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(CNN) -- An Air Force nurse has been charged with murdering three terminally ill patients by giving them fatal overdoses, the Air Force said Tuesday. Capt. Michael Fontana is continuing to work at Wildford Hall Medical Center. Capt. Michael Fontana, a nurse at Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, also was charged Monday with conduct unbecoming an officer for changing a medical document. "The charges are the result of an Air Force investigation that occurred after irregularities were discovered in Capt. Fontana's administration of medications which may have resulted in the death of an end-of-life patient," hospital spokesman David Smith told reporters. The nurse was charged with three counts of violating Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. "It is considered murder," Smith said. After an Article 32 hearing, akin to a civilian grand jury proceeding, the commander will decide whether the case goes to court-martial. The three deaths occurred in July, Smith said. He cited the privacy act in refusing to divulge the suspect's age and hometown. He said he did not know the motive but was confident no other patients were victimized. "We know that there are no other patients involved in this case," he said. Fontana, an intensive-care unit nurse who has been working at the hospital since 2006, the year he joined the Air Force, has been released on his own recognizance and is continuing to work at the hospital, though he is no longer involved in patient care, Smith said. "As far as we can tell, he has been an exemplary nurse," Smith said. Fontana also served as a nurse at the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, Iraq, Smith said. His work there was investigated, "and there was nothing found," he said. A call to a San Antonio phone number listed as belonging to Michael Fontana got a message that said, "Thank you for calling. Due to the ongoing investigation, I have no comment for you right now, but I do appreciate your call and will talk to you soon." Relatives of the dead patients have requested privacy, the Air Force said. Wilford Hall Medical Center is the Air Force's largest medical facility.

Man is accused of giving terminally ill patients fatal overdoses . He worked at a hospital at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas . He is also charged with conduct unbecoming an officer .

(CNN) -- An Airbus airplane was forced to turn back to New York 90 minutes into a flight to Paris, Air France said Monday. The Air France A380 turned back due to a "minor incident," the airline said, refusing to say what the technical hitch was. Airbus also declined to specify what caused the plane to turn back, saying the incident was an issue for the Air France maintenance team not the aircraft's manufacturer. The pilots made the decision to turn back "in strict accordance with procedures and as a precautionary measure... following a minor technical problem in order to carry out ground checks," Air France said. The plane landed at New York's John F. Kennedy International airport "without incident" at 10:17 p.m. ET on Friday, November 27, Air France said. The plane was serviced and later completed its transatlantic journey, the airline said. Air France had begun flying the brand-new A380 across the Atlantic only days before, Airbus said. Its inaugural commercial flight from Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport to JFK was on November 21. Air France became the fourth airline to operate the superjumbo when it received its first A380 at the end of last month. -- CNN's Ayesha Durgahee in London, England, contributed to this report.

Airbus airplane forced to turn back to New York 90 minutes into flight to Paris . Air France A380 turned back due to a "minor incident," airline says . Airbus declines to specify what caused the plane to turn back .

(CNN) -- An Alabama man whose wife died during a honeymoon scuba diving trip off the coast of Australia almost five years ago has been charged in her death. Tina Watson, background right, lies motionless after she drowned in 2003 while diving in the Great Barrier Reef. An Australian coroner ruled Friday that there was enough evidence to put Gabe Watson on trial for the death of Tina Watson, who was 26 when she drowned in October 2003 while diving around a historic shipwreck in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Watson, 31, told police that his new bride appeared to panic 45 feet underwater and that he "looked into her eyes and saw her eyes were wide open, but there was no response," Townsville Coroner David Glascow said in his inquest findings. Glascow, however, cited what he said were inconsistencies in Watson's statements to investigators. The coroner said he was "unable to conclude that Tina's death was an accidental drowning." Watch Tina Watson's family demand justice » The couple married just 11 days earlier in Birmingham, Alabama. They left their home in Hoover, Alabama, for their Australian honeymoon two days later, the coroner said. As possible evidence for the husband's motive, Glascow pointed to a statement by the woman's father that Watson asked her to maximize her life insurance and make him the beneficiary shortly before the wedding. The insurance company confirmed that Gabe Watson inquired about her life insurance policy after her death, the coroner said. The coroner noted that Watson, through his lawyers, contended that police had made a judgment that he killed his wife before they began their investigation and that they tailored their investigation to fit their theory. Glascow said he saw no evidence of police rushing to judgment. "It appears certain that at some point in time, investigators considered some of Gabe's explanations lacked credibility, and it further appears to me that investigators gave Gabe the opportunity to clarify matters which may have caused concern," the coroner said. The husband was an experienced diver, and his new wife was considered a novice, the coroner said. They were diving on the Yongala shipwreck about 42 miles off the coast of Townsville in the state of Queensland, Australia.

Gabe Watson has been charged with 2003 death of his wife during honeymoon . Tina Watson died while scuba diving in Australia's Great Barrier Reef . Coroner unable to conclude that Watson's death was accidental .

(CNN) -- An Alaska judge has denied Bristol Palin's request that her court fight with ex-boyfriend Levi Johnston over custody of their son be kept private to avoid a "media circus." The daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is seeking full custody of 1-year-old Tripp, contending that Johnston is too immature to be a responsible father and that his mother's felony drug conviction makes her a danger to the child. Bristol Palin filed for full custody in November, but Johnston is seeking shared custody. Both parents are 19. Their teenage relationship fell under an intense public spotlight after Sen. John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate in August 2008. Court documents, now unsealed, were published online Monday by the Anchorage Daily News. Johnston joined the family at the Republican National Convention after the campaign confirmed that Bristol, then 17, was five months pregnant with his child. The couple broke off their engagement about two months after their son's birth in December 2008. Johnston has asked that the case conducted in public to protect himself from Sarah Palin, whom he said was "powerful, politically ambitious and has a reputation for being extremely vindictive." But Bristol Palin's request that the case be sealed said public proceedings "will turn this custody case into a media circus which is not in Tripp's best interest." "In this day and age of the Internet, media stories remain available for years, even decades, after they are first published, and anything printed in the media (whether it is true or not) will be available to Tripp when he is old enough to read," Palin said in a sworn affidavit. She said Johnston wanted a public case so he could "continue to make a spectacle of this custody dispute for his own self-promotion." Johnston was set to take part in a reality show in Alaska, she said. "I do not believe that it would be in Tripp's best interest for Levi's reality show to be filming this case as it unfolds, or for Levi Johnston to be capitalizing off of this custody case through his reality show," Palin said. Johnston's sworn statement said he feared what Sarah Palin might do against him if the case were kept secret. "I really think that closing the court could make this matter very uncivil and potentially open the door for poor influences on Bristol and her attorney that may be extremely inappropriate and potentially harmful to Tripp," he said. While Johnston said his former girlfriend would never be malicious toward him, "her mother is powerful, politically ambitious and has a reputation for being extremely vindictive." "So, I think a public case might go a long way in reducing Sarah Palin's instinct to attack and allow the real parties in this litigation, Bristol and I, to work things out a lot more peacefully than we could if there is any more meddling from Sarah Palin," Johnston said. Bristol Palin's affidavit said her mother is not involved in the custody case, except as a grandmother. But Johnston's lawyer, Rex Butler, said in his own affidavit that his client does not trust closed proceedings because "Sarah Palin is known to deal forcefully with those she perceives as political enemies." "He feels Sarah Palin, through her lawyer, under the guise of Bristol Palin's name, would run roughshod over his very bones," Butler said. The judge's ruling, signed last week, concludes that Bristol Palin "failed to demonstrate that this case involves 'matters of a sensitive and highly personal nature' of such a magnitude that 'protection of the party's name outweighs the public's interest in disclosure.' " Her filing for full custody argued that Levi was "not ready for the demands of parenthood and the sacrifices that would entail to a 19-year-old aspiring actor/model." "Levi remains without a regular job or steady source of income," the petition states. While he's not enrolled in school "to learn a trade or earn a degree," he has made

Levi Johnston is seeking shared custody of Tripp Palin, now a year old . Bristol Palin requested that proceedings be closed to prevent a "media circus" Johnston wanted case kept public to protect himself from ex-fiancee's powerful mom . Unsealed court documents were published online by the Anchorage Daily News .

(CNN) -- An Alaska lottery held to raise money for a group that helps sexual abuse victims had a surprise winner: a convicted sex offender. Alec Ahsoak in an undated photograph. Alec Ahsoak, who according to the state sex offender registry was convicted in 1993 and 2000 for sexual abuse of a minor, came forward Saturday with the winning ticket for the $500,000 Lucky Time Pull Tabs jackpot. Proceeds of the lottery help Standing Together Against Rape in Anchorage, a nonprofit group that offers support to sexual assault victims among other services. "It's not how we had envisioned the story going," Nancy Haag, the group's executive director, told CNN Radio. Alaska has the highest per capita number of rape cases in the United States, according to FBI statistics. "With a ranking that high, it's ironic that the person who wins is a convicted sex offender," Haag added. Ahsoak's past was first revealed by KTUU-TV in Anchorage on Sunday. His attorney, Lance Wells, did not immediately return a call Monday from CNN. Efforts to reach lottery organizer Abe Spicola, who owns Lucky Times Pull Tabs, were unsuccessful late Monday. But Spicola told the Anchorage Daily News that Ahsoak "was going to buy a house and said he was going to donate part of it to God, and, you know, charity." CNN's Samira J. Simone and April Willliams contributed to this report.

Lottery winner reportedly convicted in 1993 and 2000 for sexual abuse of a minor . Proceeds of the lottery help Standing Together Against Rape in Anchorage . FBI: Alaska has the highest per capita number of rape cases in the United States .

(CNN) -- An American graduate student who went to Iraq to find ways to help ordinary citizens persevere in a transitioning government was one of two American civilians killed in a Sadr City bombing. Nicole Suveges, a political scientist working toward her doctorate, died in a Sadr City bombing Tuesday. Nicole Suveges, a married political scientist from Illinois, was part of a program that embeds academics into military units to help personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan navigate the local environment, according to her employer, BAE Systems. Suveges, who started her tour with Human Terrain System in April, had been assigned to support the 3rd Brigade Combat Team for the 4th Infantry Division in "political, cultural, and tribal engagements," a statement from the program said. She was one of four Americans to die in the Sadr City bombing Tuesday. Two U.S. soldiers and a State Department employee, Steven Farley, who worked with the provincial reconstruction team, also were killed in the blast. "Nicole was a leading academic who studied for years on how to improve conditions for others," Doug Belair, president of BAE's Technology Solutions & Services, said in a written statement. "She came to us to give freely of herself in an effort to make a better world." Suveges was the second BAE employee to die in a combat zone this year. Michael V. Bhatia, 31, a social scientist from Medway, Massachusetts, died in a roadside bombing May 7 in Afghanistan, BAE said. Scott Fazekas, BAE's director of communications, said Suveges and Bhatia were among three dozen social scientists hired by the company and its subcontractors to support the program. The Johns Hopkins University graduate student was also working toward a doctorate in political science with an emphasis on international relations. The focus of her dissertation was on the transition from an authoritarian regime to democracy and how it affects ordinary citizens, the university said. "Nicole was committed to using her learning and experience to make the world a better place, especially for people who have suffered through war and conflict," William R. Brody, president of the university, said in a message Wednesday to the campus community. "She exemplifies all that we seek to do at Johns Hopkins: to use knowledge for the good of humanity." Mark Blyth, Suveges' primary faculty adviser, said that when Suveges came to Johns Hopkins, she planned to write her Ph.D. dissertation on how ideas move across borders from society to society, exploring how radical Islamic ideas filtered through Western European mosques. After the outbreak of the Iraq war, Suveges decided to shift her focus to the experience of ordinary citizens under a transitional government, said Blyth, a topic that had interested Suveges since her experience in Bosnia with the SFOR/NATO Combined Joint Psychological Operations Task Force. "She was a very bright, engaging, sweet person, very intellectually curious," Blyth said Wednesday. BAE said Suveges' experience, which included a tour in Iraq as a civilian contractor and a stint in Bosnia in the 1990s as an Army reservist, made her especially valuable in efforts to improve the lives of Iraqis. A Human Terrain System statement said Suveges and others were attending a meeting of the District Advisory Council on Tuesday to elect a new chairman. The officials were helping mediate disputes among the Sadr City leadership and "facilitate the development of a more representative local government," the statement said. The attack was blamed on a Shiite insurgent cell. Suveges graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1992 and received a master's degree in political science from George Washington University in 1998. She had delivered papers to international relations organizations and served as a graduate teaching assistant, the company said. At Johns Hopkins, she was managing editor for the Review of International Political Economy, the university said. Maj. Mike Kenfield, spokesman for the Army's training and doctrine command, said that the program was credited for "reductions in non-lethal operations" and that there had been talk about expanding the purview of the team to outside Iraq and Afghanistan. CNN's Joe

Nicole Suveges, 38, was part of team of academic embeds advising military in Iraq . The political scientist and Johns Hopkins grad student died in Sadr City bombing . Suveges is second Human Terrain System employee to die in combat zone this year . She was also finishing dissertation on citizens in transitioning governments .

(CNN) -- An American human rights group documenting widespread sexual violence against Darfuri women in Sudan and Chad has called for "vigorous prosecution of rape as a war crime." Sudanese women in a refugee camp in southern Chad in March. Physicians for Human Rights, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, issued a report Sunday "documenting the scope and long-term impact of rape and other sexual violence" experienced by women who fled the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur and now live as refugees in neighboring Chad. The report -- titled "Nowhere To Turn: Failure To Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women" -- is based on interviews with 88 female refugees living in Chad's Farchana refugee camp. The study was done with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. "Many Darfuri women refugees live in a nightmare of memories of past trauma compounded by the constant threat of sexual violence around the camps now," said Susannah Sirkin, the physician group's deputy director. "Women who report being raped are stigmatized, and remain trapped in places of perpetual insecurity. There's no one to stop the rapes, no one to turn to for justice for past or ongoing crimes, and little psycho-social support to address their prolonged and unimaginable traumas." Dr. Sondra Crosby, a Physicians for Human Rights consultant and expert in refugee trauma, said "the atmosphere of intimidation was palpable as we listened to women describing their profound suffering and fear, and their yearning to return safely and with dignity to their former lives." Of those refugees interviewed, "32 reported instances of confirmed or highly probable rape" -- 17 in Darfur and 15 in Chad, the group said. "Among the instances of rape reported in Chad, the vast majority (10 of 11 confirmed reports) occurred when women left the camps to gather firewood." And just over half of the 88 women interviewed -- 46 of them -- live in fear of sexual assaults around the refugee camp. The group supports the issuing of International Criminal Court warrants against the Sudanese perpetrators. The group also called for "legal reforms in Chad to end impunity for sexual violence," and for "effective psychosocial support to survivors." And it said increased protections are needed by police and peacekeepers, including "effective firewood patrols." The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 after rebels in the western region of Sudan began attacking government positions. Sudan's government responded with a fierce military campaign that has led to some 200,000 deaths and forced 2 million people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

88 Darfuri women interviewed in Chad described "profound" suffering and fear . Expert in refugee trauma says "the atmosphere of intimidation was palpable" 200,000 people have died, 2 million have fled the region since fighting began in 2003 .

(CNN) -- An American missionary family living in Haiti has been providing virtually nonstop reports about the devastation from Tuesday's earthquake and tracking down information on others serving there. "There is no way to even begin to share the things we've heard and seen since 5 p.m. yesterday," Tara Livesay wrote on the family's blog Wednesday morning. "To do so would take hours that we don't have to give right now. Some of them feel wrong to tell. Like only God should know these personal horrible tragedies." Tara and Troy Livesay are country directors for World Wide Village, a Minnesota-based charitable organization providing Christian education, health care, nutrition and micro-enterprise opportunities to children and families in Haiti. "Sometimes life in Haiti leaves you wondering 'Where are you God?' and other times we witness miracles with our own eyes," they write in their blog profile. Besides Troy and Tara, the household in Port-au-Prince is made up of daughter Paige, 15, and "the crew": Isaac, 8, Hope, 7, Noah, 5, Phoebe Joy, 3, Lydia Beth, 2, Annie, also 2, and Peanut the dog. Some of the children are adopted. Daughter Britt, 19, lives in Texas with her husband, Chris. In addition, there's Jeronne, the children's nanny. ("She is the MVP around here. We love her and think of her as family," the blog says.) Finally, there's Tipap, Troy's assistant, security chief and all-around handyman, who lives at the World Wide Village Guest House. The Livesays see themselves and their efforts as "a work in progress -- trying to make the love of Jesus known while learning to know Him better ourselves." That work since Tuesday evening has been consumed by gathering and reporting information about the quake and accounting for missing missionaries and other people. Troy Livesay's reports came in the form of tweets that alternated between raw descriptions and expressions of hope: "... covered in dust and debris ... we saw a few bodies that had been pulled out of the rubble laying dead in the sidewalk ... many others injured" "Church groups are singing throughout the city all through the night in prayer. It is a beautiful sound in the middle of a horrible tragedy." "The worst damage is in Carrfour (South of Port, near the Palace) we are hearing that many two and three story buildings did not make it." "Tipap made it home from Carrefour - saw many dead bodies and injured along the way - said most buildings w/more than one story are down." "The Haitian people are out praying together -- aftershock happening right now." Share your images and accounts On the blog, Tara Livesay's writing is both pained and eloquent: "The few things we can confirm -- yes the four story Caribbean Market building is completely demolished," she posted. "Yes it was open. Yes the National Palace collapsed. Yes Gov't buildings nearby the Palace collapsed. Yes St Josephs Boys home is completely collapsed. Yes countless countless - countless other houses, churches, hospitals, schools, and businesses have collapsed. There are buildings that suffered almost no damage. Right next door will be a pile of rubble. "Thousands of people are currently trapped. To guess at a number would be like guessing at raindrops in the ocean. Precious lives hang in the balance. When pulled from the rubble there is no place to take them for care Haiti has an almost non existent medical care system for her people. "I cannot imagine what the next few weeks and months will be like. I am afraid for everyone. Never in my life have I seen people stronger than Haitian people. But I am afraid for them. For us. "When the quake hit it took many seconds to even process what was happening. The house was rocking back and forth in a way that I cannot even begin to

Wife blogs, husband tweets after earthquake strikes . Troy, Tara Livesay are missionary couple with houseful of children . Troy issues tweets from streets of Port-au-Prince . Tara addresses emotions of disaster, pleads for prayers .

(CNN) -- An American woman died aboard a cruise ship that docked at Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, the same ship on which 86 passengers previously fell ill, according to the state-run Brazilian news agency, Agencia Brasil. The American tourist died aboard the MS Veendam, owned by cruise operator Holland America. Federal Police told Agencia Brasil that forensic doctors were investigating her death. The ship's doctors told police that the woman was elderly and suffered from diabetes and hypertension, according the agency. The other passengers came down with diarrhea prior to her death during an earlier part of the trip, the ship's doctors said. The Veendam left New York 36 days ago for a South America tour.

The elderly woman suffered from diabetes and hypertension, ship's doctors say . Previously, 86 passengers had fallen ill on the ship, Agencia Brasil says .

(CNN) -- An Arizona man caught leaving water bottles in the desert for illegal immigrants has been sentenced to 300 hours of community service and a year of probation, an aid group said. Walt Staton was convicted in June of littering by leaving jugs of water in a wildlife refuge. Walt Staton, a member of the group No More Deaths, left full water bottles in December in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge for the illegal immigrants who routinely pass through the 18,000-acre refuge, according to court documents. A judge sentenced him Tuesday to 300 hours of picking up trash on public property and a year of probation, No More Deaths said in a written statement. He is also banned from the refuge during that time, the group said. Although the case involved only a misdemeanor charge, both sides used the divisive issue of illegal immigration in their arguments; Staton's lawyer argued that Staton's actions were humanitarian, but the government said otherwise. In a sentencing memo, the federal prosecutors wrote that Staton's "actions are not about humanitarian efforts, but about protesting the immigration policies of the United States, and aiding those that enter illegally into the United States." Noting the phrase scrawled on many of the plastic water jugs -- "buena suerte," or "good luck" in Spanish -- the prosecutors said, "The obvious conclusion is that the defendant and No More Deaths wish to aid illegal aliens in their entry attempt." They also said, as did the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that leaving the full plastic jugs on the refuge is detrimental to the health of the animals that live there. Citing a biologist, the prosecutors said that animals could eat the plastic and that others could get feet or antlers caught on the bottles. Prosecutors had requested a $5,000 fine, along with five years of probation, according to court documents. Staton, who No More Deaths says is to begin seminary school at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California, had initially refused to pay a $175 fine for littering, said Staton's lawyer, Bill Walker. After his refusal, the government enhanced the charges against him, arguing that he "knowingly littered," said Walker, who is also a member of No More Deaths. The charge can carry a $100,000 fine and a year in jail, Walker said. Charges against three other people who were cited with Staton in December were dropped, he said. A jury convicted Staton in June of littering. Walker said he is appealing. "We think that Walt did nothing wrong," he said. "We do not think that this conviction will be upheld on appeal." He described Staton as "the kind of guy you'd want to have as your next door neighbor." A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona declined comment. Mike Hawkes of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge said Thursday that although he had no issue with groups leaving water out for illegal immigrants, "there's ways to do it without leaving plastic jugs out there." He said the plastic jugs were strewn throughout the refuge, which is home to hundreds of bird, reptile and mammal species, according to its Web site. "We have sympathy for what they have to do," he said. But "they have do to do it without putting plastic bottles out there. ... You can't go anywhere in the refuge without seeing plastic bottles through the countryside." Hawkes said refuge officials and members of No More Deaths had met and were trying to come up with methods that don't involve plastic bottles. Staton is the second member of No More Deaths to be convicted of littering, according to court documents; however, the other received a suspended sentence. Walker said that after Staton's conviction, 13 No More Deaths members were charged with littering on the refuge. With tens of thousands of illegal immigrants crossing through the refuge -- Hawkes said last year's number was about 54,000, down from hundreds of thousands years earlier -- the last water-related death there was

No More Deaths member gets 300 hours of community service, year of probation . He left bottles of water in Arizona wildlife refuge for people crossing border . Prosecutors: "Good luck" written on bottles indicated intent to aid illegal immigration . Fish and Wildlife Service said leaving bottles is detrimental to animals .

(CNN) -- An Arkansas TV station has officially replaced former weatherman Brett Cummins, a month after he was found in a tub next to a dead body, the station's news director said. KARK has named Keith Monahan, who had been working at KIAH in Houston, as its new chief meteorologist, said news director Rob Heverling. "As soon as we watched Keith, we knew he was a very good fit," said Heverling. On the morning of August 7, Christopher Barbour said he awoke in his home outside Little Rock and found the body of 24-year-old Dexter Paul Williams in an empty tub, his face blue and purple and a chain around his neck, a Maumelle Police Department report said. Cummins, 33, was asleep next to the corpse, whose head was lying behind the meteorologist's shoulder, Barbour told police, according to the report. The witness said that he awakened Cummins, who screamed after noticing Williams' discolored face and cold skin and ran to the living room, where he vomited next to the couch. Days later, Cummins resigned from his job at the Little Rock-based station, his attorney Mark Hampton said. Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said Thursday that his office should know in the coming weeks if any charges will be filed in relation to Williams' death. The night before the incident, Williams and Cummins arrived together at Barbour's house, Barbour told police. Once there, the three had drunk alcohol and snorted illegal narcotics, though Barbour could not identify the drugs, according to the report. Maumelle police Lt. Jim Hansard said the manner of Williams' death remains "undetermined." He added that the medical examiner cited several contributing factors, including intoxication with methamphetamine and amphetamines. The investigation remains open, and there is "no indication (from the medical examiner) in any way that there was a strangulation," said Hansard.

Keith Monahan to be KARK's new chief meteorologist, the station says . Brett Cummins resigned after being found next to a corpse in an empty tub . The incident occurred at a home outside Little Rock, Arkansas . The cause of the man's death is "undetermined," say police .

(CNN) -- An Arkansas man suspected in a shooting that killed one soldier and wounded another at a Little Rock military recruiting center was angry over the treatment of Muslims, authorities said Tuesday. Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, Arkansas, was killed in Monday's attack. Abdulhakim Bledsoe, 23, of Little Rock, also told police he recently watched a video "pertaining to subversive activities which spurred him to commit this act," according to court documents. Bledsoe pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Tuesday and was ordered held without bail. He faces one count of capital murder and 16 counts of engaging in a terrorist act, said Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas. The terrorist counts stem from the shots fired at an occupied building. Watch scenes from Tuesday in court » Before the not guilty plea, authorities said Bledsoe waived his Miranda rights after the shooting Monday and gave a video statement indicating that "political and religious" motives were involved. He "stated that he was a practicing Muslim ... that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past," homicide detective Tommy Hudson said in a police report. Bledsoe told police "he fired several rounds at the soldiers with the intent of killing them," according to Hudson's report. The suspect is a Muslim convert who has also gone by the names Carlos Bledsoe and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad. He changed his name from the latter April 23, citing religious reasons, court records show. A leader of the Muslim community in Little Rock said he did not know Bledsoe. The suspect had been under investigation after visiting Yemen, a federal law enforcement official said. The official declined to provide further information. Police believe the shooter acted alone "with the specific purpose of targeting military personnel," Thomas said. Kent Krause, Bledsoe's public defender, said a formal hearing would be held for his client, but no date has been set. Residents left flowers and miniature American flags outside the recruiting center after the shooting. A lone candle burned on the sidewalk next to bouquets of white and red roses. A note that said "Thank you for your service" was attached to the flowers. The shooting Monday killed Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, Arkansas, and wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, Arkansas, who were outside the military recruiting center. Bledsoe told police he was driving around and saw Long and Ezeagwula smoking outside the building, according to Hudson's report. He said he pulled into the parking lot and shot the two soldiers and added that "he would have killed more soldiers if they had been on the parking lot," according to the report. Ezeagwula was in stable condition Tuesday, the police chief said. The soldiers were part of a recruiting program called "hometown recruiting assistance," said Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis, commander of the Oklahoma recruiting battalion that oversees the Little Rock Army-Navy recruiting center. Under the program, soldiers tell their stories to potential recruits. It's a volunteer position taken while soldiers are visiting or based back in their home region, Artis said. "I'm relieved there's a suspect in custody," said Capt. Matthew Feehan, commander of the recruiting center. He said several people were in the building at the time of the shooting, but nobody else was injured. Bledsoe was arrested after officers on Interstate 630 pulled over his car, which matched witnesses' description of a black Ford sport utility vehicle seen leaving the scene of the shooting. Police recovered three guns from the suspect's vehicle -- an SKS semi-automatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a .380-caliber automatic pistol, Thomas said. The victims were shot with an SKS rifle, according to the police report. Police also seized from Bledsoe's vehicle and apartment several rounds of ammunition, two homemade silencers, handwritten notes in Arabic, CDs with handwritten Arabic labels, a computer and cell phones, according to court documents. Melvin Bledsoe of Memphis

Police say "political and religious motives" were indicated . Convert said he was angry over military's treatment of Muslims, police say . One soldier killed, one wounded in Monday's shootings .

(CNN) -- An Aruban police dive team will search the site where an underwater photograph was taken that might show human remains, a spokeswoman for the Aruban prosecutor said Saturday. The picture has renewed interest in the nearly 5-year-old Natalee Holloway case. Officials first heard of the picture, taken in October by a vacationing American couple, on Thursday, Ann Angela, a spokeswoman for Aruban prosecutor Peter Blanken, said "We have received the picture, and the diving team of the Aruban police will start doing preliminary work at the spot where we believe it was taken," Angela told CNN. She declined to identify the location, saying authorities want to avoid attracting onlookers during the search. The picture has raised the notion that, if it shows human remains, they could be those of Holloway, an 18-year-old Alabama high school student whose 2005 disappearance while on a graduation trip to Aruba was widely publicized. Holloway was last reported seen leaving a bar in the capital of Oranjestad on May 30. CNN could not independently verify the authenticity of the photo nor confirm whether it shows human remains. Holloway's mother, Beth Twitty, declined to comment on the photo. The photo was taken by a Pennsylvania woman using a disposable film camera during the first stop on her Royal Caribbean cruise. Three months after snapping what she said she thought were pictures of colorful fish, Patti Muldowney and her husband said they realized that one picture contained what they believe appear to be human remains. "When I looked at that photo, I said, 'By darn, that certainly does look like a skeleton,' " John Muldowney told HLN's "Nancy Grace" on Friday. "You can see the skull. You can see where the eye sockets were. You can see where the chin was. "It's lying flat on its back. And its arms are cradled around. You can almost see fingers. And then on the one sleeve it looks like some kind of maybe clothing that's deteriorating." The couple, who took the photo to police and the FBI, said it was taken near a shipwreck. The FBI said Friday that it is investigating. "The photo has been made available to all elements of the FBI that are involved in this foreign police cooperation case," Mike Kortan, assistant director of the FBI's office of public affairs, said in a statement. "Investigative leads are being pursued and the effort is ongoing." The main suspect in the Holloway case, Joran van der Sloot, remains free. Van der Sloot has made alleged confession-like statements in TV interviews, one of which involves dumping Holloway's body in the ocean after she suffered a seizure on the beach. Aruban judges have ruled there isn't enough evidence to arrest him. Whether the object in the photo is human remains is still up for debate. In underwater burials, it is typical for arms, legs and other extremities to be dispersed and for lighter bones to be carried away from heavier bones by fish, wildlife and water, according to Heather Walsh-Haney, a forensic anthropologist. "It looks as if there's something that may be on top of the skeleton," Walsh-Haney said of the image in the photograph. "That would certainly bode well for preserving the center of the mass of the body and keeping most of it there." Dr. Marty Makary, a physician who serves on the faculty at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, said he sees mixed signs, some indicating the image may not be a skeleton. "What I don't like about the photo is there's no spinal cord or vertebral column," he said. "In fact, below this roundish skull-type profile you see a curvature which doesn't really represent a normal spinal column." CNN's Tracy Sabo and Philip Rosenbaum contributed to this report.

Picture has renewed interest in case of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway . Couple took underwater photo near shipwreck during cruise stop in Aruba . Whether the object in the photo is human remains is up for debate . Holloway disappeared during senior trip to Aruba in 2005; no arrests have been made .

(CNN) -- An Australian high court ruled Friday that a quadriplegic man has the right to refuse food and water and can be allowed to die, a rare legal finding that some see as a major victory for right-to-die campaigners. An Australian high court ruled Friday that Christian Rossiter has the right to refuse food and water. The ruling means that the nursing facility in which Christian Rossiter has lived since November 2008 cannot be held criminally liable for allowing the patient to die, the Supreme Court of Western Australia said. "I'm happy that I won my right to die," Rossiter, 49, said afterward. But he added that he will further consult with a doctor because he may change his mind. A leading Australian right-to-die advocate called the ruling a significant victory. "I don't know that many people will want to die this way. But for people who do, it's a very important decision," said Dr. Philip Nitschke, founder and director of Exit International, a leading global voluntary euthanasia and end-of-life advocacy group. Nitschke noted that Rossiter's case is significant because his mind is fully functional. "This is the first time that it's come up with a person that's rational and lucid," Nitschke told CNN. "This is unusual. It's very rare." Chief Justice Wayne Martin noted that distinction in his order, saying, "Mr. Rossiter is not a child, nor is he terminally ill, nor dying. He is not in a vegetative state, nor does he lack the capacity to communicate his wishes. There is therefore no question of other persons making decisions on his behalf. "Rather, this is a case in which a person with full mental capacity and the ability to communicate his wishes has indicated that he wishes to direct those who have assumed responsibility for his care to discontinue the provision of treatment which maintains his existence." Some family and right-to-life groups opposed Rossiter's request. "Really, what we should be doing is looking after each other rather than facilitating an escape," John Barich of the Australian Family Association said in a TV interview. Peter O'Meara, president of Western Australia's Right to Life Association, said, "The law which is being applied can be a dangerous precedent." Rossiter has suffered a series of injuries since 1988 that have left him with limited foot movement and the ability to wriggle only one finger. He is fed through a stomach tube. He relies on staff at the Brightwater Care Group nursing facility in the city of Perth for such routine care as regular turning, cleaning, assistance with bowel movements, physical and occupational therapy and speech pathology. Australian law gives patients the right to refuse life-saving treatment, but helping someone commit suicide is a crime that can carry a life prison sentence. The Brightwater nursing facility sought the ruling to make sure it would not be held liable if it complied with Rossiter's request to stop all nutrition and hydration, except to be given enough liquid to make it possible to take pain medication. Rossiter attended the hearing in a wheelchair, breathing through a tracheotomy tube in his throat. He told the judge he wants to die. It's a point he has been making publicly. "I can't move," Rossiter said in a televised interview this week. "I can't even wipe the tears from my eyes. And I'd like to die. I'm imprisoned in my own body. I have no fear of death. Just pain." Rossiter pointed out in a recent interview with the PerthNow news outlet that he once led an active life. "This is living hell," he is quoted as saying. "I used to be a cyclist, I used to be a keen walker. I bushwalked around the world. ... I've rock climbed in Yosemite Valley in California up very steep cliffs. I've got a degree in economics and now I can't even read a newspaper, I can't turn the pages

Series of accidents in 1988 left Christian Rossiter unable to live normally . Rossiter: "I can't even wipe the tears from my eyes" Ruling means nursing facility cannot be held liable for allowing him to die . Critics fear the ruling will set a dangerous precedent .

(CNN) -- An Australian man and his daughter have created a furor after going on television to admit an incestuous relationship which has produced two children. John Deaves and his daughter Jenny pictured in the 60 Minutes interview. John Deaves, 61, appeared on the 60 Minutes show with daughter Jenny, 39, and their child -- nine-month-old Celeste, Melbourne's The Age newspaper reported. Last month Judge Steven Millsteed banned the couple from having sex with each other, but released them on a three-year, $460 good behavior bond. Court transcripts also revealed their first child died in 2001 from a congenital heart disorder. The couple told 60 Minutes that they fell in love in 2000 when they "discovered each other later in life." Deaves had left the family home when Jenny was a baby, and did not see her again for 30 years. What do you think of the couple's relationship? However, the Age reported Deaves' former wife, Dorothy, disputed their claim that they were virtual strangers when they fell in love. "They were in contact all the time," she said. "His youngest daughter [from his second marriage] didn't even know they were together and she is really traumatized -- she is hurting terrible." Deaves' first wife and Jennifer's mother, Joan, said children deserved a better chance in life than one that originated from incest. Watch video report on incest couple. » "I just think that the whole relationship is dreadful," she told News Ltd. "These incestual [sic] relationships produce children and the children have problems and it's not fair to kids." Professor Freda Briggs, of the University of South Australia, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that a good behavior bond would not stop the pair from having more children. "My controversial suggestion was that in these sorts of circumstances judges should be able to persuade them one way or another," she said. "For the mother for example to have her tubes tied or the father-cum-grandfather to be sterilized." E-mail to a friend

Father and daughter reveal incest on Australian television show . Couple have had two children, with one dying soon after birth . Judge bans couple from having sex to prevent another pregnancy .

(CNN) -- An Australian man sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in prison after his conviction on blasphemy charges in Saudi Arabia is headed home after his punishment was greatly reduced, officials said Thursday. Mansor Almaribe was arrested and convicted in mid November in the city of Medina. Australia had appealed for leniency after popular outcry followed his sentence. Saudi officials responded by pardoning Almaribe from his prison term and reducing the lashing sentence to 75 lashes, the ministry said. "His corporal punishment was also greatly reduced and administered in a way that did not cause physical harm," it said. The ministry did not elaborate on how the lashing was carried out., though observers have suggested the punishment could be done in a largely ceremonial and non-harmful manner. It's unclear if that's what occurred. It's also unclear what the 45-year-old Shia Muslim from Australia's Victoria state said or did to get arrested. Australian officials said they were told Almaribe made comments "insulting to prophet Mohammed's relatives." "I don't think my dad would even survive 50 lashes not 500," his son said last month. "He goes to the doctor every week for checks ups. He has knee injuries and back injuries from a car accident and he also has diabetes and high blood pressure." The family spent weeks searching for the Iraqi-born father of five after he went missing in early November while performing the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Blasphemy is punishable by up to a death sentence under the strict Muslim law in Saudi Arabia.

NEW: Mansor Almaribe received 75 lashes, an Australian foreign ministry spokesman says . Australian officials say they were told he made comments "insulting" to the prophet . It's unclear what the 45-year-old Shia Muslim from Victoria state said or did to get arrested .

(CNN) -- An Australian panel on Thursday suggested changes to the country's Constitution to give better recognition to the indigenous population that inhabited the vast continent long before Europeans settled there. The indigenous Australians -- often referred to as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples -- suffered at the hands of the settlers and the government they established. Australian politicians have since apologized for the past mistreatment, but Aborigines remain disadvantaged socially and economically compared with the overall population. Explicit references to Aborigines in the original Constitution, drafted in the late 19th century, were subsequently deemed to be negative. Australians voted overwhelmingly to remove those points in a 1967 referendum, but many people say the document can be further improved to acknowledge the role of the country's indigenous population. The panel -- which included Aboriginal leaders, business executives, legal experts and members of the main political parties -- handed over its report on Thursday to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, whose government has promised to hold a referendum on the matter by the next general election. After spending the past year gathering opinions from people across Australia's huge territory, the panel faced the delicate task of proposing meaningful changes to the Constitution that would receive support from across the political spectrum. Without the backing of all the major political parties, the proposed measures would have little chance of success at a referendum. And rejection by voters could deal a blow to Australia's self-image. "For many Australians, the failure of a referendum on recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would result in confusion about the nation's values, commitment to racial nondiscrimination, and sense of national identity," the panel said in its report. "The negative impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be profound." The challenge is highlighted by the track record of past efforts to change the Constitution by vote: only eight of the 44 referendum proposals have passed in Australia's history, with the last successful one in 1974. The panel said it had put forward changes that it thought would be likely to secure broad-based approval from Australians. It proposed repealing two provisions that are still considered to have racist connotations: one that allows states to disqualify people of "all persons of any race" from voting at elections; and another that authorizes parliament to make "special laws" for "the people of any race." That recommendation was expected and had already been supported by the government and the opposition. The panel also made the more politically sensitive suggestion of adding a new section that would give Parliament the power to make laws "for the peace, order and good government' of Australia "with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples." That section would include a passage recognizing that "the continent and its islands now known as Australia were first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples." The report also proposed a section prohibiting racial discrimination while still allowing for the possibility of measures to protect and help "any group." Some politicians and commentators had expressed concern before Thursday that the panel may put forward new provisions that, if enacted, would give too much power to the courts to interpret the wording as they saw fit. The government said in a statement that it would "carefully consider the panel's recommendations before determining the best way forward."

A panel proposes new sections for the Australian Constitution to recognize indigenous people . The government says it will consider the recommendations before deciding how to proceed . It has promised a referendum on the issue by the next election . Changes to the Constitution by referendum rarely do well in Australia .

(CNN) -- An Australian pilot landed a company plane in the ocean off Darwin on Friday, in a water landing that prompted comparisons to last month's landing of a US Airways jet in New York's Hudson River. The Australian pilot has been compared to U.S. hero Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, pictured above. The Australian pilot also encountered problems shortly after takeoff. The twin-propeller plane was carrying the pilot and five passengers when it went down shortly after leaving Darwin International Airport, said Neville Blyth, a senior transport safety investigator with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. All those aboard were unhurt and managed to walk to shore, he said. Pictures showed the men from the plane soaked and carrying bags and equipment as they walked through the water. "It's essentially a good story," Blyth said. The ATSB is deciding whether to investigate, he said, and the cause of the incident is still unknown. The Piper Chieftain plane was on its way to the town of Maningrida, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of Darwin, according to its owner, Australian information technology company CSG. Watch the plane ditch in Darwin Harbor » "We would like to congratulate the pilot following all emergency landing and evacuation procedures and his very professional handling of the situation," a CSG statement said. Darwin is in Australia's Northern Territory, on the coast of the Timor Sea. The city's airport is near the water. The plane's trajectory took it over the water, giving the pilot limited opportunities to ditch the plane on land, Blyth said. He said the ocean was a safer option for landing than the beach, where the firmness of the sand was unknown. "Personally, I think the decision was appropriate," Blyth said. Australian media dubbed the captain of the Darwin plane "Sully Lite," comparing him to the captain of the US Airways Airbus jet that landed safely in the Hudson. Pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger was hailed as a hero for landing the plane safely and ensuring that all 155 people on board survived. Asked about the comparisons, Blyth said the connection was tenuous. "The correlation for a water landing is as close as it gets," he said.

Australian pilot lands a company plane in the ocean off Darwin . He and five passengers escape injury after emergency landing . Australian media dubbed pilot "Sully Lite," comparing him to U.S. hero .

(CNN) -- An Australian rugby league player has been charged with dealing drugs just three months after his teammate was served a court notice for the same offence. Chris Houston, who plays for Newcastle Knights in the National Rugby League competition, has been charged with supplying ecstasy and cocaine according to reports in Australian newspapers on Monday. The 25-year-old second-row forward will appear in court next month, and has been suspended by his club. "Newcastle Knights player Chris Houston has been stood down immediately and indefinitely following reports he was charged this afternoon on drug-related allegations," a Knights statement said on Monday. Houston's teammate Danny Wicks was charged with six counts of supplying prohibited drugs and two counts of drug possession in December. Wicks' younger brother and his sister-in-law have also been charged as part of a police investigation into drugs suppliers, along with soccer player Steven Stefanovski. Wicks and Houston both moved to Newcastle from Sydney club St George Illawarra at the end of 2007. Wicks agreed to cancel his $180,000-a-year contract in December, the Sydney Morning Herald reported, while Houston is contracted to the Knights until 2012. It is the second year in a row that the sport has been hit by controversy ahead of a new season, which begins in two weeks. Last year, Manly and Australia fullback Brett Stewart had to be removed from NRL advertisements following allegations of sexual assault. Former Newcastle and Australia star Andrew Johns also made headlines after his retirement in 2007 when he was caught in possession of ecstasy in Britain, and later admitted he had been a regular user of the drug during his career.

Australian rugby league player Chris Houston charged with dealing drugs . He will appear in court next month, accused of supplying cocaine and ecstasy . His Newcastle clubmate Danny Wicks was also charged with dealing in December . Newcastle and Australia star Andrew Johns admitted using ecstasy in 2007 .

(CNN) -- An Australian woman is suing the nation's top four banks for their alleged role in laundering money from her teenage son's $200,000 eBay scam that afforded him a $6,000-a-day playboy lifestyle. Australian media reported that in 2007, the then 14 year old boy was making so much money selling non-existent laptops, mobile phones and watches on eBay he could afford to book a $4300-a-night penthouses overlooking Sydney Harbour, fly friends interstate for lavish parties and hire limousines to take him to the beach. A spokesman for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia confirmed to CNN that the woman from the south coast of New South Wales, who along with her son cannot be named for legal reasons, had launched an action in the Supreme Court seeking damages over the scam. Reports said she was seeking an apology from the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Westpac and NAB for ''unconscionable conduct'' after allegedly allowing her son to open numerous bank accounts with debit cards "without reasonable scrutiny". She claims the banks ignored her or refused to discuss the matter for privacy reasons when she warned them they had issued accounts that were being used by a minor to bank illegal funds, reports said. ''He was an intelligent boy who worked out how to cheat the system and play it for all it was worth,'' she told Australia's Sun Herald newspaper. ''As his parent and legal guardian, I begged the banks to stop giving him accounts and debit cards but each time I got nowhere because of the Privacy Act.'' She said her suspicions were aroused four years ago when her son began spending lavishly. She told the Sun-Herald she later uncovered a log book listing thousands of dollars worth of transactions with eBay. The boy, now 19, allegedly deceived the Commonwealth Bank into opening an account after fronting up to the bank with a birth certificate and a friend over the age of 18 who claimed to be his guardian, according to reports in Australian media. ''Once he secured that, he was able to accumulate check and Visa debit accounts with many other financial institutions including Westpac, the Bank of Queensland, ANZ, Credit Union Australia and the Hume Building Society,'' the mother was quoted as saying in the Sun-Herald report. Police eventually arrested the boy at school after many of the frauds were linked to an IP address attached to a classroom computer. By the time of his arrest, the boy was already allegedly working another scam, milking the $1,500 overdraft facility on a series of debit accounts. In the meantime, reports said, the boy lived a playboy lifestyle with shopping sprees for Versace and Prada clothes and Louis Vuitton luggage. ''There I was, a single mum of two, desperately struggling to put food on the table. He, meanwhile, would stroll in after feasting at the latest fancy restaurant of his choice and chuck me leftovers in a plastic tub,'' she told the Sun-Herald Underneath the exterior, her son was an ''insecure boy out to impress,'' she told the newspaper. Reports said that during the past four years, she had reluctantly handed her son to the police 15 times.

Woman seeks damages over the scam, a bank spokesman says . Reports: She claims banks ignored her after she warned accounts were issued to minor . Boy funded lavish lifestyle with eBay scam .

(CNN) -- An Austrian man who allegedly held his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years has been charged with murdering one of their children, prosecutors say. Josef Fritzl is accused of fathering seven children by his daughter during her 24-year captivity. Austrian State Prosecutor Gerhard Sedlacek told CNN Thursday that Josef Fritzl, 73, was charged with murder because one of the seven children died in infancy. The other six children survived. Fritzl, a retired electrician from Amstetten, 75 kilometers (46 miles) west of Vienna, was also charged with rape, incest, false imprisonment and slavery. The murder charge stems from the death of Fritzl's infant son, Michael Fritzl, who died from lack of medical care, the prosecutor said. Watch as Fritzl is charged with murder » "Although he realized how life-threatening M.F.'s situation was after being born, Josef F. did not call out for help," Sedlacek said, explaining the charge. The trial is expected to begin early in 2009 and if convicted of murder Fritzl could face 10 to 20 years in prison. Austria, like other European countries, has no death penalty. Prosecutors say psychiatric tests show that Fritzl is mentally fit to stand trial but Sedlacek has asked that Fritzl be confined to a "mental asylum." Fritzl kept the daughter and all but three of the children in a cellar beneath his home in Amstetten, Austria, west of Vienna, officials say. Three of the children lived upstairs in the home Fritzl shared with his wife and several of their own children. Fritzl has been in custody since the case came to light in April, sparking worldwide attention. He had explained Elizabeth's disappearance in 1984 by saying the 18-year-old girl had run away from home, a story backed up by letters he forced Elisabeth to write, including one that begged her parents not to look for her. When Elizabeth gained her freedom, she told police her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984 -- weeks before she was reported missing -- her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room, she told police. For the next 24 years, she was constantly raped by her father, resulting in seven children, she said, according to the police statement. Fritzl's daughter and her children have since been receiving counseling although doctors warn that they will take years to recover. Members of the Fritzl family will also be offered the chance to adopt new identities in an effort to help them lead normal lives, officials said. Psychiatrist Max Friedrich, who treated the abducted Austrian teenager Natascha Kampusch, estimated it would take "between five and eight years" for the children to recover from their experiences.

Austrian man who allegedly held daughter for 24 years charged with murder . Prosecutors charge Josef Fritzl with murder because one of the 7 children died . Experts say infant might have survived if Fritzl had arranged for medical care .

(CNN) -- An Austrian man who participated in a Nazi massacre of Jews during World War II and later gained U.S. citizenship has been deported to Austria, U.S. officials said. The Sachsenhausen concentration camp just north of Berlin where the U.S. says Krumpf worked as an SS guard. Josias Krumpf, 83, lived for years after the war in Racine, Wisconsin. The United States revoked his citizenship in 2005 after the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice sought to denaturalize him. Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita Glavin announced Krumpf's deportation Thursday. It was not clear when he arrived in Austria, and representatives of the Austrian Justice Ministry were not immediately available for comment. "His court-ordered removal from the United States to Austria is another milestone in the government's long-running effort to ensure that individuals who participated in crimes against humanity do not find sanctuary in this country," Glavin said. The United States removed Krumpf because of his participation in that and other Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution during the war, Glavin said. Krumpf admits standing watch on November 3, 1943, as SS guards at the Trawniki Labor Camp in Poland shot and killed 8,000 Jews, including women and 400 children, in pits. Glavin said Krumpf said he had orders to shoot any prisoners who survived. Krumpf also served as an SS guard at the Nazi-run Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany and at slave labor sites in Nazi-occupied France, where prisoners under his watch built launching platforms for German missile attacks on England, Glavin said. The November 1943 shooting was part of a larger Nazi operation called "Aktion Erntefest," or "Operation Harvest Festival," that led to the deaths of 42,000 Jews at three camps in eastern Poland in two days, the Justice Department said. At Trawniki, Krumpf said, he was assigned to watch for victims who were still "halfway alive" or "convulsing" and prevent their escape by shooting them to death, the Justice Department said. Krumpf, who was born in Serbia, immigrated to the United States in 1956 and became a U.S. citizen in 1964. His removal to Austria is part of an effort by several U.S. government departments and law enforcement agencies to identify and prosecute participants in Nazi crimes of persecution who live in the United States, the Justice Department said. The Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) started the operation in 1979 and has since won cases against 107 alleged Nazi criminals, the Justice Department said. The OSI also has a watch list for World War II war criminals that has prevented the entry of more than 180 people into the United States, the Justice Department said.

Josias Krumpf lived for years in Wisconsin before being deported to Austria . The 83 year old admits he shot survivors during a masscare in Poland in 1943 . The U.S. revoked his citizenship in 2005, deported him to Austria this week . His removal is part of a U.S. effort to identify and prosecute Nazi war criminals .

(CNN) -- An Egyptian court on Thursday confirmed the death sentences of a business tycoon and a former police officer convicted of killing rising Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim. Hisham Talaat Moustafa, a real estate mogul, has been found guilty of Suzanne Tamim's murder. In a case that has captivated Egypt and the region because of the fame of the victim and one of the defendants, a judge sentenced to death real estate mogul Hisham Talaat Moustafa and former officer Muhsen el Sukkari last month. Tamim's body was found stabbed, with her throat slit, in her apartment in the United Arab Emirates in July 2008. The court's latest decision came after a review of the sentence by Egypt's grand mufti, the country's highest religious official. Because the two men were sentenced under Islamic law, it is widely expected they will be hanged. The court usually seeks to get the Mufti's "advice only on any death sentence, according to the law," a legal source in Cairo told CNN. "However, the Mufti's advice to the court is not binding at all," added the source, who asked not to be named. "Even if the Mufti was against the death sentence, that will not have any effect on the judge's decision, who will have the final say," the source said. Since his 2003 appointment as grand mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa has received about 480 cases from the court that included death sentences. He supported the judge's decision in 478 and opposed twice, but the rule was implemented according to the court conviction. Moustafa's lawyer previously told reporters that he would appeal the conviction, saying there was "a 1 million percent guarantee" the sentence would be overturned. Prosecutors alleged Moustafa, a parliament member for the ruling National Democratic Party, paid el Sukkari $2 million to kill Tamim. During the trial, Moustafa's lawyer told CNN his client loved the singer but could not take Tamim as a second wife because his family objected. Polygamy is legal in Egypt, and it's not unusual for men such as Moustafa, a married father of three, to take on additional wives. Prosecutors have said Tamim's death was a "means of taking revenge" but have not elaborated. Moustafa and el Sukkari claim the prosecution's evidence could have been fabricated or tampered with by UAE authorities and should not be used against them. Although Tamim was killed in the UAE, the Egyptian judiciary tried the case in Cairo because the accused were arrested in Egypt. After Moustafa's arrest in September, Egyptian authorities indicted him, stripped him of his parliamentary immunity and jailed him pending trial. He also resigned as chairman of Talaat Moustafa Group -- a conglomerate with construction and real estate arms that was founded by his father, Talaat Moustafa. Moustafa's brother, Tarek Talaat Moustafa, now chairs the company. CNN.com Arabic's Mahmoud Gharib contributed to this story.

Egyptian mogul and ex-police officer guilty of Lebanese singer Tamim's murder . Her body was found in apartment in United Arab Emirates . Prosecutors alleged Moustafa paid ex-officer el Sukkari $2M to kill Tamim . Moustafa, el Sukkari say prosecution's evidence could have been made up .

(CNN) -- An Ethiopian-flagged vessel fought off a pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden earlier this week, the multi-national anti-piracy task force said Thursday. The MV Andinet, part of the Ethiopian Shipping Line, was approached by two pirate skiffs Monday, with one of them coming close enough to fire automatic weapons in an attempt to force the ship to stop, the task force said in a statement. But the vessel's crew used anti-piracy measures -- including firing flares in the air and utilizing fire hoses, as well as "evasive maneuvering" -- to repel the pirates, Combined Maritime Forces said. After a distress call was sent out, the USS Farragut, a U.S. Navy destroyer assigned to the task force, deployed her SH-80 helicopter to follow the skiffs, and the USS Porter gave chase as well, the task force said. "A boarding team from the USS Farragut subsequently stopped and boarded the pirate skiffs, but only an empty magazine and used rounds were found on board." "The MV Andinet once against demonstrated that even basic preventive measures can save a crew from a successful pirate attack," said Commodore Tim Lowe of Britain's Royal Navy, deputy commander of the Combined Maritime Forces. "Although there is (a) significant international naval presence in the Gulf of Aden, these warships cannot be everywhere and may not always be close at hand to prevent an attack." The incident occurred about 145 miles east of Aden, Yemen. The task force advocates that commercial and civilian vessels in the region implement anti-piracy measures such as maintaining a 24-hour lookout, traveling in convoys and using high-intensity lighting.

MV Andinet, part of the Ethiopian Shipping Line, was approached by two pirate skiffs Monday . Crew used anti-piracy measures -- including firing flares and evasive maneuvering -- to repel pirates . Warships from international anti-piracy task force gave chase but only found empty skiff .

(CNN) -- An Illinois sheriff filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the owners of craigslist, accusing the popular national classified-ad Web site of knowingly promoting prostitution. "Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation," says Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart. Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart wants craigslist to eliminate its Erotic Services section. "Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation," Dart said. "Missing children, runaways, abused women and women trafficked in from foreign countries are routinely forced to have sex with strangers because they're being pimped on craigslist." The FBI found more than 2,800 child prostitution ads posted on craigslist, with Chicago, Illinois, in the top 10 cities for juvenile prostitution, Dart said. The sheriff also noted instances of what he said was child neglect while parents were engaged in activity solicited on the Web site. In an e-mailed statement, craigslist told CNN it had not seen Dart's complaint but that "craigslist is an extremely unwise choice for those intent on committing crimes, since criminals inevitably leave an electronic trail to themselves that law enforcement officers will follow." "On a daily basis, we are being of direct assistance to police departments and federal authorities nationwide," spokeswoman Susan McTavish said. "Misuse of craigslist to facilitate criminal activity is unacceptable, and we continue to work diligently to prevent it," she said. "Misuse of the site is exceptionally rare compared to how much the site is used for legal purposes. Regardless, any misuse of the site is not tolerated on craigslist." But Dart said that the Web site for two years has ignored his written requests to shut down the Erotic Services section and failed to take action or adequately monitor the section despite hundreds of arrests. "Pimps are preying on the most vulnerable members of our society and taking advantage of our struggling economy," he said. "The worst part is craigslist's owners know their Web site is still being used for illegal purposes and they're doing nothing to stop it." Craigslist entered into an agreement with 43 states' attorneys general in November to enact measures that impose restrictions on its Erotic Services section. The agreement called for the Web site to implement a phone verification system for listings that required ad posters to provide a real telephone number that would be called before the ad went public. Craigslist also imposed listing fees, requiring a credit card, for ads in the section. The proceeds were to be donated to charity. Dart called the fees "dirty money" and said the move was a "publicity stunt" that had little practical effect because pimps use stolen credit cards or post ads in free sections.

Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart wants craigslist to cut Erotic Services section . Dart said that the Web site for 2 years ignored his requests to cut section . "Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation," says Dart . We help police fight illegal activity "on a daily basis," says craigslist spokeswoman .

(CNN) -- An Indiana judge Monday froze the assets of Marcus Schrenker, a suburban Indianapolis financial manager who authorities say tried to fake his own death by crashing his private plane into a Florida swamp. Marcus Schrenker exited his small plane before it crashed, and investigators are looking for him, police say. Investigators looking into his business dealings for possible securities violations requested the temporary restraining order in Hamilton County Superior Court, said Jim Gavin, spokesman for the Indiana Secretary of State. He said the order, which also applies to Schrenker's wife, Michelle, and to his three companies, is aimed at protecting investors, and is related to a receivership filing. He didn't elaborate. Heritage Wealth Management, Heritage Insurance Services and Icon Wealth Management are "the subjects of an active investigation by the Indiana Securities Division," Gavin said. Public documents list Schrenker as president of Heritage Wealth Management in Fishers, Indiana. A search warrant related to the inquiry was served December 31, Gavin said. According to The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Indiana, Michelle Schrenker filed for divorce in Hamilton Superior Court on December 30. A hearing was set for February 5. Schrenker, 38, took off alone Sunday night in a corporate plane, a Piper PA-46, from Anderson, Indiana, en route to Destin, Florida. Authorities said the Fisher, Indiana, businessman parachuted to the ground before letting the plane crash in the Florida panhandle. The craft came down near the Blackwater River, only 50 to 75 yards from homes, said Sgt. Scott Haines of the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office. Watch more about the mysterious flight » "It is a neighborhood -- some very nice waterfront property," he said. Military aircraft from Whiting Field, which were dispatched to intercept the plane after Schrenker reported an emergency, witnessed the crash about 9:15 p.m. CT. The crews fired flares and noticed the plane's door was open and the cockpit was dark, Haines said in a news release. They got no response. Haines said the plane appeared to have been put on autopilot at around 2,000 feet, over the Birmingham, Alabama, area, before the pilot parachuted to the ground. Schrenker had contacted air traffic controllers, saying that the windshield imploded. "The pilot stated that he was bleeding profusely," the news release said. "Radio contact with the plane was not able to be established after that point. When deputies located the plane at the crash site, no blood was present and the door to the plane was open." The Childersburg, Alabama, Police Department reported that Schrenker approached one of its officers shortly before 2:30 a.m., "and said that he had been in a canoeing accident with some friends," a news release said. Childersburg is about 35 miles southeast of Birmingham. Childersburg officers, unaware of the plane crash, took Schrenker to a hotel in nearby Harpersville. After hearing about the crash, they went back to the hotel, where they found that Schrenker had checked into the hotel under a fictitious name. "When authorities entered Schrenker's room, he was not there," the release said. Authorities said Schrenker checked in under a fake name, put on a black cap and fled into a wooded area. Hotel manager Yogi Patel, who identified Schrenker on surveillance video, told CNN that Schrenker was the only guest overnight. He signed in as Jason Galouzs of Bolingbrook, Illinois, Patel said. A hotel employee said Schrenker went up to his room, but didn't enter before leaving the building. iReport.com: Are you near the crash site? Tell us about it Steve Darlington, manager of Anderson Municipal Airport, told CNN the plane was in fine condition at takeoff, and said Schrenker is "an accomplished pilot" who owns "a couple of airplanes" and flies regularly. No agency has come forward to lead the probe. "The FBI is looking into the matter, along with other agencies," said Paul Draymond, of the Birmingham FBI office. Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration,

Authorities say pilot tried to fake his own death by crashing his private plane . Officials searching for Marcus Schrenker, who they say parachuted out of plane . Investigators looking into possible securities violations request the restraining order . Manager in Alabama says Schrenker was his only guest at hotel overnight .

(CNN) -- An Indonesian fisherman has been killed by Komodo dragons after he was attacked while trespassing on a remote island in search of fruit, officials said Tuesday. Komodo dragons kill their prey with an extremely toxic bite. Muhamad Anwar, 32, bled to death on his way to hospital after being mauled by the reptiles at Loh Sriaya, in eastern Indonesia's Komodo National Park, the park's general manager Fransiskus Harum told CNN. "The fisherman was inside the park when he went looking for sugar-apples. The area was forbidden for people to enter as there are a lot of wild dragons," Harum said. Other fisherman took Anwar to a clinic on nearby Flores Island, east of Bali, but he was declared dead on arrival, he added. Komodo dragons, the world's heaviest lizards, can grow up to 3 meters (10 feet) in length and have a toxic bite that they use to kill prey such as buffalo, returning to feast when the animal succumbs to the poison. Despite their ungainly appearance, the carnivorous reptiles can run as fast as a dog in short bursts, jump up on their hind legs, and kill animals with a blow of their powerful tails. Attacks on humans are rare, but Monday's incident is the latest in a series in which the monster lizards -- which have forked tongues and fearsome claws --have killed or injured people. Last month a park ranger survived after a Komodo dragon climbed the ladder into his hut and savaged his hand and foot. In 2007 an eight-year-old boy died after being mauled. In June last year, a group of divers who were stranded on an island in the national park -- the dragons' only natural habitat -- had to fend off several attacks from the reptiles before they were rescued. Park rangers also tell the cautionary tale of a Swiss tourist who vanished leaving nothing but a pair of spectacles and a camera after an encounter with the dragons several years ago. An endangered species, Komodo are believed to number less than 4,000 in the wild. Access to their habitat is restricted, but tourists can get permits to see them in the wild within the National Park. All visitors are accompanied by rangers, about 70 of whom are deployed across the park's 60,000 hectares of vegetation and 120,000 hectares of ocean. Despite a threat of poachers, Komodo dragon numbers are believed to have stabilized in recent years, bolstered by successful breeding campaigns in captivity. On Monday, a zoo in Surabaya on the Indonesian island of Java reported the arrival of 32 newborn Komodos after the babies all hatched in the past two weeks, the Jakarta Post reported.

Fisherman was trespassing on island when dragons attacked . Muhamad Anwar died from heavy bleeding on his way to hospital . Komodo dragon attacks on humans are rare .

(CNN) -- An Internet auction to sell off the plaster cast that New Zealand Prime Minister John Key wore when he broke his right arm has raised close to NZ$ 20,000 for charity. John Key wears the cast during a TV interview on Friday. The online auction ended Sunday with a winning bid of NZ$18,500 (US$ 9,362), according to the New Zealand shopping Web site TradeMe, which conducted the bidding. The prime minister broke his arm in two places on January 17 when he tripped on some stairs at a Chinese New Year event in Auckland. Later, during a trip to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands for a Pacific Islands Forum meeting, several dignitaries -- including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd -- signed Kay's blue cast. The money will benefit the Fred Hollows Foundation in blindness prevention programs in the Pacific. The TradeMe listing said the foundation estimates there are about 5,000 blind people in the Islands, mainly needing cataract surgery. Another 15,000 suffer from poor vision and need eyeglasses. "I am very surprised it got to that ... but I am delighted," New Zealand's national news agency quoted Key as saying about the winning bid. The cast, which was removed this weekend, is in "excellent condition," Key said. "Though I don't know whether is is $20,000 worth of condition." Bidders and curious clickers posed more than 180 questions during the auction period. "Does it come with the arm?" asked one. Another wanted to know if there was a chance of the the winner and Key "exchanging numbers and hanging out in the future if we hit it off?" A third asked: "If I was successful with this auction do I also have ownership and rights to any genetic material that may (have been) left inside the cast and the right to clone it if I choose to?" That person was told he or she would have to "negotiate with John's lawyers for that particular right." The winning bidder was a headstone maker from Wellington, according to NZPA, the news agency.

Auction to sell cast New Zealand's PM wore when he broke arm sold for charity . Online auction ended Sunday with winning bid of NZ$18,500 (US$ 9,362) John Key broke his arm in two places when he tripped on stairs in Auckland .

(CNN) -- An Iranian human-rights activist and Nobel laureate has joined the legal team of an Iranian-American journalist convicted of spying and jailed in Iran. Shirin Ebadi, a civil rights leader in Iran, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. Shirin Ebadi, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, took up the case of Roxana Saberi at the request of Saberi's family, her father, Reza Saberi, told CNN Wednesday. Ebadi heads the Center for Defenders of Human Rights in Iran. Saberi, 31, was sentenced Saturday to eight years in prison after a one-day trial that was closed to the public. President Obama, as well as other U.S. and international officials sharply denounced the decision. The Rev. Jesse Jackson has offered to travel to Iran to help seek Saberi's release. "If our voices are heard in Iran today, I would be anxious to travel with a delegation to Iran, if we are permitted, and make an appeal for her freedom," said the longtime civil rights activist, according to his Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Jackson, 67, spoke Tuesday at a peace conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "Whenever we've brought people out of captivity, whether in Syria, Cuba, Iraq or Yugoslavia, or Liberia, it's always opened a diplomatic door to reduce tensions," he said. Saberi's attorneys said they will appeal her conviction. Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi ordered the head of Tehran's Justice Department to make sure the appeals process is quick and fair. Jackson has offered in the past to help release American hostages, most recently in 2005. At that time, he said he was willing to use his role as a religious leader to help secure the release of Roy Hallums, who was kidnapped along with five others in Baghdad in November 2004. Hallums was freed in September 2005 when U.S. troops raided the farmhouse where he being held outside Baghdad. In 1984, Jackson secured the release of a Navy pilot held in Syria. In 1991, he helped secure the release of 500 "international guests" held in Iraq. And in 1999, he persuaded Yugoslavia to release three U.S. soldiers held there during the Kosovo conflict. Obama has called for Saberi's release, saying he is "gravely concerned with her safety and well-being." Watch how U.S.-Iranian relations are complicated » "We are working to make sure that she is properly treated, and to get more information about the disposition of her case," Obama said Sunday. "She is an American citizen, and I have complete confidence that she was not engaging in any sort of espionage." Iranian officials initially said Saberi was held for buying a bottle of wine. The Foreign Ministry later said she was detained for reporting without proper credentials. Saberi, who comes from North Dakota, has been living in Iran since 2003, said the Committee to Protect Journalists, a journalists' advocacy group. She has freelanced for National Public Radio and other news organizations, and was writing a book about Iranian culture. Iranian authorities revoked her press credentials in 2006, but Saberi continued to file short news items without permission, the journalists' group said. Saberi was detained in January, although no formal charges were disclosed. On April 9, word emerged that Saberi had been charged with espionage. "Without press credentials and under the name of being a reporter, she was carrying out espionage activities," Hassan Haddad, a deputy public prosecutor, told the Iranian Students News Agency. Authorities also said Saberi had confessed. Her father said he thinks she was coerced into making damaging statements. CNN's Shirzad Bozorgmehr contributed to this report.

2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi offers to help in Iran . Ebadi heads the Center for Defenders of Human Rights in Iran . Journalist Roxana Saberi worked for NPR, was writing a book, accused of spying . Rev. Jesse Jackson offers to go to Iran to help negotiate Saberi's release .

(CNN) -- An Iranian-American ex-Marine accused of spying on his ancestral homeland helped develop an electronic translator for U.S. troops but wouldn't have been involved in espionage, a onetime colleague said Wednesday. Iranian state television aired what it called a "confession" by 28-year-old Amir Hekmati over the weekend. His family said Tuesday that he was arrested in August while visiting his grandmother and other relatives in Iran, and that his statement had to have been coerced. "It just doesn't sound like Amir to me," said Sherri Condon, a software engineer who worked with Hekmati in 2008 and 2009 on an effort to develop a two-way, hand-held electronic translator. Condon was the lead author of a 2008 paper describing the research. She thanks Hekmati in the acknowledgments. She described him as "an entrepreneurial guy" who sent colleagues a holiday card with a quote from Benjamin Franklin: "Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." "I really like him," said Condon, who identified Hekmati from the images released by Iranian state television. "He wasn't too nose-to-the-grindstone, but he really worked and put out good effort on behalf of these programs we worked with." The work, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, was aimed at improving communications between U.S. troops and local populations -- a problem with which Hekmati had grappled during service with the Marines in Iraq. He appeared in a video that touted the "souped-up iPods," and he described how American troops sometimes lost hours waiting for a translator to help them pose simple questions. "He knew enough to be very helpful for us, and he was very helpful to us in terms of understanding the context in which the devices might be used," Condon said. "He had the military experience." The Arizona-born, Michigan-raised Hekmati joined the Marines in August 2001, after high school. His four-year hitch included an assignment to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and a six-month deployment in Iraq in 2004, according to U.S. military records. In 2006, after leaving the service, he started his own linguistics company and began offering his services as an English-to-Arabic translator, according to Michigan incorporation records. He contracted his services to the military as well as civilian businesses, offering training in cultural competency and working with troops at military bases to promote understanding of and positive communication with people of other cultures, his family said. In 2010, he spent five months working as a research manager for defense contractor BAE, company spokesman Brian Roehrkasse told CNN. And Condon said Hekmati recently worked for a company that produced language-training material for the U.S. military. The United States and Iran have no direct diplomatic relations, but Hekmati's family said he made the trip after obtaining permission from the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. The interests section has not responded to CNN requests for comment. News of Hekmati's detention is the latest turn in a series of allegations of espionage and plotting between Washington and Tehran, following the capture of a U.S. surveillance drone by Iran, Iranian claims to have arrested a dozen CIA spies and U.S. allegations that Iran sought to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. Hekmati's family said that after his August 29 arrest, Iranian officials told them to remain silent "with the promise of an eventual release," but they went public after Iranian television aired the accusations and Hekmati's statement on Sunday. In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Tuesday that Hekmati is being falsely accused, but had no further comment. Condon said she fears Hekmati's military history drew him unwelcome attention in Iran. "I can't begin to imagine what must have been in their minds, but I agree he wouldn't have been involved in any spying," she said. She said she has worked with other people who

"It just doesn't sound like Amir to me," a former colleague says . Hekmati's military experience helped in testing translation devices, she says . The Arizona-born, Michigan-raised ex-Marine has been jailed in Iran since August . Iran accuses him of spying; his family and U.S. officials say that's untrue .

(CNN) -- An Irish bishop resigned Wednesday following a government report into the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy -- the second to do so. Bishop Jim Moriarty was not directly criticized in the Murphy Report, but was a member of the Dublin archdiocese leadership for more than a decade before it put proper protections for children in place, he said. Moriarty said he "should have challenged the prevailing culture" of protecting the church rather than children when he was an auxiliary bishop in Dublin from 1991 to 2002. "I know that any action now on my part does not take away the suffering that people have endured," he said in a written statement. "I again apologize to all the survivors and their families. I have today offered my resignation as bishop of Kildare & Leighlin to the Holy Father. I hope it honors the truth that the survivors have so bravely uncovered and opens the way to a better future for all concerned." The Vatican had no immediate comment on the resignation. Moriarty has been a priest for 48 years, he said in the statement. "I fully accept the overall conclusion ... that the attempts by church authorities to 'protect the church' and to 'avoid scandal' had the most dreadful consequences for children and were deeply wrong," Moriarty said after the government report came out last month. Bishop Donal Murray, the bishop of Limerick, resigned on December 17. Murray was named in the 720-page report that found the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Catholic Church authorities in Ireland covered up clerical child abuse from 1975 to 2004. Child sexual abuse was "widespread" then, the report found. The report by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, which was set up in March 2006 to look into the abuse allegations, did not say Murray was guilty of abuse but that he failed to report it. Murray was "aware for many years of complaints and/or suspicions of clerical child sexual abuse in the archdiocese," the report found. It said he dealt "badly" with a number of complaints and suspicions of abuse, and that his failings in at least one instance were "inexcusable." Murray resigned under a canon law that requires bishops who have become unsuited for the fulfillment of their office to resign, the Vatican said. Pope Benedict XVI met with senior Irish bishops at the Vatican a week before Murray's resignation and said he was "deeply disturbed and distressed" by the report's findings. He promised that the Catholic Church would try to develop strategies to make sure the abuses don't happen again. CNN's Hada Messia in Rome, Italy, contributed to this report.

Irish bishop resigns after government report on sex abuse of children by Catholic clergy . Bishop Jim Moriarty was not directly criticized in the Murphy Report . He was a member of Dublin archdiocese leadership before it put proper protections in place . Donal Murray, Limerick bishop, resigned in December after being named in abuse cover up .

(CNN) -- An Irish bishop resigned amid a Catholic church sex abuse scandal, apologizing in a statement Wednesday for any abuse that occurred in his diocese. Bishop John Magee of the diocese of Cloyne said he tendered his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI on March 9. "I have been informed today that it has been accepted, and as I depart, I want to offer once again my sincere apologies to any person who has been abused by any priest of the Diocese of Cloyne during my time as bishop or at any time," Magee said in a statement posted on the diocese Web site. "To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon." Child abuse by Catholic clergy in Ireland has become such a widespread scandal that the pope addressed it in an unprecedented pastoral letter to Irish Catholics. Benedict said he was "truly sorry" for the abuse. The pope addressed the crisis that has rocked the Irish Catholic Church in an 18-page pastoral letter, which was made public Saturday. Critics said the pope did not go far enough in the letter. The acceptance of Magee's resignation came only days after the pope's letter was published. The leader of Ireland's Roman Catholics, Cardinal Sean Brady, wished Magee well in a statement, but said he had to focus on the victims of abuse. "Foremost in my thoughts in these days are those who have suffered abuse by clergy and those who feel angry and let down by the often inadequate response of leaders in the Church," said Brady, who has himself come under fire for failing to report what he learned during an investigation into a priest who became one of Ireland's most notorious child abusers. Brady was part of an internal Church investigation into Father Brendan Smyth in 1975. He did not report his findings to the police and asked two teenagers who gave him evidence to sign oaths of secrecy. In the past five years, Ireland's Catholic Church has had three separate outside investigations into child abuse -- both sexual and physical -- by priests, nuns, and staff at Catholic-run institutions such as schools and orphanages. Four bishops tendered their resignations in the wake of the most recent, the Murphy Report, which found a widespread tendency to cover up child abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin between 1975 and 2004. Only one of those resignations has been accepted -- that of Bishop Donal Murray on December 17. The resignation of Bishop Magee is not related to any of the recent statutory reports, said Patsy McGarry, religious affairs correspondent for the Irish Times newspaper. Instead, it is rooted in an internal church report on child protection practices in his Cloyne diocese in southern Ireland. In 2008 the Catholic Church's own child protection watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland conducted an audit of child protection practices in every diocese in Ireland, McGarry explained. It found those to be "inadequate, and in some respects dangerous" in Cloyne diocese. Its findings were published in December 2008, prompting calls for Magee to resign. Magee did not resign, but he was effectively stripped of his authority in March 2009, when Archbishop Dermot Clifford of the neighboring diocese of Cashel and Emly was appointed "apostolic administrator" of Cloyne diocese. The Murphy Commission -- which produced the report into the Dublin archdiocese -- is now investigating Cloyne diocese, McGarry said. It is expected to report later this year. Magee, 73, had been bishop of Cloyne since March 1987, according to the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference. Bishops normally retire at 75. CNN's Diana Magnay contributed to this report

Vatican accepts Bishop John Magee's resignation amid abuse scandal . Magee apologized for abuse commited by priests in his diocese . Magee, 73, had been bishop of Cloyne since March 1987 . Five Irish bishops have tendered their resignations since December .

(CNN) -- An Islamic militia took over two strategic towns in Somalia Tuesday in a territory grab by the strengthening insurgency, a regional commander told CNN. Islamist fighters from Al-Shabaab group in Somalia display their flag. The al-Shabaab militia seized the cities of Bulo Marer and Quryoley from the U.N.-backed government and its Ethiopian allies. The move gives the group a strategic base in central Somalia, where it also controls Kismayo, the country's third-largest city. Al-Shabaab is an offshoot of an Islamic party that ruled much of the country in the second half of 2006 and aims to impose Islamic sharia law in Somalia. Nur Shekoy Jabril, the commander of government forces in Quryoley, said his troops withdrew from the two towns after they faced being overwhelmed by the al-Shabaab force. He said al-Shabaab forces were moving toward Merka, another major town in the region where the Untied Nations uses an air strip to fly in supplies for the World Food Programme. Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991, is in the throes of an Islamic insurgency which is battling for control of the country and the ouster of Ethiopian forces. A cease-fire between the some of the Islamic fighters and the Somali transitional government takes effect on Wednesday. The agreement was brokered by the United Nations and the African Union and signed late last month in Djibouti. It calls for Ethiopian forces -- who are supporting the transitional government forces -- to withdraw starting on November 21. It is unclear if the cease-fire will hold as it has already been rejected by Al Shabaab. Somalia's lawlessness also spilled onto the seas off the Horn of Africa, where international vessels are routinely hijacked by suspected Somali pirates who demand large ransoms.

The al-Shabaab militia seized the cities of Bulo Marer and Quryoley . The move gives it a strategic base in central Somalia . Al-Shabaab an offshoot of Islamic party that ruled in Somalia for much of 2006 . The group aims to impose Islamic sharia law in Somalia .

(CNN) -- An Ohio distributor is recalling about 6 million Chinese-made tire valve stems after concluding that some of them were improperly made and could increase the risk of accidents. An Ohio distributor is recalling 6 million Chinese-made car tire valve stems. Tech International, the part's Johnstown, Ohio-based distributor, estimates that just 8,600 of roughly 6 million of those valves are defective. The valve is a replacement snap-in tire valve -- Model No. TR413 -- manufactured between July and November 2006. It was imported by Tech International from manufacturer Shanghai Baolong Industries Co. in Shanghai, China, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to the recall, the rubber part of the valve may crack after being in use for about six months, causing a gradual loss of tire pressure. Continuing to drive on underinflated tires can cause them to burst, possibly leading to crashes. Tech International told the NHTSA that the company doesn't have records of the final purchasers of the valve stems. According to the company, the defect was identified after "a small number" of the valves were reported by customers and one distributor to have failed. The samples were shipped to China, and, in March, Baolong concluded that some valves could be defective. "The cause of the defect is likely improper mixing of the rubber compound in the manufacturer's facility," Tech International wrote in a letter to the transportation safety authority.

Ohio-based distributor says valves aren't working properly, could cause accidents . Tech International estimates that just 8,600 of 6 million are defective . Snap-in tire valve, Model TR413, was made between July and November 2006 . Continuing to drive on underinflated tires can cause them to burst .

(CNN) -- An Ohio firefighter faces jail time and may lose his job for shooting his two dogs to death rather than pay to board them while he went on a cruise. Columbus, Ohio, firefighter David Santuomo shot his two dogs in his home's basement, prosecutors say. Columbus firefighter David P. Santuomo, 43, took Sloopy and Skeeter to his home's basement, suspended them from a pipe near the ceiling and fired at least 11 shots from a .22-caliber rifle fitted with a homemade silencer, Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Ron J. O'Brien said. Santuomo then wrapped the carcasses in plastic and dumped them in a trash bin behind Firehouse 27, where he worked, O'Brien said. "This is pretty heinous," said Cheri Miller, spokeswoman for the Capital Area Humane Society, which carried out a search warrant in Santuomo's home. The humane society has limited law enforcement powers in Franklin County. Santuomo pleaded guilty in June to two misdemeanor counts of improperly killing a companion animal and a felony count of possession of a criminal tool. Santuomo had fashioned a makeshift silencer by taping a 2-liter soda bottle to the end of the rifle. The incident happened in December. Miller said appalled fellow firefighters turned Santuomo in to authorities. "There were reports that he was bragging about this," she said. Santuomo initially told investigators the dogs had ingested antifreeze and he killed them to put them out of their misery, Miller said. However, after necropsies showed the dogs were not poisoned, the firefighter admitted shooting them because he couldn't afford to board them, she said. Public records show Santuomo has twice filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and underwent a home foreclosure in 2003. The Columbus Division of Fire has received more than 2,000 outraged e-mails and calls from the public, said Battalion Chief David Whiting, the department's spokesman. "People are not very happy," he said. "We had people say they should do to him what he's done to the dogs. A lot of people want him fired. They don't want him coming into their house. They're worried about their animals; they're worried about their kids. They'd just as soon let their house burn down if he shows up." The Division of Fire has concluded an internal investigation, including interviews with Santuomo, Whiting said. The report now goes to Fire Chief Ned Pettus Jr., who will schedule a disciplinary hearing. Punishment, if any, could range from a verbal reprimand to firing, Whiting said. With appeals and possible arbitration, the whole process could take a month or more, he said. In the meantime, Santuomo is working in the division's fire alarm office, "where he is not dealing face to face with the public," Whiting said. If he remains employed with the fire division, he will return to his regular assignment, though that could bring a new set of challenges, Whiting added. "If someone did this that worked next to you at work, how would you feel about working with him?" Whiting asked. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. ... There are a lot of options." Santuomo has only minor disciplinary matters, such as tardiness, in his record, Whiting said. Santuomo was sentenced to 90 days in jail, to be served in 10-day increments over the next two years. He also has to pay $4,500 in restitution, perform 200 hours of community service, stay away from companion animals for five years and write a letter of apology to be published in the local newspaper and the International Association of Firefighters magazine, the humane society's Miller said. Santuomo's attorney said that his client is remorseful over his actions and that people need to temper their outrage. "It's the same old story. They couldn't care less about people and they love animals," lawyer Sam Shamansky said. The firefighter, who could not be reached for comment, has no criminal history other than traffic violations, Shamansky said. "It, of course, was a heinous

Columbus, Ohio, firefighter ties his two dogs in basement, shoots them . David Santuomo dumped carcasses in firehouse trash bin . He gets 90-day jail sentence, to be served 10 days at a time . Fire division discipline could range from verbal reprimand to discharge .

(CNN) -- An Ohio inmate, convicted of killing and dismembering a 22-year-old woman in 1991, was executed Tuesday using a new, untested one-drug method of lethal injection, state officials said. Kenneth Biros, 51, was pronounced dead at 11:47 a.m. at a prison in Lucasville, Ohio, the state attorney general's office said in a written statement. His last words, according to Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman Julie Walburn, were: "Sorry from the bottom of my heart. I want to thank all of my family and friends for my prayers and who supported and believed in me. "My father, now I'm being paroled to heaven," Biros said, according to Walburn. "I will now spend all of my holidays with my lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Peace be with you all. Amen." Biros' execution is the first in Ohio since September, when the governor and federal courts halted capital punishment in the state after a botched attempt to execute another prisoner, Romell Broom. The prison staff could not find a suitable vein for the injections. The one-drug method had never been tried on a U.S. death row inmate. It relies on a single dose of sodium thiopental injected into a vein. A separate two-drug muscle injection was available as a backup, officials said. The one-drug method has been used to euthanize animals. The same drug, sodium thiopental, at a much lower dosage, is the first ingredient in the three-drug method previously used in Ohio, as well as in all but one of the other 34 states that allow the death penalty. Some capital punishment opponents claim the sodium thiopental, which renders the prisoner unconscious, can wear off too quickly, and that some prisoners would actually be awake and able to feel pain as the procedure continues. Biros' execution was initially scheduled for 10 a.m., but preparations were delayed as officials waited for a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on Biros' request for a stay, Walburn said. The high court without comment denied the request about 10 a.m., and "we were about an hour behind" in preparations, she said. The execution began around 11 a.m. Biros died about 10 minutes after the drugs began to flow, she said, but he was not officially pronounced dead until later. Biros, 51, was convicted of killing Tami Engstrom near the town of Warren. He met the woman at a bar and offered to drive her home, and later admitted robbing and attempting to rape her. Prosecutors said Biros dismembered Engstrom and spread her body parts around northeast Ohio and neighboring Pennsylvania. The crime was "particularly heinous, with 91 pre-mortem wounds," according to the clemency report. Biros claimed he acted in a fit of drunken rage. He was involved in litigation challenging the three-drug method and received a stay of execution in 2007 because of his involvement in the suit, according to minutes of a November parole board meeting posted on the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections' Web site. His attorney, Timothy Sweeney, had also objected to the one-drug method, saying it was unconstitutional. Sweeney wrote in an appeal that use of the one-drug method would amount to "human experimentation, pure and simple." But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month denied Biros' request for a stay, concluding that since Ohio had announced it would change its protocol and rely on the one-drug method, Biros' argument regarding the three-drug method was moot. Biros' last meal was served about 7:45 p.m. Monday -- pizza with extra cheese, mushrooms, onions and green peppers, along with onion rings, deep-fried mushrooms, Doritos, french onion dip, blueberry ice cream, Dr Pepper and cherry pie, Walburn said. During its meeting last month, members of the state parole board heard a prerecorded statement from Engstrom's mother, Mary Jane Heiss, according to the meeting minutes. Heiss said her health was not good but she was saving her strength to attend Biros

Kenneth Biros was convicted of killing and dismembering a 22-year-old woman in 1991 . He was executed Tuesday using a new, untested one-drug method of lethal injection . His attorney objected to the method, saying it was unconstitutional . The U.S. Supreme Court without comment denied a request to stay the execution .

(CNN) -- An Ohio man who was suspended as the drum major of a band for giving President Obama a nod during last week's inaugural parade is calling it quits. John Coleman quit his band after it suspended him for nodding to President Obama last week. John Coleman resigned from the Cleveland Firefighters Memorial Pipes & Drums a week after the parade in Washington. Publicity about his suspension had gotten to be too much, he told CNN affiliate WEWS. "It's come to a point where I don't want embarrassment anymore between the pipe band and myself," Coleman, who is a firefighter, told WEWS on Tuesday. Coleman was seen during the nationally televised January 20 parade nodding toward the new president while marching with the band. A few steps later, he appeared to wave briefly. He told WEWS that as the band was marching past the grandstand where Obama was sitting, he made eye contact with the president. "Contact was made with our eyes both together and he smiled and waved at the band," he told the station. "And just as a gesture, I nodded my head. I gave him a slight wave and went on." Watch parade and explanation » Representatives from the group did not return calls from CNN. But bandleader Mike Engle told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Coleman was suspended because he ignored military protocol. "We had gone over and over time and again with everyone in the band that this was a military parade," Engle told the newspaper. "Protocol and proper decorum had to be followed at all times. Unfortunately, John chose to ignore that." Coleman had been suspended from the band for six months. In a written statement, band manager Ken Rybka said Coleman's resignation from the group "comes as a shock and surprise." The band has been inundated with phone calls, e-mails and messages on its Internet pages -- almost all of them critical -- since the story first broke on Monday, Rybka said. iReport.com: 'Pretty cool thing that he acknowledged the president' "It is unfortunate that an internal band issue has raised so much discussion and ire from the general public," Rybka said in the statement. "It has disheartened me more than you can imagine." Rybka said that he will be taking a leave of absence from the band because of the furor. "The 'afterglow' of participating in the inaugural parade is gone," he said.

Ohio man quits band after it suspended him for nodding at President Obama . John Coleman cites publicity over suspension as reason for leaving . Coleman was band's drum major when it marched in inaugural parade . Coleman ignored military protocol, band leader tells newspaper .

(CNN) -- An Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper was suspended Wednesday for five days without pay following a highly publicized scuffle with a paramedic in Okfuskee County in May, according to the Highway Patrol. This is an image from a video that captured an Oklahoma trooper's scuffle with a paramedic in May. The incident, which was caught on dash-camera and cell-phone video, showed Trooper Daniel Martin pulling over a Creek Nation ambulance for a traffic-stop violation. During the incident, Martin is heard repeatedly using profanity and twice getting into a scuffle with one of the paramedics. Both paramedics and family members of the patient in the ambulance informed Martin several times by there was a patient inside, but he did not allow the paramedics to continue to the hospital while the video continued. In a news conference Wednesday, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Captain Chris West said Martin "failed to recognize that it would have been more reasonable and appropriate to immediately allow the ambulance to continue to the hospital once he understood there was a patient onboard the ambulance." Watch the confrontation » West also said Martin had "probable cause to make the traffic stop and justification to arrest the paramedic for obstructing a police officer" but that the incident "resulted in conduct unbecoming an officer." Martin's attorney, Gary James of Oklahoma City, did not immediately return a phone call from CNN. In a disciplinary letter sent to Martin, Oklahoma Public Safety Department Commissioner Kevin Ward, concluded that the "disregard for the welfare of the patient [justified] severe discipline." Martin will also be required to take an anger assessment, West said. The trooper had no previous discipline action in his record, according to West. On Tuesday, the paramedic involved in the scuffle, Maurice White, filed a lawsuit against Martin in federal court claiming his civil rights were violated. CNN's Mayra Cuevas-Nazario contributed to this report.

May incident was caught on dash-camera and cell-phone video . Trooper Daniel Martin shown pulling over a Creek Nation ambulance . During incident, Martin heard using profanity and getting physical with paramedic . Martin continued to hold up ambulance despite being informed of patient inside .

(CNN) -- An Organization of American States commission condemned Monday the slayings last month of three Honduran political activists opposed to a military-led coup that removed the elected president in June. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also said it deplores the kidnappings, arbitrary detentions, torture, sexual violations and illegal raids that the panel maintains other members of the political resistance have suffered since the June 29 coup. The commission cited more than 50 detentions, eight cases of torture, two kidnappings, two rapes and one raid on a residence during the past month. The attacks have been made against members of the resistance, union members and journalists, as well as their children, the panel said. Honduras returned to democracy in January, and the newly installed government of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa bears responsibility for safeguarding civil liberties and human rights, the commission said. "Honduras must adopt urgent measures to guarantee the rights to life, humane treatment and personal liberty," the panel said in a report. "All persons, without distinction, must be equally protected in the exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and political participation." Honduras' top law enforcement official said he "laments and deplores" violence that resulted from the coup that removed President Jose Manuel Zelaya from power and installed interim President Roberto Micheletti. "We will strengthen our investigations aimed at clearing up these events, appointing a special squad that will produce the arrests of those responsible and the unrestricted application of justice," Minister of Security Oscar Arturo Alvarez Guerrero said last week. Micheletti instituted martial law during his seven-month rule, and some Zelaya supporters say they were harassed, arrested or worse. Human rights will be respected under Lobo, who was elected in November and assumed the presidency January 27, national Police Commissioner Leonel Sauceda said Monday. Alvarez has been in office for only about a month but has promised to tackle the problem, Sauceda said. The OAS commission said that one of the recently killed activists was 29-year-old Vanessa Zepeda Alonzo, who was found February 3. According to the panel, witnesses said her body was thrown out of a car. Another activist, union member Julio Funez Benitez, was chatting outside his home in Olancho on February 15 when two men on a motorcycle fatally shot him twice, the rights commission said. A third person, Claudia Maritza Brizuela, 36, was killed in her home February 24, the commission said. She was the daughter of union and community leader Pedro Brizuela, who participated against the coup. "Two unknown individuals came to her door, and when she opened it, Claudia Brizuela was shot and killed in front of her children, ages 2 and 8," the report said. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also expressed concern that activists' family members are being threatened and harassed, with two of them killed in the past few weeks. "The commission observes with dismay that it appears that sons and daughters of leaders of the Resistance Front are being killed, kidnapped, attacked and threatened as a strategy to silence the activists," the report said. Dara Gudiel, 17, was found hanged February 17 in Danli, the commission said. She was the daughter of journalist Enrique Gudiel, who broadcasts the resistance radio program "Siempre al Frente con el Frente" ("Always Up Front with the Front"). "Days before she was found hanged, Dara Gudiel had been released after having been kidnapped and held for two days, during which time she was alleged to have been physically mistreated," the panel's report said. Eight days earlier, the commission said, seven heavily armed men dressed in military uniforms and wearing ski masks abducted five members of a family active in the resistance. One of those taken captive, the panel said, was a young woman who reported in August being raped by four police officers who detained her in connection with an anti-coup demonstration. In the February 9 abduction, the armed men intercepted the vehicle in which the young woman was traveling with her brother,

Organization of American States panel targets kidnappings, torture, raids . Report says political activists have suffered since June coup . New president must safeguard rights, report says . Security minister has promised to tackle problem .

(CNN) -- An Orthodox Jewish man apparently preparing to pray prompted authorities to divert a Louisville, Kentucky-bound US Airways Express plane Thursday. FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver said there appeared to be no threat from the man, who was described as wearing something on his head that included leather pieces. The description appeared to match that of tefillin, or phylacteries, which Orthodox Jewish men wear during prayer. The flight had taken off from New York's LaGuardia Airport, the FBI said, and was diverted to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Transportation Security Administration said it was notified of what it called a disruptive passenger on Flight 3079, operated by Chautauqua Airlines, around 8:30 a.m. ET, and the plane landed without incident at Philadelphia International Airport about 20 minutes later. US Airways spokesman Morgan Durrant said the diversion was a "security precaution" for the 50-seat ERJ 145. It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board. Earlier, Durrant said the flight had been evacuated, but the TSA did not offer any details on whether that had occurred. TSA and law enforcement officials met the flight, interviewed the passenger and did a security sweep of the plane without finding anything of concern, the agency said. CNN's Evan Buxbaum contributed to this report.

US Airways Express plane bound for Kentucky diverted to Pennsylvania . Orthodox Jewish man preparing to pray apparently prompted authorities to divert flight . FBI spokesman says there appeared to be no threat from the man . Airline spokesman earlier cited "security precaution" for diversion .

(CNN) -- An additional 440,000 Honda vehicles are being added to a recall initially announced in November to repair a potential defect in airbag inflation systems, American Honda Motor Co. said Friday. The 2001 Honda Civic is among the vehicles covered by the recall. The recall involves driver-side airbags in certain 2001-02 Honda Accords, 2001 Civics and 2002-03 Acura TLs, the company said in a news release. The affected vehicles will require the replacement of the steering-wheel-mounted airbag inflator. "In some vehicles, airbag inflators can produce over-pressurization of the driver's [front] airbag inflator mechanism during airbag deployment," the release said. "If an affected inflator deploys, the increased internal pressure may cause the inflator casing to rupture. Metal fragments could pass through the cloth airbag cushion material, possibly causing an injury or fatality to vehicle occupants." Honda spokesman Chris Noughtan said the potential defect has resulted in six known injuries and one known death. The company will send a recall notice in the mail over the next few months, the release said. Owners may check their car's recall status by visiting the Honda "Owner Link" Web site at www.owners.honda.com/recalls or the Acura "My Acura" Web site at www.owners.acura.com/recalls. "Only certain vehicles are affected, and concerned owners of 2001-2002 Accords, 2001 Civics and 2002-2003 Acura TLs are encouraged to wait to receive a recall notice in the mail before scheduling an appointment with their local dealer," the company said.

2001-02 Accords, 2001 Civics and 2002-03 Acura TLs included . Airbag inflators can produce over-pressurization, company says . At least six injured, one killed by potential defect . Owners will receive recall notices in the mail .

(CNN) -- An agreement could be reached before week's end between Washington University students and an Illinois nightclub that allegedly barred six African-American students while admitting nearly 200 of their white classmates. Fernando Cutz, senior class president at the university in Missouri, said the aggrieved students have been in contact with lawyers representing Original Mother's, a bar in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood. The two sides expect a resolution to their dispute as early as Wednesday, Cutz said. He did not, however, say what the students were demanding or why he was optimistic that a deal could be struck. The students complained to state and federal agencies after six African-American members from their senior class trip celebration were denied admission to the club on October 17. Bar personnel cited dress code violations -- specifically baggy jeans -- in barring the African-American students, Cutz said. A white student and a black student then exchanged jeans to see what would happen. The white student was admitted, while his classmate still was kept outside, Cutz said. Calls from CNN to the nightclub were not immediately returned. The bar told the Chicago Tribune newspaper that it was investigating. The celebration at Original Mother's was to top off a two-day senior class trip to Chicago, Cutz said. The party had been arranged with the bar in advance by the student class board, which includes two of the African-American students who were later denied entry, Cutz said. He said he was already inside the bar with some 200 other students, none of whom are African-American, when the first group of African-American classmates arrived. Cutz said he quickly learned that the manager of the bar had denied the six students entry, and he said the manager told the students their baggy pants violated the bar's dress code. Cutz, who is white, said he confronted the manager. "These six [students] were better dressed than I was," Cutz told CNN. He told the students to "go back to the hotel and change." But the manager of the bar stepped in to say that he had made his decision and that the six men could not return to the bar even if they changed clothes, Cutz said. The students became "more agitated" and "set up an experiment," Cutz said. Class Treasurer Regis Murayi, who is black, exchanged jeans with a white student, Jordan Roberts, who -- being 3 inches shorter than Murayi -- looked "substantially baggy." Roberts approached the same manager who had turned away the African-American students, paid the entry fee and was allowed in, Cutz said. CNN's Susan Candiotti also contributed to this report.

Group: Bar kept African-American students out, let white classmates in . Washington University's senior class was celebrating at the Chicago bar . Class president: Bar cited dress code violations, but clothing swap didn't help . Class complains to Illinois attorney general, others; bar hasn't returned CNN's calls .

(CNN) -- An air-supported roof over the Dallas Cowboys' practice field collapsed during a heavy thunderstorm Saturday afternoon, leaving 12 people injured, authorities said. An aerial view of the scene shows the Dallas Cowboys logo amid the ruins of the indoor practice facility. About 70 people, including more than two dozen of the team's rookies, were in the facility when it was blown down shortly before 3:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. ET), team officials said. Two or three suffered serious injuries, but none were believed to be in life-threatening condition Saturday night, said Dr. Paul Pepe, Dallas County's emergency medical services chief. CNN affiliate WFAA reported Cowboys special teams coach Joe DeCamillis, the son-in-law of former NFL head coach Dan Reeves, suffered a broken back. DeCamillis was seen on a stretcher wearing a neck brace. A line of heavy thunderstorms was moving through the Dallas area at the time, he said, but no other damage to buildings was reported, said Mike Adams, a dispatcher for the Irving, Texas, fire department. Watch the roof collapse on players, coaches » Arnold Payne, a photographer for WFAA, was shooting the Cowboys' practice session when rain began falling "tremendously hard." "I noticed the walls started to waver ... and then I noticed that the lights that were hanging from the ceiling started to sway, and it wouldn't stop," Payne told CNN. Shortly after that, he said, "It was as if someone took a stick pin and hit a balloon." Watch Payne describe being inside when structure collpased » Payne said Cowboys staff photographers were up in the metal framework beneath the canopy to film the practice session and "actually rode the building down with the storm." At least one was in surgery Saturday night, he said. "There was nowhere for them to go, and it fell so fast -- it just collapsed as if it was being imploded," Payne said. Video from CNN affiliate WFAA showed the roof caving in during a heavy storm, sending players, coaches and a handful of reporters and photographers scrambling to escape. Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones told NBC that about 27 rookies from the NFL team and members of the team's coaching staff were inside the suburban Dallas facility at the time. "They did not get good warning there, and the structure did collapse," Jones said, speaking from the Kentucky Derby in Louisville. "We're assessing who's injured at this particular time." CNN's Matt Smith contributed to this report.

NEW: Witness: Team photographers were up in framework of structure, rode it down . Dallas Cowboys' practice facility collapses during thunderstorm, injuring 12 . None of the injuries appears to be life-threatening, says county EMS chief . About 70 people were inside the facility when it fell, fire official says .

(CNN) -- An aircraft carrier named after the first President Bush was commissioned Saturday in Norfolk, Virginia. Former President George H.W. Bush waves aboard the aircraft carrier named after him Saturday. "Those who are sitting out there, where I was, 65 years ago, preparing to serve aboard your new ship, I wish I was sitting right out there with you," the carrier's 84-year-old namesake told sailors at the commissioning ceremony. "As you prepare to man this ship, I do know that you take with you the hopes and dreams of every American who cherishes freedom and peace, and you take with you the undying respect and admiration of the entire Bush family," he said. The 1,092-foot, 20-story USS George H.W. Bush was decorated with red, white and blue banners for Saturday's ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk. Watch video of the aircraft carrier » The 41st president joined the Navy at 18 and served as an aviator in World War II. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals for his Navy service in the Pacific during the war, according to the Department of Defense. His time in the Navy ended after about four years. About 17,000 people were expected to attend Saturday's ceremony. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Dick Cheney and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine were there, as was Bush's son President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura. "Laura and I are thrilled to be here to help commission an awesome ship and to honor an awesome man, President George H.W. Bush," the president said. "So what do you give a guy who has been blessed and has just about everything he has ever needed? Well, an aircraft carrier." The ship, comprising 47,000 tons of structural steel and about 500 tons of aluminum, is the last of the Nimitz class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The ship's construction began in 2003. It was finished nearly three years later. The vessel will carry about 6,000 Navy personnel, the Department of Defense said. After the ceremony, the president left Norfolk for Maryland's Andrews Air Force Base on what was probably his last Air Force One flight. From Andrews, he was expected to take a helicopter to Washington. White House spokesperson Dana Perino said the president wasn't aware that it was his last scheduled flight on Air Force One until he was told by an interviewer. Read about features of Air Force One » President Bush leaves office January 20, and President-elect Barack Obama will be sworn in.

President Bush takes last scheduled Air Force One flight to attend ceremony . Ex-president, a former Navy pilot, tells sailors: I wish I was sitting out there with you . Also at ceremony: Rice, Cheney, Gates George W. Bush, Laura Bush . Current president: Carrier "an awesome ship" named after "an awesome man"

(CNN) -- An ancient race that lived 2,700 years ago in the Gobi Desert may have been among the first to use cannabis for medical or religious purposes. Researchers believe an ancient Gushi shaman may have consumed or burned pot for medical or religious purposes. Nearly two pounds of the plant was found stashed in the tomb of a Gushi shaman. It was high in the chemical compounds that provide its psychoactive properties. "It had evidence of the chemical attributes of cannabis used as a drug," said Dr. Ethan Russo, an author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Botany. "It could have been for pain control. It could have been for other medicinal properties. It could have been used as an aid to divination." The Gushi people were a Caucasian race with light hair and blue eyes who likely migrated thousands of years ago from the steppes of Russia to what is now China. A nomadic people, they were accomplished horsemen and archers. Chinese archaeologists excavating a network of 2,500 tombs near the town of Turpan in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region unearthed the shaman's grave, which contained the cannabis, along with a trove of artifacts such as bridles, archery equipment and a rare harp. The shaman is thought to have been about 45 years old when he died. Many of the bodies recovered in the area were found in an incredibly well-preserved, almost mummified condition. The shaman, however, was a skeleton. "The deceased was laid out on the bottom of this tomb on a little bier," Russo said. "This individual seemed to be very high status because of the variety and quality of the grave goods, including the equestrian equipment, the archery equipment and the large amount of cannabis." Russo said no pipe for smoking the cannabis was found in the shaman's tomb. Researchers think he might have eaten the cannabis or possibly put it on a burning fire to create fumes. They don't think it was used to make hemp clothing or rope, as some other early cultures did. Genetic analysis of the plant suggests it was cultivated rather than gathered from the wild. This find is not the first or the oldest example of ancient people using cannabis, but it may be the best studied. "There may have been older finds of cannabis, but not with this level of scientific investigation attached to them," Russo said.

About two pounds of potent cannabis found stashed in Gushi shaman's tomb . The Gushi were horsemen and archers who lived 2,700 years ago in the Gobi Desert . Archaeologists found shaman among 2,500 tombs of mummies, bridles, rare harp . No pipe in grave, leading researchers to surmise shaman ate or burned cannabis .

(CNN) -- An animal rescue group on Sunday picked up a U.S. soldier's adopted dog from Iraq, ending the soldier's weeks-long struggle to send the animal to her Minnesota home. Sgt. Gwen Beberg adopted Ratchet after soldiers rescued him from a burning pile of trash in May. Operation Baghdad Pups, which said the U.S. military prevented its first attempt to take Ratchet the dog on October 1, picked up the animal in Baghdad with military clearance and flew it to Kuwait on Sunday. The dog is expected to be flown to Washington on Monday, and if a veterinarian determines it is healthy, sent to Sgt. Gwen Beberg's home state on Wednesday, Baghdad Pups publicist Larry Garrison said. Beberg, who adopted the dog after soldiers rescued it from a burning trash pile in May, tried to have the group fly Ratchet to the United States on October 1 as her deployment neared an end. But the military, which prohibits soldiers from adopting pets abroad and bringing them to the United States, confiscated the animal after Beberg put it on a convoy bound for Baghdad Airport, according to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which runs OBP. Ratchet and Beberg, 28, drew the attention of thousands of people who signed two online petitions -- linked through the SPCA's Web site -- urging the military to let Ratchet go to the United States. The military cleared OBP to take Ratchet on Wednesday, but not in time for the group's flight from Baghdad that day, the SPCA said. On Sunday, private security contractors took Ratchet from a base to the airport, where OBP -- which works with soldiers to help them bring adopted animals home -- put Ratchet on the charter flight to Kuwait, Garrison said. Northwest Airlines will donate the flights from Kuwait to Minnesota, Garrison said. The SPCA said Ratchet helped Beberg deal with her Iraq deployment, which started in September 2007 and is scheduled to end in November. "She was absolutely miserable in the war and was really struggling to keep going every day. Ratchet turned it around for her," SPCA spokeswoman Stephanie Scroggs said last week. Beberg's mother, Patricia Beberg, in a statement released by the SPCA, said Ratchet "was the savior of her [daughter's] sanity" in Iraq. SPCA representatives said the military euthanizes some animals that it confiscates, and that Gwen Beberg worried that Ratchet would be killed. Beberg was thrilled to hear last week that the military would let OBP take Ratchet, the SPCA said. "Your persistence and amazing work has astonished me throughout this whole thing," Gwen Beberg said in an e-mail to the SPCA, according to the society. Scroggs said one of Beberg's friends helped spread the news about Ratchet through blogs. One of the petitions, which had more than 65,000 signatures as of Sunday night, was started by a blogger, Scroggs said. The SPCA says although active-duty soldiers aren't allowed to adopt animals in the Middle East, many soldiers befriend animals in the course of their service there. Garrison said the program relies on donations, saying it generally costs $3,000 to $4,000 to bring a servicemember's animal to the United States. "This isn't a one-time story This is a program making a difference for our soldiers," Garrison said.

U.S. soldier adopted dog in Iraq; military prohibits such adoption . Military took dog during soldier's first attempt to send it home, group says . Dog helped soldier cope with her deployment, group says . Animal could be in Minnesota by Wednesday .

(CNN) -- An anti-abortion activist charged with gunning down a Wichita, Kansas, doctor cannot use the "necessity defense" at trial, a judge ruled Tuesday. Scott Roeder, 51, is set to stand trial January 11 on one count of first-degree murder in the death of Dr. George Tiller, who was shot to death at his church May 31. Tiller ran a women's clinic in which he performed abortions. Tiller, 67, was one of the few U.S. doctors who performed late-term abortions. He had already survived one attempt on his life before he was slain. Under a necessity defense, a defendant argues an action was justified because breaking the law was more advantageous to society than following it. Several anti-abortion activists facing criminal charges have attempted to use the defense but none has been successful. In an Associated Press interview last month, Roeder admitted killing Tiller and said he plans to argue at this trial that the shooting was justified. "Because of the fact preborn children's lives were in imminent danger, this was the action I chose," he said. "... I want to make sure that the focus is, of course, obviously on the preborn children and the necessity to defend them." Roeder's comments prompted prosecutors to file a motion asking Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert to bar Roeder's attorneys from using the defense. Wilbert noted that the Kansas Supreme Court, in a previous case regarding blocking entrance to an abortion clinic, ruled the necessity defense cannot be used when the harm the defendant claims to be avoiding through his or her actions is a constitutional and legal activity, and the defendant broke the law. That precedent, Wilbert said, required him to rule that the necessity defense is not a viable defense in Kansas or in the Roeder case. Defense attorney Mark Rudy pointed out to Wilbert that the defense team has not yet acknowledged what their tactic might be. Roeder, however, filed a 100-page motion on his own behalf, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston said Tuesday, on the necessity defense, acknowledging it previously has been unsuccessful. Prosecutors also asked Wilbert to bar Roeder's attorneys from claiming his alleged actions were justified because he used force in the defense of another -- the unborn. Wilbert said that would require further argument -- particularly an offering from defense attorneys regarding the evidence they plan to present in support of that premise at trial. "I will leave the door open on the issues surrounding use of force in defense of another," the judge said, adding he does not mean it's "wide open." Under the law, such a defense can only be used if a defendant was preventing unlawful conduct. Foulston argued that Tiller posed no threat that would justify his shooting. "Dr. Tiller was not an aggressor," she said. Roeder is also charged with two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two church members. Dressed in a coat and tie, he conferred with his attorneys and listened intently to the arguments on Tuesday. In a June interview with CNN's Ted Rowlands, Roeder would not admit that he killed Tiller, but said that if he is convicted, "the entire motive was the defense of the unborn." Roeder's attorneys also argued Tuesday that the trial should be moved outside Wichita because extensive pretrial publicity in the case could have tainted the jury pool. Foulston, meanwhile, noted that Roeder, who has talked often to the media, brought some of that publicity on himself. Wilbert said 300 jury summonses have gone out in the case, and he was optimistic that some impartial jurors could be found. However, he said he would revisit the issue later if the court experienced difficulty in picking jurors. Rudy also asked that the judge prohibit prosecutors from excluding potential jurors because they have anti-abortion beliefs. The judge said he was confident that some individuals who are anti-abortion would still be able to make an impartial decision, but suggested the issue be examined on a juror-by-juror basis if the court recognizes a pattern of exclusion

Scott Roeder is accused of first-degree murder in the death of Dr. George Tiller . Tiller was one of the few U.S. doctors who performed late-term abortions . Necessity defense: Defendant argues breaking the law is better for society than following it . Judge bars Roeder from using the necessity defense in the doctor's slaying .

(CNN) -- An apartment left untouched since before the fall of the Berlin Wall has been discovered by a developer in the eastern German city of Leipzig, German media reports said Thursday. The fall of the Berlin Wall heralded the end of the communist regime in East Germany in 1989. The discovery, made by architect Mark Aretz, revealed a small one-bedroom apartment evidently abandoned quickly by its occupants as the Communist East German state disintegrated in 1989, Spiegel Online reported. A wall calendar showed August 1988, and the kitchen cupboard and drawers contained plastic crockery and aluminium cutlery along with communist-era food brands such as "Vita" Cola, "Marella" margarine, "Juwel" cigarettes and a bottle of "Kristall" vodka. "When we opened the door we felt like Howard Carter when he found the grave of Tutankhamen," Aretz told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. "Everything was a mess but it was like a historic treasure trove, a portal into an age long gone." According to Aretz -- a developer who renovates properties in eastern Germany -- the occupant appears to have been a 24-year-old man from Leipzig who had been in trouble with the authorities, judging by personal documents left behind. The most recent document was dated May, 1989 -- a police search warrant for a caravan. There was also a stamped and addressed postcard written by the occupant, but he had never sent it, Spiegel said.

Apartment found by developer in eastern German city of Leipzig . Occupant left in a hurry as East German state crumbled in 1989 . Communist-era food brands such as "Vita" Cola, "Marella" margarine found .

(CNN) -- An archeological team is set to break new ground in its excavation of an Egyptian temple where doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony may be buried. An excavation of an Egyptian temple my reveal where doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony are buried. A ground-penetrating, radar survey of the temple of Taposiris Magna and its surrounding area, west of Alexandria, was completed in March, following three years of digging, according to a statement from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Taposiris Magna is one of the ancient towns located on Lake Mariut, which is today called Abusir. According to the council, the radar revealed three possible spots of interest where a tomb might be located. Recently, the team discovered a large, previously unknown cemetery outside the temple enclosure. "The discovery of this cemetery indicates that an important person, likely of royal status, could be buried inside the temple. It was common for officials and other high-status individuals in Egypt to construct their tombs close to those of their rulers throughout the Pharaonic period," according to the council. The expedition has so far turned up 27 tombs, 20 of them shaped like vaulted sarcophagi, and seven simple burial chambers that are reached by staircases. Inside these chambers, the team found 10 mummies, two of them gilded. Other discoveries include an alabaster bust of Cleopatra, and 22 coins bearing her "beautiful" image, according to council Secretary-General Zahi Hawass. The discovery contradicts some recent reports that describe her as unattractive, he said. "Among the most interesting finds is a unique mask depicting a man with a cleft chin. The face bears some similarity to known portraits of Mark Antony himself," Hawass said. The love story of Antony and Cleopatra has been a favorite theme for writers and filmmakers. The 1963 Oscar-winning movie of the couple starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who themselves became star-crossed lovers. Cleopatra ruled Egypt between 51 B.C. until her suicide in 30 B.C., following Mark Antony's naval defeat against Caesar's adopted son Octavian at Actium in the Mediterranean. Mark Antony, once a general in Caesar's army, killed himself before Cleopatra took her own life, after being falsely informed that Cleopatra already had died.

Archeologists to search three sites that may contain tombs of Cleopatra, Mark Antony . Bust of Cleopatra, 22 coins bearing her image have been found so far . Antony, Cleopatra committed suicide in 31 B.C. after battle of Actium .

(CNN) -- An armed airman who allegedly barricaded himself inside a building on a Colorado air base is awaiting sentencing on unrelated charges and will likely face additional charges, the base said Tuesday. Airman 1st Class Nico Cruz Santos, 21, surrendered to authorities late Monday night after an hours-long standoff with authorities at Schriever Air Force Base. No one was injured. "While there are lessons to be learned from every situation, by and large yesterday's incident was resolved with the best possible outcome," said Col. James Ross, 50th Space Wing commander, in a Tuesday statement. "Our law enforcement and community partners worked together to ensure the security of our mission and people while helping this airman through a troubling situation." The airman -- who belongs to the base's 50th Security Forces Squadron -- locked himself around 10 a.m. inside a building where personnel get paperwork and equipment before being deployed, said Lt. Marie Denson, a spokeswoman at the Colorado Springs base. Soon thereafter, that building and the surrounding area was evacuated. Law enforcement units and other first responders from the Schriever base, nearby Peterson Air Force Base and the El Paso County, Colorado, Sheriff's Office SWAT team rushed to the scene, Lt. Col. Harold Hoang said. The man was armed with a personal handgun, authorities said. He also had his cell phone, which he had been using -- along with a land-line phone -- to communicate with military officials outside. Mental health professionals were also on site, Denson said. The airman "is currently facing legal action in a civilian court as well as disciplinary action and possible discharge from the Air Force," Hoang said. The base said in a statement Tuesday that Santos is awaiting sentencing in Gilpin County on unrelated charges earlier this year. "It is expected that once the investigation of yesterday's incident is complete that additional charges may be filed in either the military or civilian court systems," the statement said. The incident remained under investigation Tuesday. Santos was being held in a Teller County detention facility, the base said. Schriever Air Force Base is also home to the Space Innovation and Development Center, the Missile Defense Agency, 310th Space Wing and other units and groups, according to its website. CNN's Larry Shaughnessy, Greg Botelho and Ashley Hayes contributed to this report.

NEW: Charges are expected against Airman 1st Class Nico Cruz Santos . NEW: Santos is awaiting sentencing on unrelated charges, officials say . The Air Force member had a gun and cell phone, and had been talking with authorities . The Colorado Springs air base is home to the 50th Space Wing .

(CNN) -- An arrest warrant has been issued for a Florida man suspected in the shooting deaths of four people, including his sisters, in the coastal town of Jupiter, authorities said Saturday. Paul Michael Merhige, 35, allegedly left the scene of the Thanksgiving Day shooting armed. He faces four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder, the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office said in a statement. The U.S. Marshals have joined the search for Merhige, and a $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to his arrest. The shooting victims include Merhige's 6-year-old cousin, Makayla Sitton; his 33-year-old twin sisters, Carla Merhige and Lisa Knight; and 76-year-old Raymond Joseph, police said. One of the victims -- Knight -- was pregnant, a police spokeswoman said Friday. Two others -- Patrick Knight and Clifford Gebara -- were wounded, police said. Interviews with family members suggest that Merhige "had ongoing resentment" for some of his relatives, said Sally Collins-Ortiz, a spokeswoman for Jupiter police. The shooting occurred about 10 p.m. Thursday. Merhige is thought to have escaped in a blue 2007 Toyota Camry with Florida license plate number W42 7JT, police said.

Paul Michael Merhige faces four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder . Four shot dead, 2 hurt in Jupiter, Florida on Thanksgiving night . Police: Merhige may have had "resentment" for relatives .

(CNN) -- An attorney for Florida A&M University's longtime band director, Julian E. White, said his client has demonstrated "exemplary" anti-hazing leadership and should not be dismissed following the death of a drum major. In a letter Friday to FAMU President James H. Ammons, attorney Charles E. "Chuck" Hobbs III said White's reports and suspensions related to hazing have not always been met with suspensions from the university or action by law enforcement. Ammons moved Wednesday to fire White, who had led the 420-member band since 1998. "The reason for this intended employment action is based upon your alleged misconduct and/or incompetence involving confirmed reports and allegations of hazing with the Department of Music and the 'Marching 100,'" Ammons said in a letter to White. The dismissal came four days after the death. Band members had returned to their Orlando hotel following a game last Saturday. There, Robert Champion, 26, "reportedly threw up in the parking lot and started complaining of not being able to breathe," the sheriff's office said in a release. Champion was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Ammons' letter notified White that he was being dismissed effective December 22 and placed on administrative leave, with pay, effective immediately. The letter was provided to CNN by the university. Hobbs' letter said White has had many honors while holding his "dream position." "Dr. White has been at the vanguard of implementing measures to eliminate hazing within the Marching 100 over the past 22 years," it read. "From an administrative standpoint .... hazing within the Marching 100 has often been met with reckless indifference by White's superior officers, who often ignored his requests for assistance or who privately lauded his decisions to suspend members from the band for hazing while failing to ensure that hazers were either charged with applicable criminal offenses or expelled." Opinion: What I learned from the FAMU marching band In addition, Hobbs wrote, White is a fully tenured professor entitled to due process. He argued there are no grounds for White being dismissed for "just cause." On Wednesday, Gov. Rick Scott sent a letter to Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey asking the department to join the investigation "to assure that the circumstances leading to Mr. Champion's death become fully known, and that if there are individuals directly or indirectly responsible for this death, they are appropriately brought to justice and held accountable." Authorities have not said what happened to Champion. A spokeswoman for the Orange County Medical Examiner's Office said Wednesday that the autopsy had not been completed and that no cause of death was available. Under Florida law, any death that occurs as the result of hazing is a third-degree felony. After the incident, Ammons suspended band performances and said he will convene a task force "to determine if there are any unauthorized and questionable activities associated with the culture of the Marching 100." Ammons acknowledged that at least 30 band members were let go this semester because of possible involvement in hazing. CNN's Tom Watkins contributed to this report.

The band director at Florida A&M challenges pending dismissal . A 26-year-old drum major became ill and died after a game . At least 30 band members were let go this semester because of alleged hazing .

(CNN) -- An audio message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has accused President Barack Obama of being unable to fulfil his election pledge to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq. Osama bin Laden is seen in an image taken from a videotape that aired on Al-Jazeera in September 2003. The tape emerged on radical Islamist Web sites, just two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. "To the American people, this is my message to you: a reminder of the reasons behind 9/11 and the wars and the repercussions that followed and the way to resolve it," the message said. "From the beginning, we have stated many times ... that the cause of our disagreement with you is your support of your allies, the Israelis, who are occupying our land in Palestine. Your stance along with some other grievances are what led us to carry out the events of 9/11." The video plays the audio over a undated photograph of bin Laden. The video also shows a banner with the American flag as the backdrop and an image of the New York City skyline with the twin towers of the World Trade Center -- destroyed in the 9/11 attack -- still standing, said terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield. CNN could not independently authenticate bin Laden as the speaker in the 11-minute video posted on Sunday by As-Sahab Media -- al Qaeda's production company. Watch CNN's Octavia Nasr's analysis of the message » Obama was "a vulnerable man who will not be able to stop the war, as he promised, but instead he will drag it to the maximum possible extent," the message said. Though U.S. troops no longer patrol Iraq's major cities and a large number have left, tens of thousands remain in the country and are expected to stay for years to come. The message claims that the Obama administration is under the influence of the Republican White House it replaced, pointing out that the president kept Robert Gates as defense secretary -- a holdover from the Bush administration. "Prolong the wars as much as you like. By God, we will never compromise on it (Palestine), ever," the message continued. Mansfield noted that the video brings no new images of the elusive bin Laden, who was last seen in footage two years ago on the sixth anniversary of the terror attacks. Bin Laden has released audio messages since then, most recently on June 9.

Obama is "vulnerable man who will not be able to stop the war as he promised" Message: "By God, we will never compromise on it (Palestine), ever" CNN could not independently authenticate bin Laden as the speaker in the video . Al Qaeda's production company, As-Sahab Media, posts the 11-minute video .

(CNN) -- An audio message reportedly from al Qaeda's deputy chief vows revenge for Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza and calls the Jewish state's actions against Hamas militants "a gift" from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. Al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri is said to address Muslims in Gaza in an audio message released Tuesday. The speaker, identified as Ayman al-Zawahiri, addresses Muslims in Gaza. He said the violence "is one part of a series of a crusade war against Islam and these air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office, and (Egyptian President) Hosni Mubarak, that traitor, is the main partner in your siege and killing." The message, posted Tuesday on various Islamist Web sites with a picture of al-Zawahiri next to an image of a wounded child, urges militants to rally against Israel. "My Muslim brothers and mujahedeens in Gaza and all over Palestine, with the help of God we are with you in the battle, we will direct our strikes against the crusader Jewish coalition wherever we can." The 10-minute message also address Muslims worldwide, claiming that Obama was portrayed as "the savior who will come and change American policy" during the U.S. election but is now "killing your brothers and sisters in Gaza without mercy or even pity." Obama's transition team did not immediately respond to the message. Earlier Tuesday, the president-elect said he was "deeply concerned" about the loss of life in Gaza and Israel, and he promised to make the issue a top priority in his administration. It was Obama's first public reaction to the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, which began with Israeli air strikes 11 days ago. He reiterated that only one president can speak for the United States at a time. "Starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to engage effectively and consistently to try to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East," Obama said. CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson said the al Qaeda message speaks to al-Zawahiri's cause in two ways: It bashes the new U.S. president before he takes office and it criticizes Mubarak, who has drawn al-Zawahiri's ire for not allowing goods and aid through Egypt's border with Gaza. Al-Zawahiri is a native of Egypt who has served jail time there. Robertson, who is reporting from the Israeli-Gaza border, noted on CNN's "Situation Room" that al-Zawahiri got the message out quickly -- "within 12 days, that's very fast." He said that indicated "there's many issues there that are dear to him."

Ten-minute message delivered by Ayman al-Zawahiri, a native of Egypt . In address, al-Zawahiri says violence a "gift" from Obama before he takes office . The message, on various Islamist Web sites, urges militants to rally against Israel . In Obama's first public reaction to the violence, he says he is "deeply concerned"

(CNN) -- An autopsy report issued Friday by Hillsborough County, Florida, cites cocaine as a contributing factor in the death of TV pitchman Billy Mays, who died in June at age 50. The Hillsborough County medical examiner's office said cocaine use contributed to Billy Mays' heart disease. "Mays died from a lethal arrhythmia of the heart caused by hypertensive and arteriosclerotic heart disease," the county said in a statement attributed to Dr. Leszek Chrostowski, the associate medical examiner who conducted the autopsy. "He further concluded that cocaine use caused or contributed to the development of his heart disease, and therefore contributed to his death," it added. The fact that toxicology tests detected only breakdown products of cocaine, not the drug itself, led Chrostowski to conclude that Mays had used cocaine "in the few days prior to death but not immediately prior to death." Cocaine is a stimulant that can raise blood pressure and thicken the wall of the left ventricle of the heart, one of the organ's four main pumping chambers. The autopsy also found low concentrations of ethyl alcohol "consistent with social consumption of a few beverages" as well as the narcotic drugs hydrocodone, oxycodone and tramadol. Mays had prescriptions for the drugs -- which were found in therapeutic or subtherapeutic concentrations -- to ease hip pain. In addition, the tests found evidence of two tranquilizers -- alprazolam (Xanax) and diazepam (Valium) -- which are commonly prescribed for a variety of ailments, including anxiety and insomnia. Both drugs were determined to be in therapeutic or subtherapeutic concentrations. Mays was found dead at his home near Tampa on June 28. Mays, with his booming voice, was famous for fronting products such as OxiClean and Orange Glo in TV commercials.

Cocaine contributed to Billy Mays' death, says autopsy report . Mays died from heart disease; cocaine use played role in illness, report said . Mays died June 28 .

(CNN) -- An early goal from Theo Walcott gave Arsenal a vital 1-0 victory over Udinese in the first leg of their Champions League final qualifying round tie at The Emirates. England international Walcott timed his run into the area perfectly to volley home Aaron Ramsey's fourth-minute right-wing cross from close range, to give Arsene Wenger's side a vital advantage to take into the second leg in northern Italy next week. Arsenal came into the match on the back of a trying week, which saw captain Cesc Fabregas leave for Barcelona and more rumors surface of Samir Nasir's impending transfer to Manchester City. What now for Arsenal and Fabregas? The Gunners had to field a make-shift side with Nasri and new captain Robin Van Persie both suspended and key midfielder Jack Wilshere injured. To compound matters, Wenger himself had to watch from the stands because of a one-match UEFA ban. But despite a few nervy moments, primarily when Udinese captain Antonio Di Natale struck the crossbar with a long-range strike, Arsenal held on. And Walcott nearly added a second goal late on, forcing a superb save from goalkeeper Samir Handanovic. There were four other matches played on Tuesday evening, with Lyon coming from behind to beat Russian side Rubin Kazan 3-1 at the Stade de Gerland. Rubin are looking to reach the group stages for a third successive year and they took a third minute lead when Vladimir Dyadyun turned in Bebras Natcho's right-wing corner. However, the French side levelled seven minutes later when Bafetimbi Gomis got in between two defenders to finish a Michel Bastos cross. And they went ahead five minutes before half-time when a Gomis cross-shot from the left found the net off defender Saba Kvirkvelia. Lyon sealed their victory 19 minutes from time when Jimmy Briand headed home a Kim Kallstrom corner. Meanwhile, an entertaining match in the Netherlands saw FC Twente draw 2-2 at home to Benfica, a result that leaves the Portuguese giants favorites to reach the group stage. Luuk de Jong fired the hosts in a sixth minute lead, but Benfica leveled when Paraguay striker Oscar Cardozo curled home a superb equalizer. Benfica led at the break after a fine flowing move saw Nolito score from close range but, with 10 minutes left, Bryan Ruiz headed home for Twente as the match finished all-square. The other two matches saw BATE Borisov of Belarus draw 1-1 at home to Austrian side Sturm Graz, while Czech champions Viktoria Plzen secured a superb 3-1 win at FC Copenhagen of Denmark.

Arsenal defeat Udinese 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League qualifier . Theo Walcott scores the vital winning goal in the fourth minute at the Emirates . Lyon come from behind to beat Russian side Rubin Kazan 3-1 in their first leg .

(CNN) -- An earthquake struck off the Indonesian island of Bali early Thursday, rattling buildings and sending dozens to hospitals with minor injuries. The 6.0-magnitude quake hit 100 km (62 miles) southwest of Bali, the U.S. Geological Survey said. At least 43 people were taken to local hospitals, including five who suffered serious injuries, medical officials said. A few suffered broken bones and are undergoing treatment, said Wayan Sudanti, an official at a local hospital. Another medical official at a nearby hospital said several others were undergoing treatment for minor injuries, but did not specify how many. The quake had a depth of 38 miles, and no tsunami alert was issued, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Indonesia is on the so-called Ring of Fire, an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin that is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude underwater earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in 14 countries. The tsunami, which washed away entire communities, caused nearly $10 billion in damage and more casualties than any other tsunami in history, according to the United Nations. Indonesia was among the hardest hit nations.

NEW: Dozens of injuries reported, medical officials say . No tsunami alert is issued . The 6.0-magnitude quake hits southwest of Bali .

(CNN) -- An eight-hour hostage standoff ended late Wednesday when an armed, disabled man wheeled himself out of a Virginia post office and was taken into custody, according to the mayor of Wytheville. Initially, authorities reported five people -- three postal workers and two customers -- were taken hostage after a man entered a Wytheville, Virginia, post office about 2:30 p.m. and fired a gun. But Mayor Trent Crewe said police later believed the gunman was holding fewer than five people and that they have accounted for people they thought could have been inside. "Apparently they ran as it was unfolding and we didn't know that for a while," Crewe said. An unidentified witness told CNN affiliate WDBJ that he, a fellow window clerk and the postmaster were in the building when the gunman entered, but they quickly fled. He added that his supervisor was one of the hostages. WDBJ reports on standoff Crewe said he did not know exactly how many hostages had been in the building. No one was reported hurt, Crewe said. The gunman is disabled, Crewe said, adding that police told him the gunman entered the post office pushing a wheelchair. It was unclear what the purpose of the wheelchair is, Crewe said. There were reports the man had a "device," and it appeared that his car, parked outside the office, was equipped with some type of device as well, Crewe said. He did not elaborate on what the device could be. "The police authorities have told me they are acting on the assumption there is an explosive device of some kind in some location," Crewe said. "There is a bomb squad, in fact more than one bomb squad on site, but we cannot confirm any explosives." The surrounding area of downtown Wytheville has been evacuated within a three- to four-block radius, Crewe said. The suspect asked for pizza but made no other demands, U.S. Postal Inspection Service spokesman Peter Rendina said. The gunman's motive was unclear, Crewe said. He had not identified himself but he has told police he has a military background, Crewe said. Police have yet to confirm whether the gunman has military training, Crewe said. Agents with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also on scene, Crewe said. Wytheville is a small town in southwestern Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It has a population of just over 8,000. CNN's Shawn Nottingham contributed to this report.

NEW: Armed, disabled man wheeled himself out of a Virginia facility, taken into custody . Standoff began Wednesday afternoon; number of hostages was uncertain . Man entered Wytheville, Virginia, post office and fired a shot, mayor says .

(CNN) -- An elderly American man has been released from a Mexican jail more than two months after the grandson he was traveling with was arrested on child pornography charges, a family member said. Edward Chrisman, left, crosses the Mexican border back into the United States after being freed Saturday. Edward Chrisman, 88, and his grandson had traveled to Algodones, Mexico, for discount dental care, as a part of a growing trend known as medical tourism. Algodones is just across the border from Yuma, Arizona. The grandson, 40-year-old Gary Chrisman Jr., remains in a Mexicali jail awaiting trial, according to his cousin, Tracy Short. Authorities accuse him of offering a woman money to take nude photos of her teenage daughters. Child pornography charges can carry a penalty of up to 12 years in prison, according to officials from the Consulate General Tijuana. In early January, the Chrismans stopped at a convenience store in Mexico and Gary Chrisman went inside to purchase soft drinks. Edward Chrisman waited in the car, Short said. The younger Chrisman had been taking pictures of the area that day and, while in the store, approached a woman about snapping some shots of her teenage daughters. He offered to pay them $25, they agreed, and he took a few pictures of the girls' faces. It was at that point, the family says, that the girls' mother demanded more money from Chrisman and called local authorities alleging that Chrisman had tried taking pornographic pictures of her daughters, after he refused to ante up. Both men were taken into custody at the time, but the police report does not say why the elder Chrisman was arrested. The Chrisman family says the men were set up as a ploy for money. Since early January, the family says, they have paid thousands of dollars to at least three attorneys for legal representation and have reached out to numerous officials and politicians in Mexico and the United States for help. Edward Chrisman, who lives in Arlington, Washington, but was wintering with his grandson in Yuma, Arizona, was released from jail on Saturday and crossed the border back into the United States the same day. The family says his health had been steadily deteriorating while he was behind bars. Traveling abroad for health care is a phenomenon known as medical tourism. Many do it to save money or to get medical care not approved in the United States. Internationally recognized hospitals in Thailand and Singapore can often perform orthopedic and heart procedures at a fraction of the cost. Mexico is a popular choice for dental care. The estimated number of Americans seeking treatment overseas annually varies widely, but starts at a half-million people. CNN's Sara Pratley contributed to this report.

U.S. man, 88, was arrested in January along with his 40-year-old grandson . Grandson accused of seeking nude photos of teens; family alleges setup . No word on why 88-year-old was jailed along with grandson . Family members say grandfather's health had deteriorated in jail .

(CNN) -- An employee at a New Jersey chocolate processing plant died Wednesday after falling into a vat of hot chocolate, according to a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's office. Vincent Smith II, 29, was dumping raw chocolate into the vat for melting when he fell in from a nine-foot high platform. He suffered a fatal blow to the head from the vat's agitator, a paddle-like mechanism used for stirring the chocolate. According to the Camden County prosecutor's office, three other people were on the platform at the time. One was able to shut the machinery off quickly, but it was too late to save Smith. The facility, owned by Cocoa Services Inc., is managed and operated by by Lyons and Sons. The rectangular vat, which was 8 feet deep, 14 feet long and 6 feet wide, was churning a batch of chocolate for Hershey's when the accident occurred, the prosecutor's office said. CNN's Jesse Solomon contributed to this report.

Worker was dumping chocolate into the vat when he fell from a 9-foot high platform . The vat was churning a batch of chocolate when the accident occurred . Vincent Smith II suffered a fatal blow to the head from the vat's agitator .

(CNN) -- An estimated 1 million people turned out to hear Pope Benedict XVI preach a Mass in Angola on Sunday, the last major event of his first trip to Africa. Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass in Angola, where he told Angolans on Sunday to "trust in God's promises." He spoke of the need for reconciliation in a country that endured a brutal civil war lasting nearly three decades. "Look to the future with hope, trust in God's promises and live in his truth. In this way you will build something that will stand and endure ... a lasting heritage of reconciliation, justice and peace," Benedict said in English to polite applause. The service's Bible reading's "vivid description of the destruction wrought by war echoes the personal experiences of so many people in this country amid the terrible ravages of the civil war," Benedict said in the Mass, which was broadcast by TPA, a CNN affiliate in Angola. "How true it is that war can destroy everything of value: families, whole communities, the fruit of men's labor." Benedict also expressed "deep sorrow" at the death of two women killed in a stampede at one of his events in Angola on Saturday, papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said. Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, earlier led a Vatican delegation to the hospitals where the bodies of two dead women are being kept, Lombardi said. They prayed over the dead bodies and met with the family of the one victim who has been identified, a catechism teacher in a parish in Luanda whose last class was Saturday morning. Midway through the Mass, a long line of worshippers brought offerings to the pontiff, as an electric organ and guitar played a joyous tune over the sound of percussion instruments and a choir, members of which were wearing matching white baseball caps. Women carried local produce on their heads in wide baskets or tall jugs, many dancing to the music as they waited to meet the pope. The 81-year-old pontiff mopped his face with a white handkerchief several times during the outdoor service, while many worshippers sought shelter from the sun under umbrellas. The pope spoke in English and Portuguese, the language of Angola's former colonial rulers, during the hour-long service, while local clergy read short passages in tribal languages. Benedict has been in Africa since Tuesday. He returns to Rome on Monday. Africa is the last continent that Benedict had left to visit, and one he could not avoid, said David Gibson, a biographer of the pope. "He knows he has to do this. He knows Africa is the future of the [Roman Catholic] Church, as it is for all of Christianity," said Gibson. Christianity, like Islam, is on the rise in Africa and Latin America, even as the northern hemisphere tends to become more secular. One in five of the world's Christians lives in Africa -- up from fewer than one in 50 in 1900, said Brian Grim, an editor of the World Religion Database. So Benedict is making the visit, although travel "is not his cup of tea," Gibson said, in contrast to his predecessor. "John Paul II loved the travel and loved the different cultures. Benedict is a European through and through." But Benedict understands that travel has become an essential part of a pope's duties, said Gibson, the author of "The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World." The trip opened with controversy, with the pope reiterating the Vatican's opposition to artificial birth control Tuesday while flying to Cameroon, the first stop on his journey. Sub-Saharan Africa has been hit harder by AIDS and HIV than any other region of the world, according to the United Nations and World Health Organization. There has been fierce debate between those who advocate the use of condoms to help stop the spread of the epidemic and those who oppose it. Gibson said this week's visit may be Benedict's only trip to Africa. "

NEW: Pope expresses "deep sorrow" at deaths in stampede at his Saturday event . About 1 million gather in civil war-torn Angola to hear Pope Benedict XVI . Mass was in English and Portuguese, the language of former colonial rulers . Benedict, who has been in Africa since Tuesday, returns to Rome on Monday .

(CNN) -- An estimated 125,000 Western lowland gorillas are living in a swamp in equatorial Africa, researchers reported Tuesday, double the number of the endangered primates thought to survive worldwide. Forest clearings draw large numbers of Western lowland gorillas searching for food. "It's pretty astonishing," Hugo Rainey, one of the researchers who conducted the survey for the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society, told CNN Tuesday. The last census on the species, carried out during the 1980s, estimated that there were only 100,000 of the gorillas left worldwide. Since then, the researchers estimated, the numbers had been cut in half. WCS survey teams conducted the research in 2006 and 2007, traveling to the remote Lac Tele Community Reserve in northern Republic of Congo, a vast area of swamp forest. Acting on a tip from hunters who indicated the presence of gorillas, Rainey said that the researchers trekked on foot through mud for three days to the outskirts of Lac Tele, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the nearest road. "When we went there, we found an astonishing amount of gorillas," said Rainey, speaking from the International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland. Though researchers did spot some gorillas, they based their estimate on the number of gorilla nests found at the site, Rainey said. Each gorilla makes a nest to sleep in at night. "This is the highest-known density of gorillas that's ever been found," Rainey said. Watch a glimpse of gorilla life in African swamp » Western lowland gorillas are listed as critically endangered, the highest threat category for a species. Their populations are declining rapidly because of hunting and diseases like Ebola hemorrhagic fever, whose symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and internal and external bleeding. Take a closer look at the Western lowland gorilla » While the discovery in northern Congo indicates that the gorilla population remains stable in some areas, it is likely that gorillas will remain critically endangered because the threats facing the species are so great, Rainey said. iReport.com: Share photos and video of gorillas in zoos or the wild "We know very little about Ebola and how it spreads," he said. "We don't even know the animal that spreads it around." The goal now, Rainey said, is to work with the Congolese government and donors to protect the areas in which the gorillas are known to be living. Western lowland gorillas, which are found in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria as well as the Republic of Congo, are the most numerous and wide-ranging of the four gorilla subspecies, each of which is threatened by extinction, the WCS says. See where the gorillas live » Illegal hunting and habitat loss have also threatened the Cross River gorillas, found in the highlands of Cameroon and Nigeria. Only about 250 to 300 are estimated to remain in the world, the WCS says. War, habitat loss, poaching and disease are the major threats to the mountain gorillas, made famous by researcher Dian Fossey and the film "Gorillas in the Mist." The mountain gorilla population is starting to recover after decades of conservation work. From a population of around 230 in the 1970s, the mountain gorillas now number around 700, the WCS says. Poaching and war have also threatened populations of Grauer's gorillas in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Zaire. The WCS estimates their population to be around 16,000. News of the discovery of the Western lowland gorillas in northern Congo comes the same week as a report that almost 50 percent of the world's primates are in danger of extinction. Watch what gorilla expert thinks of find » The report, also delivered to the Edinburgh conference, cites habitat loss and hunting as the greatest threats. The situation is especially dire in Asia, where the report says more than 70 percent of monkeys, apes, and other primates are classified as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered. Conservation International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature issued the report.

Researchers feared only around 50,000 Western lowland gorillas left worldwide . Now 125,000 primates have been discovered in northern Congo . Population declining rapidly because of hunting and diseases like Ebola . Expert: This is the highest-known density of gorillas that's ever been found .

(CNN) -- An estimated one percent of adults have active epilepsy, and many of them are getting insufficient treatment, according to a 19-state survey released Thursday. "This is the first time that we actually have data from multiple states," said Rosemarie Kobau, lead author of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, in a telephone interview. "What we learned is that, among adults with active epilepsy, more than a third of them reported not seeing a specialist for their epilepsy, and that's really unacceptable." A follow-up survey is planned to determine why so many people with seizure disorders said they had not seen a specialist in the past year, Kobau said. "This is a highly specialized field," said Eric Hargis, the president and CEO of the Epilepsy Foundation, which collaborated with the authors of the study. "It's not possible to get state-of-the-art care" for the disorder from primary care doctors. One in six (16.1 percent) adults with active epilepsy with recent seizures said they were not taking their medication and two-thirds (65.1 percent) said they had had more than one seizure during the prior month. More than a fifth (20.4 percent) said cost was a barrier to seeking care from their doctor. Access to high-quality care is key to quality of life, Kobau said. People with recurrent seizures face substantial impairments in their daily activities; many are not allowed to drive and, as a result, depend on public transportation. In some areas, particularly rural ones, that can present a barrier to full participation in life, she said. That's not all. In addition to carrying stigma, people with epilepsy were more likely to live in households with the lowest annual incomes and to report being unemployed and unable to work. According to the 2005 findings, 1.65 percent of the population said they had been told by a doctor that they had epilepsy or a seizure disorder, the report said. Half of that group (0.84 percent) said they had active epilepsy -- defined as having had one or more seizures during the prior three months or currently taking medication. If the findings translate to the general population, that means a stadium filled with 60,000 people would contain 480 people with active epilepsy, Kobau noted, adding, "Epilepsy is not rare." But that view was disputed by Dr. James King, a family physician in Selmer, Tennessee, and president of the American Association of Family Physicians. "There are patients that can be managed fairly simply with seizure disorder," he said in a telephone interview. "In my own personal practice, I'd say that I can manage at least half, if not more, of the patients that have seizure disorder." Many of the others are able to get by with just a one-time visit to a neurologist, said King, whose practice is 50 miles from the nearest neurologist, and 100 miles from the nearest neurologist who accepts Medicaid, the government program for the poor. "There's only a handful of patients that are managed in my area by the neurologist." He said financial barriers -- from insurance to the cost of anti-seizure medication -- are a bigger problem. "If you can't afford to buy it -- which is what I run into with a lot of the seizure medicine -- it doesn't really matter" if patients see a neurologist or a family physician, he said. Many patients, forced to choose between paying their light bill or taking their anti-seizure medication, choose the former, King said. Epilepsy is a condition in which the normal activity of the brain malfunctions, causing recurrent seizures -- electrical storms in the brain -- that can be characterized by a range of symptoms, including sudden change in awareness, movement or sensation. Each year, about 200,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with the disease, as was Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts after he suffered a seizure last year at his Maine vacation home. "Many people with epilepsy

One in six adults with epilepsy who had recent seizures were not on medication . Epilepsy is a condition in which the normal activity of the brain malfunctions . Study says about 200,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with the disease .

(CNN) -- An ex-convict, a mobster, a serial killer -- after more than two decades in the movie business, Ray Liotta is still perhaps best known for these "bad guy" roles in such films as "Something Wild" and "GoodFellas." Ray Liotta (right) co-stars with Seth Rogen in "Observe and Report," which opened Friday. But in his most recent film, "Observe and Report" -- a dark comedy co-starring Seth Rogen as a bipolar mall security guard and Anna Faris as the vapid make-up counter clerk he's in love with -- Liotta inches away from his edgy persona to play a detective investigating a flashing incident at the mall. "A flasher keeps flashing people at the mall, so they call in the 'real police,' which is me," Liotta told the Columbus Dispatch. "The last thing I want to do is investigate." The film, which opened in theaters Friday and has earned rave reviews by critics, is not Liotta's first comedic undertaking. The 54-year-old actor also starred in 2007's "Wild Hogs," a comedy co-starring Tim Allen and John Travolta about a group of middle-aged suburban men who decide to become bikers. The film was one of that year's surprise hits, taking in more than $150 million at the domestic box office. See some of the highlights of Liotta's career » Liotta first made his mark on the film industry by playing a psychotic ex-husband determined to win back his ex-wife in "Something Wild." The role propelled Liotta to fame and earned him a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor. From there, Liotta starred as mobster Henry Hill in the Martin Scorsese classic "Goodfellas" (1990), working alongside renowned actors Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. "Edgy guys stand out in people's minds," Liotta said of his famous "bad guy" roles, according to the Dispatch. But, to avoid being typecast as the "bad guy" forever, Liotta decided to break from the mold in his next role as a caring father in the heartwarming film "Corrina, Corrina" (1994), co-starring Whoopi Goldberg. Liotta soon proved that acting was not his only forte. He formed his own production company in 2002 and made his debut as a producer on the film "Narc," in which he also starred as a corrupt cop. He's also earned plaudits for his television work. In 2004, Liotta starred in an episode of the hit NBC drama, "ER," winning an Emmy for his guest appearance. The actor got his start on daytime TV, playing the character Joey Perrini on the soap "Another World." With several films currently in production, Liotta shows no signs of stopping. The actor told the Dispatch that he hopes to try his hand at romance in the future, joking that he'd like to "kiss the girl without having to choke her first." CNN's David Daniel contributed to this story.

Ray Liotta known for bad-guy roles such as gangsters, serial killers . Liotta tries something a little different with comedy "Observe and Report" "Edgy guys stand out in people's minds," Liotta has said .

(CNN) -- An explosion caused by a chemical reaction at a University of Maryland-College Park chemistry lab caused minor injuries to two students and forced authorities to evacuate the four-story building, according to the Prince George's Fire Department. Initial reports described an explosion and fire inside the building, but fire department spokesman Mark Brady said in a post to the department's Twitter account that there was no fire. The department's hazardous materials team was preparing to go into the building, he said. Two students were being treated at the scene for first-degree chemical burns and superficial cuts, Brady said on the social networking service.

Chemical reaction injures two University of Maryland-College park students . Authorities evacuated the chemistry building, a fire department spokesman says .

(CNN) -- An explosion destroyed a home in suburban Pittsburgh on Wednesday, killing an elderly man and severely injuring his grandchild, authorities said. A house exploded Wednesday, killng one person and injuring a second, in the Pennsylvania borough of Plum. The explosion was reported about 1:30 p.m. on Mardi Gras Drive in Plum Borough, about 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Several neighboring homes were damaged, fire officials said. Richard Leith, 64, was babysitting his grandchild in the home, according to John J. Smith, an investigator with the Allegheny County medical examiner's office. Both were transported to local hospitals, though Leith died later in the afternoon. The condition of the child, who was treated at Children's Hospital, was unknown, Smith said. Leith's autopsy would be conducted on Thursday, he added. It is unclear what caused the explosion. Dave Heiser, a neighbor, told CNN that he was home when he heard the explosion. "I thought my house blew up. My windows were blown out. I went outside and debris was falling from the sky," he said. Watch the neighbor describe hearing the blast » He said he ran three houses down and saw a woman running with a little girl and screaming. "The little girl was apparently in the house when the explosion happened and was blown outside," Heiser said. "That house was leveled to the ground. There is nothing left." Several families who were displaced by the explosion were directed to Red Cross officials to make arrangements for shelter Wednesday night, authorities said. E-mail to a friend CNN's Ninette Sosa contributed to this report.

Officials: 1:30 p.m. explosion kills grandfather, severely injures grandchild . It's unclear what caused the blast, authorities say . Investigator: 64-year-old Richard Leith died at hospital . Neighbor says he saw a woman running down street with a little girl after blast .

(CNN) -- An explosion that critically injured the chairman of the Arkansas Medical Board on Wednesday was caused by a bomb, police said. Dr. Trent Pierce was injured outside his home Wednesday, authorities and local media say. Dr. Trent Pierce was wounded when the car blew up in front of his West Memphis, Arkansas, home, authorities said. Earlier, police told CNN affiliate WREG that they did not believe foul play was involved. Pierce, a family practitioner who specializes in asthma, was flown to a Memphis, Tennessee, hospital in extremely critical condition, the station reported, citing police. The blast occurred at about 8 a.m. as Pierce got into the car, affiliate WMC-TV reported. Aerial footage from the scene showed the white SUV with its hood blown up and its front end extensively damaged. Medical board spokeswoman Peggy Cryer said the board heard Pierce was flown to the hospital but had no definite information beyond that. "We do not know enough to give any kind of statement," she said. Callers to Pierce's office received an answering machine message saying the office is closed, but the call repeatedly disconnected during the recording, preventing messages from being left. Doris Davis, who works in an eye doctor's office next door, said Pierce's office staff is swamped trying to deal with patients who arrived for their appointments. FBI spokesman Jason Pack said agents were en route to the scene, along with personnel from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The FBI is assisting local authorities in their investigation, he said. West Memphis, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee, are separated by the Mississippi River. Pierce was described as a pillar of the community in West Memphis, a small town of about 30,000 people. Davis said Pierce is well-liked, active in his church and is married with two adult children. She said the FBI was at her office and interviewed her boss, Dr. Eddie Bryant. Bryant is a close friend of Pierce's and went to medical school with him, Davis said. CNN's Kathleen Shahriari contributed to this report.

NEW: Police say bomb placed in doctor's car . Dr. Trent Pierce described as pillar of community, well-liked . Aerial footage shows Lexus SUV with its front end extensively damaged .

(CNN) -- An icy asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Saturn is adding credence to theories that Earth's water was delivered from space, according to a report published in the new issue of the science journal Nature. Two teams of scientists found their evidence when looking at 24 Themis, a asteroid about 479 million kilometers (300 million miles) from the sun, or roughly three times the average distance from Earth to the sun. Using the infrared telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, they were surprised to find not only water on 24 Themis, but organic compounds as well. Asteroids were thought to be devoid of water because they sit too close to the sun, while comets have been the water bearers of the universe because they form farther out in space. "Astronomers have looked at dozens of asteroids with this technique, but this is the first time we've seen ice on the surface and organics," astronomer Andrew Rivkin of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, told Nature.com. The scientific teams from Johns Hopkins and the University of Central Florida that looked at 24 Themis speculate that the ice may be held in a reservoir under the asteroid's surface. They speculate that the water is brought to the surface as small bodies in the asteroid belt hit the surface of 24 Themis. The findings on 24 Themis lend weight to the idea that asteroids and comets are the source of Earth's water and organic material. Geochemists believe that early Earth went through a molten phase that would have removed any organic molecules, meaning any new organic material would have had to come to the planet at a later time, said Humberto Campins at UCF. "I believe our findings are linked to the origin of life on Earth," he added. Scientists now plan to scan the asteroid belt for more evidence of water and organic materials, hoping to determine if 24 Themis is just an interloper -- possibly a comet that got caught in the asteroid belt -- or the first of many water-bearing asteroids that will change the way astronomers look at the solar system. "The old-fashioned picture of the solar system in which asteroids are asteroids and comets are comets is getting harder to sustain," Rivkin said.

Report: Scientists find first evidence of water on asteroid . Organic compounds were also found on 24 Themis . Asteroids were once thought not to contain water because they were too close to sun .

(CNN) -- An immigration judge with the U.S. Justice Department has granted a stay to John Demjanjuk, the Nazi war crimes suspect who had been ordered deported to Germany, his lawyer said Friday. John Demjanjuk appears in court in Jerusalem in 1987 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. John Broadley said the stay was ordered after Judge Wayne Iskra in Arlington, Virginia, decided to reopen deportation proceedings. "In the four years since his deportation was ordered, his health has seriously deteriorated," Broadley told CNN in a telephone interview. Broadley had argued that Sunday's plan to send Demjanjuk to Germany, which has issued an arrest warrant for him, and putting him through the rigors of a trial there would be tantamount to torture. Demjanjuk -- a Ukrainian -- is accused of involvement during World War II in killings at a Nazi German death camp in Poland. He denies the allegations. The retired auto worker celebrated his 89th birthday Friday with his wife at their home in Cleveland. Broadley said Demjanjuk suffers from pre-leukemia, kidney problems, spinal problems and "a couple of types of gout." German authorities issued the warrant for Demjanjuk on March 10, accusing him of being an accessory to 29,000 counts of murder as a guard at the Sobibor death camp from March to September 1943. Demjanjuk says he fought in the Soviet army and later was a prisoner of war held by the Germans. Demjanjuk has been fighting charges of Nazi war crimes for well over two decades. He was extradited from the United States to Israel, where he was convicted in 1986 of being "Ivan the Terrible," a guard at the notorious Treblinka extermination camp. The conviction was overturned by Israeli courts on appeal and he returned to the United States. The United States filed new charges against him in 1999, again alleging that he had been a concentration camp guard. A federal judge found in 2002 that Demjanjuk had been a guard at the Sobibor death camp, where a quarter of a million people were killed during World War II, and at two other concentration camps. Prosecutors argued that Demjanjuk concealed his history when he came to the United States in 1952. He was stripped of U.S. citizenship and has been awaiting deportation since 2005, despite fighting his case all the way to the Supreme Court. CNN's Diana Magnay contributed to this report.

NEW: Judge reopens deportation hearings on accused former death camp guard . NEW: John Demjanjuk's attorney says client's health "has seriously deteriorated." Demjanjuk, 89, has been fighting charges of war crimes for more than two decades . Germany accuses him of being accessory to 29,000 murders at Sobibor .

(CNN) -- An infant falls to his death from a second-story window while his parents are making love. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe star in the Lars von Trier drama "Antichrist." The mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is consumed with grief and guilt. She's hospitalized and sedated for days and weeks before her husband (Willem Dafoe), a therapist, insists she return home. He gets rid of all her medications. He will be her partner and her grief counselor, and he will see her through this, if only she will place her trust in him. Not a good idea for either of them, as it turns out. Halloween is nearly upon us, but "Antichrist" is a mighty strange kind of horror movie, a wrenching psychodrama for two-thirds of its running time before collapsing into a steaming heap of deranged sadism and supernatural symbolism in the outrageous third act. The movie's peculiarity can be accounted for in three words: Lars von Trier. The Danish provocateur twice won prestigious honors at the Cannes Film Festival (with "Breaking the Waves" and "Dancer in the Dark") and re-energized European art cinema in the 1990s with the Dogme movement's so-called "Vows of Chastity." It's not often that an art-house director takes up the implements to make a horror film, and for a while, "Antichrist" compels with its anguished intensity and audacious stylistic choices, not least the severity that keeps the focus exclusively on this man and woman, neither of whom is named. The prologue -- the child's death -- is a luxurious, slow-motion rhapsody of explicit sex, black-and-white photography and baroque music, commingling with the infant's almost ersatz tragedy and finding perfunctory counterpoint in banal close-ups of the family's washer-dryer. (There may be a deliberate echo here of the famous sex scene in Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now," a far more keenly calibrated examination of grief succumbing to the supernatural.) Dafoe and Gainsbourg are riveting as the ill-matched couple. He's an implacable rationalist, urging her to confront her fears and venture into the darkest recesses of her psyche. She's not sure he's ready to share that torment with her. Their bitter, sometimes sourly funny back-and-forth fleetingly echoes the railing, pugnacious and remorseful men and women we find again and again in Strindberg and Bergman. Of course, when those great Scandinavian dramatists wanted to shock us with the ferocity of the battle of the sexes and show a married couple going at it tooth and nail, their only weapons were words. Mindful that he's up against "Hostel," "Saw" and the like, Herr von Trier ups the ante considerably. Hiking to a log cabin in the mountains to uncover the apex of his wife's fears (it could be anywhere, but let's imagine we're in the neighborhood of Burkittsville), the doctor's little experiment in exposure therapy ends in crushed genitals and, uh, worse. Much worse. It's safe to say von Trier knows this climax is over the top: "Chaos reigns!" announces a fox, in perfect English, just as the movie goes off the deep end. Chaos reigns all right, and Gainsbourg's traumatized mom is transformed nonsensically into a raving psycho witch-bitch. This director has often been accused of misogyny for the punishments that befall his heroines -- spuriously, in my opinion. But this time the boot is on the other foot, and for once the charge seems to stick; no matter that the first half of the movie suggests Dafoe's smug therapist is due for a comeuppance. Apparently someone had a seizure when the movie showed at the New York Film Festival recently. When I caught up with it at the Vancouver International Film Festival two weeks ago, the screening was punctuated with the single loudest shriek I've ever heard in the theatre -- that would have been when Gainsbourg gets out the scissors for a spot of ad hoc auto-surgery. There

"Antichrist" has met with vitriolic reaction at film festivals . Lars von Trier film stars Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg as troubled couple . Horror goes from moody to over-the-top and graphic . To CNN.com's Tom Charity, the film is a "calamitous atrocity"

(CNN) -- An infant falls to his death from a second-story window while his parents are making love. The mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is consumed with grief and guilt. She's hospitalized and sedated for days and weeks before her husband (Willem Dafoe), a therapist, insists she return home. He gets rid of all her medications. He will be her partner and her grief counselor, and he will see her through this, if only she will place her trust in him. Not a good idea for either of them, as it turns out. Halloween is nearly upon us, but "Antichrist" is a mighty strange kind of horror movie, a wrenching psychodrama for two-thirds of its running time before collapsing into a steaming heap of deranged sadism and supernatural symbolism in the outrageous third act. The movie's peculiarity can be accounted for in three words: Lars von Trier. The Danish provocateur twice won prestigious honors at the Cannes Film Festival (with "Breaking the Waves" and "Dancer in the Dark") and re-energized European art cinema in the 1990s with the Dogme movement's so-called "Vows of Chastity." It's not often that an art-house director takes up the implements to make a horror film, and for a while, "Antichrist" compels with its anguished intensity and audacious stylistic choices, not least the severity that keeps the focus exclusively on this man and woman, neither of whom is named. The prologue -- the child's death -- is a luxurious, slow-motion rhapsody of explicit sex, black-and-white photography and baroque music, commingling with the infant's almost ersatz tragedy and finding perfunctory counterpoint in banal close-ups of the family's washer-dryer. (There may be a deliberate echo here of the famous sex scene in Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now," a far more keenly calibrated examination of grief succumbing to the supernatural.) Dafoe and Gainsbourg are riveting as the ill-matched couple. He's an implacable rationalist, urging her to confront her fears and venture into the darkest recesses of her psyche. She's not sure he's ready to share that torment with her. Their bitter, sometimes sourly funny back-and-forth fleetingly echoes the railing, pugnacious and remorseful men and women we find again and again in Strindberg and Bergman. Of course, when those great Scandinavian dramatists wanted to shock us with the ferocity of the battle of the sexes and show a married couple going at it tooth and nail, their only weapons were words. Mindful that he's up against "Hostel," "Saw" and the like, Herr von Trier ups the ante considerably. Hiking to a log cabin in the mountains to uncover the apex of his wife's fears (it could be anywhere, but let's imagine we're in the neighborhood of Burkittsville), the doctor's little experiment in exposure therapy ends in crushed genitals and, uh, worse. Much worse. It's safe to say von Trier knows this climax is over the top: "Chaos reigns!" announces a fox, in perfect English, just as the movie goes off the deep end. Chaos reigns all right, and Gainsbourg's traumatized mom is transformed nonsensically into a raving psycho witch-bitch. This director has often been accused of misogyny for the punishments that befall his heroines -- spuriously, in my opinion. But this time the boot is on the other foot, and for once the charge seems to stick; no matter that the first half of the movie suggests Dafoe's smug therapist is due for a comeuppance. Apparently someone had a seizure when the movie showed at the New York Film Festival recently. When I caught up with it at the Vancouver International Film Festival two weeks ago, the screening was punctuated with the single loudest shriek I've ever heard in the theatre -- that would have been when Gainsbourg gets out the scissors for a spot of ad hoc auto-surgery. There also was a very vociferous walk-out: a gentleman who fairly barked "You get

"Antichrist" has met with vitriolic reaction at film festivals . Lars von Trier film stars Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourgh as troubled couple . Horror goes from moody to over-the-top and graphic . To CNN.com's Tom Charity, the film is a "calamitous atrocity"

(CNN) -- An infant girl delivered prematurely from her mother, who has the swine flu virus, has died, hospital officials said Monday. Aubrey Opdyke was put into a medically induced coma to give the baby as much oxygen as possible. Parker Christine Opdyke was delivered 14 weeks early by doctors at Wellington Regional Medical Center in Florida's Palm Beach County. Her mother, Aubrey Opdyke, was placed into a medically induced coma June 3 to help give the baby as much oxygen as possible. But doctors delivered Parker on Saturday after her mother suffered a collapsed lung last week. Aubrey Opdyke remains comatose and in critical condition in Wellington's intensive care unit. "Despite heroic efforts on the part of physicians and nurses, we are sad to announce that baby Parker Christine Opdyke has expired," said a written statement from the hospital. No other details were available Monday. Attempts by CNN to reach the family were unsuccessful. Even under the best circumstances, delivering a child at 27 weeks is a very early birth, Dr. David Feld, a Palm Beach County obstetrician and gynecologist, told CNN affiliate WPEC. "When you have an infectious case, I don't think you're going to see that lung maturity as quickly, and I think that is the issue," he said. But, he said, now that Aubrey Opdyke is no longer pregnant, she will be able to fight for her own life. Palm Beach County has had 247 confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, but only one death. In late June, a 25-year-old pregnant woman died, but her baby survived. Pregnant women have long been a prime concern of health care officials regarding the flu virus, but are of particular concern during this outbreak of swine flu. Pregnant women have always been advised to get a flu shot because they are at greater risk because of the weakened immune system resulting from their pregnancy. But the H1N1 epidemic has seen new complications and challenges. "We have seen, with this virus, worse complications and severe infections in pregnant women," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We're urging women who are pregnant who develop fever or respiratory symptoms to seek care promptly." The CDC said it is vitally important for pregnant women to recognize the signs and symptoms, like fever and cough, to get to their doctor quickly and to begin taking antiviral medicines early on. "I know that many pregnant women don't want to take anything while they're pregnant," said Schuchat. "This is a situation where you need to be more worried about your health and the baby's health." The CDC also recommends that pregnant women get the H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available, in addition to an annual flu shot. "For people who are at high risk, like pregnant women, planning to receive both vaccines is probably the right way to go," Schuchat said. The CDC's advisory committee will meet later this month to make recommendations on at-risk groups who should receive the new vaccine.

Baby delivered 14 weeks prematurely from a mom battling swine flu has died . The baby's mother, who has been placed in a coma, remains in critical condition . CDC sees "worse complications, severe infections in pregnant women" with this flu .

(CNN) -- An international footballer who played for the United Arab Emirates, and who became an internet sensation after scoring a backheeled penalty, has died following a car accident near the country's capital, Abu Dhabi. Theyab Awana, a 21-year-old winger for local club Bani Yas, was one of the country's brightest prospects after winning the 2008 AFC Under 18 Cup and was instrumental in the UAE reaching the quarterfinals of the 2009 FIFA Under 20 World Cup. "Theyab Awana has passed away on Sunday night after a horrible traffic accident on Sheikh Zayed Road in Abu Dhabi," the UAE Football Association confirmed in a statement on Monday. "God blesses his soul and wholehearted condolences to his family, friends and fans." Last year he won a silver medal at the 2010 Asian Games after the UAE reached the final and had been picked for both senior and Olympic national teams. But it was his actions during a friendly against Lebanon in July that brought him international recognition. With the UAE leading 5-2, Awana stepped up to take a penalty. Instead of conventionally striking the ball he twisted around and backheeled the ball into the corner of the net. He was immediately substituted by then coach Srecko Katanec, who was angry at what he saw was a lack of respect for the opposition. Yet the fans didn't agree. Instead the YouTube clip of his penalty went viral. More than 1.2 million people have since viewed it. "On behalf of AFC and the Asian football family, I would like to offer my sincere condolences to the UAE football community, family and friends of Awana," the Asian Football Confederation's acting president Zhang Jilong said in a statement. Awana's death comes soon after another young Emirati player Saeed al Nooby, who played for second division side Al Dhafra, also died in a car accident. "We had just returned last night with the club officials and players after visiting the family of Saeed al Nooby and paying our condolences," Bani Yas' Brazilian coach Jorvan Vieira told the Dubai-based newspaper the Gulf News. "An hour later I got a call from the club's manager informing me of the accident and I rushed to the hospital but Awana had died. "It will take some time for the club and his teammates to get over Awana's death. We have lost a man, a player and a boy and it will be hard to replace him."

UAE international footballer Theyab Awana killed in a car accident . The video of his backheeled penalty against Lebanon in July was a world wide sensation . Over 1.2 million people have viewed it on YouTube . It's the second death of a UAE footballer in a traffic accident in a month .

(CNN) -- An internationally renowned paleontologist will plead guilty to stealing dinosaur bones from federal land, his attorneys said in a court filing. Paleontologist Nate Murphy is expected to plead guilty to stealing fossils from federal land. Nate Murphy, whose famous finds include Leonardo, one of the best-preserved dinosaurs in the world, will make that plea in federal court in Billings, Montana. Earlier this month, Murphy pleaded guilty to state charges of stealing a fossil from private land in order to sell it. An expert cited in that case said Murphy's find was worth between $150,000 and $400,000. The self-taught dinosaur expert, who is director of vertebrate paleontology at the Judith River Dinosaur Institute, could face jail time. Murphy and his attorney did not immediately respond to phone messages Friday from CNN. Jessica Fehr, lead prosecutor in the case, said the U.S. Attorney's Office would not comment until after the plea is entered. In court papers, federal prosecutors say Murphy knowingly took fossils from federal property between about August 2006 and August 2007. The "paleontological resources" were said to be worth at least $1,000. In the state case, Murphy pleaded guilty to a felony charge of theft. As part of the plea, the state recommended Murphy's sentence be deferred for five years. Douglas Erwin, president of The Paleontological Society and curator of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said "theft of fossils from pubic lands has long been a problem." In a written statement sent to CNN on Friday, he said such thefts "can often result in the loss of important scientific information and the disappearance of specimens that belong to the public. "At the same time, however, fossil collecting, particularly of common invertebrate fossils, has been a pastime enjoyed by many for decades, and is an important way of connecting people with their natural heritage." An omnibus public lands bill, which the U.S. Senate passed Thursday, includes penalties for fossil theft from public land.

Attorney says well-known paleontologist will plead guilty to stealing dinosaur bones . Nate Murphy, of the Judith River Dinosaur Institute, has made major fossil finds . Murphy is accused of taking fossils from federal lands in Montana . Smithsonian: "Theft of fossils from pubic lands has long been a problem"

(CNN) -- An interview with a choreographer for the Miss Universe pageant spurred controversy Wednesday over alleged claims that Donald Trump personally selects some of the finalists. Donald Trump is at the center of a brewing controversy over the Miss Universe finalists. The Q&A with Michael Schwandt, which appeared on Guanabee.com, quotes him as saying that "it's just kind of common knowledge that [Trump] picks six of the top 15 single-handedly." "And, his reason for doing so, as he told me and he's told the girls before, is that he left it all up to preliminary judging in the past, and some of the most beautiful women, in his opinion, were not in the top 15, and he was kind of upset about that," the story quotes Schwandt as saying. "And he decided that he would pick a certain number and let the judges pick a certain number." Via e-mail, Schwandt said that he "was speaking in hypothetical jest" when he said Trump picks some of the finalists and said the mogul has never spoken to either him, or any of his team, about the selection process. "The story posted on that site contains many misquotes and [is] highly inaccurate," Schwandt wrote. "I would like to disassociate myself from it completely and anything negative in regards to Miss Universe or even suggesting that Donald Trump 'rigs' his event. I'm perplexed as to why Guanabee.com would run a story such as this when they are aware that it is inaccurate." Daniel Mauser, publisher of Guanabee, said his site stands by the story, which resulted after Schwandt was contacted about his role choreographing both the pageant and a much talked-about performance by reality-star-turned-singer Heidi Montag. "Whatever you see quoted in the article is verbatim what he said," Mauser said. "So I can understand why he would want to retract those words, but unfortunately that was what was said." A statement from Miss Universe Organization President Paula M. Shugart, released Wednesday, said that "to suggest the pageant is somehow orchestrated or 'rigged' is utterly false and misleading." However, the statement also observed that Trump does play a role in selecting the finalists. "In the 2009 Miss Universe competition, a preliminary panel of judges selected nine of the Top 15 and members of the Miss Universe Organization, including owner Donald J. Trump, selected the remaining six," the statement began. The statement went on to say that "a separate panel of judges, introduced live at the Finals telecast, is solely responsible for the selection of the Top 10, Top 5 and the ultimate winner of the pageant." "This system has been in place since 2005 and has always been fully disclosed to the contestants, their directors, the judges and the viewing audience," the statement said. "The procedure is overseen by the accounting firm of Ernst & Young and NBC Program Standards and Compliance. To in any way call into question the integrity of the judging process or suggest the pageant is somehow orchestrated or 'rigged' is utterly false and misleading." Mauser describes Guanabee as an "entertainment Web site for the Hispanic community that covers the interests and portrayals of acculturated Hispanics in this country." The Miss Universe pageant is very popular in the Hispanic community, Mauser said, and the story took a different turn after the alleged comments were published. Schwandt, who has choreographed the pageant for the past few years, said in an e-mail to CNN that although Trump does meet with the contestants before the televised pageant, as far as he knows, it is just a gesture on Trump's part in his role as producer of the pageant. "I know the Miss Universe Organization goes to great lengths to establish a preliminary and final panel of judges as well as different factors on which contestants are judged," Schwandt wrote. "However, I'm the last person to be quoted as saying anything in regard to the judging or selecting process, I'm the

Miss Universe choreographer's interview sparks controversy . Michael Schwandt says he was misquoted . President of organization calls claims of rigging "false and misleading"

(CNN) -- An investigation is under way into a previously unrevealed incident last week in which two jetliners nearly collided over Hong Kong, aviation authorities said Tuesday. The September 18 incident reportedly did not come to light publicly until an article revealing it was published Tuesday in the English-language newspaper The Standard of Hong Kong. The two jets, carrying more than 600 passengers and crew members, came within seconds of colliding, the newspaper reported, citing a former Hong Kong aviation official. According to a statement issued by Hong Kong's Civil Aviation Department, a Cathay Pacific Airways flight that was bound for Hong Kong International Airport came within 1 nautical mile (2 km) of a Dragonair A330 airplane that was in a holding pattern for landing. The international standard for separation between aircraft is 5 nautical miles (9.26 kilometers) horizontally or 1,000 feet (304) meters vertically), the department said. The incident happened during a stormy afternoon when aircraft were stacked up for landing over Hong Kong, the department said. An air traffic controller was trying to shuffle waiting aircraft around so that the Cathay Pacific flight, which was low on fuel, could land more quickly. That's when controllers noticed the flights were too close. The pilots of both aircraft failed to respond to commands to change course at one point or another during the incident, the department said. Collision avoidance systems on both aircraft activated after the crew of the Cathay Pacific flight failed to respond to a command to climb to a higher altitude. Cathay Pacific said in a statement that "both Cathay Pacific and Dragonair pilots had taken appropriate actions under the circumstances to re-establish standard separation between the two aircraft." The pilots could see each other's planes during the incident and there was no risk of collision, the department and Cathay Pacific said. But The Standard quoted Hong Kong's former civil aviation chief Albert Lam Kwong-yu as saying that, based on normal speeds of the airliners involved, they were about six seconds from colliding. "The chance of a crash is absolutely high," the paper quoted Lam as saying. "The passengers really came back from hell." The flights involved were Cathay 841 from New York to Hong Kong, and Dragonair 433 from Kaoshiung, Taiwan, to Hong Kong. The Cathay jet had 317 people aboard and the Dragonair jet had 296 aboard, according to aviation officials. Investigators have ruled out air traffic controller fatigue as a cause of the near-collision, the department said. The air controller in charge of the flights was appropriately rested and has since returned to work, the agency said. Investigators will examine air traffic procedures, staffing levels and flight crew operations, the department said. Hong Kong has been the site of four other near-collision incidents in the last 11 years. -- In September 2010, a Cathay Pacific plane taking off for London after midnight had to deviate from the runway center line at high speed because the tail of another plane was too close to its path. -- In July 2006, a Dragonair Airbus and a Northwest Airlines Boeing -- both heading for Tokyo -- were reported to be just 100 meters apart vertically while 80 nautical miles east of the Hong Kong airport. -- In September 2004, a China Southern Airlines plane leaving Hong Kong and an incoming Malaysia Airlines cargo plane came within 304 meters of each other 55 nautical miles south of the airport. -- In June 2001, a Dragonair Airbus to Shanghai and a Cathay Pacific flight arriving from Seoul were reported 210 meters apart 110 nautical miles east of Hong Kong.

An investigation is under way into a near-collision last week over Hong Kong . The incident was not reported publicly until a Hong Kong newspaper revealed it Tuesday . Aviation and airline officials say passengers were never at risk . It's at least the fourth near-collision over Hong Kong in 11 years .

(CNN) -- An outspoken Saudi human rights advocate who was imprisoned without charge for nearly eight months was freed this weekend, according to a fellow human rights activist. Matrook al-Faleh, shown in 2004, was seized after he criticized prison conditions, says Human Rights Watch. Matrook al-Faleh "is doing very well" after leaving Al-Hayer maximum security prison near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, late Saturday, said colleague Mohammed al-Qahtani, who visited al-Faleh on Sunday. "He is very healthy and his morale is quite high -- surprisingly after eight months," said al-Qahtani. Both men are Saudi college professors. It's unclear why al-Faleh was arrested. A Human Rights Watch report condemning the arrest and urging al-Faleh's release said his detention came two days after he publicly criticized conditions in a prison where two other Saudi human rights activists are imprisoned. It was also unclear why he was held for so long. According to al-Qahtani, Saudi law mandates that no one can be held for more than six months without charge. "The criminal code says you charge him or release him, but sometimes they do not respect the law they issued," al-Qahtani said. An official at the Saudi Interior Ministry said he had no details about al-Faleh's case. Jamila al-Uqla, al-Faleh's wife, spoke to CNN in May, shortly after her husband was detained. She described how her husband had been arrested without charge and interrogated repeatedly. Al-Faleh had decided to go on a hunger strike to demand that he be told why he was being held, she said. His wife stressed that she and al-Faleh are patriotic Saudis. "My husband is transparent and doesn't hide anything," said al-Uqla. "He says whatever he sees. He has loyalty to his country and the interests of his country." It was not Al-Faleh's first brush with the Saudi legal system. Al-Faleh, Abdullah al-Hamid and Ali al-Dumaini, who runs a Saudi discussion Web site, were arrested in 2004 for circulating a petition meant for then-Crown Prince Abdullah which called for a constitution guaranteeing basic human rights. A court sentenced al-Faleh, Abdullah al-Hamid and Ali al-Dumaini, to six, seven and nine years respectively. But King Abdullah pardoned them in August 2005, Human Rights Watch said.

Saudi professor Matrook al-Faleh imprisoned for eight months without charge . He was released from a prison near Riyadh late Saturday, fellow activist says . Rights group: Al-Faleh's detention came after he criticized prison conditions .

(CNN) -- An overcompetitive parent gets into an argument with a stubborn coach because he thinks his child isn't getting enough playing time -- it's a familiar scene on youth sports fields across America. One critic of the Rhode Island plan said giving parents a outlet for petty complaints "opens up a can of worms." Now, a Rhode Island senator wants the state to step in and create a formal outlet for the "concerns and objections" some parents have. Democratic Sen. John Tassoni Jr. introduced a bill that would create a youth sports oversight council on the state level. The council would act as mediator in disputes between parents of youth athletes and sports officials. In answer to critics, Tassoni said Friday that the notion the bill would mean "big brother" could begin to oversee youth sports is a misconception. The bill cites the need for a third party to step in at times, stating that "parents lack a proper outlet to share concerns and objections about youth sports." But the parents are the biggest problem, said Matt Rodrigues, general manager and owner of Teamworks youth sports program in Warwick, Rhode Island. "They are crazy, especially in Rhode Island. The kids on the court are scared because the parents are yelling and screaming," Rodrigues said. But the answer, he said, is not to create a council that "makes decisions we can deal with ourselves." A similar council exists in Waterford, Connecticut -- run by the town, not the state. "It kind of surprises me that [Rhode Island would] do it on such a large level like that," said Bruce Miller, president of the Waterford Youth Sports Council. Waterford's council is made up of representatives from the town's 11 sports leagues. Tassoni's bill states that at least four of the members of the state council would be regional youth sports representatives. He said the council is needed because right now there is no place to go to resolve disputes. "There's no place right now to bring a case forward and have a third party take a look at it," he said. Under the bill, Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri would appoint seven volunteers -- approved by the state Senate and House -- to sit on a panel called the Rhode Island Youth Sports Oversight Council. Tassoni said the seven-member council wouldn't be made up of politicians, but ex-coaches, ex-officials and ex-athletic directors. Some adults involved in youth sports aren't happy about it. One blogger posted concerns on the Web site of a Rhode Island newspaper, the Providence Journal. "Hey Tassoni: What do you do, [lie] in bed and think to yourself -- 'what haven't me and my cronies either screwed up, bankrupted or embarrassed yet? Hmmmm ... haven't touched Little League yet.' Do me a favor -- and I ask this as a coach and a parent -- stay the hell away from my field!!!!" wrote the blogger. Others think the government should "concentrate on the state." Rodrigues of the Teamworks program said giving parents a place to do petty complaining only "opens up a can of worms." He said the council just "sounds like another way to take power away from our programs -- they have enough [power]." The governor has not taken a position on the legislation and will not until he reviews the bill, press secretary Amy Kempe said Friday. She added, however, that "there appears to be some vague language and constitutional issues." The bill states that the volunteers on the council would be expected to "provide oversight and mediation" to youth sports programs in the state, as well as develop and adopt a process to review and address complaints. In addition, the council would have the authority to establish and collect fines. But the bill does not go into detail about how to implement the reviewing and fining processes. The bill, with some revisions, is scheduled to be heard by the

Conflicts between parents, coaches and officials all too common in youth sports . Rhode Island state senator wants state to create formal outlet for parents' concerns . Similar council exists in Waterford, Connecticut -- run by the town, not the state . Critic says giving parents a place for complaints opens "can of worms"

(CNN) -- An unexpected and sudden spotlight on the Special Olympics, an organization that for more than 40 years has served and honored those with intellectual disabilities, comes less than two weeks before the nonprofit launches a new campaign: Spread the Word to the End the Word. Special Olympics is running a campaign to stop the use of the "R-word." March 31 is being billed a "national day of awareness," a call to Americans to recognize and rethink their use of the word "retard," or as the organization would prefer, the "R-word." "Most people don't think of this word as hate speech, but that's exactly what it feels like to millions of people with intellectual disabilities, their families and friends," a statement about the campaign reads. "This word is just as cruel and offensive as any other slur." The push for increased respect is being spearheaded by young people who are collecting pledges or vows to not use the word at http://www.r-word.org/, and are leading online discussions on how people can get involved in this cause. So far, across the country, 300 schools have already committed to hosting rallies on March 31, Special Olympics President and CEO J. Brady Lum said. An aggressive print and online campaign, targeting people ages 18 to 30, will follow, said Kirsten Suto Seckler, who directs the organization's global brand marketing and awareness. The ads designed by BBDO New York, will challenge the public -- with language meant to raise eyebrows -- to think about the issue more deeply. The campaign uses slurs against Asians, homosexuals, Jews and African-Americans to make the point that language can be harmful to all groups, including people with intellectual disabilities. Attention on the Special Olympics skyrocketed Thursday when, in a quick and clearly unscripted moment, President Obama exhibited the power of words during his history-making visit with Jay Leno. Watch Suzanne Malveaux's look at Obama's Tonight Show appearance » While joking on The Tonight Show about his bowling prowess (during last year's campaign trail he shamefully scored 37 in a game), Obama said he'd been practicing at the White House. He told Leno that he bowled 129 in the White House bowling alley and said his bowling skills are "like Special Olympics or something." The comment during the taping of the show prompted Obama to pick up the phone on Air Force One and call Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver to preemptively apologize for the remark before it hit television screens. He also reportedly invited Special Olympic athletes to Pennsylvania Avenue to hit the lanes and give him tips or shoot some hoops. The president "expressed his heartfelt and sincere commitment to work with our athletes and make this country a more accepting place for people with special needs," Lum, the organization's president, said. What Obama said on The Tonight Show adds to the discussion that's needed to raise awareness and has proven "an incredibly important and seriously teachable moment," Lum said. From playgrounds to the "top rungs of our leadership, including our president," he said Americans have plenty to talk about and learn when it comes to stereotypes and how words can sting.

Americans are being challenged to consider their use of "R-word" or "retard" Attention comes just before campaign: Spread the Word to End the Word . Obama's Tonight Show gig included off-the-cuff reference to Special Olympics . Special Olympics president and CEO calls all the attention a "teachable moment"

(CNN) -- An unusual exhibition is confusing and amusing tourists and locals in central Copenhagen this month. Strange signs from around the world can be seen in Copenhagen, Denmark. "Signspotting" is a collection of more than 100 signs found by travelers around the world and recreated by travel writer Doug Lansky. "I wanted it to look as if we'd stolen the sign or someone with a professional camera had taken a really good picture of it," he told CNN. See pictures from Signspotting in Copenhagen. » Lansky started his collection almost 17 years ago, encouraged by friends who found his photos of strange signs more compelling than his treasured holiday snaps. As a travel columnist for the Chicago Tribune, he set about collecting photos of as many bizarre signs as he could. Interest in the project became so big that he eventually used them to replace the column itself. Signspotting Weekly was taken up by six papers, and before he knew it people began to send him pictures of signs they'd seen, eventually enough to fill a floor-to-ceiling cabinet. The photos filled two volumes of Signspotting books for Lonely Planet. Lansky chose the best for the first exhibition in Stockholm last year. "I felt bad I hadn't seen them. I knew I wasn't going to go around the world to track it down so I thought I'd do it this way," he said. Creating the exhibition took hours of painstaking work to digitally enlarge the photos so they looked like the real thing. "When most of these people sent these signs in they were on a postcard-sized photo and the actual sign was about the size of a postage stamp. To blow them up to this size was tricky," he said. The photos were then mounted onto real signs on metal poles standing in concrete bases. The free exhibition opened in Copenhagen, Denmark last week and will move to Arhus, Denmark on July 1st. Lansky is currently building a second exhibition for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.

Doug Lansky has been collecting photos of amusing signs for 17 years . The "Signspotting" street exhibition opened in Copenhagen last week . Reproducing the life-sized signs from tiny photographs is a painstaking task . Each sign was digitally enlarged and mounted on metal poles .

(CNN) -- Ancient man may have started global warming through massive deforestation and burning that could have permanently altered the Earth's climate, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Primitive slash-and-burn agriculture permanently changed Earth's climate, according to a new study. The study, published in the scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews and reported on the University of Virginia's Web site, says over thousands of years, farmers burned down so many forests on such a large scale that huge amounts of carbon dioxide were pumped into the atmosphere. That possibly caused the Earth to warm up and forever changed the climate. Lead study author William Ruddiman is a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a climate scientist. "It seems like a common-sense idea that there weren't enough people around 5, 6, 7,000 years ago to have any significant impact on climate. But if you allow for the fact that those people, person by person, had something like 10 times as much of an effect or cleared 10 times as much land as people do today on average, that bumps up the effect of those earlier farmers considerably, and it does make them a factor in contributing to the rise of greenhouse gasses," Ruddiman said. Ruddiman said that starting thousands of years ago, people would burn down a forest, poke a hole in the soil between the stumps, drop seeds in the holes and grow a crop on that land until the nutrients were tapped out of the soil. Then they would move on. "And they'd burn down another patch of forest and another and another. They might do that five times in a 20-year period," he said. That slashing and burning on such a large scale spewed enormous amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and warmed the planet, the study says. Ruddiman has studied and researched the idea of ancient man contributing to climate change for years now. And he's endured plenty of criticism over his theories. Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, California, is among those who disagree with Ruddiman. He said Ruddiman is "exaggerating the importance of early man." Caldeira told CNN that while ancient farmers may have played a tiny role in climate change, "it just wasn't a significant factor." He added, "There are actually studies showing if you cut down forests for farmland, you actually cool the planet, because of the glare from the cleared land." Ruddiman and study co-author Erle Ellis, an ecologist with UMBC, acknowledge that some models of past land use show it's only been in the past 150 years -- with a huge population explosion, the onset of the Industrial Age and the rise of fossil-fuel burning -- that global warming has accelerated. But Ruddiman said, "My argument is that even at the beginning, they just used much more land per person, so even though there weren't that many people, they used enough to start to push these greenhouse gas concentrations up." Ruddiman's research also argues that the Earth was on its way to another ice age 10,000 years ago and that ice sheets were already forming in northern latitudes when ancient man started his slashing and burning method of farming.

Study: Ancient people were fewer in number, but burned 10 times as much land . William Ruddiman: People would slash, burn "five times in a 20 year period" Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist, says study exaggerating impact of early man .

(CNN) -- Andre Berto claimed the vacant World Boxing Council welterweight title when he halted Miguel Rodriguez in the seventh round in Memphis. Berto took the WBC belt vacated when Floyd Mayweather retired. Berto (22-0, 19 KOs) picked up the WBC belt that became vacant when Floyd Mayweather retired. Rodriguez's record dropped to 29-3 with 23 KOs. Berto floored Rodriguez with an uppercut in the seventh round and when Rodriquez went down a second time referee Lawrance Cole intervened at 2:13. Dane Mikkel Kessler knocked out Dimitri Sartison in the 12th round in Copenhagen, to become World Boxing Association supermiddle champion . Kessler (40-1) dominated throughout in front of an enthusiastic home crowd at the Brondby Hall. Sartison, who was born in Kazhakstan but grew up in Germany, suffered his first loss after a 22-0 start in his pro career. Kessler won the WBA title in November 2004 by stopping Manny Siaca of Puerto Rico. He also lifted the the WBC super middleweight crown two years later when he knocked out Markus Beyer of Germany in the third round. But he surrendered both belts when Joe Calzaghe of Wales ended his unbeaten run in Cardiff last November. Britain's Amir Khan was floored before successfully defending his Commonwealth lightweight title with a fifth round stoppage of Michael Gomez in Birmingham. Khan, who has won all 18 of his fights since turning professional after winning a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, knocked Gomez down in the first round but found himself on the canvas in the second in a brief but rugged contest. Khan said: "This was one of my toughest fights but I learned from my mistakes. I will watch the video and work on them and continue my journey to the world title." Khan was on target with a powerful right uppercut in the first round and a combination of punches floored Gomez, who retaliated in the second round. A left hook over the top of a jab put Khan down and he had to take a standing count and looked unsteady on his legs for several seconds afterwards. Gomez landed a damaging hook to the ribs in the fourth but early in the fifth Khan put his opponent down again with a powerful body shot. Gomez began to take a lot of punishment and referee John Keane stopped the contest. Gomez looked disappointed but appeared to be all but out on his feet.

Andre Berto wins the vacant WBC welterweight title . He halts Miguel Rodriguez in seven rounds . Mikkel Kessler becomes WBA super-middleweight champion . Amir Khan successfully defends the Commonwealth lightweight title .

(CNN) -- Andrea Agnelli will become the new president of Juventus at the end of the current season -- the Italian giants confirmed on their official Web site. The 34-year-old, who will replace Jean-Claude Blanc in the position, continues in his family's long-standing links with the Turin-based club -- and comes 48 years after his father, Umberto, was president. It is the second presidential change Juventus have made this season after Blanc replaced Giovanni Cobolli Gigli in October. Blanc will revert to the position of chief executive when Agnelli takes over at the end of the season. Agnelli told www.Juventus.It: "I think I can give an important contribution to the development of this club. "It is a complicated route, which first and foremost will see the strengthening of the structure on all levels, both as a company and as a sports club. "The history of my family is linked to this team and began 84 years ago. My father was president nearly 50 years ago, "I do now want to make any comparisons with those times. We must think of tomorrow. I am proud to give my contribution." Meanwhile, German Bundesliga strugglers Bochum have sacked coach Heiko Herrlich, who has paid the price for a run of 10 matches without a win. Assistant coach Dariusz Wosz will take charge for the final two games of the season, starting with the dauting trip to Champions League finalists Bayern Munich on Saturday.

Andrea Agnelli will become the new president of Juventus at the end of the current season . Agnelli takes over from Jean-Claude Blanc, who reverts to chief executive . Bundesliga strugglers Bochum sack coach Heiko Herrlich after a poor run of form .

(CNN) -- Andrew McMahon always wanted to be a rock star. When his band, Jack's Mannequin, started touring in spring 2005, the unexpected happened. Andrew McMahon, singer for the band Jack's Mannequin, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005. McMahon was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Four years later, McMahon, now 26, is still at it. He has a new album out called "The Glass Passenger" and has taken the driver's seat in starting a cancer research organization, the Dear Jack Foundation. CNN's Nicole Lapin spoke with McMahon about living and working with cancer and now singing about it. The following is an edited transcript of the interview. Watch Andrew McMahon's entire interview » Nicole Lapin: For those people who don't know, you were formerly the front man for Something Corporate. When you started touring there, you had a bout with leukemia. When you were 22, you were diagnosed. What happened there? You first thought it was just fatigue, but it was something a lot worse. Andrew McMahon: Yeah, I was on the road. It was actually Jack's [Mannequin's] first tour; we had actually just finished recording "Everything in Transit," which was my first record apart from Something Corporate. I was on the road and just kept losing my voice. It was just this thing that I couldn't figure out. I always had kind of this really durable voice and was known for being able to go out all night and wake up the next morning and be signing like a bird. Sure enough, I went to my voice doctor in New York City after having to cancel a show, and he thought I looked pale and didn't think I looked well, and he took my blood. They sent me to the hospital for more tests, and I found out the next week [that I had leukemia]. Lapin: But you kept touring. McMahon: No, after that point I was in the hospital. I started in New York and eventually flew back here and was treated at UCLA by a great doctor there. I spent the better part of six to eight months kind of battling back from that. I had a stem cell transplant from my sister in that period of time, and I eventually got back on the road the following summer.

Andrew McMahon is the lead singer for Jack's Mannequin . Singer was diagnosed with leukemia during first headlining tour . He created Dear Jack Foundation to raise awareness of cancer . The band has since released "The Glass Passenger"

(CNN) -- Andrew Niccol's "In Time" is the winner of this year's "Most Obvious and Pun-Filled Allegory" competition and while it gets points for an excellent premise, some fine acting and for being, occasionally, genuinely exciting, the execution of the idea fails far more often than it succeeds. "In Time" is set in some future time/alternate reality Los Angeles (the locations are referred to as Dayton and New Greenwich but it's all too obviously L.A.) where humans cease aging at 25 with only an additional one year on their internal clocks, displayed as a sub-dermal, glowing digital countdown on their forearms. Everyone in the film is young and (mostly) beautiful and aside from running out of time, people can only die by acts of violence, random or otherwise -- disease is apparently nonexistent. But more time can be earned (or stolen) so those who are wealthy live, while those who are poor die. As a result, the poor take risks because they have nothing to lose, while the rich play it very safe, some refusing to take even minuscule physical risks like swimming in the ocean. The poor, those short on time, live in Dayton (downtown L.A., near the river) and if they have jobs at all, they live literally day-to-day, hoping that they can get enough work to purchase another day on their clocks. Those without jobs resort to begging or "fighting," a sort of arm-wrestling for time. Many work in a factory that makes time storage devices that can be used to move time around from place to place or person to person, like a wallet with money in it. As with most films set in a poor neighborhood, the denizens of Dayton have dreams. In general, to have enough time so that they can live a decent life without having to wake up every day thinking it's their last. They are literally slaves to time, forced to either beg, steal or work at sub-standard wages simply in order to live. While this set-up should give ample opportunity for visual and emotional shock, Dayton is spectacularly clean and well organized for what's essentially a factory slum. The only indication that the locals are in any peril at all is the (very) occasional shot of a dead "timed out" body on the street. You'd think it would happen more often. Justin Timberlake plays Will Salas, a factory worker whose personal dream is to be able to celebrate his mother's birthday in the rich playground of New Greenwich (which looks very much like Century City and Malibu) and early on, it looks like he might have achieved that dream when he suddenly finds himself with over a century of time. In a local bar, Salas rescues Henry Hamilton, a suspiciously well-dressed stranger ("White Collar" star Matt Bomer) from a group of time thieves called Minute Men, who "clean the clocks" of their victims. However, it turns out that the rescued man was trying to die. He's 105 and has simply grown tired of living. Having been thwarted in his initial attempt at suicide, Hamilton gives Will all but a few minutes of his life while the latter man is asleep, leaving him the message "don't waste my time," hoping that Will will do something worthy with his new found riches. Lo and behold, before Will is able to enjoy his windfall a personal tragedy sets him on his path towards addressing the injustices of the world, by single-handedly (at first) destroying the "monetary" system. If it were only that easy, eh? After arriving in New Greenwich, he quickly attracts the attention of not only one of the richest men around (Philippe Weis, played by a perfectly smug Vincent Kartheiser) but also that of his daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried). Coming from the "wrong side of the tracks," Will proves to be an oddity among the swells, as he knows how to live and take risks,

Justin Timberlake plays Will Salas, a factory worker in a race against time . Hamilton gives Will all but a few minutes of his life . Tragedy sets him on his path towards addressing the injustices of the world .

(CNN) -- Andrew Sable wasn't in the market for new wheels, but he says the federal "cash for clunkers" program helped him get an offer he couldn't refuse. "I'd have been foolish not to take it," said Andrew Sable, who got $9,000 for his 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The gas-guzzling 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee his college-student son drives went bad last weekend. Ordinarily Sable would have fixed it, even though the vehicle was worth perhaps $2,000 at best. But, aware of the program that started this month, Sable took a $4,500 federal credit this week to trade in the Jeep and buy a new, more fuel-efficient Chrysler PT Cruiser. And Chrysler, eager to sell vehicles, threw in its own $4,500 incentive. The $9,000 in savings knocked the price to $8,900 before taxes and fees. "I'll never get $9,000 for this old vehicle [any other way]. I'd have been foolish not to take it," the 43-year-old Sable, an insurance underwriter living in North Bellmore, New York, told CNN after filing a report with iReport.com. He'll drive the PT Cruiser and let the son drive his Nissan. iReport.com: Read Sable's account of the purchase Under the $1 billion program, people will be given credits of $3,500 to $4,500 to replace gas guzzlers -- generally vehicles with a combined city/highway fuel economy of 18 miles per gallon or less -- with new vehicles that are more fuel efficient. The old vehicles are crushed or shredded. Watch CNN's Gerri Willis explain the "cash for clunkers" program » The exact credit offered through the program --- officially called the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009, or CARS -- depends on how many more miles per gallon the new vehicle gets. Fuel economy thresholds for new vehicles vary according to type. New cars must have a combined city/highway fuel economy of at least 22 mpg. New SUVs and small or medium pickup trucks or vans must get at least 18 mpg. New large vans and pickups must get at least 15 mpg. The government put Sable's old Jeep at 15 mpg. His new PT Cruiser, which the program classifies as an SUV, gets a combined 21 mpg. Part of the program's intent is to get vehicles with low fuel efficiency off the road. Caroline Radtke, a 31-year-old who wrote about her purchase on iReport.com, was happy to oblige. Radtke and her husband this month got a $4,500 CARS credit for trading in their 2000 Isuzu Trooper (15 mpg) to buy a new Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen, a diesel-powered car that the program lists as getting 33 mpg. After the credit, they paid just under $26,000. "What was going out of my [old] vehicle was bad for the planet, and you're putting so much financially into the stupid thing to fill it up because it runs out so fast," Radtke, a freelance graphic designer living in San Antonio, Texas, told CNN after filing her iReport. "After driving it for eight and a half years, I wanted something more productive financially and more friendly to the Earth." The couple would have bought a new car without CARS, but the credit probably allowed them to get a nicer car than they otherwise would have, Radtke said. If they had sold the Trooper themselves, they might have gotten $3,000 if they were lucky, she said. iReport.com: Radtke's purchase The CARS program isn't for everyone. The credit won't go toward used-car purchases. Also, people looking to get rid of their under-18-mpg vehicle might find they can get about the same or more than a CARS credit by selling it. But the program worked just fine for iReporter Julie Callahan, a Salt Lake City, Utah, woman who was looking to replace her 1990 Chevy C1500 pickup truck, which had more than 350,000 miles and is rated at 15 mpg. She and her husband already had a newer vehicle, but she

N.Y. man wasn't looking for new vehicle, but credits, circumstances changed plans . Program gives credits of $3,500 to $4,500 to people who trade in gas guzzlers . Recipients must buy new vehicles that are more fuel efficient . Texas woman glad program helped her buy more fuel-efficient vehicle .

(CNN) -- Andrew Wyeth, the American painter perhaps best known for his painting of a young woman in a field, "Christina's World," has died, according to an official with the Brandywine River Museum in Pennsylvania. Andrew Wyeth received the National Medal of Arts from President Bush in November 2007. Wyeth, 91, died in his sleep Thursday night at his home near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, according to Lora Englehart, public relations coordinator for the museum. The acclaimed artist painted landscapes and figure subjects and worked mostly in tempera and watercolor. He was widely celebrated inside and outside of the art world. Wyeth received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, and President Nixon sponsored an exhibition of Wyeth's paintings at the White House. In 2007, President Bush awarded Wyeth the National Medal of Arts in recognition of his lifetime achievement and contribution to American arts and culture. Two years earlier, Wyeth and his wife, Betsy, presented to the White House his painting "Jupiter," which is displayed in the residence's family sitting room. Bush issued a statement Friday saying that he and first lady Laura Bush "deeply mourn" the death of Wyatt. "Mr. Wyeth captured America in his paintings of his native Pennsylvania and Maine," Bush said. "On behalf of the American people, Laura and I offer our sincere condolences to Betsy and the Wyeth family." Wyeth, who lived in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Maine, "has been enormously popular and critically acclaimed since his first one-man show in 1937," according to a biography in InfoPlease. His main subjects were the places and people of Chadds Ford and Cushing, Maine. "Christina's World," painted in 1948, shows a disabled Maine neighbor who drags herself through a field toward her house in the distance. The painting, displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has been regarded as Wyeth's most popular. "His 'Helga' pictures, a large group of intimate portraits of a neighbor, painted over many years, were first shown publicly in 1986," the InfoPlease biography says. Those were painted in Pennsylvania. Wyeth, the youngest child of painter N.C. Wyeth, formally studied art with his father as a teen, "drawing in charcoal and painting in oils, the media of choice for N.C. Wyeth. It was during the family's annual summer vacations in Port Clyde, Maine, that Andrew was able to experiment with other media to find his own artistic voice," according to a biography in the Farnsworth Art Museum in Maine.

NEW: Bush says Wyeth's work "captured America" Wyeth died in his sleep at home in Pennsylvania at 91 . His most famous painting is that of a young girl in a field . His "Helga" portraits were first shown in 1986 .

(CNN) -- Anita Davenport's curiosity about her family's past began with the photographs that surrounded her. She said she wanted to know the stories behind the images of her parents and uncles. Anita Davenport's grandfather, Walter, was stationed in Battle Creek, Michigan, during World War I. The stories she found -- and shared during several phone conversations from her home in Culver City, California -- parallel the African-American journey during the past century. The search took her to 1894, when her grandfather, Walter, was born in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Walter Davenport moved to Wedowee, Alabama. During World War I, Davenport was stationed at Fort Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan, Anita said. Thousands of other African-Americans were also on the move, mainly to the Northeast and the Midwest, eager for opportunities related to the war and industrialization, according to Howard Dodson, a historian and the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Walter Davenport later returned to Alabama, married and had nine children, one of whom was Anita's father, Frank. Walter was fond of Battle Creek and regaled his family with stories, Anita said. The stories must have been convincing. The eldest of his nine children, also named Walter, moved north to Battle Creek in 1951. Frank Davenport, Anita's father, later joined his older brother in Michigan. Anita was born in Battle Creek. Between 1940 and 1970, more than 5 million African-Americans left the South, migrating to cities like Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan, and New York. "You have this incredible movement of black people across the width and breadth of this land and [they] establish themselves as a national presence, rather than a regional one [based] in the South," Dodson said. Interactive: Explore the African-American journey That movement of African-Americans -- called "the Great Migration" -- had a clear and direct impact on the country. "It made race a national issue," said Nicholas Lemann, author of "The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America." "You could say it was always a national issue and have a very powerful case ... but it was possible to say, 'It's a Southern issue,'" he said. "After the Great Migration, it was no longer possible." African-American culture was interacting with other cultures across the whole of American society, Lemann said, "affecting everything from government policy and music to sports and everything in between." The return South Civil rights legislation passed during the 1960s helped set the stage for the next era of African-American migration: A return to the South. Around 1970, many African-Americans began moving back to the South, historians and demographers say. The trend accelerated during the 1990s and this decade, according to William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank. From 1965 through 1970, the South experienced a net migration loss -- the number of people who moved into the region compared to the number of people who moved out -- of more than 287,000 African-Americans. Thirty years later, the numbers were nearly the opposite. From 1995 through 2000, the South saw a gain of nearly 350,000 African-Americans. iReport.com: Share your family's story The statistics come from an analysis of census data conducted by Frey in 2004. The numbers of African-Americans returning to the South are not as large as those seen during the Great Migration, but the trend has resonance because of the place the region occupies in black history and mythology. The ascendance of the South's economy was a key factor behind the return migration, Frey said. "I think there's a push and a pull involved with the movement," he said. "A lot of it had to do with the decline of heavy industry, which employed a lot of blacks and blue-collar

For much of the 20th century, many African-Americans left the South . Census statistics suggest many are returning to the region . An economic boom in the Sun Belt states was a key factor, experts say . Interactive: Explore the different African-American migrations through history .

(CNN) -- Anita Dunham's first heart attack started with a mysterious pain in her arm -- and, suddenly, the 34-year-old felt as if she couldn't breathe. After she got dressed, she could barely speak because the pain was so great in her arms and chest. Jolen Johnson took this photo of co-workers wearing red Friday in Cedar Park, Texas. Dunham, who had a second heart attack in 2002, wore red Friday to spread awareness about heart disease. Now 64 years old, she said she wants women everywhere to know that heart disease, the No. 1 killer for women, can affect women in all walks of life. She and others shared their stories with CNN's iReport.com. Read more about Dunham The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, promoted the red clothing day to spread the message that "Heart Disease Doesn't Care What You Wear -- It's the #1 Killer of Women," according to its Web site. Others who wore red have family members who succumbed to heart disease. Robin Savage, 42, of San Juan Capistrano, California, said her grandfather, father and mother all had heart disease. Besides wearing red herself, she goes to heart events and takes pictures of them for a local Web site. See more from iReporters on National Wear Red Day » Savage has to take beta blockers because her heart sometimes races when she eats certain things, particularly foods containing the preservative MSG. She watches her diet closely and exercises 30 minutes a day to keep herself healthy. iReport.com: Heart Disease runs in my family For her sons, 9 and 12, she monitors their diet closely, but fears that she will die while they are young. "It's such a huge void in your life, especially when you have your own kids and you don't have your mom around to, say, ask questions," she said. "I was completely lost when I had kids." Visit CNNhealth.com, your connection to better living Peggy Roesch, a 24-year-old graphic designer from Cincinnati, Ohio, said her grandfather had a heart attack five years ago. She was recently inspired by her mother, who runs marathons, to start running more herself. iReport.com: Seeing red Eileen Velez from West Palm Beach, Florida, has been organizing her co-workers to wear red to show heart awareness every year since 2007. "If everyone is wearing red at the same time, somebody is going to notice," she said. iReport.com: Kimley-Horn and Associates Despite the nationwide movement, Dunham said she hadn't noticed anyone else in her town of Earlimart, California, wearing red on Friday. Her message to others at risk for heart disease is to watch their weight. "I tell [my daughter] every day, 'You know you need to start watching your diet or you're going to be in the hospital with a heart attack,'" she said. CNN's Cristina Martin contributed to this report.

NIH promotes National Wear Red Day on February 6 . The event is intended to spread awareness of heart disease, especially for women . iReport.com: Share your National Wear Red Day experience .

(CNN) -- Anjali Thakur is living in fear in India. She is a mother afraid for her son. "We are all having sleepless nights," Thakur says. Sourabh Sharma -- one of the Indian students attacked in Melbourne. Her son isn't in a war zone or even a country known to be dangerous. He is a student in Melbourne, Australia. "Three years back when we sent him," she says, "it was one of the safest places for the children to go." The Australian government says it is still safe but a spate of vicious attacks on Indian students in recent weeks has parents like Thakur and hundreds of students shaken and angry. From Melbourne to Victoria to Sydney Indian students say they are targets of racially motivated attacks. At least 10 Indian students have been attacked over the past month, the most severe case left an Indian student in a coma, another student was stabbed in the stomach, and a third left with a nasty black eye. So far more than a dozen arrests have been made. Australia authorities say they don't believe the attacks and robberies are racially motivated but instead crimes of opportunity against soft targets: students who typically travel alone at night on public transportation. But hundreds of Indian students see it differently. They have reacted with protests in at least three Australian cities. Police say at one point Indian students decided to take the law into their own hands and retaliate which has been condemned in both India and Australia. The situation has gotten so much attention Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made several statements on the matter, insisting the attacks are isolated incidents. In an interview on Australian radio he said: "Every city has violence, let's put this into perspective, and Australia I'm advised on the statistics is one of the safest countries in the world for international students." In India though the perception of a safe Australia has been shattered partly due to the widespread publicity of the recent cases. The story has been front page news for days while local television media has been going with breaking news every time it receives a report of an Indian student attacked anywhere in Australia. Political tension has even bubbled up between India and Australia with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressing the attacks and asking Australia does something to safeguard India's young people. Australia has responded with a 10-point action plan to help safeguard students. A helpline has also been set up. As for Anjali Thakur, she says her son has lived in Australia for three years and never experienced violence; in fact she says he didn't even know about the attacks in Melbourne where he lives until she called him to warn him. But Thakur has been watching the news in India and seeing a totally different picture of Australia. "It's a lovely beautiful peaceful country," Thakur says, "but now what you see on TV and what you hear, that's a total contrast to what we know of Australia." The Thakur family has responded by refusing to let the youngest son study in Australia and keeping their eldest son from enrolling in a master's program at his university. If that kind of sentiment spreads, it could have serious consequences for Australia's $12.6 billion-a-year education export industry. More than 80,000 students from India study in Australia. "Any parent will tell you," Thakur says, "they are not going to send a child for the best education in the world at the cost of his life."

Spate of attacks on Indian students in Australia makes headlines in India . Students say attacks racially motivated; authorities say they are crimes of opportunity . Attacks have stoked political tensions between New Delhi, Canberra . More than 80,000 Indian students attend Australian universities .

(CNN) -- Anne and Michael Harris were an "extraordinary" couple with a zest for life, their niece said. Anne and Michael Harris' niece says the couple "loved life, loved everyone." "We truly hope that they are remembered for the way they lived their lives and not this tragic end," Charlstie Laytin said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "We're all just devastated and going to miss them both so much." The Harrises were two of three Americans on board Air France Flight 447 when it crashed Monday. The plane was carrying 228 passengers and crew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, France, when it crashed four hours into the journey. Investigators have not determined the cause of the accident. An official list with the victims' names was not available Wednesday afternoon. The Harrises lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Anne Harris' sister, Mary Miley, said. Michael Harris, 60, was a geologist in Rio de Janeiro. He worked for Devon Energy, a U.S.-based independent natural gas and oil producer, a company spokesman said. The couple were traveling to Paris for a training seminar and vacation, Miley said. The two "loved everyone, they loved life," Laytin said. "Definitely glass-half-full kind of people," she added, recalling her uncle as a "ham," who could always offer a laugh on a bad day. She remembered a moment a few summers ago when her family was in Vermont, and had just seen a classical performance of Mozart. They were "just sitting around and having a glass of wine, and laughing and talking about family and life and what was going on in our lives ... [the Harrises] could never get enough information about what all their nieces and nephews and family members were doing," she said. "It's really the last time I can remember us all sitting around as a family and I'm so glad that I have that memory." She said her family was hopeful the investigation would soon determine what had gone wrong. "I think the initial shock of it all has really started to wear off, and the reality that they're gone is starting to set in," she said. "The grief and the grieving process is beginning and we're just really focused on helping each other heal." The majority of the people on the flight came from Brazil, France and Germany. The remaining victims were from 29 other countries. Ten were employees of French electrical equipment supplier CGED, according to Agence France-Presse. Nine of those employees had won the trip to Rio from CGED because of their strong work performance, AFP said. "There was a competition for the best sales reps ... and nine of them won and went to Brazil for four days," Laurent Bouveresse, CGED chief executive, told AFP. The nine were allowed to take a friend or partner, and an executive also went along, Bouveresse said, according to the news agency. CNN tried repeatedly to reach representatives of CGED. Two others believed to have been on the flight were an engaged couple, Julia Schmidt of Brazil and Alex Crolow of Germany, the couple's friend, Brian Buzby of Houston, Texas, told CNN affiliate KTRK. Watch Buzby talk about friends on Flight 447 » Buzby said he met the two while they were all students at Bucerius Law School in Germany. They finished studies last August, KTRK reported. "This was Alex taking her back to tell her mom they were going to get married," Buzby told KTRK. "I just hope that they were not suffering, and at least they were together, because I would have hated for one of them to go through it alone," Buzby said. "They were my two best friends. I just hope she knows I loved her," Buzby said.

NEW: 9 French victims won trip to Brazil for job performance, AFP reports . NEW: German victim was taking Brazilian fiancee home to announce engagement . Anne and Michael Harris were two of three Americans on Air France flight 447 . The Harrises lived in Brazil and were going to France for vacation, training seminar .

(CNN) -- Another band of frigid weather will blanket the eastern two-thirds of the nation Wednesday, battering states already dealing with record-low temperatures that have been blamed for at least five deaths. The system will bring blistering cold weather and winds across the country, including many states not used to such temperatures. In Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist declared a state of emergency because of the threat to the state's lucrative crop industry. His order aims to help farmers across the state salvage what they can by lifting weight limits on trucks and allowing them to get already harvested crops out of the cold. In other areas of the country, low temperature records are being broken and are likely to continue to fall. Later this week, the temperature could drop below zero for the first time in St. Louis, Missouri, since 1999, according to the National Weather Center. Little Rock, Arkansas, could see an actual temperature of 10 degrees and wind chill of 20 below zero on Friday morning, according to the National Weather Service. The high temperature will be in the 20s on Thursday and Friday in Dallas, Texas, where consecutive days that cold have not happened since 1998, the weather service said. The northern Plains could see wind chills of 20 to 30 below zero through Wednesday, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said. "Some locations could see temperatures 30 to 40 degrees below normal" on Thursday across parts of the Plains, upper Midwest and Ohio River Valley, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said. By Friday morning, afternoon highs will struggle to make it above zero, he said. "What's unusual about this is the length of the cold snap," CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano said. "Typically across the South, you'll get a two- to three-day cold snap, and then temperatures will moderate," he said. "But we're getting reinforcing shot after reinforcing shot, and that pattern doesn't look like it wants to break down until at least next week." Some states were still dealing with the aftermath of the first cold snap. In Atlantic, Iowa, a record set in 1958 was broken when the temperature dropped to minus 29 degrees Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Share your photos, video of winter weather near you Safety officials in Virginia warned children and adults to stay away from frozen ponds and streams. A homeless man was found frozen to death in Kansas City, Missouri, where the temperature was 1 degree Tuesday morning, and Salvation Army officials said they desperately need donations of hats, gloves and socks, CNN affiliate KCTV reported. The temperature is not expected to rise above zero in Kansas City on Friday. A winter storm watch is in effect for Kansas City, where 2 to 4 inches of snow and near-blizzard conditions will be possible on Wednesday afternoon, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said. A winter storm watch has also been issued for Memphis, Tennessee, where 2 to 4 inches of snow will be possible from late Wednesday evening into Thursday morning. The northern Plains could see wind chills of 20 to 30 below zero through Wednesday, Myers said. "Some locations could see temperatures 30 to 40 degrees below normal" on Thursday across parts of the Plains, upper Midwest and Ohio River Valley, Morris said. A winter storm warning for moderate to heavy snowfall was in effect into Tuesday afternoon in parts of northwestern Washington state, northern Idaho, Montana and northern Wyoming, the weather service said. Moderate to heavy snowfall also is possible in much of North Dakota from Tuesday to Wednesday, the weather service said. A dusting of snow will be possible in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, Morris said. At least four cold-related deaths have occurred in Tennessee. One was an 81-year-old Alzheimer's patient who apparently wandered outside during the night wearing nothing but a bathrobe, police said. John Anderson's body was found in his driveway Monday morning. The Salvation Army shelter in Lubbock, Texas, is making room to let more people in out of the cold, CNN

NEW: Florida governor declares state of emergency to protect crops . Atlantic, Iowa, breaks record low set in 1958 with minus 29 degree temperature . Homeless man found frozen to death in Kansas City, Missouri . Winter storm warnings north, hard freeze warnings south .

(CNN) -- Another summer, another iPhone hardware update. This one's worth getting, too -- especially if you have an original iPhone or the iPhone 3G. A self-admitted tech geek, Chris Pirillo is president of Lockergnome.com, a blogging network. If you keep holding out because the iPhone doesn't have everything you want, it may be time to re-evaluate your position. This isn't just a phone -- it's a mobile communications device that boasts few true rivals in the marketplace. Instead of waiting in line at an Apple or AT&T store, I simply ordered mine though Apple, and that process was amazingly simple. I was guaranteed delivery by the June 19th launch date, and indeed, my 32GB (black) iPhone 3GS was handed to me on Friday morning. No muss, no fuss. Kinda. Before I get into the reasons I'm in love (LOVE!?) with the iPhone 3GS, let me just say that the activation process on AT&T's network was less than impressive. It took close to 32 hours for the SIM card to activate, and AT&T could offer little to no assistance in that process. They were, quite simply, overwhelmed. I contend that a lot of perceived iPhone issues have more to do with AT&T than they do with Apple. Even so, Apple saw fit to issue a $30 iTunes gift card to people caught in this delay. Now that is customer service. So, what else has Apple given the world in the iPhone 3GS? 1. Video recording capabilities. With the swipe of a finger, you can record a quick video. With another swipe, you can trim your recording. With yet another swipe, you can email it or upload it to your YouTube account. Even when it's transferred over AT&T's 3G network, the A/V quality is rather impressive. Based on my first mobile YouTube upload test, I know I've sold a few more people on the 3GS. Apple seems to have integrated some kind of anti-shake feature into its video processing, too. 2. It's 50 percent faster than previous generations. Yes, believe me when I say that you'll notice a difference in speed (in direct comparison to the iPhone and iPhone 3G models). If you've never owned an iPhone before, then you're going to be equally as impressed. Animations are smoother, apps launch more quickly, and...well, the dang thing's just faster. 3. Twice the storage capacity. Are you good with 16GB? Would you rather have 32GB? Either way, you'll get what you want. I always say: Buy as much as you can afford. 4. Five times the amount of usable memory. Given that iPhone OS 3.0 now supports push data (that is, it allows applications to send and receive data in the "background"), you're going to want more than just 20MB available to you. Whereas the iPhone 3G comes with 128MB of memory, the iPhone 3GS has 256MB. This translates into far fewer app crashes. 5. Voice control. Press and hold the home button (that's the round thing at the bottom of the iPhone), and you'll be passed to the Voice Control application -- allowing you to tell your device to call a friend, play a song, and more. It didn't require any training for me to use, either. 6. Compass. Yeah, I have no idea when I'm actually going to need this. More importantly, app developers will take advantage of this new feature. Turn-by-turn navigation, anyone? TomTom's working on an app for that. 7. Improved battery life. I'm not sure you could make it through an entire working day without attaching an external battery pack to your iPhone, but Apple's found a balance in performance and power with the 3GS. They had to throttle the processor speed somewhat, slightly diminish the capability of the video processor, but at least people ca

Tech enthusiast Chris Pirillo lists 10 things he loves about his new iPhone 3GS . It's more than 50 percent faster than the original iPhone and iPhone 3G models . Twice the storage capacity and five times the amount of usable memory . The only iPhone killer on the market today...is a newer iPhone .

(CNN) -- Antarctica is warming in line with the rest of the world, according to a new study on climate change in Antarctica. Temperatures across Antarctica have traditionally varied between east and west, scientists say. Rather than being the last bastion to resist global warming, U.S. research has found that for the past 50 years much of the continent of Antarctica has been getting warmer. For years common belief among scientists studying climate change was that a large part of Antarctica, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, has been getting colder while the rest of the world has warmed. However the new research from the University of Washington has found that warming in West Antarctica exceeded one-tenth of a degree Celsius per decade for the past 50 years, which more than offsets the cooling in East Antarctica. "West Antarctica is a very different place than East Antarctica, and there is a physical barrier, the Transantarctic Mountains, that separates the two," said Professor Eric Steig, lead author of the research paper. The study's findings appeared in Thursday's issue of the scientific journal Nature. At 6,000 feet (1,829 meters) above sea level the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is around 4,000 feet lower than East Antarctica and subject to warm, moist storms and more snowfall. In gathering the data Steig and fellow researchers used information from satellites, which was crucial in providing new insight into patterns of temperature change across the continent. Previous research on climate in Antarctica that relied solely on Antarctic weather stations, in place since 1957, could not get as much information about conditions on the interior of the continent as most are placed within a short distance of the coast. "Simple explanations don't capture the complexity of climate," Steig said. "The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that's not the case. If anything it's the reverse, but it's more complex than that. Antarctica isn't warming at the same rate everywhere, and while some areas have been cooling for a long time the evidence shows the continent as a whole is getting warmer." A major reason most of Antarctica was thought to be cooling was because of a hole in the ozone layer that appears during the spring months in the Southern Hemisphere's polar region. Steig noted that it is well established that the ozone hole has contributed to cooling in East Antarctica. "However, it seems to have been assumed that the ozone hole was affecting the entire continent when there wasn't any evidence to support that idea, or even any theory to support it," he said. "In any case, efforts to repair the ozone layer eventually will begin taking effect and the hole could be eliminated by the middle of this century. If that happens, all of Antarctica could begin warming on a par with the rest of the world."

Common belief that Antarctica is getting colder debunked by new report . Evidence that western Antarctica is warming, offsetting Eastern Antarctic cooling . Satellite data used to determine that West Antarctica warmed in last 50 years . Antarctica isn't warming at the same rate everywhere, according to research .

(CNN) -- Antiguan and Barbudan regulators Friday took control of U.S.financier Robert Allen Stanford's financial institutions on the twin-island nation, a day after federal agents served the Texas businessman with papers accusing him of running an investment fraud scheme. Customers queue outside the Stanford Group-owned Bank of Antigua in St. John's. The Financial Services Regulatory Commission of Antigua and Barbuda appointed receivers to manage Stanford International Bank Ltd. and Stanford Trust Company Ltd., the commission said in a statement. The receivers, Nigel Hamilton-Smith and Peter Wastell of Britain-based Vantis Business Recovery Services, are in Antigua with other recovery specialists to take control of the entities, the commission said. On Thursday, the FBI announced federal agents found Stanford in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and served him with papers accusing him and three of his companies of orchestrating a $9.2 billion investment fraud scheme. He has no criminal charges against him, and he was not taken into custody, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said. The FBI won't talk about a criminal investigation of Stanford's activities, but federal law enforcement officials familiar with the case leave no doubt that federal agents are investigating his financial dealings. But multiple officials indicated criminal charges are not imminent and would not discuss potential charges. Stanford has arranged to give his passport to one of his attorneys, who will offer it to federal authorities. CNN's efforts to reach Stanford or company representatives were unsuccessful. Watch more on the case » In a complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Dallas, Texas, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Stanford International Bank of using a network of financial advisers to sell about $8 billion of "certificates of deposit" to investors. The bank boasted it had a unique investment strategy that had allowed it to reap double-digit returns on its investments for the previous 15 years, the SEC said. The civil complaint alleged an additional scheme relating to $1.2 billion in sales. The Antigua-based bank claims its network has $51 billion in deposits and assets under management or advisement, with more than 70,000 clients in 140 countries. The allegations against Stanford and his companies have sparked runs on Stanford banks in Antigua and in Venezuela, where the government took over the local subsidiary after it recorded "extraordinary" withdrawals Tuesday and Wednesday, said Edgar Hernandez Behrens, Venezuela's superintendent of banks. The SEC complaint also named James Davis, SIB's chief financial officer; Laura Pendergest-Holt, chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group; and investment adviser Stanford Capital Management. Meanwhile, Colombia's stock market and bank watchdog said Friday Colombians who invested in the Bogota stock market through Stanford's Colombian brokerage arm, Stanford Bolsa y Banca SA, run no risk of losing their funds. A Financial Services Superintendency spokeswoman told CNN that Stanford Bolsa y Banca managed three Bogota mutual funds worth a total of about $27 million (70 billion Colombian pesos) at current stock and currency market rates, together with individual client portfolios of around $98 million (250 billion Colombian pesos). She said extraordinary shareholder meetings had been called to decide whether the three mutual funds would be transferred to the management of another brokerage or would be liquidated. Individual clients have begun the process of transferring management of their portfolios to other brokerages, the Financial Services Superintendency spokeswoman said. Colombians were never able to deposit funds directly in Colombia with Stanford's international banking arm. CNN repeatedly tried calling the manager of Stanford Bolsa y Banca, but he declined to answer calls. In London, the England and Wales Cricket Board said it has terminated all contractual links with Stanford.

Antigua and Barbuda regulators seize Stanford Group banks on islands . Financier Allen Stanford accused of $9.2B investment, sales fraud . Venezuela has also seized local bank owned by Stanford Group . No criminal charges are filed against Stanford .

(CNN) -- Any kid can dream up a roller coaster. But those who visit a new exhibit at Walt Disney World's Epcot theme park can actually take a ride on their fantasy creations. An artist's rendering of the "Sum of All Thrills" interactive ride, opening Wednesday at Disney World. Epcot on Wednesday opened a new attraction called "Sum of All Thrills," which lets kids use computer tablets to design a virtual roller coaster, bobsled track or plane ride. After inputting their designs, kids climb into a robotic carriage that uses virtual-reality technology to help them experience the ride they've created. "This is really the next generation -- where there's a lot more personalization involved" in the amusement-park experience, said Eric Goodman, Disney's lead project manager on the ride. This make-your-own-ride approach appears to be a growing trend in the world of amusement parks and museums. Taking cues from the video game industry, park and ride designers have realized that people -- especially young ones -- want to interact with and even design their own thrill rides. In addition to the new Epcot ride in Orlando, Florida, two Disney theme parks feature a ride called "Toy Story Mania," which lets riders shoot at targets as they roll down the track and, in doing so, shape their own ride experience. Another Disney attraction, CyberSpace Mountain, caters to adults and kids by letting them customize their own virtual ride from a menu of drops, loops and other features. Universal Studios in Florida opened a roller coaster in August called the "Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit," which lets people create their own personal musical soundtrack for their ride. Interactive rides are in the "baby stages" so far, since roller coasters and theme-park attractions are so expensive to build, but interaction and personalization promise to be running themes in the industry, said Bob McTyre, president of Apogee Attractions, which has has helped design rides for Disney, Universal Studios and others. McTyre was not involved in the new ride at Epcot. He said theme park designers frequently bring up ideas such as roller coasters with three possible endings, allowing riders to choose which path to take. But those big ideas quickly hit a roadblock: the high costs of implementing such a project, he said. Shawn McCoy, vice-president of marketing and business development at Jack Rouse Associates, another amusement-park design firm, said this desire for interactivity in amusement parks takes its cues from video games. "There's also a definite need to compete with video games or the gaming industry -- where [players] have control over all of the elements, from the environment to the players' movement," he said, noting that museums and zoos also are taking notice of the trend. The "Sum of All Thrills" ride at Epcot employs a robotic arm -- more commonly seen assembling cars at an auto plant -- to let kids experience their roller coaster creations. Sitting in a carriage with their legs and arms outside the ride, kids watch a video version of their ride while the arm moves them from side to side and up and down to simulate the feeling of a real roller coaster. Fans blow air at the riders at various speeds to give people the sensation that they're moving forward. Goodman, the Disney designer, said the robotic arm and carriage come "pretty darn close" to replicating the real roller coaster experience. Kids design their experience on touch-screen computers, using a digital ruler and pre-selected track options to construct their rides. If a person tries to build something physically impossible -- a hill that's too steep for the cars to climb, for example -- then they're asked to retool their ideas. Disney hopes the interactive nature of the Epcot ride also helps kids learn that math and science can be fun. "I think it's really empowering for the kids to realize that the math doesn't control them. They get to control the math," Goodman said. The Raytheon Company, a

Disney opens an exhibit where kids create roller coasters -- and ride them . Theme parks are trying to make their rides more interactive, taking cues from gaming . The "Sum of All Thrills" ride opens Wednesday at Epcot Center in Florida . Kids design their rides on computers, ride them in a stationary robotic carriage .

(CNN) -- Anyone who doubts Roland Burris' qualifications to serve as the next senator from Illinois may want to head to Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery. Roland Burris has erected a mausoleum listing his accompishments in Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery. There, Burris, whom embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed to succeed President-elect Barack Obama in the Senate on Tuesday, has erected a granite mausoleum listing his many accomplishments. Under the seal of the state of Illinois and the words "Trail Blazer," Burris, 71, has listed his many firsts in granite, including being the state's first African-American attorney general and the state's first African-American comptroller. The memorial also notes that Burris was the first African-American exchange student to Hamburg University in Germany from Southern Illinois University in 1959. There appears to be enough room to add "U.S. senator" to the memorial, but Burris may never get a chance to serve in Washington. A Senate Democratic aide told CNN on Wednesday that plans were in the works to prevent Burris from being seated in the Senate. After Blagojevich made the surprise move to appoint Obama's successor, Senate Democrats praised Burris but said they could not accept any appointment by Blagojevich after his arrest on corruption charges earlier this month. Federal prosecutors say he conspired to "sell" Obama's Senate seat for campaign donations and other favors.

Roland Burris has erected a mausoleum in Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery . Gov. Rod Blagojevich picked Burris to succeed President-elect Obama in the Senate . Memorial lists firsts, including being the first black attorney general for Illinois .

(CNN) -- Apple Inc. hasn't said how much future generations of the iPhone will cost, but an editor of a technology blog said his site shelled out $5,000 to get its hands on a possible prototype. Gizmodo Senior Editor Jesus Diaz said his blog paid "a source" $5,000 for the phone, which was shown in a video on the blog Monday. "Paying for an exclusive has always been done in the journalism world. There are people who admit they do it and people who do not. We have done it," Diaz told CNN's Gabriela Frias in an interview on CNN en Español's "En Efectivo." Diaz said the blog's source obtained the phone after it was left in a bar. "An engineer was in a bar, celebrating his birthday. He drank two drinks too many and forgot the phone," Diaz said. He said Gizmodo returned the phone to Apple after receiving a letter asking for it. "It has come to our attention that Gizmodo is currently in possession of a device that belongs to Apple," says the short letter from Apple's lawyer to the blog. "This letter constitutes a formal request that you return the device to Apple. Please let me know where to pick up the unit." Gizmodo, which posted the letter on its site, said the letter erases any doubt that the phone is the real deal. "Just so you know, we didn't know this was stolen when we bought it," wrote Brian Lam, the site's editorial director, in his response. "Now that we definitely know it's not some knockoff and it really is Apple's, I'm happy to see it returned to its rightful owner. "P.S. I hope you take it easy on the kid who lost it. I don't think he loves anything more than Apple except, well, beer." Photos of the fourth-generation iPhone prototype first appeared on the tech blog Engadget over the weekend. The site said whoever sent the photos found the phone on the floor of a bar in San Jose, California. On Monday, Gizmodo said it had obtained the device, but wouldn't say how. Diaz said the price Gizmodo paid for the phone was worth it, even though editors weren't able to take advantage of all its features. "It was remotely deactivated by Apple," he said. "But the screen is better, double the resolution of past versions. The quality of the product is much better. ... It is pleasing to touch it." The find was widely considered the real thing in the tech world. "At this point we're pretty much certain it is this summer's new model," wrote Wired magazine. "Somebody at Apple is in big trouble." Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber, who is known to have connections inside Apple's Cupertino, California, headquarters, said on his blog that Apple had reported a prototype stolen. He also said Apple has a patent out for a phone with a ceramic backing. Some of the images online appeared to show just such a backing. Gizmodo's photos of the device's internal components show they're labeled as Apple products. The blog also said a computer recognized the device as an iPhone, and the phone apparently runs the yet-to-be-released iPhone OS 4.0. Apple has not confirmed that a new version of the iPhone exists, though analysts widely expect the fourth generation of the device will be released in the summer. Apple did not return CNN requests for comment. Even if the new iPhone is real, it's important to keep in mind that the device is just a prototype. It's unclear how many of its features will be available on the new phone. A quick glance at the photos shows a flatter, less curvy iPhone. The back of the phone is completely flat, unlike the current model, which is tapered to fit the curve of a palm. The new phone's back is ceramic rather than plastic, and has

Blog editor says his site shelled out $5,000 to get a possible 4G iPhone prototype . Gizmodo says it received a letter from Apple that erases any doubt the phone is real . The leaked new iPhone is 3 grams heavier than the iPhone 3GS, blog says . Photos show a less curvy iPhone with a ceramic back, unlike the current plastic back .

(CNN) -- Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at 56, made the world "immeasurably better," the company's board of directors said in a statement. The company also released an e-mail sent to Apple employees in which CEO Tim Cook announced Jobs' death, saying, "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple." Cook's comments were repeated on the Apple website. Visitors were invited to share their "thoughts, memories and condolences" at rememberingsteve@apple.com. There was no immediate word on any funeral services. Cook said the company is planning a "celebration of Steve's extraordinary life for Apple employees that will take place soon." Jobs' family also released a statement through Apple, saying that Jobs "died peacefully today surrounded by his family." "In his public life, Steve was known as a visionary; in his private life, he cherished his family. We are thankful to the many people who have shared their wishes and prayers during the last year of Steve's illness." Jobs: Visionary in a black turtleneck The family said a website will be provided for those wishing to offer tributes and memories. "We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve," the family statement said. "We know many of you will mourn with us and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief." Printed copies of a picture of Jobs -- posted on Apple's website announcing his passing -- appeared Wednesday night on a marble wall outside the Apple store on New York's Fifth Avenue, with notes written on them. "We love you," one said. "RIP." Outside the original Apple store in Cupertino, California, a makeshift memorial was created Wednesday, with people leaving flowers and other items. A bagpiper played as onlookers visited the site, some wiping their eyes. Apple's board of directors said Jobs' "brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve." World reacts to Jobs' death Jobs' greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family, the statement said. "Our hearts go out to them and all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts." "No words can adequately express our sadness at Steve's death or our gratitude for the opportunity to work with him," Cook told Apple employees. "We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much." CNN's Susan Candiotti contributed to this report.

NEW: Company to schedule celebration of Jobs' life for employees . Apple CEO Tim Cook sends an e-mail to employees . Apple's board of directors praises Jobs' "brilliance, passion and energy" Jobs' family says he died peacefully surrounded by relatives .

(CNN) -- Apple fans -- including co-founder Steve Wozniak -- lined up on Friday morning for a chance to buy the iPhone 4S, the latest in the company's line of "Jesus Phones," which includes many under-the-hood improvements. The lines, which drew thousands, were part exercises in tech commercialism and part homages to Steve Jobs, Apple's other co-founder, who died last week following a battle with pancreatic cancer. In New York, Apple fans created a makeshift memorial to Jobs that included flowers, photos, iPad boxes and apples (as in the fruit). And in Atlanta, some people said they were lining up for the phone in part because of Jobs. "I wanted it anyway, but (Jobs' death) made me sort of want it more because this is the last one I know he worked on," Dwight Hill, from an Atlanta suburb, said of his decision to buy the phone. "I just hope the company keeps going in the same direction." About 200 people had lined up in the wee hours of the morning in New York to buy the new phone, which has a faster processor and a "digital assistant" that responds to voice commands and talks back to phone owners, answering their questions. Long lines also formed in Asia and Europe as people waited for the phone. In Silicon Valley, California, Wozniak, the Apple co-founder who, along with Jobs, helped create the world's first truly personal computer, sat in an armchair at the front of a line that began forming Thursday afternoon. He tapped on his iPad, sipped Diet Dr. Pepper and took photos with fans while he awaited the phone's release. "I want to get mine along with the millions of other fans," Wozniak said. "I just want to be able to talk to my phone." The iPhone 4S initially was panned by critics, who said it was more of a facelift to the iPhone 4 than a new product. The phone's exterior looks the same as its predecessor, but the guts are new. Inside there's a faster A5 dual-core processor, an improved 8 megapixel camera and a voice assistant named Siri, who will respond to voice commands and answer questions. When Brian X. Chen, a tech writer at Wired, tested the phone, he found Siri to be quite the helpful -- and hilarious -- assistant. He published a series of his conversations with Siri. "Me: 'I'm drunk,' " he wrote. "Siri: 'I found a number of cabs fairly close to you.' (Perfect; it didn't dial my ex-girlfriend.)" Aside from Jobs, Siri seemed to be one of the main draws for people waiting in line for the iPhone 4S. "I just want the personal assistant," said Teresa Sparks, 41, an Atlanta nurse who had been waiting in line for the phone since 4:45 a.m. Scott England, who also waited in an Atlanta line for the phone, teased a friend of his who said he was buying the iPhone 4S because of the camera. Clearly, he said, "Siri is a big deal," not the camera. "He's got a secretary -- I don't," he joked. Becky Waddell, a 33-year-old real-estate agent, also praised Apple's new digital assistant, which is only available on the iPhone 4S, and which has been compared to HAL 9000, Skynet and other fictional computer overlords. "I love Siri," she said. "We played with it in the store. I know for sure it will make me a safer driver. I don't have to scramble through my phone while I'm driving. If I can talk to it and get answers, it's going to cut out so much time for me." Plenty of excitement seemed to surround the phone's release. In true Apple-head fashion, two Apple fans in New York said they arrived at

Apple's iPhone 4S goes on sale at 8 a.m. Friday in each time zone . Pre-orders have broken an Apple record, with 1 million in first 24 hours . Phone features faster processor, better camera, "personal assistant" Siri . Friday is first iPhone release since death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs .