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Children and teens who have a parent with bipolar disorder are 14 times more likely than their peers to have bipolar-like symptoms themselves, and are two to three times more likely to be found to have an anxiety or mood disorder, such as depression, according to a report in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. More than 10 percent of the kids with a bipolar parent had signs of a bipolar-spectrum, mood or anxiety disorder. When both parents are bipolar, children are 3.6 times more likely to have bipolar disorder than children with only one parent with the psychiatric condition. Bipolar disorder, which is also known as manic-depressive illness, affects 5.7 million people over age 18 in the United States. The condition is characterized by extreme fluctuations in energy, mood, and the ability to function. For example, someone experiencing an "episode" may have a manic state of euphoria for a period of time, followed by a bout of severe depression. Although bipolar disorder may run in families, it's not guaranteed that children of bipolar parents will develop the condition too. "I don't want parents to think 'I have bipolar, so my kids have bipolar,'" says Boris Birmaher, M.D., of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and author of the new study, called the Pittsburgh Bipolar Offspring Study. "Yes, these kids are at a higher risk, but that doesn't necessarily mean your child will have it." Health.com: Bipolar disorder is different for women . In the study, Birmaher and colleagues looked at 233 parents with bipolar disorder and their 388 children, ages 6 to 18. They were compared with a control group of 143 parents and 251 children with no family history of the condition. Overall, 10.6 percent of the children with a bipolar parent had signs of a bipolar spectrum disorder (which includes a range of symptoms from severe to less so) or a mood or anxiety disorder. In comparison, only two children, or 0.8 percent, in the control group had such symptoms. It's not clear whether genes, environment or a combination of both are responsible for the link, or possibly greater awareness and diagnosis of psychiatric conditions in bipolar families. Health.com: How a bipolar patient learned to manage mania . However, Birmaher says identifying the condition at an earlier age may ultimately help young people. "The longer you wait, the more complicated the condition could become," Birmaher says. Previous studies have suggested that it can take 10 years of symptoms before people get a correct diagnosis and proper treatment. "Ten years is a long time -- especially in the life of a child," he says. The condition is difficult to diagnose because the symptoms can be mistaken for depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or one of the disruptive behavior disorders. Signs of a manic episode include increased energy, extreme irritability, racing thoughts, spending sprees, abuse of drugs (particularly cocaine), and increased sexual drive. A depressive episode may range from disruptive sleeping patterns to thoughts of death or suicide. "The chronic highs and lows are only two manifestations of the condition," says Gary Sachs, M.D., director of the bipolar clinic and research program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "But there are plenty of people who live a full, functional life and still have bipolar disorder." Health.com: How to care for and cope with a bipolar spouse . Bipolar disorder cannot be cured, and is treated with mood-stabilizing medications like lithium, as well as psychotherapy, and psychosocial intervention. The ongoing study will follow this group of parents and children to explore further bipolar triggers including stress, family interactions, and genetics. Health.com: My story: I'm bipolar and struggle with addiction . "This study in no way should be a reason for someone with bipolar not to have children," says Sachs. "But there is a risk and that might make someone's child who has difficulty seek help sooner." In adults with bipolar disorder, up to 60 percent say they had their first symptoms before the age of 21. "Bipolar disorder is a multidimensional condition, and it can affect a lot of things including your physical health," says Sachs. "That is what we are learning from studies like this where you begin to see other psychiatric conditions." The National Institute of Mental Health funded the study. Birmaher has participated in pharmaceutical company-sponsored forums and a study co-author has served on the advisory boards of several pharmaceutical companies. Enter to win a monthly Room Makeover Giveaway from MyHomeIdeas.com . Copyright Health Magazine 2009 . | Kids with a bipolar parent are 14 times more likely to have bipolar-like symptoms .
They're also more likely to have a diagnosis of an anxiety or mood disorder .
Bipolar disorder affects 5.7 million people over age 18 in the United States .
Findings might help families recognize problem, get help for a child earlier . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "bd03b29cddbee1cd9855f3712367303de0490bb0"} | 1,066 | 76 | 0.597842 | 1.499894 | 1.217779 | 4.640625 | 13.96875 | 0.890625 |
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Nonnie Dotson, a nurse in the U.S. Air Force, was decompressing from a hard-fought child support battle when she disappeared hundreds of miles from her home base. U.S. Air Force nurse Nonnie Dotson disappeared on the way to the mall on November 19, 2006. Dotson, 33, was staying with her brother at his home outside Denver, Colorado, when she vanished on November 19, 2006. She was supposed to meet friends at the mall for a smoothie. She never showed. The single mother and her 16-month-old daughter, Savannah, lived in San Antonio, Texas, where Dotson worked on a military base as an intensive care nurse. They were staying with Dotson's brother, Tony, for a few days. Watch why Dotson's disappearance puzzles investigators » . Dotson had recently emerged from a court battle with Ed Vehle, Savannah's father. Vehle, who also lived in San Antonio, was ordered by the court to pay $10,000 in back child support, as well as $900 each month. Dotson won the court order two months before she disappeared. Dotson was just months away from completing her military duty and was trying to decide whether she would move back to her hometown in Colorado or remain in San Antonio. Vehle had declared he had no interest in being a part of their lives. The two met in 2004 and the relationship ended when Dotson became pregnant. Vehle did not want her to have the baby, she told friends at the military base. The friends spoke on condition that their identities would not be made public. Vehle is not a suspect or person of interest in the case, police said. Because things appeared to be going well in Dotson's life, her sudden disappearance is a mystery to her family and to police. She was hundreds of miles away from home in a safe Denver suburb. She left her brother's home on Sunday afternoon, and the mall was within walking distance,Tony Dotson said. "She asked me to look after Savannah for a couple hours and she walked out that door and we never saw her again," Tony Dotson added. "She would never have intentionally left Savannah behind like that." Police agree. Since Dotson vanished, there has been no activity on her bank accounts, credit cards or cell phone, police said. Her case is still an open missing persons investigation being handled by the Jefferson County homicide department. "Unfortunately, we have no real leads as to who is responsible for Dotson's disappearance," said sheriff's office spokeswoman Jacki Kelley. "She could be alive and being held against her will. She could have been kidnapped and then murdered. We are not ruling anything out at this time," Kelley said. For several weeks after Dotson's disappearance, Vehle refused to answer questions. He retained counsel. In mid-December 2006, Vehle and Jay Norton, his attorney, met with police, answering all their questions. Norton said they were able to provide investigators with receipts and cell phone records accounting for Vehle's whereabouts. Police confirmed that Vehle was nowhere near Colorado before, during or after Dotson's disappearance. After Dotson's disappearance, Vehle decided to go to court to pursue full custody of his daughter. Dotson's parents had been taking care of Savannah. The court last year gave Vehle shared custody with Dotson's parents. Family and police urge anyone with information about the whereabouts of Nonnie Dotson to call the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office tip line at (303) 271-5612. Nonnie Dotson is 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 115 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes. | Nonnie Dotson was visiting brother in suburb of Denver, Colorado .
She was an Air Force nurse based in San Antonio, Texas .
She won court battle before November 2006 disappearance .
Have a tip? Call Jefferson County Sheriff's office at (303) 271-5612 . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "9880666126c7836dbe99b0b42becfee3dcab88cf"} | 843 | 65 | 0.517728 | 1.540526 | 0.296076 | 2.714286 | 12.607143 | 0.892857 |
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir on Tuesday accused the international media of "exaggerating" the situation in Darfur to detract from atrocities in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Somalia. Refugees from Darfur gather at a camp in Chad. Sudan's president says the crisis in Darfur is a "media fabrication." El-Bashir spoke at a news conference in Dubai following a three-day visit to the Persian Gulf emirate. He said the crisis in Sudan's western Darfur region is a "media fabrication." El-Bashir's government has been blamed by the United Nations of supporting militias that conduct "indiscriminate attacks" on civilians in the Darfur region, including torture, rape, and killings. Rebels fighting the government-backed militias have also been accused by the U.N. of widespread human rights abuses. During Tuesday's news conference, el-Bashir restated his position that foreign intervention in Darfur was an obstacle in achieving peace in the region. The Sudanese president has been outspoken in his opposition to allowing non-African forces in Darfur. At the start of this year, more than 9,000 members of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force were deployed to the region to address the fighting and humanitarian suffering. The force will eventually number 26,000. Speaking on Tuesday, el-Bashir said that the fighting only affects 10 percent of the region. In the majority of Darfur, there is little to no conflict and people are living normal lives, he said. Citing Sudanese government statistics, el-Bashir said that less than 10,000 people have died in the conflict and less than 500,000 have been displaced. International figures, including United Nations' data, put the death toll in Darfur at approximately 200,000, with another 2.5 million people displaced by the violence since 2003. The conflict started five years ago when ethnic African tribesmen took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese government. Sudan's Arab-dominated government is accused of responding by unleashing the tribal militias known as janjaweed, which have committed the worst atrocities against Darfur's local communities. El-Bashir, however, rejected claims that the Darfur conflict is being fought along ethnic lines. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Elham Nakhlawi in Dubai contributed to this report. | Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir: Crisis in Darfur region is a "media fabrication"
Plan is to detract from atrocities in Iraq, Palestinian territories and Somalia, he says .
El-Bashir says less than 10,000 people have died and less than 500,000 displaced .
U.N. says 200,000 people have died, and 2.5 million have been displaced . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "5b738e4e6b0cdb0437853e4276e47e469fe082f5"} | 558 | 91 | 0.608015 | 1.599688 | 0.921041 | 3.779412 | 6.485294 | 0.926471 |
(CNN) -- Nineteen political prisoners were released by the government of Myanmar over the weekend, the human rights group Amnesty International reported Tuesday. Protesters demand democracy for Myanmar at a demonstration in New Delhi, India earlier this month. Among those released was Ma Khin Khin Leh, who was serving a life sentence because her husband, a student activist, had helped plan a protest demonstration in Bago in July 1999, according to Amnesty International USA's Web blog . Authorities prevented the demonstration from taking place, but took the woman and her three-year-old daughter into custody after failing to find her husband, Amnesty International said. The child was released after five days but her mom, a 33-year-old school teacher, was sentenced to life in prison. "Even by the normally harsh standards of 'justice' meted out by Myanmar's military government, the life sentence given to Ma Khin Khin Leh was extreme," the human rights organization said. She was designated one of Amnesty International USA's priority cases. She was released with 18 others "widely considered to be political prisoners," Amnesty International said. Myanmar's military rulers have been widely condemned for their alleged human rights abuses. Pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been confined in her home for 12 of the past 18 years. Her last house arrest began in 2003 and has been periodically renewed. In October 2007, clashes erupted between pro-democracy demonstrators and government security forces. As many as 110 people are believed to have been killed in that crackdown, including 40 Buddhist monks. The protests were sparked by a huge fuel price increase imposed by the military government, and quickly escalated. Myanmar's military junta said in mid-October that it had detained more than 2,900 people amid the clashes. In September 2008, Amnesty International reported that Myanmar, also called Burma, had released seven dissidents, among them U Win Tin, a journalist and senior official in the opposition National League for Democracy who had been imprisoned for 19 years. | School teacher among 19 political prisoners freed in Myanmar, Amnesty says .
Ma Khin Khin Leh sentenced to life in 1999 after her husband planned a protest .
Myanmar's military rulers are widely condemned for alleged human rights abuses .
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi still confined to home . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "38bc8324908f1f8a4131283b1dcb1e0cfb3b7bcb"} | 485 | 81 | 0.662774 | 1.516168 | 1.159297 | 2.534483 | 6.793103 | 0.87931 |
NEW YORK (CNN) -- When stock markets are soaring, people think they're making money because they're geniuses. But when the market tanks -- which it always does, sooner or later -- people look for villains to blame for their losses. Allan Sloan says the real lesson of the Madoff case is not to rely on others to protect your investments. That brings us to Bernie Madoff, who has become the iconic symbol of the current horrible market and economic meltdown, even though he really had nothing to do with it. Yes, Madoff sure seems to be a really, really bad guy who ruined lots and lots of lives and should probably be locked up for the rest of his natural days. But Madoff's misdeeds -- or as our lawyers would prefer, his alleged misdeeds -- have nothing to do with the market meltdown that has sliced trillions of dollars from our collective net worth. He's become the symbol of the current meltdown the same way that uber-tastemaker Martha Stewart became a face of the 2001-02 corporate crime wave, even though the misdeeds of which she was convicted -- misleading government investigators -- were less than penny-ante compared to the multi-billion dollar frauds that first built up and then destroyed giant companies such as Enron and WorldCom. Along with Madoff, the Securities and Exchange Commission is being portrayed as the villain of the piece, having failed to catch him long ago when his alleged depredations must have been much smaller. Instead, it gave him a few wrist slaps until he confessed his misdeeds a month ago. But, tips from Boston money manager Harry Markopoulos over the years notwithstanding, it's not at all surprising that the SEC missed Madoff. In fact, I'd have been amazed if the SEC had been the ones to catch him. Why? I don't want to seem cynical or jaded, but after almost 40 years of covering business news, I've seen the same thing happen over and over because of the way regulators are trained. If someone runs a little bit out of the baseline by chiseling on numbers or playing some other game, regulators are pretty good at catching him (or her). But if -- like Madoff -- you make up numbers from scratch and deal with huge sums, you're so far out of the baseline that regulators aren't looking for you there. It's very hard for an SEC regulator to wrap his head around the idea that an establishment guy like Madoff -- a Nasdaq market pioneer and an occasional consultant to the SEC -- is capable of just making things up out of whole cloth. But, it would appear, he was. And as an aside, it's easy to blame George W. Bush's anti-regulation policies for the SEC not catching Madoff. But Markopoulos' original tips reached the SEC when Bill Clinton was president. Like newspapers, where I used to work, regulators get all sorts of tips coming across the transom. As in newspapers, I suspect, many of the tips end up ignored. Markopoulos was right about Madoff's operation being a fraud. But his magnum opus -- an 18-page 2005 letter listing 29 "red flags" -- is quite dense and confusing, probably because he'd gotten frustrated after years of not being taken very seriously. Unfortunately, the letter didn't list what would have been (in hindsight, naturally) the simplest tip-off: that this supposedly multi-billion dollar operation was audited by an obscure three-person accounting firm. As Jim Heatherington, a Tulsa, Oklahoma, certified public accountant, pointed out to me after reading a Madoff column I wrote for Fortune, a simple database search shows that the firm hadn't had a peer review since 1990. That would -- or should -- have set off all sorts of alarm bells. Back to the main event. Ponzi schemes, in which you pay existing investors not by making a profit but by getting money from new investors, have been around forever. Like Madoff, a Jew who preyed on fellow Jews and Jewish charities such as Elie Wiesel's foundation, Ponzi schemers often target their own religious or ethnic groups. That way, they lure victims who feel flattered at having been asked to join an elite society, so much so that many of them fail to find out basic things, such as whether the securities or properties they're supposedly being put into actually exist. Consider these: Tom Petters, a prominent Minnesota businessman is charged with running a multi-billion dollar scam that preyed on evangelical Christians. A New York City man was recently accused of preying on fellow members of a Hispanic church. A Haitian-American in Miami was accused on December. 30 of preying on other Haitian-Americans. Just yesterday, the SEC accused a Williamsville, N.Y., man of preying on fellow Catholics. If someone, especially a member of your racial, religious or social group, offers you a deal not available to the general public, check it out. Very diligently. Don't rely on the SEC or any other regulator to do that for you. Never, never, never put all your eggs in one basket, no matter how good it looks. And that, my friends, is the real bottom line. Pillory Madoff and mock him all you like, he has it coming. But learn from him, too. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Allan Sloan. | Allan Sloan: Madoff is being blamed for collapse of stock market values .
He says Madoff had nothing to do with it but escaped scrutiny for fraud .
Sloan says regulators rarely catch the biggest frauds .
He says real lesson is to never rely on others to protect your investments . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "fef9ba044558fb72ce94d96db641f54c5ff3990e"} | 1,248 | 68 | 0.40117 | 1.087328 | 1.329368 | 2.535714 | 18.589286 | 0.821429 |
(CNN) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced the resignations Tuesday of three high-level government officials, most notably Communications and Transport Secretary Luis Tellez Kuenzler. The government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, seen here in January, is facing elections in July. Abraham Gonzalez, a key official for the powerful ministry that oversees Mexico's government, also resigned. So did Sergio Vela Martinez, president of the National Council for Culture and the Arts. No official reasons were given for any of the resignations, which analysts said did not appear to be related. But at least two of the resignations did not come as a surprise. Tellez, who stepped down from a Cabinet-level post, had been involved for weeks in a controversy over taped comments revealed last month by CNN journalist Carmen Aristegui. In the taped conversation, Tellez said former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari had stolen government money. Salinas has not been formally accused of any crime. Tellez received an anonymous threat in late February from an apparent political enemy telling him to resign or more damaging audiotapes would be released to the media. He refused and turned the matter over to authorities. Ana Maria Salazar Slack, a political analyst who is host of a daily radio show in Mexico City, called it "an almost soap opera-ish scandal" that left Calderon little choice but to force Tellez to resign. "Although Calderon wanted to keep him in office, it made it very difficult to keep him there," she said. Calderon moved Tellez to a post as a presidential aide dealing with economic matters. Other observers also were not surprised by the move. "That was waiting to happen," said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center. "But evidently the president values his counsel and has kept him in a high-profile position in the presidency from which he'll continue to have influence." Robert Pastor, the Latin America national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, praised Tellez but said political considerations prevailed. "He's a very competent fellow," Pastor said. "One of the most competent people I've known in Mexico. But this tape in particular was very embarrassing." In a televised news conference after Calderon announced the changes, Tellez expressed his "gratitude for this opportunity that few Mexicans obtain." Replacing Tellez will be Juan Molinar Horcasitas, the head of the Mexican Institute for Social Security. Molinar belongs to the same party as Calderon, the National Action Party [PAN], while Tellez belongs to the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party [PRI]. That played a role, Slack said. "The president is sending a signal to his party that he's going to support people from his own party," Slack said. "Beyond the political scandals of the tapes, there's a decision for the president to appoint people very close to the party." Gonzalez's departure was not a surprise either, since he is running for a congressional seat in July and Mexican law requires him to resign. Analysts spoke highly of Gonzalez's replacement, Geronimo Gutierrez Fernandez. He had been the top person in the foreign ministry for Latin and North America. "Gutierrez moving in is outstanding," the Mexico Institute's Selee said, calling him "one of the smartest people ... I've met" and "an impressive guy." Consuelo Saizar Guerrero takes over as head of the National Council for Culture and the Arts, replacing Vela, whose reasons for resigning were not disclosed. Saizar previously served as head of the Economic Culture Fund, the government's book-publishing enterprise. The arts and culture post will play a significant role in 2010, when Mexico celebrates 100 years of its social revolution and 200 years of its declaration of independence, radio analyst Slack said. As for the timing of resignations from three key posts, Slack linked it to Mexico's election calendar. "In order to understand these changes," she said, "you have to understand there are midterm elections in July. So if there are going to be any changes, they have to take place right now." Meanwhile, Peter Hakim, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, said the changes do not portend a political shift. "This doesn't sound like any major direction in change for Calderon," Hakim said. | Analyst says timing of resignations linked to Mexican midterm elections in July .
Communications and transport secretary resigns amid controversy over comments .
Key official for ministry that oversees Mexico's government leaves . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "03765604d9073697904c2dc4cf29e90b924f36f0"} | 1,009 | 45 | 0.497075 | 1.357468 | 0.840249 | 2.944444 | 23.361111 | 0.833333 |
(CNN) -- Whether it's dining, shopping, culture, nightlife or people, everybody has a favorite city. Some cities are great places to live and raise a family. Others provide the backdrop for that once-in-a-lifetime vacation. The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I-Reporters have been telling us about their favorite American cities. Here are some of the highlights. Jim Thompson sent the photo of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis in Santa Fe, New Mexico, along with this important information: "Be sure to mention that St. Francis Cathedral has been renamed to St. Francis Basilica. ... The request was made by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and was granted by the Vatican, so now St. Francis is the headquarters for the pope when he comes to Santa Fe." Diana Peters moved to New Orleans in 2003, and has experienced the city before and after Hurricane Katrina. Her feelings about recovery are complicated. "But don't turn your back on New Orleans, because she survives in all of us, especially those of use who still see her beauty in what remains." Josh Gorrell sent the photo of the "painted ladies" at Marina Del Rey in southern California. "My favorite part of living by the coast is the constantly fresh ocean breezes, the year-round sunshine and the wonderful seafood! Oh, and the surf!" Raymond Lopera's favorite city in the Los Angeles area is Santa Monica. He lived there briefly when he moved from New York a few years ago and says he goes back every chance he gets. He says Santa Monica is very pedestrian friendly and he enjoys taking long walks, stopping along the way at places like Barnes & Noble or Starbucks. Nikolai Ursin can't get enough of Minneapolis. "I'm 28 and able to live a fabulous life because the cost of living is so low, yet the wages are quite high. My friends in N.Y.C. are jealous. I travel a lot for work and there is nothing quite like landing in Minneapolis and knowing I'm home." I-Reporter Chris Fuhriman is a captain in the Army and completing a master's degree in geography at the University of Hawaii. Fuhriman moved to Honolulu from Utah three years ago with his wife and two children. "His favorite thing about Honolulu? "The international flavor of the city, and the diversity. It's really a city for everyone." Russell Clayton says there's "far too much to do" in Austin, Texas. Then he went on to list a wide variety of outdoor activities, including hiking, swimming, mountain biking, kayaking and canoeing. Clayton says the city's unofficial motto is "Keep Austin Weird." E-mail to a friend . | Rate your favorite U.S. city by taking the America's Favorite Cities survey .
The survey ends on July 15; enter to win a trip to Australia .
I-Reporters weigh in with photos and comments about their favorites . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "0855d22a73d652b037a9424aef66d60077163ab2"} | 624 | 55 | 0.367582 | 1.131063 | 0.477138 | 0.795455 | 12.181818 | 0.568182 |
BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- Erin Sheehan was a freshman last year when Seung-Hui Cho peeked through the door of her German class. The next hour of her life would become a struggle for survival. Erin Sheehan played dead while the Virginia Tech shooter went on a rampage. "I still have trouble sleeping." "The gunman entered my room. He shot my German teacher and then proceeded to shoot the students in the classroom pretty thoroughly," she said. Sheehan was only one of four students in the room not to get shot. She jumped on the floor and remained quiet while Cho went on his rampage. "I thought if I played dead then he hopefully would think I was already hit." She listened as the killer left her Norris Hall classroom to attack another room. She and the other survivors barricaded the door to keep Cho from coming back. "I tried to use a podium at the front of the classroom to block the door, because the gunman was shoving at the door and started firing through the door. We didn't think we were going to be able to hold it," she said. Watch Sheehan remember a day of horror » . Sheehan is now a sophomore at Virginia Tech. Like so many on campus, April 16, 2007, marks the worst day of her life, when Cho killed 32 students and professors in the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Sheehan recently accompanied CNN to what is known as the Virginia Tech April 16, 2007 Prevail Archive -- an office space on the edge of campus where mementoes sent from across the world are temporarily warehoused. The university is cataloging and documenting every item it can save in order to create a permanent collection as well as an online archive that the public can access. Take a tour of the archive » . Teddy bears, an American flag from the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, painted eggs, the hood of a race car, condolence posters signed by Koreans and a letter from President Bush are housed there. Thousands of other letters are also kept in the archive. "This is making me feel super bad. Because a lot of people died at Blacksburg. I love VT," wrote one young child. Walking through the archive for the first time, Sheehan was overcome with emotion. She stopped and held a picture of all the victims, pointing out her slain German teacher and another classmate. "I believe this is Nicole White, she sat right next to me. And I think I would credit her with taking bullets for me," she said in a muted tone. Watch letters to Virginia Tech » . Of the entire archive, she added, "I don't ever remember seeing it all together like this before. I think it is really remarkable that so many people cared to reach out to us like this." Tamara Kennelly is the archivist at Virginia Tech. She's responsible for documenting how everyone beyond the campus dealt with the tragedy, when the world was joined by four words: "We are all Hokies." "People at other places have really identified with us and felt all of this with us," she said. "I think it's very heartening, it's very moving to me." Watch a Tech student describe surviving four shots » . They've received just about anything, from condolences books from funeral homes to messages from prisons to letters from elementary students. "There are always people who really have their own story to tell or a powerful way of putting it. And when you find those letters, they stay with you -- all day, all week," said Amy Vilelle, the manuscript archivist. "There are a few that I will not ever forget reading." Some are very personal, like a pair of goggles from a lab partner. "Mike may you rest in peace. You will forever be remembered as my favorite lab partner. We'll be missing you," it says on the goggles. Fighting back tears, Kennelly said, "This job is very moving because you get something and you read it and you think, 'oh gosh, they want to share something with us somehow. They want to reach out and give some kindness.' " Gail McMillan, the director of digital archives, says it's especially difficult to read material from children. "It's hard to know what kind of impact this may have on them." Their job is not only to remember, but to preserve, an archival collection for the university. For those who lived it, the tragic events of April 16, 2007, are still too fresh to put into the past. "I still have trouble sleeping some days," Sheehan said. "It really does bother me because I still understand I could have been killed so easy, and there is no explanation why I wasn't." E-mail to a friend . | Thousands of items sent from around globe are housed on Tech campus .
Items range from letters from kids to an American flag from Afghanistan .
"It is really remarkable that so many people cared to reach out to us," survivor says .
Archivist: "There are a few that I will not ever forget reading" | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "14160ef182d08523040eeec07aaaa417ebc38287"} | 1,081 | 72 | 0.364613 | 1.251645 | 0.504702 | 5.40625 | 14.875 | 0.84375 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal and state health officials said Monday that salmonella linked last week in Minnesota to King Nut peanut butter was caused by the same strain of bacteria responsible for an ongoing outbreak of 410 salmonella cases in 43 states. Salmonella bacteria are transmitted to humans by eating contaminated foods. The infection may have contributed to three deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. "Preliminary analysis of an epidemiologic study conducted by CDC and public health officials in multiple states comparing foods eaten by ill and well persons has suggested peanut butter as a likely source," the disease agency said in a written statement. "To date, no association has been found with common brand names of peanut butter sold in grocery stores." A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said Monday that the agency has been collaborating with the CDC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and public health officials in many states to investigate the outbreak of infections due to Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium. "This new information from Minnesota will not change what we are currently doing as part of the investigation," said FDA spokesman Michael Herndon. What you need to know about food poisoning » . The Minnesota bacteria were linked last week to institutionally distributed peanut butter, sold under the King Nut brand name. In one of the Minnesota patients, a 70-year-old female nursing home resident, the infection proved fatal, said Doug Schultz, a Minnesota public health department spokesman. "We do not know to what extent the salmonella contributed to the death," said Schultz, who added that the patient had other underlying illnesses. Virginia Health officials confirm that two of the three deaths linked to the salmonella outbreak were from their state. Although she could not provide a lot of information due to privacy laws, Michelle Peregoy, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Health tells CNN that one person who died was over age 65 and from the Southwest part of the state, the other person who died was a younger adult between the ages of 25-64. As with the Minnesota patient, both Virgina patients had underlying illnesses, which means they had weakended immune systems. Very young people, older people and those with compromised immune systems are the most vulnerable to severe side effects, including death. Late last week, King Nut Companies, based in Ohio, recalled King Nut peanut butter. President and CEO Martin Kanan said the product is manufactured by a Lynchburg, Virginia-based company, Peanut Corporation of America. "King Nut took this action as soon as it was informed that salmonella had been found in an open five-pound tub of King Nut peanut butter," the company said Saturday in a posting on its Web site. King Nut, which distributes peanut butter through food service accounts, does not sell directly to consumers. Kanan said King Nut has asked customers to stop distributing peanut butter with lot codes beginning with "8" and has canceled orders with the manufacturer. The first cases nationwide were reported September 3, but most occurred between October 1 and December 31, the CDC said last week. About 18 percent of cases were hospitalized as a result of their illness, and patients have ranged from 2 months to 98 years of age. California has reported the highest case count with 55, followed by Ohio with 53, Massachusetts with 39, Minnesota with 30 and Michigan with 20. The other 37 states are each reporting from one to 19 cases. The seven states that have reported no cases connected to the outbreak are Montana, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida and Alaska. Strains of salmonella linked to outbreaks in the past have been traced to contaminated eggs, meat, poultry, vegetables, pet food and peanut butter. Contaminated tomatoes were blamed for an outbreak in the fall of 2006 caused by salmonella Typhimurium, which sickened at least 183 people in 21 states. Most people suffered from diarrhea and fever for about a week. No one is known to have died in that outbreak. Salmonella infections can be treated with antibiotics, though some strains are resistant to these drugs, according to the CDC. Most people infected develop diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps within a few days of infection and the illness can last up to a week. Most recover without treatment, but some may suffer dehydration and, in severe cases, require hospitalization. Children, senior citizens, people with chronic illnesses and those with weak immune systems tend to be at highest risk for complications, according to the National Institutes of Health. CNN's Louise Schiavone and Miriam Falco contributed to this story. | New: Virginia officials confirm two salmonella-related deaths in the state .
CDC: Salmonella outbreak sickens at least 410 people in 43 states .
Officials link salmonella in Minnesota to same strain responsible for outbreak .
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NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Indian police swiftly handled a "security scare" at New Delhi's major airport early Friday amid heightened concern in the wake of last week's terror attack in which gunmen killed 179 people in Mumbai. An Indian soldier joins the beefed up security detail at New Delhi airport. New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said police responded to reports of gunfire at Indira Gandhi International Airport but found no casualties or damage. Bhagat said there was "no terror threat." "And there's no cause of panic," he added. Uday Banerjee, the head of India's Central Industrial Security Force, told reporters at the airport that something sounding like gunshots was heard, but no one saw anything and no bullet casings were found. Indian authorities stepped up security at the nation's airports on Thursday after receiving intelligence reports that terrorists might be planning an air attack. At Indira Gandhi, four armed police stood guard at each entrance, and people waiting for arriving passengers were not allowed inside. Watch what triggered the security scare there » . "There have been intelligence inputs about some terrorist activity, and therefore security has been tightened (at airports)," civil aviation spokesperson Moushmi Chakraborty told CNN. Watch heightened anxiety after the attacks » . Police beefed up security at all airports including in the capital New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore, Chakraborty said. A spokesman for the Indian Navy, Cmdr. Nirad Sinha, also confirmed to CNN that security officials had received warnings about an airborne attack. Watch more on increase in security » . The Press Trust of India, a nonprofit newspaper cooperative, said that reports had suggested that terrorists could have sneaked into the country to carry out strikes on the anniversary of the Babri mosque demolition. The mosque -- one of the largest in the Uttar Pradesh state -- was destroyed on December 6, 1992, by Hindu nationalists who believe it was built on the site of an existing temple. On Wednesday India's defense minister met with the chiefs of the army, air force and navy and discussed what the ministry in a news statement called "possible terror threats from air." The officials also discussed the country's coastal security plans and how to tighten security along the military line of control dividing the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan to "prevent infiltration of terrorists," the statement said. India ranks among the countries where terrorism is most common, according to the U.S. State Department. CNN's Harmeet Shah Singh and Sara Sidner contributed to this report. | NEW: "There's no cause of panic," says New Delhi police spokesman .
Security raised at all the nation's airports amid intelligence on terrorist activity .
Press Trust of India: Reports suggest possible strike on December 6 .
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(CNN) -- The Indian city of Mumbai exploded into chaos early Thursday morning as gunmen launched a series of attacks across the country's commercial capital, killing scores of people and taking hostages in two luxury hotels frequented by Westerners. CNN's Christiane Amanpour says India and Pakistan might be warming toward each other. Chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour spoke about the situation. CNN: An attack this large, this sophisticated, and carried out with no warning could have come from inside India, maybe, maybe outside, maybe a neighboring state could be involved. We turn to Christiane Amanpour. What do you hear? Christiane Amanpour: Well, Tom, Islamic militants have been stepping up their assaults on Mumbai, which is not just the center of its filmmaking, but the economic and financial hub of India. They have often blamed terror attacks on Islamic militants based in Pakistan. Some, they say, are concerned about, for instance, Indian rule over Kashmir. Al Qaeda also has threatened to attack India in revenge for its policies. Very, very interestingly, this comes at a time when the new president of Pakistan has, in fact, gone further than any previous Pakistani leader in saying they want to improve relations with India, in saying they want to jointly combat terrorism together. The Pakistani president even went so far as saying he would consider renouncing a nuclear strike on India. This is a very confused situation. Although some group has claimed responsibility, nobody knows the motive yet. ... CNN: Talk to me about why it would be in the interest of these people to sever this tie between Pakistan and India. Do they believe India would join in the effort to squeeze them out? Amanpour: This is the ongoing situation. Certainly, Kashmir is a flashpoint for India and Pakistan, and really back in 2006, there were Islamic militants blamed for recent attacks. About 180 people were killed there. The one that came closest to pitting India against Pakistan was in 2001, when Islamic militants attacked the Parliament. Only 12 people were killed, but not compared to what's happened now, and that almost led to a war between India and Pakistan. Whatever happens in this region is so, so difficult and dangerous because of the flash point it centers on. As I say, though it has come at a time right in the aftermath of the warmest outreach by Pakistan to India in decades. ... CNN: What is, in all of this world picture, Christiane, what is the significance of this? Amanpour: Well, this is deeply significant, obviously, because it is such a complex and coordinated attack on multitudinous targets, multitudinous locations. Obviously, a large number of militants or terrorists who have taken part in this, and they have engaged the Indian forces, the police and security forces. It's not like they just put bombs somewhere and allowed them to go off, and either they were suicide attackers who got killed or they were able to remotely detonate their bombs. What they've done is not just attack, take hostages, but engage also with the security forces. So this really ratchets it up a very significant level. And it's been coming for about 20 years, these attacks. Small in the last couple of decades, but in the last 10 years or so, particularly since 9/11, there have been a number of very significant attacks blamed by the Indian forces on Islamic militants. ... This is very, very dangerous in this part of the world. Mumbai is India's not just gateway to the nation; it's its economic and financial hub, and it's its cultural hub as well, having the Bollywood and the other film production studios there. Nobody quite knows who it is and why they have done it. This is the thing that is very difficult and dangerous at the moment. This little-known group, if it's true that they exist, have claimed responsibility, although that has not been confirmed, so-called Deccan Mujahedeen, and what is the motive? There has obviously for many, many years been a type of feelings by India that, say, 150 or so million Muslims who are in the minority are feeling sort of hard done by in terms of the Hindu majority. There are also complaints by Indian Muslims about the way Kashmir is progressing, that enclave, and that is a huge, huge flashpoint. But what's really amazing is that often, it's blamed on tensions with Pakistan. And yet, this comes at a time where the president of Pakistan has -- the new president -- has really made an unprecedented overture to India in terms of trying to warm up relations, trying to secure a lasting peace. And just today, Indian and Pakistani officials were having meetings, and they ended it with a joint declaration that they wanted to cooperate on ending terrorism and combating terrorism. CNN: Christiane, do you see any connection with the recent American elections and this? Amanpour: Well, it's hard to tell. People would say that it takes a lot longer than a few weeks to plan something like this. It's difficult to tell. I'm sure there will be a huge amount of analysis in the upcoming days and weeks. What is going to be vital is whatever information the Indian security forces can get from some of these terrorists, militants, who've apparently some may have been captured alive. Obviously, there apparently have been some who have been killed as well. All of this will provide some of those missing pieces of the puzzle. Who are these people? What is their motive? Just today, there is an interview with the U.S. Marine Corps commandant as basically saying that al Qaeda's focus now is Pakistan. There had been some thought that maybe al Qaeda was in the past trying to launch its attacks also in India, but the Indian secret services and the security services say that they don't have a presence there. But Pakistan is a very, very big worry. It's a failing state. Afghanistan is practically a failed state right now, even after the U.S. in 2001 sent al Qaeda and the Taliban packing. There's a very difficult and dangerous situation on this subcontinent that really has been the focus of a lot of attention right now, and indeed, the incoming president has said that he wants to step up the number of U.S. forces. U.S. commanders want more forces in that region as well, not just Afghanistan, but to cope with Pakistan as well. CNN: As you said, there have been a lot of incidents since the year 2000 in India. Why is this one getting so much particular attention? There was one with over 200 deaths. Amanpour: Well, about 180 in 2006. But those were sort of multiple bombings in trains and railway stations. But this is one night with, so far, according to our sources, at least 87 people killed, and it's a brazen attack on the most visible elements and symbols and structures of the economic, the cultural, the tourist, the international hub, as I said, the gateway to India -- which is the world's largest democracy -- which is not a failed state by any stretch of the imagination. Which has a unified political structure, which has an army and security forces. India is not Pakistan or Afghanistan, and yet this has been able to happen here. And why is it getting so much attention? Because so many more people than ever before have been killed in one fell swoop, and it's ongoing, and these people launched pitched battles with the security forces, and they still have hostages, and it appears they deliberately targeted Westerners. | Pakistani leader has gone far in reaching out to India, Amanpour says .
Nations may even join together to fight terrorism, correspondent says .
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistani authorities have arrested two top leaders of the Islamic militant group India blames for the November massacre in Mumbai, Pakistan's prime minister confirmed Wednesday. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Pakistani security forces had rounded up a number of militant figures. The top military officer in the U.S. on Wednesday said he is "encouraged" by Pakistan's recent arrests of "significant players" in the Mumbai attacks. U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said the arrests amount to "first steps" toward determining who plotted the three day siege last month that killed 160 people in Mumbai, India's financial capital. "There are more steps to follow," he noted. He also thanked India for showing restraint against Pakistan, which it has accused of harboring the terrorist groups behind the November massacre. Zarar Shah, a top operational commander of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, and Zakir Rehman Lakhvi, whose arrest had been reported Tuesday, were among the militant figures rounded up in recent days, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told reporters. Gilani would not confirm the detention of Masood Azhar, the leader of another militant group, Jaish-e-Muhammad. But he said his government has launched its own investigation into India's allegations that the gunmen who killed more than 160 people in Mumbai had links to Pakistan. The acknowledgment came three days after Pakistani security forces raided an LeT camp near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, in the first sign of government action against Lashkar-e-Tayyiba since the three-day siege of India's financial capital. Both LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammad were formed to battle Indian rule in the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir, and both were banned after a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament that brought the South Asian nuclear rivals to the brink of war. The United States has listed LeT as a terrorist group with ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. According to the U.S. government, Lakhvi, 47, has directed LeT's military operations in southeast Asia, Chechnya, Bosnia and Iraq. Pakistan's Defense Minister Choudhry Mukhtar Ahmed told CNN's sister network in India, CNN-IBN, that Lakhvi and Azhar had been arrested on Monday. Azhar has been in Pakistan since 1999, when he was released from an Indian prison in exchange for hostages aboard a hijacked Indian airliner. Indian authorities say the sole surviving gunman in the Mumbai attacks told investigators that he was trained at an LeT camp near Muzaffarabad, along with the nine other attackers who were killed in the three-day siege. A Pakistani security official said the terror raids on banned militant groups are ongoing and have resulted in at least 15 arrests. | NEW: Top U.S. military officer encouraged by terror arrests .
Pakistan arrests militant leaders blamed by India for Mumbai terror attacks .
Zarar Shah, top commander of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, among those held .
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(CNN) -- Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated Thursday in Rawalpindi, was the first female prime minister of Pakistan and of any Islamic nation. She led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996. Benazir Bhutto died Thursday after a suicide bombing at a political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Bhutto, 54, spent eight years in self-imposed exile in Great Britain and Dubai after President Farooq Leghari dismissed her second administration amid accusations of corruption, intimidation of the judiciary, a breakdown of law and order, and undermining the justice system. She was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to five years in prison. The conviction was later overturned but she remained in exile until this year. She returned to Pakistan in October after President Pervez Musharraf signed an amnesty lifting corruption charges. Watch political history of Bhutto » . In a September 26 interview on CNN's "The Situation Room," Bhutto said she expected threats against her life as she prepared to lead a push for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. "After military dictatorship an anarchic situation developed, which the terrorists and Osama (bin Laden) have exploited," she told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "They don't want democracy, they don't want me back, and they don't believe in women governing nations, so they will try to plot against me. "But these are risks that must be taken. I'm prepared to take them," she said. Bhutto narrowly escaped injury on October 18 when a suicide bombing near her convoy in Karachi killed 126 people. "Soon thereafter, I was asked by authorities not to travel in cars with tinted windows -- which protected me from identification by terrorists -- or travel with privately armed guards," she wrote for CNN.com in November. "I began to feel the net was being tightened around me when police security outside my home in Karachi was reduced, even as I was told that other assassination plots were in the offing." "I decided not to be holed up in my home, a virtual prisoner," she wrote. "I went to my ancestral village of Larkana to pray at my father's grave. Everywhere, the people rallied around me in a frenzy of joy. I feel humbled by their love and trust." Musharraf declared a state of emergency and placed Bhutto under house arrest twice in November as anti-government rallies grew in Rawalpindi. The arrest warrant was lifted November 16. She filed a nomination paper for a parliamentary seat on November 25 and appeared headed for a power showdown with Musharraf before she was assassinated Thursday. See a timeline of Bhutto's political career » . Bhutto was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, former president and prime minister of Pakistan, who was hanged in 1979 for the murder of a political opponent two years after he was ousted as prime minister in a military coup. Benazir Bhutto was the de facto leader of her father's Pakistan People's Party. Her brother, Murtaza, was killed along with six others in a 1996 shootout with police at his home. Another brother, Shahnawaz, died mysteriously in France in 1985. "I know the past is tragic, but I'm an optimist by nature," Bhutto told Blitzer in September. "I put my faith in the people of Pakistan, I put my faith in God. I feel that what I am doing is for a good cause, for a right cause -- to save Pakistan from extremists and militants and to build regional security. "I know the danger is out there, but I'm prepared to take those risks." Benazir Bhutto earned degrees from Radcliffe College and Oxford University and received an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1989. She leaves her husband of 20 years, Asif Ali Zardari, two daughters and a son. Bhutto's husband issued a statement Thursday from his home in Dubai saying, "All I can say is we're devastated, it's a total shock." President Bush, on his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said Bhutto "refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country." "We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism," Bush said. "We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life." E-mail to a friend . | NEW: Bush: Bhutto "refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country"
Bhutto was first female prime minister of a Muslim country .
Bhutto survived assassination attempt in October .
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(CNN) -- Authorities said they were searching the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, on Saturday morning after killing several militants, and other standoffs across the city appeared to have ended by Friday. An Indian police officer takes position during an operation at the Chabad House Jewish center Friday. Officials said that at least 160 people have been killed in the violence and more than 300 injured. But even with most of the fighting quelled after more than two days of gun battles, many questions remain. The following is what is known about the attacks: . • Gunmen arrived by boats at the Mumbai waterfront near the Gateway of India monument on Wednesday night, police said. The gunmen hijacked cars, including a police van, and split into at least three groups to carry out the attacks, according to police. Watch a timeline of the attacks » . • One group headed toward the Cafe Leopold, a popular hangout for Western tourists, firing indiscriminately at passers-by on the street. The group then opened fire and lobbed grenades at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, authorities said. Watch theories on who attackers might be » . • As police rushed to the scene of the attacks, gunmen attacked the Cama Hospital for women and infants. Several people were killed at the hospital, and a standoff there lasted until Thursday morning. • Two other groups attacked the Oberoi and Taj Mahal hotels, taking hostages there, police said. • Gunmen took hostages at the Chabad House, where several Jewish families live, police said. • Police said gunmen fired indiscriminately from the Chabad House. Stray bullets killed a couple in their home and a 16-year-old boy who stepped outside, police said. • The Chabad-Lubavitch International group said Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, made a phone call to the Israeli Consulate to report gunmen in the house. "In the middle of the conversation, the line went dead," the organization said. • Authorities raided the Chabad house Friday morning. Two gunmen died after the assault was launched, CNN-IBN reported. Authorities said five hostages -- including Holtzberg, who was an American, and his Israeli wife, Rivka, 28 -- were found dead. One of the three others was a second American rabbi, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office said. • At the hotels, hostages or people who were trapped exited at various times Thursday and Friday. Commandos entered both hotels, trying to flush out militants and rescue others. • Fire brigades battled blazes at both hotels. By early Friday, it appeared that what had been a major fire at the Oberoi had been extinguished. • Police were reporting Friday that the standoff at the Oberoi was over. Two gunmen were killed as authorities cleared the hotel, said J.K. Dutt, the National Security Guard's director-general. Thirty-six people were found dead there, according to Bhushan Gagrani, a Maharashtra state official. • At various times Saturday morning, gunfire and explosions could be heard as security forces worked to clear the Taj of at least one remaining gunman. • Shortly before 9 a.m. Saturday local time, Dutt said that three militants had been killed but that security personnel still needed to search the hotel for civilians and any possible remaining gunmen. His comments came shortly after Mumbai Police Chief Hussain Gafoor told CNN-IBN that the last militants at the Taj had been killed. The statements coincided with an apparent end of gunfire at the hotel. • By Friday night, 160 had been killed in the Mumbai attacks, including at least 15 foreign nationals, authorities said. These included five Americans, three Germans, an Italian, an Australian and one Chinese. • The official death toll did not include attackers who were killed by security forces. R.R. Patel, the Maharashtra home minister, said Friday that nine attackers had been killed. • More than 300 people were wounded, including seven Britons, three Americans and two Australians. • Two of the killed Americans were identified as Alan Scherr, 58, and his daughter Naomi, 13, both of Virginia. The two, who were visiting India with a meditation group, died at the Oberoi. • Also among the dead were 16 police officers, two commandos and the chief of the Mumbai police anti-terror squad. • CNN-IBN quoted police sources as saying there were about 26 gunmen. • Authorities found 8 kilograms (17 pounds) of RDX, one of the most powerful kinds of military explosives, at a restaurant near the Taj. • The Indian navy, stepping up patrols on the country's western coast after the attack, was questioning the crew of the MV Alpha, a ship detained with the help of the Indian coast guard, British authorities said. The authorities said that they think the attackers' boats came from this ship and that they think the ship is from Karachi, Pakistan. • Several Indian news outlets reported that a group called the Deccan Mujahideen e-mailed them to claim responsibility for the attacks. Intelligence officials say little is known about the group. U.S. officials and security analysts say the sophistication of the attacks may indicate that a more-established group is involved. • State media Press Trust of India, citing Union Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal, reported the gunmen had worked for months to prepare, even setting up "control rooms" in the two luxury hotels that were targeted. | NEW: Three militants killed at Taj Mahal hotel; authorities continue search .
Two gunmen, five hostages dead at Chabad House .
Security forces clear Oberoi hotel, where 36 people found dead .
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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, residents say much of America has forgotten their plight. President Bush and first lady Laura Bush pause for a moment of silence Wednesday at a New Orleans school. But President Bush said Wednesday the federal government has been persistent in pushing recovery efforts. "I would like them to know that we still need all the help and caring and volunteers. We need it bad. People don't realize. They just don't realize," Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, resident Linda Fallon said. The beachfront communities of Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Mississippi, were nearly destroyed in Katrina's fury. Two years later, one-third of Bay St. Louis residents haven't returned. Business has moved inland. Watch the struggle to rebuild in Mississippi » . "Without the people, we don't have a town. We don't have a city, we don't have a place apart," Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Favre said Tuesday. He predicted it would be at least seven years before the town is back to near-normal. A longtime resident, Diane Bourgeois, has moved 15 miles inland to an apartment and said she doubts she will rebuild. Her home was razed. When she asked why, she said, "I don't know, the memories. It will just never be the same. Can't risk it all again." David MacDonald, pastor of Calvary Independent Baptist Church in Bay St. Louis, said, "We get crews coming down, but they are thinning out as the months go on. "So it's trying to let the people know there is still a need down here, especially in the area of housing. And just the mental and spiritual needs that are down here -- just still overwhelming." In New Orleans, Bush participated in a moment of silence at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology to remember Katrina victims. He said that the U.S. government hasn't forgotten the Gulf Coast and that federal efforts to make post-Katrina improvements to levees and infrastructure were unyielding. "I hope people understand we're still paying attention. We understand," Bush said. Eighty percent of the the $114 billion allocated to the region for Hurricane Katrina repairs has been disbursed, he said. "We're still engaged," Bush said of federal agencies. The president, in his 15th visit to the region since Katrina hit, called the school "a place of hope." Bush said Katrina broke hearts but not "the spirit" of New Orleans citizens. But he alluded to the challenges faced across the region, citing teachers who commuted 30 miles to teach at the school. "This town is better today than it was yesterday," Bush said in praising the Gulf Coast rebuilding effort. But he said it would be even better tomorrow. He urged people across the country to pitch in to help the recovery, whether through donations or volunteer efforts or even moving to the area and joining its work force. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said his city's population increase -- citing 4,000 to 7,000 people a month -- is a good indication of the progress made since Katrina hit. On Wednesday, Nagin participated in the groundbreaking for a memorial to storm victims. "We ring the bells for a city that is in recovery; we ring the bells for hope that the promise that was made at Jackson Square will become a reality and will restore confidence in government at all levels," Nagin said, referring to the scene of Bush's vow in 2005 that the government would help the city and region recover. Katrina first made landfall on August 25 in South Florida as a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of near 81 mph. At one point, after moving west into the Gulf of Mexico, it reached Category 5 status, with maximum sustained winds of nearly 173 mph before making landfall on the Gulf Coast. Four days after its initial landfall, Katrina came ashore near Buras, Louisiana, as a Category 3 storm, with winds near 127 mph. Initial reports put the wind speed higher, but the National Weather Service later revised its statistics. Water breached two levees in New Orleans at the 17th Street and Industrial Canals, flooding 80 percent of the historic city. More than 1,800 people died in five states -- 1,577 of them in Louisiana. Days after the storm, images of people stranded across the region -- particularly in New Orleans where horror stories emerged from the Louisiana Superdome -- led to outcries of an inadequate response from the government. After supporting him in the days after the hurricane, Bush announced that Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, would resign September 12. A special House of Representatives committee released a report in February 2006, saying the "response of government at all levels to Hurricane Katrina was "dismal," poorly planned and badly coordinated, showing that more than four years after the 9/11 attacks, "America is still not ready for prime time." E-mail to a friend . CNN's Kathleen Koch contributed to this report. | President Bush says federal recovery effort ongoing .
80 percent of of $114 billion in federal rebuilding aid distributed, Bush says .
Mississippi mayor says his coastal city still years away from full recovery .
Hurricane Katrina left 1,800 dead in five states in 2005 . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "6dcdad019cbd6ab6674c35dd897d17d280a8468c"} | 1,163 | 58 | 0.48789 | 1.331875 | 0.374241 | 1.254902 | 19.490196 | 0.745098 |
(CNN) -- To some, she was a lifelong role model. Others call Pakistan's former prime minister and the first female prime minister of any Muslim nation a source of inspiration to women everywhere. One I-Reporter acknowledges, "I never was a political supporter of Benazir Bhutto but now after her death I feel that her loss is a loss for Pakistan, not just her political supporters." Anthony G. Moore photographed Benazir Bhutto with her husband Asif Ali Zardari in New York in 2006. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated during a suicide bombing on December 27, 2007, and I-Reporters from all over the world responded with their memories and condolences. Below are selections, some of which have been edited for length and clarity. Farhad Sethi of Lahore, Pakistan Breathing in the air of grief and sadness, the nation suffers the loss of our beloved leader Benazir Bhutto, an institution in herself withstanding pressures at times when suicide bombing has become an unstoppable enigma. A sniper pierced a bullet through her neck and our enthusiastic leader couldn't even make it to the hospital, her last words God knows what were they but her face and inspirational personality will always be remembered. A woman who grew up with politics in her backyard is no longer with us, she was a graduate from Harvard and Oxford universities and seeing her go down in a wooden casket was a sight bringing down tears in every eye. We all have to go down the ground one day but being assassinated like this is not something we would want for even our worst enemies. She has left a space that will never be filled in the hearts and minds of the nation. She has enjoyed the position of being the first Muslim woman to lead a country as Prime Minister, but this is over she's gone, may Allah (swt) have mercy on her soul and she rests in peace in a better place. Ameen. Al Alston of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Benazir Bhutto's gifts to Pakistan and the world far outweigh the charges made by her adversaries. I will never forget how she led Pakistan in its unwavering support for the African National Congress during the misery of the apartheid days. Her presence at the inauguration of Nelson Mandela left an indelible impression on me. I remain an admirer of her nation because of this critical alliance. I will keep her family and nation in my prayers. Mickin Sahni of Stone Ridge, Virginia As a first generation Indian-American, I have heard from my parents the turmoil on the subcontinent as their parents were forced to India while their friends were forced to Pakistan. Bhutto's effort to reconcile the differences between the two countries was one of her main missions. Indians throughout the world remember her as a peaceful link between the two nuclear superpowers and could only sympathize with Pakistanis grieving throughout the world. Hopefully her efforts were not in vain. Sandra Rios of Aberdeen, Maryland Benazir Bhutto loved her country and people so much that despite an assassination attempt in Oct and continuous death threats she remained unshaken. As a Women and a Former US soldier I admire her bravery. Russ Bonny of Golden, Colorado I haven't had the raw emotions I am feeling right now since September 11, 2001. The death of Mrs. Bhutto is a loss for the entire world and a grim reminder of how tirelessly we must fight extremists. Whitney Anderson of Irving, Texas I never really got the chance to know much about this woman. I'm still a teen, trying to figure out this mess we call our own democracy. But I can say this. For anyone to be slaughtered is a shame. It's crazy to think young adults like myself have had to grow up in a time where planes are flown into buildings, wars are dragging on and dragging us down, and now a revered and respected woman is dead, only because she was trying to better the world. I can only hope my future children don't have to live like this, and that the only time they hear of things like this is in a history book. Shima of Tehran, Iran All Persians know what her name means... Her name means Unique, and she was unique in all her life. God bless her. Naureen Haider of Jensen Beach, Florida It's a great loss to the country. Ms. Bhutto went to the same elementary school as mine, Convent of Jesus and Mary School in Karachi, and she was always an example to us, to motivate, thus that it is proud to be a female. Benazir, not only earned the best of qualifications on merit, but also proved to the world, that this is what patriotism is. My family having met Benazir personally several times, sends our deepest condolences to the family and prayers go out to the children. May Allah be with them. Ameen!! Humnaa Umar of Great Falls, Virginia The death of Benazir Bhutto not only marked the end of a revolutionary political leader, but also the demise of a pioneer in terms of women's rights. In a country with a strict gender hierarchy, Bhutto inspired countless women with her ceaseless supply of fortitude. Mwilu Mwanachilenga of Lusaka, Zambia A Martyr. A pity though that a life that I looked up to, for the whole 25 years of my existence, could ever end like this. Condolences to the family and may her soul rest in peace . Sabina Brauner of Frankfurt, Germany Disbelief was my first reaction when I just read the news. And shock. At such violence. I do not remember her as an outstanding figure but when someone mentioned Pakistan there was that immediate connection: Pakistan-Bhutto. So after such an act you just hope against hope that people there will find peace. I wish them all the best. Ahsan Khan of Reading, United Kingdom I never was a political supporter of Benazir Bhutto but now after her death I feel that her loss is a loss for Pakistan and not just for her political followers. The present government setup has failed and should resign to stop further bloodshed. God bless Benazir Bhutto's soul. Erum Qayyum of Lahore, Pakistan As the first female prime minister in the Muslim world, I felt as if women are really going to get ahead and men would actually start taking their technical knowledge more seriously but of course men are men. Her death was appalling and the way it happened. It has shocked me and everyone else in my family even though we are not really Benazir's supporters. It is a wonder that my land of Pakistan is actually going to the dogs where no one is safe. I wish the Bush administration opens its eyes to what's happening because neither the civilian nor the military governments have done anything to make this land of mine more peaceful and secure to live in. Moses Quinion Galabuzi of Kampala, Uganda It is too sad to hear of the assassination of this great lady. I was following her very closely and had a lot of respect for her. Whoever did kill her will die the same way but will never be a hero just as she was. Rest in peace Honorable Benazir Bhutto. May the good Lord reward you for the great things you did. Carlo Zappa of Montreal, Quebec When will the horror in Pakistan end? My heart goes out to her family and to the people of Pakistan. Her life was cut short and mankind will never see the additional good she could have done to resolve the endless political conflict in India. Ahmed Alian of Cairo, Egypt She was a brave woman in a coward world, may her soul rest in peace. I'm not blaming Musharraf for killing her, but I'm blaming him for feeding the atmosphere of terrorism through his dictatorship, which is unfortunately, supported by the so-called "free world." Oyefeso Temitope of Lagos, Nigeria You had a heart to help save Pakistan from military dictatorship, and you have to pay with your life!!! What a world!!! We await the reaction of the West. Sleep well, it was a just curse and rare fight from a woman. Linda Palumbo of Boston, Massachusetts A woman who was beautiful, brilliant and dedicated to bringing peace to her country. Such a tragedy and such a loss for the people of Pakistan. Kartiq Subramanian of Charlotte, North Carolina This is really sad! My limited political knowledge told me that she was Pakistan's only hope toward democracy and peace and now her killing has proved that. I feel sad for her family and for the people of Pakistan. May peace prevail. Fariha Waseem of Spring Valley, New York Benazir Bhutto is a woman of courage and conviction and we Pakistani's are proud to acknowledge her with all the dedication and deeds she made for her country. She stands for principal of democracy and corruptions and wants to remove it from roots. She not only received awards for her books but for her all dedications she did for her peoples. My condolence is with all the loved ones of Bhutto's family and her party workers. May God rest her soul in Peace! (Amen) Funmi Omoniyi of Lagos, Nigeria We will miss you Benazir Bhutto because you are a strong woman, ready to fight for your country. As a woman of substance, you deserve to rest in perfect peace. May Allah grant you Aljanat Amiin. Kimberley Brewer of Ottawa, Ontario Although I have no ties, either familial or political, to Benazir Bhutto, I am deeply saddened and enraged by her murder. This noble leader, who championed women's rights in a society rife with discrimination toward fully half the population, has been felled by cowards who seek to thwart progress and peace. My heart goes out to all who mourn her loss as I do, and my condemnation to those responsible for this horrific act of barbarism. Mohammad Khurram Khan of Cleveland, Ohio It is a sad day for all Pakistanis and the entire world. This is a direct result of the aftermath of September 11 and its ongoing consequences around the world. The blazes set forth by the terrorist continue to burn today in different cities. Bhutto was a legend and a role model for all men and women alike. She was inspirational not just to Pakistanis, but inspirational to us all through out the world. It is saddening (with tears in my eyes and sorrow in my heart) to see such a [legend] become a part of the blaze beset by the terrorists. Terrorists have no religion or political affiliations. They only have motives driven by greed and power. I certainly hope that the terrorist behind this are brought to justice and I am sure that General Musharraf will do his best to do so as he has always done in the interest of Pakistan. E-mail to a friend . | Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated .
I-Reporters from around the world offer condolences, memories .
"We Pakistanis are proud to acknowledge her," says one I-Reporter .
I-Report: Share your memories, condolences, photos of Benazir Bhutto . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "a994137548230227d2d5bebe79782d9f7e728d2d"} | 2,507 | 83 | 0.500385 | 1.412429 | 0.94848 | 2.090909 | 37.781818 | 0.854545 |
CLEARWATER, Florida (CNN) -- One of four missing boaters was found Monday clinging to an overturned fishing vessel off Florida's Gulf Coast, and the search for the other three, including two NFL players, has narrowed, the Coast Guard said. Nick Schuyler clings to an overturned boat in this Coast Guard photo. "We now know we are looking for persons in the water, not a boat," said Coast Guard Capt. Tim Close. Nick Schuyler, a former University of South Florida football player, was the only person still with the small fishing boat when a Coast Guard cutter came across it about 50 miles west of Clearwater Beach on Monday, the Coast Guard said. Still missing Monday afternoon were Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper; NFL free agent Corey Smith, who played for the Detroit Lions for the past three seasons; and former University of South Florida football player William Bleakley. Schuyler told his rescuers that the boat was anchored Saturday evening when it was overturned by waves during a storm, Close said. He told them that all four men were clinging to the boat for a time, but became separated, Close said. The four men embarked in a 21-foot single-engine boat from the Seminole Boat Ramp near Clearwater Pass about 6:30 a.m. Saturday, the Coast Guard said. The search was launched early Sunday after friends and relatives realized they had not returned from their fishing trip. Schuyler appeared to be conscious and talking in video showing him being removed from a Coast Guard helicopter Monday afternoon. Watch Schuyler being moved on stretcher » . Although he was initially able to answer a few questions to help with the search for the three missing men, officials decided to wait until he was treated for hypothermia before talking with him again, Coast Guard Petty Officer Robert Simpson said. See photos of rescue » . Schuyler's parents, Marcia and Stu Schuyler, told reporters in Florida on Monday they were ecstatic that their son had been found alive. But Stu Schuyler said his "heart is still out" for the three missing men. "We're not going to talk too much until we find these guys. We're all praying for them," Stu Schuyler said. The Air Force Reserve sent a C-130 airplane and a Pave Hawk helicopter to assist the Coast Guard's search, which also included several other helicopters and airplanes. Three Coast Guard cutters were also on the water, Close said. Rough seas and high winds that hampered the search Sunday continued Monday. The Coast Guard reported winds of 15 to 20 knots and waves up to 9 feet in the search area Monday. "It feels like my greatest fear coming true -- it doesn't feel real," Cooper's wife, Rebekah, told CNN affiliate WTSP-TV in Tampa on Sunday. "I'm just waiting for a phone call." Watch relatives, friends express concern for missing boaters » . Cooper said she became worried Saturday night when she didn't hear from her husband. She called her husband's fishing buddy, Brian Miller, who contacted the Coast Guard with the coordinates of where the men planned to fish. "Usually I'm on the boat. It's a little difficult wondering if something would have been different if I had been there," Miller said. He said it was clear something was wrong when Cooper didn't call Saturday night. "He should've been within range to use his cell phone, and he knows enough to shut it off when he goes out so the batteries are still there," he said. Rebekah Cooper said her husband was aware of Sunday's weather forecast and for that reason picked Saturday for the trip. "Fishing is his first love, it always has been," she said, adding, "I have a lot of faith in him out there." Cooper's father said he learned of the situation Sunday morning from Rebekah. His son "routinely stays out on the water 12 to 14 hours," Bruce Cooper, a sports anchor for CNN affiliate KPNX-TV in Phoenix, Arizona, said in a statement. He called his son an "avid fisherman." "He goes deep-sea fishing any opportunity he gets," Cooper said in the statement. "Two years ago, I went deep-sea fishing with him. I swore I would never do so again; I didn't like the fact that I couldn't see land. Needless to say, I am very concerned. I am praying and hoping for the best." Smith and Cooper were teammates with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for part of the 2004 season, when Cooper was a rookie, according to the NFL's Web site. Smith, who entered the league with Tampa Bay in 2002, went on to play for the Washington Redskins before moving to the Lions for the 2006 season. Cooper has played for six teams in his five-season career. Cooper played college football at the University of Washington. Smith played at North Carolina State University. Bleakley lettered from 2004 to 2006 as a tight end for the University of South Florida, according to a spokesman for the university's athletics department. Schuyler was a walk-on defensive end for the school in 2006, but he never played in a game, the spokesman said. Schuyler's father told reporters Sunday that the four men knew each other from working out at a gym, and that his son had accompanied Cooper and Smith on a fishing trip last week that lasted 15 hours. | Search for missing men narrows after one found clinging to overturned boat .
Man rescued off Florida coast identified as Nick Schuyler .
Schuyler said boat flipped over Saturday during a storm, Coast Guard said .
NFL's Corey Smith and Marquis Cooper and a third man remain missing . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f3fe02696e16a3478c97c5c34a52f8e5d3d1d9ea"} | 1,239 | 73 | 0.592999 | 1.568888 | 0.67559 | 1.62963 | 19.574074 | 0.777778 |
(InStyle) -- While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been celebrating film's best and brightest for more than 80 years, the glamour we associate with the Oscars truly started in the 1950s, when stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Janet Leigh brought high style to the ceremony. Anne Hathaway accessorized her Armani Prive gown with more than $1 million worth of Cartier jewelry. Since then, the red carpet has been a can't-miss staple of the evening, and Hollywood's hottest stars work with fashion designers, wardrobe stylists, jewelers, hairstylists and makeup artists to create looks they hope will go down in fashion history. This year's show was no exception, and high-wattage stars such as Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet and Natalie Portman walked the red carpet in stunning couture gowns. Here are just a few of our favorites: . • Best actress nominee Anne Hathaway made the most of her big night, arriving in a champagne-colored strapless Armani Prive gown that glittered with paillettes and Swarovski crystals. When the "Rachel Getting Married" star turned to give an over-the-shoulder pose, she revealed an unexpected onyx and black crystal dragon brooch, which was affixed to the back of her gown. Diamonds are always in fashion on the red carpet, and the actress accessorized with more than $1 million worth from jeweler Cartier. • Best actress nominee Kate Winslet looked as stunning as ever in an asymmetrical Atelier Yves Saint Laurent gown and Chopard jewels. Despite her picture-perfect appearance, the Oscar winner for "The Reader" admitted, "I'm extremely nervous!" See photos of InStyle's favorite red carpet looks » . • "Slumdog Millionaire" beauty Freida Pinto continued her winning awards season style streak in a John Galliano royal-blue gown made of silk tulle with delicate embroidery and metallic beading. The 24-year-old, who said an enthusiastic hello to her parents in India from the red carpet, wore Martin Katz jewelry, including a ring set with a 150-year-old diamond from her native country. • In a sea of red and white dresses Natalie Portman stood out in an orchid gown by Rodarte, vegan heels by Stella McCartney and a vintage Rialto clutch. The actress' minimal Kwiat jewelry and elegant updo highlighted her flawless skin. Portman was truly an Oscars triple threat, making our best dressed, best hair and best makeup lists. Other colorful bests included Sarah Jessica Parker's Dior Haute Couture gown, which we loved not only for the shade (which she described as "barely mint, maybe seafoam") but also for its impressive size. Best supporting actress nominee Amy Adams was stunning in a crimson silk and satin gown by Carolina Herrera and a jaw-dropping, jeweled collar necklace by Fred Leighton (as seen on Beyoncé in the November 2008 issue of InStyle!). And Heidi Klum's bright red dress was not only glamorous, but also charitable: For the second year running, the "Project Runway" host partnered with The Heart Truth campaign to raise awareness of women's heart health by wearing red. Last year, Klum wore a custom red dress by John Galliano for Dior that was auctioned off for charity, and this year she hit the carpet in a red silk taffeta gown from RM by Roland Mouret. The stylish supermodel accessorized with a diamond and ruby bracelet charm of her own design that will be part of a giveaway on dietcoke.com. In total, the best-dressed women of the night span 28 years, from 16-year-old Miley Cyrus to 44-year-old Marisa Tomei. See all of our favorites, including Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Hudgens, on InStyle.com. Get a FREE TRIAL issue of InStyle - CLICK HERE! Copyright © 2009 Time Inc. All rights reserved. | InStyle: Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet, Freida Pinto among best dressed at Oscars .
Natalie Portman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Amy Adams praised for color choices .
Heidi Klum's wore red in hopes of raising awareness of women's heart health . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "dc431f941eb4b62d40dcd1f85e6466d62d940f55"} | 926 | 65 | 0.463401 | 1.308003 | 0.215963 | 2.270833 | 15.229167 | 0.8125 |
(CNN) -- The Coast Guard ended its search Tuesday for two professional football players and a third man lost at sea, leaving the families to cope with unknown fates of the men and to organize a private search. Loved ones of one of the missing boaters react Tuesday to the news the Coast Guard's search would end. "There's a lot of things we have to come to grips with -- we've all agreed unanimously we won't give up hope," said Bruce Cooper, father of Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper. Cooper, NFL free agent Corey Smith and former college football player William Bleakley are missing, with authorities believing a fishing boat carrying them and a fourth man overturned Saturday in the Gulf of Mexico. The Coast Guard search was called off at sundown Tuesday, about 6:30 p.m. The fourth man, Nick Schuyler, was found alive and sitting atop the overturned boat about 40 miles west of Egmont Key, Florida, on Monday afternoon. Cooper's father and his friend, Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Terry "Tank" Johnson, praised the Coast Guard for its efforts, but said they would move forward with plans to organize their own search. "What we're asking for is experienced aviation pilots" to volunteer for the mission, Johnson said. "We are looking only for experienced pilots ... we don't want another tragedy as we are searching." Johnson said he had spoken to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and that "we have the support of the entire NFL" in continuing the search. Neither the league nor Goodell commented on the missing players Tuesday, but Cooper's team, the Oakland Raiders, issued a statement saying the team continues to "closely monitor" the situation. "We are aware that one of the passengers -- Nick Schuyler -- has been rescued and remain hopeful that the others ... will be located and rescued as well," it said. See photos of Schuyler's rescue » . The team for which Smith most recently played, the Detroit Lions, said: "While we still have that hope, we have begun to cope with the grim reality of this sad and tragic situation." Earlier Tuesday, Coast Guard Capt. Timothy Close announced the search would conclude in the evening, saying authorities were "extremely confident that if there were any [other] survivors on the surface of the water ... we would have found them." Watch the Coast Guard say it will call off the search » . Bruce Cooper said that when his family received the news that the Coast Guard search was ending, "It got very emotional." He said his son's wife, Rebekah, was trying to rest. "She is likewise very emotional. She's got a lot of things going through her head, her 3-year-old daughter, for one," he said. He also said despite his son's career as a pro football player, his first love was deep-sea fishing. "He definitely got lost in his element," Cooper said. The four friends embarked on a fishing trip in a 21-foot single-engine boat from the Seminole Boat Ramp near Clearwater Pass about 6:30 a.m. Saturday, the Coast Guard said. Authorities launched a search for them early Sunday after friends and relatives realized the men had not returned. Close said authorities believe the boat capsized around 5 p.m. Saturday as the men were trying to lift the boat's anchor. The men were "not wearing life jackets at the time the boat capsized," he said earlier, but "immediately swam under the boat, recovered life jackets and managed to put them on." The weather was calm when the trip began, but it worsened late Saturday into Sunday, Close said. He said he believed they were aware of the forecast. Searchers scanned about 24,000 square miles of ocean in about 60 hours, Close said. Authorities found a life jacket and a cooler about 16 miles from where Schuyler and the boat were found Monday, Close said. Schuyler is suffering from dehydration and hypothermia, making it difficult for him to speak, said his father, Stuart Schuyler. Watch Nick Schuyler's father overjoyed that his son is safe » . Schuyler, who, like Bleakley, used to be a University of South Florida football player, was able to speak to Coast Guard authorities for a short time, Close said. Watch Schuyler being moved on a stretcher » . Schuyler told rescuers that all four men clung to the boat for a time, but then became separated, Close said. Schuyler last saw his three friends at 2 a.m. Monday, his father told CNN affiliate WTSP-TV on Monday. Schuyler's mother, Marcia Schuyler, told the Tampa, Florida, television station that thoughts of his family helped to keep him alive. "He told me: 'Mom, I kept saying you're not going to go to my funeral.' He said that's what kept him hanging on," she said. Close said he understood there were some plans for amateur searches, and he urged caution. "We don't want any new search-and-rescue cases resulting from good Samaritan efforts," Close said. He said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will investigate, in line with state law, and they may attempt to recover the boat sometime Wednesday. Smith and Cooper were teammates with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for part of the 2004 season, when Cooper was a rookie, according to the NFL's Web site. Smith, who entered the league with Tampa Bay in 2002, went on to play for the Washington Redskins before moving to the Lions for the 2006 season. Cooper has played for six teams in his five-season career. Bleakley lettered from 2004 to 2006 as a tight end for USF, and Schuyler was a walk-on defensive end in 2006 but never played in a game, according to a spokesman for the university's athletics department. | NEW: Friends, relatives of three missing men to organize private search .
Coast Guard suspends search off Florida coast at sundown Tuesday .
Missing boaters include NFL players Marquis Cooper, Corey Smith .
Fourth boater, Nick Schuyler, was rescued off Florida coast on Monday . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "9d5011762f6f4255159fb4f47aaac27718b99ecd"} | 1,338 | 66 | 0.550261 | 1.471571 | 0.58681 | 1.792453 | 21.54717 | 0.886792 |
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The tabloid-friendly tale of the so-called California "Octomom" continues to stir debate -- this time 2,000 miles away in the Georgia state capitol, where lawmakers say they're trying to prevent a repeat. Proposed legislation regulating in-vitro practices came after Nadya Suleman gave birth to octuplets. A Georgia state senator introduced legislation to limit the number of embryos that can be implanted in a woman's uterus during in-vitro fertilization procedures. Sen. Ralph Hudgens, a Republican from near Athens, Georgia, said his legislation was inspired by Nadya Suleman, the woman who said she gave birth to octuplets after being fertilized with six embryos -- an unusually high number. "She is not married," said Hudgens. "She is unemployed, she is on government assistance and now she is going to put those 14 children on the back of the taxpayers in the state of California." Suleman, 33, had six children before the procedure. Hudgens' plan, which was co-sponsored by several other senators, would limit the number of embryos a doctor could implant to two for women under 40 years old and three for women 40 or older. Those numbers are slightly less than what's considered the norm in medical circles. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine recommends no more than two embryos for women under 35 years old and no more than five for women over 40. The reason for allowing more embryos in women over 40 is that it is more difficult for them to get pregnant. State lawmakers in Missouri are considering a similar bill. And England and Italy have had similar limits on the books for years. At least some fertility doctors say the limits in Hudgens' bill would hurt chances for women to get pregnant. They say that while three embryos are usually enough, there are special cases when they need more. "What this bill will effectively do is shut us down," said Dr. Daniel Shapiro, a fertility doctor in Atlanta. "Patients seeking reproductive care in Georgia will go to Tennessee or South Carolina or Alabama. They will just leave." Breaking the law would carry a fine of up to $1,000 under the legislation. Some critics of the plan also see another problem, calling it a backdoor effort to outlaw abortions in the state. The bill, which Hudgens titled the "Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos Act," contains language that says "a living in vitro human embryo is a biological human being who is not the property of any person or entity." The anti-abortion group Georgia Right to Life issued a news release in support of the bill on the day it was introduced. "Georgia Right to Life supports Sen. Hudgens in this legislation and wants to see strong protections in place to stop the dangerous practice of implanting more embryos than is medically recommended," the group said, saying the plan would help avoid premature births and low birth weight in in-vitro fertilization cases. Realistically, the bill faces long odds of passing -- at least in the near future. Tuesday was Day 25 of the Georgia legislature's 40-day session. Legislators will meet 10 more days, then take a break until June, when lawmakers will consider how money flowing to the state from the federal economic-stimulus plan may help their ongoing budget woes. According the the Georgia legislature's Web site on Tuesday, Hudgens' bill had been read and assigned to a committee, but no other action had taken place. Some Georgians from the lawmaker's part of the state say they hope he has to keep waiting for a long time. "Unless the senator is a physician, ethicist or other informed professional, he should step aside and let the medical professionals determine what is best in individual cases," Dorothy West wrote in a letter to the editor of the Athens Banner-Herald, Hudgens' hometown paper. "There are other issues more important to the citizens of Georgia that should be addressed." CNN's Elizabeth Cohen and Doug Gross contributed to this report. | Georgia state senator says bill was inspired by "Octomom" Nadya Suleman .
Bill would limit women under 40 to two embryos, women 40 or older to three .
Critics call it a backdoor effort to outlaw abortions in the state .
Bill faces long odds of passing because of timing in Georgia legislature . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "fba9c8bf98b317a788b9501b39afb83629485060"} | 925 | 78 | 0.612487 | 1.7513 | 0.957797 | 3.966667 | 12.9 | 0.9 |
(LifeWire) -- Jennifer Bilotta thought she and her husband Michael had the perfect present for his cousin's wedding. The gift in question -- a fused-glass plate decorated with a "tacky scene of a bride and groom," she recalls -- had been given to Bilotta at her own wedding a few years earlier. Nothing wrong with a little regifting as long as the bride and groom enjoy the gift. Or so Bilotta thought. "She collects Barbies, and he collects G.I. Joes," says Bilotta, 33, a publicist in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania. "The plate seemed up their alley. So for their wedding gift, we gave them the plate along with a card with a check for the usual wedding amount." But the gift didn't go over well. "A few weeks after they got married, we were talking to them about their wedding gifts, and they mentioned this hideous glass plate that someone gave them," Bilotta says. "The card must have gotten separated from the plate, so they didn't know it was from us and they both went on about how ugly it was. We never fessed up." Watch when to send a gift » . Deciding what to give (or not give) newlyweds is never an easy task, says Peggy Post, one of the country's leading etiquette experts and co-author of the book "A Wedding Like No Other." Before you turn into a guestzilla, however, take heart. "Gift giving doesn't have to be a stressful experience," says Post. The wrong way to give . Some gifts should never be given -- namely those that you yourself received. Whether it's to save yourself some cash or to avoid the hassle of shopping, regifting is a wedding no-no, says Steve Kemble, star of Style Network's "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?" and "Married Away." "What makes you think someone is going to want a gift you did not want?" Kemble says. "Plain and simple, re-gifting is tacky! If you do not have the time to think about what a couple would really want, then don't give anything at all." Kemble ticks off a few of his favorite wedding gift gaffes: shot glasses ("I simply do not think there could be anything tackier," he says); knives ( "they represent bad luck for a relationship"); and, worst of all, deciding that a gift isn't necessary, because you gave the bride or groom a gift the last time they got married. "If you feel this way, then I feel you should not attend the wedding," he says. "If you are going to sincerely celebrate with them on their special day, then show that you are happy for them, and tradition says you should do this by honoring them with a gift." The right way to give . When it comes to gift giving, Rob Johnsen, co-founder of MyWedding.com, has some simple, if calculating advice: Decide how much your relationship is worth. If the happy couple are two of your most cherished friends or relatives, get ready to fork over about $200, says Johnsen. "A blender or silverware off a traditional registry won't quite have the sentiment you are looking for," he says. Is the bride or groom is someone you talk to only a few times a year, yet someone you still value? Then keep your gift between $50 and $100, and feel comfortable selecting a set of dishes off the registry, says Johnsen. For distant relations, friends of friends or other lesser acquaintances, limit your spending to $50. "Sentiment here really isn't of concern, so go for something off the registry, or some cash in a card is acceptable too," Johnsen says. Peggy Post disagrees with putting a price limit on a wedding gift ("There's no such thing as a dollar amount," she says), but she does suggest basing the amount you spend on your affection for the bride and groom and their family. "If you're a close cousin, you'd probably want to ratchet it up a bit, rather than if you're just an acquaintance," she says. Of course, not everyone can afford to give extravagantly, even if the newlyweds are dear friends. Not to fear, Post says: You won't be breaking any etiquette rules by splitting the cost of a high-dollar gift with a fellow guest. And, she adds, it's especially acceptable if you're in your 20s and a recent college graduate with a limited income. Cash is acceptable, too, as is deviating from the bridal registry. "Do what you feel comfortable with," Post says. "Just don't do something totally off the wall." Gifts that make memories . Sometimes, though, offbeat wedding gifts can impress. Manhattan resident Samuella Becker, 53, says she'll never forget a gift someone gave her and her husband for their wedding 24 years ago. "One of the members of our wedding party, an attorney who I worked with at a major Fortune 500 company, gave us a magician to perform at our reception," explains the owner of a media relations firm. There was just one problem: The reception, held in the elegant Crystal Room at New York City's Tavern on the Green, wasn't exactly the ideal place for magic tricks. But, Becker says, the gift, which might have been seen as tacky by some, ended up becoming a wedding-day highlight. "All guests, young and old, were absolutely entranced and filled with wonder as the magician performed trick after trick," she says. It was a reminder, she says, that sometimes the most unusual and daring gifts can be the most memorable and welcome. LifeWire provides original and syndicated lifestyle content to Web publishers. Sarah Jio is a Seattle-based writer who has contributed to Cooking Light, SELF, Glamour and many other publications. | Expert: $200 is appropriate spending for wedding gift to close friends .
TV host: Shot glasses and knives are bad wedding gifts .
Peggy Post: It's OK to split cost of high-ticket gift with other guests . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "97b50bfe94dd4d7a6dbf82241be134744ead3bea"} | 1,363 | 49 | 0.420287 | 1.357292 | 0.539761 | 1.326087 | 25.543478 | 0.804348 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- It doesn't have the brutality of rugby or the physical intimidation of a boxing match, yet sailing is still one of the most dangerous sports in the world. Capsized: This French catamaran flipped near New Zealand while attempting to win the Jules Verne Trophy. This danger is never more evident than in the epic Volvo Ocean Race. The round-the-world event which begins this month in Alicante, Spain, always throws up its fair share of drama as the crews face all types of conditions right through to the race finish around July 2009. To give an idea of the extreme dangers this year's crews will face over the coming nine months, here is a look at some of the worst tragedies to strike yacht racing. There's no question about it: this is no sport for the faint-hearted. September 2008 Régates Royales-Trophée Panerai Death toll: One . Wilfrid Tolhurst was killed during the famous Régates Royales-Trophée Panerai yacht race off Cannes that sees the major classic yachts in the Mediterranean gather. Skippering the eight-meter yacht, Safir, in the coastal race, Tolhurst was struck by the boat's falling mast that broke off under the impact of a collision with another boat, Rowdy. Although rescue crews reacted quickly to bring the skipper ashore, nothing could be done to save his life. A police inquiry is currently in progress to determine the cause of the incident. September 2008 Sean Whiston Perpetual Cup Race Death toll: One . Kenneth Jones (46) lost his life while sailing in a race from Wicklow to the Poolbeg Yacht Club in Dublin, Ireland. It was not clear what caused the incident, however, a mayday was issued by the yacht Allanah, stating that there was 'a man in the water.' Jones was lifted from the water and transferred to Tallaght Hospital where he later died. May 2006 Volvo Ocean Race Death toll: One . During the seventh leg of the race Hans Horrevoets, 32, of The Netherlands was swept overboard from ABN Amro Two in heavy seas. Although he was recovered from the water, attempts to resuscitate him were not successful. The savage storm that hit the fleet could easily have claimed more lives. The crew of Movistar abandoned ship after the aft end of their keel pivot broke away from their hull in the night -- less than 48 hours after Horrevoets died. The crew transferred to ABN Amro Two which had been standing by and was escorted by HMS Mersey back to land. December 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race Death toll: Six . One of the saddest events in yachting history began at Sydney Harbor on December 26, 1998, when the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race set off. Fierce storms and violent winds battered the 115-strong fleet in the famously tough event off the eastern coast of Australia and only 44 boats made it to the finish line at Hobart. Met by the massive storms, five boats sank, 66 boats retired from the race, six sailors died, and 55 sailors were taken off their yachts, most by helicopter. Among those who died were; Mike Bannister (Winston Churchill), Glyn Charles (Sword of Orion), John Dean (Winston Churchill), Bruce Guy (Business Post Naiad), Jim Lawler (Winston Churchill), Phillip Skeggs (Business Post Naiad). The vessels; Winston Churchill, VC Offshore Stand Aside, Sword of Orion, Miintinta, and Midnight Special all sank. 1989 Whitbread Round the World Race Death toll: One . Competing boat Creighton's Naturally suffered a serious broach in the early hours of one morning during the second leg of the race, at about three in the morning. Crew members Anthony (Tony) Philips and Bart van den Dwey were swept over board. Both were pulled back on deck and although Van den Dwey was successfully resuscitated, after three hours of trying, crew members could not revive Philips. Several days later, by radio agreement with his relatives, Philips was buried at sea. December 1989 Sydney to Hobart Race Death toll: One . Peter Taylor, crew member aboard BP Flying Colours suffered fatal head injuries when a runner on his vessel broke and the rig collapsed in gale-force south westerly winds. December 1988 Sydney to Hobart Race Death toll: One . In another grueling race 38 of the 119 starters retired, nearly half of them with broken masts or damaged rigging. Ray Crawford aboard Billabong was killed. December 1984 Sydney to Hobart Race Death toll: One . Wally Russell of Yahoo II died during the 1984 edition of the race, which was hit by a low pressure system that created two different swell patterns. August 1979 Fastnet Yacht Race Death toll: Fifteen . Huge storms in the Irish Sea wreaked havoc on more than 300 yachts taking part in the biennial race, resulting in 15 deaths and one of the worst yacht race disasters of all time. The race was well regarded after being established in 1925, and in 1979 was the climax of the five-race Admiral's Cup competition. As the storms battered the fleet, naval ships, lifeboats, commercial boats, and helicopters from the west side of the English Channel were brought to aid what was the largest peace-time rescue operation. The rescue effort saw 125 sailors, whose boats had been caught in force 11 storm strength wind gusts, taken to safety, while 15 people could not be saved. In total 69 yachts did not finish the race. December 1975 Sydney to Hobart Race Death toll: One . Zilvergeest III's Hugh (Barry) Vallance was killed during the 1975 event, despite reasonably good sailing conditions. September 1973 Whitbread Round the World Race Death toll: Three . The first race started off from Portsmouth, England on September 8, 1973. Seventeen yachts of various sizes and shapes took part. During the race three sailors were swept over board and died: Paul Waterhouse, Dominique Guillet and Bernie Hosking. Waterhouse and Guillet were never to be seen again. | Volvo Ocean Race begins in Alicantes, Spain in October .
Sailors have died in yacht races as recently as September of this year .
The 1979 Fastnet yacht race saw 15 people die in huge storms . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8c4ed9cdbba191061ae005bbe8e9593f67a9ac55"} | 1,449 | 48 | 0.496635 | 1.360067 | 0.316943 | 1.475 | 28.6 | 0.825 |
MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- Inside the blacked-out Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, hallways were littered with bloodied bodies. A commando in disguise give details of what went down in the Taj hotel when commandos went in. Terrorists were still holding 200 people 33 hours after the assault began. Knowing next to nothing about what they might encounter in the dark recesses of the hotel, Indian Army commandos decided to go back in -- and were met by terrorists firing mercilessly, throwing grenades and continuously switching positions. The sound of gunfire and explosions reverberated throughout the hotel's atrium, making it impossible to pinpoint the origin of the shots. Through it all, the commandos walked down pitch-black halls, trying to navigate the damaged hotel without knowing the layout. A commando spokesman, his face and hair swathed in a black scarf and wearing dark glasses to hide his identity, revealed these details of the mission inside the Taj at a news conference Friday. At 6:30 a.m. Friday, the battle at the Taj came to a head with a final firefight at the room holding the 200 hostages, he said. Watch what it was like inside the hotel for commandos » . When the gunfire stopped, commandos -- known as the Black Cats -- entered the room and freed all 200 hostages. Their difficulties had been apparent from the beginning, he said. "We did not know the layout of the hotel," the commando told reporters. "There was one person on the hotel staff who was helping to guide us around." They entered the hotel for the first time essentially blind to what was ahead. They had no idea what kind of people they would encounter, what kind of weapons might be pointed at them, and whether they might be blown up by explosives. Learn more about the Taj's past and future » . "Then we heard gunshots on the second floor and we rushed toward the fired shots," he said. "While taking cover we found that there were 30 to 50 bodies lying dead. At that point we also came under fire. The moment they saw us, they hurled grenades." When the shots stopped, the commandos moved toward the source of the gunfire. See the first photos from inside the Taj Mahal hotel » . "At that time, they vanished ... they had gone elsewhere," the commando said. The attackers had a clear advantage, commandos said, because it was apparent from their movements they knew the hotel's layout. Some tourists rescued from the hotel said the building's large dome and a massive atrium made the sounds of gunfire and explosions reverberate endlessly. It was impossible to pinpoint where the shooters were. Because of the darkness, commandos could not tell how many terrorists were there -- were there many, or only a few who continued to change positions? At one point, commandos believed some of the terrorists were hiding on the eighth floor. As the commandos approached one of the rooms, attackers opened fire at them and said all the people in the room were dead. "We fired at them and they fired at us, but because the room was absolutely dark and we had just gotten [inside] it made it difficult for us," the commando said. Watch commandos talk about fighting the attackers » . During the fight, two commandos were shot. They decided to flush out the terrorists by blocking entry and exit routes. But the attackers knew all the doors, he said. When they made it inside the room, the terrorists had disappeared again. Inside that room, commandos found AK-47 ammunition rounds, including seven magazines fully loaded, and 400 other rounds for other weapons. They found grenades, credit cards, U.S. notes, foreign money and bags of dried fruit, which they believed helped sustain the attackers during the siege. During the three-day assault, the attackers fired indiscriminately. But the commandos were forced to use caution. "Let me tell you one thing," the commando said. "Within the first exchanges of fire, we could have got those terrorists -- but there was so many hotel guests -- there were bodies all over and blood all over. And we were trying to avoid the causalities of civilians. We had to be more careful in our fighting." In trying to rescue hostages and trapped civilians, commandos had to convince guests they were there to help, not terrorists trying to trick them, Indian Army Lt. Gen. Noble Thamburaj said. "There are a number of rooms that are locked from inside," he told reporters. "It is possible that some of the hotel guests have locked themselves in and for their own security and safety. Even though we have identified ourselves they are not opening the doors." The overall operation may have been made more difficult because of a late start, CNN sister station CNN-IBN reported. CNN-IBN said that attacks at the Taj Mahal Hotel were well under way at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, but unnamed sources said the commandos were not given the go-ahead to take part in the rescue until midnight. Those sources told CNN-IBN said that once the commandos got the go-ahead, it took nearly three hours for them to leave for Mumbai from their undisclosed location. Once they arrived, the sources said, commandos had no precise maps of the hotel layout or its access points. While local police and other officers were at the scene, the sources said, the commandos and army special force units are the only ones equipped and trained to rescue hostages. | Disguised commando tells reporters rescuers entered unknown layout in the dark .
Commandos had to avoid hurting civilians, convince them they were not terrorists .
Attackers knew layout well, moved around frequently, commando says .
33 hours after siege, commandos rescued 200 people from Taj Mahal Hotel . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "802531133b69a9164d3c57c8d10eb535de6fde7f"} | 1,256 | 75 | 0.558504 | 1.629549 | 0.808281 | 1.472727 | 19.436364 | 0.818182 |
(CNN) -- Piracy off the coast of Somalia rose nearly 200 percent in 2008 compared to the year before, with bolder attacks over greater distances, an international piracy monitor said Friday. The French military on patrol in the Gulf of Aden. Somalia and the Gulf of Aden were the worst areas for piracy in 2008, according to the annual report from International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center (PRC). It said 42 vessels were hijacked there and 815 crew members taken hostage -- more than any place else in the world. The increased ability of pirates to sail farther out to sea, coupled with the inability of the Somali government to respond, led to what the report called an "unprecedented" rise in piracy in the area. The problems off the Somali coast contributed to a global rise in piracy, which was up 11 percent in 2008 from the year before, the report said. "The 2008 statistics surpass all figures recorded by the PRC since it began its worldwide reporting function in 1991," said IMB Director Captain Pottengal Mukundan. Worldwide in 2008, a total of 49 vessels were hijacked and 889 crew members taken hostage, the report said. Eleven crew members were killed and 21 others are missing and presumed dead. The pirates are targeting every kind of vessel and are better armed and prepared to assault and injure the crew, the report said. Incidents involving guns nearly doubled from 72 in 2007 to 139 last year. Pirate attacks last year included the hijacking of the largest ship ever taken by pirates, an oil supertanker called the Sirius Star. Attackers seized the giant ship and its 23-man crew in November and only released it last week after receiving a $3.5 million ransom payment. The carrier's crew was released unharmed. Last year's uptick in hijackings off East Africa has already spurred a number of international navies to patrol the Gulf of Aden. Mukundan said he hoped that more governments would authorize their naval forces to patrol the region. "International navies are the only ones capable of effective response against piracy in the region and can help to secure the safety and security of this major maritime trade route," Mukundan said. Nigeria ranks second in world piracy with 40 reported incidents last year, including five hijackings and 39 crew members kidnapped. The main difference between the East and West African pirate activities is that almost all the incidents in Nigeria are conducted within its territorial waters, whereas most of the incidents along the East coast of Africa and the Gulf of Aden occur on the high seas, the report said. That means vessels in the Gulf area have a much harder time staying away from pirate-infested waters. The motives for the attacks are also different. In Somalia the motives are financial while in Nigeria they are at least partly political, the report said. Under-reporting of piracy in Nigerian waters is also a problem for the International Maritime Bureau, the report said. While 2008 appeared to be a bad year for piracy, the report noted declines in other areas of the world, especially in Indonesia. Mukundan said sustained anti-piracy efforts by Indonesian authorities have resulted in declines every year. More than 121 attacks were reported there in 2003 but only 28 were reported last year, most of which were opportunistic, low-level attacks, Mukundan said. Only two attacks happened last year in the Malacca Straits, which lie between Indonesia and Malaysia, compared to seven the year before, the report said. Farther south, the Singapore Straits saw a slight rise in incidents, going from three to six, the report said. "This welcome reduction has been the cumulative result of increased vigilance and patrolling by the littoral states and the continued precautionary measures on board ships," the report said. "With the world economy in its present uncertain condition, there is a possibility of piracy increasing. Navies and coast guards must continue therefore to maintain their efforts against pirates." | Somalia, Gulf of Aden confirmed as worst area for piracy in 2008 .
42 of 49 hijackings in 2008 were in the region, says Piracy Reporting Center .
PRC says international navies are the only ones capable of effective response . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c1ea35d3ed306ef8cb511a07bf18a2c7cc7ea944"} | 905 | 58 | 0.596063 | 1.584794 | 1.157347 | 3.622222 | 16.666667 | 0.866667 |
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- The chief financial officer of India's Satyam Computer Services Ltd. was arrested Saturday, the third person taken into custody in a scandal that began when the company's chairman admitted inflating profits with "fictitious" assets and non-existent cash. Satyam founder B. Ramalinga Raju is shown Saturday being sent to prison in Hyderabad. Vadlamani Srinivas will appear Sunday before a special court, said A. Sivanarayana, additional director general of police in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, told CNN. Company founder B. Ramalinga Raju and his brother, Rama Raju, Satyam's managing director, were arrested Friday in connection with the scandal. In a letter written to investigators, B. Ramalinga Raju admitted that he and his brother were responsible for cooking the books at Satyam, according to CNN's sister network, CNN-IBN. Satyam, India's fourth-largest software-services provider, serves almost 700 companies, including 185 Fortune 500 companies, and generates more than half its revenues from the United States. It employs some 53,000 people and operates in 65 countries. B. Ramalinga Raju resigned Wednesday and confessed to padding company balance sheets. The practice began several years ago to close "a marginal gap" between actual operating profit and one reflected in the company's accounting books, he said, but continued for several years. "It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten," B. Ramalinga Raju said in a letter to the company's board of directors. He said no board member was aware of what he was doing and he did not profit from the inflated accounts. The deception came to light after he tried to plug the hole by getting Satyam to buy his son's construction companies. The acquisition was "the last attempt to fill the fictitious assets with real ones," he wrote in his letter. The deal would have cost Satyam $1.6 billion -- but the company's board vetoed it. Stocks fell following the botched deal. Soon afterward, B. Ramalinga Raju came clean, saying he was doing so "with deep regret, and tremendous burden that I am carrying on my conscience." After his confession, stocks of the Hyderabad-based company fell more than 70 percent, causing India's major stock index, the BSE SENSEX, to fall 7.3 percent Wednesday. The BSE SENSEX on Thursday deleted Satyam Computer Services from its indices. The company's interim chief executive officer said Thursday the company's immediate goal is to continue its operations uninterrupted. CNN's Bharati Naik and Harmeet Singh contributed to this report. | Satyam's chief financial officer arrested in profit-fraud scandal .
Computer giant employs 53,000 people and operates in 65 countries .
Chairman B. Ramalinga Raju said balance-sheet padding began years ago . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "77ca7b4343422666fd99da0452c51637ec5595a4"} | 635 | 51 | 0.594578 | 1.68339 | 0.597559 | 2.973684 | 13 | 0.868421 |
(CNET) -- Well, here's what we've all been waiting for. Apple put out a couple of announcements on Tuesday related to its desktop computers. Apple on Tuesday announced a new Mac Pro high-end desktop powered by Intel's "Nehalem" processor. The company unveiled a new Mac Pro high-end desktop powered by Intel's "Nehalem" processor, a new and more graphics-intensive Mac Mini machine, and updated iMacs that include the lowest price point yet for the consumer desktops. Let's look at the new Mac Pro first: priced at $2,499 for the quad-core version and $3,299 for the eight-core version, those Intel "Nehalem" Xeon processors run at 2.93 GHz, and the interior of the machine has been cleaned up to make physical expansions easier. On the green front, it meets the new Energy Star 5.0 requirements that will go into effect later this year. The new iMac desktop is a 24" machine that is priced at $1,499, the cost of Apple's previous 20" iMac. The 20-inch is now $1,199. The 20" is powered by a 2.66 GHz processor; the 24" has processor speed options of 2.66 GHz, 2.93 GHz (for $1,799), or 3.02 GHz (for $2,199). The 24" comes with a 640GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM expandable to 8GB; the 20" comes with a 320GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM expandable to 8GB. "Our flagship 24-inch iMac with twice the memory and twice the storage is now available for just $1,499," Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook, currently standing in at the helm of the company in place of iconic CEO Steve Jobs, said in a release. "The Mac mini is not only our most affordable Mac, it's also the world's most energy efficient desktop computer." As for the new Mac Mini, the big upgrade is NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics that Apple says will improve its graphics performance as much as fivefold. The monitor-free machine costs either $599 for a lower-end edition (1GB RAM, 120GB hard drive) or $799 for the higher-end (2GB RAM, 320GB hard drive). All these machines, like the new Mac Pro, meet Energy Star 5.0 requirements. Rumors of new Apple desktop computers were first reported at AppleInsider. © 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. CNET, CNET.com and the CNET logo are registered trademarks of CBS Interactive Inc. Used by permission. | Apple on Tuesday announced a new Mac Pro high-end desktop .
Powered by Intel's "Nehalem" processor, they're priced at $2,499 and $3,299 .
Apple also unveilved a new and more graphics-intensive Mac Mini machine .
Updated 24-inch iMacs have twice the memory and twice the storage . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "a34dd2f5d6b6ff5dd493bfba5a9d745d654d6cc3"} | 590 | 83 | 0.666794 | 1.522477 | 1.078314 | 6.603175 | 7.920635 | 0.888889 |
(CNN) -- A Pennsylvania woman told police she was attacked at an ATM in Pittsburgh by a robber who became angry when he saw a John McCain bumper sticker on her car, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh Police Department said Thursday. Police cannot confirm whether a man attacked this woman because she had a McCain sticker on her car. Public Information Officer Diane Richard said police cannot substantiate her story, however, and the investigation is ongoing. Richard said the 20-year-old told investigators a man approached her Wednesday night at an ATM in the city's East End, put a blade to her neck and demanded money. She said she gave him $60 and stepped away from him, Richard said. But the woman said the man "became very angry" when he noticed her car had a bumper sticker supporting the GOP presidential nominee, according to Richard. The woman said he punched her in the back of the head, knocked her to the ground and "continued to punch and kick her while threatening her," the spokeswoman said. Before he left, the woman said, he carved the letter "B" into her face with a knife, according to Richard. There was no indication what the "B" indicated. The alleged assailant fled on foot, Richard said. "We, the police, cannot substantiate this yet," she said. "This is what she told police." The woman, who is not from Pittsburgh, refused medical attention, Richard said, although she told the investigating officer she would see a doctor Thursday. There was no update on her condition, she said. Richard said the woman described her alleged attacker as a dark-skinned African-American, 6 feet 4 inches tall with a medium build and short dark hair, wearing dark clothing and shiny shoes. McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker told CNN that McCain and running mate Sarah Palin "spoke to the victim and her family after learning about the incident earlier this afternoon." Hazelbaker said the campaign would not offer more detail out of respect for the woman's privacy. The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama responded to the report with a statement saying, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the young woman for her to make a speedy recovery, and we hope that the person who perpetrated this crime is swiftly apprehended and brought to justice." | Woman says man robbed her, returned to beat her after noticing sticker on her car .
Police say they cannot substantiate her claim .
The 20-year-old says man kicked, punched her, carved B into her cheek with knife .
McCain spokeswoman says McCain, Sarah Palin, have spoken with the victim . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "5eafbd607cc3a599ee520fe5ba20d86428404b8b"} | 524 | 77 | 0.561689 | 1.602249 | 1.284644 | 1.890625 | 7.15625 | 0.734375 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Predatory mice are threatening the albatross population on a remote south Atlantic island and have caused the birds' worst nesting season on record, a British bird charity says. Baby albatross on a remote Atlantic island are threatened by killer house mice. The research from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds indicates bad news for the Tristan albatross, whose only home is Gough Island in the middle of the south Atlantic. House mice not native to the island are threatening the Tristan albatross with extinction, the RSPB said. The mice are also threatening the native population of bunting, one of the world's largest finches, the RSPB said. "Without removal of the mice, both the albatross and the bunting that live there are doomed to extinction," Grahame Madge, a conservation spokesman for the RSPB, told CNN. The mice on the island eat the chicks of the albatross and bunting before they make it to the fledgling stage, the RSPB said. This makes it especially difficult for the albatross population to survive because the birds lay eggs only once every two years -- a very low reproductive rate compared to other birds, Madge said. "What [the mice] are affecting is the ability of the albatross to produce enough young to sustain the population," he said. Adult Tristan albatross are threatened by longline fishing at sea, a practice in which boats put up numerous 100-meter long fishing lines baited with squid or fish. The albatrosses are attracted to the bait and while some manage to steal it successfully, many more get snagged and drown, Madge said. Because of the impact from house mice, introduced to the island by sealers in the 18th and 19th centuries, conservation alliance BirdLife International earlier this year listed both the Tristan albatross and the Gough bunting as critically endangered -- the highest threat level before extinction. Gough Island, a British territory almost midway between Argentina and South Africa, is a place of stunning natural beauty. The island is not inhabited by humans. Gough Island and nearby Inaccessible Island are both listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites. A survey of the albatross on Gough Island in January showed 1,764 adults incubating eggs, the RSPB said. A later survey revealed only 246 chicks had survived to fledgling. "We've known for a long time that the mice were killing albatross chicks in huge numbers," said RSPB scientist Richard Cuthbert, who recently visited the island to assess the problem. "However, we now know that the albatrosses have suffered their worst year on record." The bunting suffer because the mice eat their eggs and chicks, and may also compete with them for food in the winter, Cuthbert said. "The decline in bunting numbers is alarming," said Peter Ryan of the University of Cape Town, who has been studying buntings on the island since the 1980s. "Without urgent conservation action to remove the mice, both the albatross and the bunting are living on borrowed time." The RSPB has been studying whether it is possible to remove the mice. It said trials so far look promising, but it urged the British government to step up funding for the project. It said eradicating the mice from Gough Island would solve the primary conservation threat facing both bird species. The RSPB said it had been working with New Zealand conservationists on a program to remove the smaller mice by dropping poisoned bait from helicopters. Tristan albatrosses are one of 22 species of albatross in the world. Albatrosses principally live in the southern Atlantic but some also live in the Pacific, the RSPB says. Albatrosses are among the largest flying birds, weighing up to 25 pounds (22.5 kilograms). One species -- the wandering albatross -- has a wingspan of 11 feet, the RSPB says. The birds can fly thousands of miles without a pause, and their only need to touch land is to nest and raise their young, the RSPB says. | Predatory mice are threatening the albatross population on a south Atlantic island .
House mice not native to the island are killing and eating chicks .
Mice are also threatening the native population of large finches . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "4cb0a311b912e6274d5c40711d19d5febb1fafe9"} | 947 | 53 | 0.551957 | 1.332074 | 0.967894 | 5.769231 | 19.153846 | 0.897436 |
(CNN) -- Ten co-workers from New Jersey say they will split a $216 million Mega Millions jackpot, thanks to the five bucks they each kicked into a pool. Melanie Jacob, Linda Harrington and Bob Space, who bought the tickets, are three of the lucky winners. The 10, who work for Chubb Commercial Insurance in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, held a news conference Wednesday to announce their win. Bob Space of Toms River, New Jersey, held up a lottery ticket that clearly showed the winning numbers from Tuesday's drawing: 26, 32, 35, 43, 52 and 10. "I checked and I rechecked and then I sent it to my wife," said Space, who purchased 50 sets of lottery numbers for himself and his nine co-workers from a Singin Oil gas station near his house on Monday. Watch man describe buying winning ticket » . Space went to work as usual on Wednesday morning, playing it coy. "I got an e-mail," said Todd Ellis, the company's chief information officer. "It said, 'We won the big one' and then he just put the numbers down." Joanne Roth got the same e-mail. "I thought we won $4, because last week we won $7," she said. "I said, 'Don't mess with me.' " Space played hardball with co-worker Oscar Oviedo, who hadn't paid him yet for his share of the lottery tickets. "This morning, I come into work early with him," said Oviedo, who soon received an instant message from Space. "I got a surprise for you. Come over," the message said. Oviedo went to Space's cubicle. "He's like, 'You got my money?' " Oviedo said he thought, "Wow, that was rude," but paid up. Space shook his hand and said: "Now you're a millionaire." They aren't officially millionaires at this point, because the winning ticket hasn't been presented to lottery officials yet. "In due time," Space said. "We have a year." But another Chubb employee said they'll cash in their ticket soon. "If you have that winning ticket ... please sign the back of the ticket, put it in a safe place and seek legal and financial advice before you come to talk to us," New Jersey Lottery spokesman Dominick DeMarco said at the news conference, held at the gas station where the winning ticket was sold. "Be careful with it." None of the co-workers, who have been with Chubb for seven to 30 years, said they had immediate plans to quit. The ticket is worth an estimated $216 million if the money is paid out over 26 years, or about $140 million if they choose an immediate cash payout. "It relieves a lot of stress ... and it also gives a nice cushion to be able to help the people we want to help," Ellis said. "I feel incredibly blessed. I can't even absorb it at this point." Roth, recently divorced, said she'll pay off her bills. "I'm shocked. ... The whole thing is cool." Mega Millions is played in 12 states: California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington. | 10 winning New Jersey co-workers work for an insurance company .
They each kicked in $5 in an office pool and bought 50 sets of numbers .
Payout is $216 million over 26 years or about $140 million for immediate payout .
Those oh-so-valuable winning digits are 26, 32, 35, 43, 52 and 10 . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c535d768722a0802eee80d425085249949bb4e9f"} | 746 | 81 | 0.474421 | 1.51909 | 0.61671 | 3.507042 | 9.492958 | 0.859155 |
(CNN) -- Playboy magazine issued an apology Monday for the cover of its Mexican edition, which features an Argentine model in what many observers say is meant to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary. Playboy issued an apology after outrage erupted over this cover of the magazine's Mexican edition. Playboy Mexico has said the cover was not meant to portray the Virgin Mary, despite being printed just days before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe -- both Catholic holidays centering on the Virgin Mary. CNN's Rick Sanchez sat down with CNN Español's Glenda Umana and Father Albert Cutie, a Radio La Paz host, to discuss the reaction among Mexicans and Catholics. The transcript has been edited for clarity. Rick Sanchez: What is going on in Mexico and how big a deal is this? Watch the controversy over the Playboy cover » . Glenda Umana: ... there has not been a lot of publicity. It's very interesting, but certainly it has been very, very offensive, not only for the Catholics in Mexico, but all Catholics worldwide. As we can see, this Mexican version of Playboy magazine shows the cover of a model as you were explaining -- María Florencia Onori from Argentina -- posing like the Virgin Mary. This was published last week on the exact date, Rick, when millions of Mexicans celebrate the festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Very important, not only for Mexicans but for all Latino-Americans. Sanchez: So the timing is interesting here. Let me read to the viewers, because we contacted the magazine... Umana: You have a reaction from them, right? Sanchez: We do. It's right here. This is from the publisher of the magazine, Raul Sayrols. He says, "The image is not and never was intended to portray the Virgin of Guadalupe," -- which is the Virgin Mary -- "The intent was to portray a renaissance-like mood on the cover." Interesting. Let me bring in somebody for whom this hits home. He's one of the best known priests in the United States. His name is Father Cutie. I worked with him in Miami many times, has his own show -- actually he's got his own book out now. It's called "Real Life, Real Love." Bestseller, by the way. Father, are we as Catholics just too sensitive when it comes to this kind -- after all, it's a beautiful woman being shown to represent what is, in our minds, to all of us, a beautiful woman. Father Albert Cutie: Listen, there's no doubt that she's a beautiful woman. But a stained-glass window and the veil that looks like that, certainly there's a reference to Mary. Whoever tells you there isn't is simply being hypocritical or not very honest. And that's what I don't like about the statement from Playboy magazine. I think that they timed it not only with the Virgin of Guadalupe, as Glenda was saying, but also with the month of December. How many nativity scenes are out there this time of the year? How many times is Mary a central figure in this whole celebration? And this is offensive. This is very offensive. It's blasphemous. Sanchez: As a matter of fact, Father -- . Cutie: It's wrong. Sanchez: Father, we got one statement from him. But let me read you the entire statement he had put out earlier in the day, "The image is not and never was intended to portray the Virgin of Guadalupe or any other religious figure." He goes on to say -- "or any other religious figure." Now, on its face, as you look at this picture, that looks like a bald-faced lie, doesn't it? Cutie: No, and not only that, this is someone who obviously has no scruples. And I'm not talking about the model -- whoever assigned this whole thing. First of all, we don't adore Mary; we adore God, only God. And to say "Te Adoramos María," the Spanish -- "We adore you, Mary" -- basically, it's making a direct religious reference to something which is sacred. Because you don't adore anything if it's not sacred. So to us, really it's a double offense... Sanchez: And by the way, the emphasis, "Te Adoramos," as you know, being Cuban yourself, that word in Spanish has even more of a heightened religious meaning than it does in English. Cutie: That's right. It means that you love someone -- . Sanchez: Hail -- you hail them. Cutie: That's right. That's right. Now, in the cover of a magazine of a porn business that is already a huge success, why would you need to use religious symbols to sell more magazines? This sounds desperate to me. And not only desperate, it's totally offensive to a billion Catholics in the world and to non-Catholics who honor Mary as the mother of Jesus. | Model María Florencia Onori featured on cover above caption, "We adore you, Mary"
December plays host to several religious holidays honoring Virgin Mary .
Priest: "It's totally offensive to a billion Catholics in the world"
Playboy says cover was never meant to portray any religious figure . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "398a994fc25d2146b506028d603249bc60abe4bd"} | 1,185 | 70 | 0.518986 | 1.564102 | 0.88601 | 3.724138 | 17.051724 | 0.827586 |
(CNN) -- After deliberating for more than four hours, a jury convicted a Nevada man of 22 counts Tuesday for videotaping himself sexually assaulting a toddler, CNN affiliates report. Chester Arthur Stiles has been convicted of videtaping a sexual assault on a child. Chester Arthur Stiles, 38, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. He was convicted of lewdness with a child, sexual assault with a minor, attempted sexual assault with a minor and other related charges. He showed no reaction as the verdict was read after more than four hours of jury deliberations, according to KLAS. Sentencing was set for May 8. The crime triggered a national manhunt and search for the girl when the tape surfaced in 2007. Jurors in Stiles' trial viewed the videotape, but the judge would not allow members sitting in the gallery to view it, and a screen was put up to block the jury box, said Michael Sommermeyer, spokesman for Clark County, Nevada, courts. Some members of the media were allowed to view the tape as well, but the judge did not want the reactions of reporters or the public to influence jurors, he said. The charges also related to another girl who Stiles was accused of sexually assaulting on videotape. The tape was given to authorities in September 2007 by a man who said he had found it in the desert five months before. On it, police found images of the small girl being sexually assaulted. After attempting unsuccessfully to find out the girl's identity, authorities turned to the media for help and released a picture of the girl, and the case drew nationwide attention. She was found in October 2007. An attorney for her mother said she was 7 years old and safe and healthy. The rape occurred before the girl's third birthday, while she was in the care of a baby-sitter her mother had hired, he said. The mother did not know the girl had been victimized. After the girl was found, authorities asked CNN and other news organizations to stop showing her picture. In an appearance on "The Dr. Phil Show," the girl's mother said the girl has no recollection of the assault. Stiles, a resident of Pahrump, Nevada, was arrested in a traffic stop in October 2007. Police said at the time they pulled Stiles' car over because it had no license plate, and became suspicious when the driver displayed an expired California license with a photo that did not match his appearance. Stiles eventually admitted who he was and that he was being sought, authorities said. The man who turned the tape over to authorities, Darrin Tuck, faced criminal charges because of the delay in turning it over, during which authorities alleged he showed it to others. A judge gave Tuck a one-year suspended sentence and three years of probation in April after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct a public officer, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He initially had faced a felony count of possession of child pornography. | NEW: Chester Arthur Stiles guilty of all counts in child sex video case .
NEW: Sentencing for Stiles scheduled for May 8 .
Stiles could be sent to prison for the rest of his life .
Tape surfaced in 2007, years after alleged assault . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "e07118e00a8fa961f27be12a05a8023e26697753"} | 689 | 65 | 0.456687 | 1.275461 | 0.466462 | 1.372549 | 11.294118 | 0.705882 |
(CNN) -- A "faulty" flight instrument contributed to the crash of a Turkish plane last month in the Netherlands, an accident that killed nine people and injured more than 60 others, Dutch safety authorities said on Wednesday. Turkish Airlines workers carry the coffins of four staff who died in the crash. On February 25, Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 from Istanbul to Amsterdam dropped from the sky on approach to the landing strip at Schiphol Airport, shattering into three pieces in a muddy field. Pieter van Vollenhoven, head of the Dutch Safety Board, said the instrument was one of the plane's two altimeters, which measure altitude. Because of the "faulty" left altimeter, the plane on automatic pilot reacted as if it were lower than it was and started to behave as if it was touching down. The plane was at 700 meters but the instrument indicated that it was at ground level. This caused the automatic throttles to slow the plane down, leading to a loss of speed. The plane was on automatic pilot when it crashed. Van Vollenhoven said there had been misty weather and if it were clearer then the pilots might have noticed how far up they were. He said that if such instruments don't function, automatic pilots should not be used for landings. Investigators said there had been faulty meter readings on two other flights but the pilots were able to land. Van Vollenhoven said that the pilots realized the problem but failed to appreciate what had been happening until it was too late. In the immediate aftermath of the crash investigators said the plane fell almost vertically to the ground indicating the aircraft did not have enough forward speed. The plane crash less than 500 yards short of the runway. Passengers described feeling the plane suddenly drop before impact, and at least one passenger said he heard the pilot trying to give more power to the engines before it went down. Four of the crew and three Boeing employees were among the nine people killed in the crash. Turkey's flagship airline is well-rated internationally for its overall safety record and the Boeing 737-800 has a good safety record. The last previous fatal incident at the Amsterdam airport happened in April 1994 when a KLM aircraft crashed as it tried to return to Schiphol shortly after takeoff. | Turkish plane that crashed in Netherlands had faulty instrument .
Investigators say altimeter gave false reading .
That made automatic pilot implement landing procedures while plane was too high .
Turkish Airlines flight 1951 crashed at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport killing nine . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "53ba087075d251f2f69c4f73fca48a32f298997a"} | 494 | 55 | 0.670538 | 1.748209 | 0.815071 | 1.152174 | 9.391304 | 0.717391 |
(CNN) -- An Illinois sheriff filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the owners of craigslist, accusing the popular national classified-ad Web site of knowingly promoting prostitution. "Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation," says Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart. Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart wants craigslist to eliminate its Erotic Services section. "Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation," Dart said. "Missing children, runaways, abused women and women trafficked in from foreign countries are routinely forced to have sex with strangers because they're being pimped on craigslist." The FBI found more than 2,800 child prostitution ads posted on craigslist, with Chicago, Illinois, in the top 10 cities for juvenile prostitution, Dart said. The sheriff also noted instances of what he said was child neglect while parents were engaged in activity solicited on the Web site. In an e-mailed statement, craigslist told CNN it had not seen Dart's complaint but that "craigslist is an extremely unwise choice for those intent on committing crimes, since criminals inevitably leave an electronic trail to themselves that law enforcement officers will follow." "On a daily basis, we are being of direct assistance to police departments and federal authorities nationwide," spokeswoman Susan McTavish said. "Misuse of craigslist to facilitate criminal activity is unacceptable, and we continue to work diligently to prevent it," she said. "Misuse of the site is exceptionally rare compared to how much the site is used for legal purposes. Regardless, any misuse of the site is not tolerated on craigslist." But Dart said that the Web site for two years has ignored his written requests to shut down the Erotic Services section and failed to take action or adequately monitor the section despite hundreds of arrests. "Pimps are preying on the most vulnerable members of our society and taking advantage of our struggling economy," he said. "The worst part is craigslist's owners know their Web site is still being used for illegal purposes and they're doing nothing to stop it." Craigslist entered into an agreement with 43 states' attorneys general in November to enact measures that impose restrictions on its Erotic Services section. The agreement called for the Web site to implement a phone verification system for listings that required ad posters to provide a real telephone number that would be called before the ad went public. Craigslist also imposed listing fees, requiring a credit card, for ads in the section. The proceeds were to be donated to charity. Dart called the fees "dirty money" and said the move was a "publicity stunt" that had little practical effect because pimps use stolen credit cards or post ads in free sections. | Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart wants craigslist to cut Erotic Services section .
Dart said that the Web site for 2 years ignored his requests to cut section .
"Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation," says Dart .
We help police fight illegal activity "on a daily basis," says craigslist spokeswoman . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "80b61c14bd7dddec9e965f10da23391c08febabb"} | 653 | 88 | 0.624395 | 1.817071 | 1.231441 | 6.333333 | 7.833333 | 0.878788 |
(CNN) -- President Barack Obama will make his first overseas trip since taking office at the end of this month, visiting England, France, Germany and the Czech Republic, the White House said Thursday. President Obama wil travel with first lady Michelle Obama to four European nations in the coming weeks. The trip is scheduled from March 31-April 5. Obama, who will be joined by first lady Michelle Obama, will first visit London, where he will attend a summit with other world leaders. He is to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 3. Obama will also attend NATO summit meetings in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, then travel to Prague, Czech Republic, to meet with Czech leaders and leaders of other European Union nations. His first trip outside the United States was to Canada last month. | The trip is scheduled from March 31-April 5 .
Obama first heads to London, where he will attend a summit of world leaders .
He will also join NATO meetings in France and Germany .
His first trip outside the United States was to Canada last month . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "a4c5f7cf63b76943f9bbb1e3097818a4195108bc"} | 177 | 58 | 0.77185 | 1.613106 | 1.152275 | 7.055556 | 3.074074 | 0.907407 |
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- To pick up the morning paper and see the word "recount" in a headline stirs an ominous case of déjà vu. Judge Robert Rosenberg examines a ballot in Broward County, Florida, during the election recount in 2000. At issue in recent days in Palm Beach County is a local judicial race that is hardly of national note. But problems with administering the local election, and statements from county officials that some critics call confusing, if not contradictory, have some worried about the coming presidential election. Polls showing a dead heat in the battle for Florida's 27 electoral votes only add to the drama. "Managerially, software-wise, procedure-wise, training-wise, there is no confidence that these people will be ready in less than 50 days for the election we are all going to have," said Sid Dinerstein, the Palm Beach County Republican chairman. "Never again!" was the county's promise after the butterfly ballots and hanging chads of the 2000 recount drama. For 2004, the county switched to touch-screen machines. There were no major issues here. But some local Democrats, including Rep. Robert Wexler, demanded changes because they said the touch-screen system might be vulnerable to fraud and did not, in their view, provide a reliable audit trail. So the county switched again, to its third system in eight years, this time a paper ballot that is scanned by an optical reading device. The paper is then retained in case of recounts or other irregularities. Local officials say the system works and promise a smooth Election Day. But Dinerstein says the recount in the judicial race proves the folly of switching. "We could have had nice, reliable computers counting and giving all of us an honest count," he said in an interview. The 2000 recount drama led to major changes -- more than 40 states made changes or adjustments to the way they conducted and administered elections. "We have had more change in our election process since 2000 than we have seen since the Voting Rights Act of 1965," said Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, a recent past president of the national association of top state elections officials. Indiana alone spent some $67 million on new equipment, including a statewide voter file, and also requires a color photo ID on Election Day. Rokita takes issue with those who question the reliability of newer, high-tech systems. "You know, we use technology in every one of our financial transactions and social transactions -- why did we not until 2000 put that type of technology to use when it comes to our most sacred civic transaction, you know, the voting process?" Rokita asked in an interview at his office in Indianapolis. "The technology is just a tool. And what the conspiracy theorists want you to believe is the technology runs the election -- and nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "If you have well-trained people who know how to use that technology and those tools, to know what to do if a battery dies on election day, all those things, then you will have a fair and an accurate election and the people are the ones who will produce that. And If they are not trained and they are not prepared, then you are not going to have a good election. But it is the people, not the machines." Indiana expects a record number of new voters this year, and Rokita is changing his usual advice as a result. In the past he has encouraged voting on Election Day, saying it builds community spirit and gives voters up to the last moment to ponder their choices. But this year, given the high interest in his state and nationwide, he suggests voters who are certain they will not change their minds help ease the burden -- and the potential for mistakes on Election Day -- by taking advantage of any early voting options in their states. | Palm Beach County, Florida, has changed voting systems twice in past eight years .
County GOP chairman says "no confidence" election will go off without problems .
2000 recount drama in Florida led to changes in election procedures in 40+ states .
Indiana official says it's people, not machines, that make elections run smoothly . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "30fc6e3122b565ebec1e5a63076353988da0fa38"} | 840 | 70 | 0.570099 | 1.721035 | 1.085428 | 1.257576 | 11.545455 | 0.772727 |
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- For years Ahmad has been unable to find true love. So the 27 year-old bachelor who lives in Tehran is turning to a professional matchmaker. Jafar Ardabili's matchmaking service provides one option for Iranian singles. "I'm searching for a love that lasts," Ahmad said. What's unusual is Ahmad's matchmaker wears a turban, a robe and could be the first-ever Iranian cleric who plays cupid. "First they say 'wow'," Jafar Ardabili said, "then they take a closer look and say 'since he's a cleric we have faith in him.'" Ardabili made his first love match 10 years ago while he taught at a Tehran university. One of his students had a crush on a person, so Ardabili arranged for the two to meet. A few months later they married. The set-up worked so well that Ardabili and his wife opened the Amin International Family and Cultural Institute, a service that matched Iranian singles in a supervised setting. In Iran, Islamic law restricts social interaction. "You can't just go after someone in public and say would you like to live with me?" Ardabili said. "Especially the women, who often don't have any right to choose their companion, but in our institute women do have the right to choose." Ahmad would love nothing more than one of those women to choose him. On a Thursday morning he anxiously sat in the institute's waiting room. Ardabili had arranged for Ahmad to meet a young lady. Could she be the one? Ahmad had paid a $100 fee, submitted a picture and his information. In return he has access to thousands of other applicants. Once applicants approve of one another's pictures and profiles Ardabili arranges up to two meetings inside his office. After each meeting, the applicants report back to Ardabili. "When there's no connection they look like wrinkled potatoes," Ardabili said. And when cupid's arrow hits the mark? "They look very eager. They're as happy as an ice cream cone." Watch Ardabili describe how his service works » . The third meeting for couples takes place outside the institute without supervision. If all goes well, Ardabili arranges for the families to meet and then the couple ties the knot. "You feel good because you're serving humanity," Ardabili said. Ardabili said that during the past 10 years his institute has had more than 50,000 applicants. More than 2,000 of his couples have married without a single divorce, he said. Ardabili gave credit to his 10-member staff that offers counseling to married couples, even sex therapy. "We want to reduce divorce, give families a strong foundation," Ardabili said. On his Web site, Tehran's matchmaking mullah has posted wedding pictures of some of his success stories. Ahmad can't wait to see his picture among them. "At this very moment I'm counting down the days." | Iranian cleric, wife runs matchmaking service .
Service offers option for social interaction between Iranian singles .
Cleric claims his service has married 2,000 couples without a divorce . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "7130a2e14e23fa4b4129c7900ed222e355f73b40"} | 673 | 42 | 0.475611 | 1.265153 | 0.864396 | 1.40625 | 18.0625 | 0.84375 |
(CNN) -- Two human-rights activists were shot and killed in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, on Thursday evening, leading a U.N. investigator to call for an independent investigation to prove that Kenyan police were not involved. U.N. invesitgator Phillip Alston said an inquiry into the activists deaths was the only way to eliminate suspicions of police involvement. The shootings spurred a protest by students that led police to fatally shoot a student, police said. A U.N. investigator called the killings of the human-rights workers an assassination. "It is extremely troubling when those working to defend human rights in Kenya can be assassinated in broad daylight in the middle of Nairobi," Phillip Alston said. "There is an especially strong onus on the Kenyan government to arrange for an independent investigation into these killings, given the circumstances surrounding them." Alston said many are suspicious that the police were involved and an independent investigation is the only way to eliminate the suspicion. The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights also called for an independent probe and planned to hold a news conference Friday. Oscar Kamau Kingara, a longtime critic of Kenyan police, was fatally shot while driving near the the state house, the home of Kenya's president. Kingara's colleague John Paul Oulu also was killed by the gunmen, who fled. Kingara founded the Oscar Foundation, an organization that provides legal aid to the poor in Kenya. He released a report last year alleging that Kenyan police had killed or kidnapped more than 500 people in an effort to control a gang in the country called the Mungiki. Both men also provided information to the United Nations this year that helped the organization release a scathing report about police brutality and police killings in Kenya. The U.N. report released in late February accused Kenyan police of widespread extrajudicial killings, and called for the removal of the East African nation's police commissioner and its attorney general. Kenyan police said in a statement Friday that investigators were looking for two suspects who were seen fleeing after the shootings of Kingara and Oulu. Police also said they would investigate three officers who shot at college students who protested after the human rights activists were killed. "That use of lethal force during this confrontation was unprofessional and uncalled for. It has also been confirmed one student later died at Kenyatta National Hospital following bullet injuries suffered during this confrontation with the police," the police statement said. CNN's David McKenzie contributed to this report. | U.N. official calls for inquiry into deaths of two Kenyan human rights activists .
Deaths sparked protests amid suspicion over police involvement in killings .
One student fatally shot by police during demonstrations in Nairobi .
Police say they are looking for two suspects seen fleeing scene of the shootings . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c9275d366be81687a8fb2805f327f55f68a41f06"} | 562 | 71 | 0.524601 | 1.364878 | 1.059173 | 1.333333 | 8.555556 | 0.777778 |
(CNN) -- The entire population of Taloga, Oklahoma, was evacuated Thursday because of a raging fire that has burned tens of thousands of acres, officials said Friday. Wildfire threatens a house in Edmond, Oklahoma, on Friday. All of the residents, about 400, left the Dewey County town, but have been allowed back in, said Bill Challis with the fire department in Clinton, Oklahoma, south of Taloga. Clinton is among dozens of fire departments helping battle the blaze. Wildfires have been burning in northwest and central Oklahoma since Thursday, according to the state Department of Emergency Management. A large wildfire also came within inches of homes north of Edmond late Friday morning and was still burning during the noon hour, CNN affiliate KOCO reported. Oklahoma Department of Public Safey officials also report that one to two city blocks of Weleetka, in Okfuskee County, were on fire, according to KOCO. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved the state's request for federal assistance for fighting the wildfire in Dewey County, where Taloga is located. The original call about the Taloga fire came in Thursday at about 12:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. ET), Challis said. Officials don't know how the fire started. Brett Russell, also with the Clinton Fire Department, said about 60,000 acres have burned. There are no reports of anyone injured. As of about 11 a.m. Friday (12 p.m. ET), the Taloga fire was about 50 to 60 percent contained. About 80 fire departments helping battle the blaze, Russell told CNN. An Oklahoma Army National Guard Blackhawk helicopter was helping with aerial fire suppression, according to the state. | All residents of Taloga, Oklahoma, were evacuated because of fire .
Entire population of about 400 people allowed back in .
Wildfires have been burning in northwest and central Oklahoma since Thursday .
Wildfire also burning near towns of Edmond, Waleeka . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f5f6db49aae94ae2644d2886fd6b2a6d2ab24c71"} | 377 | 59 | 0.6666 | 1.47999 | 0.651214 | 3.979167 | 6.5625 | 0.854167 |
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was in stable condition and recovering from head injuries Friday night after a car wreck that killed his wife, Susan, medical sources told CNN. Tsvangirai and his wife, Susan, were en route to the prime minister's hometown of Buhera. The crash, on a busy two-lane highway between Tsvangirai's hometown of Buhera and the capital city of Harare, comes just weeks after the start of a power-sharing agreement between Tsvangirai and his political rival, President Robert Mugabe. Analysts say the crash is bound to raise suspicion of foul play, with one former U.S. diplomat calling for an outside investigation, saying it is not the first time that a political foe of Mugabe has been killed or injured in a car crash. Members of Tsvangirai's political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said Friday that it was too early to tell whether the crash is anything other than an accident. Tsvangirai's aide and driver also were injured in the head-on collision with a large truck, according to his spokesman, James Maridadi. Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nelson Chamisa said he spoke to Tsvangirai at the hospital, and the party leader was in "relatively stable" condition. An MDC spokesman describes 'critical' accident » . Sources at The Avenues Clinic in Harare said that Tsvangirai was in stable condition with minor head injuries and that the prime minister was alert and talking. One source said the attending doctor had told him of his wife's death. Another said that doctors were planning to keep Tsvangirai overnight for observation and that specialists were checking his condition. Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, took office last month under a power-sharing deal with Mugabe after a contentious election. Tsvangirai's MDC reached the power-sharing agreement with Mugabe in September after months of angry dispute that included violence. More than 200 deaths, mainly those of opposition supporters, were reported leading up to and in the aftermath of the election. "I'm skeptical about any motor vehicle accident in Zimbabwe involving an opposition figure," said Tom McDonald, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1997 to 2001. "President Mugabe has a history of strange car accidents when someone lo and behold dies -- it's sort of his M.O. of how they get rid of people they don't like." Watch more on the fatal crash » . McDonald cited the 2001 death of Defense Minister Moven Mahachi, Employment Minister Border Gezi's death in 1999 and the death last year of Elliot Manyika, a government minister and former regional governor. All three died in car crashes. "This is several," McDonald said. "So, when I hear that Tsvangirai was in an accident, it gives me pause." McDonald, now an attorney with the Washington law firm Baker Hostetler, urged a full investigation by outside authorities. One analyst who studies the region said the collision could "exacerbate" the fragile unity government. "There will undoubtedly be suspicions about the cause of the crash and whether there was foul play involved," said Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "At a time when there needs to be confidence-building measures, this incident potentially raises suspicions and undermines the potential for greater cohesion of the government. [There is] huge potential for the agreement to be manipulated by Mugabe." McDonald, however, was quick to say that traffic accidents are common in Zimbabwe. The highway on which Tsvangirai was traveling is a two-lane road where tractor-trailers are common, vehicles in the country are often in bad shape and drivers often are inexperienced, he said. "It's certainly plausible that this was just one of those tragic things," he said. The collision occurred on the Harare-Masvingo Road as Tsvangirai and his wife headed to his hometown of Buhera, south of the capital, Harare, his spokesman said. The couple, who were married in 1978, have six children, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Last month, Susan Tsvangirai told a BBC affiliate that the past decade had been an "endurance test" for her husband and his MDC colleagues. "People went through hell, but they stuck to their ideals to seek change through democratic means," she said. "This was a struggle that we endured with MDC cadres, activists, supporters and peace-loving Zimbabweans. "To them I say thank you so much for the support they gave the MDC to reach this momentous period." A former miner and union organizer, Morgan Tsvangirai first ran for president in 2002 against Mugabe, who has been the country's leader since it gained independence from Great Britain in 1980. Since then, Tsvangirai has been charged with treason twice and accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe. Tsvangirai was arrested and allegedly beaten in 2007. The criminal charges against him were dropped. CNN's Nkepile Mabuse, Alan Silverleib and Doug Gross contributed to this report. | NEW: Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in stable condition, sources say .
Analyst: Crash could exacerbate fragile unity government with President Mugabe .
Head-on collision bound to raise suspicion of foul play, analysts say .
Ex-U.S. diplomat says other Mugabe foes have died in car crashes . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "3e57228b544d53905e505107a6a30ede0c5748e5"} | 1,197 | 73 | 0.590063 | 1.552626 | 1.001301 | 2.912281 | 16.877193 | 0.842105 |
(Mental Floss) -- It's hard to walk down the aisle of a liquor store without running across a bottle bearing someone's name. A costumed reveler at a Captain Morgan party celebrates the rum named after the 17th century privateer. We put them in our cocktails, but how well do we know them? Here's some biographical detail on the men behind your favorite tipples: . 1. Captain Morgan . The Captain wasn't always just the choice of sorority girls looking to blend spiced rum with Diet Coke; in the 17th century he was a feared privateer. Not only did the Welsh pirate marry his own cousin, he ran risky missions for the governor of Jamaica, including capturing some Spanish prisoners in Cuba and sacking Port-au-Prince in Haiti. He then plundered the Cuban coast before holding for ransom the entire city of Portobelo, Panama. He later looted and burned Panama City, but his pillaging career came to an end when Spain and England signed a peace treaty in 1671. Instead of getting in trouble for his high-seas antics, Morgan received knighthood and became the lieutenant governor of Jamaica. Mental Floss: 5 drinking stories that put yours to shame . 2. Johnnie Walker . Walker, the name behind the world's most popular brand of Scotch whisky, was born in 1805 in Ayrshire, Scotland. When his father died in 1819, Johnnie inherited a trust of a little over 400 pounds, which the trustees invested in a grocery store. Walker became a very successful grocer in the town of Kilmarnock and even sold a whisky, Walker's Kilmarnock Whisky. Johnnie's son Alexander was the one who actually turned the family into famous whisky men, though. Alexander had spent time in Glasgow learning how to blend teas, but he eventually returned to Kilmarnock to take over the grocery from his father. Alexander turned his blending expertise to whisky, and came up with "Old Highland Whisky," which later became Johnnie Walker Black Label. 3. Jack Daniel . Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel of Tennessee whiskey fame was the descendant of Welsh settlers who came to the United States in the early 19th century. He was born in 1846 or 1850 and was one of 13 children. By 1866 he was distilling whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Unfortunately for the distiller, he had a bit of a temper. One morning in 1911 Daniel showed up for work early and couldn't get his safe open. He flew off the handle and kicked the offending strongbox. The kick was so ferocious that Daniel injured his toe, which then became infected. The infection soon became the blood poisoning that killed the whiskey mogul. Curious about why your bottle of J.D. also has Lem Motlow listed as the distillery's proprietor? Daniel's own busy life of distilling and safe-kicking kept him from ever finding a wife and siring an heir, so in 1907 he gave the distillery to his beloved nephew Lem Motlow, who had come to work for him as a bookkeeper. Mental Floss: The many myths of Jack Daniel . 4. Jose Cuervo . In 1758, Jose Antonio de Cuervo received a land grant from the King of Spain to start an agave farm in the Jalisco region of Mexico. Jose used his agave plants to make mescal, a popular Mexican liquor. In 1795, King Carlos IV gave the land grant to Cuervo's descendant Jose Maria Guadalupe de Cuervo. Carlos IV also granted the Cuervo family the first license to commercially make tequila, so they built a larger factory on the existing land. The family started packaging their wares in individual bottles in 1880, and in 1900 the booze started going by the brand name Jose Cuervo. The brand is still under the leadership of the original Jose Cuervo's family; current boss Juan-Domingo Beckmann is the sixth generation of Cuervo ancestors to run the company. 5. Jim Beam . Jim Beam, the namesake of the world's best-selling bourbon whiskey, didn't actually start the distillery that now bears his name. His great-grandfather Jacob Beam opened the distillery in 1788 and started selling his first barrels of whiskey in 1795. In those days, the whiskey went by the less-catchy moniker of "Old Tub." Jacob Beam handed down the distillery to his son David Beam, who in turn passed it along to his son David M. Beam, who eventually handed the operation off to his son, Colonel James Beauregard Beam, in 1894. Although he was only 30 years old when he took over the family business, Jim Beam ran the distillery until Prohibition shut him down. Following repeal in 1933, Jim quickly built a distillery and began resurrecting the Old Tub brand, but he also added something new to the company's portfolio: a bourbon simply called Jim Beam. Mental Floss: A bourbon FAQ . 6. Tanqueray . When he was a young boy, Charles Tanqueray's path through life seemed pretty clear. He was the product of three straight generations of Bedfordshire clergymen, so it must have seemed natural to assume that he would take up the cloth himself. Wrong. Instead, he started distilling gin in 1830 in a little plant in London's Bloomsbury district. By 1847, he was shipping his gin to colonies around the British Empire, where many plantation owners and troops had developed a taste for Tanqueray and tonic. 7. Campari . Gaspare Campari found his calling quickly. By the time he was 14, he had risen to become a master drink mixer in Turin, Italy, and in this capacity he started dabbling with a recipe for an aperitif. When he eventually settled on the perfect mixture, his concoction had over 60 ingredients. In 1860, he founded Gruppo Campari to make his trademark bitters in Milan. Like Colonel Sanders' spice blend, the recipe for Campari is a closely guarded secret supposedly known by only the acting Gruppo Campari chairman, who works with a tiny group of employees to make the concentrate with which alcohol and water are infused to get Campari. The drink is still made from Gaspare Campari's recipe, though, which includes quinine, orange peel, rhubarb, and countless other flavorings. For more mental_floss articles, visit mentalfloss.com . Entire contents of this article copyright, Mental Floss LLC. All rights reserved. | Capt. Morgan married his own cousin, plundered Cuba and won a knighthood .
Jack Daniel died after losing a fight with a ... safe?
Which best-selling bourbon whiskey was originally called "Old Tub?"
Gin-maker Tanqueray descended from three-generations of clergymen . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "6002b47ac98e56969803333ce0bfd72c8c4c1451"} | 1,571 | 73 | 0.430135 | 1.47303 | 0.302852 | 1.607143 | 21.357143 | 0.785714 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The decision to make "Che" was an easy one, Benicio Del Toro says. Filming the movie was anything but. Benicio Del Toro stars as Latin American revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. "I have to say it probably is the most difficult movie I've ever made, and I've made a few," Del Toro says of his starring role in director Steven Soderbergh's Spanish-language biopic. One of Hollywood's most bankable stars, Del Toro has made a name for himself playing dark and brooding characters in movies like "21 Grams," "The Usual Suspects," and "Traffic," for which he won an Oscar. He now adds to that list the role of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentine doctor whose role in the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s vaulted him to cult status where he remains today. To play the Latin American revolutionary, Del Toro says he had to start with the man himself rather than invent a character. He read what Che wrote and interviewed a range of people, including those who knew him when he was a child, as well as those who were there in his last days. And then there were the countless photos of the iconic and controversial leader which he pored over. Looking at the pictures, seeing the attitude that he had in the photographs," he says, "I learned a lot from the photographs." The meticulous study pays off on screen. Del Toro delivers a soulful performance that has earned him accolades. He won the Best Actor award at Cannes this year and he is being hotly tipped for another Oscar nod. Which films and actors do you think are contenders for this year's Oscars? Share your picks in the SoundOff below. Che's life "is what movies are made of," Del Toro told CNN. The incredible story, along with the opportunity to work with Soderbergh, who directed him in 2000's "Traffic," for a second time drew him to the project. The 41-year-old bilingual actor was born in Puerto Rico but grew up in Pennsylvania. It wasn't until he was in his early 20s and wandered into a bookstore in Mexico City that he discovered Che. "I bought a compilation of his letters that he had written to his family and I read that book. I didn't know anything about this guy, so that started my journey," he recalls. See how the movie was received in Cuba » . "Che" is split into two parts -- "The Argentine" and "Guerrilla." When shown in its entirety, the movie clocks in at a staggering 257 minutes. Part one charts Che's rise from young idealist to revolutionary hero during the Cuban Revolution. Part two depicts his efforts to bring change to all of Latin America and focuses on his campaign in Bolivia, where he died. Shot in various locations ranging from the jungles of Bolivia to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, filming was grueling. "In this film, we went pretty fast," Del Toro says. "We went really fast." Soderbergh wanted to film using only natural light, and production moved rapidly. On some days, Del Toro recounts, they only had 15 or 30 minutes to capture a scene. One day of filming felt like a whole week of work, he says. "The way I felt on a Monday in this movie is the equivalent to how I felt at the end of the week of another movie." Del Toro, who also co-produced the movie, isn't complaining though. He speaks with pride about the effort the cast and crew put in to the moviemaking process, which he describes as "hit and run." "Che" is being released in two parts, but the epic is best viewed in its entirety, Del Toro says. "You'll get the full experience of what we went through, of the two movies together as one." The full-length version of "Che" will have a limited opening in the U.S. on Dec. 12. It is scheduled to be released in separate parts in the UK on Jan. 2. | Benicio Del Toro stars in "Che," a biopic of the Latin American revolutionary .
His performance is generating Oscar buzz in Hollywood .
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the two-part film is more than four hours long .
Del Toro on Che: His life "is what movies are made of" | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "fb2cd7b00d3438e64b85341b757d2716348e3631"} | 952 | 74 | 0.556358 | 1.581605 | 1.096535 | 2.229508 | 13.245902 | 0.819672 |
(CNN) -- Hundreds of South Koreas were left in limbo after North Korea shut its borders Monday at the start of joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea. U.S. troops have started joint military exercises with their South Korean counterparts. When Pyongyang took the action, 573 South Koreans were staying at the Kaesong industrial complex, north of the demilitarized zone, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Many of the stranded South Koreans work at the complex, which is a joint project between the Koreas. "The South Korean government is closely monitoring the situation and preparing for all contingencies," said Kim Ho-nyun, a South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman. "We emphasize that currently the first priority is the safety of our citizens." Eighty South Koreans had applied to cross the border into South Korea on Monday, Kim said, but had not been cleared to do so. "We are also not certain what will happen to the South Koreans that want to cross tomorrow as well," he said. The cross-border developments came as North Korea said it would retaliate if a "satellite" launch from its northeastern coast were intercepted, with the communist nation saying interference would "mean a war." "Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," a spokesman for the North Korean army said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). U.S. and South Korean officials have said that North Korea appears to be preparing to test-fire its long-range missile, the Taepodong-2, under the guise of launching a satellite into space. The missile is thought to have an intended range of about 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles), which -- if true -- could give it the capability of striking Alaska or Hawaii. North Korea's bellicose announcement came on the first day of annual joint military drills between South Korea and the United States. "We have said several times that the U.S.-South Korean military exercises are annual defensive exercises," Kim said. "We again urge North Korea to maintain the agreed stance of mutual respect and to stop its verbal attacks and actions that are raising tensions on the Korean peninsula," he said. The North said it has shut its borders to "any enemies" and has cut off "the North-South military communications in order to guarantee the security." North Korea said the military phone lines with the South, the last remaining communications channel, will remain closed until the 12-day military exercises end on March 20, according to Yonhap. Kim said his government is urging North Korea "to immediately retract this measure and to allow the smooth flow of personnel and communication." On Saturday, U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth said he wants dialogue with North Korea, but he also spoke against North Korea's move to go forward with a launch, saying it would be "ill-advised." | 573 people staying at Kaesong industrial complex, north of demilitarized zone .
80 South Koreans not cleared to cross the border into South Korea Monday .
Follows vow to retaliate from N. Korea if its satellite launch is intercepted .
S. Korea, U.S. have started their annual joint military drills . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "e4cb3a0fffada5a379ad602e295d7a2822eb3def"} | 660 | 80 | 0.581305 | 1.461477 | 1.125904 | 2.339286 | 9.982143 | 0.839286 |
(CNN) -- Fourteen people were missing after a cargo ship sank Monday in Egyptian waters, Red Sea Gov. Majdi Al Qubaisi told Egyptian television. Nine survivors and the bodies of two crew members aboard the Cypriot-flagged Ibn Battuta cargo ship were recovered in separate operations Monday, the Nile TV News Web site said. A rescue boat was headed out to retrieve a 10th survivor. The survivors were "on their way to the naval base, and preparations had been taken to carry out a medical check as soon as they arrive," the Web site said, citing an unnamed Egyptian official. The Ibn Battuta's crew members are of Indian, Pakistani, Bengali, Somali, Iraqi and Sudanese nationalities, Nile TV News said. The Ibn Battuta was carrying 6,500 tons of sand for use in the glass industry and was on its way from the Port of Abu Zenima in Egypt to the United Arab Emirates, the TV station reported. The ship had experienced bad weather in the Red Sea, with low visibility and high waves. The commercial ship Susan K retrieved the two bodies, while the survivors were rescued by the boat Sultan and an aircraft from an Egyptian Search and Rescue team, Nile TV News said. -- CNN's Caroline Faraj and Yousef Rafayah contributed to this report. | Reports: 14 crew missing after ship capsizes in Egyptian waters .
9 survivors, 2 bodies recovered from Cypriot-flagged Ibn Battuta cargo ship .
Vessel carrying 6,500 tons of sand for use in the glass industry .
The ship had experienced bad weather in the Red Sea . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f63568f91f42bef24b46376b11233bc594204380"} | 313 | 73 | 0.612387 | 1.454485 | 0.59636 | 5.444444 | 4.537037 | 0.814815 |
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The missing engine from a US Airways jet that ditched in the Hudson River was recovered Friday, more than a week after the crash landing. A jet engine lost after Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River is hoisted from the water Friday. Icy conditions and strong currents hampered efforts to locate and raise the plane's left engine, which apparently tore from the Airbus A320 when it hit the water in an emergency landing January 15. The engine was found Wednesday in about 50 feet of water. The divers who found it reported that it was in one piece, said New Jersey State Police Sgt. Stephen Jones. A crane brought the engine up Friday afternoon as daylight began to fade. It was placed on a barge and hauled to the New Jersey side of the river, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which was supervising the recovery. Watch the engine pulled from Hudson River » . After an initial examination at the site, the engine will be shipped with the plane's other engine to the manufacturer, where "the NTSB will supervise and direct a complete tear-down of each engine," NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said. The right engine was still attached to the plane when it was pulled from the Hudson last week. It will be at least next week before any information from the initial examination is released, Knudson said. Investigators said this week that they found a single feather and evidence of "soft-body impact damage" on the aircraft. The find reinforces the pilot's report that the plane was brought down by a flock of birds. Pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, 58, told investigators that his aircraft struck birds, disabling both engines, about 90 seconds after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York. Map » . The feather, found on a flap track on the wing, was sent to identification experts at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Samples of what appears to be organic material found in the right engine and on the wings and fuselage have been sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, a pilot program involving "birdstrike avoidance" radar systems will be expanded to include LaGuardia, said a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. See authorities' efforts to retrieve plane » . The Air Force has been using such systems at its bases for years, and last year the Port Authority -- which operates five metropolitan New York airports -- struck an agreement with the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration to install the bird-detecting system at John F. Kennedy International Airport. In the wake of the US Airways crash-landing, that program will be expanded to include LaGuardia and Newark International airports within a few months, according to Pasquale DiFulco, spokesman for the Port Authority. Newly released video captured seconds after the Airbus A320 ditched in the Hudson River showed passengers trying to flee the aircraft almost immediately after it settled in the water and began to float along the river current. All 155 crew members and passengers on the plane survived the incident, which Gov. David Paterson dubbed a "miracle on the Hudson." The video, which the Con Edison utility company released Thursday, first shows a long wake behind the plane before zooming in on the aircraft. Steam surrounds the plane as it floats with a slow counterclockwise twist. An exit hatch opens on the plane's left side, and several people file out onto one of the plane's wings. Seconds later, an inflatable evacuation ramp extends from the opposite side of the plane. Watch their escape » . Passengers run onto the plane's other wing as the aircraft floats off-screen for a few seconds. The camera jerks, and when the plane reappears, passengers can be seen at the bottom of the inflatable ramp. Some passengers jump into the water, which was a chilly 41 degrees when the plane splashed down on the afternoon of January 15. Within minutes, a ferry and other boats come into the picture and begin to take the people aboard. The video came from a surveillance camera at Con Edison's 59th Street Station, a steam plant, spokesman Chris Olert said. A person manning the camera from inside the plant saw the plane hit the water and redirected the camera, Olert said. CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin, Mike Ahlers and Alona Rivord contributed to this report. | Missing engine recovered from Hudson, hauled to New Jersey riverbank .
Video shows at least two passengers jump off plane's wings into chilly Hudson River .
Single feather and evidence of "soft-body impact damage" found on plane .
US Airways flight crash-landed in river after reportedly hitting flock of birds . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "160efba90d2219be19a095b0b940d52b4d18240d"} | 1,028 | 71 | 0.53644 | 1.464231 | 0.942201 | 3.645161 | 13.612903 | 0.870968 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The killer of "Harry Potter" actor Rob Knox has been given four life sentences and told he will be behind bars for at least 20 years. The parents of Robert Knox read a statement outside the Old Bailey after Karl Bishop was found guilty of his murder. A judge at the Old Bailey court in central London sentenced 22-year-old Karl Bishop on Thursday, the day after he was convicted of the attack on Rob Knox and four of his friends in southeast London last May. Bishop stabbed them 10 times in less than two minutes, the court heard. Knox, 18, had rushed out of the bar after he heard that Bishop had threatened his younger brother Jamie but he ended up being stabbed five times, once in a main artery. He died in hospital later that night. The judge, Mr Justice Bean, told Bishop: "You are at present a highly dangerous man," the Press Association reported. "There is plainly a very significant risk to the public of serious harm caused by your committing further offences of violence. "Because you had threatened his younger brother, Rob Knox was among those who tried to disarm you. He paid for his bravery with his life. "The truth is that you simply could not care less whether you killed him or not. When you learned that you had killed Rob your only response was to say 'Yeah, sweet.'" Days before the attack, the actor had finished filming on "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince," due for international release in July, in which he played the role of Marcus Belby. He was set to reprise the part in future "Harry Potter" films. Knox's father Colin told mourners at his funeral, including co-star Rupert Grint, that his son had been "living the dream," PA said. The Knox family left the court without commenting, but earlier Rob's mother Sally said of Bishop: "Once he's got his sentence and he's gone, I will not waste my time thinking about him. "I just think maybe somebody like him may have some kind of disturbed mind, which may not be due to the life he's had, it just may be something in him." Knife crime in Britain is a political hot topic due to a spate of recent killings of mainly young people in major cities. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged tougher sentences for those caught carrying knives. He told the Daily Telegraph last month: "By carrying a knife you are not only endangering the lives of others, but you are more likely to be killed, or end up in jail. "We need to change the way young people think about knives, we need families and communities working together ... to get this message across and help stamp out knife crime and get weapons off our streets." | The killer of "Harry Potter" actor jailed for life, must serve at least 20 years .
Karl Bishop, 22, attacked Rob Knox with 2 knives in southeast London last May .
Knife crime in Britain is political hot topic due to spate of recent killings . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "596b16e646b968cfac900db008319db7dc8f7782"} | 622 | 60 | 0.540971 | 1.56749 | 1.36607 | 3.924528 | 10.528302 | 0.867925 |
(CNN) -- The gigolo former lover of Germany's richest woman has been jailed for six years after confessing to blackmailing her and other women out of millions of dollars, a court official said Monday. Helg Sgarbi has admitted blackmailing Germany's richest woman, Susanne Klatten. Susanne Klatten, the BMW heiress, complained to police last year that Helg Sgarbi had threatened to release pictures of them if she did not pay him nearly $60 million. Munich's state prosecutor Anton Winkler said Sgarbi, who was accused of blackmailing several wealthy woman, had made a written confession which was read by his lawyer to the court. "He confessed that he blackmailed the victims, told them untrue stories," Winkler told CNN. However, Sgarbi had not revealed what had happened to the estimated $12.5 million he had taken from his victims nor where the pictures had gone. "It is really only half a confession. We asked him about where the money is, about accomplices and videos... and he refused to say anything about that," Winkler said. Authorities said Klatten, who is married with three children, had an affair with Sgarbi. He started to ask her for money, and she paid several million at first, but when she refused to provide more he threatened to send compromising videos to her husband and the media. Klatten went to the police in January 2008, telling them she was the victim of a fraud and blackmail. At the time, her spokesman, Joerg Appelhans, told CNN that Sgarbi's goal had always been to con her. "She rigorously notified authorities even in light of the uncomfortable public repercussions this would have for her," Appelhans said. Sgarbi's lawyer, Egon Geis, said he was surprised by all the media attention. "This is all because of Mrs. Klatten, take the same amount of money and any other person and no one would care." Sgarbi allegedly maintained relationships with a number of woman, telling them he was a special Swiss representative in crisis zones. Klatten, the daughter of the late BMW chief Herbert Quandt, holds a 12.5-percent stake in the German carmaker and a 51.1-percent share of chemical company Altana. Forbes magazine lists her as the world's 55th richest person, with a personal fortune of $13.2 billion. CNN's Fred Pleitgen contributed to this report. | Germany's richest woman told police she was being blackmailed for millions .
BMW heiress said former lover threatened to release images of them .
Helg Sgarbi's admits trying to blackmail BMW heiress and others . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "1728b9a1dcba7fa792374cfc1d3b4b86c4344c6d"} | 577 | 58 | 0.602456 | 1.631925 | 0.560218 | 1.589744 | 11.512821 | 0.820513 |
(CNN) -- Researchers with a Malaysian university said they have uncovered evidence of an iron industry that dates to the 3rd Century, A.D., and proves that ancient civilizations in Southeast Asia were more advanced than once thought. The archaeologists from the Universiti Sains Malaysia found the remains of an iron smelting site, tools to pump oxygen into the iron smelting process, rooftops of buildings, beads and pots, said Mokhtar Saidan, a professor and leader of the team. The discovery was made after a month of excavation at Lembah Bujang, a historical site in Malaysia. "This is the first discovery of the earliest iron industry in Lembah Bujang and has been dated conclusively. This date also adds on to the facts and data on the early history of Southeast Asia," he said. He said coal from the site was sent to a laboratory in Florida that said elements in the coal dated to the 3rd Century. The professor said the discovery confirms that human civilization in the area was more advanced than thought and the site probably was a place for exporting iron in the 3rd Century. | Researchers uncover evidence of Malaysian iron industry dating to 3rd Century .
Proves ancient civilizations in Southeast Asia more advanced than thought .
Discovery was made after a month of excavation at Lembah Bujang . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "69211f3bcbd8388495333855a164e1c1ee5e309d"} | 263 | 50 | 0.734683 | 1.796832 | 1.235741 | 5 | 5.567568 | 0.891892 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- It runs on 100 per cent renewable biodiesel and holds the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe in a powerboat -- and now Earthrace is for sale. For sale: The green powerboat Earthrace is on the market for $1.5 million. The boat's owner, New Zealander Pete Bethune, listed Earthrace as for sale on the vessel's dedicated Web site last year, and he's now taking it on a tour of Australia and New Zealand in the hope of finding a buyer. Bethune is asking $1.5 million for the trimaran, which holds the world record for the fastest time in circling the globe in a powerboat. Earthrace achieved the feat in 60 days, 23 hours and 49 minutes; beating the old record by over two weeks. Earthrace claims to have a net zero carbon footprint by running on renewable bio diesel. Most of the fuel is believed to come from waste animal fats. The 1080 hp engine is kept cool with ducts which expel hot air and suck in cold air. See an image gallery of Earthrace » . Bethune has said he hopes to pay off some debts with the sale of the boat. | Earthrace holds the world record for fastest time around the globe in a powerboat .
Owner Pete Bethune is selling Earthrace for $1.5 million .
The trimaran is currently touring Australia in the hope of finding a buyer . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "3ddac6ff117cf27efabb2fac8c751921af8c66bb"} | 272 | 52 | 0.731247 | 1.851897 | 1.134919 | 4 | 5.309524 | 0.857143 |
Editor's note: Bob Greene is a bestselling author whose current book is "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams." Bob Greene says one dentist in Iowa found an ingenious way of keeping his chair filled with patients. (CNN) -- You may not have the answer for how to thrive in a lousy economy. I may not have the answer for how to thrive in a lousy economy. But the truck stop dentist figured it out a long time ago. "When your dental practice is in a truck stop, you don't have a lot of patients coming in for their six-month cleanings," said Dr. Thomas P. Roemer. "You have people walking in holding their jaws in pain. Treatment is not optional -- they need to see a dentist, and they need to see me now." Dr. Roemer's one-man dental office is inside the Iowa 80 Truckstop, at Exit 284 of Interstate 80, near the small town of Walcott. The complex proclaims itself to be the world's largest truck stop, and if you've never been there -- well, the truck stop itself is probably a story for another time. Suffice it to say that the establishment is spread over 200 acres, that it features its own movie theater, a 300-seat restaurant with a 50-foot salad bar, the Super Truck Showroom (more than 75,000 truck-related items for sale, festooned with enough gleaming chrome to make you reach for your sunglasses). But the topic for today is Dr. Roemer, and how he ended up offering root canals in a building where people stop for diesel fuel. These desperate economic times highlight the importance of individual inventiveness and ingenuity -- and a dentist has to be beyond ingenious to gaze upon an Iowa truck stop and figure out: A fellow could make himself a pretty nice living in there. "I had a regular dental practice over in Davenport," Dr. Roemer, 48, told me. "I had an advertisement in the Yellow Pages. And in the early 1990s I noticed that I kept getting calls from truckers who were in a phone booth out by the Iowa 80 Truckstop. They had stopped for fuel, and they were in a lot of pain, and they absolutely had to see a dentist." Now... Walcott, the town adjacent to the truck stop, has only 1,500 residents. But the truck stop itself caters to an estimated 5,000 customers a day, most of them long-haul truckers passing through. The light bulb above Dr. Roemer's head snapped on. "I made arrangements with the truck stop to open up an office," he said. "At first I split my practice between my old office in Davenport and the truck stop office. But I ended up closing the old one. My entire practice is in the truck stop now." Business is good, he said, even during the recession. There have been stories from around the country about doctors and dentists seeing fewer patients, because people just don't have the money to come in for regular checkups. But a truck stop dental office is not a place where patients come because they have planned it -- a truck stop dental office is a place where patients come because they need immediate relief. "The sentence I hear the most often is, 'Do you pull teeth?'" Dr. Roemer said. "Someone will come in with his hand to his face, and he'll want to have a tooth extracted. He will have heard that I'm here." But how do truckers learn about Dr. Roemer's practice? "Word of mouth," he said. (So to speak.) The business model of most dental offices, he said, is based on teeth-cleaning: A dentist builds up his or her list of loyal patients and their families who come in to get their teeth cleaned, and when they need fillings or crowns, the office is there for them. The truck stop dentist, by necessity, turns that business model inside out. "I usually see a patient once, and then never see him again," he said. "Truckers aren't going to say to me, 'I'll be back for a cleaning on September 23 at 2 in the afternoon.' They can't plan where they're going to be. I make patient files for the people who come in, but I know that I'll probably never have a reason to open the files after they walk out the door. These are mostly one-time patients." He doesn't have the luxury of knowing, at the beginning of a day, how many patients he will see -- or even if he will see any. "It can range from zero patients in a day to 15," he said. "It's unusual for a patient to call in advance. I'll know I have a patient when the door opens and a trucker walks in, with that look on his face." Dr. Roemer's success, he said, is based on two factors: the steady flow of those 35,000 people who pull in to the truck stop every week, and the actuarial certainty that some of them will be truckers with a mouthful of hurt. "I had a guy who came in yesterday who told me he was in such pain that he had tried to pull his own tooth," Dr. Roemer said. "I told him there was no need for that. I told him that I could help him." It does get a little lonely out at Exit 284, not being able to build up a continuing relationship with his patients, the way most dentists do. Sometimes, as a patient is getting up from the chair to leave, Dr. Roemer will find himself saying: . "Make sure you try to get your dispatcher to send you back this way." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene. | Bob Greene: Dentist in Iowa found ingenious way of boosting his business .
He says dentist set up a thriving practice at a busy truck stop on Interstate 80 .
Greene: Traffic ensures there will be some truckers in need of dental care .
He says the dentist can't rely on return business from his patients . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "346b373c12a8b8c0ab395b066a4f019d8333de99"} | 1,335 | 79 | 0.535472 | 1.789092 | 1.082208 | 1.31746 | 18.412698 | 0.809524 |
(CNN) -- Four survivors of the US Airways Flight 1549 that went down in the Hudson River appeared on "Larry King Live" Thursday to discuss a recording of the pilot calmly telling an air traffic controller the plane would ditch. Carl Bazarian, clockwise from left, Vince Spera, Alberto Panero and Brad Wentzell appeared on "Larry King Live." "We're gonna be in the Hudson," pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger radioed on January 15, about three and a half minutes after the Airbus A320 took off from New York's LaGuardia Airport. The Federal Aviation Administration released the recording on Thursday, a day after the National Transportation Safety Board said both the plane's engines contained the remains of birds. Larry King: Carl, what goes through you when you hear the recording, especially the calmness? Carl Bazarian, survivor: You know, to me -- my son played it for me this morning. I found it incredibly stressful and sobering that we were so close to death. And that's the bad side. And I'm really not keen on hearing it too many more times. But on the other side, it's exhilarating. Again, we were blessed with the best feat in aviation, with the best pilot and co-pilot. That's all I can say. King: Vince, what goes through your mind? Vince Spera, survivor: Larry, the entire conversation that you hear going back and forth is just indicative of how the entire cabin was. It was calm, controlled, but tense. That's really what that conversation started to sound like to me. Listen to pilot's communication with flight controller » . King: Alberto? Alberto Panero, survivor: It's filling in pieces to the puzzle. While everything was going on in the plane, we didn't have much information of what was going on actually. So hearing this now kind of fits into the puzzle, where we see where I was at the point when everything was happening in the plane. King: Brad? Brad Wentzell, survivor: It's an amazing thing to hear, not only from our perspective, when we were basically going for a ride, but to hear from the man who -- just him and the Good Lord had our lives in his hand. King: How do you feel, Carl -- you'll see the whole crew with us Tuesday night -- when you hear the captain talk? Bazarian: First thing, he's very honest about it. But I don't know how -- we all had disbelief. It was all surreal. How then he was so energized to exhibit the highest professionalism. I think it's an incredible aviation feat. And my fellow friends, they will comment. But how did he get that composure? Watch survivors react to hearing the tape » . We were all panicky. Not panicky, I think Vince is right. We were kind of cool, but concerned, overly concerned. How did he regain himself and do what he did? I don't know how he did it. King: Vince, were there a lot of moments, Vince, when you thought you bought it? Spera: Actually, no. There was never a point in time when I thought I was going to die. Obviously, I think the way the people in the cabin behaved contributed to my feeling that way. It was just a lot of control. We felt like the pilot was in control. Obviously, it all worked out. At no point did I feel like I was going to die. I'm very happy to hear the captain truly didn't feel that way either. King: Alberto, how about when it hit the water? Did you think you were going to go under? Panero: No. I think as soon as we hit the water, we realized that the worst was over and the most important thing was to get out as soon as possible, making sure that the doors got open quickly and that everybody stayed calm and tried to exit as calmly as possible, because at first people were trying to get out quick and trying to push a little bit. But I think everybody realized that the more organized that we did it, the faster we would get out. I think that helped out a lot. King: Brad, the last few weeks, have you had flashbacks? Do you think about it a lot? Wentzell: I've had a few flashbacks. For me the most real thing that I keep playing back in my head is saying goodbye to my family in prayer and saying goodbye to my little daughter, my loved ones, my wife, and waiting to die. It's a very real feeling. I wasn't as optimistic. No one ever knows when they're going to die. I felt that was my time. Apparently, the Good Lord still has a few things for me to do on this Earth. King: Carl, you're looking out the window here, I guess. Bazarian: Yes, I was. King: What are you thinking? Bazarian: The first reality when we hit, I thought, initially, the landing was so good I thought we were back on the tarmac. That was my immediate reaction. But then the water -- immediately, we saw the water out the window. Again, like Vince said, when we saw that daylight of the door opening, it wasn't a herd of people trying to rush out. It was pretty good composure. I guess Vince is right. We picked up on the courage of the crew and the flight attendants. King: Vince, there was one passenger who thought he landed. Spera: Yes. I heard several stories about reactions of different people. Honestly, most of the people knew exactly what was going on and they really just wanted to get out and get to safety. But I did hear somebody attempting to pick up their bag and do some other things like that. Fortunately, most of those people were on the right side of the plane. I got to get out the left. King: Alberto, have you flown since? Panero: Actually, I have. The next day I took a plane home. I figured that was going to be the easiest way to just get over any kind of possible trauma, just get back on the plane. And I just kept focused on seeing my family and friends and that got me through the flight pretty well. And also the lady that was sitting next to me was very nice and just happened to make friendly conversation. So it worked out pretty good. Panero: Brad, have you met the captain? Wentzell: I did meet the captain. That was very real thing. He's just as cool and calm in person as you would expect, for someone who was able to do, from what I believe, no one else on the planet could do. He was very humble. I think we all have been humbled from this experience. | Four survivors of Flight 1549 react to recording of pilot dealing with emergency .
"I'm really not keen on hearing it too many more times," one survivor says .
"How did [the pilot] get that composure?" another survivor asks . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c7390ea7df4beb896eb7265c4f082ef5ae61b6b1"} | 1,520 | 60 | 0.462147 | 1.337724 | 0.800607 | 4 | 26.647059 | 0.823529 |
(CNN) -- Jury selection was under way Thursday in the case of a man accused of sexually assaulting a toddler and capturing it on videotape years ago, a crime that triggered a nationwide manhunt and search for the girl when the tape surfaced in 2007. Chester Arthur Stiles faces life imprisonment if convicted of videtaping a sexual assault on a child. Chester Arthur Stiles, 38, faces 22 felony counts in connection with the videotape, including lewdness with a child, sexual assault with a minor and attempted sexual assault with a minor. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Thursday is the third day of jury selection, said Michael Sommermeyer, spokesman for Clark County, Nevada, courts. Some 200 potential jurors were called, according to CNN affiliate KVBC. As of Thursday morning, only seven jurors had passed on to the next stage of selection, Sommermeyer said. Prosecutors hope to seat 15 jurors eventually, Sommermeyer told CNN, meaning they'll want a pool of about 35 to pick from in the final stage. Picking a jury in the case is challenging, according to KVBC, not only because of the media attention the case has drawn, but because of the crimes Stiles is accused of. A questionnaire given to potential jurors has one question addressing the videotape: "As a juror, despite the graphic nature of the videotape, can you promise to remain fair and impartial and objectively evaluate all evidence for returning a verdict?" "One, you let them know what the case involves and they've heard it on the news, it's a little difficult to get over any preconceived notions that they had about the case," defense attorney Stacey Roundtree told KVBC. "However, we do have faith in this community that they want to do the right thing," she said. "Most of the jury trials I've had, the jurors go out of their way to make the right decision. They go out of their way to follow the judge's rules, and we're confident we can have that happen in this case." The tape was given to authorities in September 2007 by a man who said he had found it in the desert five months before. On it, police found images of the small girl being sexually assaulted. After attempting unsuccessfully to find out the girl's identity, authorities turned to the media for help and released a picture of the girl, and the case drew nationwide attention. She was found in October 2007. An attorney for the child's mother said she is 7 years old and safe and healthy. The rape occurred before her third birthday while she was in the care of a baby sitter her mother had hired, he said. The mother did not know the girl had been victimized. After the girl was found, authorities asked CNN and other news organizations to stop showing her picture. Stiles, a resident of Pahrump, Nevada, was arrested in a traffic stop in October 2007. Police said at the time they pulled Stiles' car over because it had no license plate and became suspicious when the driver displayed an expired California license with a photo that did not match his appearance. "He finally told us, 'Hey, I'm Chester Stiles,'" said Henderson, Nevada, police Officer Mike Dye. "'I'm the guy you're looking for." Stiles told police he was "sick of running," Dye said. The mother of the girl shown on the tape, meanwhile, went on "The Dr. Phil Show" after Stiles' arrest, saying that while she was "relieved," it would have been "better if they found him dead." She said her daughter remembers nothing about the alleged assault. "Nothing that I have seen in my career comes close to what this girl has gone through," Nye County, Nevada, Sheriff Tony DeMeo said during the manhunt for Stiles. The man who turned the tape over to authorities, Darrin Tuck, faced criminal charges because of the delay in turning it over, during which authorities alleged he showed it to others. A judge gave Tuck a one-year suspended sentence and three years' probation in April after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct a public officer, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He initially had faced a felony count of possession of child pornography. | Chester Arthur Stiles faces 22 felony counts in connection with sex tape .
Tape showed girl younger than 3 being sexually assaulted .
The tape surfaced years after the alleged assault .
Potential jurors know about case, have strong feelings about it . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "ebc4c8962079c28f1e94c3d80019a0ad324c14e9"} | 1,004 | 62 | 0.474041 | 1.424563 | 1.281644 | 2.340426 | 17.829787 | 0.808511 |
(CNN) -- David Goldman says he can't understand why he can't have custody of his son following his ex-wife's death in Brazil. The U.S. government agrees. David Goldman is fighting for custody of his son after Bruna Bianchi Goldman died during another childbirth. Goldman told CNN's Larry King he had no idea when he dropped off his wife and 4-year-old son at Newark International Airport in 2004 for a two-week vacation to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that he was about to become embroiled in an international custody battle. Shortly after Bruna Bianchi Goldman arrived in her homeland she called to say she wanted a divorce, which she obtained in Brazil, and would stay there with their son, Sean. The running custody battle has taken many twists and turns and has gained the attention of the Department of State and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "A child belongs with his family, and there is no reason why David Goldman should not get his child back," Clinton said in a recent interview on NBC's Today show. "And we're hoping that that will be resolved very soon. Obviously, if not, we will continue to raise it with the Brazilian government." For nearly five years, Goldman has fought to regain custody of his son. It's a case that has been complicated by Bianchi Goldman remarrying, getting pregnant and dying during childbirth last summer. Sean Goldman is said to be living with his stepfather, who has been granted provisional guardianship. "I went down ... to bring my son home," Goldman said on CNN's Larry King Live Wednesday, figuring his ex-wife's death had made the custody issue a moot point, and "we find out that this man doesn't file custody, but he files to remove my name from a Brazilian birth certificate that they had issued for my son, who was born in Red Bank, New Jersey." Goldman continues to press his case through the U.S. government. "The Department of State is working diligently to ensure that David and Sean Goldman are accorded their rights under the Hague Convention of 1980 on the civil right aspect of International Child Abduction," the agency said in a statement. "We'll continue to insist that the Brazilian government fulfill its obligations under the treaty and international law." The convention, to which Brazil is a signatory, "is a multilateral treaty, which seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of abduction and retention across international boundaries by providing a procedure to bring about their prompt return," according to the Hauge Convention Web site. Brazilian courts have refused to return Sean Goldman to the United States for any custody hearings that New Jersey courts have ordered and the Brazilian government has not intervened. As a result, the case remains a stalemate. "I would tell him that he's been very brave, as he has fought to have his son returned to him," Clinton said in the NBC interview. "His son is the most precious person in the world to him and he has gone not just the extra mile, but mile after mile, back and forth, trying to make it clear that his son Sean deserves to be returned to him." But on Larry King Live, Helvecio Ribeiro, a Bianchi family spokesman, questioned Goldman's fitness as a parent. "I don't question the biological right," he said. "The fact of the matter is that in order to be a parent, you have to be more than just a DNA donor, Mr. King. Fatherhood is not about making home movies and taking pictures, it's about sacrifice. It's about providing support to your child. It's about being there even when you're not there. "And Mr. Goldman, while Bruna was still alive, failed to do so," Ribeiro said. Goldman visited his son for the first time in more than four years last month -- a bittersweet experience that was heartbreaking when it was time to return to the United States. "He asked me why I haven't come to see him in all this time," Goldman told Larry King, "and that was very, very painful -- and the anguish on his face when he asked me that question. I didn't want to tell him that ... they're holding him." International custody fights are common and were supposed to be simplified by the 1980 Hauge agreement, but conflicting court systems and conflicting accounts of relationships can trump international law. The next step in this case is uncertain. | David Goldman dropped off his wife and 4-year-old son at airport in 2004 for vacation .
Wife got a divorce in Brazil, later got remarried, got pregnant and died during birth .
Wife's family lawyer questions Goldman's fitness as a parent .
State Department, Hillary Clinton working to help get son returned to United States . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "cf58f7b65494090da7a8d0afc1ad17cd413fcba9"} | 1,019 | 82 | 0.565246 | 1.585459 | 0.866577 | 4.014706 | 12.852941 | 0.838235 |
(CNN) -- A Texas grand jury indicted polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs on sexual assault charges, and five of his followers also face a variety of charges, state Attorney General Greg Abbott said. Members of the polygamous FLDS revere jailed leader Warren Jeffs as their prophet. Jeffs was charged in the Tuesday indictment with sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony. A conviction on the charge could mean a maximum penalty of five to 99 years or life in prison and a fine of $10,000, said Dirk Fillpot, a spokesman for the attorney general. Jeffs, 52, is the so-called leader and "prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which broke off from mainstream Mormonism in the 1890s over the practice of polygamy. The FLDS openly practices polygamy at its Yearning for Zion Ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, and in two towns straddling the Utah-Arizona state line: Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona. Jeffs is accused in the indictment of assaulting a child "younger than 17 years of age and not legally married to the defendant" in January 2005. The alleged victim, whose name is redacted on the document, "was a person who the defendant was prohibited from marrying or purporting to marry or with whom the defendant was prohibited from living under the appearance of being married" under Texas law. The indictments, which were handed down by a grand jury in San Angelo, Texas, also charge four of Jeffs' followers with single counts of sexually assaulting a girl under the age of 17. One of the four also faces a count of bigamy. A fifth follower is charged with three counts of failure to report child abuse. The Texas attorney general's office was cooperating with other agencies to ensure the five others would be taken into custody, Fillpot said. Their names have not been made public, and only Jeffs' indictment has been released. Jeffs has been in custody since August 2006, when he was arrested during a routine traffic stop after spending several months on the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives list. Jeffs is serving two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison on accomplice to rape charges in Utah for his role in the marriage of a sect member to his 14-year-old cousin. He is being held Arizona while he awaits trial on similar charges. It was not immediately clear when Jeffs would be brought to Texas. Authorities seized more than 400 children in April during a raid on the Texas ranch. The children were returned to their families after the Texas Supreme Court ruled the state had no right to remove the children and lacked evidence to show they faced imminent danger of abuse. In May, DNA samples were taken from Jeffs as part of a criminal investigation into allegations that he "spiritually" married four girls ranging in age from 12 to 15, authorities said. A search warrant seeking the DNA samples said marital records -- known as bishop's records -- from the ranch show that Jeffs married a 14-year-old girl on January 18, 2004, in Utah. The records showed that Jeffs "married" two 12-year-olds and a 14-year-old at the YFZ Ranch, according to the search warrant. One of the 12-year-olds, believed to have married Jeffs on July 27, 2006, was sexually assaulted by Jeffs later that day, the search warrant said. The warrant made reference to pictures of Jeffs with his alleged underage brides. In one photograph, the warrant states, he is kissing one of the 12-year-olds. In another, he is shown with a 15-year-old wife at the birth of their child in October 2004. Authorities had said the DNA samples would determine whether he is the father of the children born to underage mothers. FLDS spokesman Rod Parker, who is vacationing in Colorado this week, had no immediate comment on the indictment Tuesday. "As far as an indictment of Warren Jeffs, I'd want to know a little more before I start talking about it," he said. On Thursday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is planning to hold a hearing on polygamy and the need for a "coordinated state and federal response," according to an agenda. Carolyn Jessop, a former FLDS member who recently wrote a book about leaving her marriage and the sect, is scheduled to testify, along with federal prosecutors, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and the attorneys general of Texas and Arizona. | NEW: Jeffs faces anywhere from five years to life on new charge in Texas .
Jeffs charged with the sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony .
Five of his followers face charges ranging from assault to failing to report child abuse .
Prosecutors say Jeffs married underage girls, had intimate relations with them . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "dccf91ff452fc352a372df54a6895785f60d103c"} | 1,044 | 78 | 0.557419 | 1.506063 | 0.778485 | 3.703125 | 13.640625 | 0.828125 |
(CNN) -- Wiping tears from his cheeks, a man who survived avalanches that killed eight snowmobilers in western Canada said Wednesday that he and two others tried to save their friends but eventually left the mountain because of the threat of more slides. Jeffrey Adams says he freed himself and helped free two others before making a "gut-wrenching" decision to leave. Jeffrey Adams, with his his fiancée at his side, said he and the two other survivors "did everything we could to try to save" the eight Sunday. "They died doing what they loved. ... I'm truly sorry to the families that we couldn't find them," Adams said. Adams described digging himself out after the avalanches struck the group Sunday in British Columbia about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) east of Fernie, a town in the Canadian Rockies about 300 kilometers (186 miles) southwest of Calgary, Alberta. Both avalanches left him buried but near the surface, he said. He was able to dig himself out, choking on snow, and free a second companion without gloves or gear. Watch Adams describe digging himself, others out » . Adams and six others had been snowmobiling near the base of a mountain when the first avalanche happened, he said. The avalanche buried him for "a minute or two," but he was able to free himself. He started digging for a companion as another group of four people showed up to help, Adams said. One called 911 on a transmitter. But then they heard a crack, and a second slide buried all 11 of them, Adams said. Miraculously, he said, only 8 to 10 inches of snow covered him. "When I opened my eyes, I could see daylight," he said. "I was digging. I managed to get my mouth free. I was already choking. I took a few breaths. After about five minutes of struggling, I got myself out, looked around and realized there wasn't anybody else -- couldn't see any sleds, no gear, nothing." He yelled for his friends and heard an answer, and he was able to dig out one man, whom he identified as Jeremy. The two were working on freeing a third man, James, when they heard another crack. "We said, 'Sorry, James, we've got to run,' " Adams remembered tearfully. "As we were running away from James, he was saying, 'Don't leave me here! Don't leave me here!' We kept saying we're sorry. We went off and sat to the side, and the slide never hit us in the area we were in. We just got the snow cloud. We went back in and finally got James out." But then the three looked around and saw no one. They considered getting the one snowmobile that wasn't struck by the avalanche, but determined that the area was too unsafe. "That's when we had to make the gut-wrenching decision to leave our eight friends and start walking off the mountain," an emotional Adams said. The group had walked for about 10 minutes and was thinking of going back, but when he turned to look, "the whole center of the mountain came down" in a fourth avalanche. "We just decided our best bet was to keep walking," he said. They were hoping for a helicopter in response to the earlier 911 call, he said, and one eventually arrived and picked them up. Searchers found seven bodies Monday and the eighth Tuesday. Royal Canadian Mounted Police identified the dead as Danny Bjarnason, 28; Kane Rusnak, 30; Warren Rothel, 33; Michael Stier, 20; Len Stier, 45; Blayne Wilson, 26; Kurt Kabel, 28; and Thomas Talarico, 32. Adams and the other two survivors, James and Jeremy -- whose last names and ages were not given -- suffered minor injuries. One was hospitalized overnight. "It's hard," Adams said. "I replay it in my head all the time whether it was the right decision or not." He said he had spoken with the families of most of the other men. "So far, all of them are supporting our decision to leave," he said. "It was a hard one, to leave eight guys up there." He described the victims as "good buddies," his voice breaking. Experts told him the second avalanche hit the group at 150 kph (93 mph), Adams said. He estimated the wall of snow was 15 feet high. He said members of the group knew the avalanche danger was high, and that's why they weren't climbing the mountain. Even buried under a few inches of snow, "you don't know what way is up and what is down," he said. "You can't move. You simply can't move in it," Adams said. The snowmobilers were from Sparwood, British Columbia. They were in an area called Harvey Pass, which police called "a popular backcountry snowmobile destination." Sparwood Mayor David Wilks said all the victims were upstanding citizens who worked as businessmen or in coal mines. The mayor said temperatures were as low as minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit in recent weeks, though the air had warmed to 25 degrees Fahrenheit. The warmer temperatures could melt and loosen packed snow, raising the danger of avalanches. | Survivor says decision to leave eight behind was "gut-wrenching"
"I replay it in my head all the time," Jeffrey Adams says .
Adams describes digging himself out twice, helping two others escape .
Eight bodies were found Monday and Tuesday . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "4d90ee3bff00c3e88ee985d98f6cc1c45194539a"} | 1,215 | 55 | 0.498189 | 1.439973 | 0.586328 | 3.442308 | 20.211538 | 0.826923 |
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- At least 59 people were killed and more than 200 others injured early Thursday after a fire broke out at an upscale Bangkok nightclub where about 1,000 revelers were ringing in the new year, Thai police said. Rescue officials survey the scene of the nightclub fire in Bangkok, Thailand. Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation or were trampled in a rush to get out of the club. Thirty bodies have been identified: 29 Thai nationals and one Singaporean, according to police. The fire began at the nightclub Santika about 12:35 a.m., police said. Rescue officials said 226 others were injured, including several foreigners. Two Americans were injured in the blaze, a U.S. State Department official said. The official did not release the victims' names or the extent of their injuries but said the department was in contact with them. Steven Hall, a British national who was hurt in the fire, told CNN that flames began to spread along the ceiling above the stage where a band and DJ were performing. But some people appeared to believe that it was part of the performance. "At the same time there were people rushing to get out, there were other people who seemed to be lacking a sense of urgency and didn't seem to realize what was going on," Hall said. The blaze started near a stage where fireworks were being used as part of a performance on the club's closing night, said police Maj. Gen. Chokchai Deeprasertwit. Watch the fire engulf the building » . "It may have been caused from sparks, but we don't know if it was sparks from guests or from the nightclub's countdown display on the nightclub stage," he said. iReport.com: Eyewitness captures scene of deadly aftermath . Hall said his wife escaped ahead of him, but he got caught in a crowd. "The lights went out, and at that moment, my back started burning, and I was breathing in hot air," he said. Watch Steven Hall describe his experience » . British citizen Andrew Jones said he was celebrating in the area when he walked up on the fire. He said he saw victims being rushed out on stretchers and spoke to witnesses, including a fellow Briton who saw fireworks being lit onstage. "He immediately ran out of the building, but immediately when he'd done that, the lights went out, and he couldn't see," Jones said. The club is in one of Bangkok's busiest commercial districts. Its Web site features images of bands and DJs performing on both indoor and outdoor stages, and says that it "innovatively blends the comfort of nature with the excitement of the Bangkok nightlife." The site advertises the club's New Year's party, which was named "Goodbye Santika." CNN's Kocha Olarn contributed to this report. | Thai police say that 59 died in nightclub fire, another 226 injured .
Fireworks were used as part of a performance, authorities say .
Most of those who died suffered smoke inhalation or were trampled, authorities say .
Club is located in one of Bangkok's busiest commercial districts . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "965568c7ebf0d55a143cbeb27bf09c5d1df670dd"} | 658 | 71 | 0.565966 | 1.566786 | 0.510527 | 3.142857 | 9.767857 | 0.785714 |
(CNN) -- Authorities Tuesday recovered the body of an eighth missing snowmobiler buried in avalanches in southern British Columbia, a spokesman for the the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. Authorities found seven bodies a day after avalanches in British Columbia, Canada. Sgt. Tim Shields said the body was recovered around 11:38 a.m. The seven other bodies were recovered Monday. Their identities were not immediately released. David Wilks, mayor of Sparwood, the small town where the snowmobilers lived, said all were men in their 20s. The eight men, and three others who escaped, faced two avalanches Sunday about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Fernie, a town in the Canadian Rockies about 300 kilometers (190 miles) southwest of Calgary, Alberta. The three survivors suffered minor injuries, and one was hospitalized overnight. The men had been in an area called Harvey Pass, which police called "a popular backcountry snowmobile destination." Police said an avalanche buried part of the group and, as others came to help them, a second avalanche buried them. "Two of the buried riders managed to self-rescue within about 20 minutes. These two used their avalanche beacons to locate a third buried victim who they rescued after an additional 20 minutes of digging," police said. The mayor described the snowmobilers as upstanding citizens, most of them working in coal mines or as businessmen. "All were well aware of the dangers involved in snowmobiling. All are very cautious with what was going on," Wilks said. The mayor said temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit in recent weeks had warmed up in the last two or three days to 25 degrees Fahrenheit. | Bodies of seven other missing snowmobilers were found Monday .
Group had been snowmobiling in southeastern British Columbia, Canada .
Two of 11 buried riders managed to rescue themselves, find third victim . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8452f5f3bbb0d04af6380fe84966d2c98d59266d"} | 394 | 47 | 0.610333 | 1.422238 | 0.684963 | 1.918919 | 8.594595 | 0.837838 |
GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) -- The Obama administration has been talking about "pressing the reset button" with Russia after relations "crashed" when Russia invaded Georgia last August. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laugh about their "reset' button. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greeted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday before sitting down to their working dinner, she presented him a small green box with a ribbon. Inside was a red button with the Russian word "peregruzka" printed on it. "I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: 'We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together.'" Clinton, laughing, added, "We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" she asked Lavrov. "You got it wrong," Lavrov said." Both diplomats laughed. "It should be "perezagruzka" (the Russian word for reset,) Lavrov said. "This says 'peregruzka,' which means 'overcharged.'" The question came up at the news conference afterward. "In a way, the word that's on the button turns out to be also true," Clinton said. "We are resetting, and because we are resetting, the minister and I have an overload of work." Asked by a Russian reporter whether he had pressed the button, Lavrov said that he and Clinton did, indeed. "It is big and red and I hope that Russia and the United States, and other countries will never press on another button which used to be associated with a destructive war," he said. The "overload," Clinton said, is a broad agenda of issues. "We are going to systematically go through each and every one of them," she added. Clinton said the two sides will get to work on re-negotiating a follow-up to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and nonproliferation. On other issues like Afghanistan, the Middle East and Iran, Clinton said, "We will work through them." On issues where there is disagreement, Clinton said, "We are keeping those on the list because, we think through closer cooperation and building trust in each other, we can even tackle some of those differences." Lavrov agreed the burden of the agenda for the two countries is "enormous," but added: "I don't think either Hillary or I have any desire to be freed from any burden." Clinton called the encounter "a very productive meeting of the minds." She said both Lavrov and she are "very practical-minded" and will create a "specific set of objectives and responsibilities" to present to presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev before the leaders' first face-to-face meeting in April at the G-20 meeting in London. On the START treaty, she said Russia and the United States intend to have an agreement by the end of this year when the treaty expires and are "going to get to work immediately" on it. Lavrov was asked about Russian intentions to install S-300 missiles in Iran. He said the decision "will be made exclusively on the basis of law in accordance with Russian law, and will be under expert control, which is one of the strictest in the world and of course in accordance with international agreements." Lavrov said the weapons Russia provides to its partners are "nondestabilizing, defensive weapons." In an apparent reference to U.S. military supplies to Georgia, Lavrov said, "We want our partners to act the same way and show restraint in military supplies to those countries where, including very recently, those weapons have been used very close to our borders." Senior U.S. officials who briefed reporters afterward, however, said they had not read Georgia into the minister's comments. They said the discussion ranged broadly over a number of areas and "we now have a very substantive work agenda that they just outlined." "It would have been easier and in a first meeting almost natural to be much more general but in this case it was very focused and very productive in laying out steps," one official said. On the proposed missile defense system the United States is considering installing in Poland and the Czech Republic, one official said, "Minister Lavrov made it clear he had listened quite attentively to Secretary Clinton's comments about missile defense ... and I think it's got them thinking." | United States, Russia want to "reset" relations after years of tension .
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gives "reset" button to Russian counterpart .
Text on button actually translates to "overcharged"
Both countries want to renegotiate Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "fed968c89cc8bfd3eaf6b307bc8d515a86f6cc01"} | 1,004 | 65 | 0.471427 | 1.379085 | 1.082595 | 1.686275 | 17.313725 | 0.784314 |
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- You are about to meet Mr. Brown. David Mann and Tamela Mann -- a real-life couple -- star in "Meet the Browns" as father and daughter. He's David Mann, star of the TBS sitcom "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns." To borrow a phrase from the network's marketing -- he's very funny. Mann's character -- "Downtown" Leroy Brown -- is a lovable, sometimes outrageous and always off-the-wall senior citizen who has stolen every scene he's entered in Tyler Perry's plays, movies and TV shows. Mr. Brown no longer has to steal scenes, because TBS -- owned by CNN parent company Time Warner -- has ordered 80 episodes of half-hour comedy, based on the success of 10 pilot episodes. "Just in case I'm dreaming, don't pinch me," said Mann. "I'm living the dream." "Meet the Browns" is a spinoff of Perry's "House of Payne," a sitcom that has yielded strong cable ratings for TBS, and it employs some of the same characters seen in Perry's movies and stage plays -- including a play and film named "Meet the Browns," which is only mildly related to the TV series. The show focuses on Mr. Brown and his daughter Cora, played by Mann's real-life wife, Tamela Mann, as Mr. Brown tries to turn his house into a home for the elderly. Those who have followed Perry's productions know that Cora was the conceived during a brief fling between Brown and Madea, Perry's female alter ego. "If it hadn't been for Cora, Mr. Brown and Madea probably would have killed each other by now," Mann said. "Cora is the glue to this whole thing. Cora keeps everybody grounded." Mann said Mr. Brown's speech and mannerisms are from a combination of people. "Grandfathers, uncles, relatives, you know, different friends you see." he said. "I use to go to a nursing home and just look at people, watch -- 'OK, that's how they're doing this.' " His biggest laughs come from his use -- or abuse -- of the English language which Mann refers to as "Mr. Brownisms." Manipulate becomes "manipudip," while hypnotize transforms to "hepatitis." "You hear them as I spit them out, and it's just like, 'What was I thinking?' " Mann said. Mr. Brown's wardrobe, which is always two sizes too small for his protruding belly, is a bright-colored mix of thrift store specials. "The clothes just kind of happened," he said. "Because, you know, you have that uncle or that relative in your family who just can't let the clothes go?" Since Mr. Brown originated on the stage -- in Perry productions -- Mann had to adjust to the small screen. "I'm very animated and so I just had to make sure I toned that down for the screen because I'm so used to making sure that the person in the front row can see as well as the person in the balcony," he said. "To bring that and condense it down for television was a transition for me." Camera operators are challenged to keep up with Mann as he moves around the set, sometimes re-writing the script. "One word can trigger a whole different thing with us, and that's what I love about working with Tyler Perry," Mann said. "He gives you the freedom to go in there and create. If you see something that can make it funnier, he gives you the liberty to go ahead and do it, create it and make it funny." Perry directs every episode at his new Atlanta studio on a sound stage next to where he also tapes "House of Payne." Mr. Brown never seems too far from Mr. Mann. In mid-interview, he emerges. "Oh, he can come out any time," Mann, speaking as Brown, said. "All you got tuh do is say it, and he'll come. Yeap, Mr. Brown is always 'round somewhere. You jes' got tuh belieeeeeve." The character is played about 30 years older than Mann, which causes some confusion out of costume and in public, he said. "What's funny is when people see me out they're like, 'Are you Mr. Brown's son?' No, I'm Mr. Brown," he said. "But that's good for the makeup team." Perhaps the most awkward time is when he is on the set, dressed as Mr. Brown, and he wants to show his wife, Tamela Mann, some husbandly affection. "She is like, 'When you put that makeup on, you are Mr. Brown, you're not my husband.' " he said. "So, she doesn't want me kissing on her and stuff. She says 'it's like a dirty old man kissing and hugging on me.' " You can also see Mr. Brown in "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Jail," which hit theaters last month and has been a rousing success at the box office. "They finally got Madea," Mann said. "She's been to jail a few times, but this time Madea goes to prison -- or as Mr. Brown would say, 'prisnuh.' " | David Mann plays Mr. Brown in "Meet the Browns"
Character known for his mangled speech, off-the-wall actions .
In real life, Mann is married to actress who plays his daughter on show . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "0206f486c821d39f12fa4d3b62b1fe8cbaf3ded6"} | 1,276 | 51 | 0.495101 | 1.560391 | 0.372725 | 2 | 24.790698 | 0.837209 |
(CNN) -- The son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor Sr. was sentenced Friday to 97 years in prison for charges including torture and conspiracy, according to a federal court in Florida. The U.S.-born son of Charles Taylor Sr., pictured, moved to Liberia when his father became president. U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga sentenced Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., 31, in a Friday morning session that lasted four hours, according to a court document. Altonaga cited Taylor's "sadistic, cruel and atrocious past," saying it "constituted unacceptable, universally condemned torture," The Miami Herald reported. "The lengthy prison term handed down today justly reflects the horror and torture that Taylor Jr. visited upon his victims," said Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant attorney general of the criminal division. Taylor, also known as Charles McArthur Emmanuel, was convicted October 30 of torture, conspiracy to commit torture and firearm charges. His case, tried in Miami, was the first brought under a 1994 U.S. law saying those accused of committing torturous acts overseas can be tried in a U.S. federal court, as long as the person is a U.S. national or is present in the United States, regardless of nationality. Calls to Taylor's defense attorneys were not immediately returned. Prosecutors had asked for Taylor to be sentenced to 147 years. Taylor was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but he moved to Liberia when his father was named president. Prosecutors said Taylor became the leader of the Anti-Terrorist Unit and the Liberian National Police while his father was president. The two groups are accused of abducting, torturing and killing people. From 1999 to 2002, Taylor committed torture and allowed others to commit torture, prosecutors said. Taylor and his associated burned victims with molten plastic, lighted cigarettes, candle wax and an iron. Some were severely beaten with firearms, cut and stabbed and shocked with an electric device, prosecutors said in an indictment that superseded the initial indictment from 2006. In the initial indictment, Taylor was charged with one count of torture, one count of conspiracy to torture and one count of using a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. The superseding September 2007 indictment -- which incorporated the initial charges -- included five counts of torture, one count of conspiracy to torture, one count of using a firearm during the commission of a violent crime and one count of conspiracy to use a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. The defense had said the U.S. government had little or no evidence to back up its claims. Also Friday, the World Organization for Human Rights USA filed a civil class action suit against Taylor on behalf of a group of people who are said to have been subjected to torture and other human rights abuses by Taylor or his subordinates, according to the organization. The suit seeks declaratory relief and general, compensatory and punitive damages, the organization said in a written statement. "This civil suit aims to address Defendant Taylor's wrongs on a much greater scale" than the criminal trial, the organization said. Taylor's father, Charles Taylor Sr., is standing trial in The Hague, Netherlands, on war crimes charges. CNN's John Couwels contributed to this report. | NEW: Sentence reflects "horror and torture" visited upon victims, state official says .
NEW: Human Rights organization sues Taylor on behalf of alleged torture victims .
Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr. sentenced for charges including torture and conspiracy .
Son of ex-Liberian president convicted October 30 . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "50ea08544a01e51a187ac78e8298404450d3584b"} | 756 | 77 | 0.541048 | 1.574898 | 0.582533 | 2.37931 | 10.603448 | 0.758621 |
(CNN) -- Key West's historic Duval Street reopened Monday morning after a fire swept through a building housing three well-known businesses and temporarily shut down other popular spots on the island city's main street. A fire broke out late Sunday night on Duval Street in Key West. The fire, which started at about 10:30 p.m. Sunday and was contained by 1 a.m. Monday, wiped out a crepe shop, an art gallery and a sign shop. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries, city spokeswoman Alyson Crean said. The fire department was working Monday to determine the cause of the blaze, Crean said. Singer Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville restaurant and store was one of the businesses initially shut down, halting late-night festivities at the popular watering hole in mid-pour. "I was hoping to go back in, finish off my shift and clean up, but they wouldn't let us back in," said waitress Patricija Hambrook. "It became bigger than we thought. "We couldn't close out checks, and the drinks we made were never served." Margaritaville's restaurant reopened Monday afternoon, and its adjacent retail store reopened a few hours later, the fire department said. In addition to protecting Margaritaville, firefighters kept flames away from the historic San Carlos theater, although the facility's administrator said that a large broken out window and about 2 inches of water on the floor of the lobby would keep it closed for a few days. Alex Pascual said he anticipated the theater would reopen by Thursday, in time for a concert scheduled for that evening. The San Carlos was founded in 1871 and was the site of Cuban patriot Jose Marti's 1892 speech launching his drive for Cuban independence. Fire officials initially shut down Duval Street to vehicular traffic but allowed pedestrians to stroll the sidewalks. Traffic restrictions prompted some business owners to be concerned about their livelihoods, at least for the short term. Robert Porter, assistant manager of Crazy Shirts, was concerned early Monday "because there aren't any cars driving through." But Banana Republic general manager Darren Paugh said the foot traffic and onlookers curious to see the aftermath of the fire "should increase business for the day." Plus, he said, three cruise ships were in port Monday morning. And Crean indicated life for tourists won't stop in Key West because of the fire. "We have a lot of spring breakers on vacation and bikers coming from Bike Week in Daytona," Crean said. All the concern proved unfounded when officials reopened Duval Street at about 10 a.m. Monday morning. For the owners of the three businesses that took the brunt of the fire, however, it will be some time before it's business as usual. "It's a big loss for us. And we worked so hard, it's not fair," said La Creperie Cafe owner Yolande Findlay in a story published on the Keynoter newspaper's Web site Monday. Findlay, according to the paper's Web site, opened the popular crepe shop with her partner, Sylvie Lenouail, six years ago. Both are from Brittany, France. The American Royal Art gallery, which specialized in entertainment art, and the sign shop Montage were destroyed in the fire. | Historic Duval Street initially opened only to pedestrians .
Several businesses damaged late Sunday night .
The fire department is working to determine the cause of the blaze . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8d627c12ea3be6497ac41fc656c79d43343635af"} | 746 | 37 | 0.492595 | 1.25231 | 0.947818 | 2.741935 | 19.870968 | 0.806452 |
(CNN) -- Accused enemy combatant Ali al-Marri was served with an arrest warrant Tuesday and transferred out of U.S. military custody for the first time since 2003, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was a student at Bradley University in Illinois when he was arrested in 2001. Al-Marri's initial court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates released the Qatari man to the U.S. Marshals Service in preparation for the hearing. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Obama administration's request to dismiss al-Marri's challenge of the president's unilateral authority to detain him indefinitely and without charges. The high court ruled that al-Marri's case was rendered moot by a decision to indict him on federal conspiracy charges. The court's ruling means there is no resolution of the larger constitutional issue of the president's power to detain people accused of terrorism and other crimes in the United States. The decision by the Obama administration to criminally charge al-Marri after he spent seven years in custody -- more than five years in virtual isolation in a Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina -- is the latest twist in the ongoing legal saga of the only remaining "enemy combatant" held in the United States. Al-Marri had been accused of being an al Qaeda "sleeper agent," but until the indictment had never been charged with a criminal or terrorism-related offense. The 43-year-old man will be sent at some point to Peoria, Illinois, to face a criminal trial. President Obama last month ordered a prompt and thorough review of the "factual and legal basis" for the continued detention of al-Marri. He subsequently issued a presidential memorandum ordering Gates to facilitate al-Marri's transfer, saying it was "in the interest of the United States." Since his initial arrest on credit card fraud charges in December 2001, al-Marri -- a legal resident of the United States -- had remained in "virtual isolation in the brig," his attorneys said. They were suing the government to improve his jail conditions and were challenging the constitutionality of his detention. The Pentagon asserts al-Marri had trained at a terror camp in Afghanistan, met al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and "volunteered for a martyr mission," according to a government filing with the Supreme Court. | Ali al-Marri due to appear in court on Tuesday; he's charged with conspiracy .
Last week Supreme Court dismissed al-Marri's challenge of presidential authority .
Al-Marri, a U.S. resident originally from Qatar, has been in custody for 7 years .
He's accused of being a "sleeper agent" for al Qaeda who trained at terror camp . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "27639bd507d10216b2143c2557315e7c65293820"} | 564 | 91 | 0.590237 | 1.590831 | 0.627913 | 1.821918 | 6.315068 | 0.808219 |
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli media are buzzing with reports that right-wing nationalist Avigdor Lieberman may become Israel's next foreign minister. Avigdor Lieberman is loathed by ultra-orthodox parties because of his support for a Palestinian state. The appointment of Lieberman, a polarizing figure in Israeli politics, could complicate the stalled peace talks with the Palestinians. It could also further strain relations between Israel and moderate Arab countries. Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu is still in the process of forming Israel's next government. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported this week that it is likely that he will select Lieberman as foreign minister. The paper quoted a source close to the negotiations between Netanyahu's Likud Party and Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu. Lieberman would replace outgoing Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, head of the moderate Kadima party, which secured the most number of parliament seats in last month's election -- but not enough to form a coalition government. Netanyahu has been unable to woo moderate parties, including Kadima, into his government. He may be forced to concede some key ministerial posts to Lieberman's party, which would be the second largest faction in the new coalition government behind Likud. Netanyahu has vowed to form a broad-based government, but it is unclear how he can keep that promise since Kadima and the moderate Labor Party have indicated that they plan to form an opposition to a Likud-led government. "Although Netanyahu has reportedly largely agreed to making Lieberman his foreign minister, he is thought to still be weighing the potential political damage the appointment of the hawkish politicians would do to the image of his government," Haaretz reported. The Jerusalem Post, quoting unnamed diplomatic sources, reported that although Israel's ties with western Europe may suffer if Lieberman becomes foreign minister, he may help improve the Jewish state's ties with Russia and eastern Europe. Lieberman is in a peculiar spot on the Israeli political spectrum He is routinely categorized as a right-wing hawk. But as a secularist who supports an independent Palestinian state, he is loathed by Israel's ultra-orthodox parties, including Shas, which holds 11 seats in the Knesset and is another potential member of Netanyahu's coalition. It is unclear how moderate Arab countries, who are still outraged over Israel's recent military operation in Gaza, would react to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Egypt, one of only four Muslim countries that have full diplomatic ties with Israel, has been trying to negotiate a broader cease-fire between Israel and Gaza's Hamas leadership. It is unclear whether those indirect negotiations would continue under the new Israeli government. Lieberman has said he is unwilling to directly or indirectly negotiate with Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel for its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence against the Jewish state. Lieberman does support "the creation of a viable Palestinian state," which is the bedrock of U.S. policy in the region. He restated that support in a Jewish Week article, written shortly after last month's election. That puts him at odds with Netanyahu, who does not support a two-state solution. However, Lieberman's support of a Palestinian state comes at a high price. He has stated that he would oppose any peace agreement that would divide Jerusalem as a shared capital between Israel and a Palestinian state. Lieberman, who migrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel in 1978, has also called for Israel's boundaries to be redrawn to exclude much of Israel's Arab minority, a move that would strip them of their citizenship. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship make up about 20 percent of the Jewish state's population. Lieberman frequently clashes with Arab members of the Knesset and has called for them to be tried and executed for meeting with leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas. He wants all Knesset members, both Arabs and Jews, to prove their loyalty by swearing allegiance to the Israeli flag and national anthem. Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi has warned that Lieberman's rising popularity reflects a dangerous trend. "We are talking about a pure and obvious fascist phenomena invading the Israeli society," Tibi said. "During the last years, racism became mainstream in the Israeli society." Lieberman's supporters credit him with offering clear solutions to Israel's complicated problems. In his article in Jewish Week, he rejected accusations from his critics that his party is racist. "I stand at the head of the most diverse political party in the Knesset," he wrote, noting that his party's Knesset members have included four women, three people with disabilities, a Jewish convert and a Zionist. "I find it a bit rich to be called a bigot." He said that he "look[s] forward to working with President Obama" since "U.S.-Israel relations are as strong as ever, and that our shared values and interests make our friendship unshakable." Yossi Klein Halevy of the Adelson Institute of Strategic Studies said Lieberman is tapping into the dark side of Israelis' concerns about security, particularly as militants in Gaza continue to routinely fire rockets on southern Israel . "Lieberman is riding an ugly wave of resentment among many Jewish Israelis toward the Arab-Israeli minority," he said. Ynetnews.com political correspondent Attila Somfalvi recently wrote that Lieberman has become "the leader of those who lost any hope or faith in the possibility of securing peace or engaging in talks with the Arabs." "The war in Gaza indeed restored the public's sense of security and lowered the anxiety level, yet Lieberman is perceived as the man who will know how to do what needs to be done so that no more missiles land around here," she wrote. | Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may pick Avigdor Lieberman .
Media say he might hurt ties with West but improve ties with Russia .
It is unclear whether talks over Gaza cease-fire would continue .
Lieberman frequently clashes with Arab members of Knesset . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "73c95602213ae6837a71f98aeaad7fd77bda2a7a"} | 1,350 | 64 | 0.583183 | 1.5039 | 0.644762 | 2.5 | 22.354167 | 0.833333 |
(CNN) -- Simon Cowell may not recognize "American Idol" alumna Mandisa the next time he sees her. Mandisa, who appeared on season five of "American Idol," has lost more than 75 pounds. The woman about whom the acerbic "American Idol" judge once said, "We're going to have to get a bigger stage," has lost 75 pounds -- and hopes to lose 100 or more. Though she has long forgiven Cowell for his snippy comments during season five about her weight, she said she still wants to lose more in part because he is a father figure for her. The last time he saw her was last season when she had lost a few pounds. He raved about how nice she looked then. "He was very encouraging and saying how proud he was of me," she said. "It's sort of like your dad who you really want to please. I want to please him and to show him that I am doing well." Mandisa, whose full name is Mandisa Hundley, said that her faith in God has guided her new lifestyle. "It's more than the physical and more than what I am eating. It's a spiritual change," she said. "I've had to not turn to food for comfort and validation anymore, and that is a complete mind change. Because my entire life, that is what I have done." She named her new album, "Freedom," due out March 24, after the feeling she has gotten breaking what she calls her food addiction. It follows a successful debut CD, "True Beauty," of which Entertainment Weekly said, "Plus-size powerhouse Mandisa ... realizes her considerable pipes and self-righteousness are best suited to Christian pop." It sold more than 160,000 copies. The new album is full of catchy Christian pop tunes such as "My Deliverer," "Dance Dance Dance" and "Freedom Song," and power ballads such as "Not Guilty." The song that is nearest to her heart is "You Wouldn't Cry," a tune based on a fan whom Mandisa met and corresponded with who lost her unborn child. Mandisa said that when she went to put together a CD of songs to help comfort her friend, she couldn't find anything from the child's point of view. "I wanted to write a song about what Andrew would say to his mom about the fact that he's in heaven," Mandisa said. "For people who have faced the situation where a loved one had gone to be with the Lord, I think the song will mean a lot to them." She called "My Deliverer" her personal testimony. In the chorus she sings: . My deliverer, you rescued me from all that held me captive . My deliverer, you set me free . Now I'm alive and I can live . The song as a first single is "perfect, because it's a kind of been my story over these past few months" of her weight loss. When CNN.com first spoke to Mandisa in January, she was singing on a cruise ship. (Yes, Simon, a cruise ship.) "I think that this is a cruise ship like no other," she said of the K-Love Family and Friends cruise, a gathering of Christian music bands and their fans. She beamed with pride then as she described her new exercise regimen and diet. The most difficult part has been to retrain her mind to turn to God instead of turning to food, she said. She also talked about her time on the show that brought her to America's attention. "American Idol's" producers gave the fifth-season contestants a speech about being themselves, saying to not pretend to be anybody other than who you are, she said. "I don't know that they realized that I was as vocal about my faith as I am," she said. She was caught in controversy when an article in The Advocate questioned whether she was a proponent of the "ex-gay" movement. She thinks her critics were too focused on her statements about not agreeing with what she calls "the lifestyle" and missed her message of love for everyone. "I think that we are called to love people that are different from us and that don't agree with the things we agree with," she said. She still watches "American Idol" faithfully, and like many other people tuning in each week, is a fan of Danny Gokey, a 28-year-old widower from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She said this week that he is the clear favorite but also likes 23-year-old Matt Giraud from Kalamazoo, Michigan ("I love his voice") and Lil Rounds, a mother of three from Memphis, Tennessee ("I think she's incredible as well"). "But I am still rooting for Danny to win," she said. After being booted from "Idol," many observers thought that Mandisa had a good chance of becoming a successful R&B artist. She said she considered that path; it was all she wanted to be when she was growing up. But she felt a call to sing Christian music. "Christian music is the music that comes the most naturally for me," she said. The pop world is so big, and it has been easier for "Idol" alums who have pursued careers in country or Christian music, she said. She said she also is pretty passionate about exercising. "There's a feeling you get after you exercise; it's just unexplainable," she said. "It makes you know that you have done the right thing for your body." She works out with a trainer three to five times a week, mixing cardio with muscle-building exercises. "This is a lifestyle for me. My goal is to be healthy," she said. | Former "American Idol" star credits "spiritual change" for weight loss of 75 pounds .
Mandisa's second studio album is due out March 24 .
Singer still watches "Idol" and says she's rooting for Danny Gokey .
Mandisa says she felt called to sing Christian music . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "4c540db41b12235c073d4da0c6b0e9c80c1c1bbe"} | 1,326 | 78 | 0.568802 | 1.747223 | 0.828103 | 2.035088 | 20.245614 | 0.807018 |
(CNN) -- This spring break, thousands of college students will ditch the bars and the beaches to do something more meaningful with their vacation time. Brad Vonck (bottom, left) and other student volunteers worked with the Cherokee Nation in Stilwell, Oklahoma. Brad Vonck is one of them. A sophomore at the University of Illinois, Vonck will travel to San Juan, Texas, in a group of 13 students to volunteer with La Union del Pueblo Entero, an organization that helps strengthen the communities and lives of farm workers and their families. "Learning about different cultures is very important to me," Vonck said. "I like to engage in different areas of life that I don't really understand." Every year, more and more college students, like Vonck, are choosing to spend their valuable time off from school participating in "alternative spring break" programs -- community service-based opportunities dealing with the most pressing issues of the day, including hunger and homelessness, disaster relief and global warming. "If you can name a social issue, then students are doing trips around it," said Jill Piacitelli, executive director of Break Away, an organization that trains and helps colleges across the United States promote alternative break programs. For the past six years, these programs have been growing in popularity among college students. Break Away estimated that this year, nearly 65,000 students will participate in its alternative break programs, an 11 percent increase from 2008. "It's a student-led social movement. ... This is a group that very much wants to be involved in the world around them," Piacitelli said of the volunteers. "They're solution-oriented. They want to innovate and lead and involve their peers." The average domestic trip costs around $250 or $300, Piacitelli said, which includes "housing, travel, social activities, food and often a donation to the community." Many university programs offer financial aid and the option to raise money to help pay for trips. "It is rare that anyone who wants to go on a trip cannot go," Piacitelli said. The affordability is part of the reason why so many students return for second or third trips. Nikunj Shah, a graduate of Arcadia University, has taken several alternative spring break trips volunteering in the United States and Mexico. This year, he will be traveling as an alumnus to Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, a city that has been largely ignored by disaster relief efforts in the wake of hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita. "I've always had an interest in helping people. I've always been really involved in community service," Shah said. "So I saw this as an opportunity to go places I haven't been before, to get a feel for different cultures and to help people there that truly need help." In an effort to expand their alternative spring break options, universities across the United States partner with humanitarian organizations like the United Way of America. Randy Punley, director of corporate and media partnerships at the United Way, oversees the organization's Alternative Spring Break programs. After Hurricane Katrina, the United Way partnered with MTV to engage young people in the response effort. "We knew there was an interest and a passion in young people for the work we were trying to achieve," Punley said. Since then, the United Way has evolved and expanded, establishing chapters on college campuses. The organization has also developed an Alternative Spring Break Social Media Challenge, encouraging young people to be active in their communities and use social media Web sites, like Facebook or Twitter, to involve other people. "Whether it started with the first Gulf War, punctuated by the September 11 attacks and Katrina and the economic meltdown, young people have a very different perspective about what's going on in the world," Punley said. At the end of the weeklong trip, most students say it was the best week of their lives, Punley said. The increasing interest in these programs, Punley believes, speaks volumes about the attitudes of Generation Y, a group of people who are eager to make an impact on the world around them. "It's such a difference from going home and not really feeling accomplished to going on these trips and meeting new people," Vonck said. "You get experiences that you wouldn't get sitting on the couch watching TV for a week." Piacitelli said these programs encourage young people to continue serving their communities and those in need. "The students are the main benefactors of what goes on," Piacitelli said. "It changes their consciousness. They get really interested in social issues ... They see themselves as active citizens, and helping the community becomes a priority." Like Vonck and Shah, University of Illinois senior Adriana Collazo has a passion for community service. During her spring break last year, Collazo traveled to the Bronx in New York to volunteer at a homeless shelter. She stayed at a hostel with other volunteers and helped serve food and organize clothing drives. "I never really had all that money to go off and do the whole Cancun, Mexico, spring break, and I didn't really want to, because I think that's throwing away money," Collazo said. "When you can give back, it's selfish." The trip to the Bronx was a personal one for Collazo who, at the age of 6, experienced poverty firsthand when her family became homeless. "My family's better now, and I want to give back," Collazo said. "I think a lot of students have realized that they can do better things with their time. ... It humbles you." | "Alternative" spring breaks are becoming more popular among college students .
The programs center on community service .
Trips may address hunger and homelessness, disaster relief and global warming .
The average domestic trip costs around $250 or $300 . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "33dd97439a3b1ede5bc4f24aaf71a411e9ae76c9"} | 1,215 | 53 | 0.497815 | 1.556713 | 1.020133 | 5.395833 | 22.833333 | 0.8125 |
(CNN) -- Pharmaceuticals giants Merck and Schering-Plough are planning to merge their operations under the name Merck in a deal worth $41.1 billion. Merck chairman and CEO Richard T. Clark will head the combined company. Under the terms of the agreement, Schering-Plough shareholders will receive just over half a Merck share and $10.50 in cash for each Schering-Plough share they own. Each Merck share will automatically become a share of the combined company. Merck shareholders are expected to own approximately 68 percent of the combined company, and Schering-Plough shareholders are expected to own approximately 32 percent. Merck Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Richard T. Clark will lead the combined company. "We are creating a strong, global healthcare leader built for sustainable growth and success," Clark said in a media statement Monday. "The combined company will benefit from a formidable research and development pipeline, a significantly broader portfolio of medicines and an expanded presence in key international markets, particularly in high-growth emerging markets. "We look forward to joining forces with an outstanding partner we know well and that shares our commitment to patients, employees and the communities where we work and live." Merck added that its 2009 outlook has not changed, and it is committed to keeping its annual dividend at its current level of $1.52 per share. Both drug-makers reported better-than-expected quarterly results in early February, but announced steep job cuts. On a conference call with investors on February 3, Clark said the drug-maker was open to a takeover of a large pharmaceutical company. | SP shareholders to get over half a Merck share and $10.50 in cash per share .
Merck shareholders expected to own around 68 percent of combined company .
Both drug-makers reported better-than-expected quarterly results in February . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "bf74899b892175a68325fa98013050c70374ab92"} | 344 | 53 | 0.636372 | 1.571656 | 0.794953 | 6.804348 | 6.652174 | 0.891304 |
DULUTH, Georgia (CNN) -- Neither the on-the-field fame nor the off-the-field notoriety of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was enough to spark a bidding war for his suburban Atlanta mansion Tuesday. No one submitted the minimum $3.2 million bid for former Falcon Michael Vick's Atlanta-area mansion. The multimillion-dollar home in Duluth was on the auction block Tuesday, but just three real estate agents showed up -- and one of them, Lance Hempen of Funari Realty, was a listing agent who had no clients interested in the property. No one offered a bid, so the auction ended before it began. The auction required a minimum bid of $3.2 million, with a deposit of $160,000. Vick, 28, is serving a 23-month sentence after pleading guilty in August 2007 to a federal conspiracy charge of bankrolling a dogfighting operation at a home he owned in Virginia. He is expected to be released early, possibly in May, and to serve the final two months or so of his sentence under home confinement, most likely in Virginia. No dogfights occurred in Duluth, 40 miles northeast of Atlanta. The home, in the upscale Sugarloaf Country Club community, has been on the market for more than a year. It has eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a four-car garage and a movie theater, among other deluxe features. Narender Reddy of Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate said his client offered $3.2 million for the home two months ago, but the auction organizers said they wanted to see whether someone would offer more. Reddy said his client withdrew the bid but remains interested. "Why would I let them use my offer as a benchmark?" Reddy asked. "I wanted to see who was going to bid and what were they going to offer." He will advise his client to offer less money now, Reddy said. Seema Jain of Virtual Properties Realty also was on hand. She said that she has interested buyers but that they didn't want to bid if there was no competition. The next step is to be determined by the bankruptcy judge in Virginia who ordered the sale. Reddy said the price is too high for today's economy. "It is the economy that is dictating the price of the houses, and I'm sure most of the people still think $3.2 million ... is higher than what the market can fetch," he said. Jain said no one seems turned off by Vick's reputation. "Nobody cares about who owns it. It's just the product and the location," she said. Reddy said the home is "well-built, has a lake view and an excellent floor plan." CNN's Amanda Moyer and Deb Krajnak contributed to this report. | No one submitted minimum $3.2 million bid for Michael Vick's mansion .
Vick, former quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, is in prison .
He was convicted last year in connection with dogfighting operation .
Mansion in Duluth, Georgia, has eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "b8f7d41759dca62a512ba604969407e68e4a9ce1"} | 623 | 68 | 0.563081 | 1.55095 | 0.232414 | 2.388889 | 9.925926 | 0.87037 |
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Up to 30,000 additional U.S. troops could be sent to Afghanistan next year, military officials said Saturday. Helicopters are the main transportation of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, with its high mountain terrain. Roughly 31,000 U.S. troops currently are in Afghanistan. Of the additional troops, 20,000 will comprise four ground/maneuvering brigades, said Col. Gregory Julian, spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. That number is consistent with what Gen. David McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, called for in October, he said. The additional 10,000 likely refers to support personnel, Julian said. McKiernan requested the additional 20,000 troops be sent to fight the increasing violence by the resurgent Taliban forces in the southern and eastern parts of the country. On Friday, military officials said Defense Secretary Robert Gates signed a deployment order to move an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan next year. Those troops will be part of a combat aviation brigade, the latest approved by Gates for the expected buildup of U.S. troops in the country in 2009. The brigade will send a number of much-needed helicopters to the region. Helicopters are the main mode of transportation for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, where high mountain roads and passes make it difficult for large transport vehicles to move troops and supplies. The additional troops would nearly double the level of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Troop levels are likely to be maintained at this increased level for three to four years, Julian said Saturday, as U.S. forces continue to try to "clear and hold" more parts of Afghanistan from insurgents and militants and train Afghan military and police to be self-sufficient. | 20,000 in four ground/maneuvering brigades, said U.S. forces spokesman .
The additional 10,000 likely refers to support personnel, said spokesman .
On Friday, Defense Secretary ordered 3,000 troops to Afghanistan for next year . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "6a23daaeae81f208667e47dbd8eec0e56802cb42"} | 395 | 58 | 0.630567 | 1.516974 | 1.067268 | 4.390244 | 7.634146 | 0.926829 |
In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents and producers share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. CNN's Soledad O'Brien and Stan Wilson visited San Quentin for "Black in America: The Black Man" which rebroadcasts tonight at 8 p.m. ET. "I want to have everything that an average American would want," said Chris Shurn who served time in prison. OAKLAND, California (CNN) -- Chris Shurn walked out of San Quentin Prison in June after serving four years of hard time for possession of crack cocaine and a weapon charge. He joined at least 3,000 men paroled each year in Oakland, California, where the recidivism rate is more than 50 percent. When our documentary team first met Shurn inside San Quentin in 2008, he considered himself one of the lucky ones. At 21, he entered prison with a fourth-grade education, but left with a GED certificate and was only a few semesters short of earning an associate degree. Shurn told us there were few role models around him as a kid. He said his father left home before he entered the first grade, his mother was a crack addict and he was surrounded by a lot of violence. Ironically, San Quentin is where Shurn met the kind of role models he said he needed to break the cycle of incarceration. His hard work and determination to change caught the eye of Everett Highbaugh, who runs a program called Project Choice. Twice a week, Highbaugh goes into San Quentin with the goal of transforming men like Shurn from drug entrepreneurs to business entrepreneurs. Upon his release, Shurn replaced his dreadlocks and prison uniform with casual attire and a neatly manicured haircut. He said he felt relieved after the harsh conditions of prison life, but said he struggles every day in his Oakland neighborhood to resist the temptations of making easy money by selling crack cocaine. "I want to have a family. I want to own a house. I want to have everything that an average American would want; a good-paying job, a career," he said. But the odds are against him. Nearly 1 million black men are behind bars, an especially crippling blow to black communities, where one in three black men will have a prison record in their lifetimes. They leave behind communities filled with fear, broken families and a generation of vulnerable children. After Shurn left San Quentin, Highbaugh was in contact with him twice a week and helped him land a part-time job at Goodwill Industries. At Goodwill, Shurn spent 30 hours a week in a labor-intensive job, stacking goods and preparing them for shipment. "I remember reading a lot of these very same books in prison," said Shurn as he was busy working. He was grateful to have a job, but frustrated because it paid so little, $7 an hour. That job lasted only a few months. When we caught up with him in January, he had been unemployed for a while. As he sat in Oakland's Oracle Arena watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama, he wondered how he was going to help support his girlfriend and her daughter and earn enough tuition money to continue working toward his degree. Shurn has moved a few times, but is still hoping for success, still fighting against long odds, particularly in a severely debilitated job market. He's hopeful that his hard work and the skills he learned through Project Choice will be a much better alternative than making easy money on the street -- a certain pathway back to prison. "Every day of my life, with or without work, I feel vulnerable," said Shurn. "Instead of waking up every day and going to a 9-to-5; I used to wake up and go outside and sell some drugs and have my money for a whole week." "It crosses my mind, but I got to a point where I'm disciplined and don't need to venture into it." A few weeks ago, Shurn was hired as a courier for a local printing business. The job pays $9 per hour; $2 more than his previous job. He says the new job won't be enough to pay all the bills, but his goal is to build a résumé so future employers will take a chance on an ex-convict who's trying to recover from a mistake that cost him four years of his life. | Chris Shurn served four years in San Quentin Prison .
Shurn earned a GED and nearly completed an associate degree in prison .
He currently makes $9 per hour as a courier and hopes to return to college .
"Every day of my life, with or without work, I feel vulnerable," says Shurn . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "cdf534312f1c63bcb2bfd34c4a925155830dcb15"} | 1,012 | 74 | 0.483052 | 1.526585 | 0.27884 | 5.857143 | 13.460317 | 0.84127 |
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian space officials say the crew of the Soyuz space ship is resting after a rough ride back to Earth. A South Korean bioengineer was one of three people on board the Soyuz capsule. The craft carrying South Korea's first astronaut landed in northern Kazakhstan on Saturday, 260 miles (418 kilometers) off its mark, they said. Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said the condition of the crew -- South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko -- was satisfactory, though the three had been subjected to severe G-forces during the re-entry. Search helicopters took 25 minutes to find the capsule and determine that the crew was unharmed. Officials said the craft followed a very steep trajectory that subjects the crew to gravitational forces of up to 10 times those on Earth. Interfax reported that the spacecraft's landing was rough. This is not the first time a spacecraft veered from its planned trajectory during landing. In October, the Soyuz capsule landed 70 kilometers from the planned area because of a damaged control cable. The capsule was carrying two Russian cosmonauts and the first Malaysian astronaut. E-mail to a friend . | Soyuz capsule lands hundreds of kilometers off-target .
Capsule was carrying South Korea's first astronaut .
Landing is second time Soyuz capsule has gone awry . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f39e76a387f7749755a0fd88225f200cd353511b"} | 293 | 48 | 0.610609 | 1.304703 | 0.323201 | 1.677419 | 7.419355 | 0.709677 |
(CNN) -- Bayern Munich inflicted a record defeat on Sporting Lisbon to book their place in the quarterfinals of the Champions League by a staggering 12-1 on aggregate. Bayern Munich players react to the crowd after their staggering 12-1 aggregate victory over Sporting. Leading 5-0 from the first leg, a double from Lukas Podolski and Anderson Polga's own goal put them 3-0 up on the night within 40 minutes before Joao Moutinho pulled one back in stunning fashion. It was the briefest respite for Sporting, though, Bastian Schweinsteiger hitting an immediate reply, before Mark van Bommel, Miroslav Klose (pen) and Thomas Muller netted in the second half for a 7-1 triumph on the night. The result was a record aggregate winning margin for a post-group stage Champions League game, surpassing Lyon's 10-2 demolition of Werder Bremen in 2005. The scoring began in the eighth minute, Podolski combining well with Ze Roberto on the edge of the box after Bayern took advantage of a poor defensive clearance before hammering home from the edge of the box. Bayern were rampant and the second finally came after 34 minutes when a long kick from the Bayern keeper Jorg Butt sailed through to the edge of the Sporting area. It should have been simple for the visiting defense, but a horrible mix-up between Polga and and Patricio allowed Podolski to flick the ball over his head and into the empty net. Polga's night got even worse 39 later when he scored an own goal, volleying Schweinsteiger's cross into his own net. There was a brief hiatus in Sporting's embarrassment when Moutinho's classy strike arrowed into the far left corner three minutes before the break to reduce the arrears. But barely a minute later, Christian Lell pulled the ball back for Schweinsteiger to sweep home, making it 9-1 on aggregate. Bayern coach Jurgen Klinsmann made two changes at half-time, bringing on Jose Sosa and Breno for Ze Roberto and Lucio as the pace dropped. A fifth did arrive, though, in the 74th minute, substitute Muller's cross headed across goal by Klose for Van Bommel to control and fire home. And Klose continued to pile on the woe for Sporting in the 82nd minute, picking himself up from a foul by Pedro Silva to convert the subsequent penalty. Teenager Muller, making his Champions League debut, rounded things off in the final minute, poking home from Sosa's corner. | Bayern Munich inflict a record 12-1 aggregate defeat on Sporting Lisbon .
Surpassed Lyon's 10-2 post-group demolition of Werder Bremen in 2005 .
Bayern triumphed 7-1 on the night having won the first leg 5-0 in Portugal . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "f52c440db4589c9a5e0acb64668365e15d2823d1"} | 602 | 61 | 0.518475 | 1.307818 | 0.820586 | 3.196078 | 9.156863 | 0.843137 |
GOLDEN, Colorado (CNN) -- Sometimes the best way to roll with the punches is to roll the dice. Jerry Goldsmith was one of hundreds of people who turned out this week to apply for a casino job. That's Jerry Goldsmith's attitude. The Colorado man lost his engineering job of 29 years -- and the six-figure salary that went with it -- and is now applying for a casino job dealing craps, blackjack, roulette and poker. "I was angry. I think everyone gets angry," says Goldsmith, 60, recalling his New Year's Day firing. "It's 'Why me?' But after a while I just learned: One door closed, but many more just opened. "I just need to find the right one to go into." Goldsmith was one of 750 people who showed up Wednesday to apply for casino dealer jobs near Denver. Another 550 applied on Thursday. The applicants were going after 90 spots in dealer school. Earlier on Wednesday, Goldsmith had interviewed for a job as a cable TV installer. They were his first job interviews since losing his job. He says that, at first, he spent a lot of time on the Internet looking for work. He also contacted executive headhunters but was unable to find any leads in the engineering field. So he decided to expand his search into other areas. Goldsmith says he nailed the casino job interview and thinks he would make a great dealer. "When you've been working hard all your life, quitting is just not an option, so I'll take on any opportunity I can," he says, adding with a laugh: "Hopefully there will be some exchange of gratuity in the business so I make something." In a November referendum, Colorado voters approved a measure to expand betting limits at casinos in Colorado from $5 to $100 and to add the games of roulette and craps. The new rules will also allow the casinos to stay open 24 hours a day. They currently close at 2 a.m. and open at 8 a.m. The state hopes to benefit from the increased tax dollars, a portion of which will help fund community colleges, but before the first new tax dollar goes into state coffers, the casinos need to staff up. "Twenty-four-hour gaming adds a whole extra shift every day, seven days a week. You're adding an extra shift in every department of the casino," says Jef Bauer, who runs three casinos in Black Hawk, Colorado, for Golden Gaming: the Golden Mardi Gras, Golden Gates and Golden Gulch. "We're looking to hire initially about 90 people into our dealer school, which we're offering free to learn how to deal craps, roulette and blackjack." Golden Gaming currently employs about 400 people in Black Hawk and anticipates adding another 100 by July 2, when the new rules go into effect. Black Hawk is a former mining town tucked into the Rocky Mountains about 35 miles from Denver. Black Hawk and its next-door neighbor, Central City, became casino towns in the 1990s. For years the towns flourished, but Bauer says times are tough now. "We have just been through 12 months of declines in gaming revenues and head counts," he says, adding that he hopes the increased bet limits, new games and extended hours will bring the gamblers back to the tables. Before the hiring event even started, more than 100 people were lined up, waiting for an interview outside of a bar in Golden, Colorado. The would-be croupiers filed in, filled out applications and were assigned a number. They were photographed and then sat down for a 3-minute job interview. No experience was necessary for the casino jobs. Applicants who make the grade will attend a casino-run, part-time dealer school for three months, where they will learn the complicated games and qualify for a Colorado gaming license. The jobs pay between $40,000 and $80,000 a year, depending on tips. So who would make a good dealer? "Mainly what we're looking at is personality and an ability to entertain, and intelligence that can be proven in dealer school," says Bauer. "Most will probably never have dealt cards before." That seems like just the ticket to Andrea Pitts, whose only casino experience has been on the other side of the table. "I'm a high roller," she says with a laugh. "I've never dealt cards before, but I love to play blackjack and I'm pretty good at it." Pitts, 41, spent 12 years working in the trucking industry. But the bad economy has taken its toll, and now she has been forced to look for any kind of work. Like most of the other casino applicants, she never pictured herself dealing cards. But she says she is ready for the change of pace. "You have to keep yourself motivated. It would be easy to sit at home and feel sorry for yourself, but that's not going to get you anywhere," she says. "I'm not afraid to take challenges -- that's what life is all about." Casinos are big business. According to the American Gaming Association, some 360,000 people work in 467 commercial casinos across the country, accounting for $13.8 billion in wages including benefits and tips. The industry paid $5.78 billion in gaming taxes in 2007. Alan Meister, an economist and the author of "Indian Gaming Industry Report," says there were 346,000 people directly employed by 423 Indian gaming casinos in 2007. State governments often look to casinos as a quick source of tax income in difficult economic times. According to Spectrum Gaming Group, a consulting firm that monitors the gaming industry, at least 15 states have recently expanded or are currently considering expanding gambling. See a map of states looking to expand gaming » . It all sounds good to Craig Taylor. He spent 13 years in the real estate business, buying and selling investment properties. He says that when the industry was booming he was making a salary in the "low six figures," drove a new BMW and lived in a house in the tony Cherry Creek section of Denver. But since the market tanked, he has been making adjustments. He sold the BMW and bought a used 2001 Jeep. He sold the house in Cherry Creek and bought a smaller house on the outskirts of Denver. Now all he needs is a job, and he thinks being a casino dealer might be a good fit. "Real estate was a great job, great income," he says. "But you have to do what you have to do in this economy and make the adjustments to where the job you have pays the bills." | Colorado will allow higher bets, expanded hours at state's casinos .
Casinos to operate 24 hours a day, must hire more workers to fill positions .
Unemployed would-be dealer says that "quitting is just not an option"
Dealers will make $40,000 to $80,000 a year, depending on tips . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "1587bb9c4aba6ee43af23cd10a6c23b895dade33"} | 1,445 | 72 | 0.505465 | 1.505706 | 0.743837 | 2.612903 | 21.112903 | 0.806452 |
(CNN) -- Flying penguins are unusual. Especially when they fly on a C-130 Hercules military plane. Almost 400 lost Magellanic penguins march back to the sea after being rescued by animal-welfare groups. In Brazil, 373 young Magellanic penguins were rescued, rehabilitated and released last weekend after their search for food left them stranded, hundreds of miles from their usual feeding grounds. Animal-welfare activists loaded the birds onto a Brazilian air force cargo plane and flew them 1,550 miles to the country's southern coast, where a crowd of onlookers celebrated as the penguins marched back into the sea. "We are overjoyed to see these penguins waddle back to the ocean and have a second chance at life," said veterinarian Dr. Valeria Ruoppolo of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the group that oversaw the rescue. See photo gallery of rescued penguins » . Magellanic penguins are warm-weather birds that breed in large colonies in southern Argentina and Chile. The young animals then migrate north between March and September, following their favorite fish, the anchovy. The birds are named after Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who first saw them in 1519. But changes in currents and water temperature apparently confused the juvenile birds, who strayed too far north to the warm beaches of Salvador, Brazil, 870 miles north of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Watch the penguins march into the sea » . Starting in mid-July, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahía, "It was just about raining penguins," Ruoppolo said. "There was not much of a food supply. The birds were stranded and emaciated. They had lost all their muscles and body condition." While occasionally a few birds show up so far north, the unusual sight of hundreds of wayward penguins posed a challenge for animal conservation groups. "We had to learn how to work with them," said Carlos Garcia, a spokesman for IBAMA, the Brazilian Institute for Environment and Renewable Resources. "Fewer than 20 penguins usually wash ashore, but with such a large number, we had to really understand their biology and learn how to treat them." The Instituto Mamíferos Aquáticos (Institute for Aquatic Mammals) also fed and cared for the hungry and disoriented birds. Ruoppolo, who is also the emergency relief officer for IFAW, has a lot of experience saving penguins and other animals injured in oil spills. Last week she worked with conservation groups and volunteers to save as many of the birds as possible. "We showed them how to stabilize the animals, to feed them and give them proper care," she said. Healthy Magellanic penguins grow to about 27 inches tall and weigh about 9 pounds. Ruoppolo said IBAMA -- the government's environmental authority -- and the Brazilian military were supportive throughout the unusual relocation mission. On Friday, the penguins were loaded into special crates and put onto the plane for the journey to Pelotas, in southern Brazil. After their first-ever flight, the birds went on a truck ride to the Center for Recovery of Marine Animals, where they rested for 24 hours. The birds released at Cassino Beach the next day had to meet very specific health criteria, said Ruoppolo. "Their feathers had to be waterproof, their overall body condition had to be good, their lungs healthy, and they had to be able to catch food," she said. The youngsters had some adult supervision for their return to the wild. They were released with a small group of adult penguins that had been nursed back to health after surviving an oil spill. Scientists expect the older birds will help guide the little ones to nearby feeding grounds. Some penguins are still being cared for, both in the north and south of Brazil. The newly released birds have bands on their flippers so scientists can follow their progress and learn more about their migratory habits. Of more than 1,600 penguins that washed ashore in northern Brazil, about half are still alive. That is a fairly good outcome, given the fragile status of young birds on their first migration, said Ruoppolo. "For all species you have animals that die within the first year," she said. And without quick human intervention, the consequences would have been much worse. At this point there is no way to know exactly why the animals became stranded. While the Magellanic penguin population is not in jeopardy because of this one event, Ruoppolo said there are other threats, primarily from overfishing. CNN's Paulo Nogueira contributed to this report . | Activists rescue group of young penguins who migrated too far north on Brazil coast .
Penguins loaded onto a C-130 Hercules military plane and flown south .
To cheers of onlookers, penguins return to ocean near their feeding grounds .
Changing currents, temperatures may have led the confused birds off course . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "477b8f0bf113c7bf1976faeceed13e7e5a76b5e6"} | 1,069 | 80 | 0.524196 | 1.476065 | 1.032447 | 1.333333 | 15.052632 | 0.77193 |
(CNN) -- Far too many passengers are being stranded on board commercial flights in the United States in delays, an air passengers' rights group said Wednesday. Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Continental Airlines, and US Airways received an overall grade of "F" on the air travel consumer report card. FlyersRights.org, in issuing what it calls an air travel consumer report card, said there were more than 1,200 tarmac strandings -- in which passengers are locked in planes on the runways -- in 2008. Delta Air Lines had the greatest number of tarmac delays longer than three hours. Southwest Airlines was rated the best for handling delays by letting customers get off delayed planes, as well as providing food, water and other items. The longest delay the organization found was a January 2008 Delta flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Florida, in which passengers waited on the tarmac for more than 10 hours without food and water. "Too many Americans have been locked inside sealed airplanes, trapped in tubes on the tarmac, for three hours or more," said FlyersRights.org Executive Director Kate Hanni. "It's time for Congress to give airline passengers the legal right to get off planes stuck on the ground for three hours or more." Hanni -- who has been lobbying for an airline passengers' bill of rights -- also said America's economic situation has exacerbated the problems consumers face on the airlines because of layoffs. "Airlines are trying to maintain or increase their profit margins," she said. "They have decreased all of their goods and services related to flying." She added that a timely flight is "not just a matter of passenger convenience, it's a matter of public safety." "I wonder if heroic Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger and his crew could have performed as they did after seven, nine or even 12 hours on the tarmac?" Hanni asked, making a reference to the US Airways crew that made an emergency landing in New York's Hudson River in January. Hanni started her organization after she was stranded on the tarmac on an American Airlines flight in Austin, Texas, for more than nine hours in December 2006. Mark Mogel, the group's research director, said FlyersRights.org has about 24,000 members, many of whom donate money, services and lobbying help. The report card is based on government statistics, press reports, airline Web site data, reports on the group's hotline, and eyewitness accounts from January to December of 2008. It surveyed 17 airlines for various kinds of tarmac delays, their menu and contracts of carriage and customer service commitments and issued grades for these separate factors and an overall grade. As for the menu, Mogel specified that the menu grade is based on quantity, not quality. The survey was looking to see whether there would be food on board during a tarmac delay. Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Continental Airlines, and US Airways received an overall grade of "F" and American Airlines received an overall grade of "D." United Airlines, Airtran and American Eagle got a "C." Alaska Airlines, Northwest Airlines and Frontier Airlines got a "B," and Southwest received an "A." Five other airlines -- Atlantic Southeast, Comair, ExpressJet, Mesa and Pinnacle -- didn't get an overall grade because some categories couldn't be completed. "The fact that some airlines have received A's and B's and others D's and F's on this report card also shows that providing decent customer service and avoidance of strandings is both achievable and should not place an undue burden on the airline industry or lead to higher ticket prices," the report's executive summary said. CNN's Joe Sterling contributed to this report. | FlyersRights.org graded airlines for tarmac strandings, menu, customer service .
Delta Air Lines had the most tarmac delays lasting longer than three hours .
Delta, JetBlue, Continental, and US Air got overall grades of 'F'
Southwest Airlines got an overall 'A' | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "66b143c100589251a825dbdc7ef94a6f3a2a79c5"} | 827 | 71 | 0.562861 | 1.771074 | 0.140231 | 2.245283 | 13.433962 | 0.886792 |
(CNN) -- A long-hidden message has been discovered inside Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch, the Smithsonian's Museum of American History announced Tuesday. The message in the watch differs slightly from what the watchmaker later said he wrote. Watchmaker Jonathan Dillon was repairing Lincoln's watch in April 1861 when he heard about the attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and wrote a short message on the metal inside the watch, the Smithsonian said. There it remained, unseen for almost 150 years, it said. In a 1906 interview with The New York Times, Dillon reported that as soon as he heard the news about the first shots of the Civil War, he unscrewed the dial of the watch and wrote on the metal, "The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try." The actual message that the museum found differs from the watchmaker's recollection. It says, "Jonathan Dillon, April 13-1861, Fort Sumpter [sic] was attacked by the rebels on the above date J Dillon, April 13-1861, Washington, thank God we have a government, Jonth Dillon." According to the Smithsonian, it was not unusual for professional watchmakers to record their work inside a watch. "Lincoln never knew of the message he carried in his pocket," said Brent D. Glass, director of the National Museum of American History. The museum decided to open the watch after being contacted by the watchmaker's great-great-grandson, Doug Stiles, who had heard about the message Dillon said he had inscribed and wanted to see if it was really there. | Watchmaker left message during repairs, Smithsonian says .
Message comments on attack on Fort Sumter, which began Civil War .
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SAMSON, Alabama (CNN) -- As the crime scene tape starts to come down in this small Southern town, the residents are leaning on one another for comfort and the strength to move on. The shooter, Michael McLedon, killed his mother before killing others. First Baptist Church, a few feet from the neighborhood where Michael McLendon, 28, opened fire Tuesday, welcomed members of this close community Wednesday night for a prayer service. "It's what community is about, isn't it? Crying together. Holding each other," a pastor said. It's hard for many to believe the shooting rampage could happen in this town of about 2,100 people. Authorities said McLendon went to three towns, slaying 10 people. He started in his hometown of Kinston, killing his mother, before moving on to open fire in Samson and finally Geneva. McLendon was once a police officer in Samson, the small town hit hardest by the deadliest crime in Alabama history, authorities said. His nearly hourlong assault ended at the Reliable Metal Products plant in the last town, 24 miles from where it began and where police said McLendon engaged in a shootout before killing himself inside the building. In the aftermath of the rampage, among those seeking comfort at First Baptist Church was Josh Mathews. He was driving down the street around the time of the shootings. "Could've been anyone -- just missed the gunfire, could've been any of us," Mathews said. Watch report from CNN's Brooke Baldwin » . After the shootings, he found out one of the victims was a friend. It will be hard to move on, he said. But "you have to. He was like the happiest dude in the world. He would've wanted us to move on and remember him for who he was." High school baseball coach Chris Reid said he knew almost all the victims. "Everybody knows everybody. Everybody's always been willing to go out of their way to help people in need around here, no matter what the case may be. It's just a small town where you consider your friends as family." Reid was walking out of the Big-Little convenience store when he stopped to talk to CNN. A little more than 24 hours ago, the gas station was the site of one of killings. Watch deputy talk about his loss » . Reid was at baseball practice when he heard the shots. "They were one block from us, " Reid said, adding that while driving, he saw a man killed in the street. iReport.com: On the scene as officials investigate . "It really hasn't set in yet," he said. "It is still kind of a dream where you wait for it to not be real, to be over. But it's a fact, something we have to go through." Inside the church service, Steve Sellers, a visiting pastor, spoke to several hundred in attendance, praying for God to give the community strength. Some sat in the pews and sobbed. "I want to thank you, Lord, that in the coming days that this community walks through that process of healing, that there is a God who carries them through that valley," he said. Sellers also thanked town leaders, medical personnel and local law enforcement while asking the question that's been on so many minds: "I don't know what set a young man off like that, but I, too, want to pray for his family. We also come, knowing Lord, you taught us to forgive those who trespass against us." Watch how state copes with "shock and disbelief" » . While members of this tight-knit town may never fully understand how McLendon could've committed this crime, many find comfort in faith and friends. As one pastor put it, "Thank God for this town." | The 2,100 people of Samson, Alabama, cope with aftermath of deadly rampage .
First Baptist Church welcomes community for Wednesday night prayer service .
High school baseball coach Chris Reid: "It really hasn't set in yet"
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HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe police arrested on Friday a magistrate who ordered the release of a senior opposition politician granted bail by the country's High Court, a lawyer said. A Zimbabwean policeman patrols outside the entrance of Mutare Magistrates court. The order to release the politician had been suspended when state lawyers appealed the HIgh Court decision. Trust Maanda, a lawyer in Mutare city about 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of Harare, told CNN by phone that magistrate Livingstone Chipadze had been arrested. "He is in police custody. The police are saying he ordered the release of Roy Bennett in compliance with the High Court ruling," said Maanda. Bennett is the choice of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for deputy agriculture minister under the power-sharing government formed last month. On Wednesday, Chipadze ordered Bennett be released from a prison in Mutare as had been ruled by the High Court last week. However, that order, which required Bennett to post $2,000 as bail, was suspended after the state filed an appeal with Zimbabwe's Supreme Court. "I can confirm the arrest, but I will be in position to tell you the charge he will face later," said a police official in Mutare over the phone. "He is likely to go to court on Saturday or Monday. But most magistrates here [in Mutare] have gone on strike over his arrest." Chipadze joins Bennett in prison in Mutare. Bennett was arrested on February 13 and is facing charges of possessing arms for the purposes of banditry, terrorism and sabotage. The continued detention of Bennett, an ally of MDC leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, is seen by many as a crack in the foundation of the coalition Tsvangirai formed with President Robert Mugabe. Meanwhile, a Zimbabwe High Court judge Friday ordered the immediate release of three human rights activists in state "safe custody" to testify against human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, who is facing charges of plotting to topple Mugabe. Opposition MDC activists Fannie Tembo, Lloyd Tarumbwa and Terry Musona have been missing since October last year after they were abducted from their homes under the cover of darkness. Lawyers Chris Mhike and Innocent Chagonda took the state to the High Court in an attempt to win the release the trio. But the state represented by Nelson Mutsonziwa had opposed the application, saying the three would be state witnesses when the trial of Mukoko starts. The MDC lawyers then successfully argued that the three were bread winners for their families and the state had not provided their families with assistance while they are in custody. Delivering the judgment, Justice Ben Hlatswayo said, "I order the immediate release of Fannie Tembo, Lloyd Tarumbwa and Terry Musona from police custody or the custody of any other state agent. This order stands enforceable notwithstanding the noting or filing of an appeal." Relatives of the three who were milling around the High Court could not hide their joy after Mhike told them of Hlatswayo's ruling. | Magistrate who released a senior opposition politician arrested .
High Court had ordered politican released, but decision was suspended .
Roy Bennett's imprisonment a crack in coalition of opposition and Robert Mugabe .
In separate decision, High Court ordered release of three human rights activists . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "9b7ec55557443ea8b1d73ac431e0266dfd16d717"} | 700 | 63 | 0.549919 | 1.558637 | 1.038067 | 2.192308 | 10.942308 | 0.884615 |
(CNN) -- A man went over Niagara Falls and survived Wednesday afternoon, one of the few people to ever survive the plunge unprotected, authorities said. It is unclear whether the man chose not to aid in his rescue or was physically unable to do so, officials say. The man was seen entering the icy water just above Horseshoe Falls, on the Canadian side, and apparently jumped in about 2:15 p.m, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Fire Chief Lee Smith said. Smith said the unidentified man was in the near-freezing water for "40-plus" minutes before he was rescued by Niagara Parks Police and Niagara Falls firefighter Todd Brunning. Brunning, who was tethered to shore, swam about 60 meters (nearly 200 feet) into the river and was able to get hold of the man and bring him to shore. Niagara Parks Police initially used a helicopter from a private company, Niagara Falls Helicopters, to attempt a rescue of the man. When that failed, they used the wind from the chopper's rotors to push the man closer to shore, Smith said. Watch chopper hover over man in icy water » . He said the man was "being rotated in a cyclic fashion" by the river's very strong currents. The man did not aid in his rescue, officials said, though it was not immediately clear whether he was physically unable to or he did not want to do so. Niagara Falls Fire Capt. Dave Belme said the man was not wearing any clothes when he was rescued, but he added that it's not unexpected for a person to lose things while being washed down the falls. The man's "chances of survival without the quick response would be lessened," Smith said. All of the agencies train for situations like this, he said, and they are put to the test about a dozen times a year. Still, he called Wednesday's rescue "amazing." | Unidentified man apparently jumped in on Canadian side, authorities say .
He was in near-freezing Niagara River for more than 40 minutes .
Officials unsure why man did not aid in his own rescue . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8d417a60238936ce5802e68a8bba2f010615f84b"} | 447 | 48 | 0.580808 | 1.507715 | 0.612828 | 2.175 | 9.275 | 0.825 |
NEW YORK (CNN) -- An expert on Lincoln photography thinks a photograph found in Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's family-owned album showing President Abraham Lincoln in front of the White House could be one of the last photos taken of the 16th president before he was assassinated in 1865. A photo found in Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's family album is verified to contain an image of Abraham Lincoln. Grant's great-great grandson Ulysses S. Grant VI had seen the previously unpublished image in the general's personal photo album, but didn't think much of it until he scrutinized it earlier this year. "I started to think that it might be the White House," said Grant, a construction business owner from Springfield, Missouri. "Then I started to look at the height difference between the people in the photo." Thinking that the towering individual commanding the attention of the other people in the image could be Lincoln -- who stood 6-foot-4 and is the nation's tallest president -- Grant called Keya Morgan, a renowned collector and scholar of Lincoln and Gen. Grant photographs, to see whether his suspicions could be verified. Morgan, who owns the world's largest collection of Lincoln artifacts and original photographs, persuaded Grant to take the small photo out of the album to see whether any clues could be found on the back -- particularly the name of the photographer. "If you don't know who the photographer is, it's like not knowing who your father and mother are," Morgan said. Sure enough, the seal of photographer Henry F. Warren appeared on the back, along with an inscription: "Lincoln in front of the White House," dated 1865. Grant recognized the handwriting as that of his great-grandfather and Gen. Grant's youngest son, Jesse Grant. Those indicators, along with a revenue stamp used from 1864-66 to raise money during the Civil War, helped convince Morgan that the photograph could be the well-documented missing photo from Lincoln's last "sitting." Watch how photograph was verified » . According to Morgan -- who cites Lincoln's secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay -- Warren took the last three photographs of Lincoln on March 6, 1865, just two days after his second inauguration. Morgan says Warren was desperate to take pictures of Lincoln, so he staged the first act of paparazzi photography. According to Morgan, Warren first took photos of the president's son Tad on his pony. The following day, Warren gave the pictures to Tad and told him to summon his father. Morgan says that Warren was already set up to take the photo outside the White House, and that Lincoln gave him access afterward to take two more portraits on the White House balcony. Will Stapp, founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery's photography department and a professional photograph appraiser, agrees with Morgan's assessment of the long-lost image. "The figure itself, the physique -- in looking at it under a magnifying glass, I can see the shape of his beard; I can see the hairline," Stapp told CNN. "It's similar to the impression you get from other photos taken of [Lincoln] from the same distance, like at the Gettysburg Address and his inauguration." Stapp and Morgan also say it appears that Lincoln is wearing the same clothes in the outdoor photo as he wore for the portraits taken the same day. As one of only 130 photographs of Lincoln, it is an extraordinary find not only because of its proximity to Lincoln's death, but because it shows him in a natural stance. "You could put yourself in the shoes of the people around [Lincoln] and see what it was like to live at the White House," said Morgan, who says he receives 10 to 20 requests a day asking him to verify potential Lincoln photographs. Morgan, who purchased the photo from Grant, says he has received thousands of e-mails from Lincoln aficionados commenting on the find. His Web site, lincolnimages.com, received more than 5 million hits on Tuesday and crashed because of the traffic overload. | Ulysses S. Grant's great-great grandson took family photo to scholar for verification .
Seal of photographer Henry F. Warren appeared on the back of photograph .
Warren took the last three photographs of Lincoln on March 6, 1865 . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "9c3f2cc023bea06fabb034c71e58ea2aceed2e8f"} | 921 | 54 | 0.619668 | 1.822713 | 0.886731 | 6.933333 | 17.444444 | 0.933333 |
Editor's note: A gunman killed 10 people and himself Tuesday in southern Alabama. It's the most recent example of mass killing sprees that have traumatized communities over the years. Here's how one city responded. In the worst mass shooting in the U.S. at the time, a gunman killed 23 customers in a Texas cafeteria in 1991. (CNN) -- On October 16, 1991, 35-year-old George Hennard drove a pickup truck into Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, and fatally shot 23 people and wounded more than 20 before killing himself. For more than 15 years, the city next to the sprawling Fort Hood military base had the dubious distinction of being the site of the deadliest mass shooting in the United States -- until a student killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech in 2007. "You can never prepare for an incident like this," says Killeen city councilman Fred Latham, who was mayor pro tem of the city, which had a population of about 66,000 at the time of the shooting. But Killeen's experience shows a city can survive the grief, pain and stigma of such an incident. About 80 people were in the cafeteria, many of them taking their bosses to lunch for National Bosses Day when Hennard arrived. He methodically chose his victims, most of whom were women, before he was wounded by police and shot himself. Latham, who is 60 and a real estate broker, has been on the city council off and on for 16 years. He spoke to CNN.com Wednesday. CNN: What are your memories of that day in October? Latham: It was a tragic day in our history, Many of the people who were killed or injured I personally knew. It was just a big shock that anything like that could ever happen in our community. CNN: Where were you when it happened? Latham: I was with the mayor and the Waco city engineer, looking at potential road improvements and we just happened to be driving near where Luby's was, and we saw some roadblocks being set up and we knew something terrible had happened. There were police cars and barricades and you had the sense that something was wrong. CNN: What are your memories of the days after the shooting? Latham: The community came together as far as trying to help resolve the issues with the people who were victims or their families who were trying to get through it. There were a lot of human resource agencies that came, American Red Cross, a lot of counselors. It was just overwhelming. I think the phones into Killeen were jammed from people all over the country trying to check on their family members. Luby's was the kind of place that would attract any kind of person. That was Bosses Day that particular day, so you had a lot of extra business there, I'm sure. And many of the people were in our school district. Our school district is one of the biggest employers in the region. So when you had administrators or people in that administration office killed, they're going to be known by many, many people. The commanding general at Fort Hood sent in helicopters and all kinds of extra assistance that might be needed. ...Fort Hood is the major employer in the area. At that time there were some 42,000 assigned troops there and some soldiers were actually killed. You can never prepare for an incident like this from somebody that just goes off. How they pick a destination you don't know. This person drove all the way from Belton, which is about 16 miles to our east. He wasn't a Killeen resident, so how he picked Luby's you don't know. He actually drove through the front window and the people that were in the restaurant thought maybe he had an accident where you try to apply the brakes and hit the gas pedal. .... When he came out shooting, the people were kind of trapped. I was proud of our community as to how they handled the situation and overcame all the adversity. Everybody was concerned about the welfare of the families and the people who were victims, Luby's began a fund to help defray some of the expenses and I think people from all over the country sent money. We formed a committee that helped look at how you disburse the money. I think that was successful and helped some with the aftermath. CNN: What are the emotions that a community goes through? Latham: Grief, just disbelief that something like this could happen, all the same emotions that you go through with any significant death in a family, I suppose. To have at the time...that this was worst shooting anywhere in the world, it gives a stigma that you don't ever want to have for your city. It's similar to the one that happened at Columbine and at Virginia Tech. Nobody has the answers as to why these things happen and the randomness of the person shooting his victims doesn't make any sense. It's not logical, you can't comprehend it. To see death happen to people, they were just there to have a meal with their boss and have a celebration of that and no interaction with the person that perpetrated this act. CNN: Were the churches and houses of worship involved in trying to heal the wounds? Latham: Absolutely, the churches throughout town came to the aid, performing counseling and having funeral services. There was a lot of compassion, if anything good came out of this, it was the fact that we realized that we all really cared more about each other more than we ever thought. CNN: Has the town recovered? Latham: It has been resilient. We've been in a dynamic part of central Texas where the economy has been good for many years. [There's] the resiliency and the strength of Fort Hood, which is one of the most efficient training facilities for the Army and it has continued to grow. A lot of people have retired here and the cost of living is good. There's affordable housing, the weather is good ... then you've got a work force that's educated and disciplined, and they're fairly young. CNN: You talked about the stigma of having the worst mass killing in the world. Latham: The tendency for the news media, each time an event like this happens, they'll list one, two, three, four, five, where the most killings occurred and you're mentioned in that top five. And that's not something we want to be reminded of. CNN: Some people say the stigma can hurt a town economically, but it doesn't seem to have done so in Killeen. Latham: We're a very mobile community. Our population turns over at least 30 percent every five years. Maybe two-thirds of our population [now] weren't even here or doesn't even know anything about this. So we're different from a longtime community that doesn't turn over like that. CNN: What advice would you have for other mayors or other city council people in towns who experience these kinds of incidents? Latham: Well I would accept help from others. You're not in it by yourself. You'll be surprised at the resiliency that you'll have as a community. The faith-based community will come forward, embrace that. You'll get through it, but you won't ever forget the victims or what has happened to the community. | Fred Latham: "You can never prepare" for an incident like the one in Killeen, Texas .
In 1991, a gunman drove a pickup into a cafeteria and killed 23 people .
Latham says the city raised money for victims and bounced back .
Latham: Communities are resilient but they will never forget what happened . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "2f6356ccd45d8dbc1051a37673fa3aacb9fba99a"} | 1,639 | 81 | 0.527408 | 1.598351 | 0.90586 | 2.03125 | 22.4375 | 0.90625 |
BRASILIA, Brazil (CNN) -- A doctor excommunicated by the Catholic Church for performing an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim received a standing ovation during a national convention on women's health, according to a local media report. Archbishop Don Jose Cardoso Sobrinho excommunicated the doctors who performed the child's abortion. The response came during the opening ceremony of an event hosted by Brazilian Minister of Health Jose Gomes Temporao. The newspaper O Povo reported that Temporao called on the audience to acknowledge the "brilliant" work done by a medical team in the abortion, performed in Brazil's northeastern city of Recife. The girl was pregnant with twins after being raped, allegedly by her stepfather, police were quoted in media reports as saying. The abuse had gone on since the girl was 6, authorities said. The abortion was performed March 4 during the fourth month of pregnancy, according to media reports . Archbishop Don Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Recife excommunicated the doctor, the child's mother and the medical team involved in the procedure. However, the stepfather was not excommunicated, with Sobrinho telling Globo TV that, "A graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life." The child was not excommunicated, Sobrinho said, because Catholic Church law says minors are exempt from excommunication. "The church is benevolent when it comes to minors," he told Globo TV. "As for the adults, especially those who approved it, performed this abortion, the excommunication is applicable." "God's law is above human laws," Sobrinho said. The case has outraged the Brazilian public and fueled a controversy reaching the highest levels of church and state in a nation whose law bans abortion except in cases of rape. Temporao recently said doctors must put law before religion. "The question posed is very simple. There is a Brazilian law which states that a pregnancy can be interrupted in case of rape," Temporao said. "It is legitimate for the church to have its dogmas, but these dogmas must not be imposed on society as a whole," he added. Earlier, a verbal spat ensued between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the archbishop over the church's decision. "As a Christian and a Catholic, I find it deeply lamentable that a bishop of the Catholic Church has such a conservative attitude," Lula said on Globo TV. "In this case, the medical profession was more right than the church," he said. Meanwhile, a Vatican cleric told Italy's La Stampa newspaper that he supports the Brazilian archbishop's decision to excommunicate all involved in the abortion except for the child. Dr. Olimpio Moraes, one of the doctors involved in the procedure, said he thanked the archbishop for his excommunication because the controversy sheds light on Brazil's restrictive abortion laws. He said women in Brazil's countryside are victimized by Brazil's ban on abortion. Some of the doctors vowed to continue attending church services, despite being expelled. "The fact that I was excommunicated will not keep me from going to Mass, praying, conversing with God, and asking him to illuminate me and my colleagues in our medical team to help us take care of people in similar cases," one doctor said. TV Globo reported that the child, who is from a town outside Recife, has stayed in the city to recover and to escape media coverage. Her current condition is not known. A new report by Brazil's IPAS, a non-governmental organization that works with the health ministry, indicates that more than 1 million women undergo illegal abortions in Brazil each year. About 250,000 are treated by doctors for traumas due to botched abortions, said Beatriz Jalli, an IPAS official. Studies at a Brazilian hospital dedicated to treating female victims of violence, the Perola Byington in Sao Paulo, indicated that more than 40 percent of the cases involved children. "This is why the Recife case is so important for women in Brazil," Jalli said. Jalli said the liberated "Girl from Ipanema" image that many foreigners have of Brazilian women is far from reality. "We live in a male chauvinistic, patriarchal society with a very high rate of sexual crimes against women and minors," she said. "Our reproductive rights are constantly criminalized." CNN's Helena de Moura contributed to this report. | Report: Doctor who performed abortion on child rape victim praised at event .
Brazilian law bans abortion except in cases of rape .
Catholic Church excommunicated doctor, along with child's mother, medical team .
Archbishop says child was not excommunicated . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "2bcfcbcbb7f3f3cda16a49e1c530dff05c757338"} | 1,061 | 65 | 0.607981 | 1.729119 | 0.846799 | 2.708333 | 17.395833 | 0.875 |
(CNN) -- Just days after giving birth to her second child, Dr. Jane Dimer drove herself home from the hospital to find her then-husband in bed with another woman. He threw Dimer down the stairs, and she never saw him again until court. Rihanna was allegedly attacked by her boyfriend, singer Chris Brown, before the Grammys on February 8. Dimer, now an obstetrician-gynecologist at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, Washington, had been in an abusive relationship with her husband in Germany for 4½ years until he pushed her out 11 years ago. "Emotionally, the remnants of that stay for a long time," she said. Domestic violence is the most common cause of injury to women ages 15 to 44, according to the National Institutes of Health. With the entertainment world buzzing about pop sensation Rihanna, whose boyfriend Chris Brown has been formally charged with assaulting her, public interest in domestic violence has been reinvigorated. Abuse can influence a victim's future behavior in relationships and even in friendships, depending on whether the victim stays or leaves, said Mark Crawford, a clinical psychologist based in Roswell, Georgia. Those who stay are likely to stop trusting their own perceptions and become passive in both romantic and nonromantic relationships. Victims who do leave -- which is the healthier choice, Crawford said -- often become over-accommodating because they want to avoid conflict, even verbal disputes, at all costs. Some women won't trust people easily, if at all, and won't be able to handle even normal expressions of anger. Visit CNNHealth.com, your connection to better living . "What they need to do when they get out of the relationship is make sure they're aware of their own anger, and then they can learn how to freely express it in a healthy, normal way," he said. "If somebody's still having issues 10 years later, they just haven't worked through it. They haven't healed; they need to do that." New research shows that abuse victims feel the impact of violence long after it occurred. A recent study in the Journal of Women's Health found that older African-American women who were exposed to high levels of family violence at some point in their lifetimes -- whether by a partner or family member -- are at a greater risk of poor mental and physical health status. "Not just ongoing violence, which everybody thinks about, but even when it's over, there's something about what happens that seems to have a lingering effect that we don't quite understand yet," said Dr. Anuradha Paranjape, co-author of the study and associate professor at Temple University School of Medicine. It makes sense that abused women would report worse health, given that people in stressful situations have higher levels of stress hormones, which interfere with immune function, Crawford said. Other studies show a clear connection between depression and abuse. Adult women who have been abused in a relationship in the past five years have rates of depression 2½ times greater than women who have never been abused, according to a different study of more than 3,000 women. They are also more likely to be socially isolated, said author Amy Bonomi, associate professor at The Ohio State University. Women who have been abused prior to, but not during, the past five years had depression rates 1½ times greater than those without abuse experience, said Bonomi, who has collaborated with Dimer on research on abused women. "People like to sort of think that, 'Well, abuse is just when you have a black eye, you sustain a broken bone,' " Bonomi said. "But we see lots of different effects in other areas, like depression and social isolation, and we've actually proven that with the data." Women who have suffered violence also seem to have a greater likelihood of substance abuse, but it's unclear how the two are related -- one doesn't necessarily cause the other, and there could be other factors involved, Bonomi said. A 2008 study of 3,333 women, which Bonomi worked on, found that middle-aged women who suffered child abuse, sexual or other physical abuse, had a greater likelihood of depression, as well as a higher body mass index. These women also spend up to one-third more than average on health care costs. About 34 percent of women in the sample said they had been abused. While Paranjape's study found that women with the highest levels of abuse reported having poor health, the same number of diseases were reported among those women as the women in the sample who had less or no abuse. This indicates that there is something else that makes abused women report feeling unwell, she said. "When your patient says they don't feel so good, you might want to think about asking what other issues may be going on," she said. People who have gotten out of a relationship should go through the work of learning what issues set them up in that situation, and reflect on the warning signs, Crawford said. Experts recommend finding a counselor and other means of support, but people who have been abused should think twice about revealing too much in online support groups, because their abusers could discover what they're saying, Dimer said. Research has also shown that violence escalates in abusive relationships among couples who go to marriage counseling, she said. Some women do feel stronger having been through the experience of abuse, Dimer said. She herself found healing through advocacy and research on the subject, she said. Calling a domestic violence hot line is a good first step for anyone who is experiencing abuse, Dimer said. "Whether you're a pop star or somebody that's working front lines -- an employee at a grocery store selling the pop star magazine -- you're at equal risk for having this," she said. | NIH: Domestic violence is the most common cause of injury to women ages 15 to 44 .
Study: Abused women more likely to have depression, anxiety, joint pain .
Calling a domestic violence hot line is a good first step for a victim . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "503da4e6a59062957f5dad1fda5fd70185088c00"} | 1,280 | 60 | 0.323406 | 0.920357 | 0.495331 | 7.92 | 22.5 | 0.84 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A meningitis outbreak is threatening the lives of tens of thousands of people in Darfur, according to an aid agency expelled from the country last week. A Doctors without Borders medic helps a sick child in a Darfur refugee camp. Humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), says it was preparing to vaccinate around 100,000 people in southern and western Darfur against meningitis, when it was told to leave the country. "We were in the process of organizing a vaccination campaign. At the moment there's no one there that can take over those activities, which is really worrying," Gemma Davies of MSF told CNN. The country's Ministry of Health officially declared a meningitis outbreak on March 2 at the Kalma Camp, which shelters more than 90,000 refugees in southern Darfur. "Living in such close proximity, the potential for this outbreak to spread quickly is quite high, Davies, MSF project coordinator for South Darfur, told CNN. "With no health care providers to give vaccinations, and with no one to manage the meningitis cases when they come, it's really concerning," she added. The vaccination campaign was due to begin on March 7, but it is now unclear if or when it will resume, as reports of government harassment of aid workers continue. Davies told CNN she experienced no harassment, and said government officials had been in contact with only the head of MSF's regional operations. "We haven't actually been given any reason on why we were expelled," she said. "We have absolutely no idea when we'll be able to return." Doctors Without Borders was among 13 aid agencies, including Mercy Corps and the International Rescue Committee, that were ordered by the government to shut down their operations in Sudan last week. So far the agency has confirmed 32 meningitis cases and four deaths, and has seen dozens of other suspected cases. Thousands of unvaccinated refugees and villagers are now exposed to the airborne disease in densely populated camps and villages throughout Sudan. "One of our priorities is to get another organization to take over our programs there," Davies added. The medical relief agency says it doubts though that other any other organizations have the capacity to deal with a meningitis epidemic. Davies also said she is worried about the cut-off of MSF's feeding and maternal delivery services: "We had over 100 patients on our feeding program that now won't be receiving any follow up." The decision by the Sudanese government to throw out the aid groups came a day after the International Criminal Court at The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. However, not all international aid organizations are affected. Others including World Vision international continues its work, which reaches approximately 500,000 internally displaced people in South Sudan. The U.N. has received reports that international staff members of five non-governmental organizations had been detained for up to four hours. Speaking on the phone from Nairobi, an aid worker, who asked not to be identified for fear of further harassment, told CNN that his colleagues who remained in Khartoum were being intimidated and threatened by government agents. In some cases Sudanese government representatives "had started gathering banking details and confiscating computers, communications equipment and vehicles from the NGOs", a U.N spokesman said at a news conference last week. Last week, the U.N. warned that the loss of NGOs in Sudan would cause 1.1 million people to go without food aid and health care, and more than 1 million to have no access to water. Oxfam, whose work focuses on providing safe drinking water, was one of the aid groups who were told their registration to operate in Sudan was no longer valid. Ninety percent of their staff are Sudanese nationals, who mostly remain in country, unable to continue their relief work under threat of arrest. "These agencies are vital implementation partners for the United Nations and account for at least half of the humanitarian capacity in Darfur," said Catherine Bragg, U.N. Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator at the news conference in New York. | Meningitis threatens hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur .
More than a million at risk of starvation after aid agencies expelled, U.N. warns .
Sources: Aid workers harassed and detained by the Sudanese government . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "31ce56bbc9d1ef7398577b51ee7400fcb6268f08"} | 933 | 62 | 0.472994 | 1.248406 | 0.59582 | 2.025 | 19.925 | 0.775 |
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- Tens of thousands of South Koreans were demonstrating Saturday on the streets of the capital to protest the government's decision to import what they say is unsafe U.S. beef. South Korean protesters protest against government's policy on U.S. beef imports on Saturday. South Korean police estimate that the crowd in Seoul is about 50,000. No clashes were reported between the protesters and riot police, although ongoing protests have at times turned violent. South Koreans have protested regularly since April when the government announced it would resume importing beef from the United States after a five-year ban. That ban was instituted over a case of mad cow disease in the United States in 2003. The widespread public protests essentially paralyzed the government of President Lee Myung-bak, who replaced seven top aides this month and plans to reshuffle his Cabinet. Tens of thousands of auto workers in South Korea went on strike Wednesday to oppose the government's lifting of the ban. After a series of negotiations, Seoul and Washington came up with a revised agreement on June 21 -- one that limits imports to cattle younger than 30 months old. Animals older than 30 months old are considered at a greater risk for mad cow disease, which can be transmitted to humans. The revised agreement also excludes the import of certain parts believed more susceptible to mad cow disease. The initial deal would have allowed the import of all U.S. beef imports. Scientists believe mad cow disease spreads when farmers feed cattle recycled meat and bones from infected animals. The U.S. banned recycled feeds in 1997. Eating meat products contaminated with the illness has been linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal malady in humans. Until the 2003 ban, South Korea was the third-largest market for U.S. beef exporters. South Korea's new pro-U.S. president agreed to lift the import ban in April before a summit with U.S. President George W. Bush. But the move provoked a backlash over health concerns spurred in part by false media reports about risks, along with a sense that South Korea had backed down too easily to American pressure. The government has vowed to get tough with the rallies. In Washington, the White House announced that Bush would visit South Korea on August 5-6 before heading to the Beijing Olympics. Bush had originally been expected to go to Seoul next week when he visits Japan for the G-8 summit, but the trip did not materialize amid the protests. CNN's Sohn Jie-ae contributed to this report. | Tens of thousands of South Koreans protest imports of U.S. beef .
Beef imports largely banned since 2003 when mad cow disease found in U.S.
Protests essentially paralyzed the government of President Lee Myung-bak . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "55aa3ebb3bf0b9fb34d4a0f9a86e847136228c9e"} | 582 | 59 | 0.638523 | 1.648297 | 1.106971 | 4.846154 | 12.282051 | 0.897436 |
WINNENDEN, Germany (CNN) -- Students jumped out of windows and locked themselves in classrooms as a former pupil rampaged through a German school with a gun, killing at least a dozen people there Wednesday, a student at the school told CNN. People lay flowers at the school Wednesday. "Suddenly there were police standing in front of me and told us to run outside quickly," Luisa Santonastaso, 16, said. "At first we didn't know what to do. So first we went to the class and picked up some of our classmates and ran out. "Then we heard that someone was inside shooting. Then we also saw a teacher who had blood on his hands because he wanted to help a female teacher who sacrificed herself for a student -- she stood in front of a student to protect her," the girl told CNN by phone from Germany. "The guy just entered the classroom and started shooting and a friend of mine was panicking so much that she jumped out of a window. I think she broke her arm. She's in hospital now." Santonastaso's friend was not the only one who jumped, she said. Dressed in military gear, the gunman -- identified by police as Tim Kretschmer, 17 -- killed a total of 15 people in two different towns before he died. Watch more about the shootings » . Initial indications are that he shot himself, but police are continuing to investigate, said Erwin Hetger, the regional chief of police. The rampage in Winnenden, a small town about 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Stuttgart, and spread to neighboring Wendlingen. As people at Albertville-Realschule Winnenden school -- where Kretschmer used to be a student -- realized what was happening, many burst into tears, Santonastaso said. "Everybody was crying because nobody could really imagine what had just happened. They brought us to the swimming pool hall in Winnenden for security reasons," she said. "Then all our parents were called because no child was allowed to leave without parents," she continued. At least one parent got awful news when she arrived. "One mother came and the teachers had to tell her that her child had been injured or shot dead, and then she cried really hard and fainted," Santonastaso said. iReport.com: Town in shock over shooting . Santonastaso's own parents were more fortunate. "When I first called to tell them what had happened they wanted to come right away, but I told them that wasn't possible because we were being brought to somewhere safe," she said. Later, she said: "My parents and my friend came and we went out with them. Out there it got a bit better." CNN's Marco Woldt and Lianne Turner contributed to this report . | Student tells how classes turned to horror at hands of rampaging gunman .
She says one teacher shot when she put herself between the gunman and a student .
Students jumped from windows to escape killer .
Gunman killed 15 people in two German towns near Stuttgart . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "72741127429bf233d52aa4060da20aeb8b670bdc"} | 630 | 60 | 0.43692 | 1.245747 | 0.731587 | 1.098039 | 10.490196 | 0.705882 |
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- For five years, the horrible memory has lingered in the minds of Madrid's commuters, quietly riding their trains into the heart of the city. The pain is easing, but it's a nagging ache just the same. The rush-hour train bombings killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 others. It was March 11, 2004, during morning rush hour, that terrorists armed with powerful bombs boarded these same commuter train lines, unleashing an onslaught that killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 others. The attacks are the deadliest in Europe since the rise of al Qaeda. More than a year later on July 7, 2005, terrorists would stage bombings on the London transit system that killed 52 people and wounded hundreds more. The explosives were left on the Spanish trains in sports bags and backpacks -- sometimes placed under seats -- court documents say. The terrorists got off at various stations down the line, before cell-phone timers detonated 10 bombs in quick succession on four trains at three stations. Police dismantled another bomb that didn't explode. It provided vital clues that led to arrests. Eighteen people, mostly Islamic militants, have been convicted in the attacks. Watch more on the anniversary . Juan Carlos Garcia, an engineer who took the train later that same day, said he knows a couple whose daughter died in the attacks. "It was very tough, especially knowing it could have been you," Garcia said. "Now, you remember it, but not the same as when it just happened." Beata Sadecka, a regular commuter, says she rides cautiously. "Every day, when I get on the train, I always ride in the last car," Sadecka said. "I don't know why, for safety," she added, not quite sure of her motives. On one train, the first explosion was in a rear car and, as people ran forward to get away, they were hit by explosions in the middle cars, investigators have said. "People remember the March 11th attacks," said Vicente Jimenez, a deputy editor with El Pais newspaper, "and while conscious that the threat continues, you have to continue with your life." Memorial observations were scheduled throughout the day, including five minutes of silence for the victims. King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero were not taking part in the public events. A victims group called their non-participation a slight. But on this fifth anniversary, most commuters are just going about their business, with that nagging ache still lingering. | Spain commemorates fifth anniversary of Madrid train bombings .
March 11, 2004, attacks killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 .
Explosives were left on the Spanish trains in sports bags and backpacks . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8b1ac6b9228d98f2873abafbe2c1040da91d3410"} | 583 | 46 | 0.547836 | 1.502591 | 0.624476 | 6 | 13.432432 | 0.918919 |
(CNN) -- Comedian Jay Leno's plan to hold a free concert for the jobless of Detroit, Michigan, drew criticism from a politician in the city. A Detroit politician believes Jay Leno should change the location of his free show for the city's unemployed. Detroit City Councilwoman Martha Reeves likes the idea, but she said the "Tonight Show" host needs to change the location. "When I heard Jay Leno say Detroit is one of his favorite places and he's going to do a free concert for the people laid off, to people who don't have any money right now, given the economic state we're all in, I was elated," Reeves said. "Then he said Auburn Hills... and that's not Detroit." Auburn Hills is a well-to-do suburb of Detroit, but is located in Oakland County, which has had its share of economic troubles as well. The free comedy show -- called "Jay's Comedy Stimulus Plan" -- is set for April 7 at the Palace of Auburn Hills, which holds about 24,000 people. "I thought I might try to get a word to him that we have a Ford Field, we have a Cobo Hall, we have wonderful theaters here, the Fox Theater," Reeves said. "He could come and present something to Detroit as he said." Free tickets for the show will be given out beginning Monday at 10 a.m., according to Leno's Web site. Leno, host of NBC's Tonight Show for more than 15 years, has a new job himself. He will move from late night to a 10 p.m. show. | Detroit councilwoman says Jay Leno should change concert location .
Comedian plans to perform free show in Auburn Hills, a well-to-do suburb .
Martha Reeves' suggestions: Ford Field, Cobo Hall, the Fox Theater .
Free tickets for the show will be given out beginning Monday at 10 a.m. | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "a05cb77ab3fc43125c6b86543d1c46c57f897d6b"} | 386 | 76 | 0.67096 | 1.855841 | 1.315467 | 5.196721 | 5.180328 | 0.836066 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A portrait painted 400 years ago and kept anonymously in an Irish home for much of the time since is now believed to be the only painting of William Shakespeare created during his lifetime. The portrait of William Shakespeare is thought to be the "only" portrait painted during his lifetime. The image reveals a wealthy Shakespeare of high social status, contradicting the popular view of a struggling playwright of humble status, according to Stanley Wells, a professor who chairs London's Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Wells, a distinguished Shakespeare scholar, arranged for three years of research and scientific testing which confirmed it was painted around 1610, when Shakespeare would have been 46 years old. "A rather young looking 46, it has to be said," Wells said. Shakespeare died in 1616. The Cobbe portrait -- named after the Irish family that owns the painting -- shows Shakespeare with rosy cheeks, a full head of hair, and a reddish brown beard. The most common portrait of Shakespeare is a gray image showing a bald Bard with a small mustache and beard, and bags under his eyes. The identity of the man in the portrait was lost over the centuries -- until Alec Cobbe saw a portrait from Washington's Folger Shakespeare Library. That painting, which fell into disfavor as a Shakespeare portrait about 70 years ago, turned out to be one of four copies of Cobbe's portrait. The portrait "shows a man wearing expensive costuming, including a very beautifully painted ruff of Italian lacework which would have been very expensive," Wells said. "It establishes, for me, that Shakespeare in his later years was a rather wealthy, a rather well affluent member of aristocratic circles in the society of his time," Wells said. "There's been too much of a tendency to believe that Shakespeare, being the son of a glover, coming for a small town in the middle of England, that he necessarily retained a rather humble status throughout his life." Wells reads even more into what he sees in Shakespeare's newly-found face. "I think it's plausible as a portrait as a good listener, of somebody who would have been capable of writing the plays, clearly the face of a man of high intelligence," he said. "It's the face of a man, I think, who betrays a good deal of wisdom in his features. But, of course, as somebody (King Duncan) says in Shakespeare's story Macbeth, 'there's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.'" It should be noted that Shakespeare's King Duncan paid a price for judging Macbeth to have the face of an honorable man. Macbeth later murdered the king. The public can read Shakespeare's face from the original painting at Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon where it goes on display for several months starting April 23. The portrait then returns to the Cobbe family, which inherited it when an ancestor married England's Earl of Southampton -- a friend of Shakespeare who likely commissioned its painting. | Shakespeare group unveil "only" portrait of playwright painted during his lifetime .
Painting on display after three years of research and testing .
It was painted in about 1610 -- or six years before Shakespeare's death .
Identity of man in painting was lost until owner saw a copy of it in a museum . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "b344d243cd99bdcc9f96906edb7fbfd15c5e4774"} | 710 | 69 | 0.543079 | 1.631597 | 0.679324 | 1.95082 | 9.672131 | 0.803279 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Key members of Congress from both parties want NASA's internal watchdog fired, arguing he can't be trusted to oversee the $1 billion in additional money the space agency is getting under the Obama administration's economic stimulus package. Lawmakers say NASA's inspector general cannot be trusted and must go. Government reports dating back to 2006 have accused NASA Inspector General Robert "Moose" Cobb of ineffectiveness, of profanely berating employees and being too close to the agency's leadership. Calls for his ouster have intensified in the past month, since NASA is getting additional stimulus money for space exploration, research, and aeronautics. "Apparently, Mr. Cobb thought he was supposed to be the lap dog, rather than the watchdog, of NASA," Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tennessee, told CNN. Gordon, chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, has asked President Obama to remove Cobb. In a letter co-authored by Rep. Brad Miller, D-North Carolina, who leads the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, the lawmakers argue that "NASA cannot afford another four years with an ineffective inspector general." Watch NASA watchdog under fire » . "It's incredibly ironic for members of Congress who have scolded the inspector general for lousy oversight to dump a billion dollars into the agency," said Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, a nonprofit, nonpartisan watchdog group that monitors government spending. "The first thing you do when you're digging a hole is to stop digging. Congress doesn't seem to get that message." Cobb declined two requests from CNN to respond to the complaints. In December 2008, the Government Accountability Office released a report that criticized how Cobb was running the inspector general's office. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, "found that Mr. Cobb is one of the least productive IGs in the federal government," Gordon and Miller wrote. "His monetary accomplishments reflect a return of just 36 cents for every dollar budgeted for his office. This compares with an average of $9.49 returned for every dollar spent on other IGs' offices. The main reason for this failure is that NASA's audit operation is not working." Gordon told CNN that Cobb's "own peers said he wasn't doing his job, that he didn't understand the audit process and that he was not carrying out the investigation process. As a matter of fact, he was slowing it down, or even stopping it." And Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, agreed that Cobb must be replaced. "Inspectors general are the first line of defense against the waste of taxpayers' money," Grassley told CNN. "And, if he's not doing his job, and you stick another billion dollars into it, then you just know there's another billion dollars that there could be a lot of waste of it." A 2006 investigation by a presidential integrity council found Cobb "engaged in abuse of authority" and had a "close relationship" with former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe that "compromised" his independence. The two played golf together and took official trips together on NASA aircraft. Read investigative integrity report (Warning: Report contains explicit language) The committee also found that Cobb "engaged in an abuse of authority" through his "habitual use of profanity," and recommended disciplinary action "up to and including removal," Gordon and Miller wrote. Cobb defended himself at a 2007 congressional hearing, arguing that he had upheld his oath of office. "At NASA, I have taken the responsibilities of office under the Inspector General Act seriously and without compromise to root out and prevent fraud, waste and abuse, and to promote the economy and efficiency of the agency," he said. "I've worked with NASA management in the manner contemplated by the Inspector General Act." But former staffers told the committee that Cobb created a disturbing work environment. "One of my early experiences with Mr. Cobb was so disturbing that I considered leaving the OIG almost immediately afterwards," said Debra Herzog, former deputy assistant inspector-general for investigations. "At a scheduled weekly meeting, Mr. Cobb, in front of his deputy and my supervisor, berated me concerning a word in a letter. In an ensuing monologue, loudly peppered with profanities, Mr. Cobb insulted and ridiculed me," Herzog recounted. Lance Carrington, the former assistant inspector general for investigations, told the panel that "in many investigative cases, Mr. Cobb appeared to have a lack of independence when NASA officials were subjects, or if arrest/search warrants were obtained for NASA facilities. Mr. Cobb would question every aspect of the cases and gave the appearance he wanted to derail them before agents were given adequate time to investigate the allegations." Gordon told CNN it's time for Cobb to go. "President Obama needs to replace Mr. Cobb as quickly as possible with someone who can do the job," he said. | Lawmakers say NASA watchdog can't be trusted to oversee $1B in stimulus funds .
Government reports say NASA inspector general is too closely tied to the agency .
IG Robert Cobb "thought he was supposed to be the lap dog," congressman says .
Cobb declined two requests to speak with CNN for this report . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "6cb01372bb85aca6c0da0870aa6249c213ff74bf"} | 1,140 | 71 | 0.672287 | 2.067473 | 0.582413 | 3.269841 | 15.349206 | 0.825397 |
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The top court in Iraq sentenced two of Saddam Hussein's half-brothers to death Wednesday for crimes against humanity. Tariq Aziz, seen in 2002, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in jail for crimes against humanity. The court also sentenced former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and a former senior official known as "Chemical Ali" -- Ali Hassan al-Majeed -- to 15 years in custody for crimes against humanity, an official with the Iraq High Tribunal told CNN. The men were sentenced for their roles in the 1992 execution of 42 merchants. In an unrelated trial last week, Al-Majeed was sentenced to death for his role in putting down an uprising in Baghdad a decade ago, Iraqi state TV reported. It was the third death sentence for al-Majeed, a cousin of Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq who was toppled from power by the U.S.-led coalition in 2003. Al-Majeed and other former members of Hussein's regime remain in U.S. custody. His execution has been delayed for political rather than legal reasons. In last week's trial, Aziz was acquitted. Aziz, one of the best-known faces of the Hussein regime, was Iraq's deputy prime minister from 1981 to 2003 and also served as minister of foreign affairs for part of that time. He was captured by U.S. forces in April 2003, shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, car bombs in the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk killed six people on Wednesday, officials told CNN. The Mosul car bomb, which targeted troops, killed four people and wounded 14 others, an Interior Ministry official said. The car, parked near the city's medical college, blew up near an Iraqi army patrol. Of the dead, three were soldiers. Four other soldiers were among those wounded. Mosul, which has long been a volatile city, has had a strong militant presence. In Kirkuk, a parked car bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing two civilians and wounding seven others. The oil-rich and ethnically diverse city is known for sectarian and political tension. People were injured in wo other incidents in Iraq on Wednesday. In Baghdad, mortar fire in a residential area wounded four civilians. And a roadside bomb in the largely Kurdish town of Jalawla in Diyala province wounded four police officers. CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this story . | NEW: Car bombs in northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk kill six people .
Two Saddam Hussein half-brothers sentenced to death for crimes against humanity .
Court gives 15-year sentences to former Deputy PM Tariq Aziz and "Chemical Ali"
"Chemical Ali," Hussein's cousin, already faces three death sentences . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "a63c05ab7c5b5dce4b58f61c9aa772317bbac17e"} | 588 | 87 | 0.514926 | 1.348646 | 0.91054 | 2.507692 | 7.107692 | 0.815385 |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The power of women hit the State Department on Wednesday when first lady Michelle Obama joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to celebrate champions of women's rights around the world. Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton present the State Department Women of Courage Awards. The event was to celebrate the State Department Women of Courage Awards, but highlighted how both the current and former first ladies have made women's rights a signature issue. Since calling women's rights a human rights issue at a women's conference in Beijing in 1995, Clinton has made it a personal mission to champion the rights of women. Her first two trips as secretary of state have been packed with events promoting the importance of women's rights. "These personal experiences have informed my work, and I will continue to fight for human rights as secretary of state in traditional and especially nontraditional ways and venues," Clinton told the audience. You "can't solve problems of financial crisis, climate change, disease and poverty if half of the population is left behind," Clinton said. The rights of women will "always be central to our foreign policy." In a commentary published Monday in honor of International Women's Day, Clinton warned that "women still comprise the majority of the world's poor, unfed and unschooled." "Global problems are too big and too complex to be solved without the full participation of women," she wrote in the article, which ran in more than 50 newspapers around the world. "Strengthening women's rights is not only a continuing moral obligation -- it is also a necessity as we face a global economic crisis, the spread of terrorism and nuclear weapons, regional conflicts that threaten families and communities, and climate change and the dangers it presents to the world's health and security." Ambiga Sreenevasan, a Malaysian lawyer who won an award Wednesday for her work on behalf of justice for women, called Clinton "a woman of courage who has encouraged woman around the world." Clinton's speech declaring that women's rights are human rights, Sreenevasan said, has "resonated with a lot of us here." Clinton also heaped praise on the current first lady, saying that in a very short time, Michelle Obama "through her grace and her wisdom [has] become an inspiration to women and girls, not only in the United States, but around the world." Obama spoke about the importance of proper health care, education and justice for women in ensuring strong families and communities. "The difference between a broken community and a thriving one is the presence of women who are valued, where relationships among women and between women and men are based upon mutual respect," Obama said. Obama said the work done by the honorees has not just changed their own circumstances, but by inspiring hope and motivating others to act, that work also has changed women's lives around the world. "This is how real change occurs, one determined woman at a time. And change is coming," she said. "The women we honor today teach us three very important lessons. One, that as women, we must stand up for ourselves. The second, as women we must stand up for each other. And finally, as women we must stand up for justice for all." On Wednesday, President Obama created a White House Council on Women and Girls, charged with devising a coordinated federal response to various challenges faced by American women. The council, which will be led by senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett and which will include most members of the president's Cabinet, will be charged with ensuring that all governmental agencies take the needs of women into account. The president said the council will also help ensure a more coordinated federal response on a range of issues, including equal pay, family leave and child care. He also nominated Melanne Verveer, Clinton's chief of staff when she was first lady, as ambassador-at-large for global women's issues. In addition to Sreenevasan, the Women of Courage honorees make up an impressive list of advocates on behalf of women under difficult and often dangerous circumstances. Hadizatou Mani escaped caste-based slavery in Niger to help fight for rights of other people still enslaved in the country. Veronika Marchenko was honored for her activism on behalf of slain soldiers' families in Russia. Suaad Allami won an award for running a nongovernmental organization on behalf of women in Sadr City, Iraq, that is considered a "one-stop shop" for legal, educational and domestic violence counseling for women. Mutabar Tadjibayeva is one of the most vocal activists in Uzbekistan fighting on behalf of women's rights, despite being arrested and beaten by police. In Guatemala, where an average of two women each day die a violent death, Norma Cruz provides support to families of women who are murdered. One honoree, 12-year-old Reem al-Numery of Yemen, was unable to attend because she is in court fighting her forced marriage to a 30-year-old cousin who allegedly raped and beat her. Her battle in the courts to divorce her husband has sparked an avalanche of activism on behalf of Yemeni preteens sold into wedlock. | First lady, secretary of state honor champions of women's rights .
Event celebrates State Department Women of Courage Awards .
Clinton: Rights of women will "always be central to our foreign policy"
Obama: "As women we must stand up for justice for all" | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c7f5ff67b3c156c5ea429d3850ea5ff39b98b38a"} | 1,152 | 60 | 0.526909 | 1.491165 | 0.826955 | 6.37037 | 18.518519 | 0.888889 |
(CNN) -- A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pet store expecting a shipment of exotic fish this week found itself with a man's dead body instead. The man's widow told CNN that it might have been her husband's "last practical joke." The body of Jon Kenoyer, a California man who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, was being donated to an Allentown, Pennsylvania, research group, Life Quest Anatomical. The shipment was handled by US Airways, which also has delivered imported fish from throughout the world to Pets Plus Pet Center for more than a decade, store manager Mike Mullarkey said. On Tuesday, Mullarkey said, he received what he thought was an expected shipment of seahorses, anemones and corals from Vietnam via California. Before opening it, however, he discovered that the box's label indicated that it contained the remains of a man who had died four days before. The Pets Plus people were "shocked to see that," he said. Mary Kenoyer, Jon Kenoyer's widow, told CNN that she was initially startled by the news, but was able to see the comic side of it. "At first, of course, you're upset and shocked. But then I realized it was just a mistake," she said. Noting her husband had been afraid of flying during his life, she said, "He's just playing the last practical joke on me for putting him on a plane." Kenoyer said she hopes news of the mistake won't discourage others from donating their bodies to science. "The casket wasn't opened and was treated with respect," she said. Mullarkey said police supervised the return of the shipment to US Airways, which rerouted it to Life Quest. "In all the years, I can understand a mixup," Mullarkey said. "But something like that, I think, should be handled a little more delicately." US Airways issued a statement of apology: "Regrettably, there was an unfortunate mixup yesterday at the US Airways Cargo facility near Philadelphia International Airport. The mixup occurred due to a verbal miscommunication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative. We are working to rectify the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience this has caused." A spokeswoman at Life Quest Anatomical declined to comment. | Body of Jon Kenoyer delivered to Pets Plus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania .
Intended for delivery to Life Quest Anatomical in Allentown, Pennsylvania .
Pet store expected shipment of seahorses, anemones, and corals .
"He's just playing the last practical joke on me," says widow . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "5282bc477156595129ad336e104ca87dabd54840"} | 522 | 74 | 0.533475 | 1.85386 | 0.863512 | 4.160714 | 7.857143 | 0.910714 |
(CNN) -- The gigolo former lover of Germany's richest woman has been jailed for six years after confessing to blackmailing her and other women out of millions of dollars, a court official said Monday. Helg Sgarbi has admitted blackmailing Germany's richest woman, Susanne Klatten. Susanne Klatten, the BMW heiress, complained to police last year that Helg Sgarbi had threatened to release pictures of them if she did not pay him nearly $60 million. Munich's state prosecutor Anton Winkler said Sgarbi, who was accused of blackmailing several wealthy women, had made a written confession which was read by his lawyer to the court. "He confessed that he blackmailed the victims, told them untrue stories," Winkler told CNN. However, Sgarbi had not revealed what had happened to the estimated $12.5 million he had taken from his victims nor where the pictures had gone. "It is really only half a confession. We asked him about where the money is, about accomplices and videos... and he refused to say anything about that," Winkler said. Authorities said Klatten, who is married with three children, had an affair with Sgarbi. He started to ask her for money, and she paid several million at first, but when she refused to provide more he threatened to send compromising videos to her husband and the media. Klatten went to the police in January 2008, telling them she was the victim of a fraud and blackmail. At the time, her spokesman, Joerg Appelhans, told CNN that Sgarbi's goal had always been to con her. "She rigorously notified authorities even in light of the uncomfortable public repercussions this would have for her," Appelhans said. Sgarbi's lawyer, Egon Geis, said he was surprised by all the media attention. "This is all because of Mrs. Klatten, take the same amount of money and any other person and no one would care." Sgarbi allegedly maintained relationships with a number of women, telling them he was a special Swiss representative in crisis zones. Klatten, the daughter of the late BMW chief Herbert Quandt, holds a 12.5-percent stake in the German carmaker and a 51.1-percent share of chemical company Altana. Forbes magazine lists her as the world's 55th richest person, with a personal fortune of $13.2 billion. CNN's Fred Pleitgen contributed to this report. | Germany's richest woman told police she was being blackmailed for millions .
BMW heiress said former lover threatened to release images of them .
Helg Sgarbi's admits trying to blackmail BMW heiress and others . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "6c02bf2dcde3f9ad37ff21423b9613f02ff90fc8"} | 577 | 58 | 0.60255 | 1.63075 | 0.552778 | 1.589744 | 11.512821 | 0.820513 |
(CNN) -- A slaying spree spread across two southern Alabama towns left 10 people dead Tuesday. The gunman then took his own life. Mayors Wynnton Melton, left, of Geneva, Alabama, and Clay King of Samson, Alabama, speak with CNN. CNN "American Morning" anchor Kiran Chetry spoke with the mayors of the two towns on Wednesday. They are Mayor Wynnton Melton of Geneva, Alabama, and Clay King of Samson, Alabama. Kiran Chetry, CNN anchor: Police have identified the gunman who they say went on a killing spree in southern Alabama yesterday afternoon. They say Michael McClendon murdered 10 people, including his own mother, his grandparents, an aunt, an uncle, along with a sheriff's deputy's wife and child. And these are crime scenes now spread out across two small towns this morning. And their mayors join us now, Wynnton Melton of Geneva, Alabama, and Clay King of Samson, Alabama. Mayor King, let me start with you. ... You knew all of the victims and also the shooting suspect who took his own life as well. What can you tell us about the situation this morning, Mayor King? Mayor Clay King, Samson, Alabama: Well, the whole community is still in shock. Like I said, we know, I personally know everyone that is involved, both the shooter and the victims. And that makes it more difficult to have to deal with. Watch the mayors talk of the tragedy » . Chetry: And Mayor King, you say you coached him, along with your own sons in T-ball, in Little League, and that you would have never had any idea that he could have done something like this. Is there any motive that people are talking about this morning? King: No, ma'am. At this time, I don't think anybody has any idea of what the motive is. And yes, I did. I coached the shooter's -- I coached him in both T-ball and in Little League baseball along with my two sons. Chetry: And Mayor Melton, I want to ask you about this situation. I mean, this turned -- it appears from the beginning, this shooter targeted people within his own family. After that, it turned into really a random shooting spree. He had a semiautomatic, according to police, and he was firing at random until the sheriffs were able to corner him at this place of business. What are you learning about just how dire the circumstances were and how law enforcement was able to respond the way they did? Mayor Wynnton Melton, Geneva, Alabama: That is correct. And the response was very quick. He was intercepted in Geneva by one of our officers, and then the chief of police arrived at the scene. Both of those received fire from the assailant. The chief of police was nicked in the arm, not very seriously. The pursuit went on to the metal fabrication plant, Reliable, where an exchange of gunfire occurred in the parking lot. The suspect went into the building and took his own life there inside the building, which probably had around 400 people working at the time. But no injuries there at all, in the building. He took his own life at that point. Chetry: And Mayor King, it's also just so ironic that one of the sheriff's deputies who was actually responding to the call of this emergency going on, it was his wife and one of his children killed, and his second child also airlifted to a hospital in Florida. What is going on with that situation? How did that family become involved in any way in this shooting? King: They just happened to be over across the street visiting with the family. Chetry: The family, the grandfather, grandmother, uncle and aunt who were out on the porch? King: Right, right. Chetry: So, just an unfortunate circumstance. So, besides his family, you guys are investigating this, or your authorities are, as a random act? I mean, I know that this is going to be tough for you guys because these crime scenes are spread out over both towns, so many different locations. How are you tackling this? King: Well, we're very fortunate. We received a call from the governor this afternoon. And they have -- we've got the department of public safety here, ABI, ABC, FBI. We've got surrounding agencies that have come over to assist us. And that's how we're, you know, handling it. ABI is actually leading the investigation at this time. Chetry: And Mayor Melton, how's the community reacting to this news? I'm sure they are learning more details, and it just gets more horrific as you find out how many people lost their lives. Melton: It's still in shock. I think the community is handling it very well. But they're still in shock. We just feel here in our rural, Southern comfortable communities that things like this just don't happen. But unfortunately, they do. And that's the major topic of discussion, that we are not shielded. Being small doesn't keep you from the problems of the rest of the world. And it's just a matter of comforting each other and a lot of discussions, a lot of prayers for the family here in Samson. Chetry: Absolutely. Our prayers are with you guys, too. A real tough morning there. Mayors King and Melton, thanks so much for joining us this morning. King: Thank you. Melton: Thank you, ma'am. | Mayor says he coached gunman in T-ball, Little League .
"The whole community is still in shock," mayor says .
Killings show that even in small towns, "we are not shielded" | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "cbce525fff8406f3a6fcd3f3f39b2df938f3026d"} | 1,216 | 49 | 0.426936 | 1.375243 | 0.588838 | 2.690476 | 25.928571 | 0.833333 |
(CNN) -- Thierry Henry scored twice as Barcelona booked their place in the quarterfinals of the Champions League with a 5-2 second leg victory against Lyon at the Nou Camp. Lionel Messi, left, and Thierry Henry celebrate as Barcelona reach the last eight of the Champions League. Former winners Porto joined them at the next stage after their return leg against Atletico finished goalless in Lisbon -- the 2-2 draw in the first leg in Madrid sending them through on the away goals. Spain's Primera Liga leaders Barcelona strolled into a 4-0 first half lead on their way to a 6-3 aggregate success with Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto'o building on Henry's double. Jean Makoun pulled one back just before half-time and Juninho struck three minutes after the restart, but the French champions never looked like disturbing Barca's path to the March 20 draw. Lyon's hopes suffered another blow when Juninho was given his marching orders after picking up a second yellow card in time added on and Seydou Keita took full advantage by snatching another in the final seconds. Having conceded an away goal in a 1-1 draw in the first leg at the Stade Gerland, Lyon had to score to stand any chance of progressing. After a fairly even opening, a quickfire double from Henry dictated the outcome of the tie. After 25 minutes he latched onto a ball from Rafael Marquez, beating the offside trap to slide the ball under Hugo Lloris. Two minutes later Henry doubled the lead when he slid the ball in at the near post past the advancing Lloris. Messi showed his class in the 40th minute. The Argentina star collected the ball on the right touchline, before embarking on a mazy run past three Lyon defenders. He then exchanged a one-two with Eto'o, before firing a low shot home. Eto'o was desperate to get on the scoresheet himself as he stormed into the box from the left, only to see his shot saved by Lloris from point-blank range. Within a minute, though, he had made amends as he popped up in the box, side-stepped his marker and smashed the ball home. A minute from the break, Makoun made it 4-1 as he headed home Juninho's corner. And the former Brazil midfielder got on the scoresheet himself three minutes after the break following a cross from Cesar Delgado. Any thoughts of a comeback failed to materialise as Barca continued to create a raft of chances. As the game moved, into stoppage time, Juninho picked up a second booking for dissent and moments later Mali midfielder Keita made it five for Barca. | Barcelona beat Lyon 5-2 in second leg to reach Champions League last eight .
Thierry Henry on target twice as Spain's Barcelona progress 6-3 on aggregate .
Porto also through on away goals after goalless home leg against Atletico . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "4125e5aa3c28f28946cee47cb4790e1fc712f71c"} | 632 | 53 | 0.548267 | 1.272651 | 1.031545 | 1.595745 | 10.617021 | 0.87234 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A football team from southern Italy is hoping for entry into the Guinness World Records because all their players have the same surname, according to a media report. The entire squad of Team De Feo, an amateur side from the town of Serino, have "De Feo" as their surname -- as does the coach, doctor and club secretary and sponsors, British newspaper The Independent reported. The club's ground even sits on Via Raffaele De Feo. A tourism Web site for Serino shows that the mayor's name is Gaetano De Feo. According to The Independent, the team was established by former Serie A player, Maurizio De Feo, who says he founded the team in a bid for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records. The name De Feo is very common in the region. A Guinness World Records spokesman told CNN there did not appear to be any active categories that the team's identical surnames would fit in to -- but that new ideas were always welcomed. If the team was to submit a claim to Guinness World Records, the idea would be considered and a new category could potentially be created, the spokesman said. | Amateur football team in southern Italy all have same surname .
"Team De Feo" founded by former Serie A player Maurizio De Feo .
Team has ambitions to get into Guinness Book of World Records . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "c9b3fcee7876513b8bf122399dbcdc1e46cb89a6"} | 276 | 53 | 0.657008 | 1.75974 | 0.781896 | 2.575 | 5.625 | 0.875 |
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A football team from southern Italy is hoping for entry into the Guinness World Records because all their players have the same surname, according to a media report. The entire squad of Team De Feo, an amateur side from the town of Serino, have "De Feo" as their surname -- as does the coach, doctor and club secretary and sponsors, British newspaper The Independent reported. The club's ground even sits on Via Raffaele De Feo. A tourism Web site for Serino shows that the mayor's name is Gaetano De Feo. According to The Independent, the team was established by former Serie A player, Maurizio De Feo, who says he founded the team in a bid for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records. The name De Feo is very common in the region. A Guinness World Records spokesman told CNN there did not appear to be any active categories that the team's identical surnames would fit in to -- but that new ideas were always welcomed. If the team was to submit a claim to Guinness World Records, the idea would be considered and a new category could potentially be created, the spokesman said. | Amateur football team in southern Italy all have same surname .
"Team De Feo" founded by former Serie A player Maurizio De Feo .
Team has ambitions to get into Guinness Book of World Records . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "82a68bd672596d342ece8907e8bdf69c90760edf"} | 276 | 53 | 0.657008 | 1.75974 | 0.781896 | 2.575 | 5.625 | 0.875 |
(CNN) -- What do you do when your 10-year-old son wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, "There's a 'roo in my room!" Beat Ettlin wrestled a kangaroo out of his house near Canberra after it crashed through a window. If you're Beat Ettlin, you wrest the marsupial into a headlock, drag it down your hallway and toss it out your front door. Ettlin and his family were woken early Sunday when a 6-foot-tall kangaroo crashed through a window, landed on their bed and thrashed around their house in the suburb of Garran, south of the capital of Canberra, Australia. "At first, he (my husband) thought it was a lunatic ninja," said Ettlin's wife, Verity Beman. "It leaped through the window, this martial-arts kind of figure. It was very Jackie Chan." The family's one-story house is in a suburb that butts against a kangaroo reserve. About 2 a.m. Sunday, their dog began barking furiously. Possibly possums, they thought. The family had put up with possums scampering across their roof every night since they moved in three weeks ago. Moments later, the window was smashed and a black figure landed on their bed. Ettlin, after gathering his wits about him, exclaimed, "It's OK. It's only a kangaroo," Beman recalled. "I was cowered under the quilt, thinking, 'No, it's not OK,'" she said. The kangaroo jumped on top of the blanket that Beman and her 9-year-old daughter were hiding under. It then leaped onto the nightstand, punched holes in the furniture and left blood stains on the wall as it bounced into their son's room. "That's when his male instinct kicked in," Beman said of her husband. After putting the 90-pound creature in a choke hold, Ettlin kept it low to the ground and pulled it toward the front door. He knew that kangaroos carry their strength on their hind legs, Beman said. "He held it by one arm. He opened the front door with the other, then the screen door," she said. "It bounced across our veranda and bounced away." Ettlin is a chef, originally from the Swiss city of Stans. Beman thinks he would not have tackled the kangaroo so readily were he Australian. "They would be fully aware of the risk," she said. The house in shambles -- with blood and shattered glass everywhere -- Ettlin stood surveying the damage in his shredded underpants. Scratch marks ran down his leg, but otherwise he was fine. "I kept marveling at what he did," Beman said. "I called him my hero. My hero in Bonds undies." | Beat Ettlin wrestles with kangaroo that leapt through window into house .
Kangaroo jumped into son's room but Ettlin got it in a headlock .
Wife: "It leaped through the window, this martial-arts figure. It was very Jackie Chan" | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "8eb0d4fbd09250f931541ea361937c5114b1ae3f"} | 719 | 75 | 0.559053 | 1.89302 | 0.88057 | 4.22449 | 11.122449 | 0.877551 |
(CNN) -- Residents of Second Life, the online virtual environment, can do all kinds of things they can't in real life: fly, mute other voices, even transport themselves from one location (or "sim") to another. Real-life human anger even can spill over into Second Life, the online virtual world. But though they may be godlike online, they're still human in real life -- and like all humans, they can become victim to their emotions. "I have been in many situations over the past two years in Second Life where people have been rude, overly aggressive, bullying me by tracking me down using my profile and flaming [me] with words or grief," said Anoron Hanson, a Second Life regular, in an e-mail interview. Rekka Berchot, another Second Life citizen, says she believes that people act differently in SL than they do in real life, or "RL," as Second Lifers call it. "You don't use filters as much in Second Life," she said. "I find that there are things about yourself that come out in Second Life that [don't] in real life." If you are attacked in Second Life, she adds, there's little you can do besides file an abuse report; SL players can boot others off their sims, but the effect is generally temporary. Better, she says, is to control the other person through your own cleverness: freezing their avatar or muting their "voices." (Berchot added that "I've been known to use kung fu.") iReport.com: Reduction in nonverbal communication leads to misunderstandings . But, in general, what works best is to try to understand the reason for the other's behavior, says Hanson. "I believe one can try and assess their own behavior responsibly so when we encounter such individuals we are prepared for a response that will either calm the person or leave them disinterested and go about their business elsewhere," he said. "[I] smile or laugh and tell them how clever they are for doing what they did." He says Second Life, in general, is a good life: "Those who take the time to really find out how to live and thrive in SL safely and still have fun are the ones who will last the longest," he said. iReport.com: Jealousy and fantasy play out in a virtual world . He's philosophical about the game's occasional bad apples. "There is nothing you can do about the flaming. It is here to stay. You have to remember that a great deal of us online are often ill or restricted in some way in their real lives," he observed. "My point is, there is nothing you can do save to keep the rules in place and moderate the situation. It is a free country, just let the poor bastards vent their frustrations." | Second Life, the online environment, has its share of angry people .
At worst, players can be written up, but others try to understand them .
User: "There is nothing you can do save to keep the rules in place"
iReport.com: Share your stories from Second Life . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "fdcefba287a677f1f470f71be9cd28df3f7b0b60"} | 639 | 65 | 0.4839 | 1.480463 | 0.716752 | 4.050847 | 9.610169 | 0.762712 |
(CNN) -- A Texas woman accused of killing her toddler daughter and dumping the body in Galveston Bay has been found guilty of murder by a jury in Galveston, Texas. Kimberly Dawn Trenor received a life sentence without possibility of parole in the murder of her daughter. Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, showed no emotion as the verdict was read late Monday. Trenor had pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in the case, but pleaded not guilty to the capital murder charge. She received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The body of Trenor's daughter, Riley Ann Sawyers, was found in October 2007 in a large blue plastic container on an uninhabited island in Galveston Bay. Two-year-old Riley Ann's case drew national attention after a fisherman found her body. Authorities didn't know her identity, and police dubbed her "Baby Grace." After authorities distributed composite sketches of the girl nationwide, Sheryl Sawyers, the girl's paternal grandmother, contacted police from her Ohio home to say the drawing resembled her granddaughter. DNA testing confirmed the child's identity. According to an affidavit, Trenor told police Riley had been beaten and thrown across a room and that her head was held under water before she died on July 24, 2007. Another piece of evidence shown to the jury during the trial was a page of Trenor's journal where she talked of beating the child, according to CNN affiliate KTRK. "I just kept hitting her with the belt again and again. I don't know how long, but I remember her trying to get away and me knocking her back down," the journal said. Trenor's husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 25, also faces capital murder and evidence tampering charges, but is being tried separately. A court date has not been set in that case. | Body of Kimberly Dawn Trenor's daughter found on Galveston Bay island in 2007 .
Police dubbed girl "Baby Grace" before her identity was known .
Trenor wrote in journal about beating toddler .
Trenor's husband to face murder charges in separate trial . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "5796e888d880070b1aa6fc516b9e3bcfaa3ff8d3"} | 434 | 68 | 0.645262 | 1.686164 | 1.01331 | 1.48 | 7.02 | 0.84 |
SAMSON, Alabama (CNN) -- The man who killed 10 people, then himself, in a shooting rampage in southern Alabama had failed in his dreams both to become a U.S. Marine and a police officer, and was depressed and unhappy with his life, investigators said Thursday. The shooter, Michael McLendon, killed his mother before killing others. Michael McLendon, 28, fatally shot his mother in his hometown of Kinston on Tuesday before driving to nearby Samson and Geneva, killing nine more, then fatally shooting himself after a shootout with police. Authorities are calling it the deadliest single assault in recorded Alabama history. "He was going to go until he was stopped, by himself or someone else," said Col. Chris Murphy of the Alabama Department of Public Safety. "He had obviously planned to go out in grand style." McLendon left behind a letter, apparently after killing his mother, that described how he did so and saying that he planned to kill himself, according to Murphy. The letter "describes how McLendon harbored ill feelings toward family members due to a family dispute." McLendon -- a self-proclaimed survivalist who was known to train with the rifles he used in the shooting spree -- enlisted in the Marines in 1999, but was kicked out one month later for "fraudulent enlistment," Murphy said. He was hired as a police officer in 2003, but let go a month later for what Murphy called physical issues. The nearly hourlong assault ended 24 miles from where it began at Reliable Metal Products plant in Geneva, where McLendon had worked in 2003. "McLendon made statements of being depressed and was dissatisfied with his present position in life," Murphy said. "His dream was to become a Marine, and later a police officer. Both those dreams were unfulfilled." McLendon was armed with two assault rifles -- an SKS and a Bushmaster -- and two pistols, and a shotgun was found in his car. "At this time, we believe that he fired in excess of 200 rounds during the assaults," the Department of Public Safety said in a news release. McLendon had no known criminal record before carrying out the rampage, officials said. Coffee County district attorney Gary McAliley said neighbors and co-workers described McLendon as quiet and shy. Some neighbors complained that he was always shooting firearms behind his home, he said -- but feared only that McLendon would accidentally kill one of their cows. Watch how the shaken towns are trying to cope » . Co-workers at Kelley Foods, where he unexpectedly resigned last week, said they had a nickname for him -- Doughboy -- that he didn't like. "I don't think anybody could have anticipated this by looking at him and interacting with him," McAliley said. "But, certainly he had a volcano inside of him." McLendon called the Samson City Hall about 1 p.m. Tuesday and asked whether the city council would be meeting in the evening, Michelle Flanery, magistrate and billing clerk, told CNN Radio. Flanery said she replied that there was no meeting scheduled that day and that McLendon thanked her before hanging up. Authorities said McLendon also had a list of current and former co-workers, some whose names were accompanied by notes on ways he felt they'd wronged him. But the note was not a "hit list," as had been reported, and none of the people whose names were listed were attacked, they said. View images from the rampage » . Among the dead were the wife and toddler of Geneva County Sheriff's Deputy Josh Myers, who was involved in the standoff with McLendon before he realized his own loss. His 3-month-old daughter, Ella, was also wounded. She was rescued by a neighbor and released from a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, Thursday evening. The shootings rattled Samson and Geneva, neither of which has a population beyond 4,500 people, and sent shock waves outside the small towns affected. "This event formed the single deadliest crime recorded in Alabama," said Murphy of the Department of Public Safety. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley arrived in Geneva County on Wednesday afternoon, pledging support to the community and members of law enforcement. "I think it's a combination of just shock and disbelief," said Riley, a native of Ashland, Alabama, population 2,500, in east Alabama. "I live in a little small town about like this, and I know what it would be like in my community. It really is devastating to a community this size." Watch the governor respond to the rampage » . "This doesn't happen in small towns, and all of a sudden you begin to understand that you really do have the same problems in some of these small towns you have in other parts of the country." | NEW: Michael McLendon left behind note describing ill will he harbored toward family .
NEW: Shooter was going to continue "until he was stopped," investigator says .
McLendon killed 10 people in two towns before killing himself .
McLendon unhappy with failed efforts to become Marine, police officer, police say . | {"src": "cnn_dailymail-3.0.0_train", "id": "a398c64e6b826001238d2c60edd8ebb6dac61a09"} | 1,119 | 80 | 0.575119 | 1.761212 | 0.805102 | 1.622951 | 15.213115 | 0.770492 |
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