Datasets:

therapara

/

summary-of-news-articles_new

like 0

(CNN) -- A magazine photo spread of Taliban fighters posing in the uniforms of 10 French soldiers killed last month has sparked an angry response. One of the pictures in the French magazine Paris Match that has stirred controversy. The latest edition of Paris Match includes photos of the Taliban fighters and their commander, "Farouki," wearing French uniforms, helmets and using French assault rifles and walkie-talkies. Farouki, aged 30-35, claims in the accompanying story to have led his group in the August 18 ambush which killed 10 French troops and injured a further 21 in the Sarobi District, 40 miles east of Kabul. It was the French army's single highest death toll in 25 years. He said the area was "our territory" and the attack was a "legitimate" part of its defense. Farouki said it did not need a lot of planning, with the French soldiers only spotted a short time before the assault. He said the soldiers had died for "[George W.] Bush's" cause and that if France did not return the rest of its troops home they would all be killed. Farouki said they would continue fighting till the last man. See more on Paris Match's Web site . French Defense Minister Herve Morin accused the magazine of helping the Taliban. "Should we be doing the Taliban's promotion for them?" he asked in the French daily newspaper Liberation. Joel Le Pahun, father of one of the killed soldiers, told the newspaper the pictures were "despicable." Green MP Daniel Cohn-Bendit called them "voyeurism." However, Paris Match editor Laurent Valdiguie defended the publication, saying it was "legitimate" given the importance of the story. The story's author, Eric de Lavarène, said only he and photographer Véronique de Viguerie met the group and he asked his questions via their "fixer."

Photos of Taliban in the uniforms of dead French soldiers provokes outrage . Magazine Paris Match features photos of Taliban and their commander . 10 French troops were killed and a further 21 injured in an ambush .

0922357b2d0439cf4ba6ec9dc143e11a38b49d8a

(CNN) -- This year's Forbes Rich List is notable for the absence of Bill Gates at the top. After 13 years as the world's richest man, he has finally been toppled by his friend Warren Buffett who has an estimate fortune of $62bn. The Middle East's richest man: Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud . The list -- which is a run down of the 1,125 richest people on the planet -- estimates a person's total net worth in US dollars based on the closing stock prices of the stock exchanges on which their company is listed. The Middle East's richest man is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, the 51 year old Saudi who has an estimated net worth of $21bn. He ranks 19th in the list and is considered to be the most active and successful investor in the Middle East. He took his investment vehicle, Kingdom Holding, public on the Saudi stock exchange in July 2007. The company contains investments in well-known global companies such as Citigroup and News Corp. In the early 1990s, Alwaleed made a risky bet on Citigroup that paid off massively and has in recent years accounted for nearly half his fortune. Kuwaiti construction heir Nasser Al-Kharafi is the next richest in 46th place with an inherited fortune of $14bn. He heads M.A. Al-Kharafi & Sons, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in the Arab world. Americana, the company's lucrative food division is extremely successful and has exclusive franchise rights in the region for Pizza Hut, TGI Fridays and other big global brands. Faiza, his sister was the first woman president of Kuwait University. Naguib Sawiris, the eldest son of telecoms billionaire and Orascom Telecom founder Onsi Sawiris ranks next in 60th place with a net worth of $12.7bn. In addition to Orascom Telecom, his assets -- via European holding company Weather Investments -- include Italian phone company, Wind and leading Greek telecom companies Wind Hellas and Tellas. His brother, Nassef is in 68th place, with an estimated worth of $11bn and his father Onsi who serves as chairman of Orascom comes in at 96th place with $9bn. E-mail to a friend .

The Middle East's richest man is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud . He ranks 19th in the world in the Forbes Rich List . Seven other billionaires from the Middle East rank in the top 100 .

c62ea6aaf31a7f5b6a7c2eac7780c86f9baed786

KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- Monsoon flooding has left 50,000 people homeless in Nepal and killed at least 74 people in northern India, according to officials. Monsoon rain has bought heavy flooding to southern Nepal, pictured, and northern India. The Nepalese army Thursday used helicopters to rescue residents in southeastern Nepal who were stranded on treetops and roofs after monsoon flooding forced more than 50,000 people from their homes. In northern India monsoon flooding destroyed mud huts and killed at least 74 people, officials said. The deaths were in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The latest casualties bring to more than 300 the number of people killed in India since the start of this year's monsoon season. Nepalese officials said at least four southern villages were inundated with water after the embankment on the Saptakoshi River burst Monday. Some 40,000 people were now living in government-run relief camps; others had gone to other villages to stay with relatives, authorities said. Nepalese Home Ministry officials said there were unconfirmed reports of deaths related to the flooding but authorities could not reach the affected areas to verify those reports. Police and army troops had been using elephants, boats and helicopters to rescue stranded villagers in Sunsari district, about 400 km (249 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, since Monday. Nepal amd India are in the midst of the annual monsoon season. Copyright 2008 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

Heavy rains, flooding lash sourthern Nepal and northern India . In Nepal, flooding has forced as many as 50,000 from their homes . India officials say at least 74 people have died in the state of Uttar Pradesh .

6bb04883f35820a450ff821eda46a4002c0fc7e9

(CNN) -- Mohammed Alshaya owns more high street brands than most fashion addicts could stuff in their closets. Mohammed Alshaya, CEO of Alshaya's retail division, tells MME he sees a new mindset in the Gulf . Topshop, Coast, NEXT and River Island are just some of the big names he's imported from the United Kingdom to shopping centers in the Middle East. As chief executive of M.H. Alshaya, he knows what sells: tried and tested Western brands that will appeal to local shoppers. And his empire is not limited to clothing. In the past month, he's taken Mothercare and The Body Shop to Central Eastern Europe. With the addition of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, M.H. Alshaya now operates in 16 markets including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey, Poland and Russia. John Defterios spoke with Mohammed Alshaya, and started by asking him for his thoughts on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plans for a single currency. (JD): I would imagine as a retail operation you'd be a huge proponent of a single currency within the GCC. Is it realistic within the next 4 to 5 years? (MA): I think it can be, as long as there is a will of the leaders to get together and decide. It is a huge leap towards efficiency, conciliation, getting closer between the six countries. One single Central Bank that governs and regulates is much better than the current six, I believe. (JD): Have you ever done any calculations of what impact it would have on your back office operations? (MA): Not yet, but it will be great, I think. (JD): You're one of the largest retail operations throughout the Arabian Peninsula. With all this growth that we're seeing right now, it must have a direct impact on the retail sector. What sort of annual growth are you experiencing? (MA): We're experiencing close to 25 percent annual growth, if not 30 percent in some cases, like in Dubai. (JD): Do you have any sort of concerns that this is going to be a bubble like the 1970s where the money was not deployed correctly? It seems different from my vantage point, do you share that view? (MA): There is a new generation of people from the region that are leading businesses and strong leadership in the government that have mitigated any concern. And if you see now the statistics, the Gulf is the seventh largest economy in the world. In ten, in 15 years time, it will be the fifth. So I see a new mindset, a new attitude. (JD): One of the other things I wanted to ask you about is your moves into other countries. The Alshaya group is very well known throughout the Arabian Peninsula, but you're moving into other markets, into Eastern Europe, specifically into Russia. Do you have the expertise to go into these markets? (MA): Well, yes. We have the expertise, and the expertise is by really retaining good management, and traveling with them into new markets. I'm not going to open shops myself. We have a very strong team in Russia; Russians that are taking our investment into good projects like Starbucks which we opened two months ago, two stores. We acquired a business there. So we have plans like Mothercare, Bodyshop, NEXT. (JD): So you can basically move this group into any city and have that potpourri of offers? (MA): We have the software. We have the software to launch the retail portfolio into a new market. (JD): Obviously you're a family business. You feel quite strongly about preserving culture and the family structure, and the need for family businesses to create jobs, because they represent 75 percent of all turnover in the Gulf. (MA): We have a social responsibility toward our people. We have to make sure we have jobs for them if the government is not going to compete, and is going to take away some of the people who would be relevant to our business. Another issue that might challenge us to do that is the wealth creation -- whether (potential employees) would be attracted to be in a department store selling or in a coffee shop making coffee -- that, we will see. E-mail to a friend .

MME speaks with Mohammed Alshaya, CEO of M.H. Alshaya's retail division . Retail division seeing annual growth of 25 percent, up to 30 percent in Dubai . Group taking Starbucks, Mothercare, Body Shop into Eastern Europe, Russia . On GCC single currency: It is a huge leap towards efficiency, conciliation .

71f87a7cbda73f1c0656d811b0026437e4ee4aa0

(CNN Traveller) -- Natural beauty, outdoor living and fine dining -- Wendy Saunt crams one week's activities into one memorable day. Sydney's Opera House is recognized instantly the world over, but there are plenty of hidden gems to be found. 08.00: Chinese food for breakfast might seem like something you would only do with a hangover, but yum cha -- think Chinese tapas on trolleys -- is a Sydney tradition. Head down to China Town in Haymarket and take your pick -- East Ocean (421-429 Sussex Street) is a favorite with Sydneysiders. 09.00: Walk off your breakfast with some shopping. You will see many international designers and a plethora of great home-grown ones too, from Sass & Bide to Collette Dinnigan. Sieve through the grand Queen Victoria Building (known as the QVB) and David Jones department store in town, then head east across Hyde Park -- stopping off at the art deco Anzac war memorial ­-- towards Oxford Street, where there are some great boutiques. Sydney is also a good place to buy opals and pearls. 11.30: Continue east to the chi-chi 'old Sydney' suburbs of Paddington and Woollahra, where you will find some of the city's most beautiful architecture. Here the wrought iron balconies and the palm trees of the Victorian terrace houses lend the city a seductive, New Orleans feel. Stop for a coffee in one of the many fine coffee houses, then make your way up back up to Oxford Street and jump on the number 380 bus to Bondi. 12.30: For the best view of Bondi -- the quintessentialSydney beach -- get off the bus as it comes down the hill. From here, it is a short walk to Icebergs restaurant. From its vantage point on the coastal cliffs at the southern end -- overlooking the sweep of Bondi beach, the raging surf, and the gleaming white of the outdoor pool -- Icebergs is Sydney at its best. Tables at this renowned restaurant are hard to come by, so book ahead (www.idrb.com). After lunch, do the Bondi-to-Coogee coastal walk, which traces three bays -- Clovelly, Tamarama and Gordon's (a great snorkeling spot) -- and affords cliff-top views before finishing up, an hour or so later, at Coogee, a beach to the south. Once there, take your weary self down to Wylie's Baths, an outdoor sea water pool that has not changed since its inception in 1907, and get an al fresco massage (www.massagebythesea.com.au. From $25). 16.00: The best way to see the city -- which is laid out along the contours of a vast and beautiful natural harbor -- is from the air. Depending on your budget, you can take in the views from Sydney Tower (100 Market Street, $24.50), climb the Harbor Bridge (www.bridgeclimb.com, from $179), or charter a helicopter (www.sydneyhelicopters.com.au, from $180). If you want to see it from the 'ground', charter a yacht and join the harbor's fray (www.eastsail.com.au, from $625). 18.00: After a quick change, head down to Circular Quay for sun downers at the Opera Bar. With the Harbor Bridge to your left and the grand old Opera House to your right, it is easy to see why it is the place for evening drinks. House Brut is a steal at AUS$34 ($32); the bucket-sized portions of fries a snip at AUS$7 ($6.50). Do not be late, though -- the view here at dusk is enough to make you want to stay in Sydney forever. 19.00: While in the vicinity, see what is on at the Opera House -- there is a huge program, from world music to musicals too.(www.sydneyoperahouse.com). If that is not your scene, it is still worth taking a tour of the iconic building -- the last one is at 5pm, though ($32). 21.00: With Sydney famed for its cuisine, dining options are not in short supply. Billy Kwong's is one of the city's foremost places, dishing up vast portions of fresh, light and ever-so-tasty Chinese food in a tiny Shanghai tearoom-style restaurant (355 Crown Street, Surry Hills). For a taste of modern Australian, take a taxi to The Bathers' Pavilion, a seafood restaurant in the western suburb of Balmoral (4 The Esplanade, Balmoral Beach). Finally, Tetsuya's -- with its famed $195 10-course degustation menu -- is ranked by Restaurant magazine as the fourth best restaurant in the world (529 Kent Street, Sydney). To sit at its hallowed tables, you need to book several months -- possibly even a year -- in advance. 11.00: Still standing? Then hit the late-night bars. The Loft by the water (3 Lime Street, Kings Street Wharf, Sydney), Arthouse Hotel in the CBD (275 Pitt Street, Sydney), Ruby Rabbit in city's clubbing district (231 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst) and The Tilbury in one of Sydney's smartest suburbs (12 Nicholson Street, Woolloomooloo) are all good choices. And if you are at the latter, finish off your night with a pie at Harry's Cafe de Wheels (Cowper Wharf Road) -- another Sydney institution. CLICK HERE to subscribe to CNN Traveller . COPYRIGHT © 2008 INK PUBLISHING AND CABLE NEWS NETWORK, LP, LLLP, A TIME WARNER COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED .

Chinese food for breakfast -- yum cha -- is a Sydney tradition . Climb the Harbor Bridge for great views of the city . Dine at Tetsuya, ranked by Restaurant magazine as the 4th best in the world .

fa5089d759a9fb810d28c140cf60e3a5fffff8ba

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Justice Department officials blocked liberals and people with Democratic Party ties from a highly selective program that funneled young lawyers into government jobs, according to an internal investigation released Tuesday. A bias against liberals existed in a Justice program meant to hire young lawyers, an investigation found. Esther Slater McDonald, a political appointee at the Justice Department, "wrote disparaging statements about the candidates' liberal and Democratic Party affiliations on the applications she reviewed and ... she voted to deselect candidates on that basis," said the report by Inspector General Glenn Fine. McDonald, who has left the department, refused to be interviewed for the investigation. The report, the first official investigation to document politicization of the Justice Department during the Bush administration, is an offshoot of the larger investigation of Justice Department politics triggered by the furor over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. It found two of three members of a screening committee considered political views and experience when choosing new lawyers for the Justice Department Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program. The report found that McDonald and Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, engaged in misconduct, an administrative violation. The third member of the screening committee, career lawyer Dan Fridman, was cleared of any involvement in the politicization of the process. Elston was interviewed by the investigators, who asked him about the role of former Justice Department official Monica Goodling in politicizing the selection process. Elston told investigators he could not recall Goodling telling him to select lawyers who appeared to share Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' philosophy. Goodling testified before a House panel last year that she had told Elston he should identify such candidates. Goodling directed Elston to lead the selection committee in 2006. She and Elston have both left the Justice Department. She refused to be interviewed for the inspector general's report. As a result of the controversy, the hiring process was changed in 2007 to insulate hiring decisions from political considerations. Both Justice Department policy and federal law prohibit discrimination in hiring for career positions on the basis of political affiliations. The report did not find clear evidence that an earlier screening committee took political considerations into account. It says data from 2002 shows a disparity in the hiring of liberal and conservative candidates, but there were no complaints about the committee's work from 2003 to 2006, when Goodling put Elston in charge of the process. The report Tuesday is the first of perhaps several to be issued as the broad-ranging investigation into the role partisan politics has played in the Justice Department during the Bush administration. Goodling is expected to be a central figure in later inspector general reports examining efforts to increase the influence of conservatives in the department. The Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility, a separate watchdog office that monitors prosecutorial conduct, joined in the inspector general's investigation. CNN's Terry Frieden contributed to this report.

Programs used to select young lawyers for summer interns and honors program . Investigation stems from firing of U.S. attorneys in 2006 . Members of selection committee screened out liberals and Democrats, report says . Hiring process changed in 2007 to stop political bias from occurring .

1f9aed77465301d7f3787a29555754a03728c4b7

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The storm called Hanna weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm Tuesday morning as maximum sustained winds eased down to 70 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. This satellite image from Monday shows Hanna over the southern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Despite the downgrade, Hanna dropped torrential rain on the eastern Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Haiti. Hurricane warnings remained in effect. Hanna's path and strength remain uncertain, but the latest forecast map from the National Hurricane Center predicts it still could make landfall as a major hurricane on the southeastern U.S. coast by Friday evening. Hanna's path early Tuesday appeared to be a "meandering" loop across Turks and Caicos, but atmospheric changes over the western Atlantic are expected to steer the storm northwestward over the next two or three days, according to forecasters. As of 5 a.m. ET, Hanna was a Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale with sustained winds of 80 mph (129 kph) and gusts of up to 100 mph. iReport.com: Watch Hanna lash Turks and Caicos Islands . Three hours later, it was downgraded to a tropical storm as winds fell below the 74 mph threshold for hurricane status. It could return to hurricane status later Tuesday or on Wednesday, forecasters said. Hanna's line of fire could include the U.S. Atlantic coast from Miami, Florida, to Massachusetts, according to the hurricane center's long-range forecast map. Charleston, South Carolina, appears in the middle of this "cone of uncertainty," with Hanna potentially making landfall there Friday. "It appears that the center has been meandering," forecasters said. The history of hurricanes that have been where Hanna is now might argue against its heading toward the southeastern United States. None of the September storms that passed within 200 miles of Hanna's current location has gone there, with most heading into the Gulf of Mexico and others going to New England or Nova Scotia. Still, forecasters said, "the model guidance is remarkably well clustered" in support of its forecast path for Hanna. Meanwhile, forecasters were keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Ike, which was gaining strength in the mid-Atlantic and appeared headed for the Bahamas later in the week. It had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph Tuesday morning.

NEW: As sustained winds fall off, system demoted to tropical storm . NEW: Hanna could return to hurricane level later in day, forecasters say . NEW: Tropical Storm Ike moving toward Caribbean Sea . Hanna's path could include the U.S. Atlantic coast from Miami to Massachusetts .

7237201bcb7291f2ededb818f901a451356db34b

(CNN) -- A magazine photo spread of Taliban fighters posing in the uniforms of 10 French soldiers killed last month has sparked an angry response. One of the pictures in the French magazine Paris Match that has stirred controversy. The latest edition of Paris Match includes photos of the Taliban fighters and their commander, "Farouki," wearing French uniforms, helmets and using French assault rifles and walkie-talkies. Farouki, aged 30-35, claims in the accompanying story to have led his group in the August 18 ambush which killed 10 French troops and injured a further 21 in the Sarobi District, 40 miles east of Kabul. It was the French army's single highest death toll in 25 years. He said the area was "our territory" and the attack was a "legitimate" part of its defense. Farouki said it did not need a lot of planning, with the French soldiers only spotted a short time before the assault. He said the soldiers had died for "[George W.] Bush's" cause and that if France did not return the rest of its troops home they would all be killed. Farouki said they would continue fighting till the last man. See more on Paris Match's Web site . French Defense Minister Herve Morin accused the magazine of helping the Taliban. "Should we be doing the Taliban's promotion for them?" he asked in the French daily newspaper Liberation. Joel Le Pahun, father of one of the killed soldiers, told the newspaper the pictures were "despicable." Green MP Daniel Cohn-Bendit called them "voyeurism." However, Paris Match editor Laurent Valdiguie defended the publication, saying it was "legitimate" given the importance of the story. The story's author, Eric de Lavarène, said only he and photographer Véronique de Viguerie met the group and he asked his questions via their "fixer."

Photos of Taliban in the uniforms of dead French soldiers provokes outrage . Magazine Paris Match features photos of Taliban and their commander . 10 French troops were killed and a further 21 injured in an ambush .

38d13d78fedc889784ffb3cb213a758c758be145

(CNN) -- Swiss police were scrambling Monday in search of three masked men who stole four Impressionist paintings worth about $163 million (180 million Swiss francs) Sunday in a heist police characterized as "spectacular." Claude Monet's "Poppies near Vetheuil" was one of the famous paintings stolen by the armed robbers. The three men entered the E.G. Buehrle Collection -- among the finest collections of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art in the world -- in Zurich, Switzerland, at around 4:30 p.m. CET (8:30 a.m. ET), police said. One of the men threatened personnel at the museum's front door with a pistol and forced them to the ground, police said, while the other two men went into an exhibition room and stole four oil paintings by Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh. Afterward, the three men loaded the paintings -- Monet's "Poppies near Vetheuil," Degas' "Count Lepic and his Daughters," Van Gogh's "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" and Cezanne's "Boy in a Red Vest" -- into a white car parked in front of the museum and then drove off, police said. Police said the men were wearing dark clothes and hoods, and one of them spoke German with a Slavic accent. They were all of average height, police said. There is a reward of $91,000 (100,00 Swiss francs) for information leading to the return of the paintings, police said. The Swiss art heist follows the recent theft in Switzerland of two paintings by Pablo Picasso, Bjoern Quellenberg, a spokesman for the Kunsthaus, a major art museum in Zurich, said. The 'dumbest' form of art crime » . The director of the Kunsthaus serves on the E.G. Buhrle private art foundation's council, Quellenberg said. In that theft, thieves stole the paintings, the 1962 "Tete de Cheval" ("Horse's Head") and the 1944 "Verre et Pichet" ("Glass and Pitcher") by Picasso. They were on loan from a German museum and valued at $4.5 million when they were stolen February 6, according to news reports. E-mail to a friend .

Artworks worth $163M stolen in Zurich art heist . Haul includes pieces by Cezanne, Van Gogh, Degas and Monet . Heist follows recent thefts in Switzerland of artworks by Picasso .

98fd4b91ec12241a96493471a3e21c9ab96ec523

(CNN) -- A humanitarian plane carrying 17 people -- most of them relief workers -- has crashed during a storm in a mountainous region in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said Tuesday. File image of a Beechcraft 1900 aircraft. Search and rescue crews were not immediately able to land their helicopter in the area and determine whether anyone survived the crash in the east of the country, said Christope Illemassene, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the capital city of Kinshasa. But Air Serv International, the relief group that operated the plane, said an aerial survey has indicated that all the occupants on the Beechcraft 1900 plane died. The plane was on a routine flight from Kinsasha to the eastern city of Goma on Monday, with three stops, Illemassene said. Air-traffic controllers lost contact with the plane when it approached Bukavu, the last of its three intermediate stops. The weather in the area was stormy at the time, Illemassene said. Search and rescue crews spotted the plane's debris Tuesday, about 9.4 miles (15 km) northwest of the Bukavu airport, Illemassene said. "We're anxiously waiting for results from the search and rescue operation," he said. "We're really hoping the peacekeepers are able to land near the site and confirm whether there are any survivors." Air Serv International, based in the U.S. state of Virginia, is one of several groups that provides transport services to relief organizations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Flight operators: Aerial survey indicates occupants on aircraft died . Search and rescue crews not able to land their helicopter in the area, U.N. says . Plane was on a routine flight from Kinsasha to the eastern city of Goma .

8cefdd23a829375abeb18b9bd44bb053a67dfdf8

(CNN) -- Flash floods and landslides triggered by a weekend tropical storm have killed at least 100 people in Vietnam, the country's news agency said Monday. Vietnamese villagers look at the rubble where 19 houses stood before a flash-flood ripped away the hamlet of Tung Chin in Lao Cai province. Forecasters fear additional casualties as more rain was expected Monday. The floods in the the country's northern mountain provinces damaged tens of thousands of homes, swept away thousands of cattle and submerged crops, the Vietnam News Agency said. More than two dozen people remained missing. Officials mobilized thousands of rescue workers to look for survivors and to carry relief to the areas hardest hit by the storm. Tropical Storm Kammuri struck the northern provinces on Friday. The southeast Asian country is prone to heavy rainfall during the May through September monsoon season. The resulting landslides and floods have killed hundreds in past years.

Flash floods and landslides kill at least 100 people in Vietnam . Disasters triggered by tropical storm . Forecasters fear additional casualties .

3de916a84cae6c1dee0076f4e5d6e26fc95c3242

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A Spanair MD-82 airliner was not on fire as it took off from Madrid's airport but lifted off slightly into the air, fell back to the ground and caught fire only after skidding off the side of the runway, a source familiar said Friday. The plane crash victims' bodies laid out at a makeshift morgue in Madrid. A total of 153 people were killed. Initially, there were indications that an engine might have caught fire as the plane was taking off, but the source said airport video shows the plane lifting off, veering sharply right and then dragging or skidding down the right side of the runway. There was a cloud of dust, the source said, followed by a fireball. Canary Islands regional President Paulino Rivero said after meeting with Spain's prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, that the latter had seen the video and described it as showing the plane using up all the runway as it tried to take off but then never reaching adequate altitude, The Associated Press reported. Eighty of the bodies recovered from the wreckage of Wednesday's fiery plane crash have been identified, Spanish authorities said Friday. Watch as Spain deals with tragedy » . Many of the bodies are so badly burned that fingerprint identification is impossible, and investigators will have to rely on DNA, officials said. Nineteen survivors remained hospitalized Friday. The plane was all but destroyed in the crash, a rescue worker said. When emergency crews arrived on the scene, "you couldn't distinguish that there was an aircraft there, apart from the remains of the tail," Ergivio Corral said. "If you didn't know it, you wouldn't have been able to say there was a plane." Watch moment of silence » . Authorities have handed over the remains of 35 victims to their families, officials said. Families of the victims are being housed in a hotel near the airport, and the government planned to brief them on the crash investigation Friday. The cause of the accident is still unknown, but Spanair spokesman Javier Mendoza said flight data recorders had been recovered. iReport.com: Share your photos, videos from the scene . "One of them seems to be... a little bit damaged, but [investigators] are confident they could use the information," Mendoza said. "But we have to wait for the downloading and the analysis" before any conclusions can be drawn, he said. Witnesses reported that the plane banked violently to the right as it attempted to take off before slamming back to the ground and coming to a rest in a gully just off the runway at Madrid's Bajaras airport. Watch as the wounded arrive at a hospital » . The plane's departure had been delayed for nearly two hours due to a technical problem with the aircraft, Mendoza said, but it was not clear whether that fault was related to the crash. "The heating problem was treated and corrected by Spanair maintenance personnel," he said. "We have reviewed the details on this faulty situation with the inspectors of our civil aviation authority," he said, "and we all come to the conclusion that was nothing abnormal in this resolution of that problem." Madrid observed five minutes of silence Thursday to honor the victims, and the country began three days of mourning. See a map of the airport » . The McDonnell Douglas MD-82 carried 162 passengers, four non-working crew members and six working crew members, Spanair said. The aircraft was also carrying seven passengers from Lufthansa Flight 2554 on a flight scheduled to take more than two hours, airline spokeswoman Henriette Ellekrog said. Spanair, a low-cost airline that has a flight-sharing agreement with Lufthansa, is owned by SAS Scandinavian Airlines. Twenty-two of the passengers were children, two of them infants, Spanair said. After contacting families, the airline published the names of those aboard on its Web site. It was the first fatal accident at the airport since December 1983, when 93 people were killed as two Spanish airliners collided while taxiing for takeoff. The airport, which sits eight miles (13 km) northeast of central Madrid, is Spain's busiest, handling more than 40 million passengers a year. CNN's Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman, Claudia Rebaza, Cal Perry and Kathleen Koch contributed to this report. Copyright 2008 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

Video of Spanair MD-82 which crashed in Madrid shows plane got off the ground . Video shows plane bursting into flames after runway skid, source says . DNA tests will be used to identify victims from Madrid air crash . 153 people died when Spanair flight crashed Wednesday during takeoff .

24611abacb038c28a84c76b10165e474ac0fdd7e

Join Roland Martin for his weekly sound-off segment on CNN.com Live at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. If you're passionate about politics, he wants to hear from you. Roland Martin says journalists don't serve the public if they push rumors. (CNN) -- Two recent stories are a prime example of how important it is for the media to confront the reality of rumors in the age of the Internet. One week before comedian Bernie Mac passed away, text messages and e-mails were flying all over the country with reports that he had died. I was in New York, and friends and colleagues from Chicago, Illinois, to Dallas, Texas, and Los Angeles, California, were saying they knew for sure that the 50-year-old comedian was dead. The rumor mill was so hot that his publicist had to release a statement making it clear that he was not dead, which was subsequently published by the Chicago Sun-Times. What makes this story important is that it was left to the publicist and the family to decide to quash the rumor with the truth, and it was our job in the media to go with the news because it was the latest information made available regarding his condition. Then there is the "rumor" of an affair by former North Carolina senator and two-time presidential candidate John Edwards. The story was broken by the National Enquirer after months of digging. Ultimately, a source came forward and was­ likely paid for the information ­that blew the lid off of the story; the tabloid's editor said "you can assume" the Enquirer paid for it. The story exposed Edwards as a liar for contending for two years that such an affair never happened. There has been a lot of hand wringing about why a major media outlet wasn't able to verify the story and run with it. The heated discussions even reached the point where Charlotte Observer editor Rick Thames told PBS' "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" that since mainstream media no longer has the news cycle to itself, "When rumor arises, we're going to need to address it. And, unfortunately, we may need to address it before we can determine whether it's true or not because it's having impact, as it was in this case." Sorry, Rick, I disagree. The most fundamental aspect of being a journalist is that we don't traffic in rumor and innuendo. None of us serves the public if we are in the business of pushing unverified stories into print or on the airwaves just so we can keep up with a rumor that is out of control. Running with such rumors has far-reaching implications. Just check out this month's Vanity Fair, where Bryan Burroughs has a great story on the collapse of Bear Stearns. The investment bank's demise, some conclude, was all a result of baseless rumors suggesting the company had cash problems, even though it was sitting on $18 billion. The rumors kept going and going­ and when the story hit the airwaves, it spread like wildfire. In one week, Bear Stearns was no more, and former company executives are still trying to determine what killed the Wall Street behemoth. We should forget the nonsense about the competitive pressure to break the story. The rules are simple: Either you have the facts or you don't. If you do, you run with the story. If you don't, you leave it alone. The National Enquirer got the story because its reporters were able to confront Edwards as he was leaving the Beverly Hills Hotel room of the woman with whom he later admitted having an affair. Then the paper got its hands on what it said was a photo of the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee playing with a baby the Enquirer said was the child of the mistress. With other major media outlets turning up the heat, Edwards admitted the affair in an interview with ABC's Bob Woodruff. No media executive should be pulling his or her hair out, trying to figure out why they chose not to spread the rumor. If they had, and the facts didn't support the rumor, then we would all look like fools and that would have angered the public even more. We have an obligation to stick with the facts, and nothing else. And no matter what a blogger, Web site or tabloid paper has decided to run with, the day we choose to alter our standards, our credibility and integrity will be shot. In the end, as former ABC News anchor Max Robinson said in 1988, that's all we've got. Nothing is worth losing that, even getting the scoop on an affair involving a candidate whose political career is likely over. Roland S. Martin is an award-winning journalist and CNN contributor. He is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith." Please visit his Web site at http://www.rolandsmartin.com/. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

Mac, Edwards stories point out importance of confronting rumors, Martin says . Martin says rules are simple: If you have the facts, run with the story . Martin says journalists should stick to that, no matter what hits the Internet . That's how journalists keep credibility and integrity, he says .

4f3178963b84a0e3625f7486b045872c665073d7

(CNN) -- Three Americans rescued last week from captivity in the Colombian jungle left a medical center for their homes Saturday, hoping for some time out of the spotlight as they reconnect with loved ones. Left to right, Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves address reporters before flying home Saturday. Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes -- hostages of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia for more than five years -- left the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. "There's family members that are waiting for us, and just imagine if you hadn't seen your family in 5½ years," Stansell said, asking the media to allow the former captives some space. "Let us go home and be family men again." "We're going to come out and we're going to talk, but right now, what we want to do is rest," Gonsalves said. All three were headed home to Florida, and Stansell and Howes flashed their new Florida driver's licenses before they boarded a plane. The three men had been undergoing a reintegration process at the medical center. FARC had held the three U.S. government contractors since February 2003 after their plane went down in a remote region of the South American country. They and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt were among 15 hostages rescued on July 2 in a Colombian military operation. The three Americans arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center later that day. The three Americans urged the media not to forget the hundreds of other hostages still held by FARC. "Don't forget the people that are still there," Stansell said. "There are fellow hostages that are still there. Some have 10 years [as a hostage]," he said. "Right this minute, they're in chains, looking for food, and they're on the run. And their families haven't seen them in 10 years." It is estimated that FARC holds some 750 hostages. The leftist rebel group took up arms in 1964 and grew from a rag-tag band of 48 fighters to a self-styled "people's army" of more than 21,000 combatants in 2001, according to Colombian government figures. The government now estimates the FARC fighting force has dwindled to around 8,000 after a wave of desertions. On Saturday, the rescued Americans talked of looking forward to spending time with their relatives. "We're going to go home now. We're going to rest, we're going to unwind for about a month and a half," Gonsalves said.

Ex-FARC hostages leave Texas medical center 10 days after rescue . Freed men ask for privacy, saying they want to spend time with relatives . Men ask media to not forget about hostages who still held in Colombia .

6ff0470115b556c80229f4305c23afa683c9f8da

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush condemned the escalated violence between Russia and U.S.-backed Georgia on Sunday, while Vice President Dick Cheney said aggression against Georgia "must not go unanswered." President Bush chats with Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin at the start of the Olympic opening ceremonies. "My administration has been engaged with both sides of this trying to get a ceasefire," Bush told NBC's Bob Costas in an interview in Beijing, China, where the president has attended Olympic events. Bush was filmed speaking to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during Friday's opening ceremonies and said Sunday that he "was firm with Vladimir Putin" and that "this violence is unacceptable." Violence has continued to rage between Russia and the western ally since Thursday, when Georgia launched an operation to crack down on separatists in South Ossetia territory. Russia said it wanted to protect its peacekeepers already in South Ossetia following ceasefires in years past. But Georgia called it a full-on invasion. And while Russia has accused Georgia of a genocidal plot to cleanse the region of ethnic Ossetians loyal to Russia, Georgia accuses Russia of executing a long-planned war with the aim of taking control of the region -- including a key pipeline that carries Asian oil to Black Sea ports. "I expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia," Bush said of his talk with Putin. "We strongly condemn bombing outside of South Ossetia." Putin says he's concerned about the flood of refugees arriving in Russia from South Ossetia. Russian officials said more than 30,000 refugees have left South Ossetia and crossed into Russia over the past two days, Interfax reported. "The actions of the Georgian authorities in South Ossetia are a crime, of course, primarily a crime against their own people," Putin said, according to Russian news agency Interfax. Meanwhile, Cheney talked to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Sunday, telling him that Russia's aggression against Georgia "must not go unanswered." Cheney's spokeswoman Lea Ann McBride said the vice president spoke to Saakashvili to express "the United States' solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity." Georgia withdrew its forces Sunday and offered a ceasefire, which Russia refused. "The vice president told President Saakashvili that Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community," McBride said. Saakashvili has called on the United States and the world community to stop the "intervention and invasion of my sovereign country." "I think the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world," he told CNN. "I think the U.S. has lots of leverage. And I think there are lots of diplomatic means that it could be done through." Two senior officials have told CNN the United States sent envoy Matt Bryza to the region to help with mediation.

NEW: Bush says he was "firm" with Putin and that the "violence is unacceptable" Vice President Dick Cheney said Russian aggression "must not go unanswered" Violence has continued to rage between Russia and western ally Georgia .

4be9a7e5e9115eb681541c4a8d247ac84f0eb774

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- There's no question "Tropic Thunder" takes chances. Ben Stiller, left, and Robert Downey Jr. are among the stars of "Tropic Thunder," a Hollywood satire. Tom Cruise almost unrecognizable as a foulmouthed, foul-mannered movie executive? Check. Mockery of action heroes, Method actors and gross-out comedians? Check. Challenging stereotypes at every opportunity? Absolutely. But casting Robert Downey Jr. as a black man? Well, that might be a bit much. Or maybe not. In "Tropic Thunder," a comedy about self-absorbed Hollywood types making a "Platoon"-style war movie, Downey plays Australian actor Kirk Lazarus, a multiple Oscar-winning performer who gets so involved in his roles that he forgets to come out of them. He's a man constantly looking for ways to transform himself for his art. So, cast as a black man in the war movie, Lazarus decides to dye his skin surgically. Downey -- no slouch as an actor himself -- has often been seen as one who immerses himself fully in his roles. That kind of dedication prevented the character from coming off as offensive, said Ben Stiller, who directed, co-wrote and stars in "Tropic Thunder." "I give all the credit to Robert," Stiller told CNN. "I felt he really was so committed to that character, the guy that was playing that guy, that as an audience you bought his sincerity. Very few people, I think, could pull that off." Brandon Jackson, who plays hip-hop star turned actor Alpa Chino (say it fast), agreed. "Robert was black the whole time. My mom came on the set and she thought it was Don Cheadle," he told CNN. "I'm serious. That's how black he was." Watch Jackson talk about working with Downey » . The movie, which also stars Stiller as struggling action star Tugg Speedman and Jack Black as gross-out king Jeff Portnoy, features some testy altercations between Downey's Lazarus and Jackson's Chino. Lazarus gets so involved in his role that even when it's clear filming has wrapped for the day, he sticks with it -- which irritates Chino to no end. "To me the most important thing was Alpa Chino has to give him a beat down and tell him that what he's doing is crazy the whole time," Downey said. "Otherwise it's just demeaning to Brandon's character. And if it's demeaning to an actual black man in the movie ... I would have run for the hills." Jackson said he would have challenged the movie if the material was offensive. But, he said, "Tropic Thunder" is a long way from the days when white performers would don blackface as a way of exploiting black stereotypes. Since then, he said, the playing field has leveled: The Wayans brothers played "White Chicks" in the film of the same name, and Eddie Murphy has played several ethnicities in his films, including Jewish and Chinese characters. "If we're all gonna play ball, let's all play ball," Jackson said. "I believe in fairness. If we can punch you, punch back. And funny is funny." iReport.com: Will you see 'Tropic Thunder'? Stiller, of course, is no stranger to testing comedy limits. The actor, writer and director, known for films such as "Meet the Parents" and "Zoolander," has performed or created roles that strike a delicate balance between sympathetic and distasteful -- and sometimes fall too hard on one side of the line. He co-wrote "Tropic Thunder" based on an idea he had in 1987, when many of his friends were making war movies, he recalls in the film's production notes. While Stiller was making "Empire of the Sun," his colleagues were in boot camps training for their military roles -- and would emerge talking about the boot camp as if they'd become part of a real military unit. "This sort of self-important, self-involved thing seemed funny to me," he said in the notes. "I just couldn't figure a way to make that into a movie." Not immediately, anyway. But after several years, Stiller and his colleagues worked out a story that not only mocked actors, but filmmaking in general. In "Thunder," after the studio threatens to shut down the big-budget production, the frustrated director (played by Steve Coogan) refuses to stop, and takes his cast deep into a Southeast Asia jungle to shoot "guerrilla style." There they encounter danger in the form of drug lords. "Tropic Thunder," which already has received praise from Newsweek's David Ansen and The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt, has also earned its share of knocks. The most serious have come from advocacy groups for the disabled, which are planning to picket Monday's Los Angeles premiere. In the film, Speedman has made a bid for an Oscar by playing "Simple Jack," a developmentally disabled character. Other characters in "Tropic Thunder" dismiss Speedman's attempt to play what they refer to as a "retard." Representatives of the Special Olympics, the Arc of the United States, the National Down Syndrome Congress, the American Association of People with Disabilities and other groups met with studio executives last week to discuss the film, but DreamWorks did not make any changes. "We are asking people not to go to the movie and hope to bring a consciousness to people about using derogatory words about this population," said Peter Wheeler, a spokesman for the Special Olympics, according to Reuters. In a statement Sunday, Chip Sullivan, a DreamWorks spokesman, said the movie was "an R-rated comedy that satirizes Hollywood and its excesses and makes its point by featuring inappropriate and over-the-top characters in ridiculous situations." In the statement, Sullivan added that the film was not meant to disparage or harm people with disabilities and that DreamWorks expected to work closely with disability groups in the future. In junket interviews for the film, Stiller said that screening audiences definitely found "Tropic Thunder" funny. "You go out there and put your best foot forward in terms of what you think you're doing, of what you think is the right idea," he said. "If people are accepting it the way that you intended, and you feel that from a general audience ... then stand behind it." Downey trusts that after years of making themselves known as actors who can skillfully walk that fine line between funny and offensive, audiences will accept the film's satire -- his role in particular. "I just hope at this point, with whatever little we've done to brand ourselves as entertainers, that you give us a little slack," he said. CNN entertainment correspondent Kareen Wynter contributed to this report.

"Tropic Thunder" pushes boundaries at every opportunity . Film has taken knocks from groups for the developmentally disabled . "Thunder" casts Robert Downey Jr. as Method actor playing black man . Downey, other cast members don't believe character is offensive .

de3ba4e29501a10effcbb5a61e7b9c0ab3721669

(CNN) -- Officials in some Gulf Coast states spent the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on Friday gearing up for what could be the biggest threat to the region since Katrina hit in 2005. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin attends a ceremony Friday honoring Hurricane Katrina victims. Hurricane Gustav is poised to pass near or over the Cayman Islands on Friday night and over western portions of Cuba on Saturday. It may approach the U.S. Gulf Coast by Tuesday morning as a Category 2 or 3 hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said Friday. "Today, on that third anniversary, we've got to be thinking about the future," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said. "As we pray for the best, we're going to prepare for the worst," Barbour announced Friday that Hurricane Katrina victims living in government-issued trailers or mobile homes along his state's coast will begin evacuating this weekend to prepare for the Gustav's possible arrival. The process will begin Saturday, with notices going out to people living in Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers or mobile homes, as well as people living in more permanent structures known as "Mississippi cottages," he said. Watch the Gulf Coast states prepare for Gustav » . The evacuation will begin in Harrison and Hancock counties on Sunday morning, Barbour said. Evacuation in Jackson County will begin Monday. About 4,300 families live in FEMA trailers or mobile homes, and 2,800 live in Mississippi cottages, the governor's office said. He said he would urge people living in privately owned mobile homes to evacuate as well. President Bush declared an emergency in Louisiana on Friday, freeing up federal aid and allowing FEMA to coordinate relief efforts. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has declared a state of emergency and urged residents to update their evacuation plans. He said residents in certain southern parishes could be asked to leave Friday or Saturday. In Plaquemines Parish, where Hurricane Katrina roared ashore as a Category 3 storm days after its initial landfall in Florida, Parish President Billy Nungesser called for a mandatory evacuation beginning at noon Saturday. Residents of the community of Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish were urged to begin voluntary evacuations Friday afternoon, and voluntary evacuations for Jean Lafitte, Crown Point, Barataria and areas outside the levee protection system are recommended beginning at noon Saturday, the parish said in a news release. St. Bernard Parish, which was beginning transport Friday for those who would need assistance, said it expected to call a mandatory evacuation Saturday afternoon. In New Orleans, which has yet to fully recover from Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin on Thursday urged residents living in FEMA units to make evacuation plans in case city officials order them to leave. Watch Sean Callebs report on if New Orleans is prepared » . "Travel trailers are unsafe during heavy winds," he said. "As we continue to monitor and prepare for the possibility of Hurricane Gustav, I want all of our citizens to make certain they have a plan for leaving the trailers when advised to do so." As of early this week, there were 2,829 FEMA trailers in Orleans Parish, the mayor's office said. The city has designated 17 sites for people without transportation to board buses that would take them out of the city in the event of a mandatory evacuation. The city also arranged with Amtrak for more than 7,000 seats to evacuate the elderly by train, said Jerry Sneed of City Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Signs of mobilization were apparent at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where nearly every departure gate had long lines of elderly people in wheelchairs. Rental car counters normally attended by tourists were filled with relief workers from the Red Cross and the Fire Department of New York's Disaster Assistance Response Team. The DART team consisted of retired New York firefighters, jovial men with graying hair and larger waistlines. Many are volunteers assisting the Red Cross who were in New York during the September 11 attacks and wanted to give back. The 40-member DART team of heavy-equipment operators, truck drivers and registered nurses was headed to Alexandria, Louisiana, to set up an evacuation shelter. After the storm, the team will feed, shelter and re-supply people in the areas affected by Gustav. "Whatever small way you're able to help, it's a great feeling," said Kevin Wallace, a 23-year FDNY veteran who's helped after six disasters. "Whatever they need us to do, we do." All 2,500 inmates in Orleans Parish would be bused out from state and local facilities, Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley said this week that hundreds of officers will be posted in the uptown, downtown, Central City and West Bank areas to ensure an adequate law enforcement presence in the event of an emergency. During Katrina, many New Orleans officers were accused of leaving their posts as widespread crime and looting permeated the city. Sixty-seven officers were fired for it, Riley said. In addition to the police department's actions, at least 1,500 Louisiana National Guard members arrived in New Orleans on Friday. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his concerns for New Orleans are twofold. First, he was worried about areas of potential weakness in the levee system, which he said the Army Corps of Engineers monitor closely, and second, rainfall. "You can build levees that are 100 feet high; it's not going to keep the rain out of the city. A very, very intense period of rain could flood the city, because the pace of the rainfall could exceed the ability to pump out of the city," he said. The only thing to do was prepare, he said. "We evacuate; we protect the integrity of the levees; we continue to strengthen the levees; that's part of a total system of really driving down the risk to the people of New Orleans," he said. The Louisiana National Guard has requested 20 helicopters from eight states to replace its helicopter air assault battalion, which is now serving in Iraq with its 20 UH-60 Black Hawks. The Guard is asking for UH-60 helicopters for search and rescue, as well as CH-47s, Chinooks, which could drop large sandbags if the levees are breached. A 40-person aviation headquarters unit also is being requested and probably will be provided by the Arkansas National Guard to handle air traffic control and communications for any air operations that might be needed. In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry pre-emptively declared an emergency in 61 Texas counties. He said also the state had agreed to take into its shelters several thousand Louisiana residents, should they evacuate. CNN's John Couwels, Chris Lawrence, Barbara Starr, Eric Marropodi and Kim Segal contributed to this report.

NEW: Disaster response teams arrive in New Orleans as elderly fill airports . Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says evacuations will begin Sunday in two counties . Grand Isle area of Jefferson Parish urged to begin voluntary evacuations . Texas Gov. Rick Perry pre-emptively declare emergency in 61 counties .

d23090b75384c925e7f20b1ec5218394b52eae38

(CNN) -- Federal regulators announced $7.1 million in fines against American Airlines on Thursday over maintenance issues and problems with its drug- and alcohol-testing programs. American Airlines was fined for allowing aircrafts to fly while they knew they needed repairs. "The FAA believes the large total amount of the fine for these violations is appropriate because American Airlines was aware that appropriate repairs were needed, and instead deferred maintenance," the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement announcing the decision. "In intentionally continuing to fly the aircraft, the carrier did not follow important safety regulations intended to protect passengers and crew." American can still appeal the fines, the FAA said. The FAA also found the airline maintained inadequate drug- and alcohol-testing programs and failed to inspect safety lighting on a "timely" basis. The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier said Thursday evening that it disagreed with the findings and called the penalties "excessive." "In accordance with FAA procedures for handling these matters, we have requested to meet with the FAA after we have had time to thoroughly review their findings, so that we may discuss the issues," the airline said in a written statement. "Since these matters are ongoing with the FAA, we will not have any further comment at this time." Nearly $4.5 million of the proposed fines stem from American's continued operation of two MD-83 jetliners in December 2007 after pilots reported problems with the autopilot systems, the FAA said. The two planes were flown a combined 58 times before the problems were corrected -- and one flew 10 times after an FAA inspector notified the airline that it had wrongly deferred needed repairs. In one incident, the autopilot disconnected during a landing on December 21, the FAA said. "American technicians did not check for the actual problem, and instead deferred maintenance using an inappropriate MEL (minimum equipment list) item. The plane flew another 36 passenger-carrying flights during December 21-31." The problem was later traced to a piece of radio gear separate from the autopilot, the FAA said. Meanwhile, a different MD-83 flew four flights without a fully functioning autopilot after American mechanics put off repairs. Regulators also accuse American of operating planes without timely inspections of their emergency lighting systems. In April, American canceled more than 3,000 flights to conduct inspections of wiring bundles in wheel wells of its 300 MD-80 jets, snarling air traffic for five days. The FAA ordered American and several other airlines to examine the wiring, which had the potential to start fires or cause landing gear to malfunction.

NEW: American asks to meet with FAA, calls fines "excessive" Airline accused of not having timely inspections of emergency lighting systems . Two planes flew combined 58 times before problems corrected . Airline also fined for "past deficiencies" regarding drug and alcohol testing.

98008fdd5ea99bc7c437d6e1aa86c750bf667415

(CNN) -- The U.S. Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee are expected to ask a federal judge Monday to shut down Web sites they allege scam customers trying to buy Olympic tickets, according to court documents. The Web site www.beijingticketing.com is accused in a lawsuit of scamming Olympic ticket buyers. The IOC and the USOC filed lawsuits on July 22 against several Web sites -- primarily www.beijingticketing.com and www.beijing-2008tickets.com -- for illegally using Olympic trademarks to dupe customers into giving them credit card, passport and banking information. Lawyers for the IOC and USOC are expected to petition U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White on Monday to permanently shut down several sites listed in the lawsuit. The lawsuit names the company XL & H Ltd, known as Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality Ltd. and six other Web sites believed to be fraudulent. Several consumers who purchased tickets from the site contacted the USOC when they did not receive tickets, despite numerous calls and e-mails to the Web sites founder, according to a USOC press release. The scam has hit Olympic fans in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, England, Japan, China and Norway, according to media reports. Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates told local media that relatives of the country's softball team had been victims of the site. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the New South Wales Government set up a hotline for those duped out of tickets. The hotline has received hundreds of calls from around the globe with consumers detailing losses as high as $57,000. The IOC and USOC successfully secured a restraining order on July 23 in federal court in Phoenix, Arizona, that shut down www.beijing-2008tickets.com, according to court documents. That site is now shut down and no contact information is available. The site www.BeijingTicketing.com priced tickets for Friday's Olympic opening ceremony at about $2,000, with events such as swimming selling for between $300 and $500. The site is the first entry that comes up for a Google search for "Olympic tickets," second only to the authorized dealer of Olympic tickets, www.cosport.com. The Web site ww.beijingticketing.com site lists a London phone number, which rang unanswered. The site lists an office address in Arizona. The site boasts tickets for nearly every Olympic event, with some events showing sell-outs already. The site also looked to assure ticket buyers of its authenticity with a note at the bottom of the site. "Beijing 2008 Ticketing is a well known tickets agent and a trusted market place for buyers to find book Olympic tickets," the note stated. "We assure 100% guaranteed tickets delivery."

USOC, IOC claim fake ticket sites have bilked customers using their trademark . Sites www.BeijingTicketing.com and www.beijing-2008tickets.com named in suit . One site claims "We assure 100 % guaranteed tickets delivery"

fd13c81373473f862d0f3559ffbc2a03fa95f492

(CNN) -- Celebrity chef Bobby Chinn has tried his hand at a number of things. Chinn's face for television: Picking up his Asian TV Award in 2007. English boarding school taught him that food could be an awful experience; Wall Street taught him that creativity was more important than money and a stint as a stand-up comedian taught him that you can't always get it right. Half Chinese, half Egyptian, Chinn's grandmothers were his first introduction to the variety and pleasure that food can bring. While his palate was subdued by the meals he was given at school in England when he was a boy, his meandering route to becoming a chef came some time after attaining a degree in Finance and Economics. Moving to New York after graduating he worked on Wall Street. "You didn't produce anything at the end of a day and you didn't breathe fresh air, you didn't know what the weather was like outside because you were on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It's like the dungeon of capitalism where time and money met," he told CNN's Talk Asia. Chinn escaped "the dungeon" after a year and a half to the sunny climes of California, but it wasn't to laze around. An addiction to high-octane and challenging environments saw Chinn explore the possibility of being a stand-up comic. "I was always afraid to talk in front of the class and now I am trying to make them laugh" he told CNN. "One day you are really funny and then you go to another gig the same night and nobody laughs and then at the same time you are living a life of poverty. When you are bombing as a comic I don't think there can be a worse life." While finding out the hard way how funny, or not, he was, Chinn was working front-of-house in restaurants, nurturing his love of food. His break came when Hubert Keller from San Francisco restaurant Fleur de Lys took him on as a volunteer in his kitchen. "He gave me a job and after one week he said 'OK, you can stay.' And then when you work with one really great chef, then I think you can work anywhere," he said. After also training with chefs in France, Chinn made his own mark on the culinary world when he opened his first restaurant in Vietnam in 1995, and at first found the going tough. "Supplies were not consistent, the language barrier, the taste barrier, the hygiene barriers. Those are very taxing on a person like me with very little patience." A high-energy chef and now a TV celebrity who presents "World Café Asia" -- he won an Asian Television Award in 2007 -- Chinn is aware that being flavor of the month on TV is transitory. "It is just a machine that feeds on people like me and then spits me out when my time is done. You just have to go with the flow."

Half Chinese, half Egyptian, Chinn made his name as a chef in Vietnam . Worked on Wall Street and as a stand-up comic before becoming a chef . Has published cook books and has own cookery show called 'World Cafe Asia'

ad275932d9fb03762cc781e06955fb088e165ad9

PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida (CNN) -- Tropical Storm Fay, stalled near Cape Canaveral, Florida, soaked portions of east-central Florida late Wednesday, and the National Hurricane Center said it could dump 30 inches of rain in some areas of the state. Streets are flooded Wednesday in Port St. Lucie, Florida, in a photo from iReporter Bethany Schulstrom. As of 11 p.m. ET, the storm was just off the coast of central Florida about 35 miles southeast of Daytona Beach, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm was moving slowly but could make landfall again in northern Florida Thursday, the hurricane center said. It would be the fourth time the storm makes landfall. Fay has come ashore in Florida twice after making landfall in Cuba. NASA reported receiving 21 inches of rain from the storm Wednesday, said Craig Fugate, Florida's emergency management director. Forecasters said they received an unofficial report of 22 inches northwest of Melbourne, Florida. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has asked President Bush to declare an emergency in the state to free up federal funding. The storm "is producing historic flooding across a large portion of Brevard County," Crist wrote in a letter to Bush. "Fay has and will continue to produce copious amounts of rain over a large portion of northeast Florida as the storm turns westward on August 21. "Fay remains a significant threat," Crist continued, noting that tornadoes have touched down in seven counties. The governor pre-emptively declared a state of emergency last week. As of 11 p.m. ET, Fay the storm had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 km/h), and it was expected to move slowly toward the northwest overnight, according to a hurricane center advisory. "This general motion is expected tonight with a gradual turn to the northwest and west-northwest on Thursday," the National Hurricane Center said. "On this track, Fay is forecast to move very slowly across northern Florida on Thursday." Fay could make its fourth landfall Thursday along the Florida coast, possibly in the Jacksonville-Daytona Beach area, forecasters said. "The storm continues to be a threat to this community," Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton said. "Looks like the worst is still ahead." Peyton said Jacksonville had set up shelters should people need them. Storm tides of 1 to 3 feet above normal are possible along the Florida's east coast, to the north of the center of Fay, the hurricane center said, adding that isolated tornadoes are possible over portions of northeastern Florida and southeast Georgia. The storm forced NASA to close for a second day because of "potential wind threat," NASA said on its Web site. The agency was to announce Wednesday night whether it would also be shut Thursday. The U.S. Navy announced Wednesday afternoon that it was moving several ships and aircraft in anticipation of Fay's arrival in northeast Florida. Naval Air Station Jacksonville has evacuated 24 P-3 Orion aircraft to bases in Maine and Ohio. On the southeast coast of Florida, Fay flooded hundreds of homes in St. Lucie County, authorities said. Rescuers were using airboats and other means Wednesday to pick up stranded residents. Earlier in the day, the county's Public Safety Department said that as many as 8,000 homes might be affected in two low-lying areas but later scaled the number back. Crist announced the first known storm-related death. A 54-year-old man died from carbon monoxide fumes as he tested two gasoline-powered generators in his home in Highlands County, northwest of Lake Okeechobee in eastern Florida, Crist said, quoting the county's medical examiner. Crist said he wasn't sure when the man died, but the medical examiner received the body Monday. The severe flooding in St. Lucie County took authorities by surprise. Meg Defore said that the first floor of her home was 14 feet above ground but that water had reached the top of her doors. She left in a small boat. Near the north fork of the St. Lucie River, water gushed down streets and lapped at the doors of parked cars. iReporter Bethany Schulstrom, 16, said water was up to people's knees in the streets of Port St. Lucie. "They sent a warning to everyone not to leave [their homes] because the snakes are coming out of their holes and there's fish everywhere," she said. A tropical storm warning, meaning that tropical conditions and winds of 39 to 73 mph are expected within a day, was in effect from Fort Pierce in St. Lucie County north to Altamaha Sound in Georgia. A tropical storm watch, meaning that those conditions are expected within 36 hours, remained in effect from north of Altamaha Sound to the Savannah River. In Melbourne, where a 50-year-old rainfall record was shattered, residents have been warned of an alligator swimming in the streets, according to CNN affiliate WKMG-TV in Orlando. CNN's John Zarrella and Barbara Starr contributed to this report .

Rainfall could reach 30 inches in some areas, forecast says . Airboats help rescue people in flooded homes in St. Lucie County . Kennedy Space Center will remain closed for a second day . Track Fay with CNN's Hurricane Tracker .

f9fedde4734d8ac3431c0ed5d338efcd799b1aea

LA PAZ, Bolivia (CNN) -- Five of Bolivia's nine states staged a civic strike Tuesday, protesting against President Evo Morales and demanding a larger share of the country's natural gas revenues. Members of Santa Cruz's Juvenile Union burn wood during protests Tuesday in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Officials in Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija -- states in the wealthy, eastern lowland known as the "Media Luna," or half-moon -- and Chuquisaca, also in the eastern part of the country, instructed residents not to leave their homes until the end of the one-day strike, Bolivian newspaper El Diario reported. The five departments contain much of the Andean country's natural gas deposits, and their leaders are asking for natural gas revenue that Morales has earmarked to increase funding for pension plans, the five regions said in a statement on the strike posted on Santa Cruz's Web site. They said they were "sorry that the inflexibility of the government forced the prefectures to take this type of resolution." Confrontations between government supporters and pro-autonomy groups in a Santa Cruz neighborhood appeared to be the day's most violent. Police fired tear gas three times at demonstrators. In the other four departments where the strike was being observed, there were no disturbances. The 24-hour strike was called by civil committees of the departments to demand that the government give back the money it has collected by taxing hydrocarbons in order to fund the pension plan. The president of Santa Cruz's civic committee, Branco Marincovick, said the tax is constraining regional development. The government condemned acts of violence during the day and said that the strike was limited. The strike comes nine days after Morales garnered more than 67 percent of votes in a recall referendum, which he had proposed in May to break a power struggle long simmering between him and the conservative leadership in the Media Luna states. Despite the solid show of support for Morales, the vote also endorsed the leaders in Santa Cruz, Pando, Beni and Tarija, making it impossible to reach a solution to the stalemate. Morales, a former labor organizer and the country's first indigenous president, was elected in 2005 on promises to reform Bolivia's constitution for the benefit of its indigenous majority. But his proposals have been hampered by his rivals in the Media Luna states. Since taking office, all four have pushed for greater autonomy, saying the individual departments have the right to control their own affairs, including increased access to gas revenues. In speaking about the revenues earmarked for increased pensions, Morales emphasized that it was for the good of the people, a refrain he often uses. "Some authorities believe that this money is theirs, and it is not so, this silver is of the people and should benefit the people," the president said last year, shortly after he announced the measure. Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, a nonpartisan think-tank, said Morales' overwhelming victory at the polls strengthens his hand at achieving his goal of redistributing wealth. Less than one percent of landowners in Bolivia own two-thirds of the country's farmland, he said in an article published in The Nation magazine. "Bolivia is South America's poorest country, with 60 percent of the population living below the poverty line, and 38 percent in extreme poverty," he said. "The voters have overwhelmingly decided that they want their government to do something about that. This should be possible, even if it means redistributing some of the country's most important natural resources." CNN's Gloria Carrasco contributed to this report.

Five of Bolivia's 9 states demand larger share of nation's natural gas revenues. President has earmarked gas profits to increase funding for pension plans . Police fire tear gas three times at demonstrators in Santa Cruz .

bbe84a85e38aac4e2cff76da7ce4ed349474db25

(CNN) -- Actor and filmmaker Joe Pantoliano, known for his role as Ralph Cifaretto on the HBO series "The Sopranos," attended the Democratic National Convention on Monday to raise awareness about people living with mental illness. Joe Pantoliano has met with the Obama and McCain camps to promote mental health and recovery. Pantoliano, founder and president of the eight-month-old advocacy organization No Kidding, Me Too, released a teaser of his new film about various forms of mental illness. At the CNN Grill, he answered five questions for CNN.com. CNN.com: What are you doing out here in Denver? Pantoliano: I've always been fascinated by the political process ever since I was a kid. ... I always love the festive partying, the camaraderie, the working for the candidate, whether it was somebody in the 3rd Ward where I lived in New Jersey in Hoboken or a senator or a congressman or even when a president would come. I remember when President Kennedy came down to Hoboken in '61 and I was only 10 years old. I was with the Kennedys tonight. CNN.com: Are you a Barack Obama supporter? Pantoliano: I'm advocating my organization. I'm going to the [Republican National Convention} next week. I'm speaking on mental illness and the miracles of recovery; that's what the movie is about. I've met with the Obama chief of staff and the Obama people; I've met with McCain people. Mental illness is on the tip of their minds. CNN.com: Who are you voting for? Pantoliano: I don't know yet. Watch how celebrity endorsements can backfire » . CNN.com: Where are the hot spots in Denver? Where are people hanging out? Pantoliano: Here, the CNN Grill. It's all they're talking about. I really like Denver. The security is less kinetic [than] it was four years ago. That whole fear thing that this administration has played on our nerves; I think I have post-traumatic stress over that. What happened was I became addicted to the news. iReport.com: Are you in Denver? Share sights, sounds . CNN.com: Do you think that coming out to a convention helps you make up your mind better than sitting in your living room? Pantoliano: I'm an independent. I can be inspired tonight by Michelle Obama's speech, and then something happens next week, so I'm going back and forth. I'm a flip-flopper. The difference that I see between the Republicans and the Democrats are that the Democrats really are a force of what the melting pot of our society is. Obama really represents that. Obama represents what America is today. CNN's Michael Senzon contributed to this report.

Pantoliano is co-founder of the advocacy group No Kidding, Me Too . "Sopranos" actor has new film about mental illness . He says he has met with Obama and McCain camps to discuss issue . Pantoliano hasn't decided whom to vote for in November .

45884af9aff9abf54fec27f510c3f9ed000fc6e1

(CNN) -- The New York Times has rejected an essay that Sen. John McCain wrote defending his Iraq war policy. Sen. John McCain wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, but the paper said it could not publish it as written. The piece was in response to an op-ed from Sen. Barack Obama that was published in the paper last week. In an e-mail to the McCain campaign, Opinion Page Editor David Shipley said he could not accept the piece as written, but would be "pleased, though, to look at another draft." "Let me suggest an approach," he wrote Friday. "The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans. It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece." Read McCain's rejected piece . In a statement released Monday, The New York Times said it is "standard procedure on our Op-Ed page, and that of other newspapers, to go back and forth with an author on his or her submission." "We look forward to publishing Senator McCain's views in our paper just as we have in the past. We have published at least seven Op-Ed pieces by Senator McCain since 1996. The New York Times endorsed Senator McCain as the Republican candidate in the presidential primaries. We take his views very seriously," the statement said. McCain's rejected op-ed was a lengthy critique of Obama's positions on Iraq policy, particularly his view of the surge. "Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history," wrote McCain, criticizing Obama's call for an early withdrawal timeline. "I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the 'Mission Accomplished' banner prematurely." Watch why the piece was rejected » . Obama's July 14 essay had taken shots at McCain for not further encouraging the Iraqi government to take control of the country. "Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition -- despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq's sovereign government," Obama wrote in his op-ed. "They call any timetable for the removal of American troops 'surrender,' even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government." Read Obama's essay . Shipley, who was President Bill Clinton's senior speechwriter from 1995 to 1997, had advised the McCain campaign that "the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. "It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory -- with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the senator's Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan." He added that he hoped the parties could "find a way to bring this to a happy resolution." McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said Monday the Arizona senator's position will not change based on the "demands of the New York Times." "John McCain believes that victory in Iraq must be based on conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables," he said. "Unlike Barack Obama, that position will not change based on politics or the demands of the New York Times." The newspaper endorsed McCain for the Republican presidential nomination in January, shortly before the New York primary. In February, after it became clear McCain would be his party's presumptive nominee, the paper published a thinly sourced report that McCain once had a close relationship with a female lobbyist. McCain said he was disappointed in the New York Times piece. The paper said that it stood by its reporting and that "the story speaks for itself." McCain's campaign sent out fundraising appeals based on the article. The article "is particularly disgusting -- an un-sourced hit-and-run smear campaign designed to distract from the issues at stake in this election," McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, wrote in a e-mail to supporters. "We need your help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against the New York Times by making an immediate contribution today," the e-mail said in text that linked to an online contribution form on the McCain campaign's Web site.

NEW: Paper says rejection part of standard back-and-forth procedure . John McCain writes essay in defending his Iraq policy . New York Times suggests McCain submit piece that mirrors Barack Obama's . Paper: Obama's essay had new information, McCain's critiqued Obama's positions .

59e60ba3c7ea5f5991db8ed4afd368c69e697dde

CERN, Switzerland (CNN) -- Scientists Wednesday applauded as one of the most ambitious experiments ever conceived got successfully underway, with protons being fired around a 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the universe. Scientists applaud during the switch on operation of the Large Hadron Collider. The Large Hadron Collider -- a $9 billion particle accelerator designed to simulate conditions of the Big Bang that created the physical Universe -- was switched on at 0732 GMT to cheers and applause from experts gathered to witness the event. While observers were left nonplussed by the anticlimactic flashing dots on a TV screen that signalled the machine's successful test run, among teams of scientists involved around the world there were jubilant celebrations and popping champagne corks. In the coming months, the collider is expected to begin smashing particles into each other by sending two beams of protons around the tunnel in opposite directions. Skeptics, who claim that the experiment could lead to the creation of a black hole capable of swallowing the planet, failed in a legal bid to halt the project at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Others have branded it a colossal waste of cash, draining resources from its multinational collaborators that could have been spent on scientific research with more tangible benefits to mankind. Sound off: What do you think of the experiment? French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the project as a major achievement for Europe. "The repercussions of this scientific investment without precedent in the history of humanity will be essential not only for the intimate knowledge of our universe, but also for the direct applications in fields as varied as intensive calculation or even medicine," he said. Watch as Big Bang experiment gets underway » . The collider will operate at higher energies and intensities in the next year, potentially generating enough data to make a discovery by 2009, experts say. They say the experiment has the potential to confirm theories that physicists have been working on for decades including the possible existence of extra dimensions. They also hope to find a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson -- sometimes referred to as the "God particle," which has never been detected, but would help explain why matter has mass. The collider will recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, when there was a hot "soup" of tiny particles called quarks and gluons, to look at how the universe evolved, said John Harris, U.S. coordinator for ALICE, a huge detector specialized to analyze that question. Since this is exploratory science, the collider may uncover surprises that contradict prevailing theories, but which are just as interesting, said Joseph Lykken, theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. "When Columbus sails west, he thought he was going to find something. He didn't find what he thought he was going to find, but he did find something interesting," said Lykken, who works on the Compact Muon Solenoid, one of six experiments inside the collider complex. Why should the layperson care about this particular exploration? Years ago, when electrons were first identified, no one knew what they were good for, but they have since transformed our entire economy, said Howard Gordon, deputy research program manager for the collider's ATLAS experiment. "The transformative effect of this research will be to understand the world we live in much better," said Gordon, at Brookhaven National Laboratory. "It's important for just who we are, what we are." Fears have emerged that the collider could produce black holes that could suck up anything around them -- including the whole Earth. Such fears prompted legal actions in the U.S. and Europe to halt the operation of the Large Hadron Collider, alleging safety concerns regarding black holes and other phenomena that could theoretically emerge. Although physicists acknowledge that the collider could, in theory, create small black holes, they say they do not pose any risk. A study released Friday by CERN scientists explains that any black hole created would be tiny, and would not have enough energy to stick around very long before dissolving. Five collider collaborators who did not pen the report independently told CNN there would be no danger from potential black holes. John Huth, who works on the collider's ATLAS experiment, called such fears "baloney" in a recent interview, and noted that in normal physics, even if the black hole were stable, it could just pass through the Earth without being detected or without interacting at all. "The gravitational force is so weak that you'd have to wait many, many, many, many, many lifetimes of the universe before one of these things could [get] big enough to even get close to being a problem," said Huth, professor of physics at Harvard University. CNN's Elizabeth Landau contributed to this story .

Startup has been eagerly awaited by 9,000 physicists around the world . It's the largest particle accelerator in the world and costs about $9 billion . Lawsuits allege it could generate black holes that could eat the Earth .

265ad4cbd8cbad94527db327a39c2d8f33db33ce

Like nearly everything else Clinton-related this week, Hillary Clinton's convention speech remained a question mark until the last minute. The overriding goal for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night was to redirect her supporters toward Barack Obama. Its content was a mystery to even some of her closest advisers, who told CNN hours before the speech they weren't sure it was finished quite yet. It was a work in progress until the very end -- and one of its strongest rallying cries appeared nowhere in the prepared text. "That is our mission, Democrats -- Let us elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden," the New York senator told a capacity crowd waving signs that said "unity" on one side and bore either Clinton's or Obama's name on the other. So far, the Democratic convention has been dominated by news of the Clintons. What would Hillary Clinton say Tuesday night? And what would her husband, former President Bill Clinton, say Wednesday night? Would daughter Chelsea introduce her mother onstage, fueling visions of another Democratic dynasty? And what will happen Wednesday, when the convention roll call will either provide the "catharsis" Clinton predicted it might -- or reopen primary season wounds? Watch Clinton's entire speech » . The overriding goal for Clinton Tuesday night was to redirect the energy and emotion of her strongest supporters to the presumptive nominee's campaign -- if not for his political future, for her own. If the rank-and-file believe a schism in the party generated by her supporters cost Democrats the election, it could sabotage any potential White House plans for her. She pushed for her loyalists to back her primary season rival with language that echoed her stump speech about forgotten Americans: . "I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?" she asked. "Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?" Read what analysts say about Clinton's speech . She gave Obama the seal of approval on health care, an issue that made for some of her toughest language on the trail. "I can't wait to watch Barack Obama sign a health care plan into law that covers every single American," she said. There were a few notable gaps. There was little on foreign policy. There was no unequivocal statement that Barack Obama is qualified to be commander in chief and ready to lead from Day One. McCain advisers noted soon after the speech, there was no mention of the candidates' differing stands on abortion -- one issue which might have been expected to resonate with those women who supported Clinton and have been slow to warm to Obama. But Clinton's language about what was at stake this November could have been lifted from a speech by any of the most passionate Obama supporters. "Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hang in the balance," she told the crowd. "I want you to think about your children and grandchildren come Election Day. And think about the choices your parents and grandparents made that had such a big impact on your life and on the life of our nation." Clinton has not addressed whether another presidential campaign is possible anytime in her future, but some of her senior advisers have been less reticent. There's no way to tell whether their predictions come from inside knowledge or wishful thinking, but senior Clinton aides like former campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe and former campaign communications director Howard Wolfson have told reporters this week that they expect her to make another run for the White House in eight years -- after a two-term Obama presidency. If that happens, Tuesday night may have marked the first speech of her 2016 campaign.

Crowley: Sen. Hillary Clinton delivered with her speech at the Democratic convention . Gergen: This was "perhaps her finest hour in politics" Castellanos: Call it the "lesser of two evils" speech .

54e68f9b7cdd209c09b2a47feef62b9082346031

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Relatives of a woman killed in a Spanish airline crash were erroneously given the remains of another victim, and then were asked by authorities to return them, CNN partner network CNN+ reported Thursday. The victims of the crash were first laid out at a Madria convention center. A Madrid judge has opened an investigation into the error, and judicial sources say the initial indication is that the mixup occurred not in the proper identification of the victim, but in delivering the wrong remains to the family in question, CNN+ reported. The family Wednesday received an urn numbered 104, and were told it contained the ashes of their loved one, Pilar Gonzalez Ferreira, who died in the crash. But as the family was preparing to leave Madrid, officials called to tell them about the error and asked for the return of urn 104, CNN+ reported. Instead of urn 104, the family was supposed to have received urn 134, which actually contains the remains of Pilar Gonzalez, CNN+ reported, citing judicial sources and another family which also lost a relative in the crash. The Spanair MD82 jet crashed last week at Madrid's airport as the plane was trying to take off, killing 154 people. The aircraft, bound for Spain's Canary Islands, managed to rise only slightly before coming down quickly to the right of the runway, its tail section hitting the ground first, just off the asphalt. Then the out-of-control plane skidded and bounced at least three times as it careered 1,200 meters (3,840 feet) across uneven terrain and exploded, coming to rest in a gully, a top official of the investigative commission told a news conference in Madrid on Tuesday. Many of the bodies were badly charred from the fire, and authorities have used DNA samples to carry out numerous identifications. By Thursday, 126 victims had been identified, CNN+ reported. Just a few dozen families are still waiting to receive the remains their loved ones. Most are gathered at a Madrid hotel near the airport. Nineteen people initially survived the crash, but one died in hospital last weekend. Fourteen survivors remain hospitalized in Madrid; one had returned to her native Sweden for further hospitalization there, and another was in a hospital in the Canary Islands. Two other survivors, including a six-year-old boy, were released from hospital earlier this week.

Relatives of Spanair crash victim given the wrong remains, CNN+ reports . Initial probe finds family given the wrong urn, not the body was wrongly identified . Spanair flight crashed during take off last week from Madrid airport . 154 died, 18 survivors still in hospitals, two injured released from hospital .

3b5e3dff560e2233e8370c87e9d92461200f8bd4

(CNN) -- More U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan this year than in any year since the U.S. invaded the country following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Soldiers at a U.S. base in Afghanistan on Thursday honor the victims of September 11, 2001. According to numbers CNN has compiled from military statements, 112 American troops have died in Afghanistan in 2008, compared with 111 in all of 2007. The death toll has sparked concern among the U.S. military and its allies. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional committee Wednesday that the U.S. is "running out of time" to win the war in Afghanistan. Mullen said the U.S. needs better nation-building initiatives and a stronger cross-border strategy with Pakistan to ensure victory over Islamic militants in the poor Asian country. "We can't kill our way to victory, and no armed force anywhere, no matter how good, can deliver these keys alone. It requires teamwork and cooperation," Mullen told the House Armed Services Committee. In addition to those killed in Afghanistan, the military also includes troops who died outside the country if they were part of Operation Enduring Freedom, the war launched nearly seven years ago in and around Afghanistan. The broader count includes two Americans who died in Djibouti in 2008. The 2007 count includes two Americans who died in Ethiopia, two in the Philippines, one in Mali, one in Pakistan and one at sea near the Horn of Africa. According to CNN numbers, 585 Americans have died in the course of Operation Enduring Freedom, 506 of them in Afghanistan. The numbers include hostile and nonhostile incidents. Both the U.S.-led coalition and the NATO command announced three more deaths Thursday -- a British soldier in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday and two others in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday. The nationalities of the latter two have not been disclosed. The British death brings the country's toll to 118. Other countries, including Canada, Germany, France and Spain, also have lost troops in Afghanistan.

CNN numbers: 112 Americans killed this year, compared with 111 last year . Operation Enduring Freedom has killed 585 Americans since 2001 . Numbers include those who died outside Afghanistan as part of Enduring Freedom .

242c51d129c998a2585feee12e109a2058eb7c2b

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Rare images of an African animal so elusive that it was once believed to be mythical have been released. One of the first pictures of the elusive okapi was taken by camera trap. The okapi is a shy animal related to the giraffe, with zebra-like stripes on its rear. It is native to the tropical rainforests of Africa but is now known to live only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Okapis were last seen in the DRC 50 years ago, and the images are the first to capture the animal in the wild. "To have captured the first-ever photographs of such a charismatic creature is amazing," said Noelle Kumpel, manager of the Bushmeat and Forests Conservation Program at the Zoological Society of London, which took the pictures. "Okapi are very shy and rare animals, which is why conventional surveys only tend to record droppings and other signs of their presence." The okapi's face and long legs resemble those of the giraffe, their closest-living relative, but they look more like horses with long necks. The average height of their shoulders is 1.6 meters (5 feet, 3 inches), the ZSL says. They have a short, dense, velvety coat and dark prehensile tongue long enough to clean their own eyelids and ears. The new pictures show the okapi in the foliage of the DRC's Virunga National Park, where decades of economic collapse and armed conflict have threatened the diverse wildlife. In one image, an okapi looks curiously toward the camera amid the green trees and groundcover. Its large ears, dark nose, and zebra stripes are clearly visible. The next shot shows the okapi walking away from the camera, giving a clear view of its striking black-and-white stripes on its rear legs. A third image released by ZSL was taken at night and gives a vivid side view of the animal. "The photographs clearly show the stripes on their rear, which act like unique fingerprints," said Theirry Lusenge, a key member of ZSL's survey team in the DRC. "We have already identified three individuals, and further survey work will enable us to estimate population numbers and distribution in and around the park, which is a critical first step in targeting conservation efforts." ZSL said the images prove the okapi still thrives in the park despite threats to its survival, which include poaching, deforestation, military camps inside the park, and the influx of refugees at the park's borders. The animal's exact status is still a mystery, however, and it remains under threat, the ZSL said. Okapi meat reportedly poached from the park is now regularly on sale at the nearby town of Beni -- and if hunting continues at the same rate, okapi could become extinct within the park within a few years, the ZSL said. The Virunga National Park is one of only three protected areas the okapi are known to inhabit, the ZSL said. The ZSL's study of the okapi is part of a larger EU-funded conservation project in the park. Though focused on okapi, the study has also managed to find other species including shrews and duikers, a kind of antelope, a ZSL spokeswoman said. The study involved 18 cameras set up around the park by the ZSL and the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation, the spokeswoman said. The announcement comes a month after another group of researchers reported finding thousands of previously-unknown gorillas in the neighboring Republic of Congo. The U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society said in August they had found 125,000 Western lowland gorillas living in a swamp in northern Congo, adding significantly to the existing worldwide population of the threatened species. Okapi were well known by Africans for centuries but the animal remained elusive, thanks to its acute hearing and effective camouflage, according to The National Zoological Gardens of South Africa. Nineteenth-century explorers sometimes caught a fleeting glimpse of the okapi's striped backside as it ran through the forest, leading to speculation that it was a kind of zebra, the National Zoological Gardens says. It was known to the pygmy as a sacred animal. Still, the okapi remained unknown to the Western world until the early 20th century, when British explorer Harry Johnston went to Congo and sent a complete skin and skull back to Britain, the ZSL said.

African animal so elusive it was once believed to be mythical is photographed . Okapi is shy animal related to the giraffe, with zebra-like stripes on its rear . Animal is now known to live only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .

5ce92746bc1f4f5cbb25956c1289ffcd7f50f07e

(CNN) -- Two Russian bombers have landed at a Venezuelan airfield where they will carry out training flights for several days, the Russian defense ministry said Wednesday. Russia's Tupolev TU-160, pictured here in 2003, is a long-range strategic bomber. The Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers landed at Venezuela's Libertador military airfield and "will spend several days carrying out training flights over neutral waters, after which they will return to the base," the ministry added. NATO fighters followed the bombers on their 13-hour flight over the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic, the defense ministry said. It said the Russian flights were carried out in strict accordance with international rules governing airspace above neutral waters, and that the aircraft did not violate the borders of other states. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said such joint exercises between nations are not unusual. "We exercise all around the globe and have joint exercises with countries all over the world. So do many other nations." The U.S. will monitor the Russian-Venezuelan training, said Pentagon officials who asked not to be identified as they are not authorized to speak on the information. On Monday, Russia announced it might hold joint naval maneuvers with Venezuela in the Caribbean. The declaration came amid increased tension between Russia and the United States over Russia's invasion last month of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, a U.S. ally that aspires to join NATO. On Monday Russia denied any link between that announcement and the conflict in Georgia, although Russia has criticized U.S. support for Georgia. Russia has also objected to the missile defense system agreement, signed between the United States and Poland and the Czech Republic in August, that places a ground-based ballistic defense facility in the two eastern European nations. Russia has said the deal threatens its security, while the United States has said that the system is to guard against rogue states such as Iran. Earlier this month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose comments have frequently antagonized Washington, said it would welcome the Russian air force, according to Russian news agency Novosti. "If Russian long-range bombers should need to land in Venezuela, we would not object to that either. We will also welcome them," Chavez said on September 1, according to Novosti. CNN's Mike Mount contributed to this story .

Moscow: Russian bombers using Venezuela airfield to train over neutral waters . Russian defense ministry spokesman: NATO fighters followed bombers . News agency: Venezuelan president says he'd welcome Russian air force . Move comes amid growing tension between Washington and Moscow .

2f32a9eebbfa707a264d82a3bef5557f6b3b5f20

Editor's Note: Reese Witherspoon, the Academy Award-winning actress, is honorary chairman of the Avon Foundation and is employed by Avon Products as its global ambassador. Reese Witherspoon says she wants to banish the myth that young women are not at risk for breast cancer. (CNN) -- Every three minutes in the United States, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer. As a woman, a mother, and a daughter, I find that statistic terrifying. I was never naïve about breast cancer, but hearing this statistic put it all into perspective. Women close to me have battled the disease and are now soldiers in the greater fight against it. But the moment I heard "every three minutes," I felt vulnerable and scared as I realized that anyone is susceptible. The only way for me to ease my fears was to take action. I needed to educate myself and others on this disease. As the Honorary Chair for the Avon Foundation, I had resources at my fingertips. I had access to an entire organization that is dedicated to giving back to women and educating people. So I started asking, "What do I need to know?" It was through that curiosity that I found out the most important fact in breast cancer: Early detection saves lives. According to the Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade, there is a 97 percent five-year survival rate when breast cancer is caught before it spreads to other parts of the body. When breast cancer first develops, there are usually no symptoms, which is why women need to perform self-exams regularly and contact their doctor upon noticing even the smallest change. Of course talking about breast cancer and breast health is a personal thing. I too am a private person but encourage all women to break through their reservations and talk to their doctors and physicians. We must also banish the myth that young women are not at risk for breast cancer. At the Avon Walk in Washington, I met young survivors who were diagnosed in their 20s, an age when most women are graduating from college and just starting their lives as full adults. Watch Reese and Larry at the Avon Walk » . Women in their 20s and 30s should have a clinical breast exam by a health professional at least once every three years and women 40 and older should have an exam every year. I am passionate about fighting this devastating disease. I fight for my mother, myself, my children and future generations of women, so one day we will not have to be afraid of breast cancer. I began my fight by learning important first steps in breast cancer detection, and will not end my fight until every woman can stand together saying we are breast cancer free. More than anything else, I have faith -- faith we will find a cure. I saw this commitment in the faces of the women in Washington -- in the faces of the women walking and the women and men who stood on the sidelines encouraging the 3,500 participants to the finish line. I was cheering right along with them, screaming for action to find a cure. Avon's next walk will take place in New York City on October 4 and 5.

"Every three minutes" statistic made Witherspoon feel "vulnerable" and "scared" Oscar-winning actress: Young women are not exempt from the disease . Witherspoon emphasizes importance of early detection and regular screenings .

57a373fa7d17600396fcee99164e79c0edccad14

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Barack Obama is in excellent health, according to a statement from his doctor, released by the campaign. Besides being an "intermittent smoker," Sen. Barack Obama is in excellent health, his doctor says. Obama, 46, last saw Dr. David Scheiner in January 2007, shortly before he declared he was running for president. Scheiner, who has been Obama's primary doctor since 1987, observed that the Illinois senator's diet, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol were all healthy. "In short, his examination showed him to be in excellent health," Scheiner said. Obama "exercised regularly, often jogging three miles. His diet was balanced with good intake of roughage and fluids. ... On physical examination, his blood pressure was 90/60 and pulse 60/minute," Scheiner wrote. The Illinois senator has been an "intermittent" cigarette smoker who has "quit on several occasions and is currently using Nicorette gum with success." Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, released his health records last week. McCain's doctors also described him as being in "excellent health," despite a history of skin cancer, and said there appears to be no physical reason why the 71-year-old candidate could not carry out the duties of the office. Obama released a one-page statement from his primary care physician. He did not release any medical records or make his doctors available to the media. By contrast, McCain made more than 1,000 pages of medical documents available to journalists, including CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Four of McCain's doctors held a conference call with reporters after the records were made available. McCain has had four malignant melanomas removed. Three of them -- on his left shoulder, left arm and left nasal wall -- were limited to the top skin layer and were not invasive. They were removed in 1993, 2000 and 2002. But a fourth melanoma proved to be invasive and was removed from his left lower temple in 2000, said Dr. John D. Eckstein, an internist who has been overseeing McCain's treatment for 16 years at the Mayo Clinic's campus in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Senator's weight, blood pressure and cholesterol are all healthy, doctor says . Obama is an "intermittent smoker," doctor says . Obama has quit smoking several times, is currently using Nicorette gum . GOP presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain released records last week .

9b087c5572cc091c519625d37d1a614b97b8ed30

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S.-led forces captured two men believed to be senior al Qaeda in Iraq leaders, including one suspected of planning the 2006 kidnapping of U.S. journalist Jill Carroll, a military statement said. Jill Carroll, seen here in an interview following her 2006 release, was held for nearly three months in Iraq. Coalition forces captured the suspects in Baghdad on August 11 and 17, according to the statement. The suspects were identified as Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri, also known as Abu Uthman, and Ali Rash Nasir Jiyad al-Shammari, also known as Abu Tiba. Abu Uthman is suspected of masterminding Carroll's abduction, the statement said. Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted in January 2006 and freed unharmed in March of that year. Both men are suspected of overseeing car or suicide bombings targeting Iraqis with the intent of inciting sectarian violence, the statement said. Abu Tiba is suspected to have been in charge of as many 15 al Qaeda in Iraq "attack cells," providing them with money, weapons and explosives, according to the statement. The men were also suspected of being connected to other kidnappings, the statement said. "The capture of Abu Tiba and Abu Uthman eliminates two of the few remaining experienced leaders in the AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] network," the statement said.

Abu Uthman suspected of masterminding Jill Carroll's 2006 kidnapping . Uthman and another al Qaeda in Iraq suspect captured this month, military says . Carroll, a U.S. journalist, was abducted in 2006 but released unharmed weeks later .

b5211115ff68e12e759a474a02d3b163211af563

(CNN) -- Police have arrested a man in the killing of Auburn University freshman Lauren Burk, who died this week, according to the Auburn, Alabama, assistant police chief. Courtney Larrell Lockhart, 23, of Smiths, Alabama, is charged with capital murder during a kidnapping, capital murder during a robbery, and capital murder during an attempted rape, Tommy Dawson said Saturday. The Phenix City Police Department took Lockhart into custody on Friday, police said. Phenix City is about 35 miles southeast of Auburn. Burk, 18, from Marietta, Georgia, was found shot on North College Street, a few miles north of campus, on Tuesday night. She died later at a hospital. Minutes after police responded to the call reporting an injured person and found Burk, they found a car -- which turned out to be Burk's -- on fire in a campus parking lot. Dawson told reporters Friday that authorities think gasoline or another accelerant was used to ignite Burk's car, and police were investigating whether a gas can found in downtown Auburn was connected. Police want to investigate every possible lead, Dawson said. Authorities were still on patrol in the east Alabama campus, he said. The university's Web site said a campus-wide memorial service will be held Monday. The site carried a message from Burk's father, James, which said: "The Burk family was so proud to have Lauren as an Auburn University student. We want to extend our deepest gratitude and appreciation for Auburn University, the city of Auburn and the Auburn Police Department. We feel very close to your community. We appreciate what everyone is doing for us and Lauren." Also on Friday, police released pictures of a 2001 Honda Civic similar to Burk's car. Authorities asked anyone who thinks they might have seen the car on Tuesday to contact them. Police are continuing to interview people, Dawson said. A student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill -- Eve Carson, 22, of Athens, Georgia -- was also shot to death this week, on early Wednesday. Authorities in Chapel Hill said Friday they had been in contact with Auburn police but did not believe the two cases were connected. Watch CNN's Nancy Grace discuss the two killings of college women from Georgia » . Burk's family, in a statement read Friday to reporters by family friend Kathy Singleton, expressed their gratitude for the thoughts and prayers offered, but asked for privacy "so that they may grieve for their loss as well as celebrate Lauren's life." Those wishing to honor Burk could do so by donating to her favorite charities, Singleton said -- The Invisible Child and the American Kidney Foundation. Donations can be made at any Wachovia Bank to the Lauren Burk Memorial Fund. E-mail to a friend .

Courtney Larrell Lockhart, 23, charged with three counts of capital murder . Auburn University student Lauren Burk found shot Tuesday, died at hospital . Burk's car found minutes later engulfed in flames in campus parking lot .

6b75abea2de5c9c9952af0427ccec78910ac811f

(CNN) -- Cheri Morgan spent about half-an-hour in line at a Houston-area gas station on Thursday before evacuating the city. iReporter Cheri Morgan says drivers were panicking Thursday at a Houston, Texas, gas station. "Everyone was driving crazy and they really need some kind of traffic flow at the gas stations. It's wild," she said. "Everybody's rushing and panicking. I could have stayed, but I thought it was best to just get out of there." Morgan said it took her about five hours to make the 200 mile drive to San Antonio -- a trip that normally only takes about three hours. Ike is expected to make landfall on the Gulf Coast of Texas, which is home to many of the country's oil refineries. That's led to a scramble at gas stations as people try to fill up before the storm hits. iReport.com: Are you in Ike's path? People were filling up their cars and their gas cans at a Sam's Club in College Station, Texas, iReporter Kyle Norton told CNN.com. "The lines were a tad ridiculous," the 30-year-old banker said. Norton said his 2002 Dodge Ram pickup was on empty, so he had no choice but to wait in line for an hour. Despite the long lines, Norton said gas was about $3.49, which is pretty normal for the area. He said a friend had to go to four different stations before he could find one that still had regular unleaded. iReporter Jeremy "Clete" Terrell said the lines also were long at the Costco in Alpharetta, Georgia. "I was getting gas and realized that everybody else was too," he said. iReporter Curtis McNeely said a Kangaroo Express station in Evansville, Indiana, imposed a 10 gallon limit. "It's causing paranoia more than anything," he said adding that people are returning to the gas station to fill up multiple times. A spokeswoman for the company that runs the Kangaroo Express chain says it's imposed a limit at its 1,660 stores because gas supplies are tight. Several stations in Ocala, Florida, were limiting sales if they still had gas to sell, iReporter Christine Bailey said. Canadian Ian McIntosh said gas prices jumped 57 cents per gallon overnight in Milton, Ontario. "This stuff's in the tanks, it's just sitting in the gas stations, they're using this as a windfall event," the retired teacher said. McIntosh said he heard prices were going up on the news, so he and his wife got gas last night -- along with many other residents of the Toronto suburb. "A gas station that would normally have three or four cars -- you had 15 cars and you had to line up to get to the pumps," he said. Rumors that gas would jump to $6 a gallon caused a panic in Sylva, North Carolina. iReport.com: Police called in at mountain gas station . Lines were a half-mile long Thursday night at the stations that stayed open, and police were called in to maintain order, iReporter April Brendle said. "Supposedly there was a fight at one station," she said.

Long gas lines reported as Hurricane Ike approaches . Gas prices jumped overnight in Canada . Police had to restore order at North Carolina gas stations . Are you in Ike's path? Send photos, videos .

259cc1db3d4c814dafc02ed071327f65a7b9eaad

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Coalition troops on Monday formally handed over security control of Iraq's Anbar province -- once the hub of the country's Sunni insurgency, to Iraqis on Monday. A U.S. soldier on patrol in Ramadi's market earlier this year. U.S. troops will remain in the province to support Iraqi forces. President George W. Bush described the transfer as a major victory against al-Qaeda extremists who once held sway in the area. "Today, Anbar is no longer lost to al Qaeda -- it is al Qaeda that lost Anbar," he said in a statement. Once dominated by Sunni insurgents, Anbar has been the scene of many attacks on U.S.-led troops in Iraq. Now a bastion of tribal opposition, it is also the scene of an internal Sunni political struggle between the Iraqi Islamic Party, one of Iraq's main Sunni parties, and the Awakening movement, the first anti-al Qaeda in Iraq movement established in the country. More than 25,000 U.S. troops serve in the sprawling Anbar province west of Baghdad; most of them Marines. They will remain for the time being but will shift their mission to supporting Iraqi forces, when needed . The transfer is a "major progress" for all of Iraq, said Brigadier Gen. David Perkins, the spokesman for the Multi-National Force in Iraq. The transfer ceremony took place in Ramadi, the capital of the western province, and was attended by Iraqi officials and U.S. military brass. Watch U.S., Iraqi officials perform transfer » . "We are all well aware of what the security situation was in Anbar even a year ago," Perkins said. "And the fact that that has been able to be turned around, that the Iraqi citizens that live there want to stand up on their own, [that] they want to take control of the province on their own ... it's a major progress not only for Anbar, but for all of Iraq." Anbar is the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces to revert to local security control, but is the first Sunni-dominated one. The move comes amid a big drop in violence in Iraq and calls from Iraqis for the United States to come up with a troop withdrawal timetable. The other provinces that have transitioned to Iraqi security control are Duhuk, Irbil and Sulaimaniya in the Kurdish region, and Karbala, Najaf, Qadisiya, Muthanna, Thiqar, Basra, and Maysan in the Shiite south. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh and Arwa Damon in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Coalition troops hand over security control of Iraq's Anbar province to Iraqis . Anbar was once the hub of the country's Sunni insurgency . More than 25,000 U.S. troops serve in Anbar, west of Baghdad .

3bb1cda1e01cb6e14f6190ced3b1ec3f7ef50de9

(CNN) -- Five years ago, Robert Rogers was driving home with his family from a wedding when a flash flood took his wife and four children from him in an instant. Robert and Melissa Rogers with their four children before they died in August 2003. Rainfall from a torrential downpour swept the Rogers' minivan off a Kansas highway. As water filled the van, Rogers kicked out a window in a last-ditch effort to save his family. Instead, he and his wife, Melissa, and daughter, Makenah, were sucked out of the van. Hours later, the bodies of children Zachary, 5, Nicholas, 3, and Alenah, 1, still buckled in their car seats, were found inside the van. Rogers survived. Instead of falling into despair, he became a minister dedicated to honoring his family by preaching messages of hope in the face of adversity. "It was a huge choice of faith," Rogers told CNN. "It was a determination to live life to honor God, to honor my heavenly family, and to make something productive out of it and not just to wallow in my pity." Watch the story of the Rogers family tragedy » . Rogers' mission manifests itself in a variety of ways. In the past five years, he estimates he has told the story of his loss at least 400 times to more than 120,000 people. The message behind his story is to live life with no regrets by embracing your family and faith. "People have responded to me that they want to change the way they live their life. They want to have a personal relationship with God and they want to get right with their spouse and children," he said. In addition to his speaking tours, Rogers has established a ministry dedicated to serving orphans across the world. Rogers also traveled to Haiti and tsunami-ravaged parts of Asia to minister and deliver aid to orphans. Watch Rogers talk about his ministry » . His mission is to establish five orphanages in five continents to symbolize the five family members he lost. One, called Melissa's House, already exists in Russia, where eight orphan teens live with a married couple, and another is under construction in Rwanda. "We dedicated it in honor of Melissa because she loved being a mom and I hope she is a role model to these girls," Rogers said. Since that fateful day five years ago, Rogers has begun to heal. He is married with one child and another on the way. More than anything, he hopes his story will inspire others to live each day to its fullest. "We are not guaranteed the next five seconds," Rogers said. "Life is very fragile and I hope my stories and inspirations are compelling people to live that life of no regrets." CNN's Kyra Phillips contributed to this report .

Robert Rogers' wife and four children died in flash flood five years ago . Rogers chose not to "wallow in pity" and became a minister with a message of hope . His mission is to establish five orphanages in five continents to honor his family . One named after his wife, Melissa, exists in Russia, another planned in Rwanda .

7afbe903f1f7cdc1af509583649babf481d01729

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Members of a Russian doomsday cult barricaded themselves in a cave to wait out the end of the world as the cult's leader underwent psychiatric exams Thursday, Russian media reported. The cult, which calls itself the "true Russian Orthodox Church," believes the world will end in May. The cult leader is in police custody awaiting proceedings on charges that he set up an organization "whose activity is associated with violence on citizens and instigation to refuse to perform their civil duties," according to the state-funded Itar-Tass news agency. Four children are among 29 cult members holed up in a ravine in Russia's Penza region, where they apparently dug a cave. One of the children in the cave is 18 months old, reported Itar-Tass. Temperatures in the cave are below 54 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius), the Russian news agency reported. The cult members have refused law enforcement requests to come out or release the children, and they have threatened to commit suicide if police resort to force, according to Russian state television. The cult, which calls itself the "true Russian Orthodox Church," believes the end of the world will come in May 2008. Prosecutors announced Thursday they are opening criminal proceedings against the cult's leader, Father Pyotr Kuznetsov. Kuznetsov, 43, is "under the supervision of investigators," Olig Troshin, a Penza prosecutor, told Itar-Tass. A law enforcement source in Penza told the Russian news agency Interfax that Kuznetsov "is being examined by psychiatrists." Several clergymen, police officers and agents of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations are outside the cave. "It is obviously some kind of insanity," Mitropolitan Kirill, a high-ranking Russian Orthodox Church official, told Russian television. "It is perhaps even a medical case. A very dangerous phenomena is happening in Russia's religious life." He added, "What we're seeing in Penza right now is a most vivid example of what could happen to a country, to a society, if this society is deprived of proper religious education." E-mail to a friend . CNN's Maxim Tkachenko contributed to this report.

Four children, one 18 months old, are among cult members holed up in cave . Cult leader to face charges he set up a violent organization, news agency reports . News agency: Cult members have threatened to commit suicide if police use force . The "true Russian Orthodox Church" believes end of the world is coming in May .

79d625a3311f4ff11598a3ae4fca63103e84e9a1

(CNN) -- Six people were killed and 13 wounded in the shelling of South Ossetia by Georgian forces, South Ossetian officials said Saturday, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. Officials of the breakaway Georgian region said the shelling was part of a Georgian military operation, Interfax reported. Georgia initially suggested Russian peacekeepers were to blame, drawing heated denials from the Russian Defense Ministry, which called the allegation "dirty informational provocation." Later, however, Mamuka Kurashvili, the commander of Georgian peacekeeping operations, told reporters that four people were wounded when several Georgian villages were fired upon from South Ossetia, and Georgia "had to return fire." Women, children and the elderly were being evacuated from the conflict zone because of fears that Georgia would continue military operations against the region, according to the South Ossetian Information and Press Committee as reported by Interfax. South Ossetia's government held a special session on the violence, the Russian news agency said. "If Georgia continues provocative actions, we will announce the recruitment of volunteers not only in the North Ossetia but in the entire North Caucasus and also carry out general mobilization in South Ossetia," South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity told Interfax. Georgia, located on the Black Sea coast between Russia and Turkey, has been split by Russian-backed separatist movements in South Ossetia and another region, Abkhzia. Accusations often fly on both sides, and the South Ossetian leadership has alleged that Georgian troops stage attacks to create a pretext for military action. South Ossetia declared its independence from Georgia in the early 1990s after a bloody war there between ethnic Georgians and Ossetians. The region's independence is not internationally recognized. Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian troops participate in a mixed peacekeeping force there and have maintained a fragile peace broken occasionally by fighting. On Friday, as reports of the shelling began, Russia expressed "its most serious concern about the escalation of tensions in South Ossetia." Moscow said it was taking measures to prevent escalation of the conflict as it urged both Georgia and South Ossetia to look for diplomatic ways to calm the situation.

Georgian official said South Ossetia had fired on Georgian villages first . Women, children, elderly being evacuated from the conflict zone . Georgia split by Russian-backed separatist movements in South Ossetia .

ea6c4267f17d55f1bd9f0950c31ef59565bdc30b

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe's inflation rate has soared in the past three months and is now at 11.2 million percent, the highest in the world, according to the country's Central Statistical Office. Zimbabwe's inflation rate has soared to a world high. Official figures dated Monday show inflation has surged from the rate of 2.2 million percent recorded in May, despite the government's price controls. The country's finance minister confirmed the new figure in an interview but said the rising inflation rate was not confined to Zimbabwe alone. "While our case has been aggravated by the illegal sanctions imposed by the Western powers, rising food prices are a world phenomenon because of the use of bio-fuel," said Samuel Mumbengegwi. "But we will continue to fight inflation by making sure that prices charged are realistic." In February, the price of a loaf of bread in the country was less than 200,000 Zimbabwe dollars. On Monday, that same loaf of bread cost 1.6 trillion Zimbabwe dollars. Analysts have said the Zimbabwean government's official inflation rate figures are conservative. Last week, one of Zimbabwe's leading banks, Kingdom Bank, said the country's inflation rate was now more than 20 million percent. The locally-owned bank predicted tougher times ahead for Zimbabwe in the absence of donor support and foreign investment in an economy that has been in freefall for almost a decade. Once considered the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe has been in the throes of an economic meltdown ever since the country embarked on a chaotic land reform program that has decimated commercial agriculture. Analysts say the crisis has worsened following President Robert Mugabe's disputed reelection in the June 27 presidential run-off. His challenger Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted the race over widespread allegations of violence and voter intimidation. The economic crisis has destroyed Zimbabwe's currency and made it difficult for Zimbabweans to buy basic commodities, electricity, fuel, and medicines. Many Zimbabweans have left the country amid rising unemployment and deepening poverty. Last week a summit in South Africa of regional African leaders failed to persuade Zimbabwe's political parties to agree to form a government of national unity, which observers view as the best way to end Zimbabwe's record recession.

Zimbabwe's inflation rate soars to 11.2 million percent . A loaf of bread costs 1.6 trillion Zimbabwe dollars . Official rate is world's highest but some analysts fear it may be more . Zimbabwe officials blame international sanctions and rising global food prices .

851d02b689bec14607574096bb77b9acf53c15ee

(Oprah.com) -- On any given day here at "O, The Oprah Magazine," there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 69 very talented, extremely detail oriented, high-energy, hardworking women and men all doing their jobs and doing them well. I love a few of them, I like a lot of them, I despise one of them. She is the Magneto to my Wolverine, the Saruman to my Frodo, the Dr. Octopus to my Spiderman. I call her The Tinkler. It's a typical Tuesday; the office is humming along. I'm answering e-mails, writing cover lines, scheduling a dental appointment here, partial highlights there, kicking myself for not getting sushi at lunch. The sun is shining, the color printer is working -- my life is good. I mosey into the ladies' room, glance at the mirror, remind myself that fluorescent lights make everyone look as if they're in the final stages of tuberculosis, and head for a stall. And then I see it: The seat, even the floor, is covered in little yellow droplets. The Tinkler strikes again. To date, I have been able to deduce only four things about her: . 1. She is female. 2. She attacks between the hours of 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. 3. She works alone. 4. She was raised in a barn. I've been her victim more times than I can count, and it has turned me from a happy-go-lucky columnist into a bitter, paranoid germaphobe. She has become the bane of my existence. We live in a world where our soldiers lack sufficient body armor, where Rupert Murdoch is blurring the line intended to keep the business and political interests of media owners from influencing the presentation of news, where the White House still refuses to respond to questions they promised to answer as soon as the Scooter Libby case was closed, where studies indicate that worrying you're going to get sick will actually get you sick -- and yet I am devoting an entire column to The Tinkler. Any shrink worth his or her salt will tell you that it is a mistake to think of your colleagues as family. But what is a family if not a group of people who care about you and irritate you and show up for cake on your birthday and look at pictures of your kid even when they don't feel like it and think it wouldn't kill you to put on a little makeup and a pair of heels once in a while? I've been earning a paycheck for 30 years. Whether rinsing conditioner off a Lhasa apso during my stint as shampoo girl at Mr. Whiskers Pet Boutique or breathing on the chicken breast I was about to serve a rude diner during my waitressing days, I've always found that the people I work with matter to me. Their moods, their opinions, their style influence my life. They've appreciated me, humiliated me, surprised me, and antagonized me. I've gotten flowers and I've gotten fired (and I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything to deserve either), but I've never experienced anything like The Tinkler. "Dammit!" I say upon encountering her latest Jackson Pollock imitation. Pat, Suzan, and Valerie each come out of their stalls to see what's wrong. I point in horror. Pat groans, Suzan moans, Val throws up her hands in disgust, and we fall into silence. Then I rally, "At least we know it's not one of us." But everybody else is a suspect. "It can't be Sudie," Suzan volunteers. My eyes narrow. "What are you basing this on?" I ask. "I've seen her," she answers, "she always heads straight for the paper seat protector." "And," Valerie adds, "we can cross Mamie off the list -- it happened twice while she was in Sweden." Sixty seconds ago, the four of us were editors; now we are FBI profilers. "She probably likes to burrow into small spaces," Pat conjectures. "This never happens in the big, wheelchair-accessible stall ..." "It's very primitive, as if she's marking her territory. This is clearly a hostile gesture," Suzan declares with authority. We're finally getting somewhere. "So, really," I say, "we just need to be on the lookout for an aggressively mean-spirited, mole-like cavewoman who is not confined to a wheelchair .. is that right?" Val is the first to realize that we're losing our minds. "I'm out of here," she says, and exits the ladies' room. Later, I complain to J.J., poor, naive little J.J .. She tells me that it can't be any of us, that the toilet is somehow to blame. I leave J.J. in her special world -- a place where troubles melt like lemon drops and Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone -- and resume writing my column. Gina drops by and reads over my shoulder. Suddenly she has an epiphany: "It's you!" she announces, pointing at me like she's Javert accusing Jean Valjean of stealing silver candlesticks. "Think about it," she says. "What better way to cover your tracks than writing an outraged piece on the subject?" I kind of like that Gina believes I am an evil genius, and I don't have the heart to tell her that I once refused to sit my daughter on the lap of a department store Santa Claus because I had no idea who else had been sitting there. Another day, another bathroom break. "Steer clear of the third stall," Yeun warns as she dries her hands and heads for a meeting. Jennifer emerges from door number four to see what exactly's going on behind door number three. She is appalled yet philosophical. "Believe it or not, every place I've ever worked has had a Tinkler -- maybe sharing a ladies' room just sends certain people into a passive-aggressive snit. It's the dark side of office life." Lately, my daydreams bear a striking resemblance to one of those black-and-white Sherlock Holmes movies: The entire team sits, sipping brandy in an ornate drawing room. "I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you here today," I begin in an inexplicable British accent. "Well, my friends, one of you is The Tinkler." The research department averts their eyes. The art department fidgets nervously. An intern gasps. "And," I go on, "nobody is leaving this room until I reveal the person who refuses to work and play well with others." My assistant, Polly, looks up. "You mean you've figured out the identity of The Tinkler?" she asks, filled with an admiration for my powers of reasoning that she has never once expressed in real life. "It was elementary, dear Watson. I merely -- " but before I can unmask The Tinkler or explain why I refer to Polly as dear Watson, the lights suddenly go out ... I could go on, but I'm bored silly whenever someone feels compelled to relay every nanosecond of a dream. Suffice it to say that I usually wind up in the arms of Tyrone Power. As for The Tinkler? She's still on the lam. There are lots of days when I find myself wishing life were closer to a gorgeous movie from the '40s -- women wore fabulous hats and pearl chokers, and I don't think they actually went to the bathroom back then. They were too busy dancing with Fred Astaire and smoking unfiltered cigarettes to schlep to an office every day. Now, some of us are running the offices, but it seems we've brought a few low-grade lunatics along for the ride -- and they're wreaking havoc in the ladies' room. Where have you gone, Edith Wharton? I'm not asking for cloth napkins and classical music. I don't need a mint on my pillow. I just want a bit of common courtesy, a modicum of civility, a touch of class, or, failing all that, a good supply of Lysol. By Lisa Kogan from "O, The Oprah Magazine," April 2008 . Subscribe to O, The Oprah Magazine for up to 75% off the newsstand price. That's like getting 18 issues FREE. Subscribe now! TM & © 2008 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Women's bathroom is defiled by The Tinkler . Columnist tries to figure out who's guilty of peeing on seat . Decides she is "aggressively mean-spirited, mole-like cavewoman" Writer yearns for modicum of civility, a touch of class, or supply of Lysol .

f2d00c8c396698becc18fd2b41ba595c7a3e1cc6

BOISE, Idaho (CNN) -- Firefighter Jonathan Frohreich had never heard of The Wildland Firefighter Foundation, much less its founder, until recovering from severe work-related injuries last month. Vicki Minor's Wildland Firefighter Foundation has granted more than $1.5 million in aid to more than 500 families. As he lay in his hospital bed in Sacramento, California, Vicki Minor put her hand on his shoulder. "She introduced herself and told me that she was there to help," recalls Frohreich, who had been in a helicopter crash that killed nine of his colleagues. "She just said, 'Anything.' She was there to do anything for me." Since 1999, Minor has dedicated herself to providing emergency assistance and ongoing support to injured and fallen wildfire fighters and their families nationwide through her Wildland Firefighter Foundation. Wildland firefighters are called into action when the United States' vast natural resources are threatened by fire. For Frohreich, Minor's foundation supplied lodging and food for family and friends who visited his bedside. It also provided emergency funds for medical and other expenses, arranged for Frohreich to meet with firefighters who carried him to safety, and brought his fallen comrades' family members to a bereavement ceremony. "She means everything," Frohreich said. "She's one of the best things to ever happen." Minor first became involved with the wildland firefighter community 21 years ago after witnessing a wildfire for the first time. "I had never seen anything like it," Minor recalls of the blaze in the mountains of Idaho. "All those firefighter units mobilized in camps that cropped up. It was like an invasion, and I was mesmerized." Minor started a fire camp commissary, providing dry goods, clothing and necessities to the firefighters. But it wasn't until tragedy struck in 1994 at Storm King Mountain, Colorado, where 14 firefighters perished in a single day, that Minor was overcome with a need to assist the families. The Storm King fire was a turning point. "Fighting fire is much like fighting a war. There's no time to tend to the injured, or tend to the dead. The fire doesn't stop raging," Minor said. "I looked up at the heavens and I said to those kids, 'Help me help your families.' " Grieving wildland families, like those of fallen soldiers, tend to be young and scattered throughout the country, often enduring their sudden loss in isolation from their firefighting community. Taking cues from a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Minor spearheaded fundraising efforts for the erection of the Wildland Firefighters Monument in Boise, Idaho, which contains markers "for almost every wildland firefighter that has fallen," Minor said. "I had seen and felt the healing of those combat veterans that would touch a name of their friend," Minor said. "Our wildland firefighters had nothing like that to process their grief. I wanted to create a place where our families could congregate, reach out in solidarity and comfort to honor their fallen and injured." Watch Minor describe the sculptures in the firefighter monument » . Since 1999, the foundation has continued to grow, assisting more than 500 wildland firefighters and their families with more than $1.5 million in emergency funds and services, including communication support; travel and lodging for the injured and fallen; and emotional and benefit counseling and advocacy. Watch Minor describe how her foundation takes action to aid wildfire fighters » . "There is a need for these families to be taken care of, and a long-term need," Minor said. "But most of it is to maintain that home until benefits come in." When survivors suddenly lose their income and don't know how to apply for the compensation they're entitled to, Minor's foundation steps in to guide them, often fighting for them when benefits are delayed or denied. Watch Minor explain why her foundation fights for firefighters and their families » . Minor says she hopes the wildland firefighters know "we have their back." "I hope that they feel they can go on and fight that fire and know that we'll take care of their family and their friends."

Vicki Minor's foundation helps injured and fallen wildfire fighters and their families . The Wildland Firefighter Foundation has assisted more than 500 families since 1999 . Minor led fundraising efforts to build a monument for fallen wildfire firefighters .

70c6ca3234f9b1221c8aea7671dd78e1ca9d9139

(CNN) -- The New York Giants' unlikely win over the New England Patriots is already being called one of the biggest shockers in Super Bowl history, and the amazing catch David Tyree made to set up the game-winning touchdown won't be forgotten anytime soon. Pint-sized Giants fans, Luka and Kristian Radovich, celebrate after Plaxico Burress' game-winning catch. CNN.com reader Michael Heitman, of Baxter, Tennessee, will remember Super Bowl XLII for more than the 17-14 score. "Our 13-month-old daughter took her first steps during the second half. Apparently, so did the Giants offense. Congrats to the Giants from a Cowboys fan," he said. David Marks, of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, said it was "one of the best football games I'd ever seen," but said watching the game with his family had some drawbacks. "I was not able to enjoy the commercials as much because my mom wouldn't stop yakking away," he said. "She's 80 years old and I didn't want to say anything at first -- you don't know how much longer you have your mom at that age. But finally after a quarter and a half, I had to ask her to pipe down." Watch some of the pre-game festivities » . Dan Nash, of Santa Monica, California, didn't have that problem. "It would be nice to see the GAME a little more," he said adding that "every 10 seconds (or less), we're watching ads! Kickoff ... three ads. Punt ... three ads. Flag on the play ... two ads." Here is a sampling of our readers' reaction to the game: . Russell Giuliano of Middletown, New Jersey I have seen every Super Bowl, and this was the best ever, even better than No. 3 with Namath. Dave Viscusi of Schenectady, New York That was one of the best Super Bowls/Super Bowl parties I have ever been to. We made 4 different kinds of pizza (BBQ chicken, cheese, sausage and peppers), boneless buffalo wings, BBQ ribs, chips of all kinds, apple martinis, some beer and topped off the Giants victory with some CHAMPAGNE! GO G-Men ... Eli deserves every ounce of credit he gets for this Super Bowl ... Way to throw it right in the arrogant Patriots' face! Ricardo Gomez of Buenos Aires, Argentina I'm a big Pats fan, and I was sad to see that last play when Manning escapes the Pats' defense and throw that pass, the one that put the GIANTS OFFENSE so close to the touchdown. Anyway, I think Pats are still the best team in the league, and I was there that snowy night when Brady got us to the Super Bowl at the last second with (Adam Vinatieri kicking) that amazing field goal! So GO PATS! GO!!! Irving Horowitz of Princeton, New Jersey There are three sport moments in my life that I will take to my grave with a broad grin and deep pleasure: The first was the Bobby Thompson home run for the New York (Baseball) Giants in 1951 to defeat the Dodgers; a varsity game while I was at Hobart & William Smith when, as a member of the faculty and staff, we defeated a first-class varsity team in 1962 and I made the winning basket with 28 seconds on the clock (I have the press clippings to prove this); and the biggest thrill of them all: Watching the New York (Football) Giants win Super Bowl XLII against the New England Patriots. When Bob Tisch spoke of "this win is for all Giant fans who, for the past 30 years, supported the team at Giants Stadium, and before that at the Yankee Stadium, and for those who still remember being part of the Giants at the Polo Grounds," I felt that he spoke directly to me. After all, I am actually about a year or two older than the franchise ... Wow! 2008 is already a good year -- a good omen for America. Monique Mondesire of Bronx, New York I'm a 26-year-old female who really doesn't put much thought into sports, but that was the best Super Bowl game I have ever seen in my life. I had faith that it would happen, but the way it happened was priceless. I'm very proud to be a New Yorker and a new Giants fan. To all the New Yorkers that lost their bets yesterday, in the words of Don Corleone, "Never go against the family." Lisa Ciacci of Brooklyn, New York As a die-hard Cowboys fan, I may have been the most unlikely N.Y. Giants fan last night. I could not be happier for this team. They played their hearts out in quite possibly the best game I have ever watched. Eli Manning came of age before our very eyes and proves once again that he is truly a class act. I hope this loss haunts the Patriots forever. They weren't good enough to beat the Giants last night nor will they ever be. This city will surely explode at tomorrow's parade -- it's good to be in New York! GO GIANTS! E-mail to a friend .

Ultimate Super Bowl party: Four kinds of pizza and a Giants' win . "It's good to be in New York," reader says . One fan's daughter took first steps in second half . I-Report: Have a story to share? Send it to us .

86eaa90c419d5ed93341248fecd8c25d820f2b82

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Three weeks after an apparent misunderstanding sparked a confrontation, deadly Hindu-Christian riots continue unabated in the remote east Indian state of Orissa. Police officers chase away a protester in Mangalore, India, Monday. By Tuesday, about 20 deaths had been reported, said Praveen Kumar, the superintendent of police in the worst-affected Kandhamal district. The latest casualty is a police officer who died after an armed mob of about 400 to 500 mostly Hindus torched a police station in the district on Monday, Orissa state police said. Orissa's Director General of Police G.C. Nanda the policeman died when the mob opened fire at officers fleeing the burning building. The attack, he said, may have been in retaliation for arrests that police made in the ongoing communal fighting. Watch more about the riots in India » . The attack came two days after police fired on a crowd to prevent it from attacking Christian residents. Between three and six people died in the shooting, CNN's sister network CNN-IBN reported. The violence spread to southern India over the weekend when vandals attacked 14 churches in an hour in the state of Karnataka Sunday, the network said. The Christian community in the Karnataka -- numbering about 2.5 million -- said right-wing Hindus are targeting them for opposing the violence in Orissa. By Tuesday, police had arrested about 140 people in connection with the riots, said Karnataka's Inspector General of Police A.M. Prasad. Sixty of them -- all Hindus -- were arrested for the church attacks, Prasad said. The rest, mostly Christians, were charged with disturbing the peace, he said. Orissa has historically been a tinderbox of Hindu-Christian tensions. Some Hindu groups view the work of Christian missionaries in the state with suspicion. They accuse missionaries of bribing or forcing Hindus into converting. The seeds for the current conflict were planted on August 23, when Hindu leader, Laxmananda Saraswati, and four others were killed in Kandhamal after 20 to 30 gunmen barged into a Hindu school and began shooting, the Orissa chief minister's office said. The authorities have not determined who killed Saraswati, but after the incident they detained five people who are Christians, said Sukanta Panda, spokesman for the chief minister. The government says the killings may have been the work of Maoist rebels -- investigators have many unanswered questions -- but some hardline Hindus blamed a Christian minority. They took to the streets in anger, rampaging through predominantly Christian neighborhoods, ransacking shops and torching houses. They chopped down trees to block roads, making it difficult for police to reach trouble spots. A Christian orphanage was set on fire. A 20-year-old woman, who was teaching children inside, burned to death. Christian residents fought back, and the clashes spread. Authorities imposed a night curfew in many towns and deployed state and federal forces in the troubled areas, Kumar -- the police superintendent -- said. Both sides said the violence has left Christian churches and Hindu temples razed to the ground. This is not the first time the simmering anger has boiled over in the state with deadly consequences. In 1999, a Hindu mob burned to death an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two children while they slept inside their car. And last Christmas, clashing groups killed four people and burned several churches in the same Orissa district -- Kandhamal. Maoist rebels, who claim to be fighting for the poor and the dispossessed, have been battling the Indian government in an insurgency that has resulted in thousands of casualties since the late 1960s. Some Christians accept the Maoist theory, saying the rebels have also struck against hard-line Hindus because they associate them as being closely aligned with the government. But Hindu groups insists that Christians were behind Saraswati's death. Unlike Orissa, Karnataka has until now been spared the large-scale clash between Christians and Hindus. But now, many in the Christian community fear their calm and prosperous state may become another battleground between the two religions, CNN-IBN said. CNN's Harmeet Singh contributed to this report .

Orissa state has historically been a tinderbox of Hindu-Christian tensions . Violence spread to southern India with churches attacked in Karnataka state . Latest casualty was a policeman who died after a Hindu mob torched a police station . Attack came 2 days after police fired on a crowd to prevent it attacking Christians .

a1841cf61c53937fffc54c0e81d8f7cfcad2f0c2

(CNN) -- Hillary Clinton's campaign has apologized for "inappropriate" language used by her husband in response to what it called an "outrageously unfair" article about the former president. Bill and Hillary Clinton campaign in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Monday. The article, by Vanity Fair magazine's national editor Todd Purdum, suggested that Bill Clinton's personality had changed since his 2004 heart bypass surgery and said that there were reports of Clinton "seeing a lot of women on the road." Purdum quoted four anonymous former Clinton aides saying that another of his former assistants had conducted "what one of these aides called an intervention" about the reports of philandering. A writer for the Huffington Post, Mayhill Fowler, asked Clinton on Monday what he thought "about that hatchet job somebody did on you in Vanity Fair," according to a recording of the exchange posted on the Huffington Post's Web site. Listen to Clinton call the reporter a "scumbag" » . "[He's] sleazy," Clinton responded. "He's a really dishonest reporter." Clinton said he had not read the article but that he was told that "there's five or six just blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy." Watch Larry King panel debate Bill Clinton's response » . Calling Purdum a "scumbag," Clinton said "he's one of the guys that propagated all those lies about Whitewater for Kenneth Starr. He's just a dishonest guy -- can't help it." Purdum "didn't use a single name, he didn't cite a single source in all those things he said," said the former president, who added that the article was "part of the national media's attempt to nail Hillary for [Barack] Obama." He said readers should be wary of news accounts that rely on unnamed sources. "Anytime you read a story that slimes a public figure with anonymous quotes, it ought to make the bells go off in your head," he said. Late Monday, Jay Carson, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton's campaign, said that "President Clinton was understandably upset about an outrageously unfair article, but the language today was inappropriate and he wishes he had not used it." Purdum, a former New York Times reporter who covered the Clinton White House and is now married to former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers, defended his article on CNN's "The Situation Room" Monday. He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer he was "very careful to say there is no clear-cut evidence that President Clinton has done anything improper." Watch CNN's Wolf Blitzer interview Purdum » . "I reject the notion that I'm making an insinuation," Purdum said. "But I'm very comfortable quoting the people I quote because I know who they are, and I know that they are very senior people who have known President Clinton for a very long time and work for him at very high levels." In his article, Purdum quotes a Johns Hopkins cardiologist -- who was not involved in Clinton's health care -- who says that the former president's bypass surgery could have affected his mood, perhaps even causing depression. And on CNN, Purdum quoted "some people who work for him" saying that Clinton "seems to be angry all the time." Purdum added he himself believes there's evidence the former president is acting in a different manner. "I think there's a good deal of evidence that he is quite a bit angrier than he used to be," he said. "He's clearly very angry at the media, and he's very angry at the way he sees Sen. Clinton's campaign has been treated." "I don't suggest that anyone can say -- except perhaps his own doctors over time -- with certainty that [the surgery] has affected President Clinton," he said. "But again, this article involves reporting with a whole bunch of people who have worked for Bill Clinton over many years. And this is one of the things they raised with me. I didn't go raising this." Clinton's office issued a rebuttal of Purdum's article that decried his use of "one doctor who has never examined President Clinton." "This theory is false and is flatly rejected by President Clinton's doctors who say he is in excellent shape and point to his vigorous schedule as evidence of his exceptional recovery," the rebuttal said. Watch analyst James Carville's take on the article » . The lengthy article hits newsstands later this week, though Vanity Fair has already posted a copy on its Web site. The posting prompted a blistering response from Carson, who called the piece "journalism of personal destruction at its worst." "A tawdry, anonymous quote-filled attack piece, published in this month's Vanity Fair magazine regarding former President Bill Clinton repeats many past attacks on him, ignores much prior positive coverage, includes numerous errors, and ultimately breaks no new ground," he said. Purdum last year wrote an article about efforts by Sen. John McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee for president, to draw in the party's more conservative voters. CNN's Alex Mooney contributed to this report.

Bill Clinton called author of Vanity Fair article a "scumbag" and "real slimy guy" Clinton campaign spokesman says former president now wishes he hadn't said it . Article quotes anonymous Bill Clinton aides discussing his anger, reports of women . Author Todd Purdum says he hasn't accused Clinton of doing anything wrong .

5d221c86fdadca378eeaabc39c881cc74efcff07

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Britain's Prince William is starting a two-month attachment with the Royal Navy on Monday, part of the future king's continued experience with various branches of the military, the Ministry of Defense said Saturday. Prince William and his father, Prince Charles, at his graduation from the Royal Air Force in April. William, 25, will spend the first part of his attachment on a basic sea safety course training in sea survival, firefighting and ship damage repair, according to the ministry. If William passes the course, as expected, he will join the HMS Iron Duke in the Caribbean, the department said. The ship's function is to support overseas British territories in the event of a hurricane and to carry out counter-narcotic operations. The prince, who will be called Sub Lieutenant Wales in the Navy, is expected to spend time aboard a frigate, a mine hunter, a submarine and helicopters during his attachment, which ends August 1, the Ministry of Defense said. William completed a four-month attachment with the Royal Air Force this year and received his pilot's wings upon graduating in April. He learned to fly three different aircraft during the attachment and is known as Flying Officer Wales within the RAF. William is also a second lieutenant in the British Army, where he serves in the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry. The attachments are designed to provide the prince with military experience for when he becomes head of the armed forces as king. "When he becomes king, he needs to know his armed forces -- instinctively be very familiar with them -- and so he is doing this visit to the Royal Navy," said Rear Adm. Bob Cooling, the assistant chief of naval staff. William's father, Prince Charles, had a five-year career in the navy in the 1970s. Charles served on the guided missile destroyer HMS Norfolk and two frigates before qualifying as a helicopter pilot and joining a naval air squadron that operated from the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. Prince Charles spent his last nine months in the navy in 1976 in command of the coastal minehunter HMS Bronington. William's uncle Prince Andrew served 22 years in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot, seeing active service during the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina in 1982. Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip, William's grandfather, spent more than 13 years in the Royal Navy. He saw active service throughout World War II and was in Tokyo Harbor when Japan surrendered.

Britain's Prince William begins two-month attachment with Royal Navy on Monday . William has completed attachment with the Royal Air Force . The future king is a second lieutenant in the British Army . Experience will prepare him for when he becomes head of armed forces as king .

7a49f5bc1d336309f57076bceba91885ee5368b5

(CNN) -- Parma have signed AC Milan's 18-year-old Alberto Paloschi in a co-ownership deal, the Serie B club announced on their Web site on Wednesday. Paloschi scored with his first touch when he made his debut as a Milan sub in February. Paloschi made an instant impact when he made his debut for Milan in February, scoring against Siena with his first touch as substitute. He scored twice in seven appearances last season but his prospects of regular first team football this season diminished sharply after the signings of Andrei Shevchenko and Ronaldinho. Parma were relegated from Serie A last season.. Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani has said that that Italy full-back Massimo Oddo could be leaving soon. Galliano told Gazzetta dello Sport: "Lyon are interested in our full-back and anything is possible." The 32-year-old former Lazio right-back is likely to lose his first team spot to new signing Gianluca Zambrotta from Barcelona. Oddo was in Italy's World Cup winning squad in Germany in 2006 but was not chosen for the Euro 2008 finals in June. Lyon already have an Italian at left-back in Fabio Grosso, who was also a World Cup winner in 2006.

Alberto Paloschi is moving from Milan to Parma in a co-ownership deal . The 18-year-old scored with his first touch in his Milan debut in February . Lyon are interested in signing Milan right-back Massimo Oddo .

dd46893fd318dce4e209f9a335612659ebf8fd24

(CNN) -- A JetBlue flight from Boston, Massachusetts, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was diverted Saturday when a fight broke out after someone was smoking in the bathroom, federal officials said. A JetBlue plane was held in North Carolina for two hours while passengers were interviewed. One passenger aboard JetBlue Flight 455 was taken into custody at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina after the plane landed about 5:45 p.m. A federal Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said one person was injured in the face by what may have been a punch. She said the fight involved three people who are thought to be related. According to the airline, there were 88 people and four crew members aboard the jet. The flight had been scheduled to leave Boston at 1 p.m. but did not take off until 3:11 p.m., spokeswoman Alison Eshelman said. Eyewitnesses said the scuffle was between two brothers, one of whom was angry that his brother had smoked on a plane. One passenger interviewed by CNN affiliate WFOR said the fight left one of the men bloody. "I saw the guy holding his head with the blood coming out," Mike Rocha said. The jet was held at the North Carolina airport for about two hours while FBI investigators interviewed passengers.

Witnesses said fight broke out after someone was smoking in bathroom . One person taken into custody at Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, airport . Witness: "I saw the guy holding his head with the blood coming out" Plane held two hours in North Carolina while FBI interviewed passengers .

acda8749fba5e9553e9f47cef89ef85eae5ad4e3

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Darryl Mathis waits in his Pensacola, Florida, home for the body of his 24-year-old son to return home from Iraq. Mathis, a military veteran himself, was seething with anger Thursday as he spoke about the death of Army Staff Sgt. Darris J. Dawson. An unnamed U.S. soldier is accused of killing Army Staff Sgt. Darris J. Dawson in Iraq on Sunday. Dawson, and Sgt. Wesley Durbin, 26, are said to have been shot and killed by another U.S. soldier on Sunday at a base south of Baghdad. Darryl and his wife, Maxine (Dawson's stepmother), say the military has told them nothing about the incident: no details on his death, no information at all. His voice shakes as he says he believes that the military has let him down. "I'm very disappointed -- very," he said. "If I would get a straight answer, if they would actually tell me what's going on, I would have something to work on; but right now, I have nothing to work on. Everything I'm getting, I'm getting from the media." His wife sobs as she says her stepson's death was foreshadowed by a phone call he made to her from Iraq. "He said that he was more shaky sometimes of the soldiers than of the enemy, because of the young guys over there." She said she asked him, "What in the world do you mean? You're afraid of your own soldiers?" " 'These kids are trying to fight a war they know nothing about. ... They're jumpy. ... They're more scary than the enemy,' " she said he told her. "And I said, 'Oh, God,' " said Maxine Mathis. On any given day, CNN receives dozens of detailed news releases from the U.S. military, including those announcing U.S. military casualties. In the cases of Dawson and Durbin, there was no mention of their names, and the releases were terse. "A multi-national division center soldier died this morning of non-combat related causes," the first release read. "The cause of death is under investigation." A second release came later in the day. "A second multi-national division center soldier died this morning of non-combat related causes. The solider died of wounds September 14 at a coalition forces combat Army support hospital," it read. "The incident is under investigation." Inquiries Thursday from CNN were met with a news release that a press officer said had been drafted Wednesday. However, the release had not been e-mailed to reporters Wednesday, as is customary. After naming the two soldiers and giving their rank and unit, it reads, "A U.S. soldier is in custody in connection with the shooting deaths. He is being held in custody pending review by a military magistrate. The incident continues under investigation." The release gives no other details. The U.S. military is classifying the death of Sgt. Dawson as "non-hostile," something Dawson's father finds puzzling. "I don't know. I really don't know," he said. "I just can't get it together with that. I had never heard that before. 'Non-hostile' in a war zone?" Lt. Col. Paul Swiergosz is a public affairs officer for the area in Iraq where the incident took place. He says the "non-hostile" death classification was given "because the deaths were not the result of hostile enemy action." But details on what happened remain scarce. After asking, CNN received an e-mail press release from Gen. Tony Cucolo, commanding general of the Third Infantry Division that a press officer said had been drafted on Wednesday. The release, however, had not been e-mailed to reporters, as is customary. "We do know one soldier, a fellow noncommissioned officer, allegedly opened fire and mortally wounded his squad leader and fellow team leader," reads the statement. A spokesman at Fort Stewart in Georgia said, "A soldier has been taken into custody. The incident is under investigation, and that is all I can say." The spokesman would not even confirm information in his commanding general's press statement. Maxine Mathis says she is stunned at how her stepson's death has been handled by the military. She says the Army assigned someone to help the family with anything they needed once they found out Darris had been killed, but she and her husband don't know how he died. She said her husband asked the liaison officer whether it was true that Darris had been killed by another U.S. solider. She said the officer denied it, insisting he didn't know anything else. Darryl Mathis continues to express his disappointment in the lack of information from the military about his son, amid rumors his son's body could be home by Saturday. "I don't even know where he's at, at this time," he said. Bobby Muller, president of Veterans for America, said he thinks the way the military classifies deaths in Iraq is an attempt to keep the public combat numbers down. "There is a clear and long-standing record, regarding the classification of causalities in Iraq to minimize combat losses. And we're seeing people wounded and killed that would have well been considered casualties from hostile action in previous conflicts. It's an attempt to conceal the actual cost of this war in terms of casualties," Muller said. "The Department of Defense has announced the death of every service member who has given their life in operation Iraqi and Enduring Freedom," said a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Gary Keck. "We have been open and transparent on the numbers of casualties suffered in these operations." Mathis says his son wanted to come home to his wife and four young children and was in the process of applying for a transfer. "Last I spoke to him was last week Monday. He called every Monday, and said he was checking his paperwork. He said he was going to call me back once he found out. That was the last I heard from him." Mathis' wife cannot stop sobbing. "We don't know why, we don't know why," she says "All we know is that our son died a useless, needless death. That's all we know." CNN's Mike Mount and Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.

Army Staff Sgt. Darris J. Dawson and another soldier were killed in Iraq this week . Another U.S. soldier is being held in connection with the killings . Dawson's father says he can't get a "straight answer" from the U.S. military . The U.S. military has classified the death as "non-hostile"

20b11518df6520f552d691d5f6c0d02755d11809

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Gov. David Paterson of New York has told state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states and countries where they are legal, his spokeswoman said Wednesday. The governor's legal counsel told state agencies in a May 14 memo to revise policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in California and Massachusetts as well as Canada and other countries that allow gays and lesbians to marry, said Erin Duggan, the governor's spokeswoman. The memo informed state agencies that failing to recognize gay marriages would violate the New York's human rights law, Duggan said. The directive follows a February ruling from a New York state appeals court. That decision says that legal same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions are entitled to recognition in New York. "This was in direct response to a court ruling," Duggan told CNN. "Just to make sure all the state agencies are on the same page." See what rules your state has about same-sex unions » . Duggan says that the court's decision was consistent with the findings of several lower courts in New York State. The governor's legal counsel sent the memo one day before the California Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay marriage in that state. Court officials in California counties may begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on June 17, state officials said Wednesday. Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriages in 2004, and gay couples need not be state residents there to wed. However, then-Gov. Mitt Romney resurrected a 1913 law barring non-resident marriages in the state if the marriage would be prohibited in the partners' home state. Subsequent court and agency decisions have determined that only residents of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Mexico may marry in Massachusetts, unless the parties say they plan to move there after the marriage. New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut permit civil unions, while California has a domestic-partner registration law. More than a dozen other states give same-sex couples some legal rights, as do some other countries.

Memo: Failing to recognize gay marriages would violate New York's human rights law . The directive follows a February ruling from a New York state appeals court . Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriages in 2004 .

51fe083191bb5568bf6a5fea1610a8e19663d7b2

(CNN) -- It's been five days since Hurricane Ike smashed into the Texas coast, but people are still struggling mightily with its effects. Flags of the United States and Texas fly where homes stood in Gilchrist, Texas, before Ike's wrath came ashore. From the destroyed coastline, to far inland where evacuees are seeking shelter, to communities in the Midwest where the storm dumped flooding rains, CNN's affiliates are reporting on the rebuilding of lives. Galveston, Texas Wrecked homes and possessions strewn around the ubiquitous sludge were the sights awaiting residents of Galveston, some of whom were allowed to check their property on Wednesday, KHOU reported. Paula Munoz said although the damage to the family's El Rey restaurant was worse than she could have imagined, they still planned to rebuild. "We spent 10 years paying off this place," she told KHOU. "We'll rebuild, and we'll do it here. Where else would we go? This is our life." But there was some relief for Maria Patina, who was worried she had lost everything. When she saw her house was standing, she rushed inside, grabbed a statue of Jesus and said: "Thank you, God." Read KHOU's report on going back to Galveston . Crystal Beach, Texas Frank and Dee Ann Sherman huddled in the attic of their beachfront home in Crystal Beach as Hurricane Ike ripped the house apart -- washing walls out to sea and lifting up what remained only to smash it down, KHOU said. Watch the Shermans tell their amazing survival story » . Somehow the roof stayed on and they survived, but they are not being allowed back into the ruins, not even to retrieve the ashes of their dead daughter. The couple said they were frustrated with complaints by people better off than them. "We see all of these people that are crying and moaning because they got some mud on their floor or their lights are out in Houston," Frank Sherman told KHOU. "We don't see anything about our friends that died in Crystal Beach and about the fact that our world is totally devastated. I'm 60 years old and I have to start my life all over again." Read how the Shermans contacted KHOU when they found they couldn't escape . Brazoria County, Texas Patty Smith fled Brazoria County and evacuated to Austin before the storm. She still does not know whether she has a home to return to, KVUE said. "It's like a nightmare. You look at your house when you pack up to leave and you're like 'Am I going to see this again'?" she said. Right now she's now relying on donations and just making it through each day. "We don't even know if we're going to have the money to pay our bills. It's that bad. My husband hasn't been able to work since we left," she said. Read KVUE's report on how Austin residents and workers are trying to help . Austin, Texas Parents still staying at the Austin Convention Center are trying to stay strong for their kids, News 8 reported, but they say it is getting harder. Watch Homeland Security boss discuss plans to help evacuees » . William Jones said the hardest part was trying to talk to his two daughters about their home. "I just tell them the truth and keep it simple," he said. "I don't try to sugarcoat it, so they know this is a real serious situation, but it's just hard on everybody right now," he told the station. Read what young victims are telling News 8 . San Antonio, Texas Kevin Green's mind was on laundry as he spent another day in a shelter in San Antonio, Texas, after getting out of Houston to avoid Ike. "I've been washing these clothes out and putting them on every day," he told KSAT. The Salvation Army said there would be enough clothes to hand out to evacuees, but there were concerns about making sure distribution was fair, KSAT said. Read KSAT report on how a planned clothing donation was stopped . Cincinnati, Ohio Tempers are running hot in Cincinnati even as hundreds of energy workers try to get the power back on, WLWT reported. Resident Betty Ruark told the station she was "really teed off" that houses either side of her had power, but she still needed a generator just to make coffee. "They're right here a week after you pay your bill to read your cotton-picking meter for next month," she said. "They're threatening to cut you off if you don't pay it, but could they care less that they don't got the electric on. It don't make sense, you know?" Duke Energy told WLWT that some repairs were helping only a small number of homes but that it hoped to have service back to normal by Sunday. Read WLWT's report on how people are getting upset . Carlisle, Ohio Police in Carlisle are enforcing a night-time curfew to prevent looting and other crime while the power is out, officials told WLWT. The action was taken because of problems elsewhere in the area hit by the storm, the station said. Residents told WLWT they didn't like the strict rules but were for the measure if it kept crime down. Read WLWT report on the action on Carlisle . Albuquerque, New Mexico A family who fled Galveston has given up on ever going home, instead deciding to make Albuquerque their new base, KOAT reported. Linda Sanchez and her two children thought they'd be able to ride out the storm and immediate aftermath in Houston but when Ike took out the power and the water they decided to head to more family in New Mexico. "It's better when you know someone around you," Sanchez told KOAT. Read how KOAT is trying to help the Sanchez family .

The effects of Hurricane Ike are still being felt across the United States . CNN affiliates report on how communities are struggling to recover . From Texas to Ohio, people are still battling homelessness and power outages .

8af047c2d83a91e8b745adfcaa7c282dfe1030a2

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) -- When Susana Trimarco's daughter Marita Veron was 23, she vanished from their hometown in Argentina, a suspected victim of a human trafficking and prostitution ring with links throughout Latin America and Europe. Marita Veron, who is missing, hugs her daughter Micaela. Police believe Marita was forced into sexual slavery. Trimarco, 54, has spent the past 6½ years searching for her daughter, often putting herself at risk. While chasing down leads on Marita's whereabouts, she's entered dark and dangerous brothels and confronted pimps and politicians who, she says, are complicit in her daughter's disappearance. She has won accolades throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States for her work. But Marita is nowhere to be found. "Marita is a wonderful and caring girl. My life will be completely absorbed with this fight until she is back and safe," Trimarco said. On April 3, 2002, Veron left her house in the northern Argentine province of Tucuman early for a doctor's appointment. She was wearing a turquoise shirt, blue jeans and old white sneakers. As she left the house, she told her mother, "Don't worry. I'll be back soon." Those were the last words the two exchanged. The investigation that has followed has led police and Trimarco to believe that she was kidnapped and forced into prostitution, either in rural Argentina or Spain. So far, a series of random clues has failed to provide any concrete information on Marita's whereabouts. Now, art is imitating life on Argentina's airwaves. Trimarco's story has become the basis of one of Argentina's most popular nighttime soap operas, "Vidas Robadas," or "Stolen Lives." Watch art imitate activism » . The program premiered in March on Telefe, one of Argentina's largest television networks, to a lukewarm response. But as the storyline and characters evolved and word started to spread, the audience grew, and it became water-cooler television. "Stolen Lives" attracts more than 2 million viewers nightly, a considerable feat considering Argentina's population is only 40 million. The show's plot centers on widowed anthropologist Bautista Amaya (played by Facundo Arana) and Rosario Soler (Soledad Silveyra) -- the mother of a young kidnapped girl, based on Trimarco -- who team up to unravel an underground prostitution ring. "With every performance, I try to display the inner feelings of this woman who is suffering, to transmit her grief," Silveyra said. "As an actress, I feel an enormous responsibility." The usual telenovela themes of love, passion and revenge are ever present in "Stolen Lives," but the show strives to expose an issue that has remained in the dark in Argentina until recently. Human rights groups in Argentina estimate that 800 women have gone missing at the hands of human traffickers since 2007. Worldwide, about 800,000 people are trafficked across borders annually, according to the U.S. State Department. "I am delighted that the show has been able to bring this topic to light, because no one ever talked about human trafficking in Argentina before," Trimarco said. "Stolen Lives" is the latest in a series of recent Argentine telenovelas that dissect important social issues while also aiming to entertain. One of the most important was the 2006 hit "Montecristo," which examined crimes against humanity committed by Argentina's military during the 1970s and 1980s. Local versions of "Montecristo" are produced in nine countries around the globe, including Turkey, Portugal, Mexico and Russia. "With these types of telenovelas, we are able to bring something entirely new to the public debate. And because we take a take a fictional and not a journalistic approach, we are able to attract and keep more viewers," Telefe programming director Claudio Villarruel said. "Montecristo" helped reunite children of Argentina's Dirty War who "disappeared" with lost family members. The Dirty War happened from 1976-83, when the government carried out a secret campaign to purge the country of those it considered to be dissidents. "Stolen Lives" is making a similarly strong impact. Trimarco established a foundation in her daughter's honor, Fundacion Maria de los Angeles, last year in Tucuman. It counts U.S. Ambassador to Argentina Earl Wayne and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner among its supporters. According to Trimarco, the foundation has rescued 360 women and children from trafficking networks, and leads on missing people continue to pour in. Argentina passed its first national law against human trafficking this year, a law that Trimarco lobbied hard to get passed. Meanwhile, praise rings from home and abroad. In May, "Stolen Lives" was declared a show of "social interest" by the Buenos Aires City legislature. In 2007, Trimarco received the U.S. State Department's "International Women of Courage Award" from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a ceremony in Washington. Later this year, Trimarco will travel to Spain to speak about human trafficking with lawmakers from the European Union. "It's just like Condoleezza Rice told me: My screams are being heard all over the world," she said. Trimarco travels around Argentina constantly, educating people about human trafficking, and following up on clues about Marita. She is also raising Marita's daughter, Micaela, 9. With all the publicity surrounding the case and the success of "Stolen Lives," Trimarco has herself become a target. Her accusations of political and police involvement have led to death threats, she says. Still, she remains committed to the cause and says that collaborating with the producers of "Stolen Lives" to tell her story has helped give her the strength to continue searching for her daughter. "I'm content, because my pain is now serving a purpose," she said.

Argentine woman vanished in 2002; it's believed she was forced into prostitution ring . Argentine soap opera, based on Marita's mother's search, probes human trafficking . Mom: "My life will be completely absorbed with this fight until she is back and safe" Mother Susana Trimarco's foundation tries to save women, children from sex slavery .

dfcacd955a9168b2cf599c57a539dbfce43ea2a9

(CNN) -- An earthquake shook southern Iceland on Thursday, reportedly causing injuries and damaging roads and buildings. A seismograph at the Institute of the Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, shows earthquake activity. The 6.1 magnitude temblor struck about 3:46 p.m. (11:46 a.m. ET), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Its epicenter was about 50 km (31 miles) east-southeast of the capital, Reykjavik, and was about 10 km (6.2 miles) below the Earth's surface. It was unclear exactly how many people were injured or the severity of their injuries, Olli Tynes, a journalist with Reykjavik's Channel 2, told CNN. A hospital in a town near the epicenter was also reported damaged, and some wings have had to be evacuated, he said. There were no reports of fatalities, but "great material damage," Tynes said. Roads and bridges in the area have been closed. The Associated Press, quoting civil defense authorities, reported 15 to 20 people from Selfoss, near the epicenter, were taken for medical treatment. Iceland's emergency management agency has swung into action, and rescue crews were headed to the area most affected by the quake. Tynes said he has been speaking to residents of the towns closest to the epicenter. "They said they thought the world was coming to an end," he said. "They thought they were going to die." There have been no reports of homes collapsing, as most homes in Iceland are built to withstand earthquakes, he said. Alti Mar Gylfason said he had received reports of damage to the road that rings the island nation. The quake was felt nationwide, he said. "It was a little bit like you're sleeping in a waterbed, you know ... everything floats around," he said, adding that people poured out of buildings into the street. "This is not something we experience on a normal basis." Although Iceland is seismically active, its last major quakes were on June 17 and June 21, 2000, with quakes of 6.5 and 6.4, respectively. The temblors damaged homes and buildings, but caused no serious injuries.

Strong earthquake shakes southern Iceland on Thursday afternoon . U.S. Geological Survey says quake was 6.1 magnitude . Epicenter 50 kilometers (30 miles) east, south-east of the capital Reykjavik . Residents near epicenter told to check on relatives .

f2463954bc7215d8a1f98cf0d85f280fd2affa58

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- An American sailor fatally shot two female sailors before shooting himself Monday inside a U.S. military barracks in Bahrain, the Navy said. The alleged shooter, a male, survived the self-inflicted gunshot and was in critical condition at a military hospital in Bahrain, the Navy said. The man was under heavy security. The motive for the shootings is unclear, but the Navy said the incident was not terror-related and it involved only U.S. military personnel. The shootings occurred about 5 a.m., the Navy said in a news release. The base was closed for about an hour after the shootings. A Navy spokesman in Bahrain refused to provide any other details about the incident. Naval Support Activity Bahrain supports the U.S. Fifth Fleet, whose operations span about 7.5 million square miles across 27 countries. Included in the fleet's area of responsibility are the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and parts of the Indian Ocean. The support base is located just outside Manama, the capital. Bahrain, a U.S. ally, is an island nation in the Persian Gulf, wedged between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Barbara Starr and Caroline Faraj contributed to this report.

NEW: Sailor shoots two female colleagues, then self, Navy says . Incident occurred at U.S. Navy support facility in the country . Navy says incident was not terror-related . Base supports U.S. Fifth Fleet, whose operations span 27 nations .

0e7a92a6f06e94cdd613860d4a3f4b92a06a2b43

(CNN) -- More than 100 countries attending a conference in Dublin, Ireland formally adopted a treaty Friday to ban cluster bombs -- a large, unreliable and inaccurate weapon that often affects civilians long after the end of armed conflict. Cluster bombs are usually air-dropped shells that eject multiple small bomblets to kill enemy soldiers. A document released by Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs says the countries agreed never to use cluster munitions or the explosive bomblets they contain. The countries also agreed never to develop, acquire, retain or transfer cluster munitions. Countries attending the 11-day conference agreed to the treaty Wednesday but formally signed it Friday. The accord calls for a total, immediate ban of the weapons, strong standards to protect those injured by them, contaminated areas to be cleaned up as quickly as possible and for the weapons to be immediately destroyed, he said. Thomas Nash, coordinator of the CMC campaigning organization, said Wednesday: "This is a great achievement for everyone who has been working hard to see the end of 40 years of suffering from these weapons." Though some of the biggest makers of cluster bombs, including the United States, Russia, China and Israel, were not involved in the talks and have not signed the accord, organizers predicted that those nations would nevertheless be pressured into compliance. "Take the United States," Nash said. "Almost all of its allies are here. They've decided to ban these weapons. That's going to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to ever use these weapons again, either on its own or in joint operations." The agreement requires the destruction of stockpiles of the weapons within eight years, he said. Cluster munitions, which break apart in flight to scatter hundreds of smaller bomblets, are what the International Committee of the Red Cross calls a "persistent humanitarian problem." Most of a cluster bomb's bomblets are meant to explode on impact, but many do not. Estimates show the weapons fail to explode on impact between 10 and 40 percent of the time, the Red Cross says. That means unexploded bomblets lie scattered across a target area, often exploding only when handled or disturbed -- posing a serious risk to civilians. Last week, Acting Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs Stephen D. Mull called it "an absolute moral obligation" to rid a battlefield of unexploded ordnance after the battle. But he also predicted that the United States would not agree to any ban. "We think that it is going to be impossible to ban cluster munitions... because these are weapons that have a certain military utility and are of use," Mull said. "The United States relies on them as an important part of our own defense strategy." Instead, he urged that the weapons be regulated "to take humanitarian considerations into account" and that "technological fixes" be pursued that would render them harmless after a battle. During the 34-day war in Lebanon in 2006, the United Nations estimated that Israel dropped 4 million bomblets, 1 million of which may not have exploded, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. More than 250 civilians and bomb-disposal operators have been killed or injured by them in southern Lebanon since the war ended. Cluster bombs were also used in the 1999 war in Kosovo. Lt. Col. Jim Burke, a military adviser to the Irish Defense Forces said they quickly became a major killer of civilians. In more than 20 countries, according to the ICRC, cluster bombs have created lasting "no-go" areas, rendering them as dangerous as minefields. Laos is the most affected country. Millions of bomblets dropped during the Vietnam War continue to kill civilians more than three decades later. Still, militaries consider cluster bombs important for use against multiple targets dispersed over a wide area, such as tanks or military personnel moving across the landscape. A single bomb containing hundreds of submunitions can cover more than 18 square miles. CNN's Jacqueline Clyne contributed to this report.

111 countries formally agreeing treaty banning cluster bombs . U.S. not attending and not expected to agree to banning cluster bombs . Controversial weapons often don't explode but stay dangerous for civilians .

2905a15c5947042e42f4b52dc201d24822af20f1

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Indonesia will withdraw from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at the end of the year, the country's energy minister told foreign journalists Wednesday. Indonesia has become a net importer of oil due to declining production levels. Purnomo Yusgiantoro said the move follows declining oil production levels in Indonesia that have left the country a net importer of oil. "In the future, if our production (comes) back again to the level that gives us a status as a net oil exporter, then I think we can go back to OPEC again," he said. "But today we decided that we are pulling out of OPEC." It was not immediately clear what effect Indonesia's decision will have on global oil prices. However the move was not unexpected. Indonesia, which joined OPEC in 1962, is the only southeast Asian country in the 13-nation oil cartel. Oil production there has steadily decreased in the last decade because of disappointing exploration efforts and declining production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Since 1996, total production has dropped by 32 percent. The country's current output quota for crude oil as set by OPEC is 1.45 million barrels a day -- well above its production capacity. In 2006, Indonesia imported more oil than it exported. CNN's Kathy Quiano contributed to this report .

Indonesia to withdraw from OPEC at end of the year, energy minister says . Purnomo Yusgiantoro says Indonesia more of an oil consumer than producer . Low production means Southeast Asia's only OPEC member is net oil importer .

808a3d788317af05686ee71a71d2fbc5c19267bc

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Navy admiral engaged in sexual relations in the White House in 1990 with a federal employee whom he falsely told he was a widower, according to a report released Friday by the Defense Department. Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem was demoted and fired from his post as director of the Navy staff. In March, when the report was submitted to Pentagon officials, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem was demoted and fired from his post as director of the Navy staff. Stufflebeem told investigators he couldn't remember the name of the woman he had an affair with. He also lied when he told investigators he did not engage in sexual relations with the woman, identified as "Jane Doe," the Defense Department's inspector general's report said. Jane Doe, who was then unmarried and working for a federal agency, told the investigators the allegations were true, the report said. Her supervisor and Stufflebeem's superiors supported her testimony. Stufflebeem was convicted April 18 of making false official statements to investigators. After the hearing, called an admiral's mast, he requested retirement. Jane Doe told investigators that she and Stufflebeem began their affair on an overseas trip in 1989, that the married admiral told her he was a widower who was raising his children as a single parent and that they had sexual relations several times, including once in a White House room reserved for "military aides with overnight duties." She also told investigators that Stufflebeem came to her home on the day in August 1990 when she learned he was married and that she called him "scum," shut the door in his face and never spoke to him again. Read the report (PDF) "We found Ms. Doe to be an extremely credible, candid and articulate witness who willingly participated in our interview with the knowledge and support of her husband," the report said. By contrast, the report said, Stufflebeem's testimony was "inconsistent with the weight of the evidence," and "it did not appear Stufflebeem's misstatements in these areas of testimony were inadvertent." At issue was Stufflebeem's removal from his post as a presidential aide in 1990. Stufflebeem testified that he initiated the request to leave his White House post because of "close family personal problems." But his superiors testified that he was removed from the post because of his relationship with the woman -- and that he admitted the affair. Jane Doe's supervisor told investigators that when she learned of the affair from Doe, she confirmed Stufflebeem's marital status and told Doe what she'd learned. "Ms. Doe's reaction, according to the supervisor, was one of complete surprise and shock," the report said. The supervisor also said that she telephoned Stufflebeem's immediate supervisor to tell him of the affair and that when she called a few weeks later to follow up, the supervisor told her that "everybody in town knew Boomer was f'ing some bimbo at the [federal agency]." Stufflebeem, however, denied to investigators that he had a sexual relationship with Jane Doe, although he admitted to one kiss and said he had an "inappropriate relationship" with her because he told her about his marital problems. "I did not have sex with this woman," he said during one of two interviews with investigators. Although he told investigators he could not remember the woman's name, he testified that he "had to live with shame for a long time" after the "inappropriate relationship" ended, that he was "racked with guilt" and "had a terrible time getting myself right with my family." "So I have had a great 18-year career since I left the White House," he said, according to the report. "If this is the end of it, then I still leave a rewarded individual, thankful for the blessings that I have had." Investigators found Stufflebeem's remarks inconsistent. "In our view, comments regarding guilt, shame, and the end of a distinguished naval career are incongruous with a physical relationship limited to one kiss," they wrote in the report. This year, according to the report, the inspector general's office provided Stufflebeem with its preliminary findings: that he'd provided "false and misleading testimony" regarding the nature of his relationship with Jane Doe, his inability to recall her name and his representation to her of himself as a widower. Stufflebeem responded with a vehement denial. "[I] find it extremely regrettable, in a case that has such far reaching implications for my career, that you have chosen to question my integrity," he wrote in a February 15 letter. "The unfortunate truth in this case is that, as a result of lack of evidence to substantiate the allegation of a sexual relationship and in lieu of investigating the underlying allegations, you have chosen to accuse me of being untruthful as I defended myself against these allegations." Stufflebeem further castigated the investigators because, at that time, they had chosen not to interview Jane Doe "in deference to Ms. Doe's privacy," according to the report. Doe "readily agreed" to testify when they contacted her after Stufflebeem's rebuttal. "Ms. Doe confirmed that she and Stufflebeem had an extensive physical relationship which began on an overseas trip and lasted intermittently for approximately eight months," the investigators wrote. "The relationship included sexual intercourse on approximately one dozen occasions, to include intercourse during overseas travel, in the White House and in her home." Doe also said Stufflebeem told her that his wife had died of breast cancer, that a woman who answered the phone when she called his home was the children's nanny and that he continued to wear his wedding ring "for his daughters who missed their late mother." According to the report, the investigation began when investigators received an anonymous letter containing "significant" details about the affair. Investigators had received another such letter in 1999, but it contained no detail and was not investigated. Stufflebeem became well known in the initial months of the war in Afghanistan, when he often conducted on-camera television briefings as a Pentagon spokesman. He was then deputy director for global operations on the Joint Staff. He was commander of the 6th Fleet from May 2005 to September 2007. During that time, he was deputy commander of Naval Forces Europe, joint force maritime component commander in Europe, commander of strike and support forces for NATO, and allied commander with Joint Command Lisbon. CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre contributed to this report.

Adm. John Stufflebeem told investigators he couldn't remember name of mistress . Stufflebeem lied to mistress that his wife had died of cancer . Stufflebeem was demoted and fired from his post as director of the Navy staff . Report: Investigators received anonymous letter with "significant" details of affair .

5a1bec30205b6938392f3119366e27d15b4849e8

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Two U.S. customs agents were arrested on charges they helped smuggle drugs and other contraband through New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The DEA says two customs officials at JFK International Airport helped smuggle drugs and contraband. Customs supervisor Walter Golembiowski and officer John Ajello face narcotics, bribery and conspiracy charges in the case, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Golembiowski and Ajello regularly solicited and accepted bribes to allow contraband to pass through undetected, the DEA said. Two airport workers and two others were also charged with importing counterfeit goods. Some of those items included Rolex, Cartier and Chanel watches and designer sunglasses, the DEA said. On several occasions, Golembiowski was captured on audio and video taking bribes to aid his co-conspirators in bringing in illegal drugs and counterfeit goods. "Smuggling any kind of illegal commodity raises troubling issues at a time of deep concern over national security," said Michael J. Garcia, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. "The threat is heightened when a government official accepts bribes to help smugglers breach our borders." The arrests came as a result of a lengthy sting operation by a state, local and federal task force. Prosecutors said numerous recorded meetings and phone calls captured the suspects talking about plans to smuggle hashish, ecstasy and other illegal items. The investigation has led to the indictment and prosecution of more than 20 people -- "from distributors to overseas sources of supply" -- and the seizure of more than 600 pounds of imported hashish and other drugs from the United States and France, according to the statement.

DEA says two agents regularly accepted and solicited bribes . They and four others allegedly smuggled illegal contraband and drugs . Investigation has led to the indictment and prosecution of more than 20 people . Arrests follow a lengthy investigation by state and federal authorities .

7ff39e1220c0f084434786ed145e15c6abe48def

(CNN) -- The crib in Ellen Darcy's Boston home has sat empty for more than a year. And in suburban Washington, Laura Teresinski has prepared a nursery for a baby that may never arrive. Guatemala has announced it will conduct a case-by-case review of every pending foreign adoption case. They and thousands of prospective parents, eager to adopt children from abroad, have found themselves in an emotional legal limbo since two of the most popular countries for international adoptions -- Guatemala and Vietnam -- recently halted their programs. Now would-be mothers and fathers around the United States wonder what will become of their quest to adopt a child -- a pursuit that can fray nerves, cost up to $30,000 and span several years. Guatemala announced this month that it would conduct a case-by-case review of every pending foreign adoption case. That put on hold the adoption plans of about 2,000 American families. The crackdown comes amid reports that some in Guatemala coerce mothers to relinquish their children for adoption -- or steal the children outright and present them as orphans. Similar accusations have arisen in Vietnam. After the United States accused adoption agencies there of corruption and baby-selling, Vietnam said in April that it would no longer allow adoptions to the United States. "My husband and I were absolutely devastated," Teresinski said. "Adoptive parents have put a lot of emotional energy and a lot of financial resources in the process." Vietnam's decision affects several hundred families. Families in the United States adopted 4,728 children from Guatemala and 828 from Vietnam last year. The halt in adoptions from those two nations unfolds against the backdrop of a dramatic rise in international adoptions in the United States. The number of foreign-born children adopted by U.S. families more than tripled from 1990 to 2004, when it reached a high of 22,884, though the figure has declined slightly each year since. In 2007, the U.S. granted visas to 19,613 children so they could join an adoptive family in the United States, according to U.S. State Department figures. About 70 percent of those children came from four countries: China, Guatemala, Russia and Ethiopia. A few other countries have also halted foreign adoptions at various times, including Kazakhstan and Togo. Yet the suspensions in Vietnam and Guatemala have had the biggest impact -- they're two of the 10 countries that send the most children to adoptive homes in the Unites States. Fear of fraud stirs heartache . For Darcy, the review seems more detrimental than helpful. Her adopted daughter, Carolina, remains in a Guatemalan foster home with three dozen other babies. Darcy worries that keeping Carolina, now 15 months old, in a foster home will harm her early development. "She's not getting one-on-one care by a consistent caretaker," Darcy said, adding later, "Nobody is looking at this as a violation of the kids' human rights except for these (American) parents." Guatemala, which until now has had little to no oversight of its foreign adoptions, has the highest per capita rate of adoption in the world. Nearly one in 100 babies born in Guatemala wind up living with adoptive parents in the United States, according to the U.S. consulate in Guatemala. While adoptive parents in the United States undergo rigorous screening, adoptions in Guatemala had been processed by notaries responsible for determining whether the babies were relinquished voluntarily. They also arrange foster care and handle paperwork -- notaries in Latin America tend to have more legal training than notaries in the United States. Both Guatemalan and U.S. officials fear the system leads to practices such as paying birth mothers for children or, in some instances, coercion. Officials in both countries say gaps in regulations and the high sums of money at play -- adoptions can cost up to $30,000 -- may have created unintended incentives in a country where the State Department estimates that 80 percent of the population lives in poverty. The Guatemalan government has said its review could take a month or longer. As for the American families, they can only wait. "I think it's overkill," said Darcy, who was matched with Carolina last March and was approved to adopt the girl last winter -- typically one of the last steps before the actual adoption is complete. "No adoptive parent wants to adopt an abducted child -- a child that wasn't voluntarily relinquished -- but to keep them as hostages is unacceptable," Darcy said. Guatemala plans reforms . U.S. officials say they sympathize with the parents, but that reviews like the one in Guatemala are in the best interest of the children. "We feel for them, it's a tough situation," said a State Department official who is not authorized to speak on the record. "(But) they'll have the comfort of knowing American parents in the future who adopt from Guatemala will get children from a system that has all the safeguards in place so that children are not exploited," the official said. In the past, Guatemala required birth mothers to sign a document in court saying they were relinquishing their child. They were not required to reveal their reasons. Now the government may require the presence of the birth mother and child. The goal is to verify identification and make sure the mother is giving up her child voluntarily. Cleaning up Guatemala's adoption system is a step toward complying with the standards of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, an international agreement that governs adoptions from one country to another. About 70 nations have signed the convention, which seeks to ensure legitimate foreign adoptions. The United States joined the international convention last year, and rules governing adoptions from one signatory nation to another took effect April 1. The United States has stopped issuing visas to Guatemalan children after that date, blocking their travel to America -- at least until concerns are addressed. "We're not pointing fingers at American parents," the State Department official said. However, the review and changes in Guatemala will ensure that it "does not become a fertile ground for (wrongful) practices on any person, particularly children, who have not been orphaned." To offset corruption, the U.S. Embassy has added its own requirement: That birth mothers appear with the baby to request a visa for the baby. In August, officials also began requiring two DNA tests to confirm the identities of mother and child. Still, the Guatemalan solicitor general's office has identified at least 80 cases of adoption irregularities, including baby stealing and false DNA tests. And the Guatemalan chief prosecutor's office recently launched a criminal investigation into the two laboratories contracted to take DNA samples from birth mothers and children. 'Serious irregularities' in Vietnam . Similar concerns of corruption recently emerged in Vietnam, where investigators had found "serious adoption irregularities," according to a report by the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. Documents had been forged or altered, the embassy said, and some parents were paid, tricked or forced into giving up their children for adoption. In some cases, the embassy said, children were offered for adoption without the knowledge or permission of their parents. The Vietnamese government has denied the accusations. Even so, it said in April that it would terminate its adoption agreement with the United States, saying it won't accept applications after July 1. The program is scheduled to end September 1. Parents in the United States who were matched with an adoptive child in Vietnam before July 1 will be allowed to adopt that child. Prospective parents who had invested time and money, but had not been matched with an adoptive child, appear to be out of luck. Private adoption agencies insist that nearly all adoptions from Vietnam are problem-free, and they want the adoptions to continue. "It's hard to let go, because we know we can advocate for these children and make a real difference," said Linda Brownlee, executive director of the nonprofit Adoption Center of Washington, which places children for adoption from Russia, China, Cambodia and Vietnam. She hopes the United States and Vietnam reach an agreement so that adoptions can continue. "Without it, I think children are going to be harmed. They are going to die needlessly, and there is going to be trafficking," Brownlee said.

Guatemala and Vietnam say corruption, baby-stealing at heart of crackdown . Nearly one in 100 babies born in Guatemala are adopted by U.S. parents . Crackdown puts children's well-being at risk, adoption advocates say .

7551503e7e57bd519913b0df90ca1e80d5305b05

(CNN) -- Authorities have re-arrested three men in connection with the disappearance of an Alabama teenager in Aruba in 2005, based on new evidence in the case, prosecutors announced Wednesday. Natalee Holloway disappeared while on an Aruba vacation in 2005. Brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe were arrested in Aruba at the same time authorities in the Netherlands picked up Joran Van der Sloot at the request of the Aruban government, the statement said. Van der Sloot is attending school in Holland. The three had previously been arrested in 2005, Aruban prosecutors noted in a statement, but a court released them, citing insufficient evidence. They are now charged with "involvement in the voluntary manslaughter of Natalee Holloway or causing serious bodily harm to Natalee Holloway, resulting in her death," the statement said. Watch interview with Holloway's father » . Van der Sloot, now 20, and the Kalpoes, now ages 24 and 21, were the last people seen with Holloway, 18, as she left Carlos n' Charlie's nightclub in Oranjestad, Aruba, about 1:30 a.m. on May 30, 2005. All three men have maintained their innocence in her disappearance. View a timeline of the case » . No information was immediately available about what the new evidence was that led to the arrests. Aruban prosecutors said a team of detectives from the Netherlands has been reviewing the Holloway case at the request of authorities in Aruba, and had been on the island as late as last month to complete the investigation. The Kalpoe brothers were being interrogated by Aruban police Wednesday, Aruba prosecutor Dop Kruimel told CNN. They will appear before a judge Friday for a preliminary arrest hearing, in which the judge determines whether the arrest was credible, she said. The judge can then authorize their being detained for eight more days, meaning police have that much time to produce evidence. The suspects then go before a judge again, she said. Van der Sloot was arrested in Arnhem, the Netherlands, by Dutch police, Kruimel said. Aruban authorities have asked for him to be extradited to Aruba within eight days. Because they were not familiar with the case, Dutch police were not questioning Van der Sloot, she said. He will be questioned when he is brought back to Aruba, she said. However, he will appear before a judge Thursday in Arnhem. When CNN called the Kalpoe household, the person who answered the phone hung up. Earlier, Van der Sloot's mother, Anita Van der Sloot, told CNN her son had not been arrested, but had only reported to a police station in the Netherlands for questioning Wednesday after receiving a letter asking him to do so. Anita Van der Sloot said she had spoken to her son briefly from her home in Aruba. She said a Dutch attorney was with him, and she expected him to appear before a judge and be released Thursday. Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway, said in a statement, "The family is always hopeful when a step in the right direction is made in the case." Beth Holloway was refusing interviews for now, said spokeswoman Sunny Tillman. She previously was known as Beth Holloway-Twitty, but has returned to using Holloway after a divorce earlier this year. Natalee Holloway was visiting Aruba with a group of about 100 classmates celebrating their graduation from Mountain Brook High School in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, when she went to Carlos n' Charlie's that night in 2005. The group had planned to leave for home the following day, and Holloway's packed bags and passport were found in her hotel room after she failed to show up for her flight. Her disappearance triggered an exhaustive search and investigation and a media sensation in the United States, Aruba, the Netherlands and beyond, but Holloway has never been found. Aruban authorities have been criticized for their handling of the case. At least 10 men, including Van der Sloot and the Kalpoes, have been arrested and identified as suspects either in Holloway's disappearance or in an alleged cover-up. All were questioned and released. Legal experts, however, have said differences in the U.S. and Aruban systems should be taken into account. Aruba's criminal justice system is based on Dutch law and a descendant of the Napoleonic code. In Aruba, authorities' reasonable suspicion that someone knows about or is involved in a crime is enough to make an arrest, while magistrates investigate and judges determine a suspect's guilt or innocence. There are no jury trials. Aruban authorities, meanwhile, have suggested that Holloway may have overdosed on drugs or died of alcohol poisoning. Beth Holloway and Natalee Holloway's father, Dave Holloway, filed a lawsuit last year against Van der Sloot and his father, Aruban judge Paulus Van der Sloot, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The Van der Sloots were served with the suit while on a trip to New York. However, a judge in August 2006 dismissed the suit, saying New York was an inconvenient forum in which to consider it. It was unclear whether Holloway's parents have pursued legal action elsewhere. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Kimberly Segal and Eric Marrapodi contributed to this report.

NEW: Via representative, Holloway family expresses hope about developments . Three men re-arrested in Natalee Holloway case, prosecutors say . One young man arrested in Holland, two brothers picked up in Aruba . They were the last people seen with Holloway before she vanished in 2005 .

c34a0cbf6db61323766fc86b1b89b399ff6b0666

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The founder of the Free Burma Coalition accused Myanmar neighbors China and India on Thursday of failing to do their share of "heavy lifting" in aiding victims of the Myanmar cyclone. A young survivor waits for relief supplies by a makeshift house in Bogaley. Maung Zarni, a visiting research fellow at Oxford University, said both nations could do more in trying to persuade the Myanmar junta to allow international aid workers and equipment into the country. Zarni also slammed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), for the same reason. "The latest episode involving the junta's handling of the cyclone victims in Burma really calls into question the meaning and the usefulness, the value of ASEAN," he added. The organization of 10 nations promotes economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region. "China isn't doing its share of heavy lifting, and the same can be said about India as well," Zarni said. "China is a country on the rise, and it can really repair its tarnished reputation around Tibet if it puts pressure on the regime and says, 'This is unacceptable, even to Chinese standards.'" Zarni was referring to critics of last fall's Chinese crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, led by Tibetan monks. He directed most of his criticism toward Myanmar's military rulers, who he said are solely concerned with their own security and political ambitions, while neglecting the cyclone victims. The government has been bitterly criticized for being too slow in responding to the May 2 disaster, then blocking large-scale, international emergency aid. The government has relented somewhat in the past few days. The official death toll from Cyclone Nargis rose Thursday, with Myanmar state television reporting more than 40,000 fatalities. Many believe the toll will be much higher. Watch scenes of widespread destruction » . Referring to Myanmar's 75-year-old top leader, Than Shwe, Zarni complained, "His major number one concern is his own personal and family security, and also other officers who are caught in a system where fear and rewards are manipulated to whip them in line." The government's response to the cyclone is complex, and has "psychological, institutional and personal dimensions," which have produced an "institutionalized madness," Zarni said. The Irrawaddy newspaper, which covers Myanmar and Southeast Asia, said a team of ASEAN experts would arrive in Yangon on Thursday to assess the scale of the disaster and requirements for aid. ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said Wednesday that the Myanmar government had agreed to grant visas to an "emergency rapid assessment team." The Myanmar government also agreed to accept 160 relief workers from India, China, Bangladesh and Thailand, the newspaper said.

Founder of dissident group: China, India need to be more persuasive with junta . Maung Zarni questions usefulness of ASEAN regional group over disaster . Activist criticizes Myanmar junta for not doing more to help victims .

d07a61368a195444b14bd4b382e0fc3d64890b22

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- The atmosphere was tense in Cape Town on Friday after xenophobic violence that has left more than 40 dead in Johannesburg spread to South Africa's largest city. Immigrants from Mozambique line up in Primrose, South Africa, to board buses back home. Clashes overnight resulted in one death and 15 arrests and the evacuations of 420 foreign nationals, a police official in Cape Town said. "Crowds of people went on a rampage, looting and carrying out acts of violence," said Cape Town Police Superintendent Billy Jones. They were charged with public violence and are to appear in court Monday. One foreign national, a Somali, died when he was run over by a vehicle as he tried to escape the angry crowds, Jones said. Twelve people suffered minor injuries. He said Friday was tense but calm, with state and local police stationed throughout the area. Jack Bloom of the opposition party Democratic Alliance told CNN on Friday that government troops were helping police ward off violence in Johannesburg. Aid workers and volunteers were providing tents, food and supplies at the police stations. Bloom estimated that about 2,000 foreigners had sought haven at those locations. It was the first violence in the coastal city since a wave of xenophobia began about two weeks ago in Johannesburg, resulting in at least 42 deaths. The foreign nationals were transported from the city after angry crowds formed at a public meeting seeking to calm tensions, Jones told CNN. They were being housed at community centers and churches. The attacks in South Africa have forced thousands of immigrants to flee, prompting neighboring Mozambique to declare a state of emergency on Friday. Desperate stories of those fleeing violence . The country's Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi said the decision was taken after about 10,000 Mozambicans fled from South Africa. CNN's Robyn Curnow reported long lines of people -- including many from Zimbabwe and Mozambique -- waiting for buses in Johannesburg to take them home. Bloom, from Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, said the attacks on foreigners who fled to South Africa for a better life has become a "humanitarian crisis." South African President Thabo Mbeki has approved the deployment of the army to help stop the attacks, which have drawn condemnation from South African officials and other African leaders. About 28,000 people have been displaced by the violence, Hangwani Malaudzi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Safety and Security said. And more than 400 have been arrested for crimes ranging from murder, to causing a public disturbance, he said. The country has also seen a disturbing throwback to the 1980s apartheid-era lynching tactic of "necklacing," which was widely used in the townships at the time. Used on suspected informants, the "necklace" is a car tire, filled with petrol, put around the person's neck and set alight. The victims are mainly immigrants and refugees from other parts of Africa, including Zimbabwe, where a devastated economy has sent at least two million people across the border in search of a better life. Some say the attacks stem from a long-standing feeling among locals that the number of immigrants in South Africa results in shortages of jobs and essential needs. Inadequate housing, a lack of running water and electricity, the rising prices of food, and escalating crime -- nearly 20,000 people were slain in South Africa last year -- add to the resentment. Watch analysis of reasons behind xenophobic attacks » . According to South Africa's latest census, the country has about 45 million people. The South African Department of Human Affairs estimates that more than 4 million people reside in South Africa illegally, but that figure is based on a 10-year-old study and some feel the number of immigrants in South Africa is much higher. Some say that millions have recently fled to South Africa from Zimbabwe because of violence there since the county's stalled election. A presidential run-off between long-time leader President Robert Mugabe and his opposition challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, is scheduled for June 27 in Zimbabwe -- three months after the initial vote. Zimbabwe also is in the midst of an economic collapse, with nearly 80 percent unemployment.

Violence in Johannesburg spreads to Cape Town, resulting in one death . Mozambique declares state of emergency to assist people fleeing S. Africa . Attacks on foreigners in South Africa have left more than 40 people dead . Police, military in first joint operation raid three hostels .

aa68dee4bc246e5aae9507342f8520a2a301a310

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan and a co-defendant lost another legal round at the Supreme Court on Tuesday and will remain in prison on federal racketeering and fraud convictions. Ex-Gov. George Ryan walks out of a Chicago, Illinois, courthouse after his April 2006 conviction. Ryan and businessman Larry Warner claimed they did not receive a fair trial, but the justices, without comment, refused to intervene in the case. Justice John Paul Stevens refused last fall to grant bail for the 74-year-old Ryan, a move that would have kept him out of jail to file more appeals. The disgraced ex-governor reported to a federal prison in Wisconsin in November to serve a 6½-year sentence. The men were convicted in April 2006 for fraud in a case stemming from bribes paid for various state licenses. Their lawyers claimed the trial judge improperly removed two jurors while deliberations in the case had commenced, but a federal appeals court upheld the convictions. Ryan, a Republican, served as governor from 1999 to 2003. He retired following investigations into political corruption in his administration. He also was noted for issuing a moratorium on capital punishment in his state in 2000 over concerns innocent inmates might be executed. The case decided Tuesday is Warner and Ryan v. U.S. (07-977).

George Ryan, co-defendant claim they didn't get fair trial in 2006 . Justices refuse to intervene in case, give no reason why . The men were convicted on charges related to bribery . Ryan, a Republican, served as Illinois governor from 1999-2003 .

87ef15064035db73cb29f5cec2f0442f2c527ef0

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- A rebel group that has been attacking oil pipelines in southern Nigeria claimed responsibility on Monday for another strike and said it killed 11 government soldiers in fighting that followed the sabotage. A fire burns following an attack on a pipeline in Nigeria in December 2006. The Nigerian military confirmed an attack on an oil pipeline and an explosion, but called the claim that 11 soldiers were killed a "lie" and "pure propaganda." The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, issued a statement saying it "successfully sabotaged another major trunk pipeline" belonging to the Shell Petroleum Development Company in the country's Rivers State. "Minutes after the sabotage, our fighters encountered a military gunboat which opened fire blindly on the advance guard. We flanked them in a counter-attack and killed in close combat all the drunken soldiers numbering eleven, collecting their weapons, ammunitions and bullet-proof vests before using dynamite to sink the gunboat with its dead occupants," MEND said. MEND also said they found two "traumatized, adolescent girls" who were gang-raped by Nigerian soldiers. "They were dropped off in the neighboring village by our men who have since returned safely to camp," the statement said. The military had no immediate response to that claim. Analysts say that one reason for record high gas prices in the United States is a spate of attacks on oil pipelines in Nigeria, the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States. Exxon and Shell are two of several companies that had been extracting two million barrels of oil a day in Nigeria. Yet rebel attacks on oil pipelines in the Niger Delta have cut overall production by roughly 10 percent -- meaning 200,000 fewer barrels of oil on some days. The rebel group hopes to secure a greater share of oil wealth for people in the Niger Delta, where more than 70 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. MEND has bombed pipelines and kidnapped hundreds of foreign oil workers, typically releasing them unharmed, sometimes after receiving a ransom payment. The Nigerian government has proposed a peace summit to find a solution to the region's problems, but an immediate resolution does not appear in sight.

Rebel group claims responsibility another strike on a gas pipeline . MEND group say it killed 11 government soldiers in fighting following sabotage . Group says pipeline belongs to Shell Petroleum Development Company .

a577b934e210ef7dce07390711f03db8bb2e005a

(REAL SIMPLE) -- With soaring gas prices and travel costs, the cheapest route to whisk yourself away this summer is through a good book. Ten top-selling authors share their favorite lazy-summer-day reads. • One-day reads . Augusten Burroughs "The Member of the Wedding," by Carson McCullers "A slender 163 pages, but it inhales all the light, matter, and gravity in the vicinity. Stunningly evocative and gorgeously written, this truly magnificent book will replace your entire life for one perfect day." Jackie Collins "Whacked," by Jules Asner "She's a first-time author, married to director Steven Soderbergh, and this delicious tale of revenge -- set in L.A. -- rocks!" Nelson Demille "The Prince," by Niccolò Machiavelli "It's, well...Machiavellian. A great help if you're dealing with a summer landlord or a difficult au pair." Janet Evanovich "The Concrete Blonde," by Michael Connelly "A classic in Connelly's Harry Bosch detective series -- and one of my favorites." Elizabeth Gilbert "The Principles of Uncertainty," by Maira Kalman "Gorgeous and touching. A quirky year-in-the-life as told by one of our most wonderful illustrators -- short in words, but rich in little visual pleasures." Philippa Gregory "Dragonwyck," by Anya Seton "A gothic novel set in 1844 America. At times it's utterly ridiculous, but it is truly haunting. Think an American Jane Eyre at high speed. A great book to gulp down in a day." Sophie Kinsella "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," by Mark Haddon "Its hero, an autistic 15-year-old, is one of the most poignant in contemporary literature." James Patterson "No Country for Old Men," by Cormac McCarthy "The only thriller I have ever read that also qualifies as art, at least in my mind." Jodi Picoult "The Third Angel," by Alice Hoffman "I inhale anything Alice writes, but this stunning book is among her loveliest. Once I started it, I didn't put it down." Danielle Steel "Change of Heart," by Jodi Picoult "Anything by Jodi Picoult." • Books for a long weekend . Augusten Burroughs "The House of Mirth," by Edith Wharton "The only thing more delicious than spending a weekend reading The House of Mirth is reading it in the grass or on the sand. Mosquitoes will leave you alone. It will not rain. This is Edith Wharton. Nature bends." Jackie Collins "The Great Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald "Jay Gatsby is so charismatic, sexy, and mysterious, and I love him. Good to share with a guy in bed!" Nelson Demille "The Gold Coast," "by me" "What can I say? Read it on the beach and attract favorable comments." Janet Evanovich "The Two Minute Rule," by Robert Crais It's Crais, for crying out loud! Who wouldn't want to spend a weekend with Robert Crais?" Elizabeth Gilbert "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," by Anne Fadiman "The heartbreaking true story of an immigrant Hmong child's epilepsy and the American doctors who tried to 'cure' her (not realizing that traditional Hmong families see epilepsy as something of a blessing). A story of moral and cultural complexity." Philippa Gregory "Lottery," by Patricia Wood "A hugely feel-good novel that had me laughing out loud at the hero's rise to happiness from absolute despair." Sophie Kinsella "The Tenderness of Wolves," by Stef Penny "A gripping, atmospheric murder story set in the snowy wastes of Canada, with some wonderful descriptions of an extreme landscape. I never knew I could be so riveted by snow!" James Patterson "Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge," by Evan S. Connell "Astonishingly different points of view, in two books, from a wife and a husband, on the history of a family's life in Kansas City." Jodi Picoult "Skeletons at the Feast," by Chris Bohjalian "A Bohjalian novel is guaranteed to be rich in character and gorgeous writing. This latest, based on a real journal, delves into the history of World War II." Danielle Steel "Become a Better You," by Joel Osteen . • Books to savor all summer . Augusten Burroughs "Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor, and Tillie Olsen. Spend the entire summer with them. It doesn't matter what you read or which order you read them in. The wisdom and heartbreak centers of your brain will be electrified. I do not have the words to tell you what a fine summer you will have and how much you will never regret it." Jackie Collins "The Godfather," by Mario Puzo "You can re-reread it all summer and it will still seem fresh and so true. The characters jump off the page." Nelson Demille "Of Human Bondage," by W. Somerset Maugham "Not for the beach, but for rainy days and quiet summer nights. One of my favorites." Janet Evanovich 65 Years of Little Golden Books "Pictures, smiles, happy endings -- a trip back to simpler times." Elizabeth Gilbert "The Treasury of Oz," by L. Frank Baum "If by some miracle I had a summer to sit and read, I would treat myself to rereading the most delightful books of my childhood -- the Oz books. Baum sent plucky Dorothy back to Oz more than a dozen times after The Wizard of Oz, and her wondrous adventures just get better. If you can borrow a 10-year-old to share this experience with, all the better!" Philippa Gregory "History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe," by Rodney Bolt "This takes you into the fictional heart of Shakespeare's England, suggests a wonderfully imaginative explanation of the genius of the Bard's plays, makes your head spin with possibilities -- and makes you wonder who did write all those wonderful plays." Sophie Kinsella Jane Austen: The Complete Novels "Austen is a perennial delight." James Patterson "One Hundred Years of Solitude," by Gabriel García Márquez "Absolutely magnificent magical realism, and probably my favorite novel ever." Jodi Picoult "Sadly, the only books I'll be savoring all summer are college information guides, since I have a senior in high school next year." Danielle Steel "Danielle Steel :)" • Books to dip into and out of . Augusten Burroughs The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson "We know Emily Dickinson lived in olden days and she was a poet and seldom left her home. But read one of her poems -- any one will do -- and you'll see the evidence of a glittering genius. You will be amazed by what one brilliant woman can accomplish alone in her bedroom without e-mail, a telephone, or a best friend." Jackie Collins "Anything by Elmore Leonard. Short, smart, hilarious." Nelson Demille "The Atlantic Book of British and American Poetry," edited by Edith Sitwell "Sitwell picked the best of the best in the English language. Excellent with a bottle of wine on the porch or the patio." Janet Evanovich "Disney Princess The Ultimate Sticker Book" "Stick Snow White and Cinderella on the pages and make up your own stories." Elizabeth Gilbert "Meditations," by Marcus Aurelius "I keep a copy by my bed. And the fact that the ruminations of a second-century Roman emperor bring me comfort, delight, and inspiration is a clue to how timeless this is. Even those of us who aren't governing empires can benefit from these musings on courage and decency." Philippa Gregory "Sappho: A New Translation," translated by Mary Barnard "It sounds fearfully heavy, but it is absolutely contemporary in feel. A friend who teaches a course in Sappho sent me one poem: 'Don't ask me what to wear.' This is a poet who lived thousands of years ago, yet her work will make a modern woman laugh with recognition." Sophie Kinsella "The Portable Dorothy Parker," edited by Marion Meade "I adore her wit and dark humor." James Patterson "Nine Horses," by Billy Collins "Collins makes writing accessible poetry seem easy." Jodi Picoult The Best American Short Stories "I am a sucker for this collection and keep a copy of the 2007 edition, edited by Stephen King, in the guest room of our lake house." Danielle Steel "Anything religious." Get a FREE TRIAL issue of Real Simple - CLICK HERE! Copyright © 2008 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

Jackie Collins recommends "Whacked," by Jules Asner, a tale of revenge set in L.A. James Patterson picks the thriller "No Country for Old Men," by Cormac McCarthy . For a long weekend, Danielle Steele likes Joel Osteen's "Become a Better You" Sophie Kinsella: "[Jane] Austen is a perennial delight"

c9414bf55859cb9ca7e925a4a09b416b6f66446a

(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama received key endorsements Friday from a top former Clinton administration official and two former Democratic senators. Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary under President Clinton, endorsed Sen. Obama Friday. Robert Reich, a former Clinton cabinet member and longtime friend of the former president, formally endorsed Obama's White House bid, saying that "my conscience won't let me be silent any longer." "Although Hillary Clinton has offered solid and sensible policy proposals, Obama's strike me as even more so," Reich wrote on his blog. He served as the Secretary of Labor from 1993-1997 and is currently a professor at Brandeis University. "His plans for reforming Social Security and health care have a better chance of succeeding," Reich continued. "His approaches to the housing crisis and the failures of our financial markets are sounder than hers ... He has put forward the more enlightened foreign policy and the more thoughtful plan for controlling global warming." Reich, whose relationship with the Clintons dates back to their law school days at Yale, has long been a critic of the New York senator's White House bid. Shortly before the Iowa caucuses in January, he wrote that voters would have a choice "between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who's walked the walk." "I don't get it," he wrote then. "If there's anyone in the race whose history shows unique courage and character, it's Barack Obama. HRC's [Hillary Rodham Clinton's] campaign, by contrast, is singularly lacking in conviction about anything." Reich also criticized Bill Clinton earlier in the year over the former president's sharp attacks on Obama in South Carolina. "Bill Clinton's ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks on Barack Obama are doing no credit to the former president, his legacy, or his wife's campaign," he wrote in January. "Nor are they helping the Democratic Party." Asked to respond to Reich's endorsement, Clinton spokesman Mo Eleithee said, "Didn't he endorse him last year?" Reich is the latest former Clinton administration official to announce his support for Obama. Last month, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who held several positions under Bill Clinton, also came out in support of the Illinois senator. Clinton supporter and CNN political analyst James Carville later called that an "act of betrayal." Meanwhile, the Obama campaign announced that former Sens. Sam Nunn of Georgia and David Boren of Oklahoma endorsed the Illinois senator, and agreed to serve on the campaign's national security policy team. Nunn served 25 years in the Senate and was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1987 to 1995. He said Obama is "our best choice to lead the nation." "I believe that he will bring to the White House, high principles, clear vision and sound judgment," he added. Boren -- who served in the Senate from 1979 to 1994 and is the longest-serving Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence -- was one of Bill Clinton's top choices to replace Les Aspes in 1994 as U.S. Secretary of Defense. He said Obama is a person of "sound and good judgement." Obama responded to the endorsements in a statement, saying the two "will be important sources of advice and counsel for our campaign in the months ahead." Watch more from the campaign trail » . The endorsements come just four days before Pennsylvania's April 22 primary. At stake: 158 delegates. Also on Friday, Clinton accused Obama of "complaining" about Wednesday night's debate in Pennsylvania and hinted her rival might not be equipped to handle the rigors of the Oval Office. Watch more from Wednesday's debate » . Obama said Thursday that Clinton was "in her element" at the debate, telling a North Carolina crowd she "took every opportunity to get a dig in." "That's her right to kind of twist the knife in a little bit," he said, before adding that he understands why she's using what he calls the tactics of the GOP. Watch more of Obama's comments » . Clinton told an interviewer Friday morning on WTXF in Philadelphia that "being asked tough questions in a debate is nothing like the pressures you face inside the White House." "When the going gets tough you can't run away," she said of Obama. Meanwhile, Obama faced more criticism Friday -- this time from Sen. John McCain. McCain's campaign is crying foul over what it characterizes as repeated distortions from Obama. The most recent dustup comes after Obama criticized McCain earlier Friday for comments the Arizona senator made in an interview on Bloomberg Television. "John McCain went on television and said that there has been quote 'great progress economically over the last seven and a half years,' " Obama told a Pennsylvania crowd. "John McCain thinks our economy has made great progress under George W. Bush. Now, how could somebody who has been traveling across this country, somebody who came to Erie, Pennsylvania, say we've made great progress?" The McCain campaign immediately took issue with the comment, noting the Arizona senator also said he knows families are facing "tremendous economic challenges." "American families are hurting and Barack Obama is being recklessly dishonest," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. The McCain campaign has long argued Obama has a habit of twisting McCain's words. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Alexander Mooney, Rebecca Sinderbrand, Ed Hornick, Peter Hamby and Chris Welch contributed to this report.

Sen. Obama receives endorsement of former Clinton official Robert Reich . Reich: "My conscience won't let me be silent any longer" Ex-Sens. Sam Nunn and David Boren also endorse the Illinois senator . Clinton lashes out at Obama; McCain campaign calls Obama "recklessly dishonest"

f12cda150b96acfa1499b2afb0a81029545abadf

(CNN) -- All sides involved in the controversy over the use of embryonic stem cells in research claimed vindication Tuesday after two teams of researchers reported having reprogrammed human skin cells to act like the stem cells, which have the potential of morphing into other cells and thereby curing disease. President Bush has twice vetoed bills that would have eased limits on funding for embryonic stem cell research. People who believe that life begins at conception liken the destruction of the embryonic stem cells to killing and therefore oppose their use in research. The new research, they said, shows that alternatives are available. "By avoiding techniques that destroy life, while vigorously supporting alternative approaches, President Bush is encouraging scientific advancement within ethical boundaries," the White House said Tuesday in a written statement on the new research. Bush has twice vetoed bills that would have eased restrictions on the use of federal funds for research involving embryonic stem cells. Watch Bush state why he opposes the use of stem cells . In August 2001, he limited federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to lines that had already been created. But some researchers say those cells are not useful. "The president believes medical problems can be solved without compromising either the high aims of science or the sanctity of human life," the White House statement said. "We will continue to encourage scientists to expand the frontiers of stem cell research and continue to advance the understanding of human biology in an ethically responsible way." Watch a Harvard expert talk about what's next in stem cell research » . "This breakthrough provides further evidence that the most promising avenues of stem cell research are also the most ethical," concurred Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, a physician. "Politicians should note that the scientific community is moving rapidly without the assistance of laws requiring the taxpayer-funded destruction of human life." He added, "This breakthrough helps vindicate President Bush's policy and his vetoes of Congress' short-sighted and outdated approach to stem cell research. History will note the wisdom of President Bush's refusal to set a dangerous precedent that could not be easily undone." And Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said he believes "that the current stem cell policy has been very important in driving the discovery of ethical and successful ways for scientists to find treatments and cures. "What has too often been missing from this important debate is a simple fact of modern science: Encouraging medical research and protecting the sanctity of life are not mutually exclusive goals." The methods described in the papers about the new research "should continue to be pursued and strongly promoted, as they should help to steer the entire field of stem cell research in a more explicitly ethical direction by circumventing the moral quagmire associated with destroying human embryos," said the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a posting on its Web site. But those views were not shared by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who has pushed for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research and said he will continue to do so. "Our top researchers recognize that this new development does not mean that we should discontinue studying embryonic stem cells," he said in a written statement. "Scientists may yet find that embryonic stem cells are more powerful. We need to continue to pursue all alternatives as we search for treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries." He added that Tuesday's announcement "reiterates the need for federal support for medical research and again points out the president's misplaced priorities in vetoing the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill which included a substantial increase for the National Institutes of Health." A lead author of one of the landmark studies, James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, urged that reprogrammed cells not wholly supplant embryonic stem cells in research. "I don't like the idea of pulling the plug," he told reporters in a conference call. He added that Tuesday's advances in reprogramming cells would not have been possible without the advancements in embryonic stem cell research over the past decade. E-mail to a friend .

Teams report reprogramming human skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells . Bush: advance is "within ethical boundaries" Harkin: "We need to continue to pursue all alternatives"

7359741b0e60b4402f069963a26c7aa766f45e7c

AMSTETTEN, Austria (CNN) -- Josef Fritzl, who Austrian police say has confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven of her children, twice holidayed in Thailand while she remained trapped in a cellar below his house, according to German media reports. Josef Fritzl appeared in court after admitting raping his daughter and fathering her seven children. Germany's Bild newspaper quoted a holiday companion, identified only as Paul H, who said he and 73-year-old Fritzl traveled to Thailand together twice and spent time in each other's homes. "He went [to Thailand] without his wife; apparently she had to look after the children. ... Once he had a very long massage from a young Thai girl at the beach. He really loved that," Paul H told the newspaper, which featured video of Fritzl laughing and receiving a massage in Thailand on its Web site. "Once I saw how Josef bought an evening dress and racy lingerie for a very slim woman in Pattaya [Thailand] on the beach. He got really angry when he realized I saw him. Then he told me that he has a girlfriend on the side. The items were meant for her. He told me not to tell his wife." Watch footage of Fritzl on vacation at a Thai beach resort » . The pair had also ventured to Oktoberfest. Paul H said he had visited Fritzl's house three times, the last in 2005. "We sat out on the terrace and had a really nice evening. ... The kids were well-behaved, however; they had a great respect for their father. They were never allowed downstairs into the cellar, but we never thought anything of it," he told Bild. "Now that I think of the dungeon down there, I feel really sick in the stomach." Paul H said Fritzl was a DIY "genius," constantly extending and building on to the house. Meanwhile, family members at the center of the incest and imprisonment case have held an "astonishing" reunion, medical officials said. "They met each other on Sunday morning," clinic director Berthold Kepplinger said Tuesday. "And it is astonishing how easy it worked, that the children came together, and also it was astonishing how easy it happened that the grandmother and the mother came together." Investigators say Fritzl held his daughter, Elisabeth, captive in a cellar for 24 years. He raped her repeatedly, they say, and eventually fathered seven of her children. Elisabeth and two of her children were reunited Sunday with three of her other children and her mother, Kepplinger said Tuesday. The three children and her mother lived in the home above the cellar. Elisabeth's eldest child, 19-year-old Kerstin Fritzl, remains in hospital. A seventh child died years ago, shortly after birth. Fritzl told police he burned the infant's body in a furnace. The story of the family's imprisonment began to unravel a week ago, when Kerstin fell seriously ill with convulsions and was hospitalized. Austrian police Wednesday denied reports that they were investigating possible links between Fritzl and the unsolved murder of a woman. Franz Polzer, director of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, said Fritzl had owned an Austrian hotel near where a woman was found murdered decades ago. However, they were not investigating the incident at this stage. Meanwhile, an Austrian girl who was held prisoner in a basement for eight years said the family faced a long period of adjustment. See how Austrians are troubled by the case » . Natascha Kampusch was 10 years old when she was kidnapped on her way to school in March 1998. She escaped from a bunker below the house of Wolfgang Priklopil in a suburb of Vienna in August 2007. Priklopil killed himself by throwing himself under a train only hours later. "Although they are now in a secret location, I believe it might have been even better to leave them where they were, but that was probably impossible," she said of the Fritzl family Tuesday. "Yes, because that was of course the environment they were used to, and now they're somewhere else. Pulling them abruptly out of this situation, without transition, to hold them and isolating them to some extent, it can't be good for them." Officials said Tuesday that DNA testing had confirmed Fritzl fathered the children. His DNA also was found on a letter sent to the Fritzl family that was made to look like it was from his daughter, Elisabeth, Polzer said. See inside the 'House of horrors' » . Authorities said Fritzl sent other letters over the years, leading the family to believe that Elisabeth was a runaway who had abandoned three of her children on their doorstep. He dictated at least one of the letters to his daughter, they said. Authorities said it did not appear that Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie, knew about her husband's activities. Reports have surfaced in The Times of London and Austria's Presse that Fritzl was convicted of sexual assault in the 1960s, but there is nothing in his record to confirm this, said District Governor Hans Heinz Lenze. He added, however, that records were expunged after a certain number of years. Prosecutors were checking archives to find the information, said Gerhard Sedlacek, prosecutor for the state of Poelten. The Times of London quoted a 50-year-old neighbor who said that when he was 10, he remembered "how we children were afraid to play near Mr. Fritzl's house because of the rumors that he had raped a woman and spent some time in jail for it." Watch a report of how the case unfolded. » . Fritzl led police to the cellar Sunday. A day later, he confessed to raping his daughter, now 42, and keeping her and their children in captivity, police said. Fritzl was able to convince social service workers, friends and family that Elisabeth had run away in 1984, when she was about 18. The father, who police described as an authoritarian figure, forbade anyone from entering the cellar. In the cellar with Elisabeth were Kerstin and two sons, aged 5 and 18. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Phil Black, Nadine Schmidt and Eileen Hsieh contributed to this story.

Incest dad twice holidayed in Thailand while daughter remained in cellar . Austrian family terrorized by decades of incest meet for the first time . Josef Fritzl kept daughter imprisoned under home for 24 years, police say . Fritzl, who appeared in court Tuesday, has admitted guilt and faces 15 years| .

b10c71f49dbeabad23325d625e8e7b8529429607

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- The fiery leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant movement assured Lebanon on Monday that his movement will cooperate in the country's political life. Supporters carry posters of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Hassan Nasrallah said: "We don't want to have control over Lebanon, or to have governance over Lebanon or to impose our ideas over the people of Lebanon, because we believe Lebanon to be a special and diverse country that needs the collaboration of everyone." Nasrallah spoke a day after Lebanon's parliament elected Michel Sleiman the country's president after a six-month vacancy in the position. Nasrallah, speaking at a packed stadium, told his followers: "I renew my appeal and invitation for a true national partnership with no eliminations or impositions. The national unity government is not the victory of the opposition against the pro-government. It is the victory of all Lebanese." He said Sleiman's election "renews the hope amongst the Lebanese people to a new era and a new start." "I must say that there are deep wounds from our side and theirs, we are both in front of two choices; either to expand the wounds and add salt to them or try to cure them for the sake of Lebanon and we prefer the second choice." The parliament had tried 19 times to vote on a new president, but failed because of disagreements over how to share power in a new Cabinet. Lebanon's Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition reached a deal last week aimed at ending an 18-month political crisis that pushed the country to the brink of civil war, and paved the way for Sleiman's election. The agreement, reached in Doha, Qatar, calls for a consensus government in which the Cabinet would be comprised of 30 posts -- 16 for the majority, 11 for the Hezbollah-led opposition and three set aside for the president to nominate. The seat allocation had been a key sticking point for the opposition, which wanted to ensure it had the power to veto major decisions. With 11 Cabinet posts, it will have that power. In exchange for the veto power and a redistricting plan ahead of next year's elections, Hezbollah agreed to end its sit-in protest that has paralyzed downtown Beirut since late 2006. In his speech, Sleiman expressed gratitude to Qatar and to the Arab League for helping broker the deal. Sleiman was the consensus candidate, and is viewed as a neutral party by Lebanon's political factions. The nation's previous presidents have been seen as either pro-Syrian or pro-Western. In his 10 years as chief of the army, Sleiman also is believed to have unified the splintered military. However, he inherits a nation grappling with divisions. Lebanon's elected, pro-Western government has long been locked in a power struggle with Hezbollah. In public statements and demonstrations in recent years, Hezbollah threatened to use its power and popularity to oust the Sunni-led government, triggering fears of a new civil war that could further destabilize the volatile region. The election helped end a political crisis that deteriorated into violence this month. That crisis was defused when the Lebanese government gave in to two key Hezbollah demands -- lifting a government ban of Hezbollah's telecommunications system and reinstating the chief of security at Beirut's airport. "The performance of the opposition proved that it did not organize a coup, but only wanted the illegal government to withdraw its two decisions," Nasrallah said. "I promise that the opposition's representation in the government will not be monopolized by Hezbollah, Amal and the Change and Reform bloc. We will give other opposition parties shares - and unfortunately we must speak of shares - even if it is at the expense of Hezbollah's shares." Hezbollah has been linked to numerous terrorist attacks against U.S., Israeli, and other Western targets and the United States lists it as a terrorist organization. But many in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East -- particularly Shiites -- view Hezbollah militants as freedom fighters.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah says Lebanon needs collaboration of everyone . Nasrallah praises election of Michel Sleiman as president after six months . Election comes after Hezbollah and government agreed power-sharing deal . Sleiman is considered a consensus president in the divided country .

c5a1e04f5f84d406ffedfc2f312c314d1bc03c46

(CNN) -- Children from a polygamist sect who one mother says are "hurting very badly" in state custody are likely to be returned to their parents, a CNN legal analyst says. FLDS member Margaret Jessop says her children "feel betrayed by adults." A Texas appeals court ruled Thursday that the state had no right to remove hundreds of children from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints' ranch in Eldorado on April 3, based on the suspicion that a few were being sexually abused. A sect mother who has four children in state custody said the matter has not been fully resolved because an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court is possible. "I'm very grateful, but I'd like to see the children in my arms before I rejoice greatly," Margaret Jessop said on CNN's "Larry King Live." Watch Jessop react to the ruling » . But a permanent reunion of families is likely, said Jeffrey Toobin, CNN senior legal analyst. "Based on this ruling I think it's clear that if it stands, all these kids are going back with their mothers," Toobin said on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°." Jessop and other FLDS parents said they had been permitted visits with their children in foster care. Zavenda Young said two of her children were sent to Waco, Texas, and two to Hockley, 148 miles away. "They're in Boys and Girls Country in Hockley. And it's just a -- it's an institution," she told host Larry King. Their father, Edson Jessop, said the experience has been rough on the children. "You can see it's a lot of stress on them," he said. "Every time we leave, they go through that trauma again. It's enough to rip your heart out." "They feel betrayed by adults, and they're hurting very badly," Margaret Jessop added. The Texas Child Protective Services Department's Web site says the agency has been "coordinating with many professional service and government agencies to ensure the safety, health and comfort of the children and women in Eldorado." A statement from the agency Thursday said it's working out a response to the court ruling. "Child Protective Services has one duty -- to protect children," the statement said. "When we see evidence that children have been sexually abused and remain at risk of further abuse, we will act. ... We will work with the office of the attorney general to determine the state's next step in this case."

More than 400 children likely to return to families, CNN's Jeffrey Toobin says . Mother says she'll wait until children are with her before she rejoices over ruling . Parents say children have suffered from separation . Agency that took children says it's considering next move .

8a5035d3527c4db4357dd1db9fb2712008dccea9

(AOL Autos) -- There is an old adage which goes something like this: "The cheap man always pays more in the long run." Consumer Reports analyzed the cost of ownership across the 300 models in their database. Consumer Reports magazine recently reached a similar conclusion when it announced the results of a study that compared the cost of ownership of more than 300 cars. Consumer Reports noted that a car with a cheaper sticker price can often cost consumers more in the long run when compared to a higher-priced alternative. The report, which appeared in Consumer Reports' Annual April Auto Issue, was based on a comparison of the 300 models in the Consumer Reports database. In short, the report concluded that a car's sticker price is one of many factors that should be taken into account when trying to decide between two cars in the same class. For example, at about $17,500, a Mitsubishi Lancer is priced $5,000 less than a Mini Cooper. But when factoring in the total costs of ownership for each vehicle, the Lancer could cost drivers about $3,000 more to own over the first five years, according to the study. And the purchase price of a Toyota Highlander is about $3,000 more than a V6 Ford Explorer -- but the Explorer's total cost of ownership is an extra $6,500 over those five years. The study took into account such factors as depreciation, fuel costs, interest paid on the car loan, insurance, maintenance, repair costs and sales tax. Online subscribers to www.ConsumerReports.org can compare the costs for one, three, five and eight years of ownership. "We think this information is valuable for consumers who have shopped around, and settled on a couple of different cars they like, and then have to decide on one or the other," noted Cliff Weathers, Consumer Reports' deputy editor, autos. "We're giving this information to the consumer to use as a tool to help them make that decision, a tie-breaker, if you will. "If they're trying to decide between a Pontiac Solstice and Mazda Miata, for example, they can go to our Web site and find out which one will cost less to own over that five-year period. And in this particular case, the answer would be the Miata -- which was one of the least expensive cars to own of all the cars evaluated in our survey." Depreciation was factored into the estimates based on the assumption that the vehicle will eventually be traded in when buyers make their next car purchase. "Depreciation is the factor that accounts for the highest cost of ownership," Weathers explained. "Depreciation accounts for 48 percent of the cost of ownership over the first five years." Different models depreciate faster, and more significantly, than others. In order to calculate depreciation for this owner-cost comparison, Consumer Reports started with the price that a typically-equipped model generally sells for. If a particular model often sells at a largely-discounted price that was also factored in. Consumer Reports then deducted the wholesale trade-in value of the car at the end of the period, based on data from their Used Car Price Service, Weathers explained. In those cases when Consumer Reports didn't have depreciation data for a new model, it used estimates based on comparable vehicles. The Fuel Factor . The second-biggest factor in cost-of-ownership, after depreciation, is fuel costs, which account for 21 percent of the total ownership costs. "Fuel economy can really make a big difference," Weathers said. "If you have a car that gets 25 miles per gallon, and another car that gets 19 miles per gallon, that's a potential difference of thousands of dollars over five years, if you're driving 12,000 miles a year." Consumer Reports calculated fuel costs by assuming that the vehicles would be driven 12,000 miles a year -- the average annual mileage reported by those who responded to Consumer Reports' annual reader survey. Consumer Reports then applied the national average price of regular gas as of December 2007 or, if applicable, the price of premium or diesel fuel. Fuel costs were an especially big factor with SUVs, the comparison revealed. Drivers who buy a Dodge Nitro could pay more than $10,000 to fill up the tank over a five-year period, for example. But the fuel costs for a similar-sized, more fuel-efficient Toyota RAV4 V6 would be $2,000 less during that period. Consumer Reports' comparison also concluded that interest paid on car loans accounts for about 12 percent of five-year ownership costs. That figure is based on a five-year loan, with a 15 percent down payment, using the average interest rate of 6.86 percent reported by Bankrate.com in December 2007. Auto insurance accounts for about 11 percent of total ownership costs over five years, according to the Consumer Reports comparison. Car insurance costs can vary depending on several factors such as the driver's age, location, and driving record. Auto insurance costs, in some cases, dramatically boosted the ownership costs of models that otherwise boasted reasonable ownership costs. As an example, Weathers compared the difference in auto insurance rates for Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and a similarly-priced Acura TL. "Insurance for the Lancer can cost you $2,500 a year or more, based our 2007 figures," notes Weathers. "Meanwhile, the annual car insurance rates for the Acura TL can cost as little as $900." Maintenance & Repairs . Surprisingly, maintenance and car repairs account for only four percent of the cost of ownership, Weathers said. The maintenance and repair cost figures used in Consumer Reports' cost of ownership comparison were based on information gleaned from more than a million respondents in its annual Car Reliability Survey. One notable conclusion reached in the Consumer Reports study is that Lexus models have relatively high maintenance and repair costs -- primarily due to maintenance alone, even though Lexus owners reported excellent reliability. The Lexus ES350 racks up an average of $2,300 in maintenance and repair in the first five years. Meanwhile, owners of a comparable Lincoln MKZ can expect to pay only half that much. Another interesting tidbit discovered in the comparison is that the Range Rover is the most expensive vehicle on average for five and eight years when it comes to maintenance and repairs, costing about $2,000 in the fifth year alone. Meanwhile, the comparable Toyota Land Cruiser costs only $600 in that year to maintain and repair. Some might be surprised to hear that the sales tax on the purchase price of the vehicle accounts for as much of the cost of ownership as maintenance and repairs. For its study, Consumer Reports used the national average of 4.83 percent in 2007. With hybrid cars being a hot topic in the auto industry, Consumer Reports was also interested in the cost of owning one of those fuel-sipping vehicles. The report concluded that Toyota Prius hybrid actually costs less to own than similar conventional models. Specifically, the sale price of a Prius is about $7,500 higher than a similarly-sized Chevrolet Cobalt, but the total cost of ownership over five years is almost $2,000 less - due primarily to its much lower fuel costs, although the amount of depreciation was a factor as well. Weathers pointed to another interesting finding: "There are some vehicles, namely BMW, that are very inexpensive to own over first five years, because all of the maintenance is paid for during that period, under the warranty," he says. "But if we take it forward, the cost of maintenance and repairs over the next three years after that is going to be more expensive." For more information on this study, visit www.ConsumerReports.org. To compare vehicle prices and specs for yourself, check out the AOL Autos Compare Cars tool. E-mail to a friend .

A car with a cheaper sticker price can often cost consumers more in the long run . Report based on comparison of the 300 models in Consumer Reports database . Second-biggest factor in cost-of-ownership, after depreciation, is fuel costs . Maintenance and car repairs account for only four percent of the cost of ownership .

3f33d4cb25cd121619ba99eeb02709b72716d622

Join Roland Martin for his weekly sound-off segment on CNN.com Live at 11:10 a.m. Wednesday. If you're passionate about the topic, he wants to hear from you. Roland Martin says the three presidential candidates will never be "regular folks." (CNN) -- Can we all just stop the silly nonsense over who is an elitist and whether an "average American" will occupy the White House? Listening to the punditry today, you would think folks who revel in the comedy of Larry the Cable Guy or Katt Williams really would have a shot at the White House. It's totally absurd. So, Sen. Barack Obama is all of a sudden an elitist because he went to Columbia and Harvard? And Sen. Hillary Clinton is an elitist because she went to Yale? Do you actually think Sen. John McCain isn't an elitist? He went to an exclusive college -- the Naval Academy, and that is one of the hardest places to get into. (You can't even apply unless a member of Congress recommends you.) Karl Rove, who tries to portray himself as the common man but is just another rich Republican, has called both Democratic candidates elitists. Well, his former boss, President George W. Bush, went to Yale. So did Bush's dad, former president George H.W. Bush, and his granddaddy, former Sen. Prescott Bush. All three Bushes also were members of the super elite organization Skull and Bones. The younger Bush later went to Harvard. He walked into the governor's mansion and the presidency on the strength of his name and his dad's money and connections. Sounds like an elitist to me! But no, we're supposed to be fooled by the cowboy boots, folksy charm and him removing brush at his Crawford, Texas, ranch (don't forget the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, where all the "regular" folks hang out). Surely you recall when Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court? Those same conservative voices decrying the elitist Democrats were blasting her because she went to little old Southern Methodist University, that unremarkable -- their view -- university in Dallas, Texas. (By the way, that will be the home of the George W. Bush Library.) You can bet a pitcher of beer that had she graduated from Harvard, Yale or Princeton, she wouldn't have been derisively referred to as too plain and not educated enough by the elitists in the Republican Party. And let's stay with the Supreme Court for a moment. Where did its members go to school? Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. -- Undergrad and law school, Harvard. Justice John Paul Stevens -- Undergrad: University of Chicago. Law school: Northwestern. Justice Antonin Scalia -- Undergrad: Georgetown University and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Law school: Harvard. Justice Anthony Kennedy -- Undergrad: Stanford University and the London School of Economics. Law school: Harvard. Justice David Souter -- Undergrad: Harvard; Magdalen College, Oxford; Oxford University. Law school: Harvard. Justice Clarence Thomas -- Undergrad: Holy Cross. Law school: Yale. Justice Ruth Ginsburg -- Undergrad: Cornell. Law school: Harvard (attended); finished at Columbia. Justice Stephen Breyer -- Undergrad, Stanford; Magdalen College, Oxford. Law school: Harvard. Justice Samuel Alito -- Undegrad: Princeton. Law school: Yale. That's pretty much an elite list of schools. We have deluded ourselves into thinking the person elected to the White House is really and truly like the rest of us. All three candidates don't know what it's like to face the daunting health care challenges millions of Americans are confronted with daily. Each are members of the U.S. Senate, and they have the best health care money can buy for life -- we pay for it! While your pension plan is shot to hell, their plan will NEVER be underfunded. The members will see to that, courtesy of taxpayer dollars. Forget how many times Obama bowls gutter balls, Clinton tosses back shots of whiskey and McCain talks about how he's a regular guy. Each, courtesy of their $169,300 annual salary, makes far more than the average American. And when it comes to wealth, Clinton gets to enjoy the $100 million she and her husband raked in since he left the White House (even their hefty book advances dwarf regular authors). McCain's wife, Cindy, runs one of Anheuser Busch's largest beer distributors and is worth more than $100 million. They will never be living paycheck-to-paycheck. Obama is the poorest of the three, but he did earn more than a million bucks courtesy of his best-selling books, "The Audacity of Hope" and "Dreams from My Father" after delivering his 2004 keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. How many average Americans wouldn't mind having a million dollars in their savings account? Bottom line: The narrative about our presidential candidates being just regular folks is a tired myth that gets repeated each and every day. And their efforts to show that they are "just like us" are really pathetic. You don't have to go duck hunting, be seen buying milk at the grocery store for your family or having a beer at the local bar to show that you're "one of us." Just do what rich and highly educated folks do when they are in politics: Advance policies that will at least allow me to keep a few more dollars in my pocket and be able to afford a home. One more thing: Don't buy fully into the nonsense tossed out by some of the loudest voices on television, radio and in print who decry these "elitists" and trumpet that they are for the blue collar, middle-class worker in middle America. Many of them pull down multimillion-dollar salaries and run into these same candidates on Martha's Vineyard and in the Hamptons when they all vacation. They, too, will pull every favor they have to get their children in the posh private schools and Ivy League institutions. Yes, we even have elitists in the media. Who would've thunkit? E-mail to a friend .

Martin: All three candidates are well-educated, wealthy -- not "average" Their efforts to show that they are "just like us" are pathetic, he says . But that's OK, Martin says, if they advance good policies .

e6f451d6667f142a64818a9d05dbc49115e7cbf9

TILCARA, Argentina (CNN) -- Carmen Salva's mission may be ambitious, but her belief is simple: "It's never too early to start caring for the land you live in and grow up in." Carmen Salva: "It's a great joy to know that I am preparing a new generation to respect the environment." That's why on Saturdays, Salva and a group of 60 to 100 students, parents and teachers can be found venturing into the high altitude of their northern Argentina mountains, trash bags in hand and llamas in tow. They're part of Esperanza de Vida (Hope for Life), Salva's youth environmental group that is out to clean up the surroundings, one plastic bottle at a time. Salva, 49, was born and raised in the Jujuy province of northern Argentina, an area known for its rich culture and spectacular vistas -- "the reason why most people fall in love with it," says Salva. But despite its beauty, Salva says there's no real environmental consciousness in her community. "We have a lot of issues to work on -- the problem of water contamination; there's so much trash," Salva says. "We can't just think that it will take care of itself." Salva, who has been a teacher in Jujuy for 20 years, says the environmental issues aren't recent ones. Ten years ago, she and her students noticed a lot of trash outside the school. "The parks surrounding the school were littered with plastic bottles and beer bottles," recalls Salva. They began volunteering with a government program, collecting and bagging waste in the area. But the program waned after a year, and students and teachers could no longer continue their environmental efforts. "Our city had no formal recycling program or even knowledge of why it was important to learn about fresh water, forestation, and the importance of recycling," says Salva. So Salva began Esperanza de Vida in 1997 to organize and lead young participants in "making our streets and our environment cleaner." "I believe that change begins with the youth," says Salva. "They will teach future generations how to care for nature and everything that surrounds us." At first, the group's activities were limited to cleaning parks near and around the school. But the organization's efforts have expanded well beyond the immediate area, and other Jujuy schools have joined in. About 150 people now take part, including about 80 children. Salva says her students are deeply impacted by the "Pachamama" concept, or caring for Mother Earth. She and fellow teachers have noticed their students apply as much energy and commitment to the weekend environmental activities as they do to their general subjects. "Some even wait by my house on Saturday for the program to begin," beams Salva. The group convenes early in the morning to hike together into the mountains, where they work for hours, picking up trash and separating recyclables. Watch Salva talk about her program's impact on the students and their environment » . "We have long days and we accomplish a lot. It gets tiring because it's a lot of walking and sometimes there are cliffs," says Salva. "[But] the students enjoy it a lot. They're making changes while having fun." On an average Saturday cleanup, it's not unusual for the group to collect roughly 60 bags of trash for recycling, clearing thousands of bottles from the mountains. The llamas help carry the heavy load down from the mountains. "The children call them the little eco-llamas." Watch Salva discuss another way the llamas help her group in the mountains » . The local government has also pitched in, helping to provide transport of the collected recyclables to the drop-off center, located nearly 50 miles from Tilcara. Salva says the group is making strides, raising awareness throughout her community, continually adding new volunteers, and implementing new projects. Carmen says the children are even teaching their parents to care for the environment around them. Watch Salva and her group in action in the mountains » . "It's a great joy to know that I am preparing a new generation to respect the environment," says Salva. "Their children's children will have another mentality, and [our] goal will be accomplished."

Teacher in Argentina started youth group to help clean up the environment . About 150 people take part, including about 80 children . On an average Saturday, they often collect about 60 bags of trash for recycling . Llamas help carry the thousands of bottles down from the mountains .

39622c01625247af942a6439699ff529db1d54d0

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Sixty-four cases of measles have been diagnosed in the United States this year, the most in seven years, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Measles is a respiratory disease whose familiar symptom is red blotches on the skin. In all but one of the cases, the people who contracted measles had not been vaccinated. Some were too young to have gotten the shots, which are administered from 12 to 15 months of age. The CDC released the statistics Thursday to "serve as a reminder that measles can and still does occur in the U.S. Ongoing measles virus transmission was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but the risk of cases and outbreaks from imported disease remains," the organization said in a news release. Interactive: More about measles » . In 54 of this year's cases the victims imported the measles from other countries, the CDC said. Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said many of the imported cases came from European nations and Israel. Watch more on the measles outbreak » . "Many people have forgot about measles in the United States," she said Schuchat at a news conference Thursday. "It is very important for travelers heading off to Europe to make sure their immunizations are up to date." The cases were reported in nine states, it said, and cases are being treated in Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan and New York. Measles is a viral disease that can be deadly if not treated. The 64 patients ranged in age from 5 months to 71 years. Fourteen patients were hospitalized but no deaths were reported. E-mail to a friend .

CDC: 64 confirmed measles cases in nine states since January . 64 patients ranged in age from 5 months to 71 years . 63 of the 64 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status . Highest number reported for same time period since 2001 .

02927c88776bcc84fc883435a5037b4c8ca70e83

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Human rights and freedom of the press in China, the detention of terrorist suspects by the United States and Russia's treatment of political dissent are the focus of scrutiny in Amnesty International's annual report, released Wednesday, which looks at the state of human rights around the world. Amnesty International protestors outside the US Supreme Court in January dressed as Guantanamo Bay detainees. The 398-page report comes 60 years after the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Amnesty says governments still need to act on their promises. "The biggest threat to the future of human rights is the absence of a shared vision and collective leadership," the organization said in a statement. Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general, said that in particular, "the human-rights flash points in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Gaza, Iraq and Myanmar demand immediate attention." The report, the group said, "reveals a world riven by inequality, scarred by discrimination and distorted by political repression." According to its count, people are tortured or subject to other ill treatment in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not allowed to express themselves freely in at least 77 countries. Of the 150 countries and regions listed in the report, Amnesty paid particular attention to China, the host of this summer's Olympic Games. The group said growing numbers of human rights activists were imprisoned or harassed in China in 2007, with ethnic and religious minorities -- including Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and Christians -- repressed or persecuted. Death penalty statistics in China are difficult to assess, Amnesty said, but based on public reports, the group estimated that at least 470 people were executed in 2007. Amnesty also noted the repression of free speech in China and said censorship of the Internet and other media intensified last year. "The Chinese authorities maintained efforts to tightly control the flow of information," the report said. "They decided what topics and news stories could be published, and media outlets were sometimes required to respond within minutes to government directives. The authorities continued to block Web sites and to filter Internet content based on specified words and topics." Around 30 journalists and at least 50 others are known to be in prison for posting their views online, Amnesty said. Amnesty also criticized the death penalty in the United States, where 42 people were executed last year. It noted New Jersey's decision in December to abolish the death penalty made it the first U.S. state in more than 40 years to do away with executions. As it has in previous annual reports, Amnesty criticized the detention of hundreds of foreign nationals at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "The USA must close Guantanamo detention camp and secret detention centers, prosecute the detainees under fair trial standards or release them, and unequivocally reject the use of torture and ill-treatment," Amnesty said. The group noted that Guantanamo detainees are held indefinitely, most of them without charge and without recourse to U.S. courts. Most detainees there are held in isolation in maximum-security facilities, heightening concerns for their physical and mental health, Amnesty said. In fact, more is written on the United States than any other country listed in the report. Asked about that at a press conference Tuesday, Khan said, "We certainly devote a lot of time to Sudan, to China, to Zimbabwe and other countries. But we look to the U.S. to provide leadership around the world. Governments around the world look to the United States as a role model for their own behavior." In a lengthy section on Iraq, Amnesty noted that thousands of civilians, including children, were killed or injured in ongoing sectarian violence during 2007. "All sides involved in the fighting committed gross human rights violations, some of which amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity," the report said. Abductions, torture and murder, with bodies left in the street, occur daily, and the violence has caused 2 million Iraqis to flee to Syria, Jordan and elsewhere, Amnesty said. U.S. forces held some 25,000 detainees "without charge or trial," the group said, and 33 people were executed, "some after grossly unfair trials." In Afghanistan, conflict and insecurity aggravated by drought and floods contributed to "large-scale displacement" of people throughout the year. "At least 6,500 people were estimated to have been killed in the context of the conflict," the report said. "Violations of international humanitarian and human rights law were committed with impunity by all parties, including Afghan and international security forces and insurgent groups." Russia must show greater tolerance for political dissent, Amnesty said. "The Russian authorities were increasingly intolerant of dissent or criticism, branding it 'unpatriotic,' " the report said. "A crackdown on civil and political rights was evident throughout the year and in particular during the run-up to the State Duma [parliament] elections in December." The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions in 15 judgments relating to the recent conflict in Chechnya, Amnesty said. There were fewer reported disappearances in the Chechen Republic in 2007 than in previous years, Amnesty said, but continued human rights violations made people reluctant to report abuses. The report also criticized human rights conditions in Iran, Gaza and Myanmar. Human rights conditions in Zimbabwe continued to decline in 2007, the report said, "with an increase in organized violence and torture and restrictions on the rights to freedom of association, assembly and expression." Members of the main opposition party, the MDC, along with other human rights defenders, were arrested, and many were tortured while in custody, Amnesty said. Some 4 million people required food aid because of the nation's deteriorating economy, and victims of forced evictions in 2005 continued to live in "deplorable conditions" while President Robert Mugabe's government failed to remedy their situation. "Human rights problems are not isolated tragedies, but are like viruses that can infect and spread rapidly, endangering all of us," Khan said. "Governments today must show the same degree of vision, courage and commitment that led the United Nations to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years ago."

Amnesty International's annual report "reveals a world riven by inequality" More written on United States than any other country . Report also notes situation in Zimbabwe, Darfur, Iraq, Iran, Gaza . At least 81 countries subject people to torture, ill treatment, report says .

3ee31d8987c07ba4ea9423d39c5e333525316958

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A judge has declared a mistrial in the retrial of six men accused of plotting terrorist acts with al Qaeda. Narseal Batiste, the group's alleged ringleader, testified he wasn't serious about the terrorism threats he made. The decision comes after 13 days of deliberation and marks the second time government prosecutors have failed to convince a jury that the six defendants were guilty of terror-related charges. It is unclear whether the government will pursue a third trial against the defendants. The first trial ended in a mistrial last December after nine days of deliberations left a jury hopelessly deadlocked on the six defendants. A seventh was acquitted. The defendants are known as the "Liberty City 7" because authorities say the men operated out of a warehouse in Miami's Liberty City housing project. After their arrests in June 2006, federal officials said the homegrown terror plot may have included as its possible targets the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago -- the tallest building in North America -- as well as the FBI's Miami offices and other sites. E-mail to a friend . CNN's John Couwels contributed to this report.

Judge declares mistrial in the retrial of Miami terrorism case . Men accused of plotting to target Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices . Defendants faced up to 70 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy charges . First trial ended in a mistrial in December, also because of a hung jury .

f8ddc6d36f378757d27a244529f8fe11672baa41

(CNN) -- A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent was killed Saturday when he was struck by a car driven by a suspected narcotics smuggler, officials said. Luis Aguilar, 32, who was assigned to the Yuma, Arizona, border patrol station, died Saturday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said in a statement. "Agent Aguilar's death serves as another stark reminder of the risks our front-line agents and officers face each day," Basham said. Aguilar was trying to place spike strips in the path of two vehicles believed to have illegally entered the country from Mexico when one of the vehicles hit him, agent Michael Bernacke, a spokesman for the agency's Yuma sector, told The Associated Press. Both vehicles drove back across the border into Mexico, the AP said. The fatal incident occurred in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area near Andrade, California, Basham said. Andrade is just over the California state line from Arizona. The area is popular with off-road vehicle enthusiasts but also is frequently used by smugglers carrying people or drugs, the AP said. Aguilar is survived by his wife and two children, along with his brother, who is also a border patrol agent, a Homeland Security Department statement said. "I am outraged by this tragic loss," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Saturday. "I have spoken to the Mexican ambassador, who gives me both his condolences and deep assurance that their government will be resolute in tracking down the perpetrators and bringing them to swift justice." Federal, state and local authorities are working with Mexican police and military authorities to apprehend the suspected killers, he said. E-mail to a friend .

Officials: Luis Aguilar, 32, was placing spike strips to stop the smugglers . Border agents believe two cars involved had entered the U.S. illegally . The incident occurred over the California state line from Arizona . Both vehicles drove back across the border and into Mexico .

4e97228ceef1be54ab9151fc6759017e6a54a18d

(CNN) -- A Colorado woman is being pursued as a "person of interest" in connection with phone calls that triggered the raid of a Texas polygamist ranch, authorities said Friday. Rozita Swinton, 33, has been arrested in a case that is not directly related to the Texas raid. Texas Rangers are seeking Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs, Colorado, "regarding telephone calls placed to a crisis center hot line in San Angelo, Texas, in late March 2008," the Rangers said in a written statement. The raid of the YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, came after a caller -- who identified herself as a 16-year-old girl -- said she had been physically and sexually abused by an adult man with whom she was forced into a "spiritual marriage." The release said a search of Swinton's home in Colorado uncovered evidence that possibly links her to phone calls made about the ranch, run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "The possibility exists that Rozita Swinton, who has nothing to do with the FLDS church, may have been a woman who made calls and pretended she was the 16-year-old girl named Sarah," CNN's Gary Tuchman reported. Swinton, 33, has been charged in Colorado with false reporting to authorities and is in police custody. Police said that arrest was not directly related to the Texas case. Authorities raided the Texas ranch April 4 and removed 416 children. Officials have been trying to identify the 16-year-old girl, referred to as Sarah, who claimed she had been abused in the phone calls. FLDS members have denied the girl, supposedly named Sarah Jessop Barlow, exists. Some of the FLDS women who spoke with CNN on Monday said they believed the calls were a hoax. While the phone calls initially prompted the raid, officers received a second search warrant based on what they said was evidence of sexual abuse found at the compound. In court documents, investigators described seeing teen girls who appeared pregnant, records that showed men marrying multiple women and accounts of girls being married to adult men when they were as young as 13. A court hearing began Thursday to determine custody of children who were removed from the ranch. E-mail to a friend .

NEW: Texas Rangers pursue Rozita Swinton regarding phone calls to a crisis center . NEW: Search of Swinton's home reveals evidence that possibly links her to the calls . Police arrest the woman for making a false report to police in a separate case . Phone calls prompted Texas raid, but officers then got a second search warrant .

0e649ccabaf0e650e9757ee256c2749d37486ba6

Editor's Note: Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington joined the Mt. Vernon Boys & Girls Club in New York at the age of 6 and remained an active member for the next 12 years. The actor credits his early years spent at the club with changing the direction of his life. Since 1994, he has served as a volunteer national spokesman for Boys & Girls Clubs of America, appearing in public service announcements on television and in print. He's also a member of the group's board. Denzel Washington says America's leaders need to pay attention to the crisis affecting our children. (CNN) -- With the political season in full swing, much is at stake for America. The economy is in a downward spiral. We have an energy crisis. Our jobless rate is on the rise. These are the subjects that generate headlines and much debate among the candidates. But there is an underlying problem that we as a nation have not addressed, a situation that should concern any American with an eye on the future, regardless of party affiliation. It is the crisis affecting our children: . • Nearly 30 percent of this year's freshman class will drop out of high school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That number jumps to 40 percent in some urban areas. • The obesity rate for our kids has gone up by as much as 300 percent since 1980, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, triggering a host of health-related problems, from diabetes to heart disease. • Young people account for more than 20 percent of violent crimes in the United States, according to statistics cited by Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy. Violent juvenile crime peaks between 3 and 4 p.m., at the end of the school day. These facts are grim enough. Factor in persistent patterns of poverty, gang activity, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy, and you have a generation of Americans that will be unprepared -- indeed, unable -- to meet the challenges posed by a complex world. We expect our leaders to lead. But as citizens, we shouldn't simply sit back and hope that politicians stand up to the test. We can participate in the political process, advocating for policies that will benefit the health, education and well-being of young Americans, because we must do a better job of preparing our youth to lead. It is daunting to think about solving such a widespread crisis. But there are youth-serving organizations that can and do play a key role in effecting positive change -- places such as Boys & Girls Clubs, with a long track record of helping young people turn things around, get an education, lead healthy lives and become effective leaders. I know, because I was one of those kids. Club staff taught me right from wrong and made the lesson stick. They planted the seeds early on that led me to envision myself as a high school graduate, a college graduate and an achiever in whatever field I chose. Boys & Girls Clubs do this today for millions of kids, offering everything from homework help to career exploration, performing a daily miracle that turns hope into opportunity. Urging children and the adults in their lives to "Be Great," these clubs communicate the idea that there is potential for greatness in every child. This powerful call to action reminds us that we can all play a role in helping youth realize their dreams. So I ask you to join me in this effort. There are many ways to help: . • Volunteering at a local youth organization. • Leading by example. • Donating to charities that make a difference. In partnership with government, schools, community leaders and parents, we can create a network and culture in which everyone embraces the importance of a positive future for our youth. But right now, with Election Day fast approaching, ask your local, state and national candidates what they are doing to help our young people become tomorrow's leaders. Ask them to make children a top priority and tell them that you hold them accountable. If we all become advocates for our children, elected officials might just take action. We can do better. And if we care about our nation's future, we must do better. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

Denzel Washington: In a year of many issues, children are key priority . Washington: Voters need to hold politicians accountable for helping young people . Education, crime, obesity are all issues relating to youth, Washington says . There are many ways to help, including Boys & Girls Clubs, he says .

9eccfcc231c7c0d65cb0c333cb3d1731a5fe2f3f

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- Thousands of protesters demonstrated against China's human rights record and its crackdown in Tibet after the Olympic flame arrived in San Francisco Tuesday. Pro-Tibetan demonstrators shout outside the Chinese consulate in San Francisco Tuesday. Chanting and waving flags, the protesters ended their march at the Chinese consulate, where they sat in a dense group, holding flags and banners, as police watched from nearby. "Stop killing," one sign read, while another said, "No human rights, no Olympics." The protests came after passionate demonstrations in London and Paris in which protesters tried to snuff the torch's flame and dozens were arrested. Meanwhile, the Olympic flame was being kept in an undisclosed location in advance of Wednesday's planed 6-mile relay in San Francisco. Watch how the city is preparing » . The run is the only U.S. appearance for the flame, wrapping up the first week of a 23-city global tour. Beijing organizers have said the monthlong international relay will not be stopped despite the protests, but some International Olympic Committee members have suggested an early end should be considered. The IOC's executive board will discuss the torch relay "in general" Thursday or Friday, but there is no proposal on the agenda to end the global tour early, IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. Watch the flame get the red-carpet treatment » . The official Beijing Olympics Web site, controlled by the Chinese organizers, gives little indication of any torch relay disruption. It characterizes the demonstrators as "a small number" of Tibetan separatists. Beijing blames the Dalai Lama and his followers for violence that erupted in March amid protests for Tibetan independence. China has drawn international criticism for its crackdown on the demonstrations, which began peacefully on the 49th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising. China's Foreign Ministry Tuesday reacted forcefully to the torch relay protests. "We express our strong condemnation to the deliberate disruption of the Olympic torch relay by Tibetan separatist forces regardless of the Olympic spirit and the law of Britain and France," China spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. "Their despicable activities tarnish the lofty Olympic spirit and challenge all the people loving the Olympic Games around the world." The flame will return to China in May to begin a relay through the host nation, ending in Beijing with the August 8 opening of the Olympic Games. One of the San Francisco torchbearers has dropped out of Wednesday's relay because of fears of protests, a torch relay spokesman said. David Perry, spokesman for the San Francisco Olympic Torch Relay, said he did not want to release the name of the person. "I understand anyone that might feel that they don't want to expose themselves to something more than protest," Perry said. On Monday, three protesters scaled San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and raised a large banner. Those who climbed the cables from which the bridge's deck is suspended were members of Students for a Free Tibet, said group spokesman Tenzin Dasang, 22. They unfurled a banner that read: "One World. One Dream. Free Tibet." The three climbers, along with four people on the ground, were charged with felony conspiracy and misdemeanor nuisance charges, said California Highway Patrol Officer Mary Ziegenbein. The climbers also were charged with misdemeanor trespassing. The Golden Gate Bridge protest came on the same day that thousands of protesters forced an abrupt halt to the flame's passage through Paris after 10 miles of the 17-mile planned route. Some stops were skipped and the flame was transferred from the torch back to the lamp to be carried on a bus several times to avoid protesters. Protesters pierced the thick security bubble surrounding the torchbearers, at times getting their hands on the torch itself. The Paris demonstrations were similar to those Sunday in London, where at least 36 people were arrested, according to London Metropolitan Police. Protesters cited China's actions in Tibet, its policies on the Darfur region of Sudan and the lack of civil rights and freedoms for the Chinese people. But other demonstrators, bearing Chinese flags, turned out in support of the Chinese government, and many others were spectators there just to see the torch. An Olympic committee member suggested Monday that the public relations nightmare that has followed the Olympic flame on its way to the Summer Games in Beijing may make 2008 the last time such an ambitious global torch relay is attempted. Follow the torch relay itinerary » . International Olympic Committee member Richard Kevan Gosper, who is also chairman of the IOC's press committee, told reporters he was always opposed to a global tour for the flame. "I'm a firm believer that we had the right template in the first place, that the torch simply should go from Olympia, Greece, to the host country," Gosper said. E-mail to a friend .

NEW: Thousands march to the Chinese consulate ahead of Wednesday's run . Torchbearer drops out, fearing protests, official says . San Francisco, California, is only U.S. venue on 23-city global tour . Demonstrators protest China's Tibet policy in cities along route .

ddf109b3de6022a4ecd62ee2cd31d2c2ac51035b

(CNN) -- Leading jockey Frankie Dettori may have spent most of his life on a diet, but when it comes to his favorite pastimes food is right up there with racing. Around five years ago Dettori met Michelin-starred chef Marco Pierre White and asked him where he could go out with his young family to eat. "I couldn't answer the question," Marco Pierre White told CNN, "and that's how Frankie's was born. That simple." They opened their first restaurant in London in 2004. Now there are four in London, one in Shanghai and one in Dubai. This March, a cookbook followed: "Frankie Dettori's Italian Family Cookbook." This is his favorite recipe. Enjoy! Frankie: "My father loved this particular dish as, although it's vegetarian, it has the meaty and slightly smoky texture of a good steak. To this day it makes me think of childhood Sunday lunches." Parmigiana di Melanzane / Aubergine Parmigiana . INGREDIENTS . 1 kg aubergines . extra virgin olive oil . Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper . 2 garlic cloves, chopped . 3 x 400g cans of good quality tinned tomatoes, sieved and chopped . a small handful of fresh basil leaves . a large handful of finely grated Parmesan . 1½ kg fresh Mozzarella, cubed . Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F/Gas Mark 4. Cut the aubergines in ½cm strips, lengthwise. Sprinkle each slice with salt and layer on a plate. Cover with a plate of the same size and add a heavy weight on top (such as a large bottle of water) so that water can be squeezed out of the aubergines. Set aside for 2-3 hours. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan, add the garlic and fry until slightly golden. Add the tomatoes and basil, and cook over a medium heat for 25 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season to taste. Remove the weight from the aubergine, thoroughly rinse the slices and pat dry. Generously cover the bottom of a large frying pan with olive oil and place over a high heat. In batches, brown the aubergine slices on both sides, lowering the heat and adding oil as required. Drain the slices on kitchen roll as you go along. Cover the bottom of a 23cm x 30cm ovenproof dish with a thin layer of tomato sauce; add a layer of aubergine slices, then top with a handful of the cheeses. Ladle some tomato sauce over this and continue layering, finishing with one of tomato sauce and a sprinkling of cheeses. Bake for 15-20 minutes to heat through and melt the Mozzarella, then set aside for a few minutes to cool. Cut into squares and serve warm. Serves 8 . Preparation time: 3 hours . Cooking time: 50 minutes . Courtesy: Harpercollins Publishers E-mail to a friend .

Frankie Dettori's favorite recipe from his new cookbook: Aubergine Parmigiana . Leading jockey spends many months dieting but when "off-duty" loves food . Opened first of "Frankie's" restaurants in 2004, now chain of six worldwide . Released Italian family cookbook with chef Marco Pierre White in March, 2008 .

bd92eab23374d95ac4430e2e1a8bf7561c662309

MIDDLESBROUGH, England -- Middlesbrough have confirmed that midfielders Fabio Rochemback and Gaizka Mendieta and striker Dong Gook Lee have all been released. Middlesbrough have decided against taking up the option of re-signing Brazilian midfielder Fabio Rochemback. The Premier League club had an option to extend Brazilian Rochemback's deal by another two years, but manager Gareth Southgate has decided to let him go. "We both feel that the time is right for Fabio to have a fresh challenge," Southgate said. "He is a talented footballer and I think he's just had his best season for us, while it was fitting that he should bow out against Manchester City on Sunday with probably his best performance in a Middlesbrough shirt." The 26-year-old joined Boro from Barcelona in 2005 and played 91 games for the Teesside club. He signed off in style by scoring a thumping long-range free-kick in Sunday's 8-1 victory over City. Rochemback, who netted seven times for Boro, played a major role in helping the club reach the 2006 UEFA Cup final, a year after appearing in the final during a loan spell with Sporting Lisbon -- where he is expected to move back to this summer. Mendieta, 34, was one of football's costliest players when he joined Lazio from Valencia for 48 million euros in 2001, but he disappointed and joined Barcelona and then Boro on loan. The former Spain midfielder joined permanently on a free transfer in 2004, but has not played for the first team since December 26, 2006. "It was a difficult situation for a player of Gaizka's caliber to find himself out of the first team reckoning," added Southgate. "I made it clear to him that he did not figure in my plans but he decided to stay and try to get back into the first team. "That didn't work out but his attitude to training was always excellent and he was a good influence on some of our young reserve team players." South Korean international Lee joined Boro on a free transfer from Pohang Steelers in January 2007. He scored only twice in 11 starts and 18 appearances as a substitute and has not appeared for the first team since early February. Southgate is still hopeful of persuading goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer to sign a new contract at the Riverside. The 35-year-old Australian joined Boro from Bradford City in a $3 million deal in February 1997 and has played nearly 450 games for the club. His deal runs out this summer and he has so far refused to sign an extension, prompting reports of interest from a host of European clubs. "We are talking to Mark. I'd like him to stay. His experience is important but he has real drive and determination that is still increasing," said Southgate. "He is the one in our dressing room that can truly say he has played at the highest level -- in World Cups, in Europe, in cup finals and so on. "We have to negotiate and see where we go, but players have to want to stay here and we have to want to keep them. "Mark has been here a long time so he has to decide if he needs a fresh challenge, whether what we are trying to do is going to excite him, whether he feels he is going to be appreciated here." Southgate also confirmed they have offered striker Tom Craddock and right-back Tony McMahon one-year extensions to their current deals, which run out this summer. Brazilian Rivaldo has changed his mind about retiring and says he will play for Greek club AEK again next season. The 36-year-old had decided to quit after AEK were denied the title because Olympiakos were awarded three points for a game they lost after the opposing team fielded an ineligible player. "The truth is that at the end of the championship, I felt great disappointment and a (sense of) injustice, but the love and support I have received from fans and the team have contributed to my final decision ... I have decided to stay at AEK next season," Rivaldo said in a statement on the club's Web site. Olympiakos lost 1-0 on February 3, but Greek sports authorities gave them the points because Apollon played Roman Wallner who had turned out for two other clubs during the season. Apollon's appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport was rejected on April 21. Olympiakos finished the season with 70 points, two ahead of AEK, for their 11th title in 12 years. Rivaldo, who has played at AC Milan and Barcelona and starred in Brazil's 2002 World Cup victory, spent three seasons at Olympiakos from 2004. He moved to AEK last year after a contract dispute. Tottenham midfielder Jamie O'Hara has signed a new three-year contract with the club. The 21-year-old made his debut this season and went on to score two goals in a total 25 appearances. "He has come a long way in a short space of time so I congratulate him and this new contract is recognition of his efforts," said manager Juande Ramos. "Jamie is an example to all the young players at the club in that reaching the first team can be achieved through hard work and giving the best of yourself." However, Tottenham goalkeeper Radek Cerny has left the club. The 34-year-old Czech international, who was on loan from Sparta Prague, has joined ambitious Championship club Queens Park Rangers on a two-year contract.

Middlesbrough release midfielders Fabio Rochemback and Gaizka Mendieta . The Premier League club decide not to take up option on Rochemback's deal . Rivaldo changes mind about retirement and will continue at AEK next season .

d84440effc748f9220c7dde068962e803f566bc7

(CNN) -- English club Birmingham City have released a statement to explain why co-owner and managing director were interviewed by police in a corruption probe. Birmingham co-owner David Sullivan was interviewed by police on Wednesday night. The Premier League outfit temporarily suspended share trading on the London Stock Exchange on Thursday morning after David Sullivan -- who owns the club with David and Ralph Gold -- was questioned and bailed by officers from City of London's economic crime unit along with MD Karren Brady. The club released a statement on Thursday afternoon to "clarify the situation" before trading resumed at 1300 GMT. "The City of London Police investigation is focusing on payments to a football agent and two players dating back to 2002-03," it said. "There is absolutely no allegation that any director of the company or the club itself has benefited financially from any of this activity. "In so far as there may be any implications for the company, these are not considered material to its financial affairs and they are in relation to the payment, or possible non payment of PAYE and National Insurance contributions. The club and its directors are co-operating fully with the police in this investigation and will continue to do so." Birmingham was raided by the unit last month as part of an ongoing investigation into corruption in English football. The club said at the time that the inquiries related to an unrelated third party. Birmingham released a statement on Wednesday night confirming that Sullivan and Brady "willingly attended" the interviews "by long-standing appointment." "Birmingham City Football Club is fully committed to helping the police with their inquiries," read a statement on the club's Web site. Police confirmed that they questioned a 59-year-old man and a 39-year-old woman on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting and that they were released on bail, the UK Press Association reported on Thursday. A London Stock Exchange statement read: "At the request of the company trading on Aim for the under-mentioned securities has been temporarily suspended from 7.30 a.m., pending an announcement." Shares in the company had been selling for 35.5p until the announcement half an hour before the start of trading, PA reported. Sullivan, 59, was in 2004 named Britain's 68th richest man by the Sunday Times, with assets of more than $1 billion. He made his fortune through pornography and newspapers. Brady, 39, became Britain's youngest managing director when Birmingham floated on the stock market in 1997 and is married to professional footballer Paul Peschisolido. She is also non-executive director of Channel 4, Mothercare and Sport England. PA reported that she made no comment as she left her home in Knowle, Solihull, shortly before 8 a.m. today. Dressed in a dark suit, Brady left the gated property at the wheel of a black 4x4 Porsche. E-mail to a friend .

NEW: Birmingham say police investigation involves agent and two footballers . Club temporarily suspend shares amid corruption probe by the English police . Co-owner David Sullivan and managing director Karren Brady both interviewed . Police raided City in March as part of investigation into corruption in football .

e2866f596c85b0191ce812260d23855c70a01192

DOUGLAS, Arizona (CNN) -- It's a tale of homeland security concerns blocking wildlife management, and the hue and cry that ensues. This photo, taken by Warner Glenn in 1996, is believed to be the first of a live jaguar in the United States. When most people think of jaguars, they think of the jungles of Central and South America, not the remote desert ranges between the United States and Mexico. That region is known as mountain lion country, and that's what rancher Warner Glenn thought he was tracking when he saddled up his mules on a summer day 12 years ago near Douglas, Arizona. Glenn has hunted mountain lions for 60 years, since he was eight years old. But Glenn was stunned when he saw what his hunting dogs had chased up to a high mountain perch. The rancher took what's believed to be the first photo of a live jaguar in the United States. But it wasn't his last. In 2006, some 40 miles away, Glenn and his hunting party again cornered a jaguar -- a different one. Jaguars, an endangered species, have a breeding population in northern Mexico. Scientists believe there are no more than 120 left in the wild there. It's believed that since 1910, the cats are only visitors north of the border. They have been virtually unstudied here until recently. But Glenn and other conservationists worry that the possible return of breeding jaguars to the United States could be stopped in its tracks. The reason: the border fence. Last month the Department of Homeland Security waived 30 environmental laws to finish 470 miles of the fence by the end of the year. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told Congress that the agency continues to talk to some 600 landowners along the border to get their input. But in order to comply with the congressional mandate, he said, there is no time to deal with "unnecessary delays caused by administrative processes or potential litigation." "We are currently in a lawless situation at the border," says Chertoff. "I feel an urgency to get this tactical infrastructure in. And although we're going to be respectful of the environment, we're going to be expeditious." Two environmental groups, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club, have filed appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming the waivers are unconstitutional and set a dangerous precedent. "National security and environmental protection do not have to be at odds with each other," says Defenders of Wildlife spokesman Matt Clark. "If we can drop this arbitrary deadline for constructing the fence and go through the proper procedures, then there are inevitably ways to minimize environmental impact, but as it is now it's throwing all of those laws out the window." Mountain lion tracker Jack Childs also worries about the impact of the fence on local wildlife, especially the jaguar. Childs captured the first video of a live jaguar in the late summer of 1996, a few months after Warner Glenn. Watch Childs and Glenn talk about efforts to preserve the jaguar » . "I knew historically there had been a few jaguars sighted in Arizona but in the last hundred years never in any numbers." His encounter sparked a passion for the big cats. Along with wife Anna and biologist Emil McCain, he created the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project. See images of the controversy » . Childs and McCain hike into remote mountain areas where the jaguars roam and have placed more than 50 motion sensor cameras near the border. They've taken 69 photos of three different jaguars since 2001, including several of the same cat Childs first saw in 1996. He has nicknamed that cat Macho B. A jaguar's spots are like fingerprints -- each cat has a unique set. One of the spots on Macho B resembles a Pinocchio cartoon figure, and that's how they identify him. "We spend a lot of time walking along the border during the daytime, and we actually find his tracks going through the fence, so we know for sure that he crosses back and forth," says Childs. "A fence like that is going to inhibit wildlife movements and migrations back and forth. It's not going to effectively stop human traffic. They've got wire cutters and torches." See where the jaguars have been spotted » . Childs says the fence also has an impact on wildlife because drug runners and human traffickers have been pushed up into the mountain areas to avoid the fence in the lowland valleys. "It's impacting the animals number one, what's going on down there. It's almost brought my wildlife study to a stop because they (the traffickers) are tearing down my cameras as fast as I'm putting them up because they think we're taking pictures of them." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds itself in a unique position. Its mission is wildlife and habitat protection, but it must uphold another federal agency's mission to override environmental concerns. Bill Radke, manager of the San Bernardino Wildlife Refuge, says the Border Patrol is trying to work with his agency. "The hope is that by working with Border Patrol that we can meet the national security mandate and at the same time protect the wildlife," says Radke. "Border Patrol is putting up camera towers but are putting them up on areas that are off the refuge. They're working on barriers but not barriers that would impede wildlife and large animals like jaguars." At 6 foot 6, with steely blue eyes, dressed in leather chaps astride his mule, rancher Warner Glenn is every inch the American cowboy. And he is a man forever changed by his encounters with the jaguar. He has written a book, "Eyes of Fire," about his experience. He says he'd like to "invite Mr. Bush to come out on a mule" so he can see "what's going on here in these mountains." For Glenn, the cat represents all that is wild about the Southwest. "It would be a loss to me that maybe my granddaughter or my daughter wouldn't be able to see one like I have. It's just an animal that's a beautiful, magnificent cat and they're having a little bit of trouble surviving. But they're doing it, and I would hate to see us do anything that would cause the survival of that cat to go backwards. "I'm a livestock rancher, but I wouldn't mind donating a few calves to that jaguar, so to speak." Biologist Emil McCain agrees. "They are part of our natural heritage. They are part of the American West. They are part of the American wild as much as the bald eagle or the grizzly bear, and the jaguar is really special because it is such an elusive and beautiful creature [that] it evokes a sense of imagination and curiosity about the natural world." Though the jaguar is elusive, conservationists say the animal is caught -- in the political crossfire at the border. E-mail to a friend .

It is believed that jaguars in northern Mexico total no more than 120 . Conservationists worry that border fence could prevent return of breeding jaguars . Homeland Security officials have waived laws to make sure fence is completed . Agencies look for solution that enhances security while preserving wildlife .

4ebd9195bc8c12272b6281a5a610a7b5fb49b8cd

(CNN) -- The presidents of Sudan and Chad signed a non-aggression agreement late Thursday, aiming to halt cross-border hostilities between the two African nations. Chad President Idriss Deby, right, and Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir, left, shake hands after signing the pact. The signing came after nearly two full days of talks in Dakar, Senegal, between Sudan President Omar al-Beshir and Idriss Deby, the president of Chad. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade facilitated the talks, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with officials from both nations and witnessed the signing of the agreement at about 10 p.m. "The idea is to get the governments of Sudan and Chad to normalize their relations with each other and to halt any action that would allow for the cross-border movement of rebel factions or armed factions of either side that could hurt the other country," said United Nations spokesman Farhan Haq. Each country accuses the other of supporting armed rebel groups that cross the border to attempt to destabilize the government. The rival nations' armies have skirmished several times. The United Nations says refugees and armed groups have been regularly crossing the border between the troubled Darfur region of Sudan and Chad. They allegedly include many of the rebels that attacked N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, in early February. As recently as Thursday, just hours before the agreement was signed, Chad issued a communique saying rebels from Sudan had crossed the border. Chad is still recovering from a failed attempt last month by rebels to overthrow Deby's regime. The United Nations says the swelling number of Darfur refugees and other displaced people living in eastern Chad is causing serious strain on the region. Kingsley Amaning, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Chad, said more than 10,000 people from Darfur, in Sudan, have fled into 12 official refugee camps in eastern Chad. They join some 240,000 Darfurians who have lived in Chad since 2004 because of fighting in their homeland and an estimated 180,000 displaced Chadians also living there. The number of displaced Chadians is growing because of the recent fighting there, Kingsley said. Haq said the United Nations, which has peacekeeping troops in the Darfur region, will work to assure Sudan and Chad carry out the terms of Thursday's deal. The countries have signed several peace agreements in the past, only to see renewed violence flare up. E-mail to a friend .

Sudan, Chad presidents sign agreement aiming to halt cross-border hostilities . Signing came after nearly two days of talks between presidents of Sudan and Chad . Each accuses other of supporting rebels that attempt to destabilize the government . Just hours before agreement, Chad claimed rebels from Sudan had crossed border .

4bd37aa7004cd1fdf1ccb506d2159a2cf26995e0

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. government has charged an international arms dealer with conspiring to sell a rebel group millions of dollars in weapons "to be used to kill Americans in Colombia," federal prosecutors announced Tuesday. Viktor Bout is accused of selling missiles, rockets and other weapons to FARC, a Colombian rebel group. Viktor Bout, who was recently captured in Thailand, had agreed to sell the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) surface-to-air missiles, armor-piercing rocket launchers, "ultralight" airplanes, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other weapons, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release. There was no immediate public response from Bout, who remains in custody in Thailand. Federal authorities unsealed an indictment charging Bout with four terrorism offenses: conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, conspiracy to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiracy to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile, and conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. FARC is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Justice Department officials said they are seeking Bout's extradition to the United States. The indictment alleges that Bout made agreements with FARC between November 2007 and March of this year. In their news release, federal prosecutors said Bout agreed to sell weapons "to two confidential sources" working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who had "represented that they were acquiring these weapons for the FARC, with the specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack United States helicopters in Colombia." The news release also refers to a "covertly recorded meeting in Thailand on March 6, 2008." "With the unsealing of this indictment, we are one step closer to ensuring Bout has delivered his last load of high-powered weaponry and armed his final terrorist," DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Loenhart said in the news release. Attorney General Michael Mukasey last month singled out Bout as a leading example of a new breed of organized crime leaders who operate across international boundaries to amass wealth without regard to political ideology. "Viktor Bout has long been considered by the international community as one of the world's most prolific arms traffickers," U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said in the news release Tuesday. Bout's assets in the United States were frozen in 2004 after he allegedly shipped weapons to Liberia in violation of U.S. government restrictions.

Viktor Bout offered to sell surface-to-air missiles, rockets to FARC . Arms dealer captured in Thailand. U.S. seeks extradition . U.S. says Bout is an example of a new breed of organized crime leaders .

29b87dc549b8c64b35517e684e79b1da6316bd88

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief presidential campaign strategist is quitting his post amid criticism of his public relations firm's contacts with the Colombian government over a pending free-trade deal, Clinton's campaign announced. Mark Penn will continue to advise Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Mark Penn and his political consulting firm will continue to advise the New York senator's Democratic presidential bid, but Penn will give up his job as chief strategist, campaign manager Maggie Williams said. "After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign," Williams said. Clinton did not answer reporters' questions about Penn's exit during a campaign stop in New Mexico on Sunday. Penn is CEO of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller and is president of Penn, Schoen and Berland, his political consulting firm. Friday, he acknowledged he had met with the Colombian ambassador to the United States earlier in the week in his role as Burson-Marsteller's chief to discuss the pending U.S.-Colombia trade pact, which Clinton has criticized on the campaign trail. Penn called the meeting "an error in judgment that will not be repeated," and apologized. That prompted Colombia's government to fire the company Saturday, calling the remarks "a lack of respect to Colombians." Clinton and top aides were sharply critical of rival Democrat Barack Obama in February when reports indicated that his top economic adviser had suggested to a Canadian official that Obama was not as supportive of changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement as the Illinois senator claimed to be on the campaign trail. Penn said Friday that Clinton's opposition to the U.S.-Colombia pact, which the Bush administration is trying to push through Congress, "is clear and was not discussed" during his meeting with the ambassador. And Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said Penn's meeting was "not in any way done on behalf of the campaign." But Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell -- a key Clinton backer in his state's April 22 primary -- suggested Sunday that Penn needed to go. "I think you've got to make it very clear for someone who is a consultant, who you are representing and who you are not representing, and I would hope that Mr. Penn, when he talked to the Colombians, made that clear. And it doesn't sound to me like he did, and that's something the campaign should take into question," Rendell told NBC's "Meet the Press." Sources in the Clinton campaign said that Penn realized this weekend that he needed to step aside, and that Clinton was disappointed that he had met with the Colombians. E-mail to a friend .

Mark Penn is CEO of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller . Penn met with Colombia ambassador over trade pact . Colombia fired Penn's company on Saturday . Penn will continue to have advisory role in campaign .

d2f2fe0b8797b416bae71305c9d1c874e2fdd0cc

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- Thousands of protesters demonstrated against China's human rights record and its crackdown in Tibet after the Olympic flame arrived in San Francisco Tuesday. Pro-Tibetan demonstrators shout outside the Chinese consulate in San Francisco Tuesday. Chanting and waving flags, the protesters ended their march at the Chinese consulate, where they sat in a dense group, holding flags and banners, as police watched from nearby. "Stop killing," one sign read, while another said, "No human rights, no Olympics." The protests came after passionate demonstrations in London and Paris in which protesters tried to snuff the torch's flame and dozens were arrested. Meanwhile, the Olympic flame was being kept in an undisclosed location in advance of Wednesday's planed 6-mile relay in San Francisco. Watch how the city is preparing » . The run is the only U.S. appearance for the flame, wrapping up the first week of a 23-city global tour. Beijing organizers have said the monthlong international relay will not be stopped despite the protests, but some International Olympic Committee members have suggested an early end should be considered. The IOC's executive board will discuss the torch relay "in general" Thursday or Friday, but there is no proposal on the agenda to end the global tour early, IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. Watch the flame get the red-carpet treatment » . The official Beijing Olympics Web site, controlled by the Chinese organizers, gives little indication of any torch relay disruption. It characterizes the demonstrators as "a small number" of Tibetan separatists. Beijing blames the Dalai Lama and his followers for violence that erupted in March amid protests for Tibetan independence. China has drawn international criticism for its crackdown on the demonstrations, which began peacefully on the 49th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising. China's Foreign Ministry Tuesday reacted forcefully to the torch relay protests. "We express our strong condemnation to the deliberate disruption of the Olympic torch relay by Tibetan separatist forces regardless of the Olympic spirit and the law of Britain and France," China spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. "Their despicable activities tarnish the lofty Olympic spirit and challenge all the people loving the Olympic Games around the world." The flame will return to China in May to begin a relay through the host nation, ending in Beijing with the August 8 opening of the Olympic Games. One of the San Francisco torchbearers has dropped out of Wednesday's relay because of fears of protests, a torch relay spokesman said. David Perry, spokesman for the San Francisco Olympic Torch Relay, said he did not want to release the name of the person. "I understand anyone that might feel that they don't want to expose themselves to something more than protest," Perry said. On Monday, three protesters scaled San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and raised a large banner. Those who climbed the cables from which the bridge's deck is suspended were members of Students for a Free Tibet, said group spokesman Tenzin Dasang, 22. They unfurled a banner that read: "One World. One Dream. Free Tibet." The three climbers, along with four people on the ground, were charged with felony conspiracy and misdemeanor nuisance charges, said California Highway Patrol Officer Mary Ziegenbein. The climbers also were charged with misdemeanor trespassing. The Golden Gate Bridge protest came on the same day that thousands of protesters forced an abrupt halt to the flame's passage through Paris after 10 miles of the 17-mile planned route. Some stops were skipped and the flame was transferred from the torch back to the lamp to be carried on a bus several times to avoid protesters. Protesters pierced the thick security bubble surrounding the torchbearers, at times getting their hands on the torch itself. The Paris demonstrations were similar to those Sunday in London, where at least 36 people were arrested, according to London Metropolitan Police. Protesters cited China's actions in Tibet, its policies on the Darfur region of Sudan and the lack of civil rights and freedoms for the Chinese people. But other demonstrators, bearing Chinese flags, turned out in support of the Chinese government, and many others were spectators there just to see the torch. An Olympic committee member suggested Monday that the public relations nightmare that has followed the Olympic flame on its way to the Summer Games in Beijing may make 2008 the last time such an ambitious global torch relay is attempted. Follow the torch relay itinerary » . International Olympic Committee member Richard Kevan Gosper, who is also chairman of the IOC's press committee, told reporters he was always opposed to a global tour for the flame. "I'm a firm believer that we had the right template in the first place, that the torch simply should go from Olympia, Greece, to the host country," Gosper said. E-mail to a friend .

NEW: Thousands march to the Chinese consulate ahead of Wednesday's run . Torchbearer drops out, fearing protests, official says . San Francisco, California, is only U.S. venue on 23-city global tour . Demonstrators protest China's Tibet policy in cities along route .

0269d39abbea3edadd225fa97d818f5a789b4c72

(CNN) -- Skybus Airlines announced Friday it is shutting down its passenger flights -- becoming the third airline this week to cease operations. Skybus Airlines joins ATA and Aloha Airlines, which announced shutdowns earlier this week. The low-cost carrier couldn't overcome "the combination of rising jet fuel costs and a slowing economic environment," the company said Friday. "These two issues proved to be insurmountable for a new carrier." Skybus, an Ohio-based airline founded in 2004, will cease operations effective Saturday. Earlier in the week, ATA Airlines and Aloha Airlines announced they would shut down flights as both companies work through bankruptcy filings. ATA, an Indiana-based low-cost charter airline, filed for Chapter 11 status Wednesday as a result of financial problems "following the loss of a key contract for our military charter business," the company said. The company started operation in 1973. Hawaii-based Aloha Airlines announced Sunday it would shut down its passenger operations this week after filing for bankruptcy protections last month, concluding 61 years of service. In its bankruptcy filing, Aloha said it was unable to generate enough revenue from its inter-island passenger flights because of below-cost fares by competitors Mesa Air Group's go! airline. The company said it was forced to match the competitor's fares during an unprecedented increase in the cost of jet fuel. Skybus said all flights Friday would be completed; passengers with reservations for Saturday and beyond were told to seek refunds from their credit card companies. E-mail to a friend .

Low-cost carrier cites high price of jet fuel . ATA and Aloha also closing after bankruptcy filings . Skybus says passengers can seek refunds from credit card firms .

394f20c9bee9bc8d0e6a65bac48de57bd9f4733d

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Authorities have arrested a U.S. sailor on suspicion of robbery and murder in the death of a Japanese taxi driver. The U.S. military handed him over Thursday at Yokosuka Naval Base, south of Tokyo. A Yokosuka police spokesman identified the sailor as Olatunbosun Ogbogu, a 22-year-old Nigerian national. Taxi driver Masaaki Takahashi, 61, was found dead March 19 of stab wounds to the neck about a mile from the base in Yokosuka. The presence of U.S. in Japan has sparked controversy this year amid reports linking service members to crimes. In March, the U.S. military said it plans to court martial four Marines accused of raping a 19-year-old woman in Hiroshima last year. Authorities are also investigating allegations that a member of the U.S. military raped a Philippine woman on the island of Okinawa. And a U.S. Marine was detained in the rape of a 14-year-old girl until the girl dropped the allegations. As Ogbogu was arrested, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, met with Japan's foreign minister. "We're dealing with human beings that do criminal acts from time to time," Schieffer told reporters afterward. "And I think justice is going to be done in this matter because we've been able to work so closely together." Watch the U.S. ambassador to Japan discuss the case » . The U.S. military presence in Japan has at times bred resentment among locals, who have long complained about crime, noise and accidents. Anti-American sentiments boiled over in 1995 after three American servicemen kidnapped and gang-raped a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl. Two years ago, a U.S. civilian military employee was jailed for nine years for raping two women. E-mail to a friend .

Japanese police arrest U.S. sailor for allegedly killing a Japanese taxi driver . U.S. Navy presence in Japan has been marred by reports of rape and crime . In 2006, U.S. civilian military staffer jailed for nine years for raping two women .

6e63c8b1ae01ab91b4832222edaf4bb461b6c568

(CNN) -- In "Street Kings," Keanu Reeves' bad-boy cop Tom Ludlow may not play by the rules, but the film sure does. Keanu Reeves, second from left, and Forest Whitaker are shifty cops in "Street Kings." The movie is textbook Cop Noir. Directed by David Ayer, who wrote "Training Day" and directed "Harsh Times," from a script that originated with "L.A. Confidential" novelist James Ellroy, it's a story both men have told before and will doubtless return to again. Too bad that story -- the one about the constant struggle with an impure world, betrayal, disillusionment, retribution, all that jazz -- isn't told with much originality this time around. As Ludlow, a detective with a special LAPD vice squad, Reeves shoots first and asks questions much, much later. In his field the bad guys are easy to spot, and if Tom has to get his hands dirty, well, then he'll be careful to wipe away the residue before he calls it in. He works from the gut. We have Ludlow's number from the beginning: He wakes up, vomits, cleans his gun, and knocks back a couple of miniature bottles of vodka. Then he crashes a kidnappers' den and puts down four gangsters before they know what's hit them. "Don't worry," he tells the distraught little girls caged up in the back. "I'm a cop." It's probably superfluous to add that he's still nursing a grievous hangover from the wife who died in flagrante with a person unknown two or three years ago. It's also probably superfluous to mention that Internal Affairs (headed by Hugh Laurie) is beginning to sniff around Ludlow's unit. In particular, IA is talking to his ex-partner Washington (Terry Crews), a revelation that sends Ludlow reaching for his baseball bat. Before he can put Washington straight, though, his old pal is gunned down before his eyes by a couple of punks. Can Ludlow cover up his own potentially incriminating presence at the scene and still track down the cop killers? Hell, yes, even if he has to alienate everyone in the department before he's through. Reeves doesn't do much "acting" as such, but he doesn't need to: His performance is clean and spare, in synch with Ayer's clipped economy, and he has a doleful quality that goes some way to redeem a nasty and wretchedly naïve character. Alcoholism doesn't appear to have thrown off Ludlow's aim any, but it must have dulled his reasoning. A broody, intuitive detective should be able to piece together this boilerplate mystery without too much head-scratching, but Ludlow never stops to look even two steps ahead. (I guess he's not a James Ellroy fan.) But what he lacks in insight he makes up for in sheer determination, not to say blood-lust. In a neat touch, when it's time to cool off his public profile for a spell, the rogue cop is transferred to a desk in the complaints department -- surely his idea of purgatory, and, obviously, an utterly pointless occupation. Forest Whitaker boosts the energy level as Ludlow's paternalistic mentor, boss, and No. 1 fan: "You're the tip of the spear," he tells him. "Who else is going to hold back the animals?" Violent and cynical and a shade or two overdetermined, "Street Kings" ably demonstrates the pitfalls embedded in the pragmatics of "a necessary evil," or anyone who sets himself up as a law unto himself, but ultimately it can't conceive of a better alternative. After all, the rest is politics, a game that even the most hard-boiled anti-hero would never lower himself to enter. And, besides, he's seen it before. "Street Kings" is rated R and runs 107 minutes. For Entertainment Weekly's take, click here. E-mail to a friend .

"Street Kings" has been done better before, says CNN.com's Tom Charity . Movie stars Keanu Reeves as rogue cop who finds self in awkward position . Film is adequate, but no surprises for those who've seen "Training Day"

355875856932fd634aaf7c6b26155403aaf15904

(CNN) -- Texas authorities are investigating "the safety of children" at a ranch occupied by about 400 followers of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, officials said Friday. An aerial view taken last year shows some living quarters at polygamist leader Warren Jeffs' Texas ranch. Authorities have sealed off the 1,900-acre ranch near Eldorado and no one is allowed to enter or leave, officials with Child Protective Services and the Department of Public Safety said. The people living at the ranch are cooperating, authorities said. Escorted by police, social workers entered the compound in south central Texas at 8 p.m. Thursday after receiving "a referral," said Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. Watch police seal off the compound » . Child Protective Services "is conducting an investigation into safety issues of the children who live within the compound," she said. Meisner would not provide details about the referral but did say officials responded "within days" of receiving it. As of Friday morning, Meisner added, her agency had "not determined that there is a safety issue with these children." Several law enforcement agencies are assisting with the investigation, said Tela Mange, of the Texas Department of Public Safety. "The people at the ranch have been cooperative and they are providing the investigators with everyone they want to talk to," she said. Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) bought 1,900 acres near Eldorado four years ago and built the ranch, which they call the YFZ Ranch. It is now home to as many as 400 members who relocated from their Arizona and Utah compounds. Jeffs, the 52-year-old leader and "prophet" of the 10,000-member church, was convicted in Utah last year on two counts of being an accomplice to rape, charges related to a marriage he performed in 2001. He still faces trial in Arizona on eight charges of sexual conduct with a minor, incest and conspiracy. State and local law enforcement agencies set up roadblocks around the ranch Thursday evening, preventing journalists from seeing what was happening on the property, according to Randy Mankin, editor of the Eldorado Success weekly newspaper. "This came totally out of the blue," Mankin said. There were no indications of any violence around the ranch, he said. When CNN crews have visited the ranch, it was guarded by armed men equipped with night vision gear and other high-tech surveillance tools to prevent intruders. When CNN flew over the ranch in a small plane last year, the crew saw a massive temple, the three-story housing units where Jeffs' chosen followers live, the water tower, the school and community center, the dairy and cheese factory and a massive concrete mill. The FLDS church openly practices polygamy in two towns straddling the Arizona-Utah state line -- Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona., but members living on their Texas ranch rarely venture into Eldorado, four miles to the south. Critics of the sect say it arranges marriages for girls as young as 13, and that competition for brides may be reduced through exiling young men. If male followers are excommunicated, the critics claim, their wives and children can be reassigned to someone else. Jeffs is now being held in the Mohave County Jail in Kingman, Arizona, where he will be tried on charges of being an accomplice to incest and sex with minors. In November ,Jeffs was sentenced to 10 years in jail after being convicted of two charges of accomplice to rape. E-mail to a friend .

NEW: State Child Protective Services agents interviewing children . NEW: No one permitted to enter or leave 1,900-acre Texas compound . Ranch home to hundreds of followers of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs . Jeffs in Arizona jail awaiting trial; sentenced to 10 years in prison last year .

999523913d281ab57977d79b644f3879ac4d2e37

(CNN) -- Georgian leaders may be blaming Russia for the conflict raging in South Ossetia, but former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said Thursday "there is no doubt" that Georgia provoked the clash. Mikhail Gorbachev told CNN's Larry King that Russia called extra troops into Georgia to stem violence. Gorbachev told CNN's Larry King that Russia moved additional forces into South Ossetia in response to "devastation" in the South Ossetia city of Tskhinvali. "This was the use of sophisticated weapons against a small town, against a sleeping people. This was a barbaric assault," said Gorbachev, the last president of the former Soviet Union. But Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who also appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" Thursday, said he was "profoundly shocked" that Mikhail Gorbachev would use a television appearance "for basically vindicating lies and deceptions." Last week, Georgia said it launched an operation into South Ossetia after a cease-fire was broken with artillery fire from Russian separatists that killed 10 people including civilians and peacekeepers. It accused Russia, which also has peacekeepers in the region, of backing the separatists. Hours later, the Russian news agency Interfax reported that Russian authorities said 10 Russian peacekeepers had been killed and 30 wounded in an attack by Georgians. "Western television didn't show what happened in Tskhinvali," Gorbachev said. "Only now they're beginning to show some pictures of the destruction. So this looks to me like it was a well-prepared project. And with any outcome, they wanted to put the blame on Russia." Watch Gorbachev discuss "barbaric assault" » . He called Georgia's claims that Russia is attempting to dismantle its democracy "all lies from beginning to end." In response, Saakashvili expressed disappointment with the sentiments from Gorbachev, who he said he once respected. "This is the man, Mr. Gorbachev, who helped to, you know, bring down KGB kingdom. And he is the one who is, you know, justifying what the KGB people are doing right now in my country," Saakashvili said. "Shame on him. Shame on you, Mr. Gorbachev, for perpetuating the very regime you helped to defeat and you fought against as the head of the Soviet Union." Gorbachev also said the United States is jeopardizing its fragile relationship with Russia by backing Georgia. Watch Gorbachev discuss U.S.-Russia relations » . "There is a chance for our two countries to develop a new agenda for cooperation so as to promote both U.S. and Russia interests, and the interests of other countries, and the interests of stability, particularly in the hotspots in different continents," said Gorbachev, who won the Nobel Peace Price in 1990.

NEW: Georgian president criticizes Gorbachev for "vindicating lies and deceptions" Gorbachev says Russian called up forces in response to violence in Tskhinvali . Georgia says Russia backed separatists who broke cease-fire and sparked violence . The former president says U.S. is jeopardizing ties with Russia by backing Georgia .

5f7424604ec11358dc6fdfa47732f90422949041

KAMPALA, Uganda (CNN) -- At least 19 schoolgirls died when fire erupted in their dormitory west of the capital, Kampala, late Monday, say police and school officials. Villagers surround the gutted school building Tuesday. Authorities also found the bodies of two adults in the ashes of the blaze at Buddo Junior School in Mpigi. The school's headmaster said 42 girls survived. Police said they were investigating the cause, but children who lived in the dorm said they heard an explosion shortly before the fire broke out. There were conflicting reports of the doors of the living quarters being barred, trapping the children inside. School officials insisted that the doors weren't locked, while girls who lived there said they were. Mpigi is about 60 kilometers west of Kampala. E-mail to a friend .

19 schoolgirls and two adults die in primary school dormitory fire, police say . School denies pupils' claim that dormitory door was locked from the outside . Police investigate cause of blaze at school 60 kilometers from Kampala .

fdb2b65b9cb99b7d52559ae647cae293cb5910d3

(CNN) -- The United States believes that some members of Pakistan's spy service provided support for the deadly bombing last month of India's Embassy in Afghanistan, a U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN Friday. The Indian Embassy in Kabul was badly damaged in the July 7 bombing. Pakistan strongly denied the allegation Friday, but Afghanistan and India have previously accused Pakistan of involvement in the attack which killed 58 people including an Indian defense attache. The official told CNN the evidence was not strong enough to draw a firm conclusion but there is a "strong suspicion" the Taliban was behind the attack, and that some unspecified aid came from Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. The official would not say how the intelligence was gathered, but he said the evidence was presented to senior Pakistani officials by a top CIA official, Deputy Director Stephen Kappes. The New York Times, sourcing U.S. government officials, reported Friday that the United States intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack in Kabul. Pakistani Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said the report "unfounded and malicious" and an "effort to malign the ISI," -- Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence. The bombing killed 58 people. "The ISI is a very disciplined organization, manned by military officials. It has played the most crucial role in the war on terror and apprehended members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and those linked to the attack on mainland America on 9/11," Abbas said. Abbas said "despite our insistence, no evidence has been provided to us about these allegations." Afghanistan claims Pakistan informally supports militants operating from havens in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions near the porous 1,500-mile border the two countries share. Earlier this month, Afghan lawmakers directly accused Pakistan's ISI in connection with a string of attacks in Afghanistan. Among these were the Kabul strike and an assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai at an April 27 military ceremony. A senior Afghan government official said the charges were based on phone intercepts of conversations of plotters in Kabul with ISI officers in Pakistan. A U.S. government official, who would not comment on the specifics of the New York Times story, said, "We've long noted the troubling reports of a relationship between the ISI and the Taliban, and the incident at the Indian Embassy seems to fit the pattern of those reports." India has previously blamed militants from Pakistan for the July 7 car bombing at the embassy. Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan's high commissioner to Britain, and Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI, firmly denied the agency's involvement in the attack. Watch Pakistan deny the allegations » . "There seems to be a bit of sensationalism in this story," Hasan said. He said the government has regularly denied claims that ISI is involved with militants in Afghanistan and noted that Pakistan has been cooperating in the fight against terrorism. Gul said the claims are "preposterous" and "totally false," and cautioned that the CIA has been proven to be wrong about intelligence in the past. The New York Times report also sourced the U.S. officials as saying "there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas." Pakistan and Afghanistan have a tumultuous past. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, religious schools in Pakistan helped train fighters who battled the Soviets. After the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996 and imposed fundamentalist rule, Pakistan was one of the few countries that recognized the regime diplomatically. It dropped its support after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Washington and New York. Pakistan also has a troubled history with India, and in the past India has accused the ISI of supporting militant separatists in Indian-administered Kashmir, which has been the root of two wars between them.

U.S. intelligence points to Pakistan agents involved in attack on Indian Embassy . Pakistan denies its spy agency helped plan bombing that killed 58 . Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said the report was an "effort to malign the ISI" India and Afghanistan both accuse Pakistan of role in the attack .

f974fe1b3777ffc5756322c0bb3f31a9b23ec09a

The mother of murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor has died of a suspected heart attack, The Press Association reported Wednesday. Gloria Taylor outside London's Central Criminal Court with Damilola's older brother Tunde in 2006. Gloria Taylor, 57, collapsed while walking with her husband Richard in south-east London Tuesday, the agency reported. Efforts to revive her at hospital failed and she was pronounced dead moments later, according to London police headquarters Scotland Yard. Damilola, 10, bled to death after being attacked on his way home from Oliver Goldsmith Primary School in November 2000. He staggered 100 yards with blood pouring from a sliced artery in his leg after being stabbed. Nigerian-born Damilola had been in Britain for only a few months when he was attacked while walking home from an after school computer club. Damilola's killing was front-page news in Britain, and prompted soul-searching on topics ranging from the deprivation of inner cities to school bullying. A year after their son's death, the Taylors established the Damilola Taylor Trust, aimed at improving the lives of underprivileged young people. The trust offers scholarships for medical students from poor backgrounds, and also set up the Damilola Taylor Center, in Peckham, south-east London, which provides sports and community activities. At the time, Gloria said the trust aimed to provide hope and opportunities for Britain's "downtrodden and underprivileged youth". "Damilola lost his life because of enormous problems in this society. Our son wanted to be a doctor. "He was a leader, and we are sure he would have been extraordinary. We would like the trust to heal many of the ills faced by today's youth," The Guardian newspaper reported her saying at the time. In August 2006, two teenage brothers were convicted of his manslaughter and given eight-year youth custody sentences. Danny and Ricky Preddie, who were 12 and 13 at the time of the killing, were convicted at a retrial. The conviction came after three trials and two police investigations, parts of which were strongly criticized, The Guardian reported. PA quoted a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman as saying: "Police were called at about 7.45pm on April 8 by London Ambulance Service to reports of a woman taken ill on the street in Shooters Hill. "Local officers and London Ambulance Service were in attendance and a woman in her 50s was taken by ambulance to hospital suffering a suspected heart attack and was pronounced life extinct at 8.29pm. "A post-mortem examination will take place in due course. "The incident is being investigated by local borough officers and is currently being treated as non suspicious." E-mail to a friend .

Mother of murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor dies of suspected heart attack . Gloria Taylor, 57, collapsed while walking with her husband Richard Tuesday . Damilola, 10, was stabbed in 2000, death prompted soul-searching in Britain .

2930e1a7ac24bce649bfbf5f5971e74515e38a0a

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A smiling Pope Benedict XVI arrived in the United States on Tuesday afternoon to start the six-day, two-city journey that will take him from the White House to the halls of the United Nations. The papal plane, Shepherd 1, touched down at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to cheers from a crowd of invited guests gathered for the event. After he stepped off the plane, Benedict did not kiss the ground, as his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often did during visits. The pontiff was greeted by President Bush, first lady Laura Bush and their daughter Jenna, each of whom shook his hand. Watch the arrival » . It was believed to be the first time an American president has greeted a world dignitary on arrival at Andrews. "It had the look and feel of a monumental and historic event," CNN's Brian Todd reported. This is the first U.S. papal visit since the attacks of September 11 and Benedict's first visit to the United States. There will be a welcoming ceremony for the pope on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday. Benedict is to speak before meeting with U.S. cardinals and bishops. Where will the pope be? » . One of the stated goals of the pope's visit is to energize the U.S. Catholic community, which has an estimated 70 million members. Three years after succeeding Pope John Paul II, Benedict is likely to address the sex scandal within the Catholic Church, the church's relationship with other faiths, the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the upcoming U.S. presidential election, said John Allen, a CNN Vatican analyst. The fallout from the sex scandal has had a serious impact on the U.S. Catholic Church in terms of its finances, its moral authority and the demoralization of Catholics. During the flight from Rome to Washington, the pope told reporters aboard that he was ashamed of the problem. Watch the pope express his shame about the scandal » . 'Intense' security . Meanwhile, security preparations were under way in the air, on land and in the water. Twenty-seven state, local and federal agencies will protect the pope as he meets with religious leaders, celebrates Mass at a baseball stadium and makes his way around the capital in his distinctive "popemobile." There are no specific threats against Benedict, according to the FBI, but a March audio message from Osama Bin Laden mentioned the pontiff. The centerpiece of the Washington leg of the U.S. visit will be Thursday's Mass at Nationals Park, a new baseball stadium where 46,000 people will gather to watch the pope. Everyone will go through metal detectors on their way in, and nearby roads and bridges will be closed. Temporary flight restrictions will be in place over the stadium. Watch how Washington is preparing for papal visit » . A 1½-mile section of the adjacent Anacostia River will be closed during the Mass. The Coast Guard will patrol the river in boats with machine guns mounted on their bows. "I am worried about a terrorist attack," said Lt. Lynda LeCrone of the Coast Guard. "We are here to detect, deter and defend against waterborne attack on this highly publicized event. ... We can use force." The pope will be making his way around parts of Washington in the popemobile, a Mercedes Benz modified with bulletproof glass surrounding a seating area from which the pope can wave to bystanders along his route. The vehicle, one of three popemobiles in the Vatican motor pool, arrived in the United States last week. It will be driven by a Secret Service agent. The agents have been training with the vehicle. "We try best-case scenarios and also try worst-case scenarios so our staff will know how to react," said Secret Service Special Agent Renee Triplett, who oversees Secret Service training. Benedict will travel to New York on Friday and address the U.N. General Assembly, linking the visit to the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He'll celebrate Mass Sunday morning at Yankee Stadium. Still a mystery . Despite three years as the head of the Catholic Church, the pope remains a bit of a mystery to many American Catholics. "I think most American Catholics may not know a whole lot about him," Allen said. "He's not the sexy media icon that John Paul II was, but what they've seen, by and large, they've liked." Of American Catholics polled by the Pew Research Center, 74 percent give Pope Benedict a favorable rating. But the survey points out that he's not as highly regarded as his predecessor. See other meetings between popes and presidents » . For one, their personalities are different. John Paul was known for his charisma. Benedict is known as an intellectual and introvert. "He doesn't quite get the same energy from crowds that John Paul II got," said Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "John Paul II was extroverted and got energy talking to people, and the present Holy Father loses energy. He has to rest between all these encounters." The energy factor is partly due to age. Benedict turns 81 this week. When John Paul became pope, he was only 58 and was able to keep a much more rigorous schedule traveling around the globe. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Jeanne Meserve, Jim Spellman and Mary Snow contributed to this report.

NEW: Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Washington for six-day U.S. visit . NEW: President Bush, first lady Laura Bush and daughter Jenna greet pontiff . Security tight for first papal visit since September 11 attacks . Benedict will also visit New York; will celebrate Mass in both cities .

f5f7571a69e96c1d288d939861b7216c2bdc0ae4

(CNN) -- Eight Florida teenagers -- six of them girls -- will be tried as adults and could be sentenced to life in prison for their alleged roles in the videotaped beating of another teen, the state attorney's office said Thursday. The teenagers seen in a video assaulting a 16-year-old could face life in prison. The suspects, who range in age from 14 to 18, all face charges of kidnapping, which is a first-degree felony, and battery, said Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for the Polk County state attorney. Three of them are also charged with tampering with a witness. Everyone involved in the case was under a gag order imposed by a judge. The only attorney for the teens who has been publicly identified did not return calls from CNN, and his assistant cited the gag order as the reason. The teens are scheduled for their first appearance in court Friday. The video shows a brutal scene: The 16-year-old victim is punched, kneed and slapped by other girls. She huddles in the fetal position, or stands and screams at her attackers, but the assault continues. Authorities say the eight teens said they were retaliating for insults posted on the Internet by the attack victim. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called the March 30 attack "animalistic." "I've been involved in law enforcement for 35 years, and I've seen a lot of extremely violent events, but I've never seen children, 14 to 18 years of age, engage in this conduct for a 30-minute period of time and then make these video clips," he said. Police say the teens planned to post the video on YouTube. Watch the disturbing video » . The victim, a 16-year-old from Lakeland, Florida, was hospitalized, and still has blurred vision, hearing loss, and a swollen face, her mother told CNN on Wednesday. The video shows only girls doing the beating; Judd said the boys acted as lookouts. The idea of girls administering a vicious beating so they can post the video online may seem shocking, but it's becoming an increasingly common scenario, according to experts and news reports. Watch why more teens are putting fights online » . A search for "girl fight" on YouTube gets thousands of results, and a suggestion to also try "girl fight at school, boy girl fight" and other search terms. There's at least one Web site devoted exclusively to videos of girls fighting. In 2003, 25 percent of high school girls said they had been in a physical fight in the past year, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The figure for boys was 40.5 percent.) A Justice Department report released in 2006 showed that by age 17, 21 percent of girls said they had assaulted someone with the intent to cause serious harm. Frank Green is executive director of Keys to Safer Schools, a group that studies and tries to prevent school violence. He said he's not sure whether girls have actually become more violent, or whether there's just more awareness of their fights. "In one respect, girls have always been more vicious than boys," Green said. "Their violence is of a personal nature." He said boys usually have some focus and a concrete goal when they fight. "But girls want to cause pain and make the other girl feel bad," he said. Judd, the Polk County sheriff, said an important part of the plan in the Lakeland attack was to post the video of the beating on YouTube to humiliate and embarrass the victim. "It's the next stage of cyberbullying," psychologist Susan Lipkins said. "They want to show what they're doing." "Our kids are being peer pressured, in another sense of a trend, to put these shock videos out there at other peoples' expense," said Talisa Lindsay, the victim's mother. "And I hope that it doesn't come to the point where there's more people's lives that are being affected by having to take a beating for entertainment, or possibly being killed." Watch mother describe how the victim is doing » . The suspects didn't have a chance to post the video online before police moved in and seized it, Judd said. The Sheriff's Department made it public, and it wound up on YouTube anyway. Judd recognizes the irony. "In a perverted sense, we were feeding into exactly what the kids wanted," he said. "But according to Florida law, [the video] is public record, and it's going to be in the public domain whether we agree with that or not." Judd said the suspects showed no remorse when they were arrested and booked. "They were laughing and joking about, 'I guess we won't get to go to the beach during spring break.' And one ... asked whether she could go to cheerleading practice," he said. Lipkins, the psychologist, says there's a "disconnect between their actions and their thoughts." "They think the entire society is doing it, and they think it's funny. So they put it on YouTube. And I don't think they expect kids to get really hurt, and they also don't expect to get really caught." E-mail to a friend . CNN's Rich Phillips contributed to this report.

Eight Florida teens to be tried as adults in videotaped beating case . Video shows 16-year-old girl punched by other girls . 21 percent of girls age 17 say they've assaulted someone, the Justice Dept. reports . The teens have "disconnect" between thoughts and actions, psychologist says .

5f02aa32bd1dc95e47355755398e31550b232f8a

(CNN) -- The following are excerpts from the Heather Mills-Paul McCartney divorce ruling, issued by the Honorable Mr. Justice Bennett. Dollar figures are based on the current exchange rate of approximately two dollars per British pound: . Heather Mills' case "boils down to the syndrome of 'me, too,' " said the judge. On Mills' finances: . "I have to say I cannot accept the wife's case that she was wealthy and independent by the time she met the husband in the middle of 1999. Her problem stems from the lack of any documentary evidence to support her case as to the level of her earnings. I do not doubt her commitment to charitable causes ... [but] I find that the wife's case as to her wealth in 1999 to be wholly exaggerated. The assertion that she was a wealthy person in 1999 is, of course, the first step in her overall case that her career, which in 1999 she says was one producing rich financial rewards, was thereafter blighted by the husband during their relationship. It is therefore connected to the issue of 'compensation.' " On her stature as "business partner": . "In my judgment the picture painted by the husband of the wife's part in his emotional and professional life is much closer to reality than the wife's account. The wife, as the husband said, enjoys being the center of attention. ... I am prepared to accept that her presence was emotionally supportive to him but to suggest that in some way she was his 'business partner' is, I am sorry to have to say, make-belief." On gifts to Mills from McCartney: . "[McCartney] asserted (and there is no dispute) that he made substantial capital payments to the wife over and above an annual allowance of £360,000 ($720,000) per annum. He lent her monies in respect of his purchase and renovation of [the house] Angel's Rest. In 2002 and 2003 he gave her cash totaling £500,000 ($1 million). He lent [Heather's sister] Fiona Mills £421,000 ($842,000) to buy a property and purchased a house for [Heather's relative] Sonya Mills for £193,000 ($386,000). In 2005 he purchased jewelry for the wife worth £264,000 ($528,000)." On some paintings in Angel's Rest: . "[Mills] asserted in her cross-examination of the husband that some 30 paintings done by [McCartney], which are hanging in Angel's Rest, were given to her by the husband. The husband strongly disagreed. The husband told me that when the wife bought Angel's Rest she had nothing to hang on the walls and so he lent her 30 of his own paintings. He told me they were his, that he may leave them in trust for Beatrice and his other children, and that he wants them back save for the flower photographs and the Isle of Man stamp design, both given to the wife by the husband. The husband, I find, was generous towards the wife but his generosity did not extend to giving her 30 valuable paintings (of his own creation.) I accept the husband's evidence. In my judgment he is entitled to have them back." On the size of McCartney's fortune: . "It is unnecessary in the instant case to arrive at a precise figure for the total wealth of the husband, given its enormous size. As he has always accepted, he can pay any sum which the court considers appropriate as for financial provision for the wife. Nevertheless I find that the husband's total wealth amounts to approximately £400 million ($800 million). I reject the wife's case that he is worth £800 million ($1.6 billion). There is absolutely no evidence at all to support that figure or any figure anywhere near it." On living style: . "In my judgment the wife's attitude, ... her open offers, her oral and written evidence, and her submissions is that she is entitled for the indefinite future, if not for the whole of her life, to live at the same 'rate' as the husband and to be kept in the style to which she perceives she was accustomed during the marriage. Although she strongly denied it her case boils down to the syndrome of 'me, too' or 'if he has it, I want it too.' ... It must have been absolutely plain to the wife after separation that it was wholly unrealistic to expect to go on living at the rate at which she perceived she was living." On Mills' future: . "The wife's case is that her earning capacity is now zero. The wife, as I have said, blames the husband for his attitude towards her working during the marriage. That I have found to be a false case. ... The wife would say she is at a severe disadvantage. I think she overplays her hand. ... I have no doubt that, despite the very adverse publicity in the last 2 years or a little under, the wife does have an earning capacity. She has earned her living since the age of 17. I have found that her association with the husband advanced, not stultified, her career." E-mail to a friend .

Judge on Heather Mills: Level of premarital wealth "exaggerated" McCartney gave Mills several hundred thousand dollars each year . Judge: Mills' case "boils down to ... 'if he has it, I want it too' "

9177e5ac94f038749e8d4eb526a65461e0f6df4c

(Mental Floss) -- There have been presidential daughters almost as long as there have been presidents. (George Washington had no children.) President Warren Harding made child-care payments to his mistress for years until his death in 1923. What these women did -- both under the influence of and independent from their influential fathers -- make fascinating stories. Here are five you might not have heard: . 1. Sarah Knox Taylor Davis . She packed a lot of drama into her 21 years. The second daughter of future U.S. President Zachary Taylor, Sarah also was the first wife of future Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Her parents gave her the middle name Knox after Fort Knox, in pre-state Indiana, where her military father was stationed and where she was born in 1813 or 1814. Sarah was often called Knox or Knoxie. The life of an army brat was certainly more dangerous in the early 19th century. During Taylor's posting in Louisiana, Sarah and her two sisters came down with "bilious fever," now thought to be malaria. Sarah survived, but her older and younger sisters died. The Taylors were stationed at Fort Crawford (now Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin) in 1832, when Sarah met and fell in love with a young officer named Jefferson Davis. Zachary Taylor opposed the relationship, and accounts vary as to why --because he didn't want his daughter to continue to be exposed to the hardships of army life, or because he and Davis didn't get along. Or both. Davis was transferred, so he and Sarah conducted a long-distance relationship for two years. They even planned their wedding by mail. The ceremony took place in June 1835, in Louisville, Kentucky. Sarah's parents did not attend. Once again there is disagreement over why they were absent. The newlyweds immediately headed south, and they visited Davis's relatives in Louisiana. Sarah, mindful of the family tragedy the last time the Taylors traveled those parts, wrote home, "Do not make yourself uneasy about me, the country is quite healthy." But while staying with Davis's oldest sister at "Locust Grove" in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, the couple fell ill with malaria. Jefferson Davis recovered, but Sarah died, barely three months into her marriage. Mental Floss: 5 memorable White House weddings . 2. Elizabeth Harrison Walker . Her life straddled the Gilded Age of her father, President Benjamin Harrison, and the Television Age, when accomplished women were just beginning to enter in numbers into the mainstream of public life. Elizabeth was born in 1897, four years after her father left office. A widower with two children by his first wife, Harrison had married Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, and Elizabeth was the couple's only child. She was just 4 when her father, the last of the bearded presidents, passed away. If Elizabeth's dynastic 1921 marriage to James Blaine Walker -- grandnephew of her father's secretary of state and onetime Republican presidential nominee James G. Blaine -- was conventional, much of the rest of her life was not. By the time of her wedding, she had received several academic degrees, including a law degree from New York University Law School, and was admitted to the bar in New York and Indiana at age 22. After her marriage, she began publishing a monthly newsletter, "Cues on the News." Geared toward women, it offered economic and investment tips, and was distributed nationally by banks. Her expertise led to appearances on radio and, later, television, where she spoke on economic issues pertaining to women. She died in 1955, at the age of 58. Mental Floss: Quiz: Post--White House lives of presidents . 3. Margaret Woodrow Wilson . Thirty years before the Beatles went to India to sample and popularize its spiritual wonders, another musician and political activist, Margaret Woodrow Wilson, had already been. It was the final chapter in the peripatetic life of the eldest of President Woodrow Wilson's three daughters. Margaret was born in 1886, in Gainesville, Georgia. During her father's presidency, both of Margaret's sisters had White House weddings. So when their mother died in 1914, it fell to the unmarried eldest Wilson sister to become White House hostess. The president's remarriage a year later allowed Margaret to pursue her passion -- music. She studied piano and voice at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. In 1915, she made her singing debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in Syracuse, New York. During World War I, she gave recitals that benefited the Red Cross and performed at Army camps. In 1918, she began nearly a year's stay in France, singing before Allied troops. The experience led to a breakdown, the loss of her singing voice, and the end of her musical career. Mental Floss: Why do we sing the National Anthem at sporting events? With the war over and women gaining the right to vote, Margaret became an advocate of a style of local participatory democracy in which neighborhood schools would become community centers. The annual $2,500 stipend bequeathed by her father upon his death in 1924 was not enough for her live on, so Margaret entered the advertising business. A speculation in oil stocks went sour, and as the 1920s ended, she ceased being a public figure. In the 1930s she discovered the writings of Sri Aurobindo, a contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi's, whose philosophy for ending foreign rule in India was grounded in yoga and meditation. Eventually she followed her guru east. When a New York Times reporter found Margaret in Aurobindo's ashram in Pondicherry, India, in 1943, she had been living there four years. At the ashram she was known as Dishta. She died there in 1944 at the age of 57 of uremic poisoning. 4. Elizabeth Ann Christian Blaesing . Probably the only advantage to being the child of one of America's worst presidents was not having his last name. Warren G. Harding had no children with his wife, but a married man with two mistresses is bound to leave a legacy. Elizabeth Ann was the daughter of Nan Britton, who as a teenager began a six-year affair with Harding, which lasted until his death in 1923. Elizabeth Ann was conceived on a couch in Harding's Senate office and was born in 1919. On the birth certificate, Britton wrote Christian as the baby's last name. Until his inauguration in 1921, Harding made child-care payments to Britton in person, but always refused to meet Elizabeth Ann. After he entered the White House, Secret Service agents delivered the payments. But when Harding died, the money stopped. In 1927, after Harding's widow refused to continue child support, Britton published The President's Daughter. The tell-all book became a bestseller. As the years passed, the story of Nan Britton and the president's "love child" faded, along with memories of Harding's inept presidency. As an infant, Elizabeth Ann was adopted by Britton's sister and brother-in-law for the sake of appearances. As an adult, she married Henry Blaesing. They lived quietly in Glendale, California, and raised three sons. Elizabeth Ann gave one of her first interviews, to The New York Times, in 1964. In it she revealed that her mother was living secretly nearby. Nan Britton died in 1991, "evidently so forgotten by history that no obituary was published," the Los Angeles Times later wrote. Elizabeth Ann died in 2005. 5. Margaret Truman Daniel . The helicopter parent is nothing new. But that pesky parental hovering can whip up a lot of dust when Dad is straight-talking President Harry S Truman. Born in 1924, Margaret was Harry and Bess Truman's only child. Like Margaret Wilson, she began her career as a singer. She was studying history and international relations at George Washington University when her father became vice president in January 1945. Less than three months later, Franklin Roosevelt died and Harry Truman became the 33rd president. After intensive musical training, Margaret made her singing debut in 1947 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on a nationally broadcast radio program. She began touring the country, appeared on radio and television, and signed a recording contract. Then came her infamous 1950 concert in Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall, in which her father played a role perhaps larger than hers. "Paul Hume, the music critic of The Washington Post, while praising her personality, said that 'she cannot sing very well,' added that 'she is flat a good deal of the time' and concluded that she had no 'professional finish,' " The New York Times recalled at the time of Margaret's death last January. "Incensed, President Truman dispatched a combative note to Mr. Hume, who released it to the press... It said, in part, 'I have just read your lousy review . . . I have never met you, but if I do, you'll need a new nose.'" (Read the review and President Truman's response here.) The episode didn't seem to impact her career, but her professional singing days were numbered anyway. Margaret would become a radio and television personality, co-hosting the 1950s radio program, "Weekday," with Mike Wallace. She acted in summer stock. And in 1956 she married New York Times editor Clifton Daniel, with whom she had three sons. But Margaret still had other media to conquer. She became a prolific author, writing several non-fiction books, including biographies of her parents. And she penned 13 mystery novels, beginning with "Murder in the White House." For more mental_floss articles, visit mentalfloss.com . Entire contents of this article copyright, Mental Floss LLC. All rights reserved.

President Harding's illegitimate daughter was conceived on couch in Senate office . Review of Harry Truman's daughter prompted presidential threat against reporter . President Taylor's daughter married future president of an enemy power . Woodrow Wilson's daughter followed a guru to India .

f12e4bbb07211de7d43b4e331dc73404aa804562