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(CNN)James Best, best known for his portrayal of bumbling sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on TV's "The Dukes of Hazzard," died Monday after a brief illness. He was 88. Best died in hospice in Hickory, North Carolina, of complications from pneumonia, said Steve Latshaw, a longtime friend and Hollywood colleague. Although he'd been a busy actor for decades in theater and in Hollywood, Best didn't become famous until 1979, when "The Dukes of Hazzard's" cornpone charms began beaming into millions of American homes almost every Friday night. For seven seasons, Best's Rosco P. Coltrane chased the moonshine-running Duke boys back and forth across the back roads of fictitious Hazzard County, Georgia, although his "hot pursuit" usually ended with him crashing his patrol car. Although Rosco was slow-witted and corrupt, Best gave him a childlike enthusiasm that got laughs and made him endearing. His character became known for his distinctive "kew-kew-kew" chuckle and for goofy catchphrases such as "cuff 'em and stuff 'em!" upon making an arrest. Among the most popular shows on TV in the early '80s, "The Dukes of Hazzard" ran until 1985 and spawned TV movies, an animated series and video games. Several of Best's "Hazzard" co-stars paid tribute to the late actor on social media. "I laughed and learned more from Jimmie in one hour than from anyone else in a whole year," co-star John Schneider, who played Bo Duke, said on Twitter. "Give Uncle Jesse my love when you see him dear friend." "Jimmy Best was the most constantly creative person I have ever known," said Ben Jones, who played mechanic Cooter on the show, in a Facebook post. "Every minute of his long life was spent acting, writing, producing, painting, teaching, fishing, or involved in another of his life's many passions." Born Jewel Guy on July 26, 1926, in Powderly, Kentucky, Best was orphaned at 3 and adopted by Armen and Essa Best, who renamed him James and raised him in rural Indiana. Best served in the Army during World War II before launching his acting career. In the 1950s and 1960s, he accumulated scores of credits, playing a range of colorful supporting characters in such TV shows as "The Twilight Zone," "Bonanza," "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Gunsmoke." He later appeared in a handful of Burt Reynolds' movies, including "Hooper" and "The End." But Best will always be best known for his "Hazzard" role, which lives on in reruns. "Jimmie was my teacher, mentor, close friend and collaborator for 26 years," Latshaw said. "I directed two of his feature films, including the recent 'Return of the Killer Shrews,' a sequel he co-wrote and was quite proud of as he had made the first one more than 50 years earlier." People we've lost in 2015 . CNN's Stella Chan contributed to this story.

James Best, who played the sheriff on "The Dukes of Hazzard," died Monday at 88 . "Hazzard" ran from 1979 to 1985 and was among the most popular shows on TV .

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(CNN)The attorney for a suburban New York cardiologist charged in what authorities say was a failed scheme to have another physician hurt or killed is calling the allegations against his client "completely unsubstantiated." Appearing Saturday morning on CNN's "New Day," Randy Zelin defended his client, Dr. Anthony Moschetto, who faces criminal solicitation, conspiracy, burglary, arson, criminal prescription sale and weapons charges in connection to what prosecutors called a plot to take out a rival doctor on Long Island. "None of anything in this case has any evidentiary value," Zelin told CNN's Christi Paul. "It doesn't matter what anyone says, he is presumed to be innocent." Moschetto,54, pleaded not guilty to all charges Wednesday. He was released after posting $2 million bond and surrendering his passport. Zelin said that his next move is to get Dr. Moshetto back to work. "He's got patients to see. This man, while he was in a detention cell, the only thing that he cared about were his patients. And amazingly, his patients were flooding the office with calls, making sure that he was OK," Zelin said. Two other men -- identified as James Chmela, 43, and James Kalamaras, 41 -- were named as accomplices, according to prosecutors. They pleaded not guilty in Nassau County District Court, according to authorities. Both were released on bail. A requests for comment from an attorney representing Chmela was not returned. It's unclear whether Kalamaras has retained an attorney. Police officers allegedly discovered approximately 100 weapons at Moschetto's home, including hand grenades, high-capacity magazines and knives. Many of the weapons were found in a hidden room behind a switch-activated bookshelf, according to prosecutors. The investigation began back in December, when undercover officers began buying heroin and oxycodone pills from Moschetto in what was initially a routine investigation into the sale of prescription drugs, officials said. During the course of the undercover operation, however, Moschetto also sold the officers two semiautomatic assault weapons as well as ammunition, prosecutors said. Moschetto allegedly told officers during one buy that he needed dynamite to "blow up a building." He later said he no longer needed the dynamite because a friend was setting fire to the building instead. Kalamaras and Chmela are believed to have taken part in the arson, according to prosecutors. "The fire damaged but did not destroy the office of another cardiologist whose relationship with Dr. Moschetto had soured due to a professional dispute," according to the statement from the district attorney's office. Moschetto allegedly gave an informant and undercover detective blank prescriptions and cash for the assault and killing of the fellow cardiologist, according to prosecutors. He also requested that the rival's wife be assaulted if she happened to be present, authorities said. "He was willing to pay $5,000 to have him beaten and put in a hospital for a few months, and then he said he would pay $20,000 to have him killed," said Assistant District Attorney Anne Donnelly, according to CNN affiliate WCBS.

A lawyer for Dr. Anthony Moschetto says the charges against him are baseless . Moschetto, 54, was arrested for selling drugs and weapons, prosecutors say . Authorities allege Moschetto hired accomplices to burn down the practice of former associate .

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(CNN)President Barack Obama took part in a roundtable discussion this week on climate change, refocusing on the issue from a public health vantage point. After the event at Washington's Howard University on Tuesday, Obama sat down with me for a one-on-one interview. I asked him about the science behind climate change and public health and the message he wants the average American to take away, as well as how enforceable his action plan is. Here are five things I learned: . The President enrolled at Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1979 (he transferred to Columbia University his junior year). While in L.A., he said, the air was so bad that it prevented him from running outside. He remembers the air quality alerts and how people with respiratory problems had to stay inside. He credits the Clean Air Act with making Americans "a lot" healthier, in addition to being able to "see the mountains in the background because they aren't covered in smog." Obama also said the instances of asthma and other respiratory diseases went down after these measures were taken. Peer-reviewed Environmental Protection Agency studies say that the Clean Air Act and subsequent amendments have reduced early deaths associated with exposure to ambient fine particle pollution and ozone, and reduced illnesses such as chronic bronchitis and acute myocardial infarction. The EPA estimates that, between 1970 and 2010, the act and its amendments prevented 365,000 early deaths from particulate matter alone. "No challenge poses more of a public threat than climate change," the President told me. When I asked about the strength of the science supporting the direct relationship between climate change and public health, he said, "We know as temperatures rise, insect-borne diseases potentially start shifting up. We know, in a very straight-forward fashion, that heatstroke and other heat-related illnesses and deaths potentially increase, and so what we're doing here is to make sure that in addition to public awareness around the potential for big storms like Hurricane Sandy or big wildfires or droughts, that people recognize there's a very personal, potential impact in climate change, and the good news is we can do something about it." In many ways, Obama is attempting to reframe the discussion around climate change as a public health issue that affects all of us, while conceding that we don't fully understand the magnitude of the correlation between rising temperatures and impact on human health. When asked what the average American can do about all this, the President encouraged ordinary citizens, doctors and nurses to start putting some pressure on elected officials "to try and make something happen to reduce the impacts of climate change." He also issued a presidential proclamation declaring April 6-12 as National Public Health Week "to better understand, communicate and reduce the health impacts of climate change on our communities." The average American can also do their part to reduce their own carbon footprint, including: . • Change your incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent lights. One CFL can reduce up to 1,300 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution during its lifetime. If every house in the U.S. switched its bulbs, we could reduce the electricity spent on lighting by half. • Unplug your gadgets and chargers when not in use. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, this practice can save $100 a year on your energy bill. • Use a laptop instead of a desktop. Laptops are designed to be energy-efficient, because battery life is a major factor in their design. According to Energy Star, a laptop can be up to 80% more energy-efficient than a desktop. • Filter your own water. Beyond the environmental toll of plastic waste, consider just how far your water was transported before you bought it at the grocery store. • Adjust your curtains and thermostats. If you keep your house 2 degrees warmer in the summer and 2 degrees colder in the winter, you can save big bucks on your energy bill. The Department of Energy estimates you can save up to 15% on your bill by turning off your thermostat when you're not at home. Obama did not appear particularly concerned about the current Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act. He said he believes the statute is "clear and straightforward." He said, "I am not anticipating the Supreme Court would make such a bad decision." At issue is the 32 states that did not set up their own health care exchanges and left it to the federal government to do so. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit contend that the language of the Affordable Care Act does not allow for tax subsidies in those states (without state-based exchanges), possibly creating a situation, for example, in which people in Massachusetts would receive a tax credit, but people living in Texas would not. Obama did tell me that if the Supreme Court challenge is upheld, however, there is no Plan B. "Millions of people would lose their health insurance. They would no longer be able to afford the health insurance that's being provided out there." Obama went on to say, "I think this is the last gasp of folks who have been fighting against [the Affordable Care Act] for ideological reasons." He told me that he "gets letters every day from people who say, 'you know what, the Affordable Care Act saved my life or saved my kid's life because I got insurance.' 'I thought I was healthy; turns out I had a tumor, but because I went and got a checkup, it was removed in time, and I'm now cancer-free.' " He added, "I think stories like that will be factored in when the Supreme Court takes a look at this case." CNN's Ben Tinker contributed to this report.

"No challenge poses more of a public threat than climate change," the President says . He credits the Clean Air Act with making Americans "a lot" healthier .

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Moscow (CNN)A Russian TV channel aired Hillary Clinton's first campaign video with a rating stamp that means it's for mature audiences, because of fears it might run afoul of the country's anti-gay propaganda law. A clip of the video, which features a gay couple holding hands, got the 18+ rating from the independent TV Rain channel in Russia on Monday. The channel told CNN that it didn't want to break the controversial law, which bans "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations around minors" and bars public discussion of gay rights and relationships within earshot of children. "There are no legal precedents for this law, so we just don't know what comes under this law and (what) doesn't," a TV Rain spokesperson told CNN. "Therefore, fearing to break the law -- especially given the high attention to TV Rain from the supervising authorities -- we decided to put a marker (on the video)." Clinton's video was released over the weekend to announce the start of her 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. It features about five seconds of two men holding hands. One of the men says, "I'm getting married this summer to someone I really care about." The former senator and first lady first declared her support for same-sex marriage in early 2013, saying that "gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights." Russia's controversial law caused an international outcry after it was passed by the Russian Parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin in July 2013. Human Rights Watch described the anti-gay propaganda law as "a profoundly discriminatory and dangerous bill that is bound to worsen homophobia in Russia." Rights campaigners called for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and a number of bars around the world stopped serving Russian vodka in protest. U.S. President Barack Obama -- Clinton's former boss -- said at the time that he found the legislation offensive. "I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgendered persons in ways that intimidate them or harmful to them," Obama told Jay Leno in 2013. Putin defended the law, noting that unlike other countries, Russia decriminalized homosexual relationships (in 1993). "We don't outlaw anything and don't nab anyone," he said before the 2014 Games. "That's why you can feel safe and free here," he added, "but please leave our children in peace." The rights group ILGA-Europe said in a May 2014 report that Russia was the worst place in Europe (out of 49 countries) for LGBTI people to live. READ MORE: Social media react to Hillary Clinton logo .

Presidential hopeful's video, featuring gay couple, gets mature rating in Russia . Russian TV channel feared airing it would break the country's anti-gay propaganda law . Clinton announced her support for same-sex marriage in 2013 .

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(CNN)Marco Rubio is all in. The Republican senator from Florida has announced that he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, running on an optimistic message that he embodies the promise of the American Dream. With his youthful energy and Hispanic roots, it's tempting to see Rubio as the new blood that the GOP needs in order to compete against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Yet Rubio has been his own worst enemy on what could have been his two signature issues: immigration reform and Cuba relations. He holds little appeal to Latino voters. And unless he can offer new ideas, his climb to the Republican nomination will be steep. Back in 2013, Rubio was a member of the Senate "Gang of 8" that crafted a bipartisan proposal for comprehensive reform, including a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. He later distanced himself from the bill after it ran into resistance from House Republicans, and now says he favors a piecemeal approach, starting with securing the border. His retreat on immigration means that Rubio has missed an opportunity to set himself apart from most of the presumptive Republican presidential candidates. That's a shame, for this issue was supposed to be his calling card to Latino voters. Instead, Rubio has embraced a typical conservative approach to immigration. He believes that President Obama's Deferred Action program, offering deportation relief to young immigrants, should be ended. He has stated that the President's executive action on immigration, on hold pending a circuit court review, sets a "horrifying precedent." Meanwhile, both the Deferred Action program and President Obama's executive action on immigration are overwhelmingly favored by Hispanics. No wonder the research firm Latino Decisions reports that, "We find no evidence that Rubio's candidacy will draw significant Latino support for his candidacy or for his party more generally." So, if Rubio is counting on his ethnicity and personal history as the son of immigrants to win over fellow Hispanics, he is mistaken. At a private breakfast Monday for supporters, Rubio described running against "one candidate in the race who's from yesterday, and one who wants to take us back to yesterday." But when it comes to Cuba policy, Rubio himself seems firmly stuck in the past. Over the weekend, he called the recent thaw in relations between the two countries ridiculous. He has warned that Cuba is taking advantage of the United States. Here, he is an increasingly lonely voice. Most Americans support better relations with Cuba, as do a majority of Cuban-Americans. By clinging to the notion that isolating Cuba is better than engaging with the communist country, Rubio has marginalized himself on an issue where he could have provided insight and leadership. Immigration and Cuba policy aside, Rubio's political philosophy will be a tough sell to Hispanics. He is a fierce opponent of "Obamacare" and wants the law repealed. However, the Affordable Care Act has led to a 12.3% drop in the Hispanic uninsured rate, making Latinos the demographic with the largest gain in insurance, thanks to the law. (In fact, Rubio signed his own family up for "Obamacare" on the Washington exchange, taking advantage of a generous federal subsidy offered to lawmakers.) Rubio favors smaller government, while Latinos are more likely than the general public to say they favor a bigger government that provides more services over a small government that provides less. And though Rubio doubts that climate change is caused by humans, The New York Times has noted that Latinos view global warming as a problem and favor government action on the issue. Sure, Rubio is young and charismatic. But his work on the failed immigration bill notwithstanding, Rubio has a significant lack of accomplishments to show for his five years in the senate. In February, he was reported as topping the list of absentee lawmakers by the website Politico. Another Rubio weakness is his lack of bold policy proposals. Consider that his fellow contender for the GOP presidential nomination, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, has been willing to present new ideas to the Republican base, such as reforming the criminal justice system and legalizing medical marijuana. Or that another GOP candidate for president, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is entirely comfortable with his image as a conservative firebrand. By comparison, Rubio seems cautious and ill-suited to the task of rousing Republican voters. With his early leap into the 2016 race, Marco Rubio is positioning himself as the next generation of GOP leadership. Unfortunately, a fresh face on stale ideas is not a winning combination -- not for Rubio, and not for Latino voters.

Raul Reyes: In seeking Latino vote, Marco Rubio his own worst enemy on two key issues: immigration reform, Cuba relations . He says on health care, climate change and other issues, he breaks from Latinos' positions. Polls show they don't favor him .

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(CNN)SPOILER ALERT! It's not just women getting cloned. That was the big twist at the end of "Orphan Black's" second season. The kickoff to the new season leads the list of six things to watch in the week ahead. 1. "Orphan Black," 9 p.m. ET, Saturday, April 18, BBC America . The cloning cult sci-fi series remains one of the most critically acclaimed shows on TV, thanks in large part to the performance of Tatiana Maslany, who has taken on at least six roles on the show so far, including a newly introduced transgender clone. Maslany told reporters this week that we can expect even more impressive scenes with multiple clones. "We like to push the boundaries of what we're able to do and the limits of those clone scenes," she said. "So, yes, you'll definitely see more complex clone work this season and that's just because we're getting more comfortable with the technology and we're excited by getting to sort of further complicate things." And the introduction of a group of male clones will certainly increase the suspense. "There definitely is a shift towards the Castor clones that we get to explore them a little bit more," she said. The fans of the show, dubbed the "Clone Club" have a lot to look forward to when the show premieres on Saturday the 18th, and Maslany is blown away by the response to the series so far. "We've always been really humbled and really inspired by our fans and by their dedication to the show and their knowledge of the show, and just how it changes their own lives. It's incredible." 2. "Turn: Washington's Spies," 9 p.m. ET, Monday, AMC . The series about spies in the early days of the Revolutionary War returns with a new subtitle, "Washington's Spies," and a new Monday night time slot. Series star Jamie Bell told CNN what we can expect in the second season. "This year we have a lot more battles; we have the journey of [George] Washington and we're getting under his skin a little bit as well. We also introduce new characters like Benedict Arnold, a very infamous character in American history." Bell hopes the series might bring more recognition to the Culper spy ring and everything it did. "I think there should be a monument to all of the Culper ring somewhere. I was amazed that there is nothing [in Washington] about these people who did something extraordinary." 3. "Game of Thrones," 9 p.m. ET, Sunday, HBO . The world of Westeros returns for a fifth season in one of the biggest season premieres of the year. Click here for more on what to expect. 4. "Justified," 10 p.m. ET, Tuesday, FX . Timothy Olyphant's tour de force performance as Raylan Givens comes to an end Tuesday night, as the modern-day Western airs its season finale. We'll have to see how his final showdown with Boyd Crowder goes. 5. "Veep," 10:30 ET, Sunday, HBO . Hugh Laurie joins the cast and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is now the president of the United States on HBO's hit comedy. 6. "Nurse Jackie," 9 p.m. ET, Sunday, Showtime . The final season of Showtime's long-running melodrama begins.

Critically acclaimed series "Orphan Black" returns . "Turn: Washington's Spies" starts a second season . "Game of Thrones" is back for season five .

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(CNN)Emergency operators get lots of crazy calls, but few start like this. Caller: "Hello, I'm trapped in this plane and I called my job, but I'm in this plane." Operator: "You're where?" Caller: "I'm inside a plane and I feel like it's up moving in the air. Flight 448 can you please tell somebody (to) stop it." The frantic 911 call came just as the Alaska Airlines flight had taken off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Monday afternoon. The caller was a ramp agent who fell asleep in the plane's cargo hold. The cell phone call soon broke up, but the man was making himself known in other ways as the crew and passengers reported unusual banging from the belly of the Boeing 737. The pilot radioed air traffic control and said he would make an emergency landing. "There could be a person in there so we're going to come back around," he told air traffic control. The ramp agent who took the untimely nap and caused all the fuss is an employee of Menzies Aviation, a contractor for Alaska Airlines that handles loading the luggage. He'll no longer have the option of dozing aboard one of the airline's planes. "The Menzies employee has been permanently banned from working on Alaska Airlines planes," said Bobbie Egan, a spokeswoman for the airline. Flight 448, which was on its way to Los Angeles, only spent 14 minutes in the air. Other than being scared, the agent never was in any real danger. The cargo hold is pressurized and temperature controlled, the airline said. The passengers knew something wasn't right, almost as soon as the plane took off. "All of a sudden we heard all this pounding underneath the plane and we thought there was something wrong with the landing gear," Robert Higgins told CNN affiliate KABC. Not everyone heard the banging, but it was soon clear this wasn't a normal flight. "We just took off for L.A. regular and then ... about five minutes into the flight the captain came on and said we were going back and we'd land within five to seven minutes, and we did," passenger Marty Collins told affiliate KOMO. "When we landed was when all the trucks and the police and the fire trucks surrounded the plane." "I think it's scary and really unsafe, too," Chelsie Nieto told affiliate KCPQ. "Because what if it's someone who could have been a terrorist?" The employee started work at 5 a.m. and his shift was scheduled to end at 2:30 p.m., just before the flight departed. The agent was off the two days prior to the incident and had taken a lunch break and a break in the afternoon before making his way into the cargo hold, according to a source familiar with the investigation. The man had been on a four-person team loading baggage onto the flight. "During a pre-departure huddle, the team lead noticed the employee was missing. The team lead called into the cargo hold for the employee and called and texted the employee's cell phone, but did not receive an answer. His co-workers believed he finished his shift and went home," the airline's blog said. It's believed he was hidden by luggage, making it difficult for the rest of his team to see him, the source said. All ramp employees have security badges, and undergo full criminal background checks before being hired, according to the airline. After the delay, the flight with 170 passengers and six crew members on board made it to Los Angeles a couple of hours late. CNN's Dave Alsup, Joshua Gaynor and Greg Morrison contributed to this report.

The ramp agent fell asleep in the plane's cargo hold . He can no longer work on Alaska Airlines flights .

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(CNN)Mullah Mohammed Omar is "still the leader" of the Taliban's self-declared Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. That appears to be the primary message of a biography, just published by the Taliban, of the reclusive militant who is credited with founding the group in the early 1990s. The Taliban's "Cultural Commission" released the 11-page document in several different translations on the movement's website, ostensibly to commemorate the 19th anniversary of an April 4, 1996, meeting in Afghanistan's Kandahar province when an assembly of Afghans swore allegiance to Omar. Several Afghan observers say the biography is aimed at dispelling rumors of Omar's demise. "There have been a lot of rumors lately about him. Some people are saying that he is not alive," said Sayyed Muhammad Akbar Agha, a former Taliban insider who has written an autobiography about his days with the movement. "I think the Taliban thought it was an important time to release his biography to give assurances that he is alive and present," Agha told CNN in a telephone interview. Bergen: Why U.S. must stay in Afghanistan past 2016 . The biography also appears to be an attempt to remind the world of the Afghan's jihadi leadership credentials, at a time when ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has declared himself "caliph" of the world's Muslims. "The Taliban has a huge leadership problem at a critical political moment," said Graeme Smith, a Kabul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group. "Another caliph has announced himself to the world, and the Taliban has been silent. And that is getting noticed by militants across South Asia." Omar was famously camera-shy during the Taliban's six-year rule over most of Afghanistan. To this day, there are only a handful of photographs of the one-eyed leader. "He never was actively involved in any of these propaganda campaigns. No publicity. No interviews. He never used the Internet," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist and expert on Afghanistan who once interviewed Osama bin Laden. Omar then all but disappeared after a U.S.-led bombing campaign routed the Taliban from Kabul in 2001. Washington has offered a $10 million reward for his capture. The Taliban have released written statements purportedly made by the leader-in-hiding. But years without any video or audio recordings of the fugitive have led to growing speculation that Omar may have died. The biography challenges rumors of Omar's death by offering a description of his daily work schedule, which begins with prayers, study of the Quran, and then delivering "orders in a specific way to his Jihadi commanders." The publication also seeks to fill in some of the gaps about the militant's early years, including the detail that his "preferred weapon of choice" was the RPG-7, a rocket-propelled grenade. According to the biography, Omar was born in 1960 in a village called Chah-i-Himmat in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. His father, a "well-known and respected erudite and social figure," died only five years later, apparently of natural causes. Omar studied at a religious school, or madrassa, run by his uncle. The rise of the Communist Party in Afghanistan, and the subsequent 1979 Soviet invasion, interrupted the young man's studies and propelled him into the arms of the armed Afghan opposition known as the mujahedeen. For the next decade, Omar commanded rebel groups "against the invading Russians and their internal communist puppets," according to the biography. Along the way, he was wounded a number of times and was blinded in his right eye. In one battle, the biography claims, Omar and a fighter named Mullah Biradar Akhund destroyed four Soviet tanks, even though they were armed with only four RPG rounds. The Taliban biography makes no mention of the fact that the U.S., allied with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, helped arm and bankroll the mujahedeen until the Soviet army withdrew in defeat in 1989. Afghan historians have documented the rapid rise of the Taliban in the chaotic years after the communist government in Kabul collapsed in 1992. The movement of warriors who identified themselves as religious scholars emerged to bring order to a country being ripped apart by rival mujahedeen warlords who battled one another for power. The Taliban biography says that Omar and his compatriots "launched their struggle and fight against corruption and anarchy" after an initial meeting in Kandahar in June 1994. Two years later, the Taliban captured Kabul and began imposing its austere interpretation of Islamic law on the rest of the country. While the document denounces the Taliban's post-9/11 overthrow at the hands of a U.S.-backed coalition of rival Afghan fighters, it makes no mention of the Taliban's alliance with bin Laden and al Qaeda. During a decade in exile, the Saudi-born bin Laden continued to release periodic video and audio statements until he was killed by U.S. raid on his hideout in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in 2011. Though Taliban militants have continued to battle the U.S.-backed government across Afghanistan, Omar has not been seen or heard from in years. The movement claims he continues to oversee a Taliban leadership council, judiciary and nine executive commissions, as well as military commanders who operate in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan. Exclusive: ISIS 'recruits Afghans' in chilling video . CNN's Masoud Popalzai contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Mullah Omar, the reclusive founder of the Afghan Taliban, is still in charge, a new biography claims . An ex-Taliban insider says there have been rumors that the one-eyed militant is dead .

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(CNN)Wanted: film director, must be eager to shoot footage of golden lassos and invisible jets. CNN confirms that Michelle MacLaren is leaving the upcoming "Wonder Woman" movie (The Hollywood Reporter first broke the story). MacLaren was announced as director of the movie in November. CNN obtained a statement from Warner Bros. Pictures that says, "Given creative differences, Warner Bros. and Michelle MacLaren have decided not to move forward with plans to develop and direct 'Wonder Woman' together." (CNN and Warner Bros. Pictures are both owned by Time Warner.) The movie, starring Gal Gadot in the title role of the Amazon princess, is still set for release on June 23, 2017. It's the first theatrical movie centering around the most popular female superhero. Gadot will appear beforehand in "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice," due out March 25, 2016. In the meantime, Warner will need to find someone new for the director's chair.

Michelle MacLaren is no longer set to direct the first "Wonder Woman" theatrical movie . MacLaren left the project over "creative differences" Movie is currently set for 2017 .

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London (CNN)British police investigating a spectacular heist in the heart of London's jewelry district said Friday they knew a burglar alarm went off but didn't respond. Southern Monitoring Alarm Company called the Metropolitan Police Service, also known as Scotland Yard, at 12:21 a.m. April 3 to report that the burglar alarm had been activated at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd., MPS said in a prepared statement. "The call was recorded and transferred to the police's CAD (computer-aided dispatch) system," the statement said. "A grade was applied to the call that meant that no police response was deemed to be required. We are now investigating why this grade was applied to the call. This investigation is being carried out locally. "It is too early to say if the handling of the call would have had an impact on the outcome of the incident." The theft was so big that police haven't come up with a value for what was stolen. Over the four-day Easter holiday, thieves broke into the vault of Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd. and might have been able to take as long as four days to rifle through the boxes. A former police official in London has speculated that the loss could run to £200 million, or $300 million, in a remark widely reported by news media. Numerous British news organizations put the value of the loss in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Detective Chief Inspector Paul Johnson of the London Metropolitan Police Flying Squad said police were still identifying the owners of ransacked safe deposit boxes and trying to contact them to learn what had been lost. The British tabloid The Daily Mirror claimed Friday to have obtained closed-circuit TV footage that captured the robbery being carried out. The video showed people inside the building dressed like utility workers with their faces covered. They carried large bags, what looked like drill equipment and other tools, then exited with trash bins. Toward the end of the video, a white van can be seen on a street during daytime with individuals loading back their gear and the trash bins. British police told CNN they have not released any video of the heist. When asked about the video published by the Daily Mirror, police said they could not confirm that it was footage from the Hatton Garden robbery and that officers have not seen that particular video. The Daily Mirror published time-stamped images it said showed that the thieves had been -- as was feared -- in the vault for days. The Mirror's time stamps, which CNN has not been able to independently verify, show employees locking up for the weekend at 9:19 p.m. on Thursday. If the footage, and its interpretation by the newspaper are correct, at least six people were involved in the heist . Just four minutes later, the first of the thieves, nicknamed "Mr. Ginger" by the newspaper for his red hair, appears in the building holding a black bag. He goes downstairs toward the vault. At 9:27 p.m., a street camera shows a white Ford Transit van pulling up to an alley beside the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit building. Men are seen dragging trash bins down the alley before the van drives away, leaving the men behind. Inside the building, at 9:30p.m., the camera records a thief nicknamed "The Gent" for his natty clothing -- though he also wears a hard-hat and a high-visibility jacket labeled "Gas" on the back. A minute later, "Mr. Strong" appears, wearing a builder's hat and carrying steel supports, which the newspaper speculates could have been used to support the diamond-tipped drill used to smash through the wall of the vault. At 9:36 p.m., Mr. Strong and a thief nicknamed Mr. Montana for the logo on his hooded sweatshirt roll in trash bins, one of which might have contained, according the Mirror, the 77-pound drill that bored through the reinforced seven-foot concrete wall to reach the vault. It is unclear, but the thieves may have spent the night in the basement in or near the vault. At any rate, according to the Daily Mirror, no more activity is seen above ground until Friday morning, shortly before 8:00. The white van returns, is loaded in two minutes, and drives off again. On Saturday evening, Mr. Ginger returns, two days after he was first seen. The newspaper says is wearing latex gloves and carrying a black sack. He goes downstairs toward the vault. Saturday evening also marked the first appearance of the Tall Man, who helped carry some of the loot out of the building. Early Sunday, Mr Ginger, the Tall Man and a robber nicknamed the Old Man are seen to be active. The Tall Man and the Old Man struggle to move a bin before they drag it outside. The Old Man leans on the bin, struggling for breath, and reveals the side of his face to the camera. A white van arrives by the alley and the men start loading equipment on it, including several trash bins. Three men get into the white van and, at 6:44 a.m. they are gone. The heist would not be reported to police for two more days, on Tuesday morning when employees of the company arrived for work. Police said Thursday there was no sign of forced entry. Johnson said the thieves appeared to have gained access to the vault through the shaft of an elevator that is used by several businesses in the building. The thieves disabled the elevator on the second floor of the building -- which would be called the third floor in the United States -- then climbed down the elevator shaft into the basement, he said. Once there, he said, they used a drill to bore through a 6-foot-thick wall and gain access to the vault where the safe deposit boxes were. People with knowledge of the area have speculated that cash and jewels were probably taken. Some jewelry businesses reportedly stored some of their jewels in the boxes rather than leaving it in their stores over the holiday weekend. Johnson said the scene in the vault remained chaotic as police continued their forensic examination. He said the floor was covered with dust and littered with safe deposit boxes and power tools. WATCH: Top five jewelry heists . Johnson called the crime sophisticated and said there were a limited number of people in the United Kingdom capable of pulling it off. He said he had no idea whether the thieves were still in the country. Although there was no sign of forced entry to the building, the detective said, "whether that involves inside knowledge will form part of the investigation." Hatton Garden is a storied area in London and the heart of the city's diamond trade. The area's promotional website says it is home to "the largest and most concentrated cluster of jewellery retailers in the UK" and has been for quite some time. "History tells us that the old City of London had certain streets -- or quarters -- dedicated to specific types of business," the website says. "The Hatton Garden area has been the epicentre of London's jewellery trade since medieval times. "Today, it maintains its international reputation as the centre of London's diamond trade. It is one of the finest and most renowned jewellery locations in the world." How was $4.8 million in gold swiped from a North Carolina highway? The website of Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd. says the company was founded in 1954 and offers a "secure and cost-effective solution to store and protect important and irreplaceable personal belongings."

British tabloid releases video it says shows the robbery being carried out . British police say they didn't respond to a burglar alarm in jewelry district . Police give no value of the amount taken in the heist in London's jewelry district .

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(CNN)The Baltimore mother who slapped her son several times and pulled him out of a protest told CNN on Wednesday she wasn't concerned that she might be embarrassing her son. "Not at all," Toya Graham told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360˚" in an interview that aired Wednesday night. "He was embarrassing himself by wearing that mask and that hoodie and doing what he was doing." The video of Graham yanking her son, Michael Singleton, and slapping him with a right hand as CNN affiliate WMAR recorded has led to the Internet calling Graham #motheroftheyear. Many people have praised the unemployed, single mother of six for going to the Mondawmin Mall and getting her son away from the escalating violence. Graham told Cooper that she saw her son with a brick in his hand, and she lost control of her emotions and told him to drop it. Wednesday night: Across United States, protests in support of Baltimore demonstrators . "I did (get emotional). You know, once he threw that rock down I said, 'You weren't brought up like this,' " Graham said. He's not a perfect child, but he's also not a thug, she said. The 16-year-old boy said he understood that his mother was there looking out for him. "She didn't want me to get in trouble (with the) law. She didn't want me to be like another Freddie Gray," he said, referring to the 25-year-old man who died of a severe spinal injury after being arrested by Baltimore police. Gray's death has sparked daily protests over police brutality. There have also been riots and looting that prompted the city to put a curfew into effect. Graham said her son told her the night before the violence at the mall that something was up. She told him then and the next morning not to go. He swore to her he wouldn't. Her motherly sense kicked in when she heard school had closed early and the mall was shutting down, too. She went to the mall and focused on the teens who were tossing rocks and bricks. There he was, in sweatpants she recognized. They made eye contact. He had a brick in his hand, and that set her off. Wednesday night: Marchers back in the streets of Baltimore . "I was so angry with him that he had made a decision to do some harm to the police officers," she said. She yelled at him to put the brick down. Singleton said he had seen her, but it didn't make sense that his mother would be there. But when he heard her voice, he realized it really was his mom -- and he was in big trouble. Then the camera captured her memorable smackdown. "It was just World War III from right there," he said, showing some humor about the incident. Graham noticed the TV crew but didn't think anything of it. And she didn't care. "I wasn't there to be recorded. I was there to get my child," she said. Tameka Brown, one of Graham's five daughters, told CNN on Tuesday it wasn't that hard for her mom to spot her 16-year-old half-brother. "She knows her son and picked him out. Even with the mask on, she knew," Brown said. Brown said her mother is always looking out for her children. "She has always been tough and knows where we are at," Brown said. Graham said she tries to steer her son away from potential trouble and troublemakers. "As long as I have breath in my body I will always try to do right by Michael and show him what's going on out in society doesn't have to be you," she told CNN. Her son said that once they got home from the mall he understood why she pulled him out of the crowd. "I was embarrassed a little bit, until she just started talking to me when we got home," he said. "(She was) just telling me she did it because she cared about me. And it wasn't to embarrass me, but because she cared." CNN's Elise Miller and AnneClaire Stapleton contributed to this report. Watch Anderson Cooper 360° weeknights 8pm ET. For the latest from AC360° click here.

Video of Toya Graham going to a protest and forcefully removing her son went viral, drew a lot of praise . The single mother of six tells CNN her son was scolded that he wasn't brought up that way . Michael Singleton says he knows his mom was trying to protect him .

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(CNN)Ever had a headache so big, you felt like drilling a hole in your head to let the pain out? In Neolithic times trepanation -- or drilling a hole into the skull -- was thought to be a cure for everything from epilepsy to migraines. It could even have been a form of emergency surgery for battle wounds. But while there is still conjecture about the real reasons behind the mysterious procedure, what is known is that the implement often used to carry out the primitive surgery was made from one of the sharpest substances found in nature -- obsidian. Obsidian -- a type of volcanic glass -- can produce cutting edges many times finer than even the best steel scalpels. At 30 angstroms -- a unit of measurement equal to one hundred millionth of a centimeter -- an obsidian scalpel can rival diamond in the fineness of its edge. When you consider that most household razor blades are 300-600 angstroms, obsidian can still cut it with the sharpest materials nano-technology can produce. Even today, a small number of surgeons are using an ancient technology to carry out fine incisions that they say heal with minimal scarring. Dr. Lee Green, professor and chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta, says he routinely uses obsidian blades. "The biggest advantage with obsidian is that it is the sharpest edge there is, it causes very little trauma to tissue, it heals faster and more importantly it heals with less scarring," he said. "It makes for the best cosmetic outcome." He explained that steel scalpels at a microscopic level have a rough cutting edge that tears into tissue, a function of the crystals that make up the metal. Obsidian, meanwhile, cleaves into a fine and continuous edge when properly cut. Dr. Green said he once helped documentary makers produce a program on surgical technology in ancient Egyptian, setting up a blind test on the cutting power of obsidian. Using cultured-skin burn dressing, a substance composed of skin cells, he made an incision with a modern scalpel and a parallel incision with an obsidian scalpel. The host of the program was then invited to look at the cuts under a video microscope and tell the difference. "It wasn't hard to tell the difference at all -- as soon as he turned around everyone in the studio was like 'Ohhh'," Dr. Green said. "Under the microscope you could see the obsidian scalpel had divided individual cells in half, and next to it the steel scalpel incision looked like it had been made by a chainsaw." Modern obsidian scalpels look nothing like the decorative flint-knapped knives of Neolithic man, often resembling their modern counterparts in everything except for the blade edge, but Dr. Green said they are a very different animal. "The feel is very different because obsidian has no 'bite,'" he said. "If you look under the microscope at a steel scalpel edge it looks almost like a saw, it has teeth, whereas obsidian is smooth even microscopically. "It's a very different feel to work with and you have to practice before you start using it in surgery. "You also have to be careful not to nick yourself with it because you don't even feel it!" And Dr. Green believes incisions made with these blades heal faster. He said a colleague who needed a mole removed agreed to undergo an experiment where half the procedure was carried out with an obsidian scalpel and the other half was removed with steel. "What's really fun is seeing it heal," he said. "Four weeks later the difference was quite remarkable -- there was very much a difference in scarring." In Germany, the manufacturer Fine Science Tools produces obsidian scalpels which can be used in situations where the patient may have an allergy to steel or metal. "For studies where trace metals from ordinary scalpel blades cannot be tolerated, these very special obsidian scalpels may provide the answer," the company says. At €99 per scalpel ($107.40), they represent a considerable saving on their diamond cousins which the company prices at €712.50 ($772.60). But there has been little academic research into the efficacy of obsidian blades compared to steel scalpels, and they do have disadvantages: Obsidian scalpels are not Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved, and they are extremely brittle and prone to breaking if lateral forces are applied -- meaning they are unlikely to ever be in widespread use. Dr. Green, whose scalpels were manufactured for him by an expert flint-knapper and archaeologist Errett Callahan, concedes the Stone Age scalpels are not for everyone. "If it was let loose on the market there'd be far too many injuries from it," he said. "It's very fragile and it's very easy to break pieces off."

Obsidian can produce cutting edges many times finer than even the best steel scalpels . Some surgeons still use the blades in procedures today .

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(CNN)More than 500 Houthi rebels have been killed since the start of Saudi-led military operations against Yemeni Shia fighters, a Saudi Defense Ministry official said Saturday, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency. A Saudi general said Saturday the nine-nation coalition has undertaken 1,200 airstrikes since they began on March 26. Gen. Ahmed Asiri added that the raids aim to keep the rebels from moving toward southern Yemen, according to the SPA. Clashes took place Friday near the Saudi-Yemeni border, in the Najran region. Saudi forces responded to mortar rounds fired by Houthis on a Saudi border site. Three Saudi military officers were killed and two others were wounded in the shelling, a defense official said, according to SPA. A Saudi source also confirmed to CNN's Nic Robertson that three Saudi soldiers were killed in the shelling. The Yemeni Health Ministry on Saturday said 385 civilians have been killed and 342 others have been wounded. The World Health Organization has put higher figure on both tolls -- 648 killed and 2,191 wounded -- but includes militant casualties in the totals. Yemen has been descending into chaos in the weeks since Houthi rebels -- minority Shiites who have long complained of being marginalized in the majority Sunni country -- forced Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi from power in January. And even before the crisis escalated with the Saudi airstrikes, most of the 25 million people in Yemen required humanitarian assistance to meet their most basic needs, the United Nations said Friday. CNN's Pierre Meilhan and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

Saudi general says more than 1,200 airstrikes since campaign began March 26 . Three Saudis were killed in attack on border position, source tells CNN .

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Washington (CNN)Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say that businesses that provide wedding-related services should be required to provide those services to same-sex couples in the same way they would all other customers, even if they have religious objections. A new CNN/ORC poll finds 57% feel businesses such as caterers or florists should be required to serve gay or lesbian couples just as they would heterosexual couples, while 41% say they should be allowed to refuse service for religious reasons. That's a shift from a Pew Research Center poll conducted last fall, which found just 49% thought businesses ought to be required to serve same-sex couples while 47% that they should be allowed to refuse service on religious grounds. Since the Pew poll last fall, Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed into law in late March by Republican governor Mike Pence, sparked a nationwide controversy over whether the law allowed wedding-related businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbian couples. Apple, Walmart and the NCAA all spoke out against the law, while some states and cities with Democratic leaders barred spending public money in Indiana. Pence and other Indiana legislators insisted discrimination was not the law's intent and a bill to change the original law was signed in early April. In the CNN/ORC Poll, most Democrats (70%) and independents (60%) say wedding-related businesses should be required to provide services to same-sex couples as they would different-sex couples, while Republicans break broadly the other way, 67% say religious reasons are a valid justification for refusing service. Full poll results . Looking at Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party, 60% in that group say wedding-related businesses should be allowed to refuse services to same-sex couples, but there are sharp divides within that group by age and ideology. Moderate and liberal Republicans and Republican-leaners broadly say wedding-related businesses should be required to serve all couples the same way (58%) while three-quarters of conservative Republicans favor allowing a caterer or florist to refuse service for religious reasons (74%). Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents under age 50, 56% say wedding-related businesses should be required to serve same-sex and different-sex couples the same way while among those age 50 or older, 72% think they should not be required to do so. The big gay wedding cake quiz . Age differences hold across party lines, but the generation gap among Republicans and Republican-leaners is larger than that among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Overall, white evangelicals are broadly in favor of allowing businesses to refuse service for religious reasons - 62% say they should be able to. But among whites who are not evangelicals, 61% say such businesses should be required to provide services to all couples the same way. The shift from the Pew Center results comes across demographic lines. Men, women, whites, younger adults and senior citizens all are more apt than in the Pew poll to say wedding-related business should be required to serve same-sex couples as they do others. The CNN/ORC International poll was conducted by telephone, April 16-19, among a random national sample of 1,018 adult Americans. Results for the full poll have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Michigan auto repair shop says yes to gun owners, no to homosexuals .

Most Americans say businesses should not discriminate against same-sex weddings . Public opinion has shifted on the issue since last fall . Indiana passed and later changed its religious freedom law after public outcry .

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(CNN)James Holmes made his introduction to the world in a Colorado cinema filled with spectators watching a midnight showing of the new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises," in June 2012. The moment became one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history. Holmes is accused of opening fire on the crowd, killing 12 people and injuring or maiming 70 others in Aurora, a suburb of Denver. Holmes appeared like a comic book character: He resembled the Joker, with red-orange hair, similar to the late actor Heath Ledger's portrayal of the villain in an earlier Batman movie, authorities said. But Holmes was hardly a cartoon. Authorities said he wore body armor and carried several guns, including an AR-15 rifle, with lots of ammo. He also wore a gas mask. Holmes says he was insane at the time of the shootings, and that is his legal defense and court plea: not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors aren't swayed and will seek the death penalty. Opening statements in his trial are scheduled to begin Monday. Holmes admits to the shootings but says he was suffering "a psychotic episode" at the time, according to court papers filed in July 2013 by the state public defenders, Daniel King and Tamara A. Brady. Evidence "revealed thus far in the case supports the defense's position that Mr. Holmes suffers from a severe mental illness and was in the throes of a psychotic episode when he committed the acts that resulted in the tragic loss of life and injuries sustained by moviegoers on July 20, 2012," the public defenders wrote. Holmes no longer looks like a dazed Joker, as he did in his first appearance before a judge in 2012. He appeared dramatically different in January when jury selection began for his trial: 9,000 potential jurors were summoned for duty, described as one of the nation's largest jury calls. Holmes now has a cleaner look, with a mustache, button-down shirt and khaki pants. In January, he had a beard and eyeglasses. If this new image sounds like one of an academician, it may be because Holmes, now 27, once was one. Just before the shooting, Holmes was a doctoral student in neuroscience, and he was studying how the brain works, with his schooling funded by a U.S. government grant. Yet for all his learning, Holmes apparently lacked the capacity to command his own mind, according to the case against him. A jury will ultimately decide Holmes' fate. That panel is made up of 12 jurors and 12 alternates. They are 19 women and five men, and almost all are white and middle-aged. The trial could last until autumn. When jury summonses were issued in January, each potential juror stood a 0.2% chance of being selected, District Attorney George Brauchler told the final jury this month. He described the approaching trial as "four to five months of a horrible roller coaster through the worst haunted house you can imagine." The jury will have to render verdicts on each of the 165 counts against Holmes, including murder and attempted murder charges. Meanwhile, victims and their relatives are challenging all media outlets "to stop the gratuitous use of the name and likeness of mass killers, thereby depriving violent individuals the media celebrity and media spotlight they so crave," the No Notoriety group says. They are joined by victims from eight other mass shootings in recent U.S. history. Raised in central coastal California and in San Diego, James Eagan Holmes is the son of a mathematician father noted for his work at the FICO firm that provides credit scores and a registered nurse mother, according to the U-T San Diego newspaper. Holmes also has a sister, Chris, a musician, who's five years younger, the newspaper said. His childhood classmates remember him as a clean-cut, bespectacled boy with an "exemplary" character who "never gave any trouble, and never got in trouble himself," The Salinas Californian reported. His family then moved down the California coast, where Holmes grew up in the San Diego-area neighborhood of Rancho Peñasquitos, which a neighbor described as "kind of like Mayberry," the San Diego newspaper said. Holmes attended Westview High School, which says its school district sits in "a primarily middle- to upper-middle-income residential community." There, Holmes ran cross-country, played soccer and later worked at a biotechnology internship at the Salk Institute and Miramar College, which attracts academically talented students. By then, his peers described him as standoffish and a bit of a wiseacre, the San Diego newspaper said. Holmes attended college fairly close to home, in a neighboring area known as Southern California's "inland empire" because it's more than an hour's drive from the coast, in a warm, low-desert climate. He entered the University of California, Riverside, in 2006 as a scholarship student. In 2008 he was a summer camp counselor for disadvantaged children, age 7 to 14, at Camp Max Straus, run by Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles. He graduated from UC Riverside in 2010 with the highest honors and a bachelor's degree in neuroscience. "Academically, he was at the top of the top," Chancellor Timothy P. White said. He seemed destined for even higher achievement. By 2011, he had enrolled as a doctoral student in the neuroscience program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, the largest academic health center in the Rocky Mountain region. The doctoral in neuroscience program attended by Holmes focuses on how the brain works, with an emphasis on processing of information, behavior, learning and memory. Holmes was one of six pre-thesis Ph.D. students in the program who were awarded a neuroscience training grant from the National Institutes of Health. The grant rewards outstanding neuroscientists who will make major contributions to neurobiology. A syllabus that listed Holmes as a student at the medical school shows he was to have delivered a presentation about microRNA biomarkers. But Holmes struggled, and his own mental health took an ominous turn. In March 2012, he told a classmate he wanted to kill people, and that he would do so "when his life was over," court documents said. Holmes was "denied access to the school after June 12, 2012, after he made threats to a professor," according to court documents. About that time, Holmes was a patient of University of Colorado psychiatrist Lynne Fenton. Fenton was so concerned about Holmes' behavior that she mentioned it to her colleagues, saying he could be a danger to others, CNN affiliate KMGH-TV reported, citing sources with knowledge of the investigation. Fenton's concerns surfaced in early June, sources told the Denver station. Holmes began to fantasize about killing "a lot of people" in early June, nearly six weeks before the shootings, the station reported, citing unidentified sources familiar with the investigation. Holmes' psychiatrist contacted several members of a "behavioral evaluation and threat assessment" team to say Holmes could be a danger to others, the station reported. At issue was whether to order Holmes held for 72 hours to be evaluated by mental health professionals, the station reported. "Fenton made initial phone calls about engaging the BETA team" in "the first 10 days" of June, but it "never came together" because in the period Fenton was having conversations with team members, Holmes began the process of dropping out of school, a source told KMGH. Defense attorneys have rejected the prosecution's assertions that Holmes was barred from campus. Citing statements from the university, Holmes' attorneys have argued that his access was revoked because that's normal procedure when a student drops enrollment. What caused this turn for the worse for Holmes has yet to be clearly detailed. In the months before the shooting, he bought four weapons and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition, authorities said. Police said he also booby-trapped his third-floor apartment with explosives, but police weren't fooled. After Holmes was caught in the cinema parking lot immediately after the shooting, bomb technicians went to the apartment and neutralized the explosives. No one was injured at the apartment building. Nine minutes before Holmes went into the movie theater, he called a University of Colorado switchboard, public defender Brady has said in court. The number he called can be used to get in contact with faculty members during off hours, Brady said. Court documents have also revealed that investigators have obtained text messages that Holmes exchanged with someone before the shooting. That person was not named, and the content of the texts has not been made public. According to The New York Times, Holmes sent a text message to a fellow graduate student, a woman, about two weeks before the shooting. She asked if he had left Aurora yet, reported the newspaper, which didn't identify her. No, he had two months left on his lease, Holmes wrote back, according to the Times. He asked if she had heard of "dysphoric mania," a form of bipolar disorder marked by the highs of mania and the dark and sometimes paranoid delusions of major depression. The woman asked if the disorder could be managed with treatment. "It was," Holmes wrote her, according to the Times. But he warned she should stay away from him "because I am bad news," the newspaper reported. It was her last contact with Holmes. After the shooting, Holmes' family issued a brief statement: "Our hearts go out to those who were involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved," they said, without giving any information about their son. Since then, prosecutors have refused to offer a plea deal to Holmes. For Holmes, "justice is death," said Brauchler, the district attorney. In December, Holmes' parents, who will be attending the trial, issued another statement: They asked that their son's life be spared and that he be sent to an institution for mentally ill people for the rest of his life, if he's found not guilty by reason of insanity. "He is not a monster," Robert and Arlene Holmes wrote, saying the death penalty is "morally wrong, especially when the condemned is mentally ill." "He is a human being gripped by a severe mental illness," the parents said. The matter will be settled by the jury. CNN's Ana Cabrera and Sara Weisfeldt contributed to this report from Denver.

Opening statements are scheduled Monday in the trial of James Holmes . Jury selection took three months . Holmes faces 165 counts in the movie theater massacre that killed 12 people .

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Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN)More than 4,600 people dead. More than 9,000 injured. Eight million affected across Nepal. One million children urgently in need of help. Those are the startling numbers that indicate the scale of the devastation from the huge earthquake that struck the Himalayan nation on Saturday. And some of the grim figures are likely to get even worse as hopes of rescuing any more survivors diminish every hour. Heartbreaking scenes of suffering and loss are playing out across this shell-shocked nation as it reels from its deadliest natural disaster in more than 80 years. As the country coped with the fallout of the quake, another natural disaster struck Tuesday afternoon in a popular trekking area north of Kathmandu, and up to 200 people were feared missing as a result of a landslide, a trekking association official said. It happened around 4 p.m. in Langtang National Park, said Ramesh Dhamala, president of the Trekking Agents of Nepal. Laxmi Dhakal, spokesman for Nepal's Home Ministry, said he was aware of reports about the landslide but wasn't immediately able to confirm details. Quake relief efforts continued Tuesday, but officials warned that they were hampered by problems of getting aid into the country and then delivering it to some of the remote communities in desperate need. In Kathmandu, a capital city of shattered temples and toppled houses, some people paid their last respects to loved ones taken by the quake. By the Bagmati River, which winds through the city, more than a dozen funeral pyres burned Monday. As workers stoked the flames for the Hindu cremation ceremonies, some mourners shaved their heads in a traditional show of mourning from children who lose their parents. Alongside their father, two teenage brothers from the Gurung family, Ishan and Iman, said goodbye to their mother, Ishara. "We never imagined this would happen to us. This much pain," said Ishan, the elder of the two. Elsewhere in the city, many shaken residents are sleeping in the open. Some have lost their homes, others are afraid to stay in buildings that may be vulnerable to aftershocks. Large encampments of tents have sprung up in open areas, including a wide space belonging to the military in the center of the city that is typically used for parades. One of the grand gates to the field is now just a pile of rubble. Kisnor Raj Giri, a 22-year-old man from Kathmandu who lost members of his extended family in the quake, said he was too scared to return home. He is camping out at the military grounds with thousands of others even though frequent rain has made the nights an ordeal. "Many people are crying, sharing their hardships," he told CNN on Monday evening. The elements showed no mercy to the homeless masses on Tuesday as thunderstorms rumbled over Kathmandu. More bad weather is forecast for the region in the coming days. But in one piece of good news, Turkish and Chinese rescue crews helped pull free a 21-year-old man trapped under rubble near a city bus park in a 13-hour rescue operation. Houses and families ripped apart by earthquake . The death toll has now climbed above 4,600 in Nepal, officials said Tuesday evening, as rescue and relief efforts continue. Nepal army Lt. Col. A. J. Thapa told CNN's Sumnima Udas that the first 72 hours after the earthquake is the time when the most lives can be saved. "This is not the time to rest and lament," he said. "This is the time to go out and save lives." Thapa said an entire military post was lost during an avalanche. "Remember we are not an outside force that has been parachuted into an area to help," he said. "We are victim ourselves. ... Despite the fact that soldiers have their families and houses are down, we are trying to build morale, maintain morale and help themselves." Thapa said it was fortunate that the quake struck during daylight on a weekend. "Children were not trapped in big schools somewhere and lot of people were outside because it was daytime," he said. Dhakal, the Home Ministry spokesman, put the death toll at 4,620, while Nepal's National Emergency Coordination Center said the number of dead was 4,727. Both sources gave the number of people injured as 9,239. Another 72 people died in India, while China reported 25 deaths. Most of the casualty numbers in Nepal are believed to have come mainly from Kathmandu and the surrounding area. They are expected to climb as information emerges from remote areas. "We have incomplete information, but we apprehend the death toll will go up," Nepalese Information Minister Minendra Rijal told CNN earlier on Tuesday. "We cannot say by how much exactly." The news agency Reuters cited Prime Minister Sushil Koirala as saying that the toll could reach 10,000 and that the country was "on a war footing" in its rescue and relief work. In a live, televised address to the nation, the Prime Minister said the country had been stunned by the disaster and announced three days of national mourning, starting Tuesday. The government's first priority is to continue search and rescue operations and relief efforts, he said, as he thanked all those involved. Historic and religious monuments destroyed by the earthquake will be reconstructed in time, he added. At least 90% of 96,000 Nepali army troops have been deployed in relief and rescue operations, according to Nepal army spokesman Jagadish Chandra Pokharel. More than 15 countries and agencies have already promised help, Koirala said, as he appealed for other nations also to come to Nepal's aid. Even as international aid pours into the country, overwhelmed hospitals are lacking vital medical supplies, people remain buried in the wreckage of buildings and rescuers are struggling to reach hard-hit rural areas near the quake's epicenter. "The biggest problem is reaching these villages," Matt Darvas, an emergency communications officer for the humanitarian group World Vision, told CNN from Gorkha district, northwest of Kathmandu. Nepal struggles to cope with international aid . Nepali Home Ministry Joint Secretary Sagar Mani Parajuli, who is coordinating relief efforts, said government efforts to get aid to remote areas had been hampered by rugged terrain and poor weather, which limits the use of helicopters. "The helicopters are small. They don't fly in windy and cloudy conditions. Given Nepal's geographical terrain, we cannot use surface transport much but are using it," he said. "We need 150,000 tents and tarpaulins, but we don't have enough of them." Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. resident coordinator for Nepal, told a news conference Tuesday that bringing in relief materials has been difficult because Kathmandu's international airport, which has just one runway and space for only a limited number of aircraft to park, is log jammed. The United Nations is aware of the request for tents, he said, but is working to procure high quality ones to withstand the expected monsoon rains. Of the 8 million people affected by the quake across 39 districts of Nepal, some 1.4 million need food aid, McGoldrick added. Nepal's population is about 31 million. At an event in Paris, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his condolences to the people of Nepal and called the humanitarian needs "huge and urgent." "The United Nations is supporting international operations for search and rescue and strengthening relief efforts," he said. "I count on the generosity of the international community in Nepal's hour of need and the longer term rebuilding efforts that will be needed." A CNN team that joined a Nepalese military helicopter flight to Dhulikhel, a rural area east of Kathmandu, saw extensive damage in the Kathmandu Valley from the air, including many landslides. On landing, the team went to a hospital where all the injured from six surrounding districts are being brought. More than 1,000 people are currently in the hospital -- three times its usual capacity -- so some of the injured are being left out in the streets. Social media posts from Nepal . Darvas of World Vision said he had been told of frightening levels of damage in villages in the region surrounding Gorkha district, which is near the earthquake's epicenter. They included one where 35 out of 45 homes were destroyed and another where 70% of the houses had collapsed, trapping and crushing the people inside, most of them children and the elderly. Even though aid groups and Nepalese officials are aware of critical situations in areas spread across Nepal's mountainous terrain, they face daunting challenges getting help to them. "Some of those villages -- several years ago, before there was vehicle transport -- used to take seven days to reach. Roads are shut now to some of those villages, so we can only imagine how long it will take to get there," Darvas said Monday. He said injured people who had been airlifted from some remote areas were often suffering from crush injuries, lacerations and dislocations. Looking for missing loved ones in Nepal? CNN iReport wants to help . UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, said Sunday that nearly 1 million Nepalese children urgently need assistance. Aid groups and at least 16 nations rushed aid and workers to Nepal, with more on the way. High-altitude rescue efforts have also been undertaken on the difficult terrain of Mount Everest, where the earthquake released deadly avalanches. Four U.S. citizens are among those who died on Everest, according to officials and relatives. Damage to climbing infrastructure on the mountain, not to mention the overall situation in Nepal, means the climbing season is over for the year, climber Jim Davidson told CNN from the Everest base camp, where he was evacuated after spending two days on the mountain. China has canceled all climbs on its side of the mountain, the official news agency Xinhua reported. Are you in Nepal or do you have loved ones affected? Please share with us if you are in a safe place. How to help the earthquake victims . Fast facts on earthquakes . CNN's Ivan Watson and Tim Hume reported from Kathmandu; CNN's Jethro Mullen wrote and reported from Hong Kong, and Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. CNN's Elizabeth Joseph, Pamela Boykoff, Manesh Shrestha, Sumnima Udas, Kristie Lu Stout, Anjali Tsui, Kunal Sehgal and Ingrid Formanek also contributed to this report.

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(CNN)We did it again, in another American city. We set Baltimore on fire this time. We brutalized black bodies. We turned a funeral into a riot. We let things get out of hand. We looted. We threw stones at policemen. We threw stones at citizens. We created camera-ready chaos, and we replayed the images. We created a culture of such deep distrust and disrespect that violence seemed the inevitable response. We let the violence flow. We let the violence stand for everything that's wrong with the things we already didn't like. By now you may be asking, "Who's we?" You may be saying with some irritation, "Don't lump me in with them. I didn't have anything to do with it." To which the only real answer can be: Stop kidding yourself. The word "we" is one of the great American words. We the People. Yes we can. We are family. I use "we" a lot when I talk about our country's achievements. I like to say we won the Second World War, we put a man on the moon, we invented the Internet, we gave the world jazz. Well, if I -- a son of immigrants whose family had nothing to do with any of those accomplishments -- if I get to claim those aspects of American history, then surely I have to claim the unsavory aspects too. "We" cuts both ways. We enslaved Africans. We cut Reconstruction short and made a mockery of equal citizenship. We supported Jim Crow, then redlined, subordinated, and ghettoized African-Americans. We cut blacks out of the New Deal. We created a polity in which racial inequity and economic inequality magnify each other unrelentingly. We tried to put a lid on it with heavy policing and a War on Drugs. We failed. We are the authors of every page of Baltimore's story. Don't tell me it's not your responsibility or mine. About how slavery and its legacy are artifacts of a time past. Someone else's problem. No, we own them all. And we all have to face that before we can fix anything in Baltimore or beyond. But there's another dimension of the story of "we" that matters as well. It's about progressives and conservatives and their competing stories of how we got here. Every time protests and violence break out in response to police brutality, the same depressing pattern breaks out. The event becomes simply a Rorschach test for left and right, and each side sees in the rioting confirmation of its prior views. For the left, it's about the deep structural root causes of the alienation and violence. Liberals gravitate on social media to commentaries or reactions that reinforce this frame, like the surprisingly astute comments from the Baltimore Orioles executive who spelled out why a long history of racial injustice and economic disenfranchisement made rioting nearly inevitable. Conservatives gravitate to their own frames, about a lack of personal responsibility or role models among poor urban blacks, about the failures of Great Society and Democratic programs, and about how it all comes back to a president (who happens to be black) who has divided us by focusing so much on race. What gets lost in this Groundhog Day replay of left-right frames is a simple reality that we all have to recognize: Both longstanding structural racism and personal irresponsibility are on display this week. Both a history of police brutality and a present crisis of street violence. Both an inherited, multigenerational lack of opportunity and a dearth of leaders willing to address it. We cannot separate out the aspects of the problem that don't fit our preferred explanation -- not if we are sincere about solving the problem. And until more people can see this, we will not see progress. We can't judge looters for their antisocial behavior without judging a color-caste structure and a school-to-prison pipeline that has flushed them away like so much refuse. By the same token, we can't keep opining about root causes without also supporting the parents and pastors and neighbors who, in their own small ways, are organizing each other to break the cycle of brokenness. I'm of the left. But it cannot possibly be that only those with whom I disagree are responsible for what is happening in Baltimore. It cannot possibly be that only my worldview contains all the solutions. Whatever our political perspective, we need to open our eyes to what is actually happening in Baltimore and other cities in the United States in the second decade of the 21st century. It is an abomination. We should all be able to say that. It's time to push each other out of our ideological and identity comfort zones and build unlikely coalitions to create more opportunity. It's time to act like we are all in charge. Because we are. And there is no other "we" waiting in the wings.

In Baltimore, after the death of Freddie Gray, riots erupted, cars were set on fire and 200 arrests were made . Eric Liu: Liberals and conservatives react predictably, see the riots as confirmation of their views . It's time to push each other out of our ideological and identity comfort zones and change the status quo, he says .

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(CNN)By now, you probably have a position regarding the controversy over Indiana's religious freedom law. You applaud the growing chorus of companies blasting the law as an invitation for businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians, using religion as a cover. Or, like Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, you are surprised at the backlash and maintain that it is basically a copy of a law that is already in the books at the federal level and 19 other states. The issue drives a wedge because, well, the debate over religious freedom and gay rights is always heated, but also because the interpretations and motives behind the law can be questioned. Whichever side you're on, here are five things you might not have considered when thinking about this controversy. These points might not change your mind, but offer context to better understand the uproar. As the author of the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), Sen. Chuck Schumer is one who can offer clarity over the controversy surrounding Indiana's version of the law. Schumer mocks Indiana's contention that the state law is simply a mirror of the 22-year-old federal law. "That may be true only if you're using a Funhouse mirror," Schumer wrote on his Facebook page. The federal law was intended to protect individual's religious freedom from government intervention, he said. The Indiana law justifies discrimination in the name of religious freedom, he contends. Also, the law was envisioned to protect the religious freedoms of individuals, while the Indiana law also protects private companies, Schumer said. So, how can the law's supporters claim it is basically a copy of the federal law? If you look at the purpose of the law, the language in the federal and Indiana religious freedom laws are indeed nearly indistinguishable. In short -- the government cannot interfere with a person's religious practices unless there is a compelling government interest to do so. The uproar is over that fact that the Indiana law expands the reach of the religious protections to include private companies and cases where the government is not involved. Other states previously passed their own version of the religious freedom law -- Indiana became the 20th. But other state laws mirror the federal law much more closely than the Indiana law does. The key difference in the Indiana law is that it expands the instances where someone can use religious freedom as a defense. This is how it could make a difference: . In 2006, Vanessa Willock contacted a photographer about shooting her commitment ceremony with her partner. This was in New Mexico, a state with a religious freedom law at the time of the dispute. The company, Elane Photography, refused the job because of the co-owner's religious beliefs. Willock sued Elane Photography for discrimination, and the company defended itself by citing the law. The photography studio lost the case because the court ruled that it could not use the religious freedom law because the dispute was between two private parties and not a government entity. What would happen if that case happened today in Indiana, with the new, expanded religious freedom law? For sure, the case would have proceeded to trial, said Tim Holbrook, a law professor at Emory University. The photography studio would have had the chance to make its argument in court that it denied the service because of religious reasons. Would the outcome have been the same? Would an Indiana jury side with the company that refused service to a couple because of their sexual orientation? In a letter expressing concern about the Indiana law, a group of 30 legal scholars argued that what Indiana has done is expanded the scope of the law to the point that religious considerations might trump discrimination concerns. "In our expert opinion, the clear evidence ... unmistakably demonstrates that the broad language of the proposed state RFRA will more likely create confusion, conflict, and a wave of litigation that will threaten the clarity of religious liberty rights in Indiana while undermining the state's ability to enforce other compelling interests," the letter, whose signatories included many Indiana law professors, stated. These concerns are based on speculation of what might happen, said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law. Yes, the Indiana law makes it clear that individuals and private companies can use the religious freedom law as a defense, he said. "But, just because you raise the defense does not mean it will be successful." Those who try to defend their discriminatory actions in court tend to lose, Blackman said. In his opinion, if Elane Photography had been able to use the law as a defense in New Mexico, it still likely would have lost the case. What's clear is that Indiana's law increases the potential pool of people who can defend themselves claiming religious freedom. The success of such arguments is to be seen. In the meantime, some are already hatching plans on how to test the law, including Bill Levin, founder of The First Church Of Cannabis, who argued on CNN that the law should protect his right to smoke pot. Much is being made of the fact that the first religious freedom law was signed by President Bill Clinton more than 20 years ago. There was bipartisan support in 1993, so why the commotion over a similar law in 2015, some ask? Context, timing and intent have changed the way these laws are viewed. The federal law was written by two Democrats, Schumer and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Today, it is being championed by Republicans. The law came into being after two Native Americans in Oregon were fired from their jobs at a rehab clinic because they had consumed peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus. They were denied unemployment benefits, and they sued the state, claiming that the peyote was part of their religious customs. They lost the case. There was outrage over the decision, and the law was created as a remedy. As envisioned by its authors, it would protect the freedoms of religious minorities. Over the years, the law helped a number of people -- a Muslim prisoner won the right to grow a short beard, a Santeria priest was allowed to sacrifice a goat on special religious occasions, and a Native American boy received an exception to his school's policy banning long hair on boys. The law was on the books for years, with little attention paid to it. But Holbrook says it is no coincidence that the religious freedom laws became popular at the state level just as the gay rights and marriage equality movement made historic steps. Many states are using the laws to carve out exceptions to allow Christians to deny services to same-sex couples. Holbrook said. "The timing is beyond a coincidence," he said. "We are having an interest in RFRA at the time same-sex marriage is coming forward." Though not enshrined in the law, critics accuse the states pursuing the laws of using them to justify discrimination by the majority religion. Blackman said the history of the state religious freedom laws shows that they have not turned into conduits for discrimination. The expanded laws might mean more people will defend themselves using it, but most will likely lose, he said. "The moral outrage over this reflects how uninformed people are on the history of the RFRA," he said. So we've established that the biggest difference between the federal law and the Indiana law is the scope: In Indiana, the law can be raised as a defense in private disputes, while the federal law applies only to government matters. Not so fast. According to Blackman, the interpretations of the federal religious freedom law are not uniform. Four U.S. circuit courts of appeals have ruled that the federal law can be used as a defense in cases involving private parties. Two other appeals courts have ruled that this is not allowed. And then, there is the Hobby Lobby case. Hobby Lobby, citing the federal religious freedom law, argued that it should not have to provide contraception coverage through insurance to its employees via Obamacare because it was against the owners' beliefs. And, Hobby Lobby won the case before the Supreme Court. The ruling, in effect, expanded the reach of the federal law to include a business. The Hobby Lobby decision, plus the appeals courts rulings, may have opened the door for states like Indiana to be explicit about its expansion of the law. One way to look at it, Blackman said, is that Indiana simply clarified and codified something that is hazy in the federal courts. The outrage over the Indiana law is that it can be used to deny services to the LGBT community on the ground of religious beliefs. Some may rightfully ask, "Where was the outrage before the religious freedom law?" Indiana does not have an nondiscrimination law that protects people based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In that sense, the religious freedom law is not necessary for those who want to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Even before the controversial Indiana law was passed, if a restaurant denied service to a gay couple, the couple might be able to sue, but not for discrimination. For that matter, there is also no federal law that protects the LGBT community. According to the Human Rights Campaign, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are sometimes fired, denied a promotion or harassed in the workplace. And their recourse is limited. With the proliferation of religious freedom state laws, nondiscrimination laws become even more important. Another hypothetical outcome of the New Mexico case involving the lesbian couple and the photography studio. If New Mexico had the same religious freedom law as Indiana, the case would have gone to trial. But New Mexico has a nondiscrimination law that protects the LGBT community, it and it would have provided a strong counter-argument to the religious freedom claim. In Indiana, that protection would be lacking. (It gets more complicated when some local governments, like the city of Indianapolis, do have nondiscrimination ordinances). For this reason, Holbrook suggests that a "fix" for the Indiana law would be the passage of a nondiscrimination law. Or, at the very least, an exception written into the religious freedom bill that protects from such discrimination.

The controversy over Indiana's religious freedom law is complicated . Some factors you might have not considered .

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Paris (CNN)Six survivors of the Paris kosher supermarket siege in January are suing a French media outlet for what they call dangerous live broadcasting during the hostage-taking. According to Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, the lawsuit was filed March 27 and a preliminary investigation was opened by the prosecutor's office Wednesday. The media outlet, CNN affiliate BFMTV, is accused of endangering the lives of the hostages, who were hiding in a cold room during the attack, by broadcasting their location live during the siege. BFM in a statement Friday said one of its journalists "mentioned only once the presence of a woman hidden inside the Hyper Cacher, on the basis of police sources on the ground." "Immediately, the chief editor felt that this information should not be released. It therefore has subsequently never been repeated on air or posted on-screen. BFMTV regrets that the mention of this information could cause concern to the hostages, as well as their relatives, that their lives were in danger," the statement said. Gunman Amedy Coulibaly, also suspected in the slaying of a police officer, stormed the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket on January 9, killing four people and taking others hostage. He was killed in the police operation to end the siege. A 24-year-old supermarket employee, Malian-born Lassana Bathily, was hailed as a hero afterward when it emerged that he had risked his life to hide 15 customers from Coulibaly in the cold room. The hostage-taking was the culmination of three days of terror in Paris that began with the January 7 shooting of 12 people at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The two brothers blamed for that attack, Cherif and Said Kouachi, were killed on January 9 after a violent standoff at an industrial site. The terror attacks claimed the lives of 17 people and put France on a heightened state of alert. CNN's Ariana Williams reported from Paris, and Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. CNN's Pierre Meilhan contributed to this report.

Six people taken hostage in a kosher market siege say media outlet endangered their lives . They hid in a cold room during the attack in Paris by gunman Amedy Coulibaly .

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