killing of a retired Mexican general who had been the area's anti-drug chief for less than 24 hours, Mexican media are reporting. A Mexican soldier guards the entrance at a Cancún police station where the military is investigating a murder. Francisco Velasco Delgado was detained by military officials early Monday and flown to Mexico City, where he was placed under 45 days of house arrest, according to the media reports. With Delgado's removal, the military has taken over the Cancún police force, several newspapers reported. Cancún Mayor Gregorio Sanchez Martinez said the move was made "to facilitate all types of investigations into the triple murder that happened last week," the Diario de Yucatan newspaper said. Salvador Rocha Vargas, the secretary for public security for the state of Quintana Roo, will lead the police force. He said he will take all the pertinent measures "to clean up the Cancún police," the Excelsior newspaper reported Tuesday. Retired Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quinonez's bullet-riddled body was found a week ago on a road outside Cancún. Authorities said he had been tortured before being shot 11 times. His aide and a driver also were tortured and killed. Quintana Roo state prosecutor Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo said last week there was no doubt Tello and the others were victims of organized crime. "The general was the most mistreated," Rodriguez y Carrillo said at a news conference. "He had burns on his skin and bones in his hands and wrists were broken." An autopsy revealed he also had broken knees. Tello had been appointed less than 24 hours earlier as a special drug-fighting consultant for Gregorio Sanchez Martinez, the mayor of the Benito Juarez municipality, which includes the city of Cancún. Tello, who retired from the army in January at the mandatory age of 63, had moved to the resort area three weeks ago. Mexico is undergoing an unprecedented wave of violence that some have likened to a civil war. The government is battling drug cartels as the traffickers fight each other for control of the lucrative illicit market. Tello was the second high-ranking army officer to be killed in the area in the past few years. Lt. Col. Wilfrido Flores Saucedo and his aide were gunned down on a Cancún street in 2006. That crime remains unsolved. The latest killings come as Mexico grapples with the highest violent-death rate in its history. Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora reported in December there had been around 5,400 slayings in 2008, more than double the 2,477 tallied in 2007. There already have been more than 400 drug-related killings this year, according to some news accounts. | Mexican media says local chief put under house arrest for 45 days .
With Francisco Velasco Delgado's removal, military takes control of police .
Mayor: Delgado's detainment to "facilitate all types of investigations" into murder .
Retired general killed after being area's anti-drug chief for less than 24 hours . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "cd50184d54c3685dd75a8bf13e768f68a3c9f89e"} | 692 | 87 | 0.538045 | 1.622207 | 0.704892 | 3.387097 | 8.612903 | 0.83871 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A sculpture of a giant white horse taller than the Statue of Liberty is set to tower over the countryside as part of an unusual scheme to help revive the fortunes of a depressed region of England. The 50-meter high horse will dominate the landscape around Ebbsfleet. The 50-meter equine artwork was Tuesday announced as the winner of a competition to design a landmark to dominate the skyline of the Ebbsfleet Valley, set to be a new stop on the Eurostar London-to-Paris rail link. Designed by artist Mark Wallinger -- whose previous work has included dressing in a bear suit and wandering around a gallery in Berlin -- the £2 million ($3 million) horse will be one of the largest artworks in the UK. Wallinger's horse -- which echoes ancient white horse symbols carved into hillsides around Britain -- beat a shortlist of designs that included a tower of stacked cubes and giant steel nest. Victoria Pomery, head of the panel that selected the design, described the 33-times normal size horse as "outstanding." "Mark is a superb artist of world renown and his sculpture will become a real landmark for Ebbsfleet Valley and the whole region," she said. It drew a less favorable response from readers of local Web site Kentnews.com, who described it as a "waste of money," an "abomination" and "depressing." One correspondent, Andy Smith, added: "This horse looks extremely silly." | Giant horse announced as winner of competition to design new landmark .
Equine artwork is brainchild of conceptual artist Mark Wallinger .
Design's selectors describe sculpture as "outstanding," critics say it's "silly" | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "567a16c58ad968e6f56594039a5092c18d0f3cc6"} | 358 | 53 | 0.590444 | 1.726352 | 1.142006 | 1.439024 | 6.95122 | 0.804878 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she is "praying" that President Bush has a change of heart and does not veto a bipartisan children's health insurance bill that he has labeled an unwarranted expansion of government-run health insurance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi applauds after signing the State Children's Health Insurance legislation Friday. "The tide is going a different way than a presidential veto would reflect," Pelosi, a California Democrat, said. "It was with great friendship that I reached out to the president this morning to say that I was still praying that he would have a change of heart and sign this legislation." "I think I have to pray a little harder, but I will not give up," Pelosi said. Pelosi's comments came a day after the Senate voted 67-29 for the measure, which would expand the State Children's Health Insurance program by up to 4 million children. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino on Friday said Bush still intends to veto the bill when it arrives at his desk. Perino also said the disagreement between Congress and the White House was a simple policy difference, not "about who cares about children more than the other." "The president is saying, 'Let's take care of the neediest children first, let's not put scarce federal dollars toward a program that was meant for the poorest children and let it creep up to middle-income families with incomes up to $83,000 a year,' " Perino said. Bush and many Republicans contend that the program's original intent -- to give parents who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private insurance coverage for their children -- would be changed under the current bill, prompting parents to wind up dropping private coverage their children already have to get cheaper coverage under the bill. Perino also objected that the rhetoric surrounding the SCHIP bill has become too heated. "I think it is preposterous for people to suggest the president of the United States doesn't care about children, that he wants children to suffer," Perino said. The bill enjoys bipartisan support. Eighteen Republican senators Thursday night joined all the Democrats in voting for expanding the popular program from its current annual budget of $5 billion to $12 billion for the next five years. Four senators -- Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Sam Brownback of Kansas and Democrats Joseph Biden of Delaware and Barack Obama of Illinois -- did not vote. With the current program scheduled to expire Saturday, the White House encouraged Congress to send the president a continuing resolution extending the program. "We should take this time to arrive at a more rational, bipartisan SCHIP reauthorization bill that focuses on children in poor families who don't currently have insurance, rather than raising taxes to cover people who already have private insurance," Perino added. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah was among those Republicans who split from the president. "It's very difficult for me to be against a man I care so much for," he told his colleagues on the Senate floor prior to the vote. "It's unfortunate that the president has chosen to be on what, to me, is clearly the wrong side of this issue." Though 67 votes in the 100-person chamber would suffice to overturn a veto, the House version, which was approved Tuesday, fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. E-mail to a friend . | House Speaker Pelosi "praying" that president has change of heart on bill .
Measure expanding kids' health insurance program passed Senate .
Bush objects to measure expanding coverage beyond just poor children .
White House says expansion would cover children from middle-class families . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "55281d89b0ff20457705de2e364a8ee45f54491e"} | 786 | 57 | 0.525647 | 1.384925 | 1.189818 | 1.615385 | 12.788462 | 0.807692 |
(CNN) -- Amnesty International has accused Hamas militants in Gaza of kidnapping, killing and torturing fellow Palestinians they accuse of spying for Israel, the organization announced Tuesday. Hamas supporters stand on the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli strike that killed Hamas' interior minister. According to Amnesty International, at least 24 Palestinian men -- most of them civilians -- were shot and killed by Hamas gunmen during the recent Israeli offensive aimed at crippling the Hamas leadership in Gaza. "Scores of others have been shot in the legs, kneecapped or inflicted with other injuries intended to cause permanent disability," the human rights organization said in a news release. Hamas leaders have publicly accused followers of its rival Palestinian political faction, Fatah, of spying for the Israelis during the conflict, and they have said many have been arrested for collaborating with the Jewish state. But they deny ordering any reprisal attacks against suspected spies, instead blaming rogue elements. The Israeli military offensive in Gaza was launched at the end of December and ended three weeks later, when Israeli forces withdrew under the terms of a cease-fire agreement. Amnesty said that the targets of "Hamas' deadly campaign" include prisoners who escaped from Gaza's central prison when Israeli forces bombed it in the initial days of the military conflict. Some prisoners injured in the Israeli bombing were "shot dead in the hospitals where they were receiving treatment," Amnesty said. "The perpetrators of these attacks did not conceal their weapons or keep a low profile, but, on the contrary, behaved in a carefree and confident -- almost ostentatious -- manner," it said. Other targets included former members of Palestinian Authority security forces and supporters of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party. Fatah, which is based in the West Bank, has denied spying on Hamas. Fatah leaders have accused Hamas of rounding up at least 175 of their members in Gaza during the Israeli war and torturing them. The two Palestinian factions have been locked in a power struggle since Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and wrested Gaza from Fatah in violent clashes the following year. Abbas is a U.S. ally and regularly negotiates with Israel as the Palestinian leader, but he holds little sway in Gaza. Fatah supporters have been accused of helping the Israeli military conduct its campaign in Gaza, which targeted the Hamas leadership. Neighbors of Hamas Interior Minister Said Siam said they suspected Fatah supporters helped Israel pinpoint his location when they bombed his house on January 15. Siam was highest-ranking Hamas member killed in the Israeli offensive. Most of those suspected of spying for Israel have been abducted from their homes and then "dumped -- dead or injured -- in isolated areas," according to Amnesty International. During the Gaza conflict, medical officials at Gaza City's main medical facility, Shifa Hospital, said injuries they witnessed were consistent with people being shot in the kneecaps, elbows, hands or feet. Punishment shootings are a time-tested tactic used worldwide by guerrilla and militia groups, from Che Guevara in Cuba to the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. They are meant not only to take revenge but also to send a message to others. Two self-described Fatah loyalists were found heavily bandaged at a Gaza City safe house during the recent conflict. One of their colleagues refused to say where or why they were injured, but they denied spying. "They shot him at close range with a pistol," he said of one man. "His bones are shattered. They shot him point-blank in the foot. ... This was done by Hamas people." The other man, he said, was struck on his legs with a metal construction bar. "Four people were beating him," he said. A Hamas security source told CNN the shootings occurred because renegade gunmen took the law into their own hands. Ehad al-Ghossain, Hamas' Interior Ministry spokesman, said there was no official order within Hamas to carry out such shootings. "That's not us," al-Ghossain said. "Maybe some families who had problems in the past just wanted to shoot these people." CNN's Karl Penhaul contributed to this report . | NEW: Some people shot as they lay in hospitals, Amnesty International says .
Two dozen Palestinians killed by Hamas, rights group says .
Hamas accused the victims of spying for Israel, group says .
Hamas blames attacks on rogue elements . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "3bb32c633eb5166cb357bd94f6082082b33cb39b"} | 1,009 | 64 | 0.513334 | 1.360886 | 0.824282 | 1.416667 | 16.6875 | 0.708333 |
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's president said Tuesday his country welcomes talks with the United States "in a fair atmosphere with mutual respect." Women in Tehran celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution Tuesday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the remarks a day after President Barack Obama said the United States is looking for opportunities for "face to face" dialogue with Iran, even though he has "deep concerns" about Tehran's actions. "Right now, the world is entering the era of dialogue," Ahmadinejad told hundreds of thousands of people in a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. "The new U.S. administration announced that it's willing to bring about a number of changes and is now taking the course for dialogue. It's quite clear that real change should be fundamental, not just a tactical change, and it is quite clear that the Iranian nation will greet real changes. "The Iranian nation is ready to hold up talks, but talks in a fair atmosphere with mutual respect," Ahmadinejad said. In Washington, Obama was asked about U.S. relations with Iran during his first prime-time news conference on Monday night. Watch news conference in full » . "There's been a lot of mistrust built up over the years, so it's not going to happen overnight," Obama said. He said his administration is reviewing existing U.S. policy toward Iran, which supports groups Washington has branded terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and has defied U.N. demands to halt its uranium enrichment program. Despite those concerns, Obama said his administration wants to use "all the resources at the United States' disposal" to resolve those concerns. "My expectation is, in the coming months, we will be looking for openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face-to-face diplomatic overtures, that will allow us to move our policy in a new direction," Obama said. "So there are going to be a set of objectives that we have in these conversations, but I think that there's the possibility at least of a relationship of mutual respect and progress." The United States and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since 1979. During that year, the Shah of Iran was forced to flee the country and the Ayatollah Khomeini took power. Later that year, Iranian students took over and seized hostages at the U.S. Embassy. Relations have been cut since then. U.S. President George W. Bush labeled Iran as a member of the "axis of evil" after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Iran celebrated the 30th anniversary of the revolution Tuesday with crowds chanting "Death to America." Watch the parade in Iran » . Tensions have rippled over issues such as Iran's nuclear program, Israel, and Iraq, and have been aggravated since the outspoken Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. Western nations believe Iran is intent on building a nuclear weapon. Ahmadinejad has been criticized for his vehemence against and provocative remarks toward Israel and for Iran's support of Hamas militants in Gaza and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon -- militants groups that Israel has battled. Also, the United States has accused Iran of backing Iraqi insurgents. In recent years, the Iraq conflict has provided an opportunity for Iran and the United States to cooperate since both countries support the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and Iraqis have urged both countries to put aside their differences in helping Iraq. In 2007, U.S. and Iraqi envoys met several times in Baghdad. Ahmadinejad addressed the conflict in Iraq, saying that 1 million people have been killed and others have been displaced because of the "Bush administration war on Iraq." "To deal with the root cause of insecurity I think that we should go and find the main culprits, including Bush himself and his administration. They must be put on trial," said Ahmadinejad. "The world does not want to see the dark age of Bush being repeated." Addressing the issue of terrorism, Ahmadinejad said Iran has been fighting terror for 30 years and that Iran itself been victimized by terror. "If you want to fight terrorism in practice come and work with the Iranian nation," he said. "If you want to eradicate the root causes of massacres and aggression, let's sit together and see what has been behind the reasons why we have had wars in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East." As usual, he had harsh words for Israel, a state he loathes and a topic that whips up passions among his supporters. "If you want to eradicate crime, let's work together with the Iranian nation and other nations of the world and let's put on trial the Zionist leaders of the Zionist regime," the Iranian leader said. As for nuclear power, Iran has said it wants to harness it for energy and Ahmadinejad indicated Iran is against deploying nuclear weaponry. "If you want to fight proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, then you should join us and help us so that we will show you the right way. Yes we're opposed to nuclear weapons of mass destruction. They're real threats and they must be destroyed. Iran has been a victim of the use of chemical weapons of mass destruction but the only way would be justice and the use of appropriate mechanisms," he said. "If they really want to have real security, then they should be able to work with us and then we will be able to revisit the structure of the Security Council -- and remember the Security Council itself is the root cause of discrimination -- we should change this structure and then have justice." The United States also is concerned about Iran's technological pursuits. Iran successfully launched its first satellite into orbit last week, a step hailed by Iran's president as a "source of pride" for the Islamic republic, according to state-run news outlets. The launch of the satellite Omid -- which means "Hope" in Farsi -- was timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Islamic revolution in Iran, according to Iranian media reports. U.S. Department of Defense officials confirmed the launch, and the State Department expressed "grave concern." In August, Iran performed a test of a rocket capable of launching a satellite into orbit. Iranian officials declared that mission a success, but U.S. officials disputed that. Senior U.S. officials had expressed concerned about the test of the rocket, saying Iran could use the rocket to deliver warheads. On Monday, Obama said Iran must "send some signals that it wants to act differently, as well, and recognize that, even as it has some rights as a member of the international community, with those rights come responsibilities." "It's important that, even as we engage in this direct diplomacy, we are very clear about certain deep concerns that we have as a country, that Iran understands that we find the funding of terrorist organizations unacceptable, that we're clear about the fact that a nuclear Iran could set off a nuclear arms race in the region that would be profoundly destabilizing." Praising Iran's people history and traditions as "extraordinary, Obama says the nation's actions over many years now have been unhelpful when it comes to promoting peace and prosperity both in the region and around the world." "Their financing of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, the bellicose language that they've used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon, that all those things create the possibility of destabilizing the region and are not only contrary to our interests, but I think are contrary to the interests of international peace." | U.S. seeking opportunities for "face to face" dialogue with Iran, says Obama .
Iranian president Ahmadinejad: We welcome Obama comments .
U.S. has not had diplomatic ties with Iran for nearly three decades .
Ahmadinejad makes speech as Iranians mark 30th anniversary of Islamic revolution. | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "e202c989567db9ef534edbd3223698fb83f98e98"} | 1,712 | 69 | 0.606024 | 1.573144 | 0.830137 | 3.169811 | 27.754717 | 0.716981 |
(CNN) -- One brief window of opportunity when all the elements align themselves. The light, the look - it all comes together. Point and click: Richard takes a lesson from Magnum photographer Raghu Rai in Delhi. And then -- the click. A fleeting magical moment come and gone, then lost forever. But preserved in one picture. This month Richard Quest goes in search of the perfect photo. "Get me Demarchelier!" One of the orders barked by the infamous editor in "The Devil wears Prada." Patrick Demarchelier was indeed worth that special mention in the film. Richard visits this uber fashion and portrait photographer. In New York Demarchelier teaches Richard the techniques involved in composing the perfect picture. The great Henri Cartier Bresson once said: "Photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event." Magnum Photos bequeathed us with a living record of our history. From the Normandy Landings to Tienanmen Square, Magnum's members have captured some of the most iconic images of the photographic age. To find out more about Magnum photos please click here. Richard finds out what it takes to join this elite brotherhood. In New York, he visits Steve McCurry, the man behind National Geographic's "Afghan Girl." Then it's off to Delhi to meet the legendary Raghu Rai . Whatever you do don't photograph wildlife and babies! Richard is off to find out why getting that perfect shot can often be next to impossible. Try getting either to stand still! Quest learns from the masters in both of these --- the acclaimed baby photographer Anne Geddes and, in San Francisco, award-winning wildlife photographer Frans Lanting. You just have to look at our news stands to see what a celebrity-obsessed culture we live in. Every few months a new gossip magazine emerges promising even better and more compromising pictures of celebrities at their best, at their worst, showing us what they're doing and what they definitely should not be doing. We are the voyeurs, and we just can't get enough of them. The paparazzi have spawned this celebrity culture showing celebrities as anything but perfect. In London Darren Lyons, snapper turned celebrity himself, tells us how his business really works. But while we all love to curl up with a good gossip magazine, most of these photos will never be remembered. But there are photos that will endure, like those taken at our weddings. The wedding photographer is one of the honest jobs in the business. We visit a wedding in L.A. and capture a couple's special moments. Finally, Quest is back with Frans Lanting in San Francisco. And this time he is the one taking the photographs. They go to the Ano Nuevo state reserve to photograph a colony of elephant seals. To view more of Frans Lanting's work please click here. Richard shows us his metal as he snaps away. But then it's back to the studio to see if his photographs will indeed seal the deal. E-mail to a friend . | Richard Quest goes in search of the perfect photo .
He meets Patrick Demarchelier, Steve McCurry, Frans Lanting and Anne Geddes .
Quest puts his new skills to the test by photographing a colony of elephant seals . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "e92c4914629728b8c18cf61320cf4a34baa77300"} | 701 | 59 | 0.456103 | 1.450402 | 0.803708 | 4.02381 | 13.928571 | 0.833333 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Police arrested a man near the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday after he drove up to one of the building's barricades with a rifle in his vehicle and told officers that he had a delivery for President Obama, a Senate spokesman said. A man drove to the Capitol with a rifle and said he had a delivery for President Obama, police said. Sgt. Kimberly Schneider identified the man as Alfred Brock, 64, of Winnfield, Louisiana. She said Brock was charged with possession of an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition. Brock drove up to the north barricade at the Capitol late Tuesday afternoon, saying he had a delivery for the president, Schneider said. After further questioning, he admitted he had a rifle in his truck. He was arrested and taken to police headquarters for processing, she said. A search of his truck turned up several rounds of ammunition, Schneider said. Police also checked the area around the barricade, but found nothing hazardous. Threats against Obama have led to arrests in previous cases. In one, federal prosecutors concluded that three people arrested with drugs and weapons in a suburban Denver, Colorado, motel posed a "true threat" to Obama during the Democratic National Convention. In the second, a Florida man was charged with threatening bodily harm against the then-candidate in August. He has pleaded not guilty. | NEW: Alfred Brock, 64 drove up to Capitol barricade with a rifle in his vehicle .
NEW: Brock charged with possession of an unregistered firearm, ammunition .
Police say he told them he had a delivery for President Obama .
Man was arrested, transported to Capitol Hill police headquarters for processing . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "21a3bf331defe8b1ab9dbadbdf2ca912af11a3f0"} | 323 | 72 | 0.631251 | 1.645997 | 0.824458 | 3.283333 | 4.35 | 0.816667 |
(CNN Student News) -- Each month in 2008, CNN Student News will be "Talking Democracy" by introducing an election-year topic on the show and online. From caucuses to conventions and primaries to polls, CNN Student News will be breaking down these election-year concepts for students and teachers. Classes are invited to show what they know about the political process by submitting iReports to CNN Student News. Classes are encouraged to use original video, music, animation and other production elements to demonstrate their knowledge of each political concept. There's a list of political concepts and the months they will air below. The best iReports may appear on CNN Student News. This Web page is your one-stop destination for Talking Democracy educational materials and iReport information. As the year unfolds, additional materials will be added to this site that address the different topics your students will learn about in the Talking Democracy series. Be sure to revisit often! Talking Democracy Topics January: Caucuses and Primaries February: The Right to Vote March: Political Parties April: Campaign Finance May: Polling June and July: The Issues August: Conventions September: Debates October: What's at Stake? November: Electoral College . Learning Activities . • Caucuses and Primaries • The Right to Vote • Political Parties • Campaign Finance • Polling • Political Issues • Conventions • Debates Viewing Guide • Electoral College Reform • Predict Electoral College Votes . One-Sheets • Caucuses and Primaries • The Right to Vote • Political Parties • Campaign Finance • Political Polls • Political Issues • Conventions • Debates • Electoral College . Talking Democracy Questions . Use these questions to test your knowledge of the presidential election process, then check the answers to see how you did. Videos . • Delegates 101 Delegate-hunting can be a mathematical challenge, but CNN's Jill Dougherty says it adds up to American-style democracy. • Right to Vote CNN Student News explores the right to vote, and an iReporting classroom chimes in with reasons to exercise it. • Political Parties 101 Discover some of the differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. • Campaign Finance 101 Check out some of the rules concerning cash for presidential campaigns. • Polling 101 Discover why a random sampling is an important aspect of an opinion poll. • Conventions 101 CNN Student News takes you behind the scenes of the national political conventions. • Debates 101 The candidates face off as CNN Student News provides the background and backdrop for presidential debates. • Electoral College 101 CNN Student News' Carl Azuz gives us the 411 on the Electoral College . Interactives . Why delegates matter in the presidential race Click through this interactive for an explanation of the different types of delegates and how they are chosen in the nomination process for the Democratic and Republican parties. Electoral Map Calculator Use this Electoral College map to examine how the presidential candidates may fare in November's election, based on analysis from the CNN Political Unit. Then call the race yourself! Click on a state, choose a winner, and watch the electoral votes add up. Cable in the Classroom's eLECTIONS campaign simulation Make all the decisions for a virtual run for the U.S. presidency, allocating budget, selecting key issues, choosing where to campaign, and responding to the opponent's moves and other external events. Debate Quiz How much do you know about debate history? These questions will test your knowledge and include video of some memorable moments in presidential debate history. Related Resources . • CNN Election Center 2008 • FEC: 2008 Presidential Caucus and Primary Dates • Project Vote-Smart.org: How Does the Primary Process Work? • CNN Campaign Trail Jargonbuster . iReports . Students can demonstrate their understanding of election-related topics by sending in their own Talking Democracy iReports. Click here for information on how to send in iReports. | "Talking Democracy" breaks down election-year concepts for students and teachers . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "d6929993a925b14c8424557fff5249e1dbab9a2c"} | 892 | 18 | 0.525485 | 1.399725 | 0.274427 | 6.533333 | 48.933333 | 0.933333 |
(CNN) -- Germany striker Miroslav Klose struck just four minutes from time to give Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich a 1-0 win at Karlsruhe -- their first victory in four league games. Klose scored a vital goal for Bayern as they claimed a 1-0 Bundesliga victory at Karlsruhe. Klose converted Massimo Oddo's cross on 86 minutes to give Jurgen Klinsmann's side three league points for the first time this month despite another unimpressive performance. Bayern last picked up three points in a Bundesliga game on September 13 when they hammered Cologne 3-0. Since then the gloss on Jurgen Klinsmann's first season in charge has faded badly after Werder Bremen hammered his side 5-2 at home on September 20 and then slumped to a 1-0 defeat at minnows Hanover the following week. Cries of "Klinsmann out!" were first heard around Munich's Allianz Arena in their previous league game on October 4 when a poor Bochum side were allowed to score two goals in the last 10 minutes to poach a 3-3 draw. Despite their first-half domination in Karlsruhe, Bayern could not break down the home defense and lost striker Luca Toni, the league's top scorer last season, who limped off after 40 minutes to be replaced by Lukas Podolski. And another of Munich top attacking options from last season was substituted on 59 minutes when Klinsmann switched France midfielder Franck Ribery for Germany's Tim Borowski. With Karlsruhe unable to create any chances and Bayern unable to convert theirs, it looked like the game was heading towards a 0-0 draw until Klose struck. But Klinsmann's side will need to do much better against Fiorentina in Tuesday night's Champions League game in Munich. Promoted Hoffenheim went top of the table with a flurry of late goals to seal a 5-2 victory at 10-man Hanover which put them level with Hamburg but leading the table on goal difference. Two goals from Hoffenheim's Vedad Ibisevic led the charge and made the Bosnian and Herzegovina striker the league's top scorer with nine so far this season. However, Hamburg have the chance to recapture top spot when they host Schalke on Sunday. Also on Saturday, Bayer Leverkusen moved up one place to third place thanks to their 2-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt. Striker Patrick Helmes scored his eighth league goal of the season when he converted a penalty after just six minutes and a 61st minute header from Chilean midfielder Arturo Vidal sealed the win. Stuttgart drop from third to sixth in the table after losing 2-1 at Hertha Berlin while Wolfsburg picked up their first league win for nearly a month as midfielder Zvjezdan Misimovic netted first-half goals in a 4-1 win over Arminia Bielefeld to put Felix Magath's side fifth in the table. Ten-man Energie Cottbus lost 1-0 at Cologne to stay in the bottom three while Dortmund scored in injury time to seal a 3-3 draw at Werder Bremen. | Miroslav Klose scores only goal to give Bayern Munich a 1-0 win at Karlsruhe .
Klose's 86th minute strike is enough to end German champions' win drought .
Hoffenheim top of table with flurry of late goals to seal a 5-2 victory at Hanover . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "3acc26e31aa5136ecb0ba64c920bccf444ac75a8"} | 716 | 68 | 0.611728 | 1.545896 | 1.043622 | 4.773585 | 10.509434 | 0.773585 |
MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) -- Ethiopian troops have not yet begun to withdraw from key positions in the capital of Somalia two days after they were supposed to do so under a peace agreement designed to end years of conflict. Ethiopian troops are yet to leave the Somlai capital despite a peace agreement. The Ethiopians had agreed to withdraw from some bases by Friday under an agreement signed last month by the Somali transitional government and a rebel faction known as the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia. Ethiopia invaded Somalia two years ago to expel Islamic forces who had conquered Mogadishu. Under the deal signed October 26, a cease-fire between the transitional government and the ARS went into effect November 5. The Ethiopians were to withdraw from from key positions in the capital on November 21, and leave the country entirely early in 2009. Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein has said that Ethiopian troops will withdraw as agreed. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate leader of the rebel ARS, told the local radio station Shabelle Saturday that the Ethiopian troops would pull out on schedule. Insurgents clashed with Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies Friday, witnesses said, leaving at least 11 fighters dead. The fighting started when armed insurgent fighters attacked the house of a local commissioner in Mogadishu's Wadajir district, sparking heavy fighting between the government troops guarding the house and the insurgents. "I saw 11 men wearing red turbans on the heads dead on the ground," local resident Mohamed Haji Ali told CNN by phone from a house near where the clashes took place. Other residents provided a similar death toll. The commissioner whose house was attacked, Ahmed Da'd, said that his soldiers killed 17 insurgents. He displayed what he said were some of the dead insurgents for the media. It is not clear what will happen if the Ethiopian troops remain in Mogadishu despite the October 26 peace deal. Under that agreement, government and opposition members will form a 10,000-member joint police force to keep order, along with the African Union peacekeeping mission now in place and a U.N. force to be deployed later. Both sides will work toward establishing a unity government in Somalia, which has been riven by 17 years of strife since the collapse of its last fully functional government. Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to install the transitional government in Mogadishu after a decade and a half of near-anarchy. The invasion had the blessing of the United States, which accused the Islamic Courts Union -- which captured Mogadishu earlier that year -- of harboring fugitives from al Qaeda. The Islamists responded with a guerrilla campaign against government and Ethiopian troops. Efforts to replace the Ethiopians with an African Union-led peacekeeping mission faltered as the violence worsened, and heavy fighting in Mogadishu and other cities drove hundreds of thousands from their homes. The lawlessness also spilled on to the seas off the Horn of Africa, where international vessels are routinely hijacked by suspected Somali pirates who demand large ransoms. Journalist Abdinasir Mohamed Guled and CNN's Mohammed Amiin and Amir Ahmed contributed to this report. | Ethiopian troops yet begin to withdraw from key positions in Somali capital .
Ethiopians had agreed to withdraw from some bases by Friday .
They were supposed to do so under a peace agreement designed to end conflict . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "3a74a105eef5416699d68bcb1838b7b20bd20cd2"} | 751 | 47 | 0.562754 | 1.381982 | 0.7169 | 7.756098 | 14.121951 | 0.926829 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- From bedroom creators to big studios, hand-drawn to CGI, animation has charmed and entertained children -- and, increasingly, adults -- for many years. The Screening Room went to Annecy in France to discover the secrets of success in animated films... Annecy has hailed animators like director Tim Burton, seen here receiving a special award at Annecy in 2006. Annecy is the Cannes of animation. The French town, which lies close to the Swiss border just 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Geneva, has hosted the International Animated Film Festival for almost half a century and attracts a younger crowd than many of the major film festivals. With prizes for long and short features, television and student animation, Annecy highlights a wide variety of different types of animation and budgets. One veteran of Annecy is Craig Decker, known as worldwide cult figure "Spike" and co-founder of "Spike and Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation." Beginning 30 years ago as a means of bringing independent animation to new audiences, the touring festival was instrumental in showcasing the early works of legendary animators such as Tim Burton, Pixar's John Lasseter and Aardman's Nick Park, as well as the first episode of "Beavis and Butthead." Spike explained to CNN the challenge of getting animation taken seriously. He said, "Originally we had to deal with the stigma. We showed great films like National Film Board of Canada [pieces], or "Tin Toy" by John Lasseter, works of art, masterpieces that take two to three years to make, and we had to deal with, 'What is it? Cartoons like Bugs Bunny or something like that?' And over the years we've educated the public, and we've put animation in the context of a very cool thing [with] a young, hip, adult audience of 18 and over." Stop-motion classics . One of Spike and Mike's biggest fans, Nick Park, won the Annecy award for Best TV Animation with "Shaun the Sheep," a spin-off from "A Close Shave," one of Aardman's famous Wallace and Gromit short features that grabbed an Oscar. Stop-motion is also close to the heart of director Tim Burton, who employed the technique on "Corpse Bride" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas." He said, "Because it's such an old-fashioned technique, a lot of it truly has to do with finding the right group of animators, the right group of people to build the puppets, because a lot of things are being done by computer now. Very few people are doing this style of animation." Allison Abbate, a producer on "Corpse Bride," added, "Stop motion is an age-old process as far as animation in film-making goes. It hasn't really changed since the days of King Kong - we used new technology in 'Corpse Bride' to bring it into a new century." Appropriate animation . "I think there's room for all types of animation," she continued. "It depends on the story. The story should really decide how you tell it. I think there are stories that are better made in 2-D and CGI and that's what you'd go for." 2-D animation is the mainstay of Japanese anime - a subject so vast it will command its own feature in a subsequent edition of the Screening Room. The film "Paprika" has won worldwide critical praise during the past year as a sophisticated example of the art, whose keenest supporters are sometimes contemptuous of their Hollywood animation counterparts. Asia is becoming an increasingly powerful force in animation, where companies who traditionally provided a cheap source of labor for animation studios are now using their skills to take a leading role in the creative process. UTV Toons is one of several Indian companies forming partnerships with big U.S. production houses to make new animated features. Combination of skills . Animation requires a combination of several skills, as producer Allison Abbate explained. She told CNN that animators face many complex challenges. "Animators have to know how to move things, how things work anatomically in a space, but they also have to know how to act, how to emote and that is what makes animation so different from live action. It is so crafted, one frame at a time." But Spike points out that the rewards animation promises can be very high. "Obviously in features, look at the most successful films," he told CNN. "They're nearly all animated Pixar pieces or, if it's live action, it's the special effects animation that carries the film." And the future? Spike believes animation is going mobile. He said, "Internationally, what's exciting is with new media: with digital; with broadband; with mobile phones. That's where we're going with our stuff." E-mail to a friend . | The International Animated Film Festival in Annecy is the Cannes of animation .
Festival highlights the best in animation, from student work to studio shorts .
Experts say the future of animation is on mobile devices . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "06a2c3475ec2077a99483c735cd8aee2384af699"} | 1,131 | 48 | 0.47458 | 1.387788 | 1.118798 | 2.625 | 24 | 0.825 |
(CNN) -- Here's a tip for dairy farmers: If you want your cows to produce more milk, get to know them better. Herdsman Paul Nelson of Eachwick Red House Farm, Newcastle, England, with Highlight the cow. So says a study out of Newcastle University in northeast England, published online Wednesday in the academic journal Anthrozoos. The researchers found that farmers who named their cows Betsy or Gertrude or Daisy improved their overall milk yield by almost 500 pints (284 liters) annually. "Just as people respond better to the personal touch, cows also feel happier and more relaxed if they are given a bit more one-to-one attention," Catherine Douglas of the university's School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development said in a news release. "By placing more importance on the individual, such as calling a cow by her name or interacting with the animal more as it grows up, we can not only improve the animal's welfare and her perception of humans, but also increase milk production." Douglas and her colleagues questioned 516 dairy farmers in the United Kingdom. Almost half said they called the cows on their farms by name and reported a higher milk yield. A press statement from the university, touting the study, quoted Dennis Gibb, who co-owns a dairy farm outside of Newcastle, called Eachwick Red House Farm. "We love our cows here at Eachwick, and every one of them has a name," Gibb said. "Collectively, we refer to them as 'our ladies,' but we know every one of them and each one has her own personality." | Study in the U.K. finds cows treated with personal touch increase milk production .
Farmers who named their cows got almost 500 more pints annually .
Dairy farmer: "We love our cows ... and every one of them has a name"
Researchers questioned 516 dairy farmers in the United Kingdom . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "99ba3d1cc315f0e927108f7feeedc41de6e34b46"} | 360 | 72 | 0.623319 | 1.741349 | 1.258029 | 4.140351 | 5.526316 | 0.842105 |
(CNN) -- Personal computer maker Lenovo, expecting to report a loss for the third fiscal quarter ending December 31, announced it would cut 2,500 jobs as part of a restructuring expected to save $300 million. A woman walks past a Lenovo advertisement at a computer shop in Hong Kong. The cuts comprise about 11 percent of the Chinese computer manufacturer's global workforce. "Although the integration of the IBM PC business for the past three years was a success, our last quarter's performance did not meet our expectations," Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo's chairman of the board, said in a statement. "We are taking these actions now to ensure that in an uncertain economy, our business operates as efficiently and effectively as possible, and continues to grow in the future." Hong Kong's Hang Seng index suspended trading of Lenovo shares Wednesday, anticipating the announcement. The trading is to resume Thursday. The job cuts, to occur during the first quarter, will include management and executive positions and also affect finance, human resources and marketing divisions, the company said. In addition, the "resource redeployment plan" included executive compensation reductions of 30 percent to 50 percent, including bonuses, and the consolidation of its China and Asia-Pacific organizations into a single business unit to be called Asia Pacific and Russia . The company, ranked as the world's fourth-largest PC maker, anticipated taking a pre-tax restructuring charge of approximately $150 million. As part of its restructuring, the company said it was relocating call center operations from Toronto, Canada, to Morrisville, North Carolina, the company's North America headquarters in order to "better leverage its investment in real estate and facilities." | Chairman of the board cites last quarter's below-expectations performance .
Job cuts to include management and executive positions .
Company is ranked as the world's No. 4 PC maker .
Lenovo anticipates taking pre-tax restructuring charge of approximately $150 million . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "500d36ba2bc69c9436fdb45566bc88a30a69dd4e"} | 361 | 63 | 0.581696 | 1.405232 | 1.193698 | 4.153846 | 6.307692 | 0.846154 |
JUAREZ, Mexico (CNN) -- A deadly trade is occurring along the U.S. border with Mexico, federal officials say -- a flood of guns, heading south, used by drug thugs to kill Mexican cops. Authorities recently seized these .50-caliber bullets, already belted to be fed into a machine gun. In Mexico, guns are difficult to purchase legally. So, officials say, weapons easily purchased in the United States are turning up there. "The same routes that are being used to traffic drugs north -- and the same organizations that have control over those routes -- are the same organizations that bring the money and the cash proceeds south as well as the guns and the ammunition," says Bill Newell, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Police in Mexican border towns fear for their lives, and with good reason. Five high-ranking Mexican police officials have been killed this year in what Mexican officials say is an escalating war between police and drug cartels. In Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, a police commander was gunned down in front of his home. The weapon used to kill Cmdr. Francisco Ledesma Salazar is believed to have been a .50-caliber rifle. The guns are illegal to purchase in Mexico but can be obtained just north of the border at gun shows and gun shops in the United States. ATF special agent Tom Mangan says the .50-caliber rifle has become one of the "guns of choice" for the drug cartels. The weapon fires palm-sized .50-caliber rounds that can cut through just about anything. Mangan showed CNN the power of the rifle on a gun range near Phoenix, Arizona. The weapon, a Barrett, was seized in an ATF raid. A round fired from 100 yards away tore through a car door and both sides of a bulletproof vest like those used by Mexican police. "There's nothing that's going to stop this round," Mangan says. The rifle was intercepted as it was being smuggled into Mexico. Mangan says investigators believe four others already had passed through the border. Watch how the weapons fuel a little-known war » . The ATF has been trying to help Mexican police by cracking down on illegal purchases of guns and ammunition. Operation Gunrunner has led to several arrests and seizures of guns and ammo. But the operation has mainly shown just how big a problem exists, authorities say. One recent seizure in a Yuma, Arizona, storage locker yielded 42 weapons and hundreds of rounds of .50-caliber bullets already belted to be fed into a machine gun-style weapon. The guns confiscated included AK-47 rifles and dozens of Fabrique National pistols. The semiautomatic pistols fire a 5.7-by-28 millimeter round, which is technically a rifle round, according to the ATF. Newell says the round has a special nickname in Mexico. "It's called 'mata policias,' or 'cop killer,' " he says. Mexican authorities along the border recently met with their counterparts in the United States, hoping more cooperation will lead to more arrests of criminals and fewer killings of Mexican police officers. Guillermo Fonseca, Mexico's regional legal attaché for the West Coast, told CNN the violence in his country is "problem number 1" -- and police in his country are outgunned. Officers in Mexico lack heavy firepower, he says. With the presence of large-caliber weapons from the United States, drug cartels and criminals have the advantage in what he says is basically a war. Part of the solution, he says, is for the United States to give Mexico more information about who is selling these guns illegally in the United States. Then Mexico could go after the buyers. "We have access to systems to trace guns that have been smuggled into Mexico, and that has worked very well," Fonseca told CNN. "We need more information about the people who are actually purchasing the guns. We need to prosecute those people, to convict those people. In our opinion, that's the next step we have to take." Last year Mexican police confiscated 10,000 guns and $200 million in raids aimed at cracking down on border violence. Still, local police tread carefully, especially in neighborhoods controlled by the powerful drug cartels. Officer Cesar Quitana patrols a dangerous barrio in Juarez, Mexico. He is armed with an M16 assault rifle -- a weapon that would be no match in a gunfight with drug lords. "I think most of us feel scared just to bring this with us," he says, pointing to the rifle in the front seat of his patrol car. "But this is what we use to defend ourselves." E-mail to a friend . CNN's Orlando Ruiz and Mayra Cuevas contributed to this report. | Firearms difficult to purchase in Mexico are more easily obtained in United States .
Drugs and money go north to U.S. while guns go south to Mexico, authorities say .
Mexican drug cartels blamed for killings of police officers . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "4dab2d6eab513446e7b5c76924cffde43f42cdb1"} | 1,138 | 55 | 0.533695 | 1.409773 | 0.849094 | 1.651163 | 21.604651 | 0.906977 |
(CNN) -- Electronics giant Sony launched its eagerly anticipated social-networking site Thursday for PlayStation 3 users. A gamer plays Sony's PlayStation 3. PlayStation Home, which can be downloaded free of charge, will allow PS3 gamers to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences through their own personal "avatars," or three-dimensional virtual representations of themselves. Users will be able to chat to each other in Home Square -- a kind of PlayStation clubhouse -- before heading over to the bowling alley to bowl, play pool or use the gaming arcade. They will also be able to access music and video. Users will eventually be able to customize their avatars and virtual apartments with the latest virtual clothing from designers such as Diesel and furniture maker Ligne Roset. Sony also plans to introduce Red Bull Island, where users can jump into the cockpit of a Red Bull Air Race plane and compete against other Home users. "The idea behind Home is to create a virtual space for PS3 owners to meet up, talk and play games - the easiest way to think of it is as a hybrid of Facebook, Second Life and the prettiest game lobby ever," Tim Clark, editor in chief at Official PlayStation Magazine UK, told the BBC. All you need to download Home is a PlayStation Network account and access to PlayStation Store. Providing you have the latest system software update installed, the Home icon will appear under PlayStation Network on the PS3 Home Menu (XMB). "PlayStation Home is truly a promising network community service on the PlayStation platform, made possible with a combination of the power of PS3 and the PlayStation Network that covers many countries around the globe," said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment on the company's Web site. | PlayStation Home can be downloaded free of charge by PS3 users .
Users communicate, share gaming experiences through their own avatars .
Designed along the lines of 3-D Second Life virtual world . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "ccee27b87deb37c76b1c76042629af98af24a68b"} | 375 | 42 | 0.610561 | 1.594713 | 0.905364 | 2.526316 | 8.921053 | 0.789474 |
Congressman Jared Polis . (D) Colorado: District 02 . Congressman Jason Chaffetz . (R) Utah: District 03 . | Two freshman representatives document their experience for CNN .
Rep. Jared Polis is a Democrat representing Colorado's Second district .
Rep. Jason Chaffetz is a Republican representing Utah's Third district . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "86bd905861391cbd3a98de15c83768b6d1400304"} | 35 | 48 | 0.649362 | 1.227252 | 0.3854 | 0.428571 | 0.685714 | 0.314286 |
IP-455 Press Release 8 February 2008 The findings of a Scotland Yard inquiry into how Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto died after being attacked during a political rally in Rawalpindi were presented to the Government of Pakistan today. The bomb explodes near Bhutto's vehicle following a political rally in Rawalpindi. The conclusions of the inquiry were outlined in a detailed report handed over to interim Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz by Detective Superintendent John MacBrayne, accompanied by a senior official from the British High Commission, during a meeting in Islamabad. The text of the executive summary of the report is as follows: . On the 27th December 2007, Mohtarma Benazir BHUTTO, the leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), died as a result of being attacked in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Following discussions between the Prime Minister and President Musharraf, it was agreed that officers from the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) should support the investigation into Ms Bhutto's death. The primary focus of the Scotland Yard team was to assist the Pakistani authorities in establishing the cause and circumstances of Ms Bhutto's death. The wider investigation to establish culpability has remained entirely a matter for the Pakistani authorities. The SO15 team was led by a Detective Superintendent Senior Investigating Officer, and comprised two forensic experts, an expert in analysing and assessing video media and an experienced investigating officer. The team arrived in Pakistan on 4th January 2008 and spent two and a half weeks conducting extensive enquiries. During the course of their work, the team were joined by other specialists from the United Kingdom. The UK team were given extensive support and co-operation by the Pakistani authorities, Ms Bhutto's family, and senior officials from Ms Bhutto's party. The task of establishing exactly what happened was complicated by the lack of an extended and detailed search of the crime scene, the absence of an autopsy, and the absence of recognised body recovery and victim identification processes. Nevertheless, the evidence that is available is sufficient for reliable conclusions to be drawn. Within the overall objective, a particular focus has been placed on establishing the actual cause of death, and whether there were one or more attackers in the immediate vicinity of Ms Bhutto. The cause of death . Considerable reliance has been placed upon the X-rays taken at Rawalpindi General Hospital following Ms Bhutto's death. Given their importance, the x-rays have been independently verified as being of Ms Bhutto by comparison with her dental x-rays. Additionally, a valuable insight was gained from the accounts given by the medical staff involved in her treatment, and from those members of Ms Bhutto's family who washed her body before burial. Ms Bhutto's only apparent injury was a major trauma to the right side of the head. The UK experts all exclude this injury being an entry or exit wound as a result of gunshot. The only X-ray records, taken after her death, were of Ms Bhutto's head. However, the possibility of a bullet wound to her mid or lower trunk can reasonably be excluded. This is based upon the protection afforded by the armoured vehicle in which she was travelling at the time of the attack, and the accounts of her family and hospital staff who examined her. The limited X-ray material, the absence of a full post mortem examination and CT scan, have meant that the UK Home Office pathologist, Dr Nathaniel Cary, who has been consulted in this case, is unable categorically to exclude the possibility of there being a gunshot wound to the upper trunk or neck. However when his findings are put alongside the accounts of those who had close contact with Ms Bhutto's body, the available evidence suggests that there was no gunshot injury. Importantly, Dr Cary excludes the possibility of a bullet to the neck or upper trunk as being a relevant factor in the actual cause of death, when set against the nature and extent of her head injury. In his report Dr Cary states: . • "the only tenable cause for the rapidly fatal head injury in this case is that it occurred as the result of impact due to the effects of the bomb-blast." • "in my opinion Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto died as a result of a severe head injury sustained as a consequence of the bomb-blast and due to head impact somewhere in the escape hatch of the vehicle." Given the severity of the injury to Ms Bhutto's head, the prospect that she inadvertently hit her head whilst ducking down into the vehicle can be excluded as a reasonable possibility. High explosives of the type typically used in this sort of device, detonate at a velocity between 6000 and 9000 metres per second. This means that when considering the explosive quantities and distances involved, such an explosion would generate significantly more force than would be necessary to provoke the consequences as occurred in this case. It is also important to comment upon the construction of the vehicle. It was fitted with B6 grade armour and designed to withstand gunfire and bomb-blast. It is an unfortunate and misleading aspect of this case that the roof escape hatch has frequently been referred to as a sunroof. It is not. It is designed and intended to be used solely as a means of escape. It has a solid lip with a depth of 9cm. Ms Bhutto's injury is entirely consistent with her head impacting upon the lip of the escape hatch. Detailed analysis of the media footage provides supporting evidence. Ms Bhutto's head did not completely disappear from view until 0.6 seconds before the blast. She can be seen moving forward and to the right as she ducked down into the vehicle. Whilst her exact head position at the time of the detonation can never be ascertained, the overwhelming conclusion must be that she did not succeed in getting her head entirely below the lip of the escape hatch when the explosion occurred. How many people were involved in the immediate attack? There has been speculation that two individuals were directly involved in the attack. The suggestion has been that one suspect fired shots, and a second detonated the bomb. All the available evidence points toward the person who fired shots and the person who detonated the explosives being one and the same person. • Body parts from only one individual remain unidentified. Expert opinion provides strong evidence that they originate from the suicide bomber. • Analysis of the media footage places the gunman at the rear of the vehicle and looking down immediately before the explosion. The footage does not show the presence of any other potential bomber. • This footage when considered alongside the findings of the forensic explosive expert, that the bombing suspect was within 1 to 2 metres of the vehicle towards it rear and with no person or other obstruction between him and the vehicle, strongly suggests that the bomber and gunman were at the same position. It is virtually inconceivable that anyone who was where the gunman can clearly be seen on the media footage, could have survived the blast and escaped. The inevitable conclusion is that there was one attacker in the immediate vicinity of the vehicle in which Ms Bhutto was travelling. In essence, all the evidence indicates that one suspect has fired the shots before detonating an improvised explosive device. At the time of the attack this person was standing close to the rear of Ms Bhutto's vehicle. The blast caused a violent collision between her head and the escape hatch area of the vehicle, causing a severe and fatal head injury. John MacBrayne QPM Detective Superintendent Counter Terrorism Command 1st February 2008 E-mail to a friend . | Scotland Yard releases report into assassination of Benazir Bhutto .
Only apparent injury was a major trauma to the right side of the head .
UK experts all exclude the injury being a wound as a result of gunshot .
Injury consistent with her head impacting upon the lip of vehicle escape hatch . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "7ba64fb6411031273d83670d0b7ef77f24cc551b"} | 1,716 | 73 | 0.492764 | 1.518369 | 0.312485 | 7.052632 | 25.105263 | 0.912281 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- "There's no doubt" that the deadly attack on India's financial capital last month was planned inside Pakistan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNN on Sunday. People in New Delhi, India, take part in a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Mumbai attacks on Sunday. Her comments to CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" were the most definitive made by a top-ranking U.S. official regarding Pakistan's connection to the November 26-29 attack on Mumbai, in which more than 170 were killed and hundreds of others were wounded. "Well, I think there's no doubt that Pakistani territory was used by probably non-state actors," Rice said. "I don't think that there is compelling evidence of involvement of Pakistani officials. But I do think that Pakistan has a responsibility to act, and it doesn't matter that they're non-state actors." Last week, Rice traveled to the region to try to ease tension between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers and key allies of the United States. While in New Delhi, India, she called on Pakistan to take responsibility for terrorists operating within its borders. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has said "stateless actors" carried out the attack while Indian authorities say they believe all the attackers were Pakistanis, specifically blaming Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan. U.S. counterterrorism officials say signs point to LeT, and they haven't seen anything to rule it out. However, they have not definitively said the group is responsible. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said during an appearance Tuesday at Harvard University that the Mumbai attacks were carried out by the same group responsible for the parliament attack and a series of bomb explosions aboard trains and at railway stations in Mumbai in 2006 -- though he didn't specifically name LeT. LeT has denied any responsibility for the attacks, but a suspect in custody -- whom India has said was one of 10 gunmen in the attacks -- told interrogators he was trained by LeT, Indian authorities said. India said its forces killed nine gunmen. On Sunday, Rice said LeT and al Qaeda "tend to travel in the same circles," though she declined to directly link either group to the Mumbai attack. But she stressed that Pakistan is obligated to root out terrorists within its borders. "Well, I don't want to go into too much detail here because, obviously, in counterterrorism no one wants to tip the hand of what has happened here and what may happen in the future," Rice said. "The important thing now is to get these perpetrators and to prevent follow-on attacks. And Pakistan's cooperation, Pakistan's action, is absolutely essential to doing that." Asked about possible ties between Pakistan's government and LeT, Rice acknowledged "there have been historic ties -- there's no doubt about that." "But Pakistan is a different place now with a civilian government and an army leadership that is working in concert to try to bring an end to extremism within Pakistan," she said. "We have to remember that Pakistan itself has been suffering at the hands of extremism. So whatever the history here, and there is a history, the important thing is that Pakistan act against those who used Pakistani soil to perpetrate attacks." | Condoleezza Rice: "No doubt" Pakistani territory used by "probably non-state actors"
Rice: Pakistan is obligated to root out terrorists within its borders .
India has alleged Pakistan-based Islamic militant group linked to Mumbai attacks . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "90ba568443486427c40cb12268d3e14629ded9f4"} | 748 | 56 | 0.537614 | 1.472731 | 1.006721 | 4.106383 | 13.765957 | 0.87234 |
LONE GROVE, Oklahoma (CNN) -- A scene of devastation emerged Wednesday as circling helicopters broadcast images of housing developments smashed by tornadoes and severe storms that killed at least eight people in south-central Oklahoma Tuesday. Rescue personnel search for potential trapped victims Wednesday in Lone Grove, Oklahoma. Storms ripped roofs off several homes and left twisted metal and other debris scattered across the area. Firefighters and emergency personnel were working with distressed residents. "It just happened really quickly. The sky darkened up and turned really, really green," truck driver Bruce Mundy told CNN from a truck stop in Oklahoma City early Wednesday morning. Watch aerial footage of destruction » . "It was just, like, one after another. As soon as you get calmed down there were more," he said. The storms had moved out of the state Wednesday morning after at least three tornadoes touched down in central and southern Oklahoma Tuesday, the National Weather Service said Wednesday. The one that hit Lone Grove at about 7:30 p.m. had an intensity of EF4 and winds of around 170 mph. The Enhanced Fujita scale measures the intensity of a tornado and its wind speeds based on the type of damage caused and rates it between EF0 and EF5. The first tornado, which hit Edmond between 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., had an intensity ranging between EF0 and EF2, the NWS said. The service has not been able to determine an intensity for another tornado that hit near Langston about an hour later. In the aftermath of the storms, authorities acknowledged a heavy task ahead as emergency personnel and private citizens began the cleanup effort. iReport.com: Are you there? Share photos, video . "We're just trying to get stuff in people's hands," store owner Matt Wilson told CNN while handing out pry bars and flashlights to residents at his hardware store in Lone Grove, where heavy damage occurred. "But just about all of Lone Grove is without power." View a map of where tornadoes touched down » . Lone Grove, near the Texas line about 90 miles south of the capital, Oklahoma City, had all of the fatalities and most of the approximately 50 injuries caused by the storms, according to the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. Watch funnel cloud touch down » . Also hit hard by the storms were the towns of Pawnee and Edmond, both north of the capital. Dramatic television footage of one storm showed large funnel clouds that darkened the sky as the storm approached. It mangled homes, snapped trees and crushed cars with debris as it touched down. Watch town where tornado leveled buildings » . "The wind started blowing really hard and then died down," a Lone Grove man told CNN affiliate KOCO-TV. Then, "all heck broke loose. I mean, it just broke loose. The whole house shook." Donetta Singleton, manager of Bill's Fish House in Lone Grove, said one tornado's path took it right past the restaurant. She said the post office was gone and a church was damaged. Lone Grove police said a trailer park was hit. Watch post-tornado damage » . Mercy Memorial Health Center in Ardmore, about eight miles east of Lone Grove, received 46 people with injuries -- seven considered major -- after the storms passed, said Shana Hammond, a hospital spokeswoman. About 6,000 OG&E customers are without power, including nearly 3,500 in Lone Grove, according to a statement released by the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management on Wednesday. CNN's Robyn Sidersky contributed to this report. | NEW: Cleanup begins after tornadoes reaching 170 mph tear through Oklahoma .
Storms rip off roofs, scatter sheets of metal, other debris .
Hardest hit is Lone Grove, about 90 miles south of the capital, Oklahoma City .
Resident says post office is gone and a church is damaged . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "d86cefefb323606366763661f9ce20f787fffcc5"} | 814 | 72 | 0.448024 | 1.20067 | 0.713267 | 2.793103 | 11.724138 | 0.758621 |
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Suspected Taliban militants blew up a government-run school Monday in Pakistan's violence-plagued Swat Valley, bringing to 183 the number of schools destroyed since fighting began in the area six months ago, officials said. Students gather outside a destroyed school on January 17 in Kundar in Pakistan's Swat Valley. A day earlier, radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah threatened to kill more than four dozen government officials if they did not appear before him for opposing the Taliban. Local newspapers on Monday printed the list of 50 government officials and tribal elders whom Fazlullah has threatened with death. The boy's high school that was destroyed was located in Mingora, the valley's main city, said Sher Afzal Khan, an education officer for Swat. The attack occurred early Monday and no one was wounded. Swat Valley, located in North West Frontier Province, was once Pakistan's biggest tourist destination. It is situated near the Afghanistan border and about 186 miles (300 km) from the capital city of Islamabad. The valley boasted the country's only ski resort and was a draw for trout-fishing enthusiasts until it was overrun by militants, led by Fazlullah. He has launched a violent and deadly campaign to enforce Taliban-style fundamentalist Islamic laws throughout the province. The militants want to require veils for women and beards for men, and to ban music and television. The central government has long exerted little control in the area, but it launched an intense military offensive in late July to flush out militants. As retaliation for the military presence, the Taliban has carried out a series of deadly bombings, and has said the attacks will continue until the troops pull out. Elsewhere in the North West Frontier Province, a blast killed five people and wounded 15 others Monday morning, officials said. The bomb, planted on a bicycle, went off in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, said Mohammad Riaz of the province's police force. It killed shopkeepers and pedestrians, added the town's police chief, Abdul Rashid. CNN's Zein Basravi contributed to this report. | Blast targets boy's high school in Mingora, Swat Valley .
Monday attack marks 183rd school destroyed in past six months of fighting .
Hundreds of people killed in wave of violence across North West Frontier Province . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "72d11f6df74ab4431ce24b8cb391d239e998ec3e"} | 504 | 53 | 0.585931 | 1.458362 | 1.000946 | 1.707317 | 9.731707 | 0.780488 |
BIRMINGHAM, England -- Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele broke the two-mile world record at an international indoor meeting in Birmingham on Saturday. Bekele shaved 0.34 seconds off the record held by Gebrselassie. The reigning Olympic 10,000 meters champion, on the same track where compatriot Haile Gebrselassie achieved the previous fastest time, shaved 0.34 seconds off his fellow Ethiopian's mark with a time of 8 minutes 04.35 seconds. The women's 3,000 meters was won by another Ethiopian, front-running Gelete Burka, in 8:31.94 - the third-fastest time in history. Britain's Commonwealth champion Phillips Idowu warmed-up for next month's World Indoor Championships in Valencia by winning the triple jump with 17.21 meters. Olympic champion Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia set a world indoor record in the women's pole vault by clearing 4 meters 95 centimeters in Donetsk. She beat her own mark of 4.93m which she set last year at the same venue. It is the third consecutive year in which 25-year-old Isinbayeva, who has leaped 5.02 outdoors, broke the indoor mark in Donetsk. E-mail to a friend . | Kenenisa Bekele breaks the world two-mile record in Birmingham .
He wins the event in 8 minutes 04.35 seconds.
He is 0.34 seconds faster than compatriot Haile Gebrselassie's old record . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "a9898e0ed47b41926bc26486022e4bf5bfe23a55"} | 299 | 56 | 0.621289 | 1.521413 | 0.528005 | 1.783784 | 5.648649 | 0.756757 |
(CNN) -- Christine Beatty, chief of staff for former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, pleaded guilty Monday to charges stemming from their text-messaging sex scandal case and will serve four months in jail, according to the Wayne County prosecutor's office. Under a plea deal, Christine Beatty, shown in August at an arraignment in Detroit, will serve five years probation. Beatty pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice, according to Maria Miller, the prosecutor's spokeswoman. Charges of perjury and misconduct against Beatty will be dropped as part of the plea arrangement, she said. Beatty agreed to a plea arrangement under which she will serve five years probation -- the first 120 days to be served in jail -- and pay a $100,000 fine, "based on [Beatty's] ability to pay," Miller said. Beatty will begin serving her jail sentence on January 5, when she will be formally sentenced, Miller said. Kym L. Worthy, prosecuting attorney for Wayne County, released a statement saying she is "very pleased that this defendant admitted her guilt." "We live in an age where greed and protecting one's secrets is glorified and accepted," Worthy said. "Now the city of Detroit, the region and the state of Michigan can truly begin to move forward when this ugly chapter in Detroit's history is put to rest." In September, Kilpatrick resigned as mayor and pleaded guilty to two felony obstruction of justice charges stemming from his efforts to cover up his relationship with Beatty. Like Beatty, Kilpatrick was sentenced to five years probation with the first four months to be served in jail. He is serving that sentence in the Wayne County jail. At the time of his sentencing in October, the judge in the case called Kilpatrick "arrogant and defiant," particularly for a televised speech that aired hours after Kilpatrick entered his pleas. "That night, the community expected to hear a message of humility, remorse and apology," Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner said at Kilpatrick's sentencing. "Instead, we heard an arrogant and defiant man who accused the governor, among others, for his downfall." In addition to his jail and probation sentence, Kilpatrick must also pay the city of Detroit $1 million in restitution, and forfeit any future pension. Initially, Kilpatrick was accused of blocking a criminal investigation into his office and firing a police deputy to cover up an affair with Beatty, then his chief of staff. When that deputy, Gary Brown, filed a whistle-blower suit, Kilpatrick and Beatty denied under oath that an affair had taken place between them. Text messages that contradicted Kilpatrick's and Beatty's denials of an affair were made public in January by the Detroit Free Press, and county prosecutor Worthy charged Kilpatrick and Beatty with multiple counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office. The most serious charges would have carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison upon conviction. Beatty resigned her post after the text messages were made public. Kilpatrick initially refused to resign after the scandal broke, and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm called a hearing on whether she should remove him from office at the request of the Detroit City Council. Granholm adjourned those hearings after Kilpatrick pleaded guilty and resigned in September. | Christine Beatty pleads guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice .
Chief of staff for former Detroit, Michigan, mayor will serve four months in jail .
She gets probation, $100,000 fine; perjury, misconduct charges to be dropped .
Charges stemmed from text-messaging sex scandal involving mayor . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "7498c99ad6c6f0e0d3929c214b290a172584efe8"} | 776 | 72 | 0.531132 | 1.515586 | 0.708612 | 3.372881 | 10.644068 | 0.864407 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Capitol Police arrested a man Friday after an officer spotted a rifle in his car when he stopped the officer to ask for directions two blocks from the Capitol building. Police inspect the suspect's vehicle in Washington on Friday. Christopher Shelton Timmons, 27, has been charged with carrying a deadly weapon, having an unregistered firearm and having unregistered ammunition, Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said. In addition to the rifle -- an AK-47 -- police found a grenade, a pistol, ammunition, loaded magazines "and several other items of concern to the police" in the Jeep Cherokee he was driving. Authorities said Timmons was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon in March in Albemarle County, Virginia, and served a month in jail. In that incident, Timmons had two grenades in his car, said Albemarle Police Chief John Miller. The pins had been removed and the grenades were filled with powder, authorities said. They had an adhesive on top to close them and a firecracker for a fuse. Law enforcement sources said the grenades were similar to an item found in Timmons vehicle Friday. That device has been taken to the FBI facility in Quantico, Virginia. Members of the joint terrorism task force are involved in the investigation, sources said, but so far no one is suggesting Timmons was planning an attack of some kind. CNN Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena contributed to this report. | Police say suspect had AK-47, grenade, pistol, ammunition in car .
Suspect Christopher S. Timmons was recently convicted on weapons charge .
Timmons had stopped officer to ask directions . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8d817ad3977623d9cf2b0645d3f41574ee825d50"} | 339 | 50 | 0.569908 | 1.348963 | 0.120936 | 1.314286 | 7.685714 | 0.8 |
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Consumer advocates Wednesday hailed the settlement of a class-action lawsuit over Sears stoves in which the retailer agreed to install safety brackets for free to prevent the appliances from tipping over or provide other reimbursements. Stoves in danger of tipping over can be fixed for free under terms of a settlement announced Wednesday. According to the court-approved agreement, Sears will notify nearly 4 million customers who may have bought stoves between July 2000 and September 2007 that they either can get anti-tip safety brackets installed for free or receive gift cards or reimbursements of up to $100 to qualifying customers. The brackets keep the appliances bolted to the floor or wall to prevent them from tipping over. Such accidents have caused more than 100 deaths or injuries, mostly from scalding and burns, according to the nonprofit consumer group Public Citizen. The value of the settlement depends on how many customers respond to Sears' offer, but Public Citizen said it could end up costing the retailer more than $545 million. Watch to see if your stove is in danger of tipping » . In addition to paying $17 million in legal fees, Sears will install brackets on all new stoves for free for the next three years. "This agreement by Sears and the lawyers for the consumer is a real deal," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "This is a fantastic deal for a lawsuit to make this headway and get the protection for the consumer." Sears Holdings Corp. spokesman Chris Brathwaite said the plaintiffs' counsel is overestimating the settlement's monetary value. "The parties dispute many aspects of the case, including the value on this settlement -- which Sears estimates to be a small fraction of what plaintiffs' counsel estimates," Brathwaite said in a statement. Claybrook and other consumer advocates said they would like the Consumer Product Safety Commission to require anti-tip brackets for all stove installations. Installing brackets is now voluntary. Claybrook said the agreement "sets a model for what the Consumer Product Safety Commission should do and should have done. They've known about it for 25 years and done nothing." She said an amendment requiring anti-tip stove devices should be added to Senate legislation intended to beef up the safety commission. Commission spokeswoman Patty Davis disagreed, saying, "The statistics and risk do not support mandatory rule-making at this time. We believe the voluntary standards are working." Brathwaite said customers can visit the Web site http://www.searsrangesettlement.com/ for information. E-mail to a friend . | Sears agrees to install anti-tip safety brackets on stoves for free .
Stoves tipping over blamed for than 100 deaths or injuries .
Sears will install brackets for free on new stoves over the next three years .
Consumer group says settlement may cost retailer more than $545 million . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "9e813f1f7417a851c66be993479447763990eafb"} | 581 | 71 | 0.583893 | 1.54785 | 1.097754 | 3.196429 | 8.642857 | 0.875 |
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Preliminary DNA tests indicate a 3-year-old foster child is the son of a woman being held captive by leftist rebels, Colombian officials announced Friday. Clara Rojas appears in a video released by the kidnappers in July 2002. "There is a very high probability that Juan David belongs to the family of Clara Gonzalez de Rojas," Mario Iguaran Arana, the country's chief federal prosecutor, said at a news conference. The boy, known as "Emmanuel," has been at the center of a hostage drama that raised hopes the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia would liberate some of their hostages. The rebel group, known as FARC for its Spanish acronym, had agreed to release three hostages as part of a deal brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. FARC said it would release Emmanuel along with his mother, Clara Rojas, and another woman, Consuelo Gonzalez, but the mission to free the captives fell apart December 31, when the rebel group said it could not release the hostages because of Colombian military operations in the area, according to a FARC statement Chavez read on Venezuelan television. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe denied the group's assertion, saying there were no combat operations in the area near the rebels, and he said the rebels could not release the three hostages because they did not have Emmanuel in custody. He raised the possibility that Emmanuel, who was born in captivity to Rojas, was living in a foster home in the Colombian capital of Bogota. Authorities in Colombia suspect the FARC duped child-welfare authorities by presenting the boy as a child in need of foster care in 2005, he said. On Friday, Iguaran Arana said initial DNA results will be checked against tests being done in European labs to verify the child's identity. There was no immediate response from Venezuela after the announcement concerning Emmanuel's DNA. However, a statement on the Venezuelan government's Web site from earlier Friday said the Colombian government had not allowed Venezuela to participate in the DNA testing. Established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, FARC is Colombia's oldest, largest, most capable and best-equipped Marxist rebel group, according to the U.S. Department of State. The United States, the European Union and Colombia classify it as a terrorist group. FARC has justified hostage-taking as a legitimate military tactic in a long-running and complex civil war that also has involved right-wing paramilitary units, government forces and drug traffickers. Fighting has waned, but not stopped, in recent years. Among the group's hostages are three American contractors who were captured when their plane went down in 2003 during a drug-eradication flight, and Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian independent presidential candidate who was kidnapped in 2002. Rojas was kidnapped in 2002 while she managed Betancourt's campaign. Betancourt is perhaps the best-known captive in Colombia, a country plagued by kidnapping. E-mail to a friend . | Colombian government: 3-year-old in foster home was likely born in captivity .
Child was at center of hostage release drama .
Rebel group had promised to release the boy, his mother, and another woman . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "54b3de3ff92f0898b0b0d1e14c618492c53b0927"} | 723 | 49 | 0.533425 | 1.38203 | 0.084577 | 2.113636 | 12.954545 | 0.886364 |
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombian President Alvaro Uribe announced Wednesday he is releasing all information on his and his family's income to show he did not invest in or make money from pyramid schemes that have defrauded millions. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe says he's releasing the information to help the government's fight against fraud. Uribe said he is releasing the information because some of the people running the frauds have told potential investors that he and his sons also have invested or are otherwise involved. There also were allegations made in a congressional debate this week that Uribe's sons had been involved with one of the main companies accused of fraud. "There's been slander against the good name of my family that I feel I must defend," a somber and angry-looking Uribe said in a short nationally televised speech. Officials have said the pyramid schemes took in at least $200 million from 3 million people this year. In the past five years, authorities said they believe the businesses took in $1 billion. Uribe said he is releasing the income information, dating to his youth, to help the government's continuing fight against fraud. "I do it in respect to the Colombian people, for transparency and to strengthen the moral authority in order to keep battling all the expressions of the crime," he said. The president also defended his two sons, Tomas and Jeronimo. "They are not involved in corruption," Uribe said. "My sons are not corrupt. My sons are not influence peddlers before the state. My sons do not rely on their father. My sons are not sons of daddy. My sons are not layabouts. My sons are not lazy men with salaries. My sons have chosen to be men of work, honest and serious." Officials last week arrested the head of a Colombian company accused of defrauding millions of investors. David Murcia Guzman, president of a company called DMG, was arrested in Panama and immediately deported to Colombia. Also last week, the Colombian government declared a state of emergency, allowing officials to take over businesses that have used pyramid schemes to steal millions from 3 million investors. The government immediately took over 60 DMG branches and shut the company's doors. Officials said they hope to liquidate some of the company's assets to repay defrauded investors. The emergency decree also stiffened jail time and fines for anyone found guilty of fraud. The government said the businesses defrauded the public by purporting to offer a sure investment. Speaking about the emergency measures last week, Interior Minister Fabio Valencia decried "the Mafia-like mentality" of those "who want to obtain easy money." | Pyramid schemes took in at least $200 million from 3 million this year, officials say .
Colombia's leader says people falsely said he and his sons invested in schemes .
President Alvaro Uribe: "There's been slander against the good name of my family"
Firms defrauded public by purporting to offer a sure investment, government says . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "11776ec820ac75e55bab9616774a114d82185e66"} | 620 | 85 | 0.616597 | 1.874297 | 0.747404 | 5.895522 | 7.58209 | 0.880597 |
(CNN) -- It was an odd sight in Ethiopia's capital this week: a standing ovation for Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the man whom Ethiopian forces had removed from power in neighboring Somalia two years ago. Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Somalia's new president, answers questions at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa. He once led the Islamic Courts Union, which ruled much of Somalia in 2006 before it was routed by the Ethiopians. Now, Ahmed is the leader of Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government -- and two days after his election to the post of president, he was welcomed with open arms at an African Union summit in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. Two years after the invasion and the guerrilla war it provoked, Somalia has in some ways come full circle. Islamist militias control the country's capital and other key cities; the transitional government is trying to establish a foothold from outside the country; and Ahmed -- commonly known as "Sheikh Sharif" -- is in a position of power. But several analysts who have studied the region say the new government is in a much stronger position to establish itself inside Somalia and restore order to a country that has been mired in chaos for the past two decades. "The ascendancy of Sheikh Sharif provides an opportunity to create an inclusive coalition governing from the center outwards," said John Prendergast, co-chairman of the Enough Project, who studies the Horn of Africa for the Center for American Progress think tank. The transitional government is currently stranded in Djibouti, unable to return to Somalia after its base in Baidoa was seized last week by Al-Shabaab, a radical Islamist militia with ties to al Qaeda. Ahmed now stands at a crossroads between quelling the militia, which once was aligned with the ICU, and including more moderates in his future government, Prendergast said. "The fulcrum for change is in the hands of Sheikh Sharif's government," he said. "If he is able to put together an inclusive government -- even if it's only on paper, even if it's only in Djibouti -- I think it will quickly defuse any fervor of support for Shabaab." See a list of Somalia's key players » . Rise of Al-Shabaab . Al-Shabaab fighters took control of Baidoa hours after the remaining Ethiopian forces withdrew under a June 2008 cease-fire deal. Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the loss of Baidoa is "a clear indication that the transitional federal government has lost any grip -- whatever grip it had -- in Somalia." But Prendergast said the radical Islamist militia will most likely lose support among Somalis now that its "rallying cry" of getting the Ethiopian forces out of Somalia is gone. "What the Islamists did was, they wrapped themselves up in the mantle of Somali nationalism and, for the last two years, they have hitched their star to throwing the Ethiopians out," he said. Prendergast predicted that Al-Shabaab fighters "will sustain themselves for awhile and temporarily expand, but I don't envision it to be a long-term prospect at all." Last year, the United States put Al-Shabaab -- which means "The Youth" -- on its list of terrorist groups. Analysts say Al-Shabaab models itself after the Taliban's puritanical Islamic rule. See a timeline of recent events in Somalia » . Stig Jarle Hansen, a Nairobi, Kenya-based expert on Somalia for the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, said Al-Shabaab fighters have been trained in Afghanistan, and the group has "clear connections" to al Qaeda. There has been evidence that the group has extended its reach into the United States, as well. The FBI is investigating what appears to be a massive recruitment effort by Al-Shabaab in the United States' Somali communities, particularly in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where more than a dozen young men of Somali descent have gone missing in recent months. One member of Minneapolis' Somali community, Shirwa Ahmed, 27, blew himself up in an apparent suicide bombing in northern Somalia in October. Also, hours before U.S. President Barack Obama took the oath of office in January, the FBI was warned of a possible terrorist attack by Al-Shabaab that was timed to coincide with his inauguration. Prendergast said he expects Al-Shabaab's overseas ties to dry up now that its "clarion call" against Ethiopian forces is no longer valid. "Now that that fight is over, I don't see that money continuing, and I don't see the recruitment from Somalis like places from Minneapolis to continue successfully," he said. And Ken Menkhaus, a Davidson College professor and former adviser to U.N. missions in Somalia in the 1990s, said the militia's efforts to govern the territory it holds in southern Somalia has had mixed results, alienating many Somalis by imposing hardline Islamic law. Al-Shabaab now has to justify its continued presence "on the basis of what it's for -- and what it's for is not very popular among Somalis," Menkhaus said. The group is fraught with internal divisions and has already clashed with other militias over control of key neighborhoods in Mogadishu, he said. But if Al-Shabaab did manage to establish a government, there would be a "genuine fear" that al Qaeda could try to gain a foothold there. "It would guarantee proxy wars and conflicts between Somalis and non-Somalis that would just perpetuate this conflict," Menkhaus said. Military intervention in Somalia? The United States has conducted periodic airstrikes against Islamist leaders since 2006 and has long viewed Somalia as a possible haven for al Qaeda. But military intervention would not only be unpopular, it would only empower Al-Shabaab by handing it back its "raison d'etre," Prendergast said. "You don't immediately confront a group like this -- they are at their high point," he said. "You fight it politically and draw support slowly and patiently ... for clans and organizations in Somalia that don't really want them there. "Area by area, they'll kick them out, unless they make the mistake of sending U.N. troops." Susan Rice, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told U.S. senators during her confirmation hearing that the situation in Somalia "has the potential to pose a serious and direct threat to our own national security." But she also expressed skepticism about the wisdom of sending in a U.N. peacekeeping mission to replace an existing African Union force, calling instead for more efforts by Somalia's neighbors and the international community to promote national reconciliation. J. Anthony Holmes, director of the Africa program for the Council on Foreign Relations, said there is "little appetite on the ground for sustained engagement" in Somalia. But because of its clan-based society, it is unlikely the country would emerge as "a breeding ground for terrorism," he said. Holmes said U.S. policy should focus more on longer-term issues -- such as addressing humanitarian and economic issues in the impoverished Horn of Africa country, where years of civil war and near-anarchy have left 1 million people displaced and 3 million needing food aid. The U.S. intervention in Somalia in the 1990s, in which Somali militiamen killed 18 American service members during a failed attempt to capture a Mogadishu warlord, had a chilling effect on U.S. policy toward Africa. Author and policy-maker Jared Cohen writes in his book, "One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide" that the "catastrophe in Somalia was the catalyst for this unspoken decision not to intervene in places like Rwanda." As the new Obama administration gets its Africa policy in place, Washington is in a good position to exert some leverage in Somalia, Prendergast said. Previous U.S. counterterrorism efforts worked "at cross-purposes" with efforts to promote long-term stability and provide humanitarian aid, according to Menkhaus. He recommended that Somali leaders be given room to either marginalize or co-opt the opposition on their own. "I personally think that they will, if left to their own devices," Menkhaus said. "But Somalis are never left to their own devices." CNN's David McKenzie and Matt Smith contributed to this report. | Moderate Islamist is new leader of war-torn Somalia .
Moderate leader has chance to form inclusive government, analyst says .
Radical Islamist group still controls parts of Somalia .
With departure of Ethiopian troops, radical Islamists lose rallying cry . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "68fad8f1601f937b18c43af593bf81a9b576e8f9"} | 1,995 | 62 | 0.524966 | 1.391704 | 0.764333 | 0.978723 | 33.702128 | 0.723404 |
(CNN) -- The Continental Airlines plane that crashed in Clarence Center, New York, late Thursday is one of several major incidents over the past two months. The wreckage of a Continental Airlines 737 sits off a runway at Denver International Airport in December. • On February 12, Continental Flight 3407 crashed en route to Buffalo, New York, killing 49 people. • On January 27, Empire Airlines Flight 8284 crashed 300 feet short while on approach to a runway at Lubbock International Airport in Texas. The plane was arriving from Fort Worth, Texas. The aircraft was destroyed by the crash and a post-impact fire. Two crew members suffered minor injuries. • On January 15, U.S. Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River while en route from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, North Carolina. All 155 passengers survived, with few injuries. • On December 20, 2008, Continental Flight 1404 departed the left side of the runway during takeoff from Denver International Airport in Denver. The flight was en route to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. A total of 38 passengers and crew were taken to hospitals, and five were admitted. There were no fatalities. The airplane was substantially damaged and experienced a post-crash fire, which was located on the right side of the aircraft. CNN's Mike Ahlers contributed to this report. | Thursday's deadly plane crash in Buffalo is part of a spate of recent incidents .
U.S. Airways Flight 1549 landed in Hudson River on January 15 .
Continental Flight 1404 slides off runway during takeoff at Denver International Airport . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "fda3227662b9f67900f063790d7190d45c1803ad"} | 294 | 54 | 0.645525 | 1.405935 | 0.830361 | 1.883721 | 6 | 0.813953 |
(CNN) -- A high school dropout who stole the identity of a missing South Carolina woman and used it to gain admission to two Ivy League colleges has been arrested, police said Sunday. Esther Reed, who allegedly used a missing woman's ID to get into colleges, was arrested by U.S. Marshals. A fugitive for more than a year, Esther Reed was arrested Saturday by U.S. Marshals in suburban Chicago, said Clark Brazier, a spokesman for the police department in Traveler's Rest, South Carolina. Reed is scheduled to have a bond hearing this week in Illinois. South Carolina authorities are seeking to extradite her on charges of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud. Reed assumed the identity of Brooke Henson, who was 20 years old when she disappeared more than eight years ago from Travelers Rest, investigators say. It's unclear how Reed obtained Henson's personal information, but Reed used Henson's identity to take the SAT and GED, and then applied to the schools, said Jon Campbell, a Travelers Rest Police Department investigator who spoke to CNN last year. Officials at Harvard University and Columbia University have acknowledged that a Brooke Henson was enrolled at their schools, but said privacy laws prevent them from discussing details. "There's a little relief that goes with [the news of Reed's arrest]," Brooke's aunt Lisa Henson told CNN Sunday. "But [Brooke] is still missing. I'd like to have some answers. I would love to see [Reed] and look her in the eye and say, 'You're a horrible person.' " Police say they're confident Reed was not involved in Henson's disappearance. Authorities believe Henson was killed by someone who knew her. However, no body has been found and no arrests have been made. Henson's family had heard nothing about their missing relative for years until the summer of 2006, when New York City authorities told police in Travelers Rest that they had found her, alive and well, in Manhattan. The police relayed that message to Henson's family. "I was jumping for joy," said Lisa Henson. "It was incredible." But the family's joy was short-lived when it was revealed that the woman found was actually Reed. An ex-boyfriend told CNN that Reed -- posing as Henson -- often bragged about being a world-class chess player who earned a living playing the game competitively. The man told CNN that he believed her until he challenged her to a game and beat her. Originally from the tiny town of Townsend, Montana, Reed had been reported missing by her family in 1999, around the same time that Henson disappeared. In high school in Montana, Reed earned poor grades. "Esther was the kind of kid who would have been invisible," her English teacher James Therriault said. "If you didn't take pains to notice her presence." E-mail to a friend . CNN's Gary Tuchman and Ashley Fantz contributed to this report. | Police: Esther Reed went missing the same time that Brooke Henson did .
Reed assumed Henson's identity, took SAT and GED in her name, police say .
Police believe Henson was killed but say Reed was not involved .
Columbia University and Harvard confirmed that a Brooke Hanson was enrolled . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "56cc7a062049066591149f210a6a4c2f0c15f0ac"} | 694 | 75 | 0.5947 | 1.718087 | 0.607876 | 2.017241 | 9.948276 | 0.844828 |
DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) -- Eric Mace says he thought he was giving his daughter good advice by asking her to sit up front in class. Ryanne Mace was 19 when she was killed last year in a shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University. "I'd like you to sit in the front row of every class that you're in and constantly drag information out of these people, and if you don't understand what they're talking about, raise your hand and say, 'I don't get it' until you get it," Mace recalled telling her. His daughter, 19-year-old Ryanne, took that advice. Now, he wishes she would have sat somewhere else. Mace believes that Ryanne was probably one of the first to be killed in the Northern Illinois University shootings a year ago, because she was in the front row in the lecture at Cole Hall. "She was, from what I understand, in the front row of that room and was probably the first one that had shots fired at her after the gentleman that was on stage," Mace said. "It's not an easy thing to carry, but I shouldn't have to carry it, either." Ryanne was Eric and Mary Kay Mace's only child. She was one of five NIU students killed on Valentine's Day last year by Steven Kazmierczak, a former NIU student who was attending graduate school at the University of Illinois in Champaign. "It's difficult. There's always an ache, loneliness and a longing. We're going to miss her every day for the rest of our lives," Mary Kay Mace said. Her husband added, "I go to bed thinking about her. I wake up in the morning thinking about her. Any time that I've a free moment, it will pop up." The Maces said they would like to know more about the police investigation into the shooting and Kazmierczak's history of mental illness. Police records provided to CNN indicate that he had a long history of mental problems, including several suicide attempts. The parents also are angry that he was able to buy guns. Because Kazmierczak had not been in a mental facility for more than five years, he was legally able to purchase those weapons in Illinois -- and on the firearms application form Kazmierczak filled out, he stated that he had never been adjudicated "mentally defective" and had never been "committed to a mental institution." See some of Kazmierczak's mental health records » . "I don't know if they don't report it if he's a juvenile with the mental illness on his record or what. But somewhere along the line, the pertinent information didn't get into the right database, and he could waltz out of a store with a legally purchased weapon," Mary Kay Mace said. "And I don't get that. That is what makes me angry." Now, the Maces have started a scholarship foundation for psychology majors in honor of their daughter. And they hope that what happened a year ago is never forgotten. "I don't want them to forget a single detail about it, because the details aren't going to change just by forgetting about them," Eric Mace said. | Steven Kazmierczak carried out shooting spree at Northern Illinois February 14, 2008 .
Father of Ryanne Mace told his daughter to always sit on the front row of class .
"There's always an ache, loneliness and a longing," says Ryanne Mace's mother .
Parents want to know more details about the shooting and the killer . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "0ada64f40ebeba9e675cbd37ad110e643d48e74a"} | 746 | 83 | 0.614394 | 1.901112 | 0.998291 | 2.727273 | 9.515152 | 0.818182 |
CLARENCE CENTER, New York (CNN) -- President Obama on Friday praised Beverly Eckert, the widow of a September 11 victim and a prominent post-9/11 activist, who was one of the passengers who died in a plane crash outside Buffalo, New York. Sean Rooney and wife Beverly Eckert in an undated photograph. "Beverly lost her husband on 9/11," Obama said, "and became a tireless advocate for the families whose lives were forever changed on that September day." A resident of Stamford, Connecticut, Eckert was the widow of Buffalo native Sean Rooney, who died at the World Trade Center. Obama's words underscored the shock and grief from friends, family and acquaintances over the news that Eckert was aboard the Continental Connection Flight 3407. The turboprop plane crashed Thursday, killing all 49 aboard and one person on the ground. "Tragic events such as these remind us of the fragility of life and the value of every single day. And one person who understood that well was Beverly Eckert, who was on that flight and who I met with just a few days ago," Obama said in brief remarks. Obama met Eckert at a gathering of September 11 victims' families on Friday. Valerie Lucznikowska, a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, said she, Eckert and another woman traveled to Washington for the meeting. Lucznikowska said Eckert asked Obama whether the group would have ongoing meetings with his administration. Obama said there would be, even though they wouldn't necessarily be with him. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Eckert co-founded Voices of September 11, an advocate group for survivors and families. Eckert had a reputation as a strong campaigner of September 11 families, involved in protests leading to more land for a ground zero memorial, working on the September 11 Commission's Family Steering Committee and pushing for a victims' families compensation fund. She was traveling to Buffalo for a celebration of what would have been her husband's 58th birthday. Eckert planned to take part in presenting a scholarship award at Canisius High School that was established in honor of her late husband, who was an alumnus, according to the school's president, John Knight. Obama mentioned the scholarship plans in his remarks Friday. "In keeping with that passionate commitment, she was on her way to Buffalo to mark what would have been her husband's birthday and launch a scholarship in his memory. She was an inspiration to me and to so many others, and I pray that her family finds peace and comfort in the hard days ahead," Obama said. Lucznikowska, whose nephew died in the World Trade Center attacks, said she was "horribly saddened by this news." "I would very much like to honor her. She was truly a wonderful person. She was someone who was trying to make society better." Eckert backed Peaceful Tomorrows' effort to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and end the military commissions there, Lucznikowska said. The group elaborated on this stance in a signed letter to Obama, and Eckert gave a presidential aide a separate letter listing her own concerns, Lucznikowska said. Knight said Canisius High postponed the scholarship presentation, set to occur at noon Friday, for two students entering the high school next fall. He said Eckert also had been active in a capital campaign fundraising effort. "She struck me as a wonderful, beautiful person who clearly wanted to do something to remember her husband in a way that would have an everlasting impact on our community," Knight said. Gordon Felt, president of the Families of Flight 93 Inc., the plane that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, also expressed his grief. "We note with deep sorrow the passing of Beverly Eckert in the Buffalo plane crash. She was a 9/11 family member who brought to light issues of importance to all of us -- and to all Americans. We extend our condolences to her family and to all those who loved her. She will be missed." Jay Winuk, a September 11 organizational leader who lost his brother in the World Trade Center, said that although he did not know Eckert personally, "it is clear that she was a terrific advocate for the 9/11 family community." CNN's Joe Sterling contributed to this report. | President Obama says Beverly Eckert was "tireless advocate"
Eckert was the widow of a September 11 terrorist attack victim .
She was on way to Buffalo to mark what would have been husband's 58th birthday .
Eckert had co-founded advocacy group for September 11 survivors, families . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "585ac8d43bb92ff9c336d556458a1eb56e6917d7"} | 979 | 68 | 0.632584 | 1.932443 | 0.756092 | 3.5 | 14.678571 | 0.892857 |
(CNN) -- For five generations, the Meserve/Kunhardt family has been the collector and custodian of some of the most valuable photographs and memorabilia of Abraham Lincoln. Peter W. Kunhardt, left, Philip B. Kunhardt III and Peter W. Kunhardt Jr. co-authored "Looking for Lincoln." In fact, eminent Lincoln historian Harold Holzer said there's only one other family that's contributed more "to our understanding of America's most enduring leader," and that's the Lincolns themselves. "The Kunhardts -- and before them, their ancestor Frederick Hill Meserve -- have been active, and crucial for generations, in preserving Lincoln's image for posterity," Holzer said. "Mr. Meserve literally saved photos from destruction, then cataloged and analyzed them. Later members of the family wrote seminal books incorporating the family-owned archive into the stories of Lincoln's life and death." The family collection was the basis for the new book, "Looking for Lincoln" (Knopf), and for a PBS documentary. One of the book's co-authors, 26-year-old Peter W. Kunhardt Jr., has now joined the family business as assistant director of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation. Kunhardt, who recently earned a master's degree in art business and photography, also works on the Gordon Parks Foundation, a division of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, which includes the life's work of the pioneering African-American photographer. Kunhardt spoke with CNN in an interview and follow-up conversations about the extraordinary family history. CNN: Tell us about your family. Peter W. Kunhardt Jr: I'm the fifth generation to be working on Lincoln. My great-great-grandfather was a man by the name of Frederick Hill Meserve. His father, William Neal Meserve, was a soldier in the Civil War who was wounded at the battle of Antietam, and he kept a diary of the entire time he was in war. That diary was illustrated by his son, Frederick Hill Meserve, years after the war through collecting photography. He became one of the leading collectors of 19th-century American photography. ... At that time photography was still quite new. In the late 19th century, the war-weary nation lost its interest in the images of that era. Many glass negatives were thought to be worthless. The emulsion was washed off, and many were used to build greenhouses. Meserve wrote a book in 1911 called "Photographs of Abraham Lincoln." He became obsessed with Lincoln. Lincoln was the first president to be photographed while in office. Meserve's goal in life was to find and catalog all the existing images of Lincoln, of which we now know there were about 120. Each photograph in Meserve's book, which he updated for the next half century, was given an "M" number. Part of our work was to update his numbering system and establish a new national standard. Then his daughter Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt, she became heavily involved with Lincoln scholarship and the collection as well. She was the author of the children's book, "Pat the Bunny," which ... as everyone knows today, it's one of the most popular children's books. She worked with her father on Lincoln publications and continued to collect Lincoln. The collection was passed to Philip Kunhardt Jr., my grandfather, who eventually passed this collection of photographs on to my father and uncle, who were my co-authors in this book, "Looking for Lincoln." My grandfather, father and uncle wrote a book on Lincoln in 1992 called "Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography," using the contents of the collection. Each generation has continued the fascination with the collection but with a special interest in Abraham Lincoln. CNN: What's your involvement now in the collection? Kunhardt: My role is the assistant director of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation. The foundation was established in 2002 by my father and uncle in order to preserve our family's collection and make it available to the public. During the past century, the collection had grown so large that we decided it was finally time to place it in public hands. That is why we first formed the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation. And this year the collection will be moved to the Neuberger Museum of Art at the State University of New York in Purchase, New York, and the Purchase Library at SUNY, where it will be made available to students and scholars. CNN: Was there ever any doubt in your mind that you wanted to go into this field? Kunhardt: I was an art history major at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. I've always been fascinated with our collection. I was flattered to be asked to help with this project, the Lincoln book. I've been an intern since I was about in fifth grade. I've grown up knowing this collection very well, putting everything in plastic sleeves. Then when we found out that they weren't of archival quality, I had to change them to polyester sleeves. It's really been a family love. We've all grown up with this collection. A great portion of this collection is now housed at the National Portrait Gallery. It was sold after my great-grandmother's death. CNN: What are some of the most valuable parts of the collection? Kunhardt: It includes many gems, like Alexander Gardner's oversized portrait of Lincoln that was taken just before he went to Gettysburg. As a young boy, I remember it hanging on the walls of our home. We also own the bronze life mask of Lincoln cast by Leonard Volk. CNN: Was Lincoln particularly interested in being photographed? Kunhardt: It was his way of reaching out to a wider audience. It was a process that was so slow, he had to sit for long periods of time with a neck brace in order to be photographed because the exposure time was forever. There are pictures where if he moved just slightly, the picture was blurry. Crowd scenes are always blurry because you couldn't make the crowd stay still. CNN: What's the story of the Gordon Parks Foundation? Kunhardt: My grandfather Philip Kunhardt was managing editor of Life magazine. He and Gordon became close personal friends, and shortly before both of them died in 2006, my grandfather showed Gordon how we were preserving our 19th-century collection. After Gordon's death, his estate placed all of his photographs with us, and we formed the Gordon Parks Foundation. CNN: What else are you working on? Kunhardt: Our next book is "Lincoln Life Size," which will be published in September 2009. We're taking the Lincoln photographs and blowing them up to the actual size of Lincoln's face ... and it will include his own reactions to some of the photographs. | Meserve-Kunhardt family has been collecting Lincoln items for five generations .
Frederick Hill Meserve began collecting endangered Lincoln photographs .
He published groundbreaking work on images of the 16th president .
His descendants have carried on and expanded his work . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f9f20c23b2fff49eaa8370d5e6bdb2d47fc673f2"} | 1,532 | 56 | 0.634462 | 2.056036 | 0.869569 | 1.369565 | 28.347826 | 0.76087 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Navy arrested nine more suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia Thursday -- the second capture in two days -- after receiving a distress call from an Indian-flagged commercial ship. Suspected pirates are arrested in the Gulf of Aden. According to the Navy announcement, at 4 a.m. local time the Indian-flagged Premdivya sent a distress call to all ships in the area reporting that she had been fired upon by a small skiff, and suspected pirates were attempting to board it. A U.S. Navy helicopter crew was launched from the USS Vella Gulf and fired two warning shots at the small boat to get them to stop. A Navy boarding team was then launched to investigate the skiff's crew and found rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons on board the small craft, according to Navy officials. The suspected pirates were taken aboard the USS Vella Gulf and processed. They'll be moved to a temporary holding facility aboard the larger USNS Lewis and Clark, according to the statement. The Navy is now holding a total of 16 suspected pirates while the U.S. and Kenyan governments work out legal details on how the suspects will be moved to Kenya for prosecution. Last month, the United States and Kenya signed an agreement saying that suspected pirates captured by U.S. ships will be moved to Kenya to be tried for their crimes. The capture Wednesday of seven suspected pirates marks the first time the United States was able to capture and hold pirates since its forces began patrolling the dangerous waters off Somalia. Piracy has become a chronic problem off the Horn of Africa in recent years, with some pirates operating from largely lawless Somalia. Pirates attacked nearly 100 vessels and hijacked as many as 40 in the waters off the coast of Somalia in 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The task force led by the Vella Gulf was set up in January in an effort to clamp down on the attacks in the region, the southern approach to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. | Nine suspects arrested off the coast of Somalia .
Second arrests in two days .
United States, Kenya working out legal details . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "02aef53a8ae894b86d408fa90194ceaa1332ba5b"} | 462 | 31 | 0.527292 | 1.366085 | 0.599984 | 2.153846 | 14.576923 | 0.846154 |
(CNN) -- Japan may withdraw the last of its military mission in Iraq by the end of the year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday. Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force was initially deployed in 2004 to help in reconstruction and left in 2006. Japan's Air Self-Defense Force has been airlifting materials and troops between Kuwait and Iraq since 2006 to support U.S.-led coalition forces. "The political and security situations have improved," and the Iraqi government suggested it wants countries to downsize their presence, Defense Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters, according to the Kyodo news agency. Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Japan will discuss an official schedule for ending the mission with the United States, the United Nations and Iraq. Withdrawal would mark the end of Japan's military presence in Iraq. The country's Ground Self-Defense Force was initially deployed in 2004 to help in reconstruction and left in 2006. The Japanese Navy continues to take part in refueling missions in support of the U.S.-led coalition in and around Afghanistan. Except for a three-month hiatus, Japan had been refueling coalition warships taking part in interdiction operations against terrorists in the Indian Ocean since 2001. As an officially pacifist nation since losing World War II, Japan's participation in these missions has been controversial. | Japan may withdraw the last of its military mission in Iraq by the end of the year .
Japan's military has airlifted materials, troops between Kuwait and Iraq since 2006 .
Japanese ground force deployed in Iraq in 2004 to aid reconstruction left in 2006 .
Japanese Navy continues refueling missions in support of coalition in Afghanistan . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "adc30a2a730f5182608d7b7058d873f6eeefdbe0"} | 294 | 72 | 0.718285 | 1.633182 | 1.439281 | 6.793651 | 3.873016 | 0.920635 |
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A nude photograph of pop singer Madonna was sold for $37,500 Thursday afternoon at a Christie's Art House auction. Christie's auctioned this nude photo of Madonna (partially shown) taken by Lee Friedlander for $37,500. The photo, originally expected to go for between $10,000 and $15,000, was purchased for more than double its original estimated selling price, a Christie's spokesperson confirmed. The 13-inch by 8 5/8-inch framed photograph was purchased by an anonymous bidder over the phone. The full frontal photograph was one of several taken by American photographer Lee Friedlander in 1979. Madonna, then a cash-strapped student, received $25 for the entire photo shoot. Most of the pictures from the shoot were ultimately featured in Playboy magazine in 1985. | Nude photograph of Madonna taken when she was student in 1979 .
Lee Friedlander pic sold by Christie's for $37,500 .
Anonymous bidder made purchase over the phone . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "9838d5c70c0db67603b46f6210c9de3e8839a377"} | 184 | 42 | 0.783904 | 1.775788 | 0.67779 | 2.060606 | 4.636364 | 0.787879 |
(CNN) -- The U.S. Treasury Department will begin selling bonds Wednesday to help the Federal Reserve, which has had to loan out an unprecedented amount of money to businesses because of the credit crisis. CNN's Ali Velshi says the Fed needs access to large amounts of cash to keep Wall Street confident. The Fed announced Tuesday it would authorize the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend up to $85 billion over two years to insurance giant American International Group. In return, the government will receive a 79.9 percent stake in the company, which has 74 million clients in 130 countries. The first Treasury auction for the central bank will be for $40 million. The Treasury bills will mature in 35 days, allowing the Fed access to quick cash. But what does this mean to American taxpayers and an ailing U.S. economy? CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi breaks it down. Q: What does this mean in layman's terms? A: The Federal Reserve keeps a lot of money in supply to help banks, and basically, when they help them, it means they loan them money. As this credit crisis intensified, the Fed invited more and more banks to come and borrow from it and would accept collateral that was not as high-quality as it would typically accept. The Fed was the lender of last resort for a bank; you paid a premium to borrow money from the Fed, and you had to give them your best collateral. What's happening now is you still pay a premium, but you can go with lower collateral. The thinking behind that is the more banks feel free to go to the Fed to borrow money, the less likely they are to get money at higher interest from other sources and the less likely they are to fail as a result. In other words, if they feel that there is an ability to borrow money from the Fed -- if they absolutely have to to stay afloat -- that facility is there. Well, the number of banks that have taken advantage of this has caused the reserve at the Federal Reserve to go from about $800 billion to, by some estimates, as low as $200 billion. And when they do things like the bailout of AIG, that's where that money comes from. Watch experts discuss what the bailout means for consumers » . So you do the math, and there's some sense that the Fed could run out of money to finance these banks, to give loans. And just the idea that the Fed could run out of that money causes Wall Street to panic because it says, "If four more banks were to fail, the Fed wouldn't have money to bail them out, so we're in a bad situation." So the thinking is: Let's increase the Federal Reserve's reserve, and that's what this auction is. It's the first in a series of auctions -- this one will be for $40 billion -- where the Treasury on behalf of the Federal Reserve issues bonds that they will sell at auction, the way they normally do, and they'll be for 35-day periods. So the Fed gives out those bonds, and in exchange, gets cash and the Fed sits on that cash and uses it for whatever it needs. Q: Why would the government bail out a company like AIG but let Lehman Brothers file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection? A: Speaking frankly, the world can do without another investment firm. If an investment bank fails, any remaining investment bank can hire more people and take their jobs. AIG is not an investment bank. As a principal insurer, it insures consumers, it insures businesses and it insures business ventures, so it's not just that your corner store needs insurance. AIG insures things like rigs and Hollywood movies and those subprime mortgage-backed securities. The utter failure of business that would ensue from a failure of AIG would be catastrophic and would actually leave the government having to pick up a few things along the way. The best analogy I've been able to come up with is to use an automaker. When you think about putting an automaker out of business, you put tire makers out of business, you put seat makers out of business, you put all sorts of things out of business. It's the same thing with AIG. There are tentacles. They're just so connected to so many other parts of the economy that the government deemed it more dangerous and potentially more expensive to the economy to have it fail than to give them this loan. Q: What does this mean to the American taxpayer? A: If AIG gets the financing it needs, the taxpayer is actually doing OK. The government is charging such high interest to AIG, and they've got a guarantee of 80 percent of the company, so this may not be a bad deal for the government, and the interest is high enough to discourage others from coming cap in hand to the government. If you realize that maybe the government will bail you out as a last resort but you're going to pay 12 percent interest on the loan, that's expensive. For a business to be paying 12 percent for their money is very expensive. Q: What sort of interest can an investor expect from something like this? A: When the Federal Reserve loans money out to banks, these are short loans. They've typically been under a month. They can be extended under new emergency rules, but typically speaking, they're all supposed to be "bridge loans," immediate financing while some sort of problem is sorted out. The loan to AIG is a 24-month bridge loan, so obviously these 35-day bonds are not great, but the idea is that money that is borrowed by the Federal Reserve in exchange for a bill is as safe as it gets. That is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. The government can borrow money probably for less than most people can because this gets sold to investors who want safety. It's not a premium. The government's not going to pay a lot of interest on this, but it's a very safe loan. If you're an investor who's looking for a small but absolutely safe return for 35 days, this might be an option for you. Q: These bonds are not available to the individual investor? A: Not at all. It's not something that individuals buy. It's all done commercially. Q: The U.S. government says it will charge AIG roughly 12 percent interest for this rescue loan, but that's not comparable to what an investor would earn by buying these bonds? A: Not at all. I don't know what the rate is and that' s because it's an auction -- it's determined that way. I would be surprised if there's any material spread between that and an equivalent Treasury. If you buy a Treasury, it trades on a daily basis. I'm guessing this is actually more of a straight bond in that you'll buy it and that'll be your rate until you redeem it, but I could be wrong. I don't know the machination of that. It's a safe, safe, safe investment. It's the United States government backing the investment. Q: And by being a safe investment, it dictates a lower return? A: Correct. Q: So the fact that the Fed, by some estimates, is low on cash and having to bail out a weak economy, that doesn't negatively affect the government's bond rating? A: It doesn't have an effect on the rating. The way things happen at these auctions sometimes is that regardless of the good rating, sometimes they're oversubscribed and sometimes they're undersubscribed. It has more to do with the needs of the market. If the market needs the money, they'll sell quickly. It's not the equivalent of printing new money; it's borrowing more money. The government is simply issuing a loan based on its own credit. Q: Is the Treasury auction then a result of the weak economy or is it directly linked to the AIG rescue loan? A: It's directly linked to the moves that the Federal Reserve has taken to shore up financial services, and AIG would be key among those. Q: The government has said the rescue loan is backed by AIG's considerable assets, which total about $1.1 trillion. If reports are correct that the government is planning on selling off many of these assets to get its money back, why does it need to issue these bonds? A: Two separate issues. Regarding AIG, the government gets 80 percent of the assets as collateral. They're not free to sell them. The company has to sell them, and as they do so and repay the government, the 80 percent hold can be diminished. You may not need any of that to cover AIG. The bond issuance here has got more to do with the fact that the reserves that the Fed keeps have dwindled from about $800 billion to an estimate -- and I should tell you that's an outside estimate, not the Fed's estimate -- of about $200 billion, so they are just looking for methodology to increase the reserve. I don't think it's meant to say that the Fed is losing $85 billion of its $200 billion, and that $85 billion is covered. It's a separate transaction. It's the idea that we need to have enough money to keep Wall Street confident that we can move in and rescue a bank if we have to. | U.S. Treasury to hold its first bond auction Wednesday, for $40 billion .
CNN's Ali Velshi says the Fed needs more money to keep Wall Street confident .
AIG has so many "tentacles," allowing it to go under could've been catastrophic .
High interest on $85B loan, government stake in AIG could bode well for taxpayers . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "62b94281e554fa5b4922383cbf71bc8d574eb129"} | 2,041 | 84 | 0.506123 | 1.47371 | 1.265784 | 2.608696 | 26.956522 | 0.927536 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- His life has never been easy. Born into poverty and war, his ears and tail were chopped off when he was just a few months old in preparation for dog-fighting. He escaped to find a better life, only to be trapped in lonely, sterile quarantine for six months. Bear plays for the first time out of quarantine after coming to Britain from Afghanistan. But all that changed Monday when Bear the dog stepped out of British quarantine and through the doors of a London animal shelter. "He's absolutely a loving dog," said former British Royal Marine Paul "Penny" Farthing, who helped bring Bear to England. "He just loves people. It's a good thing he was brought back to the U.K. when he was quite young, so he's never gone through having to fend for himself in the street and be made to dogfight." An unknown soldier in Afghanistan first found Bear last year and brought him to a local Afghan animal shelter. The shelter wasn't able to care for Bear, so it contacted Farthing, who now runs a charity for stray and abandoned animals, primarily dogs from Afghanistan. Farthing's Nowzad Dogs is named for the Afghan town where he was based for a few months in 2006. He asked Mayhew International, an arm of London's Mayhew Animal Home, to help find Bear a new home. Mayhew International says Bear is one of the few dogs it has brought back to Britain. Usually it tries to find animals new homes within their own countries. "Although Mayhew International does not encourage people to bring dogs to the U.K. from abroad as a general policy, we made an exception in this case as it was the perfect opportunity to highlight the plight of thousands of stray animals in Afghanistan," the organization said in a statement. Bear's story may be unique, but he is certainly not alone. Mayhew International, which works around the world to educate people about animal welfare, says there are countless dogs in Afghanistan that are homeless or trapped in a life of dogfighting -- an increasingly popular pastime in Afghanistan. "Animal welfare is not looked so highly upon in Afghanistan," said Christopher Sainsbury, Mayhew's international projects officer. "In war-torn areas, people tend to forget the animal welfare side of things. [We want to] make people aware that this is a key side of things that needs to be assessed, needs to be worked on." Bear is a Koochi dog, a large breed common in Afghanistan, according to Dr. Mohammadzai Abduljalil, a Mayhew veterinarian from Afghanistan. While no one knows Bear's exact age, Abduljalil said they believe he is just about a year old. You wouldn't know it by Bear's size. He's already a large dog nearly 3 feet high with large paws to match. Stepping into the Mayhew play area Monday for the first time, Bear made sure to sniff every corner of the room and mark his territory a few times before settling in to play. He had a puppy's curiosity and quickly started playing fetch and tug-of-war with Farthing, wagging enthusiastically the small part of his tail which is left. Bear is lucky. He escaped a violent and uncertain future in Afghanistan. Not so for many other dogs left behind. It is those dogs that Farthing hopes to help with his charity. "They need someone to look after them, so why not me?" Farthing said. It began when the Royal Marines arrived in the war-torn town of Now Zad, in Afghanistan's Helmand province, in October 2006. They found stray dogs wandering the streets, scavenging for food, dodging bullets and seeking shelter from the hot days and cold nights. Many were also being used for dogfighting, with their ears and tails docked to make the fights last longer and give their opponents less to bite. Farthing and other Marines began to feed and care for a few dogs that wandered into their camp. At first they had three dogs, but other strays soon figured out the camp was a source of food and shelter, and before long the Marines found themselves caring for seven dogs and 14 puppies. Time was running out, however. The Marines were due to leave Now Zad in February 2007 and knew they couldn't take the dogs with them. They looked for some way to make sure the dogs would be taken care of after they left. That's when Farthing first contacted Mayhew International. They put him in touch with a small shelter in northern Afghanistan that Mayhew had assisted since its inception, providing advice and veterinary support. The shelter offered to take the dogs on one condition: The Marines had to arrange for the dogs' transfer to Kabul, a difficult and dangerous three days' drive away. Finding a taxi willing to accept dogs was the first hurdle; the second was that the drivers refused to allow the dogs to be transported in Western-style cages, which would give away to the Taliban that the car was carrying foreigners. Instead, the dogs had to be tied with ropes, the Afghan way, and the puppies had to be stashed in small crates -- in this case, a bird cage. "A lot was done on trust," Farthing told CNN. "The Afghans did it as a favor to us. We paid for some of their fuel and their costs, but it was fantastic. It was them helping us out. They didn't have to do it. It shows that the people of Afghanistan and us, we can work together." In the end, most of the dogs made it to Kabul, but not without casualties. Two were left behind for lack of room in the taxi, and two more escaped along the way when a car door was accidentally left open. Three of the largest puppies were stolen, probably for dog fighting. Three dogs and eleven puppies finally made it to the shelter, but nine of the puppies later died due to an outbreak of disease and shortage of vaccines. Sainsbury, of Mayhew International, says the story of the Now Zad dogs and of Bear shows their efforts can help animals, even if it's just one at a time. Mayhew International works with organizations already established in developing countries to plan mass sterilization drives that reduce the number of unwanted animals. They also train veterinary surgeons in modern neutering techniques that are quick and humane. "The way that war makes looking after animal welfare harder is quite clear," Sainsbury said. "Animal welfare gets forgotten and it becomes a back-burner because organizations ... that were working in those war-torn countries will probably be unable to operate any longer. They'll be unable to aid the populations of stray and community animals which would rely on their help originally." Mayhew CEO Caroline Yates said staff have no idea how long it will take for Bear to find a new home. They hope the publicity surrounding his arrival in Britain will encourage people to think about adopting him. Yates said they hope to have him adopted within a month. Said Farthing, "To be able to help just one [dog] is a reward in itself and a huge step to highlighting the undocumented suffering that animals in all war zones are subjected to." | Bear the dog was born into poverty, had ears and tail chopped off for dogfighting .
Unknown soldier in Afghanistan first found Bear last year .
Royal Marines made preparations with company and locals to transport dogs .
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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- The Russian Orthodox Church enthroned a new leader Sunday at Moscow's spectacular Christ the Savior Cathedral in a ceremony attended by Russian leaders and Christian delegations from around the world. Patriach Kirill is the first new leader of the Russian Orthodox Church since the collapse of communism. Patriarch Kirill, 62, becomes first new leader of the church since the fall of communism, and the first enthroned in the Cathedral since it was rebuilt at the end of the 1990s. Russian first lady Svetlana Medvedeva was the first person to receive the Eucharist from the new Patriarch, Russia's Interfax news agency reported. Russian Orthodox Church leaders chose Kirill Tuesday to replace Patriarch Alexy II, who died in December. Kirill, who became acting head of the church after Alexy died, is seen as a modernizer. He chaired the church's department for external relations starting in 1989. Kirill becomes the 16th Patriarch since the position was created in 1589. The appointment is for life. He met Pope Benedict XVI recently, one of the highest-level meetings between Roman Catholic and Orthodox leaders since the two churches split more than 1,000 years ago. The late Pope John Paul II was repeatedly denied permission to visit Russia. Kirill said before he was elected Tuesday that the Russian Orthodox Church should work with other Christian faiths to support "those partners who are ready to oppose, together with us, the marginalization of religion, to speak out for believers' rights and to build one's life according to one's own principles, to defend the underlying meaning of morality in the life of an individual and society." Alexy, 79, died December 5 after 18 years at the head of the church. He is credited with reviving the denomination after years of communist rule. | Patriarch Kirill becomes first new leader of church since fall of communism .
Kirill is seen as a modernizer and has met Pope Benedict XVI .
Patriarch Alexy II died December 5 after 18 years as head of the church . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "15b8d972fa1a9192dfb6049a5737a592e403aceb"} | 419 | 58 | 0.592182 | 1.48822 | 0.829178 | 3.534884 | 7.837209 | 0.930233 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Three Chinese nationals accused of importing thousands of counterfeit luxury handbags in the United States have been arrested in the past two days, federal authorities announced Thursday. Shoppers sort through counterfeit brand name luxury bags and wallets on a Hong Kong street. "This was a sophisticated criminal conspiracy that trafficked millions of dollars of counterfeit goods from China, profiting off the backs of legitimate companies and their hard-working employees," said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher. Authorities call it one of the largest counterfeit operations ever discovered, involving about 300,000 bags and wallets with names like Burberry, Gucci and Coach. For customers who bought the knockoffs, it seemed like a deal. They paid a total of about $16 million for what would have been more than $100 million in handbags, purses and wallets in legitimate retail sales. The alleged leaders of the counterfeit operations are three Chinese citizens living in New York. Chong Lam, 49, and Joyce Chan, 39, were arrested there Wednesday. Eric Yuen, 39, was arrested Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who made the arrests began investigating the alleged scheme five years ago, after raids turned up counterfeit goods. The indictment was secretly returned in Richmond, Virginia, in October. The charges were unsealed when the alleged conspirators were taken into custody. Authorities seized and froze 29 bank accounts and three New York properties. The Chinese defendants will be taken to Richmond, where they will be arraigned at a later date, officials said. E-mail to a friend . | Authorities call it one of the largest counterfeit operations ever discovered .
Official: Scheme profited "off the backs of legitimate companies"
Counterfeit operation allegedly involved 300,000 high-end bags and wallets .
The alleged leaders are three Chinese citizens living in New York . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "beed1717b0db010fcf22ab9b38c8955f81790c9b"} | 352 | 63 | 0.621427 | 1.591915 | 0.934101 | 5.176471 | 5.862745 | 0.784314 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush Pentagon tried to find loopholes in the Geneva Conventions for its "ghost detainee" program in Iraq and to delay the release of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to avoid bad press, three human rights groups contend. The Pentagon considered delaying the release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay because of criticism. Pentagon documents discuss CIA and Pentagon detention activities earlier this decade and indicate coordination between agencies in hiding internees from the Red Cross. Amnesty International USA, New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the Center for Constitutional Rights obtained the material through a Freedom of Information Act request and released it Thursday. "It's obvious that Defense officials engaged in legal gymnastics to find ways to keep detainees off the books," said Meg Satterthwaite, faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. "A full accounting of all agencies' responsibilities must now take place to ensure that these abuses don't continue under a different guise." President Obama has signed an order closing the Guantanamo detention facility in Cuba and prohibiting CIA prisons. However, the order allows the CIA to detain people temporarily. It is not known whether the Pentagon or the CIA still holds "ghost detainees," Satterthwaite said, referring to people housed at secret facilities. The Pentagon issued an information paper May 28, 2004, on the "applicability of the Geneva Conventions to 'Ghost Detainees' in Iraq." Its purpose was to clarify the law about such detainees. The Geneva Conventions spell out international humanitarian law and authorize the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit prisoners during armed conflicts. The Pentagon's information paper said that if "absolute military security" requires it, the conventions permit the holding of persons "who participated in activities hostile to the security of the occupying power." Specific examples would be "spies and saboteurs," the paper said. Although the Red Cross must be notified of such detentions, "persons who have committed such acts are considered to have forfeited the rights of communication," the paper said. "Normally the ICRC has the right to go to all places where protected people are detained," the paper said. But, it added, such visits can be denied temporarily "for reasons of imperative military necessity." A February 17, 2006, e-mail showed that a State Department foreign policy adviser urged the Pentagon to consider delaying by a month and a half the release of Guantanamo prisoners who were scheduled to be sent home in order to avoid bad press. This came amid worldwide furor over the Guantanamo detention facility, photos of prisoners being mistreated at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and sharp criticism on the streets and in blogs toward U.S. detention policies. "We may need to definitely think about checking with SouthCom to see if we can hold off on return flights for 45 days or so until things die down," the adviser wrote to Gen. Norton Schwartz, then head of the U.S. Transportation Command. "Otherwise we are likely to have hero's welcomes awaiting the detainees when they arrive, and we will have problems getting overflight and landing clearance for the flights anyway. It would probably be preferable if we could deliver these detainees in something smaller and more discreet than a T tail" -- apparently referring to a large transport plane like the giant C-5 Galaxy. SouthCom is the U.S. Southern Command, the American military command covering Latin American and the Caribbean. Schwartz is now the Air Force chief of staff. The letter appeared to be an e-mail reply to a State Department "hot issues" memo that said the United States was getting "creamed on human rights" and "taking a big hit on the issues of human rights and respect for the rule of law." It pointed to news stories about a U.N. Guantanamo report and coverage highlighting calls from officials to close Guantanamo. It cited criticism of the United States in blogs and discussion boards. "America has lost its prestige," a blogger from Yemen wrote. "Every year the world waits for the annual U.S. State Department report on human rights. Today, it is America that awaits the world's opinion of its human rights policy. From Gitmo, to Abu Ghraib, to secret prisons in Europe, the world accuses America of not respecting human rights." Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Thursday that he had not seen the documents and wasn't aware of the story. He did elaborate on the factors taken into account when transferring detainees from the Guantanamo facility. "It has to do with their threat," Whitman said. "It has to do with ... whether or not we think they have information that is important to our intelligence efforts. "And there are also considerations given to ensure that the [transferred detainees] will be treated appropriately and that in cases where continued detention is necessary, that the appropriate conditions are met for that, too. "It has been U.S. policy not to return detainees if we thought they would be mistreated by their country of origin," he said. | Military tried to justify detention practices, human rights groups say .
Groups present Pentagon documents to support accusations .
Groups: Pentagon also sought to delay Guantanamo releases to avoid bad press .
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(CNN) -- The biggest surprise on a busy night of international football on Wednesday came in Duesseldorf, where Euro 2008 finalists Germany were beaten by Norway for the first time in 73 years. Norway players celebrate Christian Grindheim's (No.16) goal in their shock victory over Germany. Midfielder Christian Grindheim scored from close-range, from Morten Gamst Pedersen's cross, in the 63rd minute to give the visitors a 1-0 victory to stun the 45,000 home supporters on a freezing evening. Not since the 1936 Olympics in Berlin had Germany lost to Norway --the defeat even more suprising as Germany coach Joachim Loew had the luxury of naming a full-strength side, while new Norway coach Egil Olsen was missing seven key players. In Marseille, Lionel Messi scored a brilliant solo goal to give Argentina a 2-0 win over France and give Diego Maradona a second straight win as national coach. The Barcelona striker collected the ball outside the penalty area and ran right through the home defense before expertly slotting the ball past goalkeeper Steve Mandanda. Newcastle winger Jonas Gutierrez had opened the scoring four minutes before the interval with a shot that went inside Mandanda's left-hand post. Meanwhile, Jamel Saihi scored a second-half equalizer to give home side Tunisia a 1-1 draw with the Netherlands in Rades. Montpellier star Saihi netted midway through the second-half with a long-range shot that Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg should have saved. Klaas Jan Huntelaar has given the visitors the lead in the 62nd minute when converting his 11th goal in 19 internationals, after Joris Mathijsen had headed down a long ball from Stijn Schaars. Elsewhere, Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva returned to action for the first time since breaking his leg 12 months ago -- helping Croatia to a 2-1 victory over Romania in Bucharest. Eduardo, who fractured his left fibula and dislocated his ankle against Birmingham in February 2008, replaced Ivica Olic in the 61st minute and set up Niko Kranjcar for a 75th-minute winner. Ciprian Marica gave Romania the lead in the 22nd minute but the visitors levelled just six minutes later when Ivan Rakitic scored with a superb long-range free-kick. Unsettled Chelsea striker Didier Drogba scored an injury-time equalizer to give Ivory Coast a 1-1 draw with Turkey in Izmir. Drogba, who has been out of favor for his club side this season, tapped in a cross from the right in the second minute of injury time in his first match for his country in over a year. Gokhan Unal put the European 2008 semifinalists ahead in the 11th minute with a shot into the top right-hand corner of the net. World Cup host nation South Africa's run of five consecutive victories came to an end when they were beaten 2-0 by Chile in Polokwane. | Germany suffer 1-0 home defeat by Norway in biggest shock on Wednesday .
Christian Grindheim scores only goal as Norway win for first time in 73 years .
Lionel Messi on target for Argentina in their 2-0 victory over France in Marseille . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "2dd03905dc81d75ead7eb410043041a7d619729d"} | 709 | 55 | 0.507163 | 1.224317 | 0.663676 | 2.020408 | 10.897959 | 0.877551 |
(CNN) -- A commuter airliner that crashed Thursday in upstate New York, killing 50 people, underwent violent pitching and rolling seconds before impact, with passengers experiencing twice the normal force of gravity, a federal investigator said Sunday. Only a few pieces of the Continental Connection Dash 8 turboprop were recognizable after the crash. The plane's final 800-foot fall took five seconds, Steve Chealander of the National Transportation Safety Board said. The aircraft crashed into a home in Clarence Center, New York, near Buffalo, on Thursday night, killing all 49 people aboard. A 61-year-old man in the house died also, but his wife and daughter survived. Final motions of the aircraft were so drastic that the plane's autopilot automatically disengaged and warnings sounded, Chealander said, citing information from the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders. Also, a "stick-shaker" device, which noisily vibrates an airplane's controls to warn the pilot of imminent stall, kicked in, he said. The flight crew of Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air, discussed "significant" ice buildup on the aircraft's windshield and wings before the crash, and icing has become a focus as a possible cause. Follow the plane's path » . Chealander said the plane's de-icing system was turned on 11 minutes after the flight left Newark, New Jersey, for Buffalo, and remained on for the entire flight. He said the pilots were told before departure from Newark that there was "light to moderate icing" in the Buffalo area but that no other pilots had reported problems with their landings at the Buffalo airport. "It was really not a bad-weather day, and they chose to launch [from Newark]," Chealander said of the pilot and the first officer. The plane was on autopilot during its approach to the Buffalo airport, Chealander said. As to questions about whether the autopilot should have been turned off, Chealander said using it even in bad weather situations "is normal." Watch Chealander discuss autopilot options » . "You're encouraged to use the autopilot to help you with the workloads of these high intense weather situations that we fly into all the time," he said. He said the NTSB in the past has recommended to the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees civil aviation including commercial airlines, that in severe icing conditions, "it might be best to disconnect autopilot so that the pilot might have a better feel" for the aircraft's conditions. However, severe icing is "not what we saw here," Chealander said, adding that the FAA has no such disengagement rule in effect. "To say that they should not have been flying on autopilot is not correct," Chealander said. The pilots' recorded remarks about "significant" icing did not indicate "severe" icing, he said. The NTSB has said problems for the 74-seat Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 occurred when the pilots lowered the landing gear and tried to set the wing flaps to slow the aircraft for landing. Offering more details, Chealander said Sunday that the plane's nose pitched up 31 degrees, then down 45 degrees. The aircraft rolled left 46 degrees then right 105 degrees, or past the 90-degree vertical point, he said. Inside the cabin, he said, conditions went from lower than normal gravitational force to twice the normal force as the plane rocked through the sky. iReport.com: Send your photos, videos from the scene . Chealander said the NTSB's investigation of the crash site indicated that the two propellers on the turboprop aircraft were in place when the crash occurred. "The airplane hadn't lost anything prior to impact. It came down intact," he said. Meanwhile, local authorities working to recover remains of the victims said Sunday that a federal team of more than 40 people using some $2.8 million worth of scientific equipment would begin on Monday to help establish positive identification of the victims. But because of the intensity of the crash and a subsequent fire, "whether we can identify everybody or not remains to be seen," Erie County Health Commission Anthony Billittier said. Authorities had recovered 15 bodies as of Saturday night, but Billittier announced Sunday that numbers of recovered bodies will no longer be released "out of respect for the families." | NTSB: People aboard experienced twice the normal gravitational force before crash .
Plane rolled past the vertical point before it crashed into home, NTSB official says .
Thursday's crash in upstate New York killed all 49 aboard plane, one in house .
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BLUE BELL, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Janice McFadden's story hardly stands out. Applications for tuition-free courses have flooded in at Montgomery County Community College. The Pennsylvania woman was laid off in November after working at the same company for nearly 20 years. Now, as she looks for a job, McFadden worries about losing her home and uprooting her 8-year-old daughter. But when McFadden talks about the future, she has found some cause for hope. In January, the 43-year-old enrolled in the tuition assistance program at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. The program offers county residents who have been laid off since September 2008 the opportunity to take 12 college credits -- usually four courses -- for free. McFadden said the program will allow her to reassess her options while she improves her marketability and salary potential. "I have all of the capabilities, but I don't have that piece of paper, which is a requirement for a lot of jobs," said McFadden, who is taking night courses in economics and English composition. "I never thought that I would go back to school, all this time, and I'm glad I did." She is one of more than 1,100 Pennsylvanians taking tuition-free community college courses as they search for a job. Many are concentrating on new job skills, such as computer programming and accounting, to retrofit their résumés so they can compete in a turbulent job market. "The response was incredible," said MCCC President Karen Stout. "The day after we announced the program, our call center lines were clogged up. We had more than 300 calls in the first two or three days, and we had information sessions that had standing-room-only attendance." It's a trend echoed at community colleges across the country. George Boggs, president of the American Association of Community Colleges, said he has heard from 75 college presidents reporting double-digit enrollment increases this semester. "Community colleges are a big part of the solution to this economic downturn," Boggs said. "We are the institutions that are on the ground bringing these individuals into our institutions and preparing them for a new career." Boggs pointed to programs in hard-hit industrial manufacturing states, such as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, as being particularly geared toward mid-career students. Many community colleges have cut or frozen tuition for laid-off workers, established scholarship programs or offered financial assistance to pay for textbooks and transportation costs. However, the spike in applications has put a burden on some schools that already are struggling to keep tuition low and upgrade their facilities. "Many [community colleges] are reporting that it is the highest-ever enrollment that they have had," Boggs said. "And several are reporting a waiting list of students that they can not accommodate. "It wouldn't surprise me to hear that about a half-million students are being turned away from our community colleges today." At MCCC, enrollment is up 10 percent since spring 2008. But the school has been able to place the new students in courses that aren't at capacity. "We are worried about our bottom line, especially in this economic environment," MCCC President Stout said. "But we do have classes that are scheduled to go that have open seats. So basically, these were empty seats that we're filling with unemployed workers." If unemployment continues to rise -- in Pennsylvania the jobless rate is 6.7 percent -- Stout wants to continue offering tuition-free classes. And even once these mid-career students get back on their feet, she's hoping to see them around campus still. "Our goal is that these students want to come back and be lifelong learners -- that they understand that in today's economy, you have to continue to keep your job skills relevant and up to date," Stout said. "None of us can be complacent about our own learning." Her plan may be working. Much to Janice McFadden's surprise, she has discovered she loves being a student. "I'm looking at it as a wide-open possibility for me. I don't have to stay in the same field that I was in, I can go back to school ... I can be anybody that I want to be now," McFadden said. "I just have to pick what I really like, what I'm good at, and concentrate on that." | Many community colleges have cut or frozen tuition for laid-off workers .
Scholarships and other forms of financial assistance have been made available .
Applications spike has burdened some schools with already strained resources .
Goal is to support lifelong learning, says Pennsylvania community college president . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "d80c19f5e27b84db9445500b4fe801826dadbdb7"} | 972 | 60 | 0.462132 | 1.286133 | 0.950709 | 3.886792 | 16.358491 | 0.754717 |
(CNN) -- Why do we watch? Bob Greene says athletes like Lebron James show us the difference between ordinary effort and excellence. The question applies not just to Sunday's NBA All-Star Game, although that is the immediate case in point. The outcome of the game is not important -- few people remember who wins the All-Star Game from year to year. The players, while attempting to win, do it with barely concealed smiles on their faces. All-Star weekend is mostly a class reunion for basketball's elite. But all the games, in all the seasons, in all the big-time sports leagues -- what is the real reason we keep on watching? You might think that we'd finally grow weary of caring, with headlines about Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds, with the sports pages often reading like the business pages (contract disputes and stadium bond-issue negotiations and salary arbitration), with police-blotter details sometimes pushing aside the box scores. Why do we watch? The answer may be found in a single sentence written by a man who died at the age of 76 in this still-new year. John Updike, his literary brilliance aside, was prolific almost beyond belief -- he wrote more than 50 books, and hundreds upon hundreds of essays, short stories, articles, poems and works of criticism. All those careful words, year after year, decade after decade. But of all the sentences Updike ever wrote, there is one that I have long encouraged people to carry around with them -- if not literally tucked into their wallets, then somewhere in their heads and in their hearts. In that sentence of Updike's lies the secret to a lot of things -- including the secret that answers: Why do we watch? The sentence appeared in Updike's 1960 nonfiction piece about Ted Williams's last game for the Boston Red Sox. That piece is famous for how Updike explained Williams's refusal to come out of the dugout and acknowledge the cheering, crying fans after his home run in his final at-bat: "Gods do not answer letters." But it is another sentence in the story that explains everything -- not just about sports, but about the lives the rest of us can lead. Referring to Ted Williams, Updike wrote: . "For me, Williams is the classic ballplayer of the game on a hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill." There it is, right there. That tissue-thin difference, when you don't necessarily know anyone is watching -- there is the answer. We all face the choice in our lives every day: to make the extra effort or not, to stay at the desk for the extra fifteen minutes or to go home, to revise the project one more time before handing it in or to settle for something acceptable, if not quite excellent. On fields of play -- baseball diamonds, football fields, a basketball court like the one on which Sunday's All-Star Game will be held -- the tissue-thin difference is there for the world to see. The lights are dazzlingly bright; the television cameras carry the close-ups around the globe. If a player is dogging it, we can tell; if a player is jogging instead of sprinting, it's self-evident; if a player's mind is already at the party that will be held after the final buzzer, we know. Yet once in a while -- we can see it in a player's eyes -- we are rewarded. Once in a while, sometimes when we are least expecting to witness it, it's there: a tiny move, an all-but-imperceptible lunge, an additional thrust, a reach beyond that which should by all reason be reachable. It was true during small and glorious moments in the days when Bob Cousy and Elgin Baylor were on the basketball court; it is true during small and glorious moments today, when Kobe Bryant and LeBron James are on the court. Updike's tissue-thin difference. A thing done well, when the player could have gotten away with a thing done ill. Are the rest of us the same as the players on the court? In most ways, no. We lack their athletic skill, their physical grace, their monetary riches. They hear cheers every working night; we toil in silence. And yet, the one way in which we can be the same, or at least strive to, is in that pursuit of the tissue-thin difference. The thing that makes the best of them different is the thing that offers us, too, the potential to earn that difference -- the effort beyond mere effort, the desire beyond standard-issue desire, the pride so strong that it becomes the definition of pride. Why do we watch? We watch for those moments. They may be fleeting; they may come and go so quickly we're not even certain, for an instant, that we actually saw them. But they're real, and they can be ours. We wait for them. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene. | Bob Greene: What explains why Americans watch sports so intently?
He says professional athletes depress us with steroid and scandal stories .
Greene: We watch for the greatness the greatest athletes can achieve .
He says it reflects the top-flight effort everyone can strive to contribute . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "1374e965cf091ce058b3db6fe0a2239355684086"} | 1,141 | 66 | 0.319563 | 0.978274 | 0.99288 | 0.872727 | 18.472727 | 0.690909 |
ROME, Italy (CNN) -- A U.N. report says hunger is on the rise globally and blames higher food prices. Populations within conflict zones such as the Democratic Republic of Congo are particularly vulnerable. The Food and Agriculture Organization has issued preliminary estimates classifying 963 million people as undernourished -- an increase of 40 million people over the past year. "One out of seven people -- about 15 percent -- suffer chronically of not having enough to eat," said Mark Smulders, an FAO economist. The hunger report -- titled "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008" -- said the world's financial and economic problems could throw more people into poverty. The number of hungry had been increasing over the years before the rise in food prices, with warfare and political instability continuing to be among the factors causing poverty. The preliminary estimates lack a firm country breakdown, but last year's figures are an accurate measure of where the problems are. About 907 out of 923 million undernourished people in 2007, or 65 percent of the hungry, live in India, China, the war-wracked Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Smulders said about 27 percent of the world's hungry live in India and 15 percent in China. The other countries each represent 4 to 5 percent of the world's total. There has been progress in fighting hunger in the Asian nations of Thailand and Vietnam, and in the sub-Saharan African nations of Ghana, Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Mozambique and Malawi, the report said. Food prices have declined from their peak earlier in the year, but they are staying high compared to other years, the agency said. The Food and Agriculture Organization's food price index was 28 percent higher in October than it was two years before. "Prices of major cereals have fallen by over 50 percent from their peaks earlier in 2008 but they remain high compared to previous years," the FAO said. The agency said the "rural and urban poor, landless farmers and female-headed households are the worst hit by high food prices." -- CNN's Joe Sterling contributed to this report. | U.N. agency says food prices are to blame for an increase in hunger .
Food and Agriculture Organization issues estimates 963 million undernourished .
It is an increase of 40 million people over the past year . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c8c3ddcb88aedc17e3972505eabbdd094817beeb"} | 460 | 47 | 0.53114 | 1.263837 | 0.752533 | 4.153846 | 10.589744 | 0.871795 |
(CNN) -- Sen. John McCain said Wednesday that if the financial rescue bill fails in Congress again, "the present crisis will turn into a disaster," and Sen. Barack Obama told lawmakers it's time to "step up to the plate." Both presidential candidates stressed bipartisanship as they called for Congress to act before heading to Washington to vote on the $700 billion financial rescue plan. "We are square in the greatest financial crisis of our lifetimes. And I am pleased to report that today, I will be returning to the floor of the Senate to vote on a bill that marks a decisive step in the right direction," McCain said at a campaign event in Kansas City, Missouri. "Today, with the unity that this crisis demands, Congress will once again work to restore confidence and stability to the American economy," McCain said. Watch what McCain says about the bailout » . The Arizona senator and Republican nominee said there will be time later to assign blame for the situation, "but our duty right now is to fix the problem." Obama also warned that the crisis could turn into a "catastrophe" without swift action from Congress. The Illinois senator and Democratic nominee said he has been reaching out to leaders of both parties to help pass the plan. See bailout tracker » . "To the Democrats and Republicans who have opposed this plan, I say this: Step up to the plate and do what's right for the country, even if it's not popular, because the time to act is now," he said in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Watch Obama speak out about the bailout » . As part of his lobbying efforts, Obama has called members of the Congressional Black Caucus to support the bailout. When the bailout came up for a vote on Monday, caucus members split 21 against and 18 for the bill, CBC spokeswoman Keiana Barrett said. Obama campaign Co-chairman Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Illinois, was one of the CBC members who voted against the bailout but said he would consider switching if more protections for homeowners are added to the bill. Republicans accused Obama of failing to show leadership as the economic crisis unfolded. McCain said last week that he was suspending his campaign to focus on the situation. Democrats accused him of slowing down negotiations, while Republicans said he helped sway some reluctant lawmakers. Although McCain did not mention Obama by name Wednesday, he made what could be seen as a swipe as his opponent. "This is a moment of great testing. At such moments, there are those on both sides of this debate who will act on principle. Of course, there are always some who think first of their own interests, who calculate their own advantage instead of rushing to the aid of their country," McCain said. Meanwhile, Obama blamed the current crisis on greed and irresponsibility in Washington and on Wall Street. "Let me be perfectly clear. The fact that we are in this mess is an outrage. It's an outrage because we did not get here by accident. This was not a normal part of the business cycle. This was not the actions of a few bad apples," he said. After their campaign events, McCain and Obama were both returning to Washington to vote on the bailout package. Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, was also expected to vote on it. The bailout proposal failed in the U.S. House on Monday. The version going to the Senate adds provisions, including raising the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. cap to $250,000 from $100,000 per account, and will be attached to an existing revenue bill that the House also rejected Monday, according to several Democratic leadership aides. McCain and Obama both support raising the FDIC insurance limit as a way of reviving talks on Capitol Hill. The Senate vote is scheduled for after sundown, in observance of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. After pointing fingers Monday, Obama and McCain have both tried to strike a more bipartisan tone as they work on selling the financial rescue package to voters and reluctant members of Congress. Democratic sources said that they expect bipartisan support for the bill. Because the tax bill must originate in the House, the Senate is attaching the rescue plan to a bill that deals with renewable-energy tax incentives. This would allow the Senate to vote before the House to approve a bailout bill. As the candidates focused on the economic crisis, former President Clinton, who ran his own 1992 campaign on the now commonly used phrase "it's the economy, stupid," stumped for Obama in Orlando and Fort Pierce, Florida. Clinton urged residents there to get out and vote, and he told voters why he thinks Obama is the better candidate. Watch what Clinton says about Obama » . "He's got a better philosophy; he's got better answers; he's got a better understanding and better advisers on these complex economic matters. He's got a better vice presidential partner," Clinton said. He also said he thinks the country needs to get behind the bailout proposal. The rallies marked the first major events Clinton has hosted on Obama's behalf. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report. | NEW: Obama asking Congressional Black Caucus members to vote for bailout .
John McCain, Barack Obama call on Congress to act .
Obama, McCain, Joe Biden returning to Washington for vote .
Former President Clinton campaigns for Obama in Florida . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "af6c0b40f7025773bbb48f888a13a251dcccfcc9"} | 1,133 | 55 | 0.410291 | 1.146368 | 0.722608 | 1.770833 | 20.9375 | 0.854167 |
(CNN) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross expressed its concern Wednesday over what may have been the improper use of its emblem in the daring rescue last month of 15 hostages in Colombia. What seems to be part of a red cross is seen on a man involved in the rescue in this official image. "We are in contact with the Colombian authorities to ask for further clarifications as to exactly what happened," ICRC Deputy Director of Operations Dominik Stillhart said in a written statement. Video and photographs originally shown to CNN appeared to show one of the hostage rescuers wearing a bib with a red cross on it, and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe admitted July 16 that Colombian military intelligence used a single Red Cross symbol in the rescue mission. The ICRC statement said video aired on Colombian television earlier this week "reveals that a member of the army team involved was wearing a tabard marked with the Red Cross emblem before the operation had even begun, suggesting intentional misuse." Watch where bib appeared in video » . "If authenticated, these images would clearly establish an improper use of the Red Cross emblem, which we deplore," Stillhart said. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos blasted the leaking of the video as "an act of disloyalty, possibly corruption or even treason," although he defended the right of the media to publish the material once it had been leaked. Speaking at a news conference at a military base in San Jose del Guaviare on Tuesday, Santos said the military had launched an investigation into the leak and said that those responsible would be "severely disciplined." Uribe said in July that the man wearing the bib was a member of the Colombian military intelligence team involved in the rescue who panicked and used the emblem to protect himself. "This officer, upon confessing his mistake to his superiors, said when the (rescue) helicopter was about to land ... he saw so many guerrillas that he went into a state of angst," Uribe said. "He feared for his life and put on the Red Cross bib over his jacket." However, a confidential military source who showed CNN the photographs that included the man wearing the bib said they were taken moments before the mission took off. The use of the "Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal Emblems is governed by the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols." "These emblems may not be used by bodies or persons not entitled to do so under international humanitarian law," the ICRC statement said. Uribe said in July that as the constitutional head of the armed forces, he takes full political responsibility for what he described as a slip-up. He said he has apologized to ICRC officials. Previously, the Colombian president and his top generals had categorically denied that international humanitarian symbols were used in the July 2 rescue mission that duped the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels into handing over prized hostages including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. military contractors and 11 Colombian police and soldiers. Learn about some of the freed hostages » . Such a use of the Red Cross emblem could constitute a "war crime" under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, according to international legal expert Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association. Such a move could endanger humanitarian workers in the future, he said. "If you use the emblem in a deceitful way, generally the conventions say it would be a breach. (Based on the information as explained to me) the way that the images show the Red Cross emblem being used could be distinguished as a war crime," he said in an interview with CNN on July 16. "Complete and total respect for the Red Cross emblem is essential if the ICRC is to be able to bring assistance and protection to the people worst affected by armed conflicts and other situations of violence," the ICRC's statement said. "As a neutral and impartial humanitarian organization, the ICRC depends on the trust of all the parties to the conflict to be able to carry out its humanitarian work." | NEW: Defense minister blasts leak of video from hostage rescue .
International committee probing use of symbol by military rescuer .
15 hostages were rescued July 2 from rebel organization FARC .
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- Love hurts, especially for jilted lovers on Valentine's Day. With that in mind, a London tourist attraction is offering visitors the chance to curse former boyfriends, girlfriends or spouses -- and get a discount on the entry price at the same time. "Hex your Ex" is the Valentine's Day promotion at the London Dungeon, a house of horrors that takes visitors through elements of the city's bloody, gruesome, and torturous past. To qualify, visitors must bring a picture of their ex -- or anyone who has shunned them -- then rip it up and throw it in a smoking cauldron, spokeswoman Kate Edwards told CNN. Visitors can then select from a range of curses to inflict on their ex. "If you happen to be single or freshly shunned, this is a way to move on and have a great way of doing it," Edwards said. Hexing your ex will earn you £5 ($7.20) off the entry price. "It's very therapeutic, but it means in times of the credit crunch, you get money off as well," she said. The "curses" are meant to be taken lightly, she said. All were developed by the Dungeon's creative team. "They involve marvelously bad things happening to your ex," she said. "Nothing deadly, obviously. It's obviously tongue-in-cheek." | London tourist attraction offers visitors chance to curse former lovers .
Visitors must bring picture of their ex, rip it up and throw it in cauldron .
They can then select from a range of curses to inflict on their ex . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "23ae06eb107634f7969139f3c0696757772d4b68"} | 334 | 55 | 0.662731 | 1.943721 | 1.110526 | 6.711111 | 6.133333 | 0.933333 |
(CNN) -- The Turkish military bombed PKK rebel targets Saturday in northern Iraq in response to clashes that left at least 15 Turkish troops dead, the PKK and the military said Sunday. Members of Turkey's honor guard carry flag-draped coffins of two soldiers killed in clashes with the PKK. The PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party, said it sustained no casualties in the operation. The Turkish military said the air operation was conducted on the PKK's "hiding positions" in the Avasin-Basyan area of northern Iraq near the border with Turkey. During the operation, steps were taken to avoid civilian casualties, the Turkish military said. Watch inside the PKK's hidden camps » . The military said the operation was carried out Saturday. The PKK's military wing said the military operation began after Friday's clash and lasted for two days. At least 15 Turkish soldiers were killed and 20 wounded in the clashes, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Saturday. Two others were missing, and the Turkish military said Sunday they were feared dead. The military said 23 PKK members were also killed in the attacks, launched from northern Iraq. In its statement on Sunday, however, the PKK said more than 60 Turkish troops were killed and at least 30 injured. Nine PKK members were killed, the organization said. Turkey's state-run Anatolia news agency said the clashes occurred in Semdinli, a town in Turkey's southeastern province of Hakkari. On Tuesday, the Turkish government is scheduled to vote on whether to extend the authority of the Turkish military to launch attacks on PKK positions in northern Iraq. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh on Saturday condemned the clashes, calling them a "terrorist act" that "creates a serious threat to the security of the border areas and the joint security of Iraq and Turkey." He called on the Turkish government to deal with this "criminal act wisely and with self restraint." "The Iraqi government expresses its support for the measures the Turkish government will take within Turkish territory to guarantee its [Turkey's] security and stability," he said. Saturday night, Iraq's Presidency Council, made up of President Jalal Talabani -- himself a Kurd -- and his two vice-presidents, condemned what it called "a vicious attack against Turkish troops." "What makes the attack more horrific is the fact that it happened during the days of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, where Muslims should be celebrating, rejoicing and befriending each other ... instead of fighting and bloodshed," the council said. It pledged to "continue its joint efforts with the Turkish side to prevent the recurrence of such attacks and to put an end to the illegal presence of all foreign militants in Iraq." The central Iraqi government has labeled the PKK a terrorist organization, banning its activities and shutting its offices in the country two years ago. But the PKK continues to operate in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq bordering Turkey and Iran. The separatist faction has been fighting for self-rule in southeastern Turkey. In an interview held last month in the group's mountain hideout, the PKK's military commander, Bahoz Erdal, told CNN's Arwa Damon and Yousif Bassil that the PKK is defending Kurdish rights and attacks only military targets. "We are ready for a political solution," Erdal said, adding that the PKK would lay down its arms if Kurds were guaranteed equal rights within Turkey. But the Turkish government told CNN in response that it does not negotiate with "terrorists." In February, Turkish military ground forces launched a weeklong offensive against the rebels in northern Iraq. | Air operation was conducted on the PKK's "hiding positions"
PKK, Kurdistan Workers' Party, said it sustained no casualties in the operation .
Air attack follows clashes blamed on PKK that killed at least 15 Turkish soldiers .
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Democrats' top investigator in Congress reacted angrily Friday to a report that the former Blackwater USA employee accused of killing an Iraqi vice presidential guard was hired by another U.S. contractor weeks later. Rep. Henry Waxman says the State Department is covering up "an epidemic of corruption" in Iraq. The report comes alongside Rep. Henry Waxman's warning of a "confrontation" with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over how much Americans should be able to learn about corruption in Iraq. In a sharply worded letter, Waxman demanded Rice turn over a long list of documents related to the contractor, Andrew Moonen. "Serious questions now exist about whether the State Department may have withheld from the U.S. Defense Department facts about this Blackwater contractor's shooting of the Iraqi guard that should have prevented his hiring to work on another contract in support of the Iraq War," wrote Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Moonen is accused of fatally shooting an Iraqi guard and fleeing the scene, according to a Congressional memo describing the investigation report. He was fined, fired and flown home from Iraq, and the company later paid $20,000 in compensation to the victim's family. Moonen returned to the United States within a few days of the incident, his attorney said, but in February he returned to Kuwait working for Combat Support Associates (CSA), a company spokesman said. CNN reported Thursday night that CSA said it was unaware of the December incident when it hired Moonen, because the State Department and Blackwater kept the incident quiet and out of Moonen's personnel records. Waxman wrote it is "hard to reconcile this development" with previous assertions State Department officials have made in recent days. Waxman earlier accused Rice and the State Department of a cover-up of what he called "an epidemic of corruption" in Iraq in general. He branded the State Department's anti-corruption efforts "dysfunctional, under-funded and a low priority." Waxman further blasted the department for trying to keep secret details of corruption in Iraq, especially relating to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. "Corruption is increasing in Iraq, and the State Department can't keep us from knowing that -- can't censor that -- just because it might embarrass or hurt our relationship with [al-]Maliki," Waxman said at the House committee hearing. Watch Waxman ask why negative comments must be said behind closed doors » . Deputy Secretary of State Larry Butler repeatedly refused to answer questions from Waxman about Iraqi corruption but offered full disclosure if his testimony would be kept secret. Asked if he believes the Iraqi government has the political will or the capability to root out corruption, Butler responded, "Mr. Chairman, questions which go to the broad nature of our bilateral relationship with Iraq are best answered in a classified setting." But he was more forthcoming when talking about efforts that al-Maliki has taken to improve matters, commending the prime minister for dispatching Iraqi forces to surround a refinery to ensure oil did not end up on the black market. But Waxman appeared unmoved. "Why can you talk about the positive things and not the negative things?" he asked. "Shouldn't we have the whole picture?" "I'd be very pleased to answer those questions in an appropriate setting," Butler replied. Waxman laughed and asked, "An appropriate setting for positive things is a congressional hearing, but for negative things, it must be behind closed doors?" "As you know, this goes to the very heart of diplomatic relations and national security," Butler said. "It goes to the very heart of propaganda," Waxman said, putting funding for anti-corruption activities through June 15, 2006, at $65 million, "or less than 0.003 percent of the total" spent by the Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund. The State Department said details of anti-corruption efforts must be secret to protect investigators and Iraqi allies. In a letter to Rice last week, Waxman called the department's position "ludicrous." Fellow Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky agreed. "It's pretty clear that the administration just wants to muzzle any comments that reflect negatively on the [al-]Maliki government," he said. Earlier, the former head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, told the hearing that al-Maliki had protected family members from corruption investigations, citing Salam al-Maliki, Iraq's former transportation minister and the prime minister's cousin. Al-Radhi resigned last month and fled Iraq after he and his family were attacked and 31 of his anti-corruption employees were killed. He said corruption has affected "virtually every agency and ministry, including some of the most powerful officials in Iraq." "Corruption has stopped possible advances by the government on the political level, on economic reconstruction, on basic services, amenities and infrastructure and on the rule of law," he told the committee, estimating the total lost to corruption at $18 billion. In Baghdad, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh acknowledged his country is plagued with a "high level" of corruption, but he said officials are trying to rein in the problem. U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office, said there appeared to be no U.S. plan for countering the corruption. He urged Congress to consider conditioning future appropriations on such a plan "so we can achieve some results rather than have just more efforts." Waxman questioned whether Iraq's government was "too corrupt to succeed." If so, he added, "We need to ask if we could, in good conscience, continue to ... prop up his regime." E-mail to a friend . CNN's Bob Constantini contributed to this report. | NEW: Rep. Henry Waxman demands documents on Iraq contractor .
Waxman accuses State Department of covering up "an epidemic of corruption"
State Department says it will provide information if it is kept classified .
Ex-Iraqi official estimates the total lost to corruption at $18 billion . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "45d62e9971a1595b0eab883f56f553c958a72a35"} | 1,349 | 68 | 0.558839 | 1.525051 | 0.819295 | 3.727273 | 20.345455 | 0.781818 |
(CNN) -- Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps will not face criminal charges in connection with a November party at which he was photographed using a bong, a South Carolina sheriff said Monday. Michael Phelps admitted "regrettable behavior" after a photo of him using a bong was published. "We do not believe we have enough evidence to prosecute anyone" who was at the party in Columbia, South Carolina, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told reporters, adding that authorities are ending their investigation into Phelps. "We had a photo, and we had him saying he was sorry for his inappropriate behavior," Lott said. "That behavior could have been going to a party. ... He never said, 'I smoked marijuana.' He never confessed to that. We didn't have physical evidence. We didn't have enough where we could go arrest him." Phelps, 23, who won a record eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, admitted "regrettable behavior" after a British newspaper published the photograph about two weeks ago. The tabloid News of the World showed Phelps using the bong during what it said was a November party at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Watch the sheriff say he won't prosecute Phelps » . A bong is a device commonly used to smoke marijuana. University police and Columbia police both said they would not pursue charges against Phelps. Lott said he has not spoken to Phelps, but hopes the swimming champion has learned from his mistakes and is willing to share an anti-drug message with children. Phelps said Monday he had learned some "important lessons" from the incident. "I'm glad this matter is put to rest," he said in a written statement. "But there are also some important lessons that I've learned. For me, it's all about recognizing that I used bad judgment and it's a mistake I won't make again. For young people especially -- be careful about the decisions you make. One bad decision can really hurt you and the people you care about. "I really appreciate the support my family and fans have shown me, and now I will move forward and dive back into the pool, having put this whole thing behind me." Watch Phelps acknowledge making 'a mistake' » . Phelps told CNN affiliate WBAL in Baltimore, Maryland, "This is something that I need to learn from, will learn from and have learned from." "I know that a lot of people make mistakes, and the best way to learn from them is changing things," Phelps told WBAL. Lott said the photo that surfaced of Phelps put him and his department in a "no-win situation." If he had ignored it, he said, he would have faced criticism, but he also was criticized for investigating. However, he said, the photo did initiate an investigation into goings-on at the home where the party took place, and some people were arrested on suspicion of drug possession. The home has been the focus of previous drug-related investigations, he said. He defended his investigation, saying, "As a cop, my responsibility is to enforce the law, not to create it or ignore it. Marijuana in the state of South Carolina is illegal." | Michael Phelps won't be charged in connection with bong picture, sheriff says .
Sheriff: "We didn't have enough where we could go arrest him"
British newspaper published picture of Olympic champion using a bong .
Sheriff defends probe, saying he would have been criticized if he hadn't investigated . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "80770c8e972c93bf7549e74096af9ce2245e6c34"} | 739 | 75 | 0.518534 | 1.568532 | 0.809596 | 2.95 | 10.7 | 0.816667 |
(CNN) -- Police in Zimbabwe Monday failed to bring to court an opposition activist who was scheduled to become a government minister on Friday but was arrested instead. Zimbabwe police officers at Mutare Magistrates Court where Roy Bennett's scheduled appearance was postponed. Roy Bennett of the Movement for Democratic Change was supposed to be sworn in as deputy agriculture minister last week under a power-sharing agreement between the MDC and President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. Bennett was charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, sabotage and banditry. Police added another charge, contravening the Immigration Act, on the day he was scheduled to appear in court. They accuse Bennett of attempting to leave the country illegally. His party has decried the charges as "trumped up." His lawyer said Monday's court proceedings were canceled because prosecutors were unable to make it from the capital Harare to the court where the proceeding was to take place, in Mutare, 132 miles (213 km) away. It is unclear why local prosecutors are not being used. Bennett's lawyer Trust Maanda says he hopes his client will appear on Tuesday. "He is doing fine considering the conditions of the cells he is being kept in," Maanda said. "There is no food or running water, sanitation facilities are not working, the cells are overcrowded and there are no blankets." Bennett was arrested on Friday while on his way to South Africa, where he has been living for three years. Bennett, who is also the MDC party's treasurer, was pulled from an aircraft at the airport in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, the MDC said. Police accuse him of funding the acquisition of weapons to commit the crimes he is charged with. Bennett, a white coffee grower, is an old foe of Mugabe's government. His farms were seized during the country's controversial land reform program. He has previously been jailed for assaulting Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa in parliament. The arrest happened the same day that other MDC ministers in the new unity government took their oaths of office. The power-sharing agreement came into effect only after months of on-again, off-again negotiations between Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, and the MDC, led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Under Mugabe's government, the country has gone from being one of the breadbaskets of Africa to dire poverty. A cholera epidemic is raging, much of the population lacks adequate food and water, many public sector workers are on strike, and the country suffers such severe inflation it recently knocked 12 zeroes off its currency. --CNN's Nkepile Mabuse contributed to this report. | Court proceedings against arrested Zimbabwe opposition activist delayed .
His lawyers said prosecutors could not make it to the court 132 miles from Harare .
Roy Bennett arrested Friday, the day he was due to be made a government minister .
Movement for Democratic Change says the conspiracy charges are trumped up . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "3e19d4363cbc74ed00f60cfa971ec75aa3d719c5"} | 609 | 66 | 0.574733 | 1.531243 | 1.074479 | 1.719298 | 8.824561 | 0.842105 |
(CNN) -- Top Republican lawmakers Sunday called on President Obama to change his political strategy, arguing that the passage of a massive stimulus bill on a party-line vote showed he has failed to deliver the "change" he promised. Sen. John McCain says the Obama administration is off to a "bad beginning." "If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country's screwed," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told ABC's "This Week." "I know bipartisanship when I see it." Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said Obama was off to "a bad beginning," out of step with the vow of bipartisanship both men made after Obama beat out the Republican presidential nominee for the White House in November. "It was a bad beginning because it wasn't what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people, that we would sit down together," McCain told CNN's "State of the Union With John King." The $787 billion bill made it through Congress with the support of three Republicans -- Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Obama is expected to sign the bill Tuesday in Denver, Colorado. Watch Democratic and GOP analysts debate bipartisanship » . "This is not 'change we can believe in,' " Graham, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, told ABC. He said Democrats "rammed it through the House" after starting out "with the idea, 'We won -- we write the bill.' " But Obama's spokesman insisted the stimulus is a bipartisan success. Speaking to CBS' "Face the Nation," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, "We're happy that Congress, in a bipartisan way, took steps to make whatever happens in this recession easier to take for the American people." iReport.com: Share your thoughts on the stimulus plan . And on CNN's "State of the Union," Gibbs said, "I think what you saw from this president was an unprecedented effort to reach out to Republicans. Not just in meetings at the White House, but you had the president drive up to Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans where they work." McCain fired back. "Look, I appreciate the fact that the president came over and talked to Republicans," he said. "That's not how you negotiate a result. You sit down together in a room with competing proposals. Almost all of our proposals went down on a party-line vote." When the next major piece of legislation aimed at helping the economy recover reaches Congress, McCain said that he hopes "we will sit down together and conduct truly bipartisan negotiations. This was not a bipartisan bill." iReport.com: McCain's actions "totally reprehensible" McCain added, "Republicans were guilty of this kind of behavior. I'm not saying that we did things different. But Americans want us to do things differently, and they want us to work together." Gibbs described things differently. "This president has always worked in a bipartisan fashion," he told King. "He will continue to reach out to Republicans. John, we hope that Republicans will decide they want to reach back." | Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham say stimulus bill wasn't bipartisan .
Spokesman: President made "unprecedented effort to reach out to Republicans"
Congress passes $787 billion stimulus bill with support of three Republicans .
President Obama expected to sign bill on Tuesday . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "5df5a494ac6c23820e182912dff09d52c0f7e200"} | 715 | 64 | 0.541746 | 1.466973 | 1.167187 | 2.557692 | 12.192308 | 0.903846 |
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (CNN) -- When polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs appeared in a Las Vegas courtroom last August, Kathy Jo Nicholson, a former member of Jeffs' sect, felt fearful even though she was only watching him on television. Nicholson, roughly 13 years of age, is shown here with five of her sisters and two of her mothers. "It devastated me. It elated me. It made me afraid. I looked at this man that was so powerful in my life ... and he was just so thin and pale," she said. Today, as Warren Jeffs sits at Utah's Purgatory Correctional Facility awaiting trial, Nicholson has started talking publicly about her childhood in the church Jeffs led -- the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). She hopes that by sharing her story she will help others struggling with similar issues. "My hope is that they, they'll see it, and it'll mean something," the 36-year-old said. Nicholson recently co-authored an article about leaving her polygamous community for Glamour magazine and is planning to write a book as well. Jeffs, whose approximately 10,000 followers practice polygamy mainly in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, is charged in Utah with being an accomplice to rape by arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin. He faces additional charges in Arizona. Go inside Warren Jeffs' world » . As a child, Nicholson had three mothers and 12 siblings. She considers it a typical FLDS home. At the age of 14, Nicholson started sewing her wedding dress in anticipation of getting married. She knew that at any moment she could be whisked away to meet her husband and that her future likely would include at least two "sister wives." But Nicholson had doubts whether she could live the life before her. "I've always liked a lot of attention. And when it hit me that I could possibly and most likely absolutely would be sharing my husband, I began doubting that I could live that way," she said. That perspective got Nicholson in trouble at Alta Academy, the FLDS-run high school whose headmaster was Warren Jeffs. "He beat the kids there. He humiliated the kids there. And as time went on and I wasn't so devoted to being perfect and sweet, he held me up as an example and humiliated me," she said. Jeffs would force children -- Nicholson included -- to stand on a chair in front of the class and flex their buttocks muscles, according to Nicholson. She doesn't know how he came upon this particular punishment. "As I got more and more rebellious, he would come up behind me while I was in a group and seize me by the back of the neck and lean down and whisper in my ear, 'Are you keeping sweet or do you need to be punished?' " she said. Jeffs wrote a letter to Nicholson's parents saying that he was concerned about her and a friend, because "when around boys, and even younger boys, they would outwardly show their cuteness, seemingly to have the younger boys relate their cute behavior to older boys." After getting caught passing notes to a boy, Nicholson was expelled from Alta Academy. She began working in an FLDS-owned factory full of other youths who openly questioned their religion. It was a common destination for FLDS kids kicked out of high school. At 18, she eloped with a young man from within the community. Their marriage was not accepted by the FLDS or their families because they had gone outside of the church, to a justice of the peace, for the ceremony. So they packed up a U-Haul and headed toward California. "That's when I cried the very most," she said tearfully. "Because I was leaving my family, everything that I had ever known, my friends and God behind. And I was choosing it." That marriage fell apart, but in 2003 Nicholson persuaded her family to allow her brother to come live with her. He never went back. Within months, her birth mother came for a visit and she also never returned to the church. Nicholson feels fortunate she helped two relatives leave the church, but this has not been without consequence. The FLDS no longer permits Nicholson's relatives to communicate with her and she doesn't even know where the rest of her family lives. As glad as Nicholson is to see Jeffs behind bars and awaiting trial, she finds it unsettling to see a man who led the community in which she was raised now reduced to such a pathetic state. Still, she recalls a moment during Jeffs' first court appearance that showed he's not an entirely broken man. "He had the downcast look that he would have when he was very disappointed in somebody, right before he'd start a beating or whatever or give a scolding. ... And then he looked up at the camera and gave this smirk, and that was the smirk that he would give before he damned you straight to hell or gave you the beating of your life or altered a rule that would absolutely devastate your household," Nicholson said. The FLDS broke from the mainline Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, over the practice of polygamy. The Mormon church, which gave up plural marriage more than a century ago, has no ties to Jeffs' group. E-mail to a friend . | Kathy Jo Nicholson grew up in a polygamous home and community .
Polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs was the headmaster at her school .
Nicholson, who flew from the community, says Jeffs was a harsh disciplinarian . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "1a8c96ed743c04b8c42efd7a53a1d119669be655"} | 1,278 | 60 | 0.51885 | 1.68549 | 0.085341 | 1.804878 | 26.219512 | 0.829268 |
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that his country would join the strategic review of the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, right, meets with Richard Holbrooke in Kabul on February 15, 2009. Speaking at a joint news conference with visiting U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, Karzai said he is "very, very thankful" that President Barack Obama accepted his proposal to join the review. Holbrooke is visiting Afghanistan after a trip to neighboring Pakistan. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tapped Holbrooke as special representative for the two countries, a signal of how the new administration considers Afghanistan and Pakistan intertwined in any solution to the war in Afghanistan and the terrorist threat along their shared border. At the news conference in Kabul, Holbrooke said Sunday that he conveyed the administration's support of the upcoming elections on August 20, a date recently set by Afghanistan's electoral commission. "President Obama and Secretary Clinton and the United States government were very gratified to hear President Karzai reaffirm his support of the August 20 decision," Holbrooke said. Holbrooke's visit comes as Obama plans to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to fight what he's called the "central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism." In an interview on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," which aired Sunday, Karzai said that, with a resurgent Taliban, a still-flourishing drug trade and a border with Pakistan believed to be home base for al Qaeda, his country can't afford for U.S. troops to leave any time soon. "U.S. forces will not be able to leave soon in Afghanistan because the task is not over," Karzai said. "We have to defeat terrorism. We'll have to enable Afghanistan to stand on its own feet. We'll have to enable Afghanistan to be able to defend itself and protect for its security ... "Then, the United States can leave and, at that time, the Afghan people will give them plenty of flowers and gratitude and send them safely back home." At the same time, Karzai said the actions of troops currently in Afghanistan have turned some of the public against them. "It's the question of civilian causalities. It's a question of risk of Afghans. It's the question of home searches," he said. "These activities are seriously undermining the confidence of the Afghan people in the joint struggle we have against terrorism and undermining their hopeful future. "We'll continue to be a friend. We'll continue to be an ally. But Afghanistan deserves respect and a better treatment." While he said he welcomes additional U.S. troops, Karzai suggested they need to work along the Afghan-Pakistan border and in the poppy fields that fuel a drug trade that threatens to turn the nation into a narco-state -- not in the villages where most Afghans live. "We have traveled many years on. What should have happened early on didn't unfortunately happen," Karzai said. "Now, the country is not in the same mood as it was in 2002. And so any addition of troops must have a purposeful objective that the Afghan people would agree with." The Obama administration is conducting several reviews of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, including a review by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in the region. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the original mission in Afghanistan was "too broad" and needs to be more "realistic and focused" for the United States to succeed. "If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose, because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience and money," Gates said during a recent Senate hearing. He called for concrete goals that can be reached in three to five years. Speaking via satellite from Kabul, Karzai called former President George Bush "a great person," but said he can work with Obama -- despite the president's comments as a candidate that Karzai had "not gotten out of the bunker" to improve security and infrastructure in Afghanistan. "President Obama is a great inspiration to the world," he said. "The people of America have proven that they can really be the light holders for change and the will of the people in the world. "And his coming to power by the vote of the American people is a manifestation of that great power of the American people." Karzai also acknowledged corruption in the Afghan government, but defended the work he's done to combat it. "Sure, corruption in the Afghan government is as much there as in any other third world country," he said. "Suddenly this country got so much money coming from the West, suddenly so many Afghans came from all over the world to participate. Suddenly there were projects -- suddenly there were this poverty that turned into some sort form of prosperity for this country," he said. He said a government department has been created to deal with corruption and that corrupt judges, administrators and other officials are dismissed "daily" over corruption charges. | Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his country will help review of war on terrorism .
He says U.S. forces shouldn't leave Afghanistan soon since task is not over .
Karzai says civilian causalities, home searches have soured public support .
Karzai suggested forces should focus on poppy fields that fuel a drug trade . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "0a10d46e8d848941656352cdf58e587143896f2f"} | 1,154 | 77 | 0.50414 | 1.300635 | 0.724182 | 2.355932 | 16.576271 | 0.830508 |
(CNN) -- The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday is searching for two fishermen missing after a commercial fishing vessel went down in remote, treacherous waters off the Aleutian Islands about 1,400 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska. The fishing vessel Courageous helps search for missing men in waters off Alaska. Four of the boat's crew members were rescued and five bodies retrieved Wednesday near the Amchitka Pass, a strait that connects the Bering Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The names have been withheld pending the notification of families, a Coast Guard statement said. "What can you say?" said Jeff DeBell, chief financial officer of Katmai Fisheries, which owned the boat. He told The Associated Press, "We are devastated by what has happened. We are elated there have been survivors. We are just terribly saddened by the ones that are dead and are praying that those that are still in the water are alive." The Seattle-based company told the AP the survivors were Capt. Henry Blake and crew members Guy Schroeder, Adam Foster and Harold Attling. The search began at about 1 a.m. Wednesday when the Coast Guard received an emergency signal from the Katmai, a 93-foot fishing vessel that had been battling 50-knot winds and nearly 20-foot waves. The signal originated from a wall-mounted satellite positioning device on the Katmai that reacts when it's touched or splashed with water, Coast Guard Petty Officer Levi Read said. Watch a "Deadliest Catch" captain talk about what may have happened on the rough seas » . At about that time, another vessel, the Blue Balard, sent an e-mail to the Coast Guard saying that it received a message from the Katmai that water was flooding its rear compartment. The message also said that the vessel had lost steering. The Coast Guard tried to e-mail the Balard back but received no response, likely because the seas are remote and Internet access can be spotty, Read said. Rescuers launched a C-130, a long-range surveillance aircraft, and went straight to the scene twice Wednesday morning, Read said. The boat was nowhere in sight, but the C-130 did spot two strobe lights on top of the water, he said. By this time, the weather was treacherous and the sky was darkening, according to Read. The C-130, having found no signs of life, dropped two life rafts and headed back, he said. On the second trip, at 11 a.m., the C-130 and a Jayhawk helicopter found two strobe lights floating in the water, one attached to a survival suit and the other to the emergency device that had first alerted the Coast Guard, Read said. They also found a body, he said. "We knew the person was from the Katmai because the suit he was wearing had the name of the vessel on it," Read said. Roughly five hours later, the Coast Guard spotted four men on a life raft, all wearing survival suits. With the assistance of other vessels, the Courageous and the Patricia Lee, the bodies of four other men were recovered from the water, all wearing survival suits, Read said. The odds of someone surviving the frigid waters off Alaska's Aleutian Islands is minimal, said Read. Crews usually have survival suits that allow water to seep inside but have a mechanism that traps body heat. The search for the two remaining men began at 9:30 a.m. Alaska time Thursday, an hour before sunrise there. "You just couldn't do anything earlier," Read said. "It's darker the farther out you go, and they are really, really out there." | NEW: Survivors identified as Henry Blake, Guy Schroeder, Adam Foster, Harold Attling .
Four fishermen rescued after boat goes missing in Alaska waters .
Five bodies have been recovered; search is under way for two other fishermen .
The Katmai, a 93-foot fish vessel, hasn't been found, officials say . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "2401b95f39c201b1738143544175f5b6399429c1"} | 831 | 79 | 0.524547 | 1.465056 | 0.649316 | 2.015625 | 10.90625 | 0.796875 |
(CNN) -- An Islamic militia took over two strategic towns in Somalia Tuesday in a territory grab by the strengthening insurgency, a regional commander told CNN. Islamist fighters from Al-Shabaab group in Somalia display their flag. The al-Shabaab militia seized the cities of Bulo Marer and Quryoley from the U.N.-backed government and its Ethiopian allies. The move gives the group a strategic base in central Somalia, where it also controls Kismayo, the country's third-largest city. Al-Shabaab is an offshoot of an Islamic party that ruled much of the country in the second half of 2006 and aims to impose Islamic sharia law in Somalia. Nur Shekoy Jabril, the commander of government forces in Quryoley, said his troops withdrew from the two towns after they faced being overwhelmed by the al-Shabaab force. He said al-Shabaab forces were moving toward Merka, another major town in the region where the Untied Nations uses an air strip to fly in supplies for the World Food Programme. Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991, is in the throes of an Islamic insurgency which is battling for control of the country and the ouster of Ethiopian forces. A cease-fire between the some of the Islamic fighters and the Somali transitional government takes effect on Wednesday. The agreement was brokered by the United Nations and the African Union and signed late last month in Djibouti. It calls for Ethiopian forces -- who are supporting the transitional government forces -- to withdraw starting on November 21. It is unclear if the cease-fire will hold as it has already been rejected by Al Shabaab. Somalia's lawlessness also spilled onto the seas off the Horn of Africa, where international vessels are routinely hijacked by suspected Somali pirates who demand large ransoms. | The al-Shabaab militia seized the cities of Bulo Marer and Quryoley .
The move gives it a strategic base in central Somalia .
Al-Shabaab an offshoot of Islamic party that ruled in Somalia for much of 2006 .
The group aims to impose Islamic sharia law in Somalia . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "63ca2843721d74accb08f480df5eff6f77322a82"} | 450 | 85 | 0.651414 | 1.588137 | 1.13626 | 6.196429 | 6 | 0.946429 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- This month on the Screening Room we're turning to the wonderful world of animated films. "Shrek the Third," the latest in Dreamworks' inverted-fairytale franchise . Blockbusters like "Finding Nemo" and Dreamworks' franchise "Shrek" have turned animation into a multi-billion-dollar industry, and a market once dominated by Disney is becoming crowded with competition. This year, Pixar celebrates its 20th anniversary. From "Toy Story" to "Ratatouille," the company has transformed expectations about what's possible with animated film. Pixar's position as a world leader in animated film is largely down to John Lasseter - considered by some to be the Walt Disney for a new generation. From "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life" to "Monsters, Inc." and "Cars," the Pixar back-catalogue is a testament to his creative genius. And when Pixar merged with Disney he became one of the most powerful players in the movie business. The first Pixar production released since the merger is "Ratatouille," the story of an unlikely alliance between a blundering trainee chef and a gourmet-loving rat. "Ratatouille" director Brad Bird's credits for Pixar include the Oscar-winning feature "The Incredibles," which won critical plaudits for its ground-breaking animation. He told CNN, "I think that one of the nice things about Pixar is that they don't feel like they have discovered the secret formula to making a good movie. They just keep focused on trying to make a movie that they would want to see. We are challenged and surprised every time they work out." But while Pixar and Disney may be the giants of animation they face formidable competition from another box-office monster -- Shrek. The adventures of the world's favorite ogre have generated a total of two billion dollars in takings. Actor Mike Myers, who voices Shrek, told CNN that he thinks the movies' appeal is their unlikely hero. He said, "With 'Shrek,' they took fairytales and turned them on their heads. Everything is inverted. Traditional villains are heroes, traditional heroes are villains. The whole team decided, we're going to look at somebody who has been told he was a villain and we're going to make him a hero. That's when I knew they were on to something." The success of the Shrek franchise, supported by other big budget features such as "Madagascar," has cemented Dreamworks' position as a major force in the animated world. Another successful franchise -- "Ice Age" -- has been a hot seller for 20th Century Fox. And the polar climate has also been kind to Warner Brothers with last year's Oscar-winning "Happy Feet" charming audiences around the world with a tale of dancing penguins, while the Tom Hanks-voiced "The Polar Express" also scored well on its way to becoming a seasonal stocking-filler on DVD. The life-like motion-capture technique used in "The Polar Express" will also feature in Warner's forthcoming release, "Beowulf" featuring Angelina Jolie. But in a market dominated by 3-D CGI animations, one of the big three summer blockbusters this year belongs to a more traditional form of the art. "The Simpsons Movie" is the world's longest-running animated television series, and fans have eagerly awaited its move to the big screen. Creator Matt Groening told the Screening Room, "We've had fans clamoring for a movie for the past 18 years. We've had kids, they've grown up, they've become adults, they've become writers for the Simpsons, so we had to do a movie after all this time." So, will Springfield's most famous inhabitants break all former animation records? Groening and co. will certainly be hoping that the movie gets a box-office "Woo hoo!" from its fans. "Happy Feet" is a Warner Bros. film; Warner Bros., like CNN, is a unit of Time Warner. E-mail to a friend . | Animation is now a multi-billion-dollar industry .
Movie franchises like Shrek, Toy Story boost appeal to both adults and kids .
Dreamworks, Warner Bros target slice of Disney Pixar's success . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "197854b01841383a0cc89b28c98d003142216084"} | 975 | 53 | 0.503825 | 1.332829 | 0.853482 | 1.975 | 19.775 | 0.775 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, William Wood, said Friday that changes in communications with Afghan military forces have been made in the aftermath of a disputed U.S. air raid on an Afghan village. Civilians are overcome with emotion outside a home destroyed by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan. And despite Afghanistan's outrage over the loss of life, he said, the incident has not undermined the nations' relationship. The Afghanistan government has said that as many as 90 civilians -- including many children -- were killed in the August 22 air attack on a village in the Shindand district of Western Afghanistan. The United States had said that only seven civilians died, along with dozens of insurgents. A number of investigations into the incident are under way, including a "senior level" review by the United States. "People who are reviewing our findings have been in Afghanistan for a while, and I don't know when they will complete their review," Wood said at the State Department late Friday. "There is no American involved who doesn't feel a personal sense of pain and regret any time any civilian casualty occurs," he said. "Speaking as an official of the American government, I can say there is no one who works harder than the United States does to minimize such casualties. "I know as a matter of absolute certainty of operations that have been canceled precisely because there was a risk of civilian casualties," he added. "I think there is no question there has been what one Afghan official referred to as 'sort of a bumpy time' over this issue in the last few weeks. I think that it has never threatened the underlying relationship of confidence between our two countries and between our peoples or between our military and the people of Afghanistan. "That said, we are certainly committed to taking the steps necessary to ensure that such casualties are reduced to the absolute minimum and to working closely, even more closely, with the Afghan government to successfully carry out the military mission." The ambassador said the United States has made changes in communication between the U.S. and Afghan forces. "Steps are already not simply under way but have been taken to improve coordination," he said. U.S. and Afghanistan officials have just completed a new round in what is called the United States-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership. A joint U.S.-Afghanistan statement released Thursday referred to the attack. "The United States delegation expressed regret over the loss of any innocent civilian lives incurred during security operations," the statement said. "In response to concerns expressed by the government of Afghanistan, the United States is conducting a senior level review and assessment of the August 22 Shindand operation. In addition, both sides recognize the need for establishing a mutually agreed-upon framework and mechanism to minimize civilian casualties and to maintain the strong support of the Afghan people in fighting terrorism." | U.S. ambassador says bombing led to "bumpy time"
Afghan government says August airstrike killed 90 civilians .
U.S. says attack killed seven civilians and many insurgents .
Incident hasn't threatened nations' relationship, ambassador says . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "0f6e7c544db5d38bd510f30a8eeebadf5a5aa980"} | 639 | 64 | 0.50457 | 1.253414 | 1.050831 | 1.209302 | 12.883721 | 0.790698 |
(CNN) -- Sudan's government and rebels from its troubled Darfur region signed a confidence-building agreement Tuesday in Qatar, a step toward ending a six-year conflict that has killed about 300,000 people, the emirate's state news agency reported. A member of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) stands guard near the Sudan-Chad border in 2007. Detailed talks between the government and the Justice and Equality Movement are scheduled to begin in two weeks after Tuesday's signing, Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabr al-Thani, Qatar's prime minister, told the SUNA news agency. Roger Middleton, an Africa specialist at the British think-tank Chatham House, said Tuesday's agreement deals mostly with prisoner releases. But he said the two parties' decision to hold further talks "is an important move forward, which there hasn't necessarily been in the past." "It is certainly a step in the right direction," he said. "But a lot more needs to be done if we're going to see a full cessation of fighting in Darfur." Other rebel groups are not included in the pact, and "many, many things" could cause the talks to fail, he said. "It is a start, but it's very fragile, and we mustn't get overexcited just yet," Middleton said. In November, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir agreed to an immediate, unconditional cease-fire in Darfur, but JEM was not included in the talks. Sudan's Culture Minister Amin Hassan Omar and Jibril Ibrahim, a top rebel official, signed Tuesday's agreement. Qatar has been mediating talks between the two sides in the Darfur conflict, which erupted in 2003 after rebels began an uprising against the Khartoum government. The government launched a brutal counter-insurgency campaign, aided by government-backed Arab militias that went from village to village in Darfur, killing, torturing and raping residents, according to the United Nations, Western governments and human rights organizations. Al-Bashir is under pressure to end the fighting, particularly because he was charged with genocide by the International Criminal Court last year for the government's campaign of violence in Darfur. In the past six years, an estimated 300,000 people have been killed through direct combat, disease or malnutrition, the United Nations says. An additional 2.7 million people fled their homes because of fighting among rebels, government forces and allied militias. | NEW: Sudanese government, Darfur rebel group sign confidence-building deal .
NEW: Government, Justice and Equality Movement holding further talks in two weeks .
NEW: Analyst calls agreement "first step in the right direction"
Around 300,000 people estimated to have died in six-year conflict . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f6637a6c30e7175aa86490edc177f8409d00c57d"} | 576 | 66 | 0.462211 | 1.376922 | 0.699016 | 1.706897 | 8.051724 | 0.672414 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The first child in Britain known to have been screened as an embryo to ensure she did not carry a cancer gene was born Friday, a spokesman for University College London told CNN. Genetic screening allows lab-fertilized embryos to be tested for genes likely to lead to later health problems. Her embryo was screened in a lab days after conception to check for the BRCA-1 gene, linked to breast and ovarian cancer. People with the gene are known to have a 50-80 percent chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer in their lifetimes. British newspapers have dubbed the girl the "cancer-free" baby. "This little girl will not face the specter of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life," said Paul Serhal, a consultant at University College London Hospital and Medical Director of the Assisted Conception Unit. "The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations." Yet not everyone is thrilled with the idea of testing embryos for genes that could cause health problems later in life, a process known as preimplanatation genetic diagnosis. "This is not a cure for breast cancer," said Josephine Quintavalle, co-founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, which describes itself as group that focuses on ethical dilemmas related to reproduction. What do you think about testing embryos for gene defects? "This is simply a mechanism for eliminating the birth of anybody (prone to) the disease," she said. "It is basically a search-and-kill mechanism." She opposes the procedure because embryos found to carry disease-causing genes often are discarded. She says that is essentially murder. "They will be destroyed," she said. "They will never be allowed to live." Doctors in Britain and elsewhere increasingly test embryos for genes that are certain to cause illnesses such as cystic fibrosis or Huntington's Disease. What's different about the girl born Friday is that she is the first infant known to have been tested in Britain as an embryo for a gene that is merely likely -- not certain -- to cause disease. In the United States, geneticists are free to test for any condition for which they can develop a probe -- and they're free to look for genes that are certain to cause diseases as well as genes that merely may pose problems later in life. Quintavalle opposes any form of in-vitro fertilization where embryos are "killed," she said. But she is particularly troubled by the idea of screening an embryo for the BRCA-1 gene because carriers of the gene do not always develop the disease, and the disease is not always fatal. "The message we are sending is: 'Better off dead than carrying (a gene linked to) breast cancer,'" she said. "We have gone very much down the proverbial slippery slope." Peter Braude, one of the top British experts on the genetic testing of embryos, said he understands the ethical objections but focuses on the benefits. "There has always been a vociferous group in opposition," he said. But "there are people who can benefit and I think they should be allowed to do so." In fact, he argues that the procedure actually prevents abortions because it takes place on a three-day old embryo in a lab. Only embryos that lack the defective gene are implanted. "I don't think you can equate eight cells in a dish to an embryo or a child," said Braude, head of the department of women's health at the King's College London School of Medicine. For many couples, the alternative to testing an embryo is to conceive a child naturally and test the fetus weeks or months into a pregnancy. Some couples opt for an abortion when such testing reveals a defect. Diagnosing an embryo genetically typically involves fertilizing an egg with a sperm in a lab, testing the resulting embryo and implanting it in the mother if no defects are found. Braude agrees that testing for diseases that may not be fatal -- or may not manifest themselves for decades -- raises thorny ethical questions. "How serious does it have to be before you throw away an embryo?" he asked. "Are you prepared to throw away a 16-week embryo for Huntington's, which will not manifest until age 40?" In Britain, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority determines the conditions for which geneticists can test. It has approved testing for more than 60 conditions since it was established in 1990. The authority approved testing for the BRCA-1 gene in 2008. Dr. Mark Hughes, who founded a genetics clinic in the United States, said he likes the idea of an authority that regulates what tests can be performed -- the system in place in Britain -- but believes that parents who want to test for genetic abnormalities should be allowed to do so. At his Genesis Genetics Institute in Detroit, Michigan, Hughes carries out about two tests a month for BRCA-1 or BRCA-2, a related gene. "The couple is the best one to be making these decisions, because they live with these diseases," he said. "When it hits your family over and over again, many couples are saying: 'Enough of this. Let's prune this out of our family tree forever.'" He rejects the notion that parents will use genetic testing to remove all imperfections from children. "You can get up on your high horse and say people are looking for perfect children, but let's give these families more credit," he said. "They just want one that has a fighting chance of not having a disease." Hughes said he doubts genetic screening will ever be used to test all babies. That's partly because it costs the equivalent of about $11,755 -- 8,000 British pounds -- to screen embryos. It's also because the process is very complex. "It's gotten easier to do now than it was 19 years ago," when Hughes did his first test for cystic fibrosis, he said. "But it has not exploded, not burst onto the medical field like some technologies do. "No one would use these technologies for a trivial reason. It's too much effort," he said. "Not just the money -- it's so many hoops to jump through for a couple that would prefer to make their baby on vacation rather than in a clinic." | "Cancer-free baby" born; baby girl is first in UK to be screened for cancer gene .
Embryo was screened to check she didn't carry gene linked to breast, ovarian cancer .
Ethicists criticize screening for genes that could cause later health problems .
Doctors say cost of screening makes it unlikely all embryos will ever be tested . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "7291796705735c70ebc81b0ad333f16839f2c728"} | 1,465 | 86 | 0.559326 | 1.535565 | 1.238692 | 2 | 18.5 | 0.852941 |
(CNN) -- Legendary singer/songwriter Aretha Franklin sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at the inauguration Tuesday. Aretha Franklin says cold weather affected her voice during her performance at the inauguration on Tuesday. CNN's Larry King talks with "The Queen of Soul" about the reality of the nation's first black president, singing at the inauguration and the much-talked-about hat she wore. Larry King: Where'd you get that hat? Aretha Franklin: Well, I bought it at a little millinery that I frequent out in Detroit. King: What was that like for you (Tuesday)? Franklin: Oh. What a tremendous, mammoth morning, evening, the ball, everything, from one event to the other, was just too much. King: How did you find out you were singing? Franklin: My agent called me and he told me that he had received an invitation and a telephone call, asking for my presence and performance at the swearing-in and the inauguration. King: Did you choose the song? Franklin: Yes, I did. King: Is that a tough song to sing? Franklin: No, not at all, but (Tuesday) it was. Mainly because of the temperature outside. I don't have to tell you, it was freezing, if you were there. Some singers it doesn't bother, and others it does. I don't care for it. It affected my voice. Watch Franklin sing at inauguration » . King: You sang at Martin Luther King's funeral. What do you remember about that? Franklin: There were very, very long lines, of course. I recall walking in the street behind the bier, somewhere maybe about 200, 300 feet from the bier, I think. I recall Leontyne Price being there, as well as Eartha Kitt. They shuttled us from one point to the other. The passing of a great man was at hand. King: How did you feel yesterday about seeing a young black man elected president? Franklin: Oh boy, how do you put it into words? There's a love affair going on with the country and Barack. I think it's the age of Barack. People have just fallen head over heels in love with him. His ascent to the presidency was miraculous. But we have to remember that he's not going to work miracles right off the top. It's going to take time. Watch Franklin discuss joy of seeing nation's first black president » . (There's) a lot of problems, and there's a plethora of things to deal with for he and his administration. King: One thing, with your magnificent voice, is it hard to sing outdoors? Franklin: It depends on the temperature. Yesterday, Mother Nature was not very kind to me. I'm going to deal with her when I get home. It, by no means, was my standard. I was not happy with it, but I just feel blessed because it could have been five above zero or five below zero like it is in Detroit. I was still blessed to be able to pretty much just sing the melody, but I wasn't happy with it, of course. King: It was great to listen to. Franklin: I was delighted and thrilled to be there. That was the most important thing, not so much the performance, but just to be there and to see this great man go into office -- the promise of tomorrow coming to pass. | Aretha Franklin: Cold weather affected rendition of "My Country 'Tis of Thee"
Franklin on Obama presidency: "It's the age of Barack"
Franklin says she bought much-talked-about inauguration hat at Detroit millinery . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "369f23c601eb404faf7e0a41ef5bb537e02ebed2"} | 769 | 58 | 0.554645 | 1.556567 | 1.034223 | 3.521739 | 14.913043 | 0.913043 |
MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- An Indian official said the coordinated terrorist attacks that killed at least 183 people in nine sites across Mumbai this week could have been much worse. An Indian soldier carries his rifle outside the Taj Mahal Hotel on Saturday in Mumbai, India. "We found bullets with them, hand grenades, bombs," R.R. Patil, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state, said at a news conference. "Based on our investigation, we believe they had planned to kill 5,000 people." Indian authorities also were investigating whether some of the attackers may have gotten away, blending into Mumbai's 18 million residents. Another top official at the news conference pointed to a connection with Pakistan. "Yes, the captured terrorist was Pakistani, as the home minister and others have said," said Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located. "As far as the others, the accomplices, the investigation, the interrogation is under way and the details will become public very soon." Police and soldiers continued their room-by-room sweep of the Taj Mahal Hotel late Saturday to make sure all trapped guests had been evacuated and no gunmen remained hidden. Watch the destruction left at the hotel » . Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari pledged his country's full cooperation with the investigation and vowed to take "the strictest action" if it is found the terrorists were based in Pakistan. Investigators probing the attacks said they found cell phones and a global navigational device on an abandoned boat floating off the coast of Mumbai, CNN's sister station CNN-IBN reported. The television station showed photographs of a phone's log that indicated calls had been placed to Pakistan. The boat, intelligence officials told CNN-IBN, had been hijacked. The captain was found dead, lying face down with his hands bound behind his back. Four crew members were missing. Zardari -- whose wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated a year ago -- said he was "as committed as can be" to wiping out the terrorists because they also threaten him and his country. Watch Mumbai's history of violence » . "They may not be the same individuals, but they are definitely the same forces with the same mindset." Zardari said Pakistan's cooperation with Indian investigators will be present "without any hesitation whatsoever." "As the president of Pakistan, let me assure you, if any evidence points to any individual or group in my part of the country, I shall take the strictest of action in light of the evidence and in front of the world." Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, vowed Saturday to take action against any group within its borders if it is found to be involved with the attacks. "The Indian leadership has not blamed the government of Pakistan; please be very clear on that," he said. "What we have said is, if we have information, if they (India) have evidence, they should share it with us. As far as the government of Pakistan is concerned, terrorism is terrorism and we do not qualify it nor do we differentiate between organizations." President Bush, returning to Washington on Saturday from a Thanksgiving break at Camp David, Maryland, extended condolences and support to the Indian people and government. "The killers that struck this week are brutal and violent. But terror will not have the final word," Bush said on the south lawn of the White House. "The people of India are resilient, the people of India are strong. They've built a vibrant, multi-ethnic democracy that can withstand this trial." "As the people of the world's largest democracy recover from these attacks, they can count on the world's oldest democracy to stand by their side," he added. Meanwhile, security forces at the Taj hotel, the site of the terrorists' final stand, carried out a series of controlled explosions Saturday afternoon to defuse explosives they came across as they combed through the 565 rooms of the Victorian structure. Read more about those killed in the terror attacks . J.K. Dutt, director-general of the National Security Guard, told a throng of reporters that security forces had killed three gunmen during the mission to clear the Taj hotel, but officials were not ready to declare the operation over until they finished their room-by-room search. Watch survivor say gunmen were targeting Britons and Americans » . Dutt appealed to guests who may be hiding in their rooms to open their window curtains to signal their presence to security officials. The hotel was secured Saturday morning. Minutes earlier, a fire -- which Dutt said had been set by the terrorists as a diversionary tactic -- swept through the ground floor of the 105-year-old building and coincided with an end to rifle fire. The blaze was quickly brought under control. Learn more about the hotel's history and future » . Meanwhile thousands gathered at the city's largest park, Shivaji Park, to say farewell to Hemant Karkare, the head of Mumbai's antiterrorism squad. Karkare was shot three times by gunmen outside the Cama Hospital, one of nine sites the attackers targeted Wednesday night. He was one of at least 17 police officers who died in the attacks. By Saturday evening the death toll from the attacks reached at least 183, federal officials said. State officials are reviewing the higher toll of 195 they released earlier. An additional 300 people were wounded, including 23 foreigners, said Vandana Pawar, a Mumbai disaster management official. The official death toll does not include the at least 11 gunmen killed. The toll is expected to rise as authorities count the casualties inside the Taj Mahal Hotel, whose burned-out lobby was littered with shards of glass. Watch victim speak about ordeal » . Indian officials found five bodies of hostages who had been held inside the Chabad House, a Jewish community center. The dead included an American rabbi, his Israeli wife, a second American rabbi and two other people. Two gunmen were also killed. At the Oberoi Hotel -- another luxury hotel where gunmen took hostages before they were killed -- 36 people were found dead, according to Bhushan Gagrani, a state official for Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located. "We were in there for 36 hours in our room," said Vinka Clemmett, one of the survivors of the Oberoi attack. "We heard the first explosion ... kind of a big silver tray had dropped on the floor. And then about five minutes later, (we) heard the shooting, and it just went on and on. And my first reaction was, 'Oh, God forgive them,' because I knew that people were being killed. It was just obvious that something terrible was happening." A UK security source told CNN that officials were investigating why two bodies believed to be those of terrorists were found with British identification documents. He said another gunman was captured alive. Watch a timeline of the attacks » . The gunmen were in their 20s and appeared well-trained, a member of the Indian navy's commando unit said. Police say boats took the men to Mumbai's waterfront near the Gateway of India monument, near the Taj hotel. Officials said the men had prepared for months, setting up "control rooms" in the two hotels. Indian authorities said no one had claimed responsibility, although a group calling itself Deccan Mujahideen said in e-mails to Indian news outlets that it was behind the attack. CNN's Andrew Stevens, Mallika Kapur, Harmeet Shah Singh, Saeed Ahmed, Sara Sidner, Alessio Vinci, Reza Sayah and Paula Newton contributed to this report. | NEW: Terrorists armed with grenades, bombs, official says .
NEW: India's democracy 'can withstand this trial,' President Bush says .
Officials link boat floating off Mumbai to attacks; calls placed to Pakistan .
At least 183 killed during attacks, according to federal officials . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "7af5a8125182334810e23eb2da393e7f7333f3b6"} | 1,731 | 72 | 0.417203 | 1.237288 | 0.688437 | 1.824561 | 25.877193 | 0.807018 |
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- The political crisis that has gripped Zimbabwe for nearly a year may be drawing to an end, but a deadly cholera outbreak there is only getting worse. Zimbabweans walk through mounds of garbage. Lack of sanitation and clean water make cholera spread. The newly formed cabinet of Zimbabwe's unity government met for the first time Tuesday, the same day that Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) released a report warning that the epidemic shows no signs of slowing. The outbreak -- one of the world's largest, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) -- is only getting worse, and could be a stepping-stone to other epidemics and health crises, international agencies say. Since August, at least 3,623 people have died and 76,127 people have been infected by cholera, a preventable water-borne bacterial illness that causes severe diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration and can lead to death in a matter of days if not treated. According to a report released Tuesday by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), new cholera patients were being registered at a rate of one every minute at the beginning of February in Zimbabwe. Unless urgent action is taken, the aid group said, the country could see a worsening of the "massive medical emergency that is spiraling out of control," MSF President Dr. Christophe Fournier told CNN Tuesday after his latest visit to Zimbabwe. MSF says the response from the international community to the crisis has been slow and inadequate, and it called on donors to put aside politics and send help immediately. The cholera epidemic has been left to fester as the Zimbabwean government grappled with questionable elections, opposition charges of fraud, power-sharing talks and the creation of a unity government in the last year. During that time, the country's economy and infrastructure imploded, with sanitation systems and garbage collection becoming virtually non-existent. "The reasons for the (cholera) outbreak are clear: lack of access to clean water, burst and blocked sewage systems, and uncollected refuse overflowing in the streets, all clear symptoms of the breakdown in infrastructure resulting from Zimbabwe's political and economic meltdown," the MSF report said. The disease is contracted "by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the cholera bacterium," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on its Web site. "In an epidemic, the source of the contamination is usually the feces of an infected person," the CDC said. "The disease can spread rapidly in areas with inadequate treatment of sewage and drinking water." Making matters worse, flooding from the rainy season -- which began in November -- is spreading the bacteria through swollen streams and rivers. Cholera cases have now been reported in all of the country's provinces, the MSF report said. Exacerbating the epidemic is the current economic crisis, which has caused the health care system to nearly grind to a halt. "I've seen many health services being down like this in my life as an MSF doctor, but only in this country have I seen this kind of collapse of the public health care system in the absence of any conflict," Fournier said. He said most of the country's public hospitals or clinics are either closed or empty, and the ones that are open face critical shortages of drugs and medical equipment. "A huge part of the medical staff is not showing up because they are unpaid and on top of that, the patients, when finally accessing one opened facility, are asked for totally indecent amounts of money only to be seen and then an extra amount of money for their treatment," Fournier added. Many patients can't afford to pay and don't even bother to seek treatment, he said. MSF believes cholera may be just the beginning of a nightmare health crisis in the southern African country. "The current food shortages make us fear of further malnutrition among the most vulnerable, starting with the under (age) five children, where any kind of infectious epidemic can start at any moment after this current cholera epidemic," Fournier explained. MSF currently has more than 500 staff members working in Zimbabwe to battle the outbreak. The organization is calling on the government to remove barriers that are slowing the MSF response to the crisis. "Despite the glaring humanitarian needs, the government of Zimbabwe continues to exert rigid control over aid organizations. MSF faces restrictions in implementing medical assessments and interventions," the group's report said. "The Zimbabwean government must facilitate independent assessments of need, guarantee that aid agencies can work wherever needs are identified and ease bureaucratic restrictions so that programs can be staffed properly and drugs procured quickly," the report said. Manuel Lopez, the chief of MSF's mission in Zimbabwe, said the cost of importing medicine is often higher than the cost of the drugs themselves. High fees for visas and work permits for staff are also impeding operations, he said. And it often takes months to get permission for MSF specialists to operate inside the country, Lopez explained, with some eventually being turned down. | Doctors without Borders report says cholera crisis shows no signs of slowing .
Aid agencies say it could be lead to other epidemics and health crises .
No sanitation or clean water, piles of garbage help spread disease .
Epidemic has been left to fester due to Zimbabwe political wrangling . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "e599cf8a991bda9abf12816ebeeaa08a62f8cd86"} | 1,137 | 71 | 0.577785 | 1.566316 | 1.204487 | 2.745455 | 17.672727 | 0.890909 |
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Eight police personnel were killed in an early-morning attack Saturday on a police security checkpoint in Pakistan's Punjab province, a police official said. The attack happened at 3:30 a.m. Saturday (2230 GMT Friday). Some personnel were asleep in the checkpost guard quarters and others were standing guard when unknown militants attacked the checkpost from their vehicle, a police official from the Mianwali district of the province said. All the men were killed by gunfire. The attackers then blew up the checkpost with explosives, the police official said. The checkpoint was part of the NATO supply routes transporting goods from the port city of Karachi through Pakistan's northwestern region and tribal areas into Afghanistan. Police told CNN that an attack a few days ago also targeted a checkpoint in the Mianwali district. Rocket fire damaged the top level of building but no one was killed in the attack. | Early-morning attack results in death of eight police personnel .
All men killed by gunfire -- attackers then blew up checkpost with explosives .
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HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Bamboo, woven into the shape of human stomachs. Red, sky blue and orange pencil shavings glued onto a large canvas form a woman's traditional hair clip. A collage of magazine clippings, drawings and found materials depict Cambodia's tumultuous modern history. Leang Seckon's "Prison Guard" depicts Duch, who is facing a genocide tribunal starting Tuesday. These are a few of the offerings on hand in Hong Kong at one of the first large international exhibitions of artists from Cambodia. The work by 14 artists varies in practice-- video, photography, collage, wood shavings, paper, bamboo and painting-- as well as in themes, from reflecting on the Southeast Asian nation's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime to the emerging modern Cambodia, with traffic lights and all. "Every artist in this show is referencing ancient tradition and recent history," said Phnom Penh-based curator Erin Gleeson, noting the wall-size depiction in folded paper of the serpent Naga (which in Cambodian culture represents the people's mythical birth) to a collage of 20th-century Cambodia and its six different regime changes. "The show is looking at the present -- 'Forever Until Now' is the title -- and it is this lineage of the past, you see that in the show, and then you see artists that arrive at the present," she added. The show opens Friday and runs through March 22 at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery. Gallery owner and director Katie de Tilly said she believed it was important the artists get international exposure. " ... it's really at the beginning of their art emergence. Obviously, they've had a very hard history," she said. "This is really the beginning of contemporary Cambodians who are expressing very original ideas in their artworks and I think that that's what makes it very unique and to show to the rest of the world." Cambodia, which lost an estimated one-quarter of its population or at least 1.7 million people -- including an estimated 90 percent of its artists -- under the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime, has a small but growing artistic community: there are some 50 practicing artists out of its 14 million people, Gleeson said. The genocide and ensuing war, which only ended in the last decade or so, stifled the development of the arts in one of the world's poorest countries. "The legacy of that is now in every facet of a developing society," said Gleeson, who noted the country had no art books when she arrived in 2002 on a fellowship to teach art history. "There's an absence of infrastructure for them, there's an absence of materials, there is no art store. ... they are quite inventive about mixing materials to make them of a higher quality or last longer, but in many cases they don't know archival techniques." The harsh weather conditions -- a dusty, hot season and a rainy monsoon -- add to the trying work conditions. "Everything's against them," she added. "Their parents in many cases are coming from a really disadvantaged background, as the majority of the country is economically." Some of the art included in the show looks at the Cambodia of today, such as Leang Seckon's "Three Greens" -- an acrylic painting showing children in school uniform crossing a road with a yellow light, red light and three green lights, along with cows and roosters. The piece shows the changes in a country that recently got stop lights, with animals, people and traffic mingling on the main roads of the capital. Sopheap Pich, a Cambodian-American whose family migrated to the U.S. in 1984, works with bamboo and rattan -- materials often used in Cambodian traditional farming and crafts -- to make sculptures. His work, "Cycle 2," is the joining of the stomachs of an infant and an elderly person that for him brought up ideas of Cambodian traditional village life. "You belong to each other, you help each other out," he said. "But also, if you look at the lines and you see how it's shaped by hand, it's not very perfect, so it's also about struggle... "You could say it's a cycle of trying to hold onto each other, now we are living everywhere in the world, Cambodians are all over the planet," he added. "All this technique and pattern that I am quite obsessed with ... it's about this idea of trying to hold on with very simple means." Chan Dany, a 25-year-old artist who graduated from one of the country's three art schools, creates textured patterns that appear almost like tapestry using pencil shavings in various colors. The works on display in the show are from a series based on Cambodian architectural decor, such as door and window shutter carvings, and include ancient Khmer forms whose shapes are derived from nature. "When I started learning art, the teacher introduced a lot of new ways of making art, new ideas that were very difficult for me, so I had to think a lot," he said through a translator. "So then I looked around at what my classmates were doing and I started to think about what they weren't using for their work, so I started to collect the things that they didn't use when they were making art and started to think about my way of making art using those materials." "I like the first piece I did (using the pencil shaving technique) because I had never done it this way before and since then I kept on making it," he said. The younger artists "seem to be expressing something more fresh," while the work by artists from the older generation is "much more heavy," de Tilly said. Some of the works of the Khmer Rouge period include a painting by Vann Nath, one of seven people to survive the regime's infamous S-21 torture prison. His painting, "Pray for Peace," depicts women wearing traditional Cambodian funeral scarves praying en masse under troubled skies by stormy seas. Another work, Leang's "Prison Guard," tells the life of Duch, a former teacher who ran S-21 and goes on trial Tuesday before a U.N.-backed tribunal on charges that include crimes against humanity. The art scene has been growing slowly in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh over the last few years: Sopheap started a group to promote contemporary Cambodian art practices and two art institutes offer programs apart from the Royal University of Fine Arts. One factor that has also made Cambodian contemporary artists different from their counterparts, for example in neighboring Vietnam, has been the lack of outside influence, such as was the case with Chinese contemporary art 30 years ago, de Tilly said. "Cambodia still is very much influenced by itself and so the development is happening on a slower pace but as well very interesting," she said. "They seem to not have as much international exposure to materials, magazines, publications, so you really do feel -- it was the same just after the Cultural Revolution in China -- that they didn't have exposure to many publications and things, and so their art was developing at that moment in time." " ... it's very interesting to document it and see what's going to happen in the future," she said. Part of the exhibit will be shown at another of the gallery's venues in Hong Kong and will run through April 25. | Fourteen artists, ranging in age and practice, displaying their works .
One work depicts Duch, a former Khmer Rouge leader facing genocide tribunal .
Cambodia's arts were stunted by the 1970s genocide and civil war .
Some 50 artists now practicing their craft in the Southeast Asian country . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "65029e0d677a79ed0c3f3fdf91ed346bc44910e5"} | 1,667 | 73 | 0.49498 | 1.450112 | 1.191798 | 1.214286 | 25.75 | 0.785714 |
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Turkey launched another round of airstrikes against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq on Sunday, an Iraqi official said. File photo from 2007 of Kurdistan Workers Party fighters at the Mahsun Korkmaz Academy in Northern Iraq. Turkish warplanes and artillery units bombed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions in villages near Amadi in Iraq's Duhuk Province, a provincial security official told CNN. The official said the Turkish military operation started at 5:30 p.m. and lasted an hour and a half. There were no reports of casualties. Turkey said it was the sixth time in the past week it attacked the PKK in response to clashes that left at least 15 Turkish troops dead in the Turkey-Iraq border region last weekend. The central Iraqi government has labeled the PKK a terrorist organization, banning its activities and closing its offices in the country two years ago. The United States and the European Union also consider the PKK a terrorist group. It was the second round of Turkish strikes on northern Iraq this weekend. Late Friday and early Saturday, Turkish warplanes hit 31 targets in the Hakurk region of northern Iraq before returning. They "successfully completed the operation [and] safely returned to their bases," the Turkish military said. A spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Security Forces said Turkish warplanes and artillery units bombed the region from around 11 p.m. Friday until 1 a.m. Saturday. The spokesman, Jabbar Yawer, said there were no reports of casualties. Turkish artillery shells also hit border villages in the Zakho area, targeting PKK positions for about an hour on Saturday afternoon, Yawer said. Though the Iraqi government opposes the PKK, the organization continues to operate in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq bordering Turkey and Iran. The separatist faction has been fighting for self-rule in southeastern Turkey. The Iraqi Kurdish Regional Security Forces provide security for Iraq's Kurdish regional government. CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report. | Turkish military bombs Kurdistan Workers Party positions in Iraq's Duhuk Province .
No casualties reported in second Turkish incursion into PKK territory this weekend .
Strikes follow clashes last weekend that killed 15 Turkish troops in border region .
Iraqi government, United States, European Union consider PKK a terrorist group . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "75c8898204f01e677486bf85b3333384a76dd78f"} | 490 | 76 | 0.625082 | 1.465881 | 1.143225 | 1.947368 | 6.438596 | 0.824561 |
PHOENIX, Arizona (CNN) -- It was supposed to be just another day at work. Job losses suffered by Linda and Chris Metzger have had a ripple effect on other businesses in their community . In early March 2008, 31-year-old Linda Metzger went to the New York office where she had worked as an assistant vice president in the marketing department at Lehman Brothers for about a year. Only 15 minutes into her work day, Metzger was called into her manager's office, where a representative from human resources was waiting. "They told me that the company was having economic difficulties and that they had to make budget cuts," Metzger said. "They were afraid that they were going to have to let me go and that it was not due to performance." Metzger says that would be her last day at Lehman Brothers. She was given some time to collect her composure, gather her belongings and head home. She was out of a $90,000-a-year job and was getting married in three months. Metzger says it was a chance for her and her fiancé to refocus, relocate and start a new life. Within a few weeks, they both found jobs near Phoenix, Arizona, earning close to what they were making in New York. They bought a home and two new cars and got married. But the good feelings suddenly and dramatically ended in October when Metzger, who was four months pregnant, showed up to work at Lumension, where she was a marketing manager. Metzger says she was called into the office, and it happened again. She was laid off from her second job in less than a year. Watch Linda talk about getting laid off » . "I was so overwhelmed and so shocked that I just immediately burst into tears." She thought about how she and her new husband, who had just moved across the country, were going to be able to afford their new life and all the bills that came with it. A week later, Chris Metzger was called into his manager's office at the job placement agency where he worked. He was told that because of the economy, his office was closing, and he was out of a job. Now he had to break the news to his wife. "I just came home, and she was upstairs," Chris Metzger said. He tried to find the best way to tell his wife that they no longer had an income. "I walked upstairs, I gave her a hug, and I said, 'I lost my job today.' " "I immediately fell to the floor and just started crying," Linda said. Within 10 days, Chris was able to find a new job, but Linda had no such luck. The economy was taking its toll, and very few companies were hiring. They looked at their budget and started to eliminate all the extras, including dining out and gym memberships. Vacations were put on hold; furniture purchases had to wait; fine meals out were now home-cooked meals. The Metzgers' story is playing out all across America as businesses and communities feel the ripple effect of the recession . "When jobs get lost, demand falls for a whole bunch of businesses. You're not going to buy new shoes; you're going to put new soles on them," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, an independent group that studies recessions. Restaurants where the Metzgers used to dine are now closed. The furniture store where they hoped to fill their home is having a liquidation sale and is closing in three weeks. "You've pulled back from all your spending except paying your mortgage and putting food on the table," Achuthan said. It's a sign of the times. A drive down the Phoenix streets and strip malls are filled with vacant office space . Chris and Linda Metzger are expecting their first child in April. This month, they had to decide between making an expensive COBRA insurance payment or the mortgage payment, and they may have to start asking family for help. Despite her education and work experience, Linda Metzger says she is hoping she can start a genealogy business. She just doesn't feel good about jumping back into the work force after her baby is born. "I am feeling a little burnt -- sorry, very burnt by corporate America." | Phoenix, Arizona, couple lost three jobs in one year .
Restaurants, stores where they spent money are closing .
Economist says when a job is lost, demand falls for many businesses . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "751a7a20d45a6671c53be7a852039c84dbc89fcf"} | 948 | 44 | 0.387015 | 1.11417 | 0.483994 | 1.815789 | 22.236842 | 0.763158 |
(CNN) -- The only thing Venus Williams treasures more than winning is a decent nap. Venus Williams knocks Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova out of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships on February 17, 2009. Just before a match, when other top tennis players might be psyching themselves up for a three-set onslaught, the elder of the Williams sisters can be found somewhere private, snoozing. "I'm always sleepy," she told CNN in an interview for this month's edition of "Revealed." "I'm literally taking a nap during the first set and the match before me, so I'm probably the only person that can go to sleep, come out 15 minutes later and start playing." Wary of sending the wrong signals to her rivals, the sixth seed confessed to CNN that she prefers to take her naps in private. "I'm wondering if my competitor is going to see me here, so I try to act like I'm not asleep, but I am asleep, or I try to find a place where I can sleep in and no one will see me," she laughs. The lightning-fast speed of Venus' serve is at complete odds with her personality. She is strong, ambitious and determined, but also surprisingly laid-back for someone whose professional career is about playing harder, longer and faster. "I just always go with the flow," she told CNN. "On the court, that's when I get most intense. In practice, I scream and yell and threaten to throw my racquet but in the match I'm not like that at all." Her younger sister, world number one Serena, sounds almost envious of Venus' ability to keep her emotions in check. "Venus is really, really unusually composed and that's just her style," Serena told CNN. "On the court she's always really focused. She always has this quiet tenacity and she never really shows her emotions which I think is good." The youngest of five sisters, Serena says she continues to draw inspiration from her closest sibling. Venus is just 15 months older than Serena. She set the marker for success in 2002 when she became the first of the sisters to become world number one. Serena first took the title in July of the same year and reclaimed it earlier this month. "She's my bigger sister, she's my older sister, she's a role model for me," Serena said. "I'm always trying to do what she does. If she's going on the right path then I'm going on the right path too. If she's working hard then I want to work hard also. I'm the little sister who wants to be just like the big sister," she added. If they once struggled to find the required ruthlessness to eliminate each other from a competition, it is clearly no longer a problem. Of 18 matches they have contested, each sister has won nine. At the time of writing, there is every chance they will meet again this week in the semi-final of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. They last clashed at the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha in November 2008 when Venus dispatched Serena in three hard-fought sets before going on to win her first end of season title. Asked after the match about accusations they don't play as hard against each other as they would normal rivals, Venus replied, "You have to play hard against a Williams or you are going home quickly. We try our hardest and I think that everyone knows that by the effort level." Their mother, Oracene Price, told CNN she keeps her advice on the subject simple. "I just tell them to remember they are sisters and how love and how to care for one another is more important than anything," she said. "So, this is just a game and eventually it would be over and you will have to live with each other. So, just go out there and do your best and whoever wins, wins. And whoever loses, better luck next time." Having said that, Price admits she keeps her distance from whoever comes out second best, in any match. "They don't want to be talked to, they don't want you telling them anything, they just want to be left alone and that's what I do," she told CNN. There is no need for tip-toeing today. Venus made fast work of Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, beating the 17-year-old 6-0, 6-1 in less than one hour in the second round of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. Venus told CNN her ambition this year is to topple Serena to become the world number one. "I think I am in a great position to do that," she said. Watch Venus Williams on Revealed this week at the times below: . ALL TIMES GMT Wednesday, February 18: 0930, 1830 Saturday, February 21: 0830, 1900 Sunday, February 22: 0530, 1830 Monday, February 23: 0400 . | Venus Williams admits she's always sleepy, likes to nap before a match .
The sixth seed is playing in the Dubai Tennis Championships this week .
Venus aims to topple sister Serena to become world number one in 2009 .
Watch Venus Williams on Revealed this week at the times below . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "28e35b68caf037877b527d723704215db796acf6"} | 1,125 | 72 | 0.478526 | 1.260599 | 1.051021 | 3.649123 | 17.263158 | 0.912281 |
(CNN) -- The U.S. Senate gave final approval Friday to a $787 billion recovery package that President Obama hopes will help boost an economy in freefall with a combination of government spending and tax cuts and credits. Sen. Sherrod Brown speaks to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at right on the Senate floor Friday. Approved earlier by the House, the plan -- which went through multiple permutations as it bounced back and forth on Capitol Hill over the past week -- now goes to Obama's desk, where he plans to sign it into law by Presidents Day. Spending in the package includes about $120 billion for infrastructure -- new projects repairing bridges, roads, government buildings and the like -- more than $100 billion for education and $30 billion on energy-related projects that Obama says will create "green jobs." More than $212 billion goes to tax breaks for individuals and businesses, and another $267 billion is in direct spending like food stamps and unemployment benefits. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that the plan will create between 1 million and 3 million jobs. Most individuals will get a $400 tax credit, and couples will get $800. The vote by the Senate took several hours longer than a simple roll call of its 100 members generally would. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, attended a wake for his mother until about 8 p.m. Friday. Voting began about 5:30 p.m. Then, the Senate chamber sat nearly empty until Brown arrived to vote about five hours later. He was flown from Ohio to Washington on a plane provided by the White House, which said no commercial flights were available that would have allowed Brown to cast a vote and return to Ohio in time for his mother's funeral Saturday. As had been the case when the original version of the package passed, the stimulus package garnered no Republican support in the House. The compromise legislation, which was hammered out by House and Senate leaders and White House staff over the past several days, passed in the House on a 246-183 vote. Three Republicans -- Susan Collins and Olympia Snow of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania -- supported it in the Senate. Their support was needed to give the plan the 60 votes needed to keep it from being shut down by Republican parliamentary procedures. All Democrats in the Senate supported the plan. Seven House Democrats opposed it. Although the package was signed off on by leadership Thursday, a written version wasn't available to most lawmakers until about 11 p.m. Some Republicans in the House expressed frustration over how little time they had to read the 1,000-plus-page bill, and others predicted ruin if it passed. Watch the stimulus pass without GOP support » . "Just because Republicans spent too much money after September 11 and lost our way on financial matters doesn't mean the Democratic party should be allowed to wreck our ship of state," said Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tennessee. "This is taking us quickly down the wrong road. Vote no." Watch the GOP say 'Americans deserve better' » . Other lawmakers, however, said they were hopeful the stimulus plan would get the economy back on track. "We know this bill alone will not solve all of our economic woes overnight. We know that the road back to economic stability and prosperity will require hard work over time," said Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colorado. "But this bill is the right size and scope necessary to truly help us turn things around." Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, who returned to Capitol Hill for votes this week, was not present for the final vote because he returned to Florida to continue his recovery from brain cancer. The bill passed the Senate 60-38. Here's how the compromise bill is expected to affect individuals: . Most individuals will get a $400 tax credit, and most couples will get an $800 credit. That amounts to an extra $13 a week in a person's paycheck, starting in June. That's less than what Obama campaigned on: $500 for individuals and $1,000 per couple. Many students will get a $2,500 tuition tax credit. First-time home buyers may qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000. People who receive Social Security will get a one-time payment of $250. The overall package is estimated to be 35 percent tax cuts and 65 percent spending, Democratic sources said. CNN's Ted Barrett, Dana Bash, Lisa Desjardins, Evan Glass, Mark Preston and Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report. | Senate approves bill with vote of 60-38 .
Sherrod Brown casts deciding vote after being flown from mother's wake .
House approves bill 246-183; no Republicans back measure . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f0dde29cb61e0949145ac50052462378355306f7"} | 982 | 48 | 0.418535 | 1.109732 | 0.631928 | 1.432432 | 23.756757 | 0.783784 |
(CNN) -- The Italian government has approved the creation of a new task force of 500 soldiers who will be deployed to combat the recent wave of Mafia crime in the country. The army has been deployed in major cities aross Italy since the early summer. Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa told the ANSA press agency Tuesday that ''the majority'' of the troops would be sent to the southern city of Naples following the worst ever Camorra massacre last week, that left an Italian and six Africans dead. La Russa said that the 500 troops will be in addition to the 3,000 soldiers deployed alongside police in major Italian cities this summer, ANSA reported. ''The troops could be deployed for three months and (perform) the functions of manning check points,'' he said. This will be the second time since the 1990s that the army has been sent in to combat Mafia crime in southern Italy, ANSA said. Thousands of soldiers were sent to Sicily in 1992 following the murder of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. They stayed on the southern island until 1998 in an operation dubbed the Sicilian Vespers. The Casalesi Camorra clan is believed to have been behind Thursday's killings, which began with the shooting of an amusement arcade's 53-year-old Italian owner, known to have had links with the clan, ANSA said. Twenty minutes later, three Ghanaians, two Liberians and a Togo national were shot dead at a shop where local residents often brought clothes for minor adjustments. A third Liberian died in hospital Friday morning. According to ANSA, police said the murders were drug-related but also ''a signal'' that the Casalesi were still strong in the area despite a raft of recent arrests. The Casalesi clan is one of the most feared Camorra gangs. It controls drug trafficking and prostitution in the Caserta region, near Naples. | Defense Minister: Majority of the troops would be sent to Naples area .
This follows the murder of six people by local Camorra clan last week .
Second time since 1990s that army has been sent in to combat Mafia crime . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "78bdb6fa2c870f29a3ab835a02c45eeb40d3e986"} | 455 | 55 | 0.622887 | 1.775396 | 0.767311 | 3.844444 | 7.911111 | 0.866667 |
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistani government officials announced Monday an agreement with the Taliban to allow strict Islamic law, or sharia, to be implemented in parts of North West Frontier Province. Delegation members of pro-Taliban leader Soofi Mohammad at a meeting in Peshawar Monday. It marks a major concession by the Pakistani government in its attempt to hold off Taliban militants who have terrorized the region with beheadings, kidnappings, and the destruction of girls' schools. The government will recognize sharia for the entire Malakand Division, which includes the Swat district -- a two-hour drive from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad -- the chief minister of North West Frontier Province Amir Haider Hoti announced Monday in a news conference. Islamic law is already being practiced in the area, where the Taliban have control. Hoti said the people of the region want sharia which will fill the "vacuum" left by a lack of access to Pakistan's judicial system. He said he hoped it would bring peace to the region, where Pakistani forces have battled militants aligned with the Taliban. "Those who chose to take the path of violence because of this decision, I appeal to all of them to work for the sake of peace now," Hoti said. "There is no accounting for the sacrifice of all the people of Swat and the Malakand division. How many children have been orphaned? How many parents have lost their children? How many young people have been martyred? In my mind, I don't think that anyone can take this any more." Watch Pakistan's foreign minister discuss negotiating with the Taliban » . He also stressed that the recognition of Islamic law in the region "isn't something that hasn't happened before." He said previous agreements have been made regarding sharia, but were never implemented. He also said that the Islamic law will not go against basic civil liberties, although he did not explain how the government would make sure that provision would be upheld. Watch the implications of the concessions to the Taliban » . Sharia is defined as Islamic law but is interpreted with wide differences depending on the various sects of both Sunni and Shia Islam. So far, the Pakistani Taliban's interpretation of sharia has included banning girls from school, forcing women inside and outlawing forms of entertainment. The agreement comes amid negotiations between Pakistani provincial officials and Taliban representatives, led by Sufi Mohammed. The Taliban on Sunday declared a 10-day cease-fire in Swat Valley, which Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said was a gesture of good will towards the government. The Taliban's control of Swat is believed to be the deepest advance by militants into Pakistan's settled areas -- meaning areas outside its federally administered tribal region along the border with Afghanistan. The negotiations in North West Frontier Province are the latest attempt by Pakistan's civilian government -- which took power last year -- to achieve peace through diplomacy in areas where Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are believed to have free rein. But analysts as well as critics within the establishment have warned that Pakistan's previous dealings with the Taliban have only given the fundamentalist Islamic militia time to regroup and gain more ground. Khadim Hussain, a professor Bahria University in Islamabad who studies Pakistani politics, said the government has effectively surrendered the areas to the Taliban, thereby setting the stage for two contradictory, parallel states in North West Frontier Province. "If you leave them like that and you give ... a semblance of peace in a particular area, what does that mean?" Hussain said. "It means you're capitulating. It means you're surrendering the state to them. It means your submitting the state authority to them because they are running a parallel state." He said the government's decision amounts to a marriage of convenience made under duress. Swat has been overrun by forces loyal to Maulana Fazlullah's banned hardline Islamic group, Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) which has allied itself with Taliban fighters. TNSM was once led by Sufi Mohammed, Fazlullah's father-in-law who is leading the latest negotiations. Sufi Mohammed was released from jail last year by Pakistani authorities after he agreed to cooperate with the government. He was jailed in 2002 after recruiting thousands of fighters to battle U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Fazlullah took over TNSM during Sufi Mohammed's jail stint and vowed to continue his fight to impose fundamentalist Islamic law in the region. Last May, Pakistan's government announced it reached a peace deal with militants in Swat Valley. In the months that have followed, the Taliban have seized control of the region and carried out a violent campaign against government officials, including local politicians. The head of the Awami National Party -- which represents the region -- was forced to flee to Islamabad amid death threats from the Taliban. Pakistan is under enormous pressure to control the militants within its borders, blamed for launching attacks in neighboring Afghanistan where U.S. and NATO forces are fighting militants. The deal with the Taliban comes on the heels of a visit by U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke, who is now meeting with leaders in neighboring India. He said he is awaiting more details of Monday's agreement, but said it underlines the challenge of dealing with the rise of the Taliban. The United States -- using unmanned drones -- has carried out several airstrikes inside Pakistan on suspected militant targets, including one on Monday that killed at least 15 people, Pakistani sources said. Such airstrikes, which sometimes result in civilian casualties, have aggravated tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan. Pakistan's military operation in the region is unpopular among Pakistanis, but efforts to deal diplomatically with militants have not worked in the past. Pakistan's previous leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, reached a cease-fire deal with militants in South Waziristan in 2006 which was widely blamed for giving al Qaeda and Taliban a stronger foothold in the region. | Pakistani Taliban's interpretation of sharia includes banning girls from school .
Deal with the Taliban comes after a visit by U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke .
Taliban: 10-day cease-fire in Swat Valley is good-will gesture towards government .
Critics warn that previous dealings with the Taliban have allowed it to regroup . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "5eb2bc3b42232bf1b2f246780c9e8cc8d61c1d0d"} | 1,402 | 81 | 0.495921 | 1.390029 | 0.671673 | 4.460317 | 17.761905 | 0.904762 |
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- India on Wednesday urged Sri Lanka's Tamil rebels to "release" civilians, who it said numbered about 70,000 in Sri Lanka's war zone. A Sri Lankan soldier poses in front of a Tamil Tigers emblem in the rebel group's former military headquarters. India is ready to help evacuate them, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Indian parliament. "Estimates on the number of civilians trapped vary, but 70,000 or so are estimated to be there now. The LTTE were reportedly using them as human shields," he said, referring to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the Tamil Tigers. "As the conflict enters what may be the final phase of military operations, the LTTE would best serve the interest of the Tamils by immediately releasing all civilians and laying down arms," Mukherjee added. He noted that some civilians had either been caught in cross-fire or "stopped and even killed" by Tamil rebels as they tried to escape. Government troops and the Tamil Tigers are locked in a battle over the rebels' remaining territory in northern Sri Lanka's Vanni region. The rebels have been fighting for an independent homeland for the country's ethnic Tamil minority since 1983. Tens of thousands of people have fled the region as government forces have advanced and rebels have been pushed into a smaller and smaller patch of land. CNN's Harmeet Shah Singh contributed to this report. | India urges Tamil Tiger rebels to allow civilians to leave Sri Lankan war zone .
Sri Lankan troops, Tamil fighters locked in battle for control of rebels' territory .
India estimates up to 70,000 are trapped in the region by the conflict .
Tamil Tigers have been fighting for independent homeland since 1983 . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "bee0fcc90f1bfbdc53aa7de5415c53dd7731360b"} | 342 | 70 | 0.621301 | 1.353401 | 1.306025 | 1.542373 | 4.677966 | 0.830508 |
LONDON, England -- Britain's Princess Eugenie has been reprimanded by her school after being caught frolicking naked on college grounds, it was reported Saturday. Princess Eugenie is sixth in line to the British throne. The 18-year-old daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah Ferguson, was apprehended for her involvement in end of term "high jinks" at the exclusive Marlborough College, west of London, the UK Press Association said. A royal source told the Press Association, "It was nothing more than high jinks at the end of term in May. A group of them were reprimanded and that's the end of the matter." The tabloid Sun newspaper reported that a college staff member woke to playful shrieks and found several young women dancing around without clothes. It said there was no suggestion boys were present or that drugs were involved but claimed a pupil said the students had been drinking. Princess Eugenie, the sixth in line to the British throne, is studying art, history of art and English at the $46,000-a-year college, PA said. It said the princess was expected to be among guests celebrating the official birthday of Queen Elizabeth II on Saturday. A spokesman for the princess made no comment about the claims, PA reported. | Britain's Princess Eugenie reprimanded for naked school frolic, reports say .
Sixth in line to British throne involved in end of term "high jinks," insiders say .
Princess due to attend queen's official birthday celebrations . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "163ed986c2ee496911f964a4a7cf7c7f90359118"} | 295 | 66 | 0.690694 | 1.677491 | 0.949178 | 2.409091 | 5.590909 | 0.772727 |
(CNN) -- The owners of a cruise ship that ran aground in Marguerite Bay, Antarctica, are hoping high tide will dislodge the ship Wednesday, a company statement said. The Ocean Nova, seen on a previous voyage, has a total of 106 people on board. Connecticut-based Quark Expeditions said the M/V Ocean Nova became stranded Tuesday in the bay not far from an Argentine research base. Marguerite Bay is about 900 miles south of the tip of South America. The ship is carrying 65 passengers and 41 crew members, Quark Expeditions said. All those aboard the vessel "remain safe and calm," the company statement said. The ship's captain is awaiting high tide to make another attempt to move the vessel. "The midnight operation will occur in daylight, as the ship is below the Antarctic Circle, where the sun never sets during February. We anticipate a positive outcome," Quark Expeditions president Patrick Shaw said. The captain is also waiting for divers from the Spanish naval ship the Hespérides to inspect the hull of the Nova to make sure it's not damaged, the statement said. | All 65 passengers and 41 crew are safe, company reports .
MV Ocean Nova stranded in Marguerite Bay, about 900 miles from South America . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c7aa75130c60a0fed530dcc65aa06da2a01efc4f"} | 252 | 37 | 0.682437 | 1.452626 | 0.28935 | 2.535714 | 7.714286 | 0.892857 |
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Tuba Sahaab looks nothing like a warrior. She is a slight girl of 11, living in a simple home in a suburb of Islamabad. But in Tuba's case, looks are deceiving. "I want to give peace to my nation," Tuba Sahaab says, "I will fight for it." With her pen, Tuba is taking on the swords of the Taliban. She crafts poems telling of the pain and suffering of children just like her; girls banned from school, their books burned, as the hard-core Islamic militants spread their reign of terror across parts of Pakistan. A stanza of one of her poems reads: "Tiny drops of tears, their faces like angels, Washed with blood, they sleep forever with anger." Tuba is not afraid to express her views. Of the Taliban forcing young girls out of the classroom, she says: "This is very shocking to hear that girls can't go to school, they are taking us back to the Stone Age." Less than two hours from Tuba's home, the Taliban have control. The one-time holiday destination of the Swat Valley is now a no-go zone. Curfews are in place at all times. Militants kill with impunity. Human rights activists and people on the ground in Swat Valley speak of a place called "slaughter square" where the Taliban leave the bodies of their victims with notes saying "do not remove for 24 hours." No one touches the corpses out of fear of reprisals. Watch Tuba recite her poetry » . Tuba Sahaab refuses to be silent. As young as she is, she is wise and brave beyond her years. The young school girl is reaching a bigger audience, regularly appearing in the media. On the day we spend with her, Tuba and her mother appear on a talk radio program. Back home, she tells me how she would give her life for her country. "I want to give peace to my nation," she says, "I will fight for it." And Tuba has an inspiration: U.S. President Barack Obama. She prayed for his elections, she says. She sees in him the hope of peace in her own country. Tuba Sahaab has a dream to meet her hero. She can hardly contain her excitement. "I want to go the White Palace and show him my poems, show him what is happening and ask him to come to Pakistan and control it because he is a super power." Meeting and listening to Tuba Sahaab, it is easy to forget she is still a young girl. In her playground at school, Tuba dances and laughs with her friends. She loves writing her short stories (she has already published one book) and shows me a cartoon character she has created called "Tomato Man." Tuba's parents are proud of their daughter. They say they are not afraid even as she speaks out so publicly against the Taliban. Tuba is their only child but as her mother tells me, she is "worth more than seven sons and seven daughters." And Tuba has the dreams of any young child. She tells me she wants to be an astronaut and then one day lead her country. "I will do anything, if my life goes I don't worry, I just want to do something." "I think you will get the chance," I say. "Yes, if someone gives me the chance you will see what I can do." Of that, I have no doubt. | With her pen, 11-year-old Pakistani Tuba Sahaab takes on the swords of the Taliban .
She crafts poems on children in Pakistan oppressed by hard-core Islamic militants .
Girls have been banned from school, their books burned, as militants spread terror .
Refusing to be silent, despite the danger, she regularly speaks out in the media . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "d318a83dd7ceb51bae460dd5101238e21bc7b680"} | 784 | 86 | 0.587042 | 1.755751 | 1.086119 | 3.323944 | 9.732394 | 0.816901 |
DETROIT, Michigan (CNN) -- It's 7 a.m. at Henry Ford Hospital, and surgeons are preparing to remove a cancerous tumor from a man's kidney. A doctor posts updates on social-networking site Twitter during a recent operation in Detroit. It's potentially a risky surgery, but everything's ready: The doctors and nurses are in the operating room, the surgical instruments are sterilized and ready to go, and the chief resident is furiously Twittering on his laptop. That's right -- last week, for the second known time, surgeons Twittered a surgery by using social-networking site Twitter to give short real-time updates about the procedure. Following the February 9 operation online were other doctors, medical students and the merely curious. Watch surgeons Twittering from the operating room » . "Here's something different: HenryFordNews is live tweeting surgery today, getting some buzz, too," wrote one Twitter participant from Massachusetts. "I find this fascinating!" tweeted another Twitter user from Swansea, United Kingdom. "It's an interesting use of technology, but I can't help but feel a bit 'eeewww!' about this," wrote a third tweeter from New York. Why twitter a surgery? Whether it's new and cool or merely yicky, observers say there's no question that more and more doctors -- and patients -- will be sharing the blow-by-blow of medical procedures on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Dr. Craig Rogers, the lead surgeon in the Henry Ford surgery, said the impetus for his Twittering was to let people know that a tumor can be removed without taking the entire kidney. "We're trying to use this as a way to get the word out," Rogers said. Observers say Twittering about a procedure is a natural outgrowth of the social networking media revolution. "Doing this removes a real communication barrier. It helps make something scary much more comprehendable," said Christopher Parks, co-founder of the Web site changehealthcare.com. "It brings us closer together and makes us more engaged." Four months ago, Park's colleague, Robert Hendrick, tweeted his own varicose vein removal surgery here as it was happening (he was, obviously, under local anesthesia). "It redirected my attention and allowed me to minimize some of the nervousness around what was going on. It felt like I had family and friends there to support me," Hendrick wrote in an e-mail. "I wanted a record for other people who might be interested in the same surgery," added Hendrick, who also posted photos and video of his surgery. "It later allowed me to connect with others with the same issues." As time goes by and the younger generation moves into medicine, expect even more sharing online of private medical procedures, Parks says. "Newer and newer generations are used to putting their life online," he said. "This generation shares everything." "Gosh, this is big" Twitter users -- those "tweeple" -- who kept up with the Henry Ford procedure online got to share some medical drama in real time. (You can read the "Tweetstream" or watch video of the tumor removal on YouTube). As Rogers got closer to the tumor, he realized it was far larger than it had appeared on a CT scan, and he wondered out loud whether he would have to remove the entire kidney -- something he'd been trying to avoid. "Gosh, this is big," he said to his colleagues in the operating room. "Could I have picked a harder case for this?" As Rogers worked away on his robotic machinery, the chief resident, Dr. Raj Laungani, Twittered: "Dr. Rogers is saying because the tumor is so large he may have to do a radical (total) nephrectomy." After conferring with Laungani and others in the operating room, Rogers decided he could remove just part of the kidney. Then came another challenge: In a surgery like this one, doctors have to restrict blood flow to the kidney with clamps while they remove the tumor. Those clamps then have to be removed within 30 minutes so the kidney isn't damaged by the lack of blood. iReport.com: Would you allow your surgeon to "tweet"? "The goal is to keep the clamp time below 30 minutes," Laungani Twittered. "25 minutes left!!!" Approximately 25 minutes later, Laungani shared his relief with all of Twitterville: "Tumor is excised, bleeding is controlled, we are about to come off clamp," he wrote. In the end, Rogers had the last tweet. "The robotic partial nephrectomy was a success," he wrote. "Thank you for joining us today." CNN's Jennifer Pifer-Bixler and Marcy Heard contributed to this article. | For the second known time, surgeons "Twittered" last week during surgery .
Doctors used social-networking site Twitter to give updates about the procedure .
Following along online were other doctors, medical students and the merely curious .
Surgeons hope twittering will help educate other doctors and the public . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "0e400a3087db0f5a9ae1788bf1246f4fced51f84"} | 1,108 | 69 | 0.57052 | 1.523365 | 1.334776 | 5.086207 | 16.068966 | 0.87931 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Australian pop star Kylie Minogue and the professor who created Dolly the sheep are among the prominent figures who have received awards from Queen Elizabeth II in her annual New Year Honors list. Kylie Minogue battled back to health after suffering from breast cancer. Minogue, 39 , and Prof. Ian Wilmut were appointed to the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the list, which is chosen by the queen on the advise of the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Other award winners included Stuart Rose, the head of the British retailer Marks and Spencer, who was handed a knighthood and "Lord of the Rings" star Ian McKellen. The award of a Companion of Honour for the 68-year-old British actor, who already has a knighthood and has been a longtime campaigner for gay rights, recognized his efforts to promote "equality." The New Year's list recognizes a wide range of people who are thought to have made a positive contribution to British life. The queen hands out a range of honors including knighthoods, life peerages and gallantry awards for those serving in the armed forces and civilians. The list is published in the official newspaper of the British monarchy, the London Gazette. The honor's list usually attracts attention for the high-profile figures honored; previous recipients of knighthoods include the pop stars Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger but anyone can be nominated for an award. This year's list, for example, includes some of the people who took part in the rescue operations following the flooding that affected large parts of England this summer. Capt. Tracy Palmer, from the Salvation Army in the northern English town of Workshop, was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) after she provided shelter for children caught up in the floods. Wilmut, 63, created headlines around the world after he led the team of scientists that created the first mammal produced through genetic cloning in 1996. Kylie Minogue has sold more than 60 million records worldwide in a music career lasting 20 years. The Australian pop diva battled back to health after she was forced to cancel a world tour when she was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. E-mail to a friend . | Kylie Minogue among those named in Queen Elizabeth II's New Year Honors list .
The professor who created Dolly the sheep, Ian Wilmut, also honored .
Awards recognize those who make a positive contribution to British life .
Minogue battled back to health after she was diagnosed with breast cancer . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "688b08ca48de0ae9be1541955f7280c5547cc753"} | 508 | 68 | 0.586483 | 1.704022 | 1.149068 | 3.929825 | 7.45614 | 0.877193 |
CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti (CNN) -- U.S. Marines at Camp Lemonier -- the only American military base on the African continent -- spend much of their time vaccinating livestock, repairing schools and giving medical training. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and Rear Adm. James Hart, in Camp Lemonier, December 2007. The camp, just 10 miles north of the Somali border, began as a French Foreign Legion outpost, but the Djibouti government agreed in 2002 to let the U.S. military establish a base for counterterrorism and humanitarian missions in the Horn of Africa. The 1,800 U.S. troops in Djibouti spend just a fraction of their time on military tasks, such as locating and removing land mines. They conduct civil affairs operations in seven East African countries -- seen as an antidote to extremism. "If you get at the basic needs of any individual, if you address the basic needs of people, then you have the opportunity to change their mindset, then you have the opportunity to show them that there is something better than doing extreme acts," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Roosevelt Barfield, deputy commander of the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa. Many of the Marines in Djibouti, a predominantly Muslim country, previously served in Iraq. "In Iraq, you can just go out and pretty much roll around and you do what you got to do and your mind set is a lot different," said Marine Cpl. Chad Armstrong. "Here, this country is a sovereign nation. Their government is established and everything, so there is a lot more working with the governments here." The military role, though, sometimes upstages the humanitarian mission. Periodic airstrikes of suspected al Qaeda terrorist targets in Somalia, often from U.S. warships, has created animosity among ethnic Somalis in the region. The U.S. military presence in Djibouti underscores the growing importance of Africa to the U.S. military. The United States has created a centralized military command for Africa, U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, which will become fully operational in October. The reluctance of African leaders to host a U.S. military facility, however, has hampered selection of a headquarters location for AFRICOM. Liberia, so far, is the only African country to offer. For now, AFRICOM is based in Stuttgart, Germany. | Camp Lemonier is the only American military base on the African continent .
The 1,800 U.S. troops conduct civil affairs operations in seven East African countries .
Their humanitarian mission is seen as an antidote to extremism . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "74711f6af07fc009ca37d7a1ba2e0eaf191ec776"} | 565 | 53 | 0.506585 | 1.520577 | 1.506078 | 5.4 | 10.9 | 0.95 |
(CNN) -- The peanut processing company at the heart of a national salmonella outbreak, Peanut Corp. of America, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in court Friday in Lynchburg, Virginia. Peanut Corp. of America plants in Georgia and Texas came under scrutiny after the salmonella outbreak. The documents were filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District of Virginia. The bankruptcy papers were signed by Stewart Parnell, the president of Peanut Corp., who invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions this week in a congressional hearing. Bacteria found in the company's Blakely, Georgia, peanut processing plant have been blamed for more than 600 cases of salmonella, including nine deaths. Watch how bankruptcy could affect case » . The Texas Health Department on Thursday ordered products from the company's plant in Plainview, Texas, to be recalled after discovering dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers in the plant. Watch what health inspectors found » . A call to the company's telephone number, which was working earlier this week, elicited a recording that said it was no longer in service. "The long and the short of it is that we kicked the tires on reorganizing the company, and, frankly, they're just in a position now where they can't even conduct business," said Andrew S. Goldstein, a lawyer for the company. "They can't operate at all, and this just seemed like the inevitable course." In a written statement, Consumers Union said Friday's declaration shows that Congress needs to strengthen the Food and Drug Administration and hike the penalties it can impose. "It is unacceptable for corporations to put consumers' health at risk and then simply declare bankruptcy and go out of business when they get caught," said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. "PCA's declaration of bankruptcy will, among other things, shield it from liability suits filed by consumers who became sick or whose loved ones died as a result of eating PCA's peanut products," she said. | NEW: Consumers Union says filing shows need for stronger FDA .
NEW: Move will shield company from liability lawsuits, group says .
Bacteria in company plant in Georgia blamed for hundreds of salmonella cases .
Products from company plant in Texas recalled after dead rodents found . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "d0dce59a1d23a82ba51e597e09f1bdfdc95ea846"} | 466 | 64 | 0.487745 | 1.340162 | 0.691446 | 1.018868 | 7.54717 | 0.679245 |
(InStyle.com) -- Ever wonder how actresses like Sienna Miller look stunning 24/7? Good genes, sure. But they also get a little help from their friends . Sienna Miller and favorite hairstylist Adir Abergel: "If I worried what people thought about my look, I'd get it all wrong." Sienna Miller and hairstylist Adir Abergel . Try to talk coifs with Sienna Miller and she'll cut you off at the pass. "I don't even own a hairbrush!" she insists. "I'm really not too attached to my hair." No kidding. She gamely lopped off about 10 inches to play Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl. But the actress is much less keen to part with her hairstylist Adir Abergel, for whom she has been known to cook dinner at her London home. "Adir gets me," says Miller. "He knows I never like to look too done or polished." Her biggest challenge? "I've got quite a lot of hair, but I like it flat, so Adir squashes it down for me." To create Miller's ideal look, Abergel flatirons her roots and combats bulkiness with Frédéric Fekkai Coiff Finishing cream. "Sienna feels most like herself when her hair is soft and airy versus set and stylized," he says. Still, it takes effort to appear this artfully undone. It may seem like she rolls out of bed looking glamorous, but Miller says it is not that easy: "I'm very much involved in how I want to look." Eve and makeup artist JJ Jacobucci . She dyed her hair platinum as a Philadelphia teenager, rose to fame as a hip-hop biker chick, and cavorted with a tiger -- and later Gwen Stefani -- on MTV. It seems like Eve was born edgy. But until recently the rapper-singer-actress clung religiously to her signature look of cat eyes, dewy skin and pale pink lips, aided by the habitual application of MAC Lipglass in Malibu Barbie (she's also a company spokeswoman). It was on the L.A. set of Eve's candy-colored video for "Tambourine" (the hit single off her fall album Here I Am) that makeup artist JJ Jacobucci motivated the star to test a new image. "JJ recently said to me, 'Thank you for letting me experiment,'" says Eve, referring to a Cyndi Lauper--inspired look that involved electric-blue eye shadow. "I have definitely opened up a lot more." Says Jacobucci: "We were so used to seeing her in nude lips, bronze skin and comfortable colors. I push Eve to get out of that box." The star has lately sported hot-pink lips, chartreuse highlighter on her browbones, and blue mascara with newfound confidence. "At first Eve was like, 'Oh my god,'" says Jacobucci of such intense shades. "I was like, 'Listen, trust me. I'm going to make you look gorgeous.'" Kate Bosworth and hairstylist Renato Campora . During the last three years, hairstylist Renato Campora has seen all shades of actress Kate Bosworth. "When I met her, she had beachy [sandy] highlights," says Campora, who brightened up Bosworth's Blue Crush--era color so she looked "more movie star, like a young Marlene Dietrich." Campora's platinum touch sent his number straight to Bosworth's speed dial. "It's a little secret," she says of his closet coloring abilities (he's known primarily as a haircutter). "I call him months in advance!" Naturally, she also uses him as her stylist -- it was Campora who gave her the sleek bob that solidified her status as a hair icon last year. "She was the first one to have it," he says. "And then everybody did the bob. She was the inspiration." For someone whose biggest struggle is building volume (Bosworth has "baby angel hair," says Campora) the bob was perfect; her hair looked thicker, and it practically styled itself. "I could jump out of the shower, give it a tousle and leave," says Bosworth. Her next experiment? "I want to be a redhead -- a deep, Karen Elson redhead. Just to go there once." Hilary Duff and makeup artist Rachel Goodwin . When Hilary Duff first settled into Rachel Goodwin's makeup chair in 2004, she felt like she had found a soul mate. "It was really instant," says Duff, who fell head over heels for the Chanel artist's ability to create high cheekbones, luxe lashes and pale lips. But never mind the makeovers for movie premières and music videos for her latest album, Dignity; for Goodwin, the real test was meeting Duff's family. "My mom [Susan] did makeup for Neiman Marcus, so she knows what looks good and what doesn't," says Duff. Luckily, Goodwin wowed the 'rents. "That's when I knew it was OK -- when Susan was like, 'This is good work,'" laughs Goodwin, who now pushes the boundaries with blue shadows and white eyeliner. "I have really big eyes," says Duff, "and for the longest time I would use black eyeliner to make them look smaller. Rachel actually made them look bigger by lining them with white. I love how she makes me see myself differently." Now when the two get together, they share more than makeup tricks. "We see each other a couple of times a week for hours," says Duff. "We talk about boys, life and work. We know each other so well. It's like a big therapy session every time." Rachel Weisz and hairstylist Mark Townsend . She may be an Oscar winner, but Rachel Weisz has little in common with her gilded statuette. "In real life I'm very unpolished," says the mother of 17-month-old Henry. "Dressing for the red carpet is fantasy time, but in my day-to-day life, I'm very grungy." This low-maintenance attitude has served her hair well. "It's in great shape," says Matrix hairstylist Mark Townsend. "Rachel's hair matches her personality: It's not overdone, not super-fussed-over. And she's incredibly approachable and sweet." Fearless too: In 2005 the British actress sheared her locks to a half inch to play a dying woman in The Fountain. While growing out her hair, she often donned extensions. But a year later, when Townsend suggested she wear a thicket of curly, waist-length tresses to the Oscars, the eight-months-pregnant star didn't feel so brave. "Are you sure we need this much hair?" Weisz asked. But Townsend soldiered on, confident in his vision. "I wanted fullness in the back to balance out her silhouette," he says of the baby bump/hair bump symmetry. The romantic updo proved lucky -- and prophetic. "Now I'm growing my hair out," she says. "I've come to like it really long and unruly." E-mail to a friend . Get a FREE TRIAL issue of InStyle - CLICK HERE! Copyright © 2009 Time Inc. All rights reserved. | Stars get attached to hairstylists, makeup artists they trust .
Rachel Weisz: "In real life I'm very unpolished"
Hilary Duff: Sitting in Rachel Goodwin's makeup chair is like therapy .
Hairstylist Renato Campora gave Kate Bosworth her sleek bob . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "80a6f5df747cb8426858cca96f62b2c7b9f84f9c"} | 1,783 | 78 | 0.393787 | 1.239838 | 0.310604 | 2.46 | 28.44 | 0.86 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Edwin van der Sar claimed the all-time British record for minutes without conceding a goal during Manchester United's 1-0 win over West Ham on Sunday. Triumphant: Edwin van der Sar holds the British goalkeeping record for most time without conceding. The Dutch veteran also took the 30-year-old English record from Steve Death last week. Death's name, with all due respect to the former Reading custodian, is not up there with the game's greats. So who is in Van der Sar's league as football's finest shot-stoppers, the men who rarely get the credit but often cop the flak? Here, Football Fanzone presents a run down of the best goalkeepers in history. Read through our picks and tell us if you disagree or if we've missed anyone in the Sound Off box below. What do you think of van der Sar's inclusion? Lev Yashin (USSR) Yahsin is the only goalkeeper ever to be named European Footballer of the Year, in 1963. Dubbed the Black Spider for his all-black outfit and what seemed like eight limbs, the Russian even invented the concept of the keeper as sweeper. In the days when keepers were not protected by referees as they are today, Yashin's bravery and acrobatics were legendary and 207 clean sheets and 150 penalties saves he made in a 22-year career tell their own story. The best keeper at each World Cup is presented with the Yashin Award. Dino Zoff (Italy) Zoff is one of just two goalkeepers to lift the World Cup having captained Italy to their third crown in 1982. He was already 40 then, making him the oldest World Cup-winning captain too. But the unflappable Zoff's achievements don't end there: he holds the record for the longest playing time without conceding in international tournaments (1,142 minutes) set between 1972 and 1974. And with 112 caps, he ranks third in the Azzurri's all-time list. A true great. Gordon Banks (England) "What a save," so the commentary runs to the finest piece of goalkeeping ever and one of football's most memorable moments. Pele was certain he'd scored after meeting Jairzinho's center, heading powerfully down into the left-hand corner of the net in Brazil's 1-0 1970 World Cup group win over England. But somehow Banks scrambled across, miraculously diving to push the ball up over the bar. Banks might have been immortalized by that stop, but his absence through illness from England's subsequent quarter-final against West Germany was perhaps more telling when his replacement Peter Bonetti was made a scapegoat for the defending champions' defeat. Peter Schmeichel (Denmark) Schmeichel will go down as Sir Alex Ferguson's best signing for Manchester United, certainly pound-for-pound. Bought for just $750,000 in 1991, the imposing Schmeichel would provide United everything a world-class goalkeeper requires -- including the ability to launch a swift counter-attack. He won Euro 92 with Denmark and the Treble with United in 1999, while 13 career goals are not to be sniffed at either. He played on a season too long, maybe, but on his day there were few better. Edwin van der Sar (Holland) At 38, the rangy Van der Sar is in the very twilight of his career -- but what a career it's been. The man from Voorhout holds the record number of caps for Holland, he's won the Champions League twice and is on course to win a third Premier League title in a row with Manchester United this season. All of which makes you wonder how come he spent so long at Fulham? United fans would love to have had Van der Sar way before 2005; he has proved to be the definitive Schmeichel replacement. Iker Casillas (Spain) It's easy to take Casillas' brilliance for granted, but stand back and look at his career and it's clear he's already one of the greats. Real Madrid have always been able to lure the best, yet they've had the agile Casillas as their number-one No.1 since 1999 -- when he was still a teenager. Still only 27, Casillas is contracted to the club until 2017. He's already won two Champions Leagues and four La Liga titles. At international level he came into his own during 2008 by captaining Spain to the European Championship, becoming the first goalkeeper to do so. Ricardo Zamora's legacy is safe hands. Pat Jennings (Northern Ireland) Jennings was a late starter in the position and famously had no official coaching. His international career spanned a record-breaking six World Cups (including qualifying campaigns) across 22 years. By the time he came out of retirement to play for Northern Ireland at Mexico 1986, Jennings was 41 and ended the tournament with 119 caps. He played more than 1,000 games, including crossing the bitter north London divide by playing for Tottenham and Arsenal. The unflappable Jennings' enormous hands were his trademark and the curse of many an attacker. Gianluigi Buffon (Italy) Buffon vies with Casillas and the Czech Republic's Petr Cech to be considered the best goalkeeper around at the moment, but in a country with a long tradition of high-quality No.1s Buffon is up there with the very best. Winning the 2006 Yashin Award was the perfect riposte to his critics after Juventus' dramatic fall from grace owing to match-fixing. Buffon, an imposing figure with no obvious weaknesses, stayed loyal to the Old Lady, who made him the world's most expensive goalkeeper in 2001 when they paid Parma $46.2m for him. He's been worth every cent. Jose Luis Chilavert (Paraguay) If there's one thing a goalkeeper is not expected to do -- other than to make a mistake -- it's score a goal. Given Chilavert netted no fewer than 62 times in his career, including eight for his country, it seems only fair he should be included on this list. Brazil's Rogerio Ceni may have outscored him and Rene Higuita of Colombia might have out-done him on the chutzpah front, but Chilavert's pioneering free-kicks and penalties have made him a legend. Mohamed Al-Deayea (Saudi Arabia) Goalkeepers are known for their longevity and ability to perform into their 40s. That makes Al-Deayea a relative youngster at just 36, but the Saudi Arabian holds the world record for the most number of international appearances. Over a 16-year career for the Middle Eastern country, Al-Deayea racked up a scarcely believable 181 caps.. Having started his career playing handball, Al-Deayea went on to play in three World Cups -- and was even on the receiving end of an 8-0 thumping by eventual finalists Germany at the 2002 tournament. Guillermo Ochoa (Mexico) This one is from the left-field and a little premature for a list containing the best goalkeepers of all time. But much is expected of Ochoa, Mexico's up-and-coming talent. He's already been linked with a move to Manchester United and he is on the radar of a number of Europe's top clubs. Reliant on his amazing reflexes, Ochoa is one of the best shot-stoppers out there and great at on-the-spot improvised saves. Ochoa's already established in the Mexico set-up and is already such a big star already that the American release of the FIFA 09 video game featured him on the front cover. Definitely one to watch. | Edwin van der Sar claims British record for minutes without conceding a goal .
CNN picks 11 of the top goalkeepers of all time .
Share your thoughts on who should in and who should be out . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "7fa94958a480769cad0649a787cc59948c74df43"} | 1,833 | 48 | 0.485369 | 1.387691 | 0.817299 | 3.125 | 36.025 | 0.825 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has designated a Kurdish militant group in Turkey as a terrorist organization, the State Department said. Turkish President Abdullah Gul, left, speaks to reporters with President Bush earlier this week in Washington. The group, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, known as TAK, is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK -- the separatist Kurdish group that has been attacking Turkey from inside northern Iraq. Turkey has responded to the attacks by bombing PKK targets in the predominantly Kurdish area of northern Iraq. The United States, the European Union and Turkey regard the group as a terrorist organization. The United States says TAK is "responsible for multiple terrorist attacks in Turkey, which targeted tourist locations, military sites, and government buildings, resulting in several deaths." The classification of the group as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" subjects the organization and its supporters to financial sanctions. "With this designation, the United States reaffirms its commitment to fight terrorism in cooperation with its NATO ally, Turkey. The United States will continue to work with Turkey, Iraq, and the rest of Europe against the PKK and its support networks and affiliates, such as the TAK. There must be no safe havens for such terrorists," according to a statement from Tom Casey, deputy spokesman of the State Department. The move came after President Bush met Tuesday in Washington with Turkish President Abdullah Gul. The men discussed what Bush called their "common enemy ... the PKK." The PKK has spent two decades fighting for autonomy for Kurds in southeastern Turkey. E-mail to a friend . | U.S. puts Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK, on list of terrorist groups .
TAK is affiliated with Kurdish separatist group PKK .
PKK has been attacking Turkey from inside Iraq .
Move against TAK comes after Turkish president meets with President Bush . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8027c0d60791c73bf0d800598b8aad8091523f9a"} | 376 | 65 | 0.677406 | 1.624333 | 1.137674 | 1.875 | 6.458333 | 0.791667 |
(CNN) -- South Africa inflicted the first home series defeat on Australia in almost 16 years as they wrapped up a nine-wicket win over the world's number one ranked Test nation in Melbourne on Tuesday. South African captain Graeme Smith led from the front with 75 as his team wrapped up victory. Captain Graeme Smith hit a fluent 75 as his side successfully passed a modest victory target of 183 on the final day at the MCG to take an unassailable 2-0 lead. It was the South African's first-ever Test series triumph in Australia and victory in the third and final match in Sydney will see them leapfrog the home side at the top of the global rankings. Hashim Amla (30 not out) scored the winning runs shortly after lunch as South Africa became the first team to overcome Australia at home since the West Indies in 1992-93. South Africa were never under any pressure in their run chase and did not lose a wicket until just before lunch when the inspirational Smith was trapped leg before wicket by Nathan Hauritz. Smith had dominated a 121-run opening stand with Neil McKenzie, hitting 10 boundaries. McKenzie struggled to a half century and survived strong lbw shouts from Brett Lee, who was bowling despite an injured foot that will keep him out of the Sydney Test. South Africa's victory was set up by a brilliant maiden Test century from JP Duminy, who shared a stunning 180-run ninth wicket partnership with pace bowler Dale Steyn. It gave the tourists a priceless 65-run lead on first innings before man of the match Steyn worked his magic with the ball as Australia were bowled out on the fourth day for 247 in their second innings. The pugnacious Smith was virtually lost for words in his victory speech. "It has been such a special moment for all of us, it has been an incredible team effort," he said. "I have been smiling non-stop since we hit the winning runs. "To be 2-0 up after this game was something we only dreamt of." South Africa won the first Test in Perth from an unlikely position, chasing 414 for victory for the loss of only four wickets. | South Africa beat Australia by nine wickets in second Test in Melbourne .
Victory gives the South Africans an unassailable 2-0 lead in their series .
South Africa won first Test of the series in Perth by six wickets . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f155e440ae4f77514f9ba24dfb2a4360fa3c0653"} | 493 | 55 | 0.480856 | 1.190362 | 0.772648 | 2.045455 | 9.568182 | 0.863636 |
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A leader of the Sons of Iraq anti-al Qaeda group was killed Saturday when a bomb attached to his vehicle exploded, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. U.S. soldiers arrive on the scene of a suicide bombing Saturday in Kirkuk, Iraq. Two civilians were wounded in the explosion in southern Baghdad's Dora district, the official said. The Sons of Iraq, or Awakening Councils, are mainly composed of former Sunni insurgents who turned against al Qaeda in Iraq. They are considered a major factor in the reduction of violence in Iraq over the past two years and are frequently targeted by al Qaeda. In other violence across Iraq on Saturday: . • At least 19 people were wounded in a bombing at a coffee shop in Baquba, a security official in Diyala province said. The coffee shop is frequented by U.S.-backed anti-al Qaeda fighters. The explosion wounded 17 group members and two civilians, the official said. Baquba is about 35 miles north of Baghdad. • At least seven people, including three Iraqi Army soldiers, were wounded when a roadside bomb struck an army patrol in northern Baghdad's Qahaira neighborhood, the Interior Ministry official said. • At least one police officer was killed and nine people -- seven police and two civilians -- were wounded when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest near a police academy in Kirkuk, according to a police official. Kirkuk is located in oil-rich northern Iraq, about 150 miles north of Baghdad. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh and Yousif Bassil contributed to this report. | Bomb attached to vehicle kills a leader of Sons of Iraq .
Coffee shop frequented by al Qaeda in Iraq foes also bombed; 19 wounded .
Roadside bomb aimed at Iraqi army patrol wounds at least seven .
Kirkuk suicide bomber kills police officer, wounds nine people . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c26dba391aea18166902e590edff05db2580ee27"} | 389 | 73 | 0.585392 | 1.355869 | 0.87237 | 1.716981 | 5.622642 | 0.773585 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Eight men plotted to use bombs disguised in drinks containers to blow up planes heading towards the United States in mid-flight in the name of Islam, a British court heard Tuesday. The eight men deny conspiracy to murder by plotting to blow up transatlantic aircraft. Prosecutors told London's Woolwich Crown Court the men planned to make the explosives from household objects to resemble drinks bottles, batteries and other items to be carried onto aircraft in hand luggage, the UK's Press Association reported. The foiling of the alleged plot in August 2006 triggered the imposition of strict new security measures at international airports around the world, restricting the quantity of liquids passengers can carry on to aircraft. The measures, which led to massive delays and scores of canceled flights when they were imposed overnight, remain in place at many airports. Prosecutor Peter Wright described two of the men, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 28, as ringleaders of an Islamic fundamentalist conspiracy, according to PA. "It was an interest that involved inflicting heavy casualties upon an unwitting civilian population all in the name of Islam," he said. "These men were indifferent to the carnage that was likely to ensue if their plans were successful. To them the identities of their victims was an irrelevance by race, color, religion or creed. "What these men intended to bring about together and with others was a violent and deadly statement of intent that would have a truly global impact." Wright said the bombs were to be carried onto flights to the United States by suicide bombers as part of a plot hatched in Britain and Pakistan, according to PA. He said a computer memory stick seized at the time of the defendants' arrests listed details of flights operated by three carriers -- American Airlines, United Airlines and Air Canada -- between August and October 2006. "If each of these flights were successfully blown up the potential for loss of life was considerable," Wright said. Ali, Sarwar and six others including Tanvir Hussain, 27, Ibrahim Savant, 28, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, Waheed Zaman, 24, Umar Islam, 30, and Donald Stewart-Whyte, 22, deny conspiracy to murder. The trial is expected to last 10 months. | Prosecutors say the men planned to make bombs out of household items .
Eight accused of being involved in an Islamic fundamentalist plot .
American Airlines, United Airlines and Air Canada were alleged intended targets . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "92de15f2a0ee9f92adcd9841b0aaf7a12dfa24ed"} | 510 | 48 | 0.535492 | 1.479875 | 0.490385 | 2.923077 | 11.179487 | 0.820513 |
(CNN) -- The pilot of a tanker that crashed into the San Francisco Bay Bridge in 2007, causing a major oil spill, was under the influence of multiple prescription medications that impaired his judgment, federal officials said in a report Wednesday. The November 2007 crash left a gash in the tanker's side and led to an oil spill that killed more than 2,000 birds. The National Transportation Safety Board said the pilot of the Hong Kong-registered Cosco Busan, was "medically unfit" on November 7, 2007. That, and a master pilot's poor oversight of his performance, were major factors in the crash that dumped 53,000 gallons of oil into the bay, the NTSB said. "How a man who was taking a half-dozen impairing prescription medications got to stand on the bridge of a 68,000-ton ship and give directions to guide the vessel through a foggy bay and under a busy highway bridge is very troubling," said acting NTSB Chairman Mark V. Rosenker. The pilot, John Cota, was charged with criminal negligence in federal court last year. He faces two misdemeanor charges that could result in up to 18 months in prison and $115,000 in fines. The 901-foot ship left Oakland, California, en route to South Korea when Cota gave orders that steered the ship directly toward a support tower on the bridge. While the ship avoided a direct hit, it hit a support system at the tower's base, cutting a 212-foot gash in the ship's side, the NTSB said. The board ruled that Cota and Chinese master pilot Mao Cai Sun never thoroughly discussed a plan before they took off on a foggy night when visibility was less than a quarter-mile. The oil spill killed about 2,500 birds of 50 different species, according to the report. The crash caused more than $70 million in environmental cleanup costs, $2 million in damage to the ship and $1.5 million in damage to the bridge. The report also blamed the ship's operator, Fleet Management Ltd., for not properly training crew members and the U.S. Coast Guard for not providing adequate medical oversight of the pilot. It said the Coast Guard should have revoked the pilot's license, the pilot should have given a meaningful pre-departure briefing about plans for the voyage and the master pilot should have taken a more active role in ensuring the ship's safety. "There was a lack of competence in so many areas that this accident seemed almost inevitable," Rosenker said. | Pilot of tanker that struck San Francisco Bay Bridge "medically unfit," NTSB says .
Man was taking "a half-dozen impairing prescription medications," report says .
Crash in 2007 caused oil spill that killed about 2,500 birds, NTSB says .
Supervisor's poor oversight also cited as factor in NTSB report . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "efd07f5b0d2fbb210968d714d2117347e2d7d440"} | 570 | 80 | 0.595237 | 1.591124 | 1.124755 | 2.380952 | 7.619048 | 0.825397 |
(CNN) -- Rwandan troops have crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo to prepare for a joint operation with Congolese forces against a Hutu militia, the United Nations said. At least 800,000 people are thought to have died during 100 days of violence in Rwanda in 1994. "We can tell you there are Rwandan soldiers here, but I cannot confirm the numbers," said Madnodje Mounoubai, spokesman for the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Rwandans will team up "with the Congolese forces," he said Wednesday. "The Rwandan forces are in a meeting with Congolese forces and the understanding is that in the meeting they are preparing a joint operation against the FDLR," or the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda. The Rwanda News Agency reported that Rwanda has dispatched 1,917 soldiers. Rwanda and Congo traditionally have been on different sides of the conflict in eastern Congo. The struggle pits ethnic Tutsis, supported by Rwanda, against ethnic Hutu, backed by Congo. The conflict is effectively an extension of the Rwandan genocide dating back to the early 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were killed in ethnic battles between minority Tutsi and majority Hutu. According to a statement issued last week by the Rwandan government, the joint military operation is aimed at driving out the FDLR and former members of the Interhamwe militia, "remnants of those who spearheaded the 1994 genocide against Tutsis." Michael Arunga, a Kenya-based spokesman for the World Vision aid organization, said his colleagues in Goma -- a city in eastern Congo -- told him that Rwandan troops arrived Tuesday morning in the village of Ishsha, outside of Goma. Arunga said he had no knowledge of Rwandan troops being in Congo before. A U.N. statement said the FDLR has been involved in clashes since late August mainly in North Kivu, "where the national army, the mainly Tutsi militia -- known as the CNDP -- and other rebel groups ... have fought in shifting alliances, uprooting around 250,000 civilians on top of the 800,000 already displaced by violence in recent years." See photos from Mia Farrow's trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo » . A report by a U.N. Security Council panel last month said Rwanda and Congo were fighting a brutal proxy war for territory and precious natural resources in eastern Congo, and all parties involved in the conflict were using execution, rape and child soldiers as tools of war. The report, filed by a panel of U.N. experts, "found evidence that Rwandan authorities have sent officers and units of the Rwanda Defense Forces" into Congo in support of Congo rebel leader Laurent Nkunda's fighters. CNN's Carolina Sanchez contributed to this report. | Rwanda has dispatched some 1,900 soldiers, Rwanda News Agency reports .
The neighbors have traditionally been on different sides of the conflict in east Congo .
The struggle pits Tutsis, supported by Rwanda, against the Congo-backed Hutu .
The conflict is effectively an extension of the Rwandan genocide . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "46bed153c1ba79ff212ca7108c9a71e20ea190ec"} | 645 | 71 | 0.541245 | 1.234287 | 1.316172 | 4.54386 | 8.894737 | 0.859649 |
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Twenty-seven million new cancer cases are expected by 2030, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Health Organization's cancer research agency. Rates for breast cancer, shown here under a microscope, have tripled in some Asian countries. That compares to 12 million new cases in 2007, the report found. The group forecast a 1 percent increase globally each year, with emerging economies such as China, Russia and India being hit the hardest. The major culprit: tobacco. "About 1.3 billion people smoke globally, making tobacco the major avoidable cause of death and disease worldwide," the report found. Experts say less developed countries are especially vulnerable, predicting a 38 percent increase in those regions by 2030. Watch more on the report » . Tobacco killed 100 million people in the world last century and will kill a billion in the 21st century, unless changes are made, said John R. Seffrin, chief executive officer at the American Cancer Society, Tuesday. Besides smoking, other causes for the rise in the disease include high-fat diets including fast food and decreased physical activity, reflective of increasingly western lifestyles, the report found. In addition, the rate of breast cancer has doubled or tripled in countries like Japan, Singapore and Korea, according to the report. In Africa, 518,000 people have died from cancer since the start of 2008 -- cervical cancer being the leading cancer killer among women, the report found. But there is good news for some Western nations. Cancer mortality rates are falling in Great Britain and the United States, said Seffrin. Effective cancer treatment in developing countries, experts say, depends on prevention and more data. "Awareness of the global cancer burden pandemic and its causes will help establish and enforce policies, resources and programs to control cancer and tobacco, and to de-stigmatize cancer," according to the WHO report. CNN's Miriam Falco contributed to this report. | Report: 38 percent increase in cancer in developing countries by 2030 .
Emerging economies such as China, Russia and India will be hit hardest .
Smoking, high-fat diets, decreased physical activity are cited causes . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "045bc6fcee7b435fad7136430788add2b0809301"} | 422 | 49 | 0.553452 | 1.397711 | 0.939412 | 3.651163 | 8.72093 | 0.906977 |
(CNN) -- A jury in Canton, Ohio, found former police officer Bobby Cutts Jr. guilty of murdering his pregnant girlfriend, Jessie Marie Davis, and their unborn child. Grasping tissues and moaning, Bobby Cutts Jr. testitfied he never meant to hurt girlfriend Jessie Davis. The jury of six men and six women reached the verdict after more than 21 hours of deliberations. Jurors found Cutts guilty of aggravated murder for the unlawful termination of Davis' pregnancy and the aggravated murder of a child under the age of 13. But the jury found him guilty of a lesser murder count in the death of Davis. Davis was nine months pregnant when she disappeared. She had chosen the name Chloe for her daughter. Jurors found that baby Chloe was killed during the commission of another crime, making Cutts eligible for the death penalty. The penalty phase of the trial is set to begin February 25. Cutts will face a sentence of either 25 years to life with the possibility of parole, 30 years to life with the possibility of parole, life without parole or death. As the verdicts were read, Cutts remained stoic, a stark contrast to his tearful testimony on Monday. Watch the verdicts » . His and Davis' families left the courthouse without comment. Jurors began deliberations late Tuesday afternoon. They had been sequestered, spending nights at a nearby hotel, cut off from exposure to the media and other potential influences. According to testimony, Cutts, 30, rolled Davis' body in a comforter and dumped it in a park, leaving their 2½-year-old son, Blake, alone. Cutts also was found guilty of aggravated burglary, two counts of gross abuse of a corpse and endangering a child, Blake. Cutts sobbed on the witness stand as he admitted killing Davis and their unborn child. But Cutts insisted that their deaths were an accident. "I didn't mean to hurt her," Cutts testified, clasping a handful of tissues. "This isn't real," he said he kept telling himself. Prosecutors discounted Cutts' story, claiming he buckled under the financial pressure of child support, killed the mother of his child and then created a cover story to try to get away with it. On the stand, Cutts said he went to pick up his son Blake and became agitated when Davis, 26, wasn't moving fast enough to get the boy ready. He said he tried to leave her house but she grabbed him to keep him from leaving, and he accidentally elbowed her in the throat. Cutts told the jury he performed CPR on Davis and then tried to revive her with bleach. When he realized Davis was dead, Cutts said he panicked and put her in the back of his truck, so Blake wouldn't have to see his mother. Myisha Ferrell, Cutts' longtime friend, testified for the prosecution that Cutts appeared at her home at 6 a.m. after Davis died. She said she could tell he was distraught. When they left her home in his truck, she found out why. "We drove off and he said something was wrong," she said. "He said, 'Something bad.' " "He said something was wrong with his baby's mother." Ferrell told the jury Cutts started speaking erratically as they drove, then blurted out, "She's in the back." Ferrell admitted she helped dump Davis' body in a field and said Cutts later coached her on what to say to police. Ferrell was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to lying to authorities and complicity to gross abuse of a corpse. During closing arguments, prosecutor Dennis Barr said Cutts strangled and killed Davis and her unborn child because of his mounting debt and child support for what would have been his fourth child. Cutts' own actions following Davis' disappearance were a clear indications of his guilt, he said. "His reaction is the reaction of person who committed a crime and is trying to cover it up," Barr said. Davis disappeared in June and the search for her attracted national attention. At that time, Cutts repeatedly denied he had any involvement. But Cutts eventually led police to her body. "For nine days he kept the location of [Davis' body] a secret and went on about his life, every day knowing that Jessie and Chloe were laying there rotting away, destroying the evidence," Barr said. Prosecutors also reminded the jury of the testimony of one of Cutts' friends, Richard Mitchell, who claimed the former police officer threatened to kill Davis one month before she disappeared. "I'm going to kill that [expletive] and throw her in the woods," Mitchell quoted Cutts as saying. In their closings, Cutts' attorneys acknowledged their client's poor judgment after Davis' death, but said the prosecution had not presented any witnesses to support their claim that Cutts was in financial distress. They urged the jury to find Cutts not guilty on the basis that the prosecution did not prove their case that he intentionally killed Davis. Fernando Mack, a defense lawyer, admitted Cutts' judgment lapsed when he wrapped Davis' body up and went to dispose of it, leaving their toddler alone with the bleach-soaked rug. But he cautioned jurors against deciding Cutts' fate based on an emotional response to ugly facts. "Will it outrage you? Absolutely. But, Blake being left home alone doesn't tell you about aggravated murder." "You don't know what happened in that house," defense attorney Carolyn Ranke said. E-mail to a friend . | NEW: Bobby Cutts Jr. guilty of murders of Jessie Davis, unborn child .
NEW: Cutts faces the death penalty in death of baby Chloe .
Jury deliberated for nearly 22 hours in murder trial of former police officer .
"I didn't mean to hurt her," Bobby Cutts Jr. testified . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "2d115e202c7b1ea797daab342d7f5945bed2487f"} | 1,317 | 80 | 0.612134 | 1.738961 | 0.856352 | 3.133333 | 17.9 | 0.8 |
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- The Israeli military says it has found a "sketch" detailing "the deployment of explosives and Hamas forces" in the Al-Attara neighborhood in northern Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces says this map from Hamas shows positions of booby traps and snipers in Al-Attara. The Israel Defense Forces issued a news release Friday saying paratroopers found a map that "describes the location of explosive devices and firing positions in the middle of the civilian population in the dense neighborhood, which endanger the life of the civilians." "That's what Hamas has been doing throughout the entirety of the operation -- perversely using civilians as human shields," said Brig. Gen. Yuval Halmish, officer-in-chief of Israel's Intelligence Corps. The IDF said the map depicts sniper positions at a mosque entrance and in nearby mosques. It shows "the directions the snipers are aiming," the IDF said. The map "indicates that explosives are planted in the entrances of civilian homes." There are bombs planted throughout the area, including one next to a gas station. "The important point is the disregard for human life in using entrances to civilian homes," Halmish said. "They booby-trapped the entrances of civilian houses with explosives put close to them," he said. "The objective is of course to hit our forces, but a local explosion also damages the houses of the civilians and causes great damage, and likely killing civilians," he said. | Israeli military says Hamas map shows location of explosives .
Map pinpoints locations in the middle of civilian neighborhoods, IDF says .
Hamas using civilians as "human shields," Israeli intelligence officer says .
Map also shows sniper positions at mosque entrance, in nearby mosques, IDF says . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8add33e4e12842214dfd6e4f77871ad33fc55133"} | 360 | 70 | 0.684331 | 1.53829 | 1.04028 | 1.821429 | 5.107143 | 0.892857 |
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