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ST. POELTEN, Austria (CNN) -- The daughter of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man accused of keeping her in a cellar for decades and fathering her seven children, testified against him by video at his trial Tuesday. Josef Fritzl is seen without his face covered and surrounded by security guards Tuesday. One of Elisabeth Fritzl's brothers, Harald, also testified by video, a court spokesman said. The media and public have been barred from the courtroom for sensitive parts of the trial. Fritzl has pleaded guilty to incest and other charges, but denied murder and enslavement. He pleaded "partly guilty" -- an option in Austrian court -- to multiple charges of raping his daughter, Franz Cutka, a spokesman for the court in Landesgericht St. Poelten, said. A verdict is expected on Thursday, Cutka said. Elisabeth testified on an 11-hour videotape. Portions of the tape were played Monday, and Fritzl was asked about it. The remainder of the tape was played Tuesday, officials said. Watch his face in the courtroom » Authorities have said Elisabeth and her children were given new identities and are in a secret location. Details of her testimony were not made clear at the daily afternoon news conference. Asked at the news conference why other family members have not testified, officials said they did not wish to do so. Watch media at Fritzl trial » The murder charge relates to an infant named Michael Fritzl who died soon after birth, allegedly from lack of medical care, State Prosecutor Gerhard Sedlacek says. A neo-natal expert gave evidence Tuesday in relation to the murder charge. As he had Monday when the trial opened, Fritzl concealed his face behind a file binder as he arrived in court to shield himself from reporters, television cameras and photographers and escorted by a phalanx of police officers. Later Tuesday he dropped his guard and was pictured with the binder by his side, talking to security guards. During the trial, prosecutors have painted a chilling picture of the more than two decades Elisabeth spent in the cellar of the family home in Amstetten with three of her children. Fritzl took three other children upstairs, authorities have said, telling his wife and other relatives that the missing Elisabeth had dropped them at the house. The woman and the remaining children never saw daylight, prosecutors said, and Fritzl went away for long periods of time, causing them to go hungry when he did not bring them food. Watch Fritzl's first day in court » To punish them, prosecutors said, Fritzl sometimes turned the power off in the cellar for up to 10 days. In addition, they alleged, Elisabeth was often sexually assaulted in front of the children. The case first came to light in April 2008 when Elisabeth's then-19-year-old daughter, Kerstin, became seriously ill with convulsions, and Elisabeth persuaded her father to allow the girl to be taken to a hospital. Hospital staff became suspicious and alerted police, who discovered the family members in the cellar. Police said Fritzl confessed to them that he had sex with his daughter, kept her and their children in captivity, and burned the body of the infant in an oven in the house. Elisabeth told police the infant was one of twins, and died a few days after birth. When Elisabeth gained her freedom, she told police her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. Seven years later, she said, he drugged, handcuffed and locked her in the cellar. To back up his story that she had run away, Fritzl forced Elisabeth to write letters, authorities have said. Defense attorney Rudolph Mayer has said his client, 73, expects to spend the rest of his life in prison. Under Austrian law, if Fritzl is convicted on several offenses, he will be given the sentence linked to the worst crime. The charges he faces are: • Murder: The infant who died in 1996 died from a lack of medical care, the state prosecutor said. The charge carries a sentence of life in prison. • Involvement in slave trade: From | [
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] | Incest rapist Josef Fritzl in Austrian court for the second day of his trial .
Fritzl drops his guard, is pictured without binder obscuring his face .
Austrian accused of keeping daughter in cellar for decades, fathering her 7 children .
Daughter Elisabeth give pre-recorded videotaped evidence . |
STANFORD, California (CNN) -- Students and professors at Stanford University are protesting Donald Rumsfeld's appointment to a campus think tank, saying the former defense secretary does not uphold the "ethical values" of the school. Donald Rumsfeld has been appointed to the Hoover Institution, a think tank at Stanford University. Shortly after Rumsfeld's appointment was announced in September, professor Pamela Lee began an online petition from faculty members opposed to bringing him to the Hoover Institution. Since then, the petition has gained more than 3,500 signatures, including nearly 300 faculty members from such diverse disciplines as law, computer science, electrical engineering and drama. "We view the appointment as fundamentally incompatible with the ethical values of truthfulness, tolerance, disinterested inquiry, respect for national and international laws, and care for the opinions, property and lives of others to which Stanford is inalienably committed," the petition reads. "As word of the letter got out, my inbox was flooded with messages from professors, students, staff and alumni asking to sign on," said Lee, a professor of art history. The petition's signers include hundreds of Stanford students in addition to the faculty. "He's a war criminal," said Sam Dubal, one petitioner, who also created a Facebook group called "Rumsfeld -- You Are Not Welcome at Stanford!" "He's not worthy as an established member of Stanford," Dubal said. Despite the protests, school officials say that it is well within the Hoover Institution's right to appoint Rumsfeld. "There are lots of temporary appointments made around the university," said Jeff Wachtel, special assistant to Stanford president John Hennessy. "Departments have the right to invite people to campus in a variety of capacities." Rumsfeld's one-year appointment as Distinguished Visiting Fellow places him on a task force on terrorism and ideology. He will be joined by current Hoover Fellow George Schultz, secretary of state under Ronald Reagan. Despite being housed in a tower on the center of campus, Hoover has only loose affiliation with the university. Meanwhile, supporters of Rumsfeld's appointment say that his presence on campus will help foster academic dialogue and fuel positive political discourse. The outcry against Rumsfeld follows last April's attempt by President Bush to visit campus. Bush planned to meet with Fellows at the Hoover Institution but was blocked by protesters. His meeting was later moved to Schultz's nearby house. "Many of us believe that Donald Rumsfeld, in his role as secretary of defense, has behaved in ways that are dishonorable, disgraceful and always disingenuous," said Dr. Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology. "Rumsfeld authorized a list of interrogation methods that violated the Geneva Convention and the Convention against Torture used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay ... and Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison," said Zimbardo, whose most recent book, "The Lucifer Effect," finds that given the right "situational" influences, anyone can be made to participate in violent and depraved acts. Lee said her position does not discourage debate or public exchange of ideas. "Let me stress that the petition objects to Rumsfeld's appointment as Distinguished Visiting Fellow, an appointment we find without merit," Lee said. "In fact, there is nothing in the language of the petition that says Mr. Rumsfeld is forbidden to air his views at Stanford or is not welcome for a public lecture or open forum." But not everyone disagrees with the appointment. "Personally I disagree with his politics," said Brett Hammon, a political science major. "But at the same time, I'm not sure I think it would be prudent for the university to refuse hiring him just because most students disagree with his politics. I know I would hate it if I went to school in Texas and the university refused to hire a prominent liberal politician just because most of the student body was conservative." E-mail to a friend | [
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"What position will he hold for a year?",
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Rumsfeld will spend a year as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow .
Opposition: Online petition has been signed by more than 3,500 . |
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (CNN) -- Bjorn Ulvaeus was one half of the songwriting genius behind Swedish pop legend ABBA. After the band split up in 1982 Ulvaeus turned his talents to writing musicals, including "Mamma Mia," now a blockbuster movie. Bjorn Ulvaeus on the ABBA phenomenon: "I'm amazed how this could happen. I'm just grateful and humble." He took My City_My Life on a tour of his home town of Stockholm and talked about his past and future as pop royalty. CNN: What is the secret of ABBA's success? Bjorn Ulvaeus: I think the secret behind the fact that our songs are still around and that ABBA became so big is a lot of factors together. But one of them was definitely that we put so much effort into song writing. We hardly ever toured, we just wrote and wrote and produced the records over a period of seven or eight years. So it's the songs, plus I think the two girls, the voices -- the blend was unique and very special. CNN: Where did get the inspiration for your songs? BU: Well mostly in song writing my experience is that there isn't so much inspiration as hard work. You sit there for hours, days and weeks with a guitar and piano until something good comes. But the urge to write is something you have to have. A conviction, an ambition to write and never stop until you think, "This is the best I can do." Watch Bjorn Ulvaeus take CNN on a tour of Stockholm » CNN: What drives you? BU: In my career the push has always been to take another step, to try something new. That means that after ABBA, when we split up in 1982, we were onto writing a musical ["Chess"] because we hadn't done that before. CNN: How do you feel about working in the theater? BU: Every time I sit in the audience and watch a show that I have been involved with, it is such an amazing feeling to see all those people around me, knowing they are actually watching and enjoying something I have written. That is such a feeling of pure joy that never goes away and that's why I guess I'm so attracted to work in the theater. CNN: How did "Mamma Mia! The Movie" come about? BU: When you have a big hit on the West End and on Broadway with a musical, as we had with "Mamma Mia," there is always the question, "when are you going to do the movie?" Some people say you shouldn't do it until the actual stage musical is on its last legs, but I don't think that matters. We had been on Broadway for seven or eight years and eight or nine in the West End and we thought now is the time to make that movie. CNN: How has Stockholm changed over the years? BU: A city like Stockholm, being so dynamic and following trends, develops all the time. It's gradually changing but you can hardly see that. It is changing in a very healthy way that cities should change. CNN: How would you describe Stockholm in a few words? BU: Stockholm is unique in the world in that it's built on, I think, 14 islands. There are so many bridges and it doesn't have any high-rise buildings to speak of. It's quite spread out and open and airy with lots of parks. See photos of Bjorn Ulvaeus in Stockholm » CNN: Let's talk about the cultural scene in Stockholm. BU: There is a very vibrant cultural scene in Stockholm. There are lots of places where there are concerts and there are loads of museums and theaters. There is everything really, and eventually there is going to be an ABBA museum as well. CNN: When will that happen? BU: I don't know -- I like to be arm's length when it comes to a museum about oneself | [
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] | Bjorn Ulvaeus is half of the songwriting pair behind Swedish pop legend ABBA .
He lives in Stockholm, which he describes as being "dynamic" and trendy .
Ulvaeus thought ABBA would be forgotten and is "amazed" by its popularity .
An ABBA museum is being planned for Stockholm . |
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (CNN) -- Four men behind a Swedish file-sharing Web site used by millions to exchange movies and music have been found guilty of collaborating to violate copyright law in a landmark court verdict in Stockholm. A Pirate Bay server, confiscated by police last year, on display in Stockholm's Technical Museum. The four defendants -- Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundstrom, three founders and one patron of The Pirate Bay -- were sentenced to one year in jail and also ordered to pay 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) in damages to several major media companies including Warner Brothers, Columbia, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony BMG and EMI. The defendants are free without restrictions while they appeal the judgment. The Pirate Bay allows users to exchange files including movies, music, games and software, but does not host the files itself. It claims more than 3.5 million registered users. The court case, which involved both a criminal case and a civil claim brought by the media companies, marks a key victory for anti-piracy campaigners, who had long targeted the Web site. Should the perpetrators of Internet piracy be punished? Have your say The year-long prison terms are for violating Swedish law, while the damages are compensation to the media giants in the civil case -- though the court ordered the men to pay just one-third of the 110 million kronor ($13 million) which the companies had asked for. Friday's verdict did not include an order to shut down The Pirate Bay site. Its owners have consistently shrugged off legal threats and police raids, posting letters from entertainment industry lawyers on their Web site with mocking responses. When Dreamworks studio demanded that the site act over file-sharing of Dreamworks' movie "Shrek 2," The Pirate Bay threatened to sue for harassment and lodge a formal complaint "for sending frivolous legal threats." "It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are ... morons," the response continued, suggesting that studio representatives perform a sexual act. The response closed with an obscenity. Site owners dismissed the effects of a police raid in 2006, saying the site had been down longer on other occasions due to illness or drunkenness than when "the U.S. and Swedish government forces the police to steal our servers ... yawn." But Magnus Eriksson, who in 2003 co-founded the "loosely formed group of theorists, artists and programmers" that spawned The Pirate Bay, says there are serious issues at stake. He does not think copyrighted material should be free for everyone, "but that it already is." "The control over what people communicate is lost and we have to adapt to this new state of things," he said via e-mail. "To monitor all communications, fight all new digital technologies and spread a culture of fear in what should be a free and open communication network is not a desirable option." Entertainment companies claim The Pirate Bay has hurt their box office profits, part of an annual loss the Motion Picture Association of America claims to be about $6 billion a year worldwide. "Hollywood studios are businesses. They're there to make money," said association lawyer Thomas Dillon. "It costs $100 million to make a feature film, so of course they're quite keen to get some back. So I don't accept this argument that there's some benefit to culture in allowing people to make copies of commercial films and getting them for free." Monique Wadsted, a Swedish lawyer for the MPAA, said The Pirate Bay was also harming individual artists. A victory for the entertainment companies "will, of course, be for all authors all around the world, some kind of redress... because what is going on now is actually a plundering of the author's works," she said via e-mail. "If some authors find it good to market their products using file-sharing or whatever, they are free to do that," she added. "But that is | [
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Prosecutors said The Pirate Bay lets users download copyrighted material .
Site allows users to exchange movies, music, games, but does not host the files .
Supporters said The Pirate Bay doesn't put copyrighted material on Web site . |
STONE MOUNTAIN, Georgia (CNN) -- Rosa Foster sat down at the kitchen table with a plate of fried chicken and a salad. Before taking a bite of food, she bowed her head and prompted her grandchildren to say the blessing.
Rosa Foster is a single parent raising four grandchildren under age 19.
Foster, 54, of Stone Mountain, Georgia, doesn't just see the kids on weekends and holidays. They live with her full time.
Foster is one of 2.5 million grandparents around the United States who are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren.
In Foster's case, she's a single parent, raising four grandkids under age 19. "It has not been a picnic all the time," Foster said. "It's been hard."
Hard may be an understatement, according to Nadine Kaslow, chief psychologist for Grady Health System in Atlanta, Georgia.
"There are many challenges for grandparents taking on grandchildren," Kaslow said. "Many grandparents are older when they take on grandchildren, so you may not have the energy you had as a parent in your 20s and 30s to be running around after toddlers."
Foster didn't have a choice. She said she was awarded custody of her daughter's 2-year old son, Rakim, in 1991.
That was 17 years ago. She's since taken in his twin sisters, Rosea and Ronea, now 17, and 12-year-old Raquel.
"Some days I became a little sad and depressed and I would cry through baby feedings, but I still knew I had to keep the babies together. They didn't have anybody else," Foster recalled.
The unexpected demands of caring for grandchildren full time may have health consequences, Kaslow said.
"You often see people having aches and pains or headaches or stomach aches," she said. "It can be associated with more serious physical problems like elevated blood pressure or things that put you at risk for heart disease or stroke." Health Minute: More on grandparent stress »
Foster remembered sleeping only one or two hours a night while she worked two jobs trying to pay the bills.
Kaslow said it is common for grandparents to feel the stress of financial demands when they're a parent the second time around.
"Oftentimes you're at a place in your life where you're ready to take care of yourself, have more fun, plan for your own retirement," Kaslow noted. "Monies you were trying to save for your own future, you are now having to spend on your grandchildren."
She suggested that grandparents set priorities when it comes to their own career and work. While resources may be limited, she recommended trying to find financial help from state agencies, religious groups or other relatives.
For those who may feel overwhelmed, she added, "You don't need to be the sole caregiver. It's really important for you to reach out to other people in your support network, your immediate family, to get their assistance."
She also stressed the need for grandparents to take good care of themselves. Find time to exercise and eat a healthy diet.
"I recommend if you can, get someone to baby-sit the kids once a week or every other week," she said. "You really need time alone."
Does Foster ever get time for herself?
She chuckled, explaining that she has put her own life on hold for 17 years. But, she added, "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Foster has some serious advice for other grandparents who may be in a similar position: "Make sure you're up for the challenge, because if you're not, you're going to break some kids' hearts. If those kids are torn up a second time, they're really going to be destroyed." | [
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] | 2.5 million grandparents in the U.S. are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren .
Grandparents feel stress from financial demands as parents for the second time .
Expert: Grandparents should find time to exercise and eat a healthy diet . |
SUSSEX, Virginia (CNN) -- Suspended NFL quarterback Michael Vick must adhere to tightened restrictions after he tested positive for marijuana use, a federal judge said Wednesday.
Suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick tested positive for marijuana in a September 13 drug test.
Vick tested positive for the drug on September 13, a court document from the Eastern District of Virginia shows.
As a result, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ordered Vick to "submit to any method of testing required by the pretrial services officer or the supervising officer for determining whether the defendant is using a prohibited substance."
Those methods could include random drug testing, a remote alcohol testing system "and/or any form of prohibited substance screening or testing," the order said.
Vick, 27, must participate in substance abuse therapy and mental health counseling "if deemed advisable by the pretrial services officer or supervising officer" at his own expense, the order said.
Vick was also ordered to stay home between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., "or as directed by the pretrial services officer or supervising officer," the order said. He is to be electronically monitored during that time.
The conditions are to apply until Vick's sentencing, which is set for December 10. Read about the federal case against Vick »
"This is a very difficult time for Mr. Vick," said Billy Martin, Vick's lead defense counsel, in a written statement. "He will comply with the court's new conditions regarding release."
Vick faces a possible prison term of 12 to 18 months after his August guilty plea to federal conspiracy charges related to dogfighting on his property in Surry County, Virginia. The original terms of the pretrial release, set in July by U.S. Magistrate Dennis W. Dohnal, required that Vick not use narcotic drugs or other controlled substances unless prescribed by a doctor.
Vick's guilty plea in the federal case came after three associates -- Purnell Peace, 35, of Virginia Beach, Virginia; Quanis Phillips, 28, of Atlanta, Georgia; and Tony Taylor, 34, of Hampton, Virginia -- admitted their roles in the operation and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
On Tuesday, a Virginia grand jury indicted Vick and the three co-defendants on state charges of running a dogfighting ring at the home. See a timeline of the case against Vick »
The Surry County grand jury brought two charges against Vick: one count of unlawfully torturing and killing dogs and one of promoting dogfights. Each is a felony charge that could result in a five-year prison term.
Vick will be arraigned October 3 in state court in Virginia.
Vick's attorneys say they are fighting the state charges on the grounds that he can't be convicted twice of the same crime. E-mail to a friend
CNN's Eric Fiegel contributed to this report. | [
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Pretrial release conditions tightened; must stay home from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Virginia grand jury indicts Vick and the three co-defendants on state charges .
Vick already faces up to 18 months in prison after federal plea deal . |
SWAT VALLEY, Pakistan (CNN) -- The boys shuffle into the room in a remote army base high in the mountains of Pakistan's Swat Valley. They are disheveled, disoriented. These boys say they were kidnapped by the Taliban and trained to be suicide bombers. There are no smiles, their eyes stare at the floor. These are the lost souls of Pakistan's battle with the Taliban. Each has a story of terror to tell, but the trauma runs so deep they can't even begin to properly find the words to describe what they have been through. That task is best left to the psychiatrist who, with her team, was brought in to try to pick through the pieces of this nightmare; to make sense of the brutality here and try to put broken lives back together. Watch Stan Grant's report on the boys » Dr. Fareeha Peracha describes these boys variously as "psychotic," "depressed," and in some cases, "psychopathic." "They have been brainwashed. Brainwashed against people like you and me," she said. CNN was given limited access to about a dozen boys. They had all been kidnapped by the Taliban and taken to camps where they would be trained to kill; trained to be suicide bombers. Watch Grant's exclusive interview with a wanted a Taliban leader » CNN cannot reveal the boys' names; they have handkerchiefs tied across their faces to conceal their identities. The army fears they could face retribution should they be returned to their homes and families. The boys sit in a circle as I try to get them to open up about their ordeal. What happened? Were they brutalized? What did the Taliban ask them to do? So many questions. They answer hesitatingly, their voices barely a whisper. "The first day they beat us and then made us exercise," one boy said. "They made us run and told us you will wage jihad." They said the Taliban especially poisoned their minds against the Pakistan army. "They just told us that they (army) are against Islam, are against the Quran. They said wage jihad against them; we are waging jihad for the Quran," said another boy. They all say they were kidnapped by the Taliban, some snatched from fields and others from the towns they lived in. "I was coming from the shop to my house, I had some stuff with me. They said, 'put your stuff in the car.' I helped them put stuff in the car. They asked if they should drop me in my village, but when we reached the village they blindfolded me and put a hand over my mouth," one boy said. The Taliban's tactics seem to have worked. I ask one boy, would he kill for God? He replied: "Yes." I asked the psychiatrist, Dr. Fareeha, if she believes the boys are capable of killing. "Oh yes," she said. "Two of them would not even give it a thought." The army freed the boys during fierce fighting with the Taliban. Now they are hoping to rehabilitate the boys and one day return them home. But Fareeha thinks that is a long way off -- if ever. She told army chiefs the boys are unpredictable. One boy, she said, told her if he had a suicide bomber's jacket he would use it, that if he had a Kalashnikov, he would shoot. Of course, it is impossible to verify all of the accounts of the boys, but the doctors have no doubt about their trauma. Fareeha told Army chiefs that these boys were just a tip of the iceberg. After talking to the boys, she believes there are possibly hundreds of others just like them. These boys are the victims of the Taliban's uprising here. All they are left with are the terrible memories, the voices in their heads: the voices of the Taliban telling them to kill, they said. | [
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],
[
"\"psychotic,\" \"depressed,\" and in some cases, \"psychopathic.\""
],
[
"boys"
],
[
"suicide bombers."
],
[
"to be suicide bombers."
]
] | Boys rescued from the Taliban in Pakistan are receiving psychiatric help .
They are abducted from their homes and are being trained for suicide missions .
Psychiatrist says they have been brainwashed; fixing that will take time .
Army hopes the boys can one day return to their homes . |
SYDNEY, Australia -- Eamon Sullivan regained the 50-meter freestyle world record with a 21.41 seconds swim at the Australian Olympic trials in Sydney. Sullivan had lost his 50m freestyle record to Frenchman Alain Bernard four days ago. He took the record back from Frenchman Alain Bernard, who recorded 21.50 seconds at the European championships four days ago. Sullivan had held the record with 21.56, set in Sydney in February. After missing out on Bernard's 100m record late on Wednesday, Sullivan said he hoped to improve his 50m time in Friday's final. "I came in a bit more relaxed tonight, having got the 100m final out of the way last night and getting into the team for Beijing. "It's sweet to get the record back off Alain after missing out on the 100m world record last night and after he broke the 50m record so quickly after I did it. "I know I have another swim left so there's always another chance. I hope I can go faster in the final, but I like to think I can take a couple of a hundredths of a second leading into a final, so we'll see." Sullivan missed Bernard's 100m world record by just two-hundredths of a second in qualifying in 47.52 seconds for the Olympics. Libby Trickett broke the women's 100m freestyle world record with a 52.88 seconds swim. Trickett, formerly Libby Lenton and competing for the first time under her married name, beat the 53.30 mark set by Germany's Britta Steffen in Budapest on August 2, 2006. It is the second time Trickett has broken the 53-second barrier, but her previous time of 52.99 at the Duel in the Pool in Sydney last year was not ratified by FINA because she was swimming against American superstar Michael Phelps. "I can't tell you how much I wanted to break that record ever since doing it in the Duel in the Pool in April last year. I just wanted it so badly," Trickett said. "To see it officially up there on the scoreboard is just amazing. All my events are very important to me, but the 100m freestyle holds a special place in my heart and to know that four years ago I was going 0.8 seconds off, that is just awesome." "I've come so far, it's been an amazing journey, but I am just so happy to be part of this team. We have some fantastic girls coming through and it's going to be great for our relay team." E-mail to a friend | [
"What is the new mark set by Sullivan in the Australian Olympic trials?",
"What was his record in?",
"What was the previous record?",
"Who regained the record?",
"Who recorded a time of 21.50 seconds?",
"Where was the freestyle record regained?",
"Who regained the 50-meter world freestyle record in Sydney?",
"What mark did Alain Bernard record four days earlier?",
"Who set the new mark?"
] | [
[
"21.41 seconds"
],
[
"50-meter freestyle"
],
[
"21.50 seconds"
],
[
"Eamon Sullivan"
],
[
"Alain Bernard,"
],
[
"Australian Olympic trials in Sydney."
],
[
"Eamon Sullivan"
],
[
"21.50 seconds"
],
[
"Eamon Sullivan"
]
] | Eamon Sullivan regains the 50-meter world freestyle record in Sydney .
Sullivan sets the new mark of 21.41 seconds in the Australian Olympic trials .
Frenchman Alain Bernard recorded a time of 21.50 seconds four days earlier . |
San Bernardino, California (CNN) -- A man accused of shooting and paralyzing a U.S. Army soldier at a homecoming party pleaded not guilty to all charges at his arraignment Thursday.
Ruben Jurado, 19, faces a charge of attempted murder in the shooting of Army Spc. Christopher Sullivan on Friday night at a homecoming party in Sullivan's native San Bernardino, California.
Jurado also faces four "special allegations involving premeditation and the use and discharge of a firearm, causing great bodily injury," said Christopher Lee, spokesman for the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office.
"Special allegations" can add to a convict's sentence in California.
Jurado entered court Thursday in an orange jail jumpsuit, with his hands and ankles shackled. The arraignment lasted only a few minutes.
Three of Sullivan's relatives attended.
The next court date is scheduled for January 9.
The defense team expects to receive "initial discovery of police reports and any other evidence that the district attorney has," defense attorney Michael Holmes said Wednesday. He noted that the court "allows video arraignment" but said Jurado "wanted to be present in court during the entire process."
The party in Sullivan's honor was to celebrate his recent return to California from Kentucky, where he was stationed while recovering from wounds sustained in a suicide bombing a year ago in Afghanistan. That bombing killed five members of his unit and left him with a cracked collarbone and brain damage, according to the San Bernardino County Sun. Sullivan received the Purple Heart.
At the party, Sullivan was shot twice after an argument and physical confrontation with Jurado, who fled the scene, according to police and witnesses.
The fight broke out after Jurado and Sullivan's younger brother began arguing about football, the brothers' mother, Suzanne Sullivan, said.
Jurado turned himself in to authorities in Chino Hills, California, on Monday afternoon, said Lt. Gwendolyn Waters.
Suzanne Sullivan said her family is having a difficult time coming to terms with what happened.
"He once told me that if defending this country takes his life, so be it," she said. "But to see he survived that, and now for this to happen to him, just breaks my heart."
CNN's Stan Wilson, Stella Chan, Adam Blaker, Carey Bodenheimer, and Josh Levs contributed to this report. | [
"Where was Sullivan wounded?",
"Who pleaded not guilty",
"Who was wounded in Afghanistan",
"What is Jurado accused of",
"When is the next court date scheduled",
"When is the next court date",
"When did Jurado plead not guilty"
] | [
[
"San Bernardino, California."
],
[
"Ruben Jurado,"
],
[
"Army Spc. Christopher Sullivan"
],
[
"attempted murder"
],
[
"January 9."
],
[
"January 9."
],
[
"Thursday."
]
] | NEW: The next court date is scheduled for January 9 .
Ruben Jurado, 19 pleaded not guilty Thursday .
Jurado is accused of shooting Army Spc. Christopher Sullivan at a party .
Sullivan was wounded in Afghanistan . |
San Diego, California (CNN) -- There was a lot to appreciate in yesterday's bipartisan White House health care summit between President Obama and members of Congress.
No really. This is the kind of thing that our leaders ought to do three or four times a year on a variety of issues -- from Social Security to education to immigration to job creation. Why not? Put aside the sound bites and partisan barbs. Get beyond the dueling appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows. And bring your best ideas and most constructive suggestions to the table.
Obama deserves credit for convening the meeting. His opening remarks were good, especially when he talked about the rising costs of health insurance premiums, the "exploding costs of Medicare and Medicaid," and how he wanted to "make sure that this discussion is actually a discussion and not just us trading talking points."
I also appreciated his candid discussion of health scares years ago involving his own daughters and how he wondered "What would have happened if I didn't have reliable health care?" And his acknowledgement that "Everybody here understands the desperation that people feel when they're sick."
That is, assuming everything that happened yesterday at Blair House was real -- and not merely a theatrical setup for a Democratic-led effort next week to push through, using reconciliation, what Democrats on the Hill call "the big bill."
That's Obama's comprehensive $950 billion plan to radically reform the nation's health care system -- the one opposed by every Republican in Congress and, according to polls, a majority of Americans.
Reconciliation is a procedural maneuver that allows the Senate to pass the health care bill with 51 votes rather than the 60 votes required to end a filibuster. Yet, according to a recent Gallup poll, more than half of Americans -- 52 percent -- oppose Democrats resorting to reconciliation to pass a bill.
And while Republicans are still holding out hope that Obama and congressional Democrats will go back to the drawing board and start with a blank piece of paper, that appears unlikely since Democrats seem to be "all in" on their piece of legislation.
So what was the point of the summit? It might well have been to create a foil. According to what an unnamed Democratic official told Politico.com, the purpose of the event was to give a face to gridlock.
Democrats intend over the next few weeks to spin this narrative suggesting that they tried, really tried, to work with Republicans but the "party of no" was just too obstinate and too uncompromising. So Democrats had no choice but to rely on the perfectly legitimate process known as reconciliation.
So the summit was a fraud? A charade? I hope not. Even in Washington, there has to be a limit to cynicism. And I'd hope this would be it. I'd hope that Obama and Democratic lawmakers wouldn't toy with the American people on an issue as important as this one.
Talk about broken government. The public wants solutions to our health care problems -- however they're defined -- and not partisan gimmicks that give "a face to gridlock." Even many of those Americans who oppose the Democratic plan turn around to tell pollsters, in the next breath, that the current system has too much cost and not enough common sense. No one approves of the status quo. That's at least something to agree on.
And while Obama got a lot of things right in his remarks, he also made a big mistake when -- at the very outset of the discussion -- he defined as the baseline "the House and the Senate legislation that's already passed." That told Republicans that they were not getting their blank sheet of paper, and that the best they could hope for was to tweak but not substantially change the Democratic plans.
It also did something else. It reminded the American people of who calls the shots in Washington. It's the party in power. Democrats control all the levers of government, at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Remember that fact. Write it down. For President Obama and | [
"Which party does Ruben Navarrette Jr. believe controls levers of government in Washington regarding the health bill?",
"Who lauded the health care summit and believes more such events should occur?"
] | [
[
"Democrats"
],
[
"President Obama"
]
] | Ruben Navarrette Jr. lauds the health care summit, says leaders ought to hold more such events .
Navarrette: Let's hope it was real and not preparation for Democrats to pass unpopular health bill .
Navarrette: Democrats control levers of government in Washington .
Some Democrats up for re-election are terrified of passing "the big bill," he writes . |
San Diego, California (CNN) -- Don't be surprised if, any day now, you read that the People's Republic of Arizona is in the market for nuclear warheads to put an end, once and for all, to illegal immigration on its southern border. After all, it's the next logical step for the rogue state.
This week, to advance the narrative that Arizona has no choice but to do its own immigration enforcement because the federal government is asleep at the switch, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer called for air support. Brewer requested helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles from the White House to patrol the border region with Mexico.
In a letter to President Obama, Brewer asked that the National Guard reallocate reconnaissance helicopters and robotic surveillance craft to the "border states" to prevent illegal immigration. The governor also requested the deployment of unmanned drones, including possibly the Predator drones used in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, in her letter, Brewer even mentioned those foreign wars as examples of where the drones have been effective.
What's the matter with Arizona? Isn't it a little early in the year for the folks in the desert to be suffering from sunstroke?
I guess this is par for the course. Brewer just signed SB 1070, a disgraceful anti-immigration and pro-racial-profiling law, to give local and state cops throughout the state the chance to suit up and play border patrol agent. Why shouldn't she get the chance to suit up and play general?
After all, like the United States, Arizona is currently involved in two wars. There's the hypocritical war against the very illegal immigrants that the state has spent the past 15 years providing with gainful employment by allowing them to do jobs that Arizonans wouldn't do. And then there's the rhetorical war with the Obama administration, which Arizona wants to portray as negligent in stopping illegal immigration, which forced Arizonans to take matters into their own hands.
The argument that the federal government isn't actively engaged in border enforcement is both dishonest and reckless.
It is dishonest because it's not true. I've visited the U.S.-Mexico border a dozen times in the past 10 years: in Texas, Arizona and California. I've interviewed countless border patrol agents and supervisors. I've also been up in a Border Patrol helicopter flying above the border, which offers a unique perspective on border security.
So I can tell you what the border patrol agents on the ground would tell you: The U.S.-Mexico border has never been more fortified. There are now more than 20,000 border patrol agents on the federal payroll. That's more agents than any other federal enforcement agency, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Those agents apprehend people and deport them at a feverish clip. In fact, it was recently announced that the Obama administration deported more people last year than the Bush administration during its final year in office.
It is reckless because -- when this law is hauled before a federal judge, as it will be -- opponents will argue that the measure violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution by usurping federal authority to enforce immigration law. And that's the very thing that proponents seem to be admitting in their bravado. In fact, it might not be a bad idea for Arizona officials to pipe down and stop bragging about how they're doing the job of the federal government in terms of immigration enforcement, since that's a no-no under the Constitution.
If the federal government does take border enforcement seriously, critics might ask: Why are there still people trying to enter the United States illegally? Simple. We can dig a moat, deploy an army, build walls or call in an airstrike, but desperate people will always find a way to go around, under or over any impediment in their path to a better life.
This isn't to condone illegal immigration. My views -- in support of deportations, workplace raids, giving more resources to the Border Patrol etc. -- are well known. I'm just telling you what Border Patrol agents tell me: that it doesn't make any sense to focus all our attention | [
"Who says border has never been more protected?",
"What did President Obama send the National Guard for?",
"What has Arizona asked?",
"What did Arizona ask for?",
"What causes people to hire illegals?",
"What did Arizona asked for to beef up border security?"
] | [
[
"Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer"
],
[
"reallocate reconnaissance helicopters and robotic surveillance craft"
],
[
"the National Guard reallocate reconnaissance helicopters and robotic surveillance craft"
],
[
"air support."
],
[
"to do jobs that Arizonans wouldn't do."
],
[
"helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles"
]
] | Arizona has asked for military equipment, including drones, to beef up border security .
President Obama has approved sending National Guard to the border .
Navarrette says border has never been more protected, but it's not the real issue .
He says culprit in illegal immigration is employers who hire illegals to do jobs Americans won't do . |
San Diego, California (CNN) -- In most high schools in America, they teach Shakespeare. But at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, they're acting out a Shakespearean drama.
Only instead of the famous line from Henry VI -- let's kill all the lawyers -- what we have is: "Let's fire all the teachers."
That's exactly what Central Falls School District Superintendent Frances Gallo did in February. In a move that was bold but also justified, Gallo fired 77 teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, along with the school's principal, three assistant principals and other administrators. In all, the district said, 93 people were let go in the purge. The school board later stood by Gallo and approved the action.
The mass firings, which take effect at the end of this school year, came after the district failed to reach an agreement with the local teachers' union on a plan that would have required teachers to spend more time with students to improve test scores -- with only a small increase in pay.
Consistent with federal guidelines designed to improve the educational system, Gallo asked teachers to work a longer school day of seven hours and tutor students weekly for one hour outside school time. She proposed teachers have lunch with students often, meet for 90 minutes every week to discuss education and set aside two weeks during summer break for paid professional development.
Think of it as asking teachers to go back and fix what they didn't do right the first time.
Central Falls High School is one of the lowest-performing schools in Rhode Island. It operates in a community where the median income is $22,000, according to census statistics. Of the school's 800 students, 65 percent are Latino and most of them consider English a second language. Half the student body is failing every subject, with 55 percent meeting requirements in reading and only 7 percent in math.
"No thanks," said the teachers. "You're fired," said Gallo.
Upon hearing this story, my first thought was how do we get this woman out of Rhode Island -- and down to Washington to clean house by demanding results from the politicians?
Apologists for the public schools and other defenders of the status quo will hear those statistics, and say: "Well, how do you expect educators to reach and teach a population like that?"
Easy. I expect teachers to do it by putting aside the excuses, setting higher expectations, adhering to better standards, giving into common sense reforms and doing their jobs in a school that serves a vulnerable population that is especially in need of a quality education -- but also, and here's the good news, in many cases, extra motivated to get one.
Forget that poor-kids-can't-learn nonsense. It wasn't true 100 years ago and it's not true now. Besides, there is no ideal student population.
Whenever I write in support of education reform -- whether proposed by Democrats or Republicans -- or, for that matter, whenever I challenge teachers in any way, I get an earful from angry and defensive educators who demand to know if I have ever been in the classroom. I interpret their comments to mean that if have never been a teacher, I ought to just pipe down and keep paying my taxes so they can grow their salaries at a respectful rate.
I will keep paying my taxes, but I will not pipe down. Not that I think it matters, but, in fact, I have been in the classroom. I taught for nearly five years at the K-12 level in Central California. I've taught the kids of poor farm workers, but I've also taught the kids of doctors and lawyers.
Now guess which group was more respectful of authority and eager to learn, and which was more likely to think of itself as entitled and privileged? In teachers' lounges, I've heard teachers complain about kids who are poor and disadvantaged. But I've also heard other teachers complain about those who are spoiled and overly advantaged.
Why? | [
"Where have teachers been fired?",
"Where were teachers fired at?",
"What did teachers complain about?",
"Which state did the fired teachers live in?"
] | [
[
"Central Falls High School"
],
[
"Central Falls High School in Rhode Island,"
],
[
"kids who are poor and disadvantaged."
],
[
"Rhode Island,"
]
] | Teachers were fired at a poorly performing Rhode Island high school .
Ruben Navarrette says teachers like to complain about the challenges they face .
He says reforming schools requires holding teachers accountable .
Blaming poor performance on the students doesn't accomplish anything, he says . |
San Diego, California (CNN) -- President Obama deserves an A+ for his agenda for education reform. His decision to nominate Arne Duncan as U.S. education secretary was inspired, and his comments on holding the system accountable are honest, refreshing and insightful. Obama showed that again this week with a powerful speech at James C. Wright Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. He announced that, in the coming weeks, states would be able to compete for their share of more than $4 billion in funding through the administration's Race to the Top initiative. But in order to do that, he said, the states have to demonstrate that they're serious about increasing accountability by doing things like tearing down "firewall laws" that prevent districts from factoring in student performance when evaluating teachers. That sinister brainchild was brought to you by politically influential teachers' unions who make it their solemn mission to protect their members from the scrutiny and standards that everyday people have to put up in their jobs. Obama's not having any of it. "If you are committed to real change in the way you educate your children," he told his audience, "if you're willing to hold yourselves more accountable, and if you develop a strong plan to improve the quality of education in your state, then we'll offer you a big grant to help you make that plan a reality." Like no president in recent memory -- except maybe George W. Bush, who diagnosed that schools are often afflicted with "the soft bigotry of low expectations" -- Obama gets it. What Obama "gets" is that America's public schools often underperform and help cheat students out of brighter futures for three main reasons: 1) There are low expectations, not just for students but also for parents, schools and whole communities that are written off as not able to compete academically. Too many educators let themselves off the hook by telling themselves that poor kids from struggling backgrounds are somehow incapable of learning as well as kids from wealthier communities. 2) Too many educators and politicians treat public schools as if they exist for the benefit of the adults who teach there rather than the kids who are supposed to learn there. Because teachers have unions and students don't, everything -- including the length of the school year -- is geared for the convenience of the work force and not the clientele. 3) Those intent on preserving the status quo resist tooth and nail any attempt to hold them accountable by linking teachers to the performance of their students or, in an idea that Louisiana is trying and that Duncan smiles upon and would like to see spread to other states, tracing back teachers to the schools of education that produced them. Obama understands all that. And, it seems, the president learned it during his stint as a community organizer in Chicago, Illinois. It was there that he went to bat for low-income black parents who, like scores of parents who send their kids to underperforming schools throughout America, are caught in a frustrating and almost comical paradox. They're turned away, shunned, treated with condescension and even insulted by self-serving public school "edu-crats" who treat these institutions like their own private offices where they don't want to be bothered by anyone who doesn't have a teaching or administrative credential. Then, incredibly, the parents are blamed for not participating and involving themselves more in that hostile environment and when many of them thought that teaching their kids was the job of, well, teachers. It's been my experience that many teachers don't really care whether parents go to the PTA or help their kids with homework. They just want a constant foil, someone to blame when students flounder and the schools underperform. And, when that happens, in any public school in America, suddenly there's not a mirror to be found. It's always someone else's fault. I know what you're thinking. Teachers love to portray columnists, analysts and pundits as clueless about the real world of teaching unless we've actually taught in the classroom. Been there, done that. | [
"what happened to low income parents",
"what does obama target",
"What does Obama understand?",
"What does Obama say he understands?",
"what do teachers want",
"What did Navarrette say about parents?",
"What does Obama say about the teachers?"
] | [
[
"underperforming schools throughout America, are caught in a frustrating and almost comical paradox. They're turned away, shunned, treated with condescension and even insulted by self-serving public school \"edu-crats\" who treat these institutions like their own private offices"
],
[
"\"firewall"
],
[
"that America's public schools often underperform and help cheat students out of brighter futures"
],
[
"that America's public schools often underperform and help cheat students out of brighter futures"
],
[
"to protect their members from the scrutiny and standards"
],
[
"are blamed for not participating and involving themselves more in that hostile environment and when many of them thought that teaching their kids was the job of, well, teachers."
],
[
"\"if you're willing to hold yourselves more accountable, and if you develop a strong plan to improve the quality of education in your state, then we'll offer you a big grant to help you make that plan a reality.\""
]
] | Ruben Navarrette says Obama targets "firewall laws" with school funding initiative .
Obama understands school underperformance, he writes .
Low-income parents are caught in frustrating paradox, Navarrette says .
Many teachers just want someone to blame, he says . |
San Diego, California (CNN) -- Sometimes, a film is so powerful that it haunts you long after you've left the theater. Usually, it's because of the weight of the message.
The film haunting me is "The Blind Side." And the message? I'll leave that to Leigh Anne Tuohy to explain.
Tuohy and her husband, Sean, are the subjects of the new movie, "The Blind Side." The film is an adaptation of the 2006 book, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game" by Michael Lewis.
It tells the incredible story of Michael Oher, who went from being a homeless inner-city high school student whose father was dead and whose mother was a crack addict to a star lineman at the University of Mississippi -- eventually being selected by the Baltimore Ravens in the 2009 NFL draft. The Ravens recently signed the 6-5, 309-pound Oher to a 5-year, $13.8 million contract.
This American Dream is brought to us not just by Oher's talent, perseverance, and hard work but also by the fact that he was adopted by the Tuohys. The white, wealthy Memphis family not only fed and clothed Michael but also loved him as one of their own along with daughter Collins and son Sean Jr.
The "Blind Side" is the No. 2 film in America, and the role of Leigh Anne Tuohy is played to perfection by Sandra Bullock.
Still, some critics dismissed the film as hokey and condescending, with one calling it the latest chapter in Hollywood's "long, troubled history of well-meaning white paternalism, with poor black athletes finding success through white charity."
They missed the point. Simply put, there's a lot that any one of us can do to improve the life of our fellow man. And the fact that we do it is its own reward.
"He had a much greater impact on our lives than we did on his life," Leigh Anne said in a recent interview. "You have this child, and you bring him in, and you realize how fortunate you are, how you're blessed to have family, you're blessed to have your health. So much in life you take for granted."
There's the message: So much in life you take for granted. We've forgotten how lucky we are, because we're busy cursing fate. We've stopped being grateful for what we have, because we somehow find it more satisfying to complain about what we don't. Until we meet someone who has much less than we do.
So much in life you take for granted.
As Americans, we've become victims of our own success. We've strayed so far from the example of our immigrant parents and grandparents that we bear no resemblance to that model.
Weighed down by own bloated sense of entitlement and self-importance, we've lost our appetite for competition and we prefer to talk instead about what we think we "deserve." At the first sign of adversity, we play the victim, give up, or fall apart. With all the blessings that come with living in the world's most remarkable country, still we complain. We retreat. We whine.
Here in the Golden State, thousands of students at the University of California turned out to protest a 32 percent fee increase. I wrote a column, expressing disappointment that these "brats" consider a publicized subsidized college education an entitlement and telling them to go get jobs if their education is that important to them. I heard back from many of their parents who, angrily rising to their children's defense, informed me -- in incompatible narratives -- that either there were no jobs or their kids already had two of them.
How about that? Bratty parents. Apparently, in California, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
After a few days of that noise, I was ready for a movie where, in one of the more poignant scenes, a young man is given his own bedroom and remarks that he's "never had one | [
"Who said \"There's so much in life that we take for granted?\"",
"Navarrette says what about life?",
"What is the film about?",
"What is the new film called?"
] | [
[
"Leigh Anne"
],
[
"you take for granted."
],
[
"Michael Oher, who went from being a homeless inner-city high school student whose father was dead and whose mother was a crack addict to a star lineman at the University of Mississippi"
],
[
"\"The Blind Side.\""
]
] | A new film, "The Blind Side," tells inspirational story of hope and caring, says Ruben Navarrette Jr.
He says film points up how fortunate most Americans are .
Rather than appreciate their luck, many wallow in complaints about obstacles, he says .
Navarrette: There's so much in life that we take for granted . |
San Diego, California (CNN) -- The Obama administration needs an air traffic controller to manage its domestic policy agenda. The items are starting to pile up on the runway.
Move over, health care. Next up: immigration.
It wasn't exactly a graceful transition. In fact, at first, it looked like bad timing that tens of thousands of protesters descended on Washington to demand comprehensive immigration reform on the same day that Congress was voting on a bill that overhauled the health care system. You had to wonder: What if more than 100,000 people marched on Washington, and no one noticed?
Actually, even with everything else going on that day, plenty of people noticed the return on the national agenda of one of the most emotional and contentious issues in America.
Immigration reform advocates have their eye on the calendar. In October, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, a major proponent of comprehensive immigration reform, said during an interview on National Public Radio that the immigration debate would have to be reopened by March in order to get a bill passed before the November midterm elections.
Ironically, the fact that the debates over health care and immigration overlapped actually worked out well for the proponents of immigration reform. It gave members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus additional leverage to pressure President Obama into declaring his support for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that is about to be introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, and Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina.
The president needed a push. Liberals are loath to admit it, but Obama has been asleep at the switch when it comes to keeping his campaign promise to pursue immigration reform. And it isn't just -- as his defenders say -- because he was preoccupied with the economy and health care.
The truth is, Obama never connected with the immigration issue with the same degree of passion with which he connected with other issues like health care reform, education reform, even climate change. If the protesters hadn't gone to Washington and forced his hand, Obama would have simply gone on to education or the economy and put immigration reform on the back burner.
Now, thanks to the march, and other rallies planned around the country in April, Obama has gotten the message that immigration reform won't wait any longer.
It certainly won't wait until after the November election, as Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, has suggested. Menendez is obviously trying to be a good Democrat, trying to spare his colleagues and his party any more legislative drama. But he's not looking out for the best interests of the immigration reform movement. He must suspect Republicans are likely to make huge gains in November, especially after the health care vote.
The time to act is now. The legislative puzzle will only get more complicated when a new Congress is seated.
Some liberals want the immigration reform movement to be patient. There is nothing new there. Some on the left said the same thing during the civil rights movement. In this case, those who want to reform the immigration system have been waiting patiently since September 2001, when President George W. Bush first suggested comprehensive immigration reform.
And the longer they wait, the more complicated things get. The inaction remains the same. The only thing that changes is the narrative.
First they're told that Congress can't fix a system that both sides acknowledge is broken in good economic times because there are too many immigrants here and those kinds of population swings only exacerbate the anxiety that many Americans feel about changing demographics.
Then the economy goes sour, and they're told Congress can't act now because unemployment is too high and Americans have developed a new anxiety -- over their own economic instability.
Reformers figured out in a hurry that they were being played and that Congress never intended to deal with this issue. It's just too hard.
Just like health care reform was too hard? Personally, I believe Democrats made a colossal mistake by approving a radical upheaval of the nation's health care system and then compounded that error with all the shenanigans involved. | [
"How many marched for immigration reform?",
"What did he say about immigration?",
"What happened when Congress voted on health care?"
] | [
[
"more than 100,000"
],
[
"debate would have to be reopened by March in order to get a bill passed before the November midterm elections."
],
[
"tens of thousands of protesters descended"
]
] | As Congress voted on health care, tens of thousands marched for immigration reform .
Ruben Navarrette says Democrats showed moral courage in health care bill push .
He says immigration is a cause that can't wait .
He says system is broken and Congress should act now, not wait for better economy . |
San Diego, California (CNN) -- When five students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California, taunted Latino students by wearing T-shirts bearing the American flag on Cinco de Mayo, even though administrators had told students beforehand not to wear flag clothing that day, they caused a ruckus, divided a community and reignited the culture wars.
And, it turns out, they were just getting warmed up.
The ruckus ensued when Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez -- apparently fearing that the boys' fashion choices might provoke a violent response from Latino students who have developed an emotional attachment to the faux holiday as "their day" -- told the youths to either turn their T-shirts inside out or go home.
The lads chose the latter, and were, for this act of defiance, magically transformed from bratty kids to defenders of individual freedom and innocent victims of the establishment.
Why not? Everyone else in society plays the victim. Nothing is ever anyone's fault. Someone else is always to blame. And so why shouldn't these five young men get a chance to portray themselves as an oppressed minority?
This part is even more bizarre: Conservatives are defending the rights of the students because the story fits into their paranoid narrative of cultural displacement -- where the Mexican flag is supplanting Old Glory, Spanish is drowning out English, the tortilla has bread on the run, and so on and on. This is outrageous, conservatives say, as they blast school administrators by accusing them of overstepping their bounds.
Conservatives take this stance, but have spent the better part of the last three decades asserting -- in legal briefs and oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court -- the power of public school administrators to maintain order and prevent disruptive behavior even at the expense of curtailing students' First Amendment rights.
In a classic and clumsy flip-flop, conservatives were against First Amendment rights for public school students on campus before they were in favor of them.
You see, conservatives usually don't give a hoot about whether students have the right to express, on school campuses, their opinion about this or that -- especially if doing so threatens to upset the social order. Now, suddenly, because of the Morgan Hill case, they've found religion and they're ready to side with the American Civil Liberties Union in defense of free speech rights for students? Talk about strange bedfellows.
I got a chance to see this hypocrisy up close last week when I appeared on CNN to discuss the Morgan Hill story with Kris Kobach, conservative legal analyst and law professor. Kobach defended the right of the five students to defy school administrators in exercise of their First Amendment rights to free expression.
He cited case law that is almost as old as I am -- Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969). In that case, which involved high school and junior high school students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended as a result, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and declared that students don't "shed their constitutional rights to free speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
But since Tinker, the justices have curtailed First Amendment rights of students, especially when the expression of those rights is disruptive, in three other cases: Bethel School District v Fraser (1986), where the Supreme Court held that a high school student's speech during an assembly -- filled as it was with sexual innuendo -- was not protected; Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier (1988), where the court held that schools can regulate the content of student newpapers; and Morse v Frederick (2007), where the court held that officials can restrict student speech at a school-supervised event even if it takes place off-campus.
Interestingly, in the Morse case, the school administrators were represented by no less prominent a conservative than Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater Independent Counsel.
The truth is that school administrators have a greater ability to restrict the speech of their students than the government does to restrict the speech of the general public. That's what the Supreme Court has said | [
"Who wore flag t-shirts?",
"What did the students wear?",
"Who wore U.S. flag shirts?",
"What did the principal ask the students to do?",
"Who asked students to turn shirts inside-out?"
] | [
[
"five students at Live Oak High School"
],
[
"T-shirts bearing the American flag"
],
[
"five students"
],
[
"not to wear flag clothing"
],
[
"Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez"
]
] | Ruben Navarrette: Students wore U.S. flag T-shirts after school said no flag shirts .
Navarrette: Was a taunt to Latinos; principal asked them to turn shirts inside-out or go home .
Conservatives hypocritical, he writes, by touting students as martyrs for freedom .
He writes: They always say right of schools to maintain order trumps students' speech rights . |
San Francisco (CNN) -- Dozens of people, many tapping on iPhones and discussing the "Steve Jobs" biography, lined up at a shopping center here on Thursday.
But these Apple fans weren't in line to buy the company's latest gadget. They were here to see "Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview," a documentary of sorts that's now playing in a handful of U.S. cities.
This particular screening of the never-before-aired interview with the Apple co-founder was set to be the final one at this theater, but producers extended its run after showings sold out. The film's interviewer, Robert X. Cringely, watched in the audience and answered questions afterward.
The 69-minute interview with Jobs was taped in 1995 for a PBS documentary called "Triumph of the Nerds." The program aired only nine minutes of Jobs' statements.
The master copy of the interview was lost in transit, but director Paul Sen had secretly kept a copy on VHS tape, Cringely said. After Jobs died in October, Sen went searching through his garage until he found it.
"It was the first time in 16 years he touched the tape," Cringely told the audience at Thursday's screening. "It won't be lost for another 16 years."
After the movie completes its brief run in theaters, "Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview" will probably be made available online and on DVD, Cringely said.
Over the course of one month while pitching the idea to Landmark Theatres, Cringely and a small team shot an introduction and tacked on a brief text recap that runs without sound at the end. The production is crude, as is the low-quality footage from VHS, but Jobs is captivating. He told stories with charisma, enthusiasm and his flair for dramatics. He spoke candidly and with emotion.
"He never sat for another interview like this, and what a shame," Cringely said.
The interview shows Jobs as alternately witty, charming, cranky and bitter toward those he believed crossed him. At the time, Jobs had left Apple and was running a small computer company, NeXT Computer, that targeted the education market. NeXT was purchased by Apple the next year, and soon after, Jobs was again running the company he founded with Steve Wozniak in his parents' Silicon Valley garage.
Cringely, then a technology columnist, managed to score a coveted interview with Jobs because NeXT desperately needed the attention and because Cringely and Jobs had a prior relationship. Cringely worked for Jobs in the early days of Apple, where he had turned down stock in the company for a $6-an-hour wage.
The filmed interview drew laughs from the audience at several moments. In one instance, Cringely asked whether there's a hidden meaning when Jobs uses a nasty four-letter word to describe his employees' subpar work. "No," Jobs said, it meant exactly what it implied, and he explained that the "A players" don't require him to "baby their egos."
Jobs reminisced about his early days with Wozniak, including the time they made a prank phone call to the Vatican and asked for the pope. He also panned IBM and Xerox, and was particularly nasty toward Microsoft. "The only problem with Microsoft is, they just have no taste," he said in a now-famous line.
Jobs predicted the meteoric rise of the Internet, which he said would be especially satisfying because Microsoft doesn't own it. He also described how he runs a business and the difference between workers who specialize in process versus content -- an imbalance he said tainted IBM.
Jobs was especially critical of John Sculley, the PepsiCo executive who he hired to run Apple and who later fired him. Jobs described Sculley as a corrupt marketing guy and a failed manager who was wrong for the job.
He also expounded on the importance of a strong leader but added that companies are not just about one person.
"People like symbols," Jobs said. "So I'm the symbol for certain things." | [
"What is the lost interview based on",
"In what year did the interview take place?",
"What does jobs talk about",
"How long was the interview",
"Most of the 69-minute interview was"
] | [
[
"a PBS documentary called \"Triumph of the Nerds.\""
],
[
"1995"
],
[
"his early days with Wozniak,"
],
[
"69-minute"
],
[
"taped in 1995 for a PBS documentary called \"Triumph of the Nerds.\""
]
] | "Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview" is based on a 1995 interview taped for PBS .
Most of the 69-minute interview was never aired .
In it, Jobs talks about Adobe, Microsoft and his ouster from Apple .
The interview is now playing in a handful of movie theaters . |
San Francisco (CNN) -- Executing a successful remake of a video game can be like shooting blindfolded, and that's especially true when you're dealing with the fervent following behind Microsoft's "Halo" series.
Longtime fans look for any reason to balk at attempts to repackage their beloved games, and for "Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary," people who follow its development closely have reasons to be skeptical. It's the first game wholly developed without intervention from Bungie, the company that created "Halo" but which has since severed ties with Microsoft.
"Halo Anniversary" is available only for the Xbox 360 starting Tuesday, the 10th anniversary of the original "Halo," which launched alongside Microsoft's first home gaming console.
The game adds high-definition graphics and a big-production musical score to the original, without changing much else.
Producers often look at remakes as a way to add their signature to a well-regarded work, but the team shepherding "Halo" went to extraordinary lengths to preserve the feel of its decade-old model.
Frank O'Connor, a development director for 343 Industries, the division Microsoft created to specifically handle the "Halo" franchise, stressed that "Halo Anniversary" was created to appease fans.
The $40 price tag, versus the standard $60 price for new games, fits with that model. "This is a celebration of the past."
O'Connor leads a team of a few people within 343 Industries that's tasked with making the final say about whether a storyline for new games, books and other media fits with "the Halo canon," he said.
With several bestselling books and more products in the works, this is a fragile process.
Sometimes O'Connor has to temper his own instincts in order to stay true to precedents set by earlier games. For example, he wanted to hide a rocket launcher behind a waterfall in the second level of "Halo Anniversary" as an Easter egg for explorers. His team challenged him on it, and so he conceded: no rockets, he lamented as he motioned to the waterfall while demonstrating the game.
Designing a familiar but unique 'Halo 4'
The team within 343 Industries that's working on "Halo 4," the major new game scheduled to be released late next year, has been given more creative freedom than the external group that's programming "Halo Anniversary."
Kiki Wolfkill, the executive producer for "Halo 4," said that being able to consult with O'Connor's team makes it "incredibly easy" to keep their stories straight. But Josh Holmes, the creative director for the game, said that despite the help, the breadth of the "Halo" franchise creates a minefield for storytellers to traverse.
"There are times when we're thinking about all of the different interconnected storylines," Holmes said. "That's really important to us, because we believe in the universe and want to keep the universe consistent."
They declined to talk much about "Halo 4," but they said it will strike a delicate balance between keeping up with innovations in other first-person-shooter games and keeping the mechanics familiar to fans of the series.
The game will have a familiar control scheme, using two analog sticks for movement, rather than doing a drastic departure with, say, Kinect camera navigation, 343 Industries executives said. It may incorporate limited Kinect functions for throwing grenades or toggling settings using voice commands, like those in "Halo Anniversary," they said.
"One of the things that's really important to us is that the game feels, at its core, like 'Halo,' " Holmes said. "It feels like 'Halo,' yet it feels new and unique."
Staying true to 'Halo' in 'Anniversary' edition
That same criteria are not what's driving "Halo Anniversary." The primary concern for developers was that it feel almost identical to the original "Halo."
One roadblock that Saber Interactive, the team behind the single-player element of "Halo | [
"What console is this played on?",
"About what is the remake?",
"What did the team have?",
"What is a remake of the original for XBox 360?",
"The team working on Halo 4 has more freedom to what?"
] | [
[
"Xbox 360"
],
[
"Microsoft's \"Halo\" series."
],
[
"the final say about whether a storyline for new games, books and other media fits with \"the Halo canon,\""
],
[
"\"Halo\""
],
[
"creative"
]
] | "Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary" is a remake of the original for Xbox 360 .
The developers went to great pains to stay true to the first "Halo's" formula .
The team working on "Halo 4" has more freedom to flex their creative muscles . |
San Francisco (CNN) -- From the ninth floor of an office building here, Verizon Wireless executives peered out of a window at the breathtaking view of the East Bay.
Behind them, baristas wrestled with an espresso maker and served up free cappuccinos to guests.
The newly renovated office, located in SoMa, San Francisco's tech hub, is home to the Verizon Application Innovation Center, which opened last month. Big and small software developers are invited to work here at no charge, with unlimited access to development phones, wireless equipment, shielded test rooms and lattes.
The modern workspace is part of Verizon's plan to improve its image in the technology industry and particularly with people who develop mobile phone apps, executives said in interviews. App makers often condemn carriers for monthly data caps and limits on high-bandwidth apps, which they see as stifling innovation.
Cell giants, including AT&T Mobility and Britain's Vodafone, are taking approaches similar to Verizon's to deflect criticism and position themselves as friends, not foes, of developers. Vodafone, which partially owns Verizon Wireless, opened its own development center in Silicon Valley this month.
AT&T cut the ribbon last week on its Foundry Development Center in Palo Alto, California. All of the furniture there is on wheels to facilitate makeshift meetings. Currently, 106 projects are under way at the foundry, many of them in collaboration with other companies.
"The purpose here was really to be right in the middle of Silicon Valley, in the heart of innovation," Jon Summers, an AT&T technology executive, said last week. "The one thing that we are extremely passionate about is enabling innovation through these partnerships and within this community."
AT&T also is working with esteemed venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital to identify small companies with which the carrier should work, Summers said. Third-party developers are welcome to show up at the foundry unannounced and receive technical support from people there, he said.
An AT&T spokeswoman declined to say how many workers staff its facility, but Summers said Ericsson has employees there along with AT&T engineers, and that people from Microsoft and Juniper Networks will also work there intermittently.
Ericsson is also a founding partner in Verizon's innovation-center program. A Verizon spokesman said 25 engineers work at its San Francisco office.
Verizon previously launched a similar facility in Waltham, Massachusetts, for hardware developers. AT&T opened two others earlier this year in Plano, Texas, and Ra'anana, Israel. Work at these centers has resulted in exclusive projects for each company, executives said.
Part of the motivation for the significant investments is to avoid being seen as a "dumb pipe," or as solely a conduit for data, said Michael King, a Gartner Research analyst.
"I think the long-term goal for a lot of these carriers is they don't want to become pipes," King said. "When you think about it, the carriers don't bring a lot to a developer."
There may be technical limits to what developers can accomplish with these new carrier-specific app stores.
Telecoms operate many parts of their business as "a closed loop," rather than unlocking services such as text messaging to developers, said Andrew Bosworth, a Facebook product director.
The carriers will have a tougher time convincing software makers, especially those who produce hot consumer apps, to sign exclusivity contracts, King said.
"If you've got a really compelling app, why are you going to limit yourself to half your potential market?" King said. "You are not going to tie yourself to a carrier."
Verizon and AT&T executives acknowledged as much in interviews. Developers who use their facilities likely will offer their apps on competitors' networks, they said.
"No one has a monopoly on good ideas," Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead said at the center's opening last month.
Verizon appears to be winning good will with smaller tech companies, however, which could be a valuable asset. Some developers, who, according to Verizon tech exec Kyle | [
"what are they trying to improve",
"who opened a development center",
"What are they working on improving?",
"What is in San Francisco?",
"Where did AT&T open the center?",
"Who has a innovation center in San Franciso?",
"where did they open it",
"Where is the center opening?"
] | [
[
"its image in the technology industry and particularly with people who develop mobile phone apps,"
],
[
"Verizon Wireless,"
],
[
"its image in the technology industry"
],
[
"Verizon Application Innovation Center,"
],
[
"Palo Alto, California."
],
[
"Verizon Wireless"
],
[
"SoMa, San Francisco's tech hub,"
],
[
"Palo Alto, California."
]
] | AT&T opens a Foundry Development Center in Silicon Valley .
Verizon Wireless also has an Application Innovation Center in San Francisco .
The cell carriers are working to improve their images among app makers . |
San Francisco (CNN) -- When Microsoft released the first Xbox nearly a decade ago, analysts considered the then-money-losing endeavor to be a sort of Trojan horse into the living room: a bid to become the home's central media hub.
Now, Microsoft is facing an undisguised assault from Apple, Google, Samsung Electronics and start-ups like Boxee and Roku. They are all vying to fill the holes in Internet video on the big screen with hardware that makes it easy to watch on demand.
Microsoft and Sony, which makes the PlayStation, are working to bolster their Internet-video offerings before new challengers can usurp the home-entertainment market that they've been cultivating for many years with their systems.
Sony plans to unwrap a new version of its video-download service for the PlayStation 3 on Tuesday. People who subscribe to PlayStation Plus will be able to download a preview, and starting on October 11, all owners of the game console will be able to download the application from the home screen in the same way they can get Netflix.
The sleeker Video Unlimited has large text and cover artwork for movies and television shows. The overall design looks a lot like the Metro style Microsoft is using in Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8.
Video Unlimited will deploy a new patented search interface that works well with the arrow buttons on remote controls, which typically don't have keyboards, and the system suggests results as the user types -- much like Google's predictive search results. While surfing through menus, the app frequently makes recommendations about similar films and programs.
"We want you to be able to search and browse in a nonlinear way," Michael Aragon, a vice president for Sony Network Entertainment, said in an interview. "We want people to get lost in the experience."
The company is rebranding its Qriocity media suite, which includes a music-subscription service and the video store. Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited will live under the Sony Entertainment Network umbrella, and they may eventually be joined by the PlayStation Network, Aragon said.
For now, the PlayStation Network Store will continue to offer the same programming that Video Unlimited has, to cater to customers familiar with buying media through the existing store.
Music Unlimited and the PlayStation Network Store will be redesigned later, Aragon said. The music service has about 750,000 active users, and about 100,000 paying for access, he said.
Couch potatoes expect programs to start immediately, but Video Unlimited's a-la-carte downloads don't do that currently on the PlayStation. This already works on Sony's Blu-ray players that have the app installed, and will be coming soon to the PlayStation, Aragon said.
The redesigned video service will be coming to Sony set-top boxes and Bravia TVs in the next few months, Aragon said. The Sony tablet, which is set to debut early next month, will have a version of Video Unlimited, and the iPhone app will eventually include the ability to watch videos offline, he said.
With the new Web services, Sony is hoping to leave behind the blunders from earlier this year which resulted in a lengthy outage for its network. A reminder of those flared up recently when Sony asked its users to waive their rights to file class-action lawsuits. In the interview, Aragon boasted that Sony has added 3 million accounts and usage has increased by more than 10% since the outage.
But Sony's network division has more than its own recent mistakes to concern itself over. Google has been unwavering in developing its Google TV platform, which Sony installs on a few of its products. Some rumblings within supply chains suggest that Apple is working on a television set. Samsung is pushing its Smart TV system.
Even with more TV sets bundling Internet capabilities, the market for set-top boxes is expected to grow 14% this year to 21 million devices shipped, according to market research firm In-Stat.
Microsoft, like Sony, feels the heat and continues to push the Xbox beyond gaming.
"Your Xbox is becoming the hub of your | [
"what is redesigning its video download service for the PlayStation 3?",
"Which gaming system is having service redesigns?",
"Who is redesigning its video download service?",
"which dominates the market"
] | [
[
"Sony"
],
[
"Sony"
],
[
"Sony"
],
[
"Microsoft and Sony,"
]
] | Sony is redesigning its video download service for the PlayStation 3 .
Microsoft plans to launch live TV for the Xbox .
Push for game consoles as media hubs faces competition from big tech companies . |
San Francisco, California (CNN) -- Before the protests of tuition hikes last week, a colleague posted the following: "Need suggestions for protest songs. We have a DJ but need to give her a play list." The requests started coming in: Joan Baez, the Dixie Chicks, The Clash. I wondered about the overlap between songs on a professor's play list and those on a student's. So I went to class and asked students to tell me what they wanted to hear. The list included Dead Prez, Lyrics Born, B-Side Players and Erykah Badu, among many others. This is the protest play list of a new generation. My introduction to protest songs came through my mom. As the daughter of a Chicano movement activist, I attended protests against wars in Central America and rallies in response to police repression. Last week, I marched in solidarity with people across 17 states calling for well-funded, accessible public education. While at the March 4 rally, I realized that California's public education system has had a great impact on who my mother and I are today. As a 15-year-old immigrant newly arrived in Los Angeles, my mother was placed in remedial classes because she didn't speak English. She struggled with the language but excelled in math. Yet her high school counselor directed her to work at a local tortilla factory. This was the early 1960s, just a few years before students responded to educational inequities through organized acts of civil disobedience that would later be referred to as the East Los Angeles blowouts. It was only by chance, and without parental or institutional guidance, that my mom enrolled in East Los Angeles College. Like many other low-income and working students, community college was her entry into higher education. It was not until her mid-30s that she enrolled in the California State University of Los Angeles while working full time. I was in elementary school and remember going to campus with her on days that my dad was working, even during an in-class exam. This was my first exposure to a university classroom. Since then, I have taught at the California State University of Los Angeles and the University of California at San Diego. I am currently an assistant professor at San Francisco State University. Watching preschool teachers and children participating in the recent marches reminded me that my education began at Head Start. My mom enrolled me in this program, which provided early reading and math skills and set a foundation for my educational development. I stand in solidarity with early childhood educators. At the protest, I watched high school students confidently take the stage and list their demands and hopes for a better future. I wish that my mom, as a teenage immigrant, could have aired her own frustrations with the 1960s educational system. Today's high school students inspire me, and I am proud of today's teachers, who support their students. I ran into some of my own students at the rally. One asked where she could hear the DJ playing her song request. We searched through the sea of people and realized the turnout was much larger than we had imagined. The protest play lists of multiple generations filled the air with music. Young fans of Dead Prez marched and chanted alongside older fans of Joan Baez. They all recognized the need for well-funded, accessible public education. Rising student fees have placed barriers between thousands of eligible students and their dreams of higher education. In addition, budget cuts and the subsequent elimination of course offerings have extended the number of years necessary to graduate. Many of my students have taken on multiple jobs to finance their education. I hear their stories and imagine my mom trying to attend Cal State L.A. today. Younger generations in the U.S. have consistently achieved a higher level of education than the generation that came before. But for the first time since World War II, we are in danger of reversing that trend. Students and educators view education as a public good available to all and will continue mobilizing to restore funding for public education. Will | [
"What is the major topic",
"What is keeping thousands of eligible students from realizing their dreams?",
"what do rising fees do?",
"when did Writer's mom immigrate to L.A.?"
] | [
[
"public education."
],
[
"Rising"
],
[
"placed barriers between thousands of eligible students and their dreams of higher education."
],
[
"early 1960s,"
]
] | Katynka Z. Martínez : Protest songs at education rally ranged from old school to hip hop .
Martínez: Whichever generation, all were fighting for accessible, affordable higher education .
Writer's mom immigrated to L.A. at 15 and went to college; she couldn't afford it today .
Rising fees keep thousands of eligible students from realizing their dreams, she says . |
San Francisco, California (CNN) -- Officials have agreed to pay $1.5 million to the daughter of a man fatally shot in the back by a transit police officer on New Year's Day 2009 in Oakland, California.
A bystander's cell-phone video of the shooting on a transit platform was widely circulated on the Internet and on news shows.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit train system late Wednesday announced the settlement over the killing of Oscar Grant, 22.
"It's been a little over a year since we experienced the tragic death of Oscar Grant," BART Board President James Fang said. "No matter what anyone's opinion of the case may be, the sad fact remains this incident has left Tatiana without a father. The $1.5 million settlement will provide financial support for her." Grant's daughter, Tatiana, is 5.
The video showed then-Officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, pulling his gun and shooting Grant in the back as another officer kneeled on Grant.
Mehserle might have intended to draw and fire his Taser rather than his gun, according to a court filing by his attorney.
The shooting sparked large protests in Oakland and led to Mehserle's arrest on a murder charge. The case against him is pending.
Initially, attorney John Burris asked for $50 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed on behalf of Grant's daughter. Burris was not immediately available for comment on the settlement.
The transit system's police department has made several changes since the shooting. The department has increased training hours for officers, is requiring them to report all "use-of-force incidents," and is tapping the public's help in searching for a new police chief, the transit system said in a statement.
"This settlement is critical in our efforts to move forward," said Carole Ward Allen, a BART board member. "We're working hard to make the police department the best it can be for our officers, our customers and our community." | [
"When was Oscar Grant shot?",
"Which officer shot Oscar Grant?",
"In what year was Oscar Grant shot in the back?",
"Who is Oscar Grant's daughter?",
"Which city's BART will pay daughter of man shot by officer?",
"What did bystanders use to video the Oscar grant issue?",
"Who is San Francisco's BART paying?",
"What does the acronym BART stand for?"
] | [
[
"New Year's Day 2009"
],
[
"Johannes Mehserle,"
],
[
"2009"
],
[
"Tatiana,"
],
[
"Oakland, California."
],
[
"cell-phone"
],
[
"Tatiana"
],
[
"Bay Area Rapid Transit"
]
] | San Francisco's BART to pay daughter of man shot by officer .
Oscar Grant was shot in the back on New Year's Day 2009 .
Officer may have thought he was firing Taser; he faces murder charge .
Bystander's cell-phone video of incident widely seen on Internet, TV . |
San Francisco, California (CNN) -- Repair work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will continue nonstop into the weekend and the bridge may reopen Monday, but officials were making no promises Friday. "Commuters are going to need to check back with us over the weekend," said Bart Ney, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation. "We're going to do everything we can to get the bridge open for the Monday morning commute, but safety is the priority for us right now." Repair work has not stopped since it began Tuesday night when two steel rods and a steel crossbeam plummeted from the bridge, landing on the roadway and forcing the span's closure. The same section had been the site of repairs over Labor Day weekend, when crews fixed a crack. On Friday, workers were grinding the areas where there was the potential for steel-on-steel connection, Ney said. "We want them to be very smooth." The rods' alignment has not been completed to the point where workers could begin stressing them, he said. Once that work is complete, a third-party group will look at how the system handles vibrations, he said, adding, "There is still a lot of work to be done." Transportation officials had said Thursday night that repairs of the bridge, which carried about 280,000 vehicles per day, would be complete by late Friday morning, but Ney said contractors were still working on custom-fitting steel for the structure. Crews worked Friday to replace four steel rods. One of those had failed and caused the problems, Dale Bonner, California's secretary of business, transportation and housing told reporters Thursday. Engineers also will make sure the rods are centered and will strengthen the welds to ensure stability, Bonner said. Vibrations in the rods, affected by strong winds, caused the break, officials said. In the wake of the bridge's closing, commuters flocked to the Bay Area's rail system. On Thursday, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) said, the system carried the most passengers ever, breaking a record set the day before. About 442,000 people took BART, 24 percent more than on an average Thursday, the agency said in a news release. | [
"What fell from the bridge",
"What has been swamped with riders since the Bay Bridge closed?",
"What spans SF Bay and carries 280000 vehicles daily?",
"When are they hoping to get the bridge open",
"what does BART stand for",
"What fell from the bridge onto the roadway?",
"What has been swamped since the bridge closure"
] | [
[
"two steel rods and a steel crossbeam"
],
[
"Area's rail system."
],
[
"San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge"
],
[
"Monday,"
],
[
"Bay Area Rapid Transit"
],
[
"two steel rods and a steel crossbeam"
],
[
"Bay Area's rail system."
]
] | NEW: "We're going to do everything we can to get the bridge open" Monday .
Pieces of steel from bridge fell onto roadway on Tuesday, forcing closure .
73-year-old bridge spans San Francisco Bay, carries about 280,000 vehicles daily .
BART has been swamped with riders since Bay Bridge closed . |
San Francisco, California (CNN) -- They've been committed to each other for eight years and have four sons together, but there's a component missing in one Berkeley, California, couple's life that's out of reach for them: getting married.
Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier's partnership is one that has taken center stage because of the ongoing debate on same-sex marriage in California.
On Monday, the spotlight will be even brighter, when a trial challenging California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, begins in U. S. District Court in San Francisco. Demonstrators are expected to be out in force.
Plans had been made to have a camera in the courtroom, and the proceedings distrubuted on YouTube, but the ballot initiative's sponsors prevailed in their 11th-hour bid to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to restrict distribution of video of the trial -- at least temporarily.
The justices wrote in their terse order that they need until at least Wednesday afternoon to consider the camera issue.
Perry and Stier, along with Jeffrey Zarrillo and Paul Katami, of Los Angeles, are the two couples at the heart of the case, arguing that California's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. They are asking Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker to issue an injunction against Proposition 8's enforcement.
The case will likely head to the U.S. Supreme Court no matter what the outcome. It is expected to set legal precedents that will shape society for years to come and result in a landmark court decision that settles whether Americans can marry people of the same sex.
Do you think Prop 8 is constitutional?
In legal circles and across the Internet, it has been dubbed this generation's Brown v. Board of Education, the case that led to the Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation in schools. Some say it could be the biggest ruling since Roe v. Wade, which tackled abortion. It also closely echoes the Supreme Court case that overturned bans on interracial marriage.
The debate over Proposition 8 has been fueled by emotions on both sides.
For Perry and Stier, Zarrillo and Katami and their supporters, the issue is simple. They say the case boils down to nothing more than equal protection under the law and that their sexual orientation should not prevent them from getting married.
"It does not weaken the fabric of our communities to grant them these basic familial rights -- it strengthens them," said Chad Griffin, President of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, when the lawsuit was announced in May. "It does not undermine marriage to extend to these loving couples -- it affirms it."
"This is one of the threshold civil rights issues of our generation," he said. "Justice is on our side and we're about to reclaim it."
Representing them are two high-powered attorneys, Ted Olson and David Boies. They're an unlikely pair -- former courtroom adversaries best known for being on opposing sides of the "hanging chad" dispute of the 2000 presidential election in Florida.
Olson, a staunch political conservative who defended the government's positions as solicitor general, was a choice that surprised many supporters of the case for same-sex marriage. He said there's nothing inconsistent about him fighting for the rights of same-sex couples.
"They call it a teaching moment these days," he said. "This gives us an opportunity to explain how wrong it has been to deny rights to individuals on that basis."
Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state's Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown are defendants in the lawsuit because of their positions in California government. However, both have said they would not defend the suit. Brown filed a legal motion saying he agreed with the position advanced by Olson and Boies. Schwarzenegger has taken no position.
Andrew Pugno, a lawyer for an organization called Protect Marriage, the group that came up with Proposition 8, said he believes the issue was solved when the people of California made their voices heard in the voting booth.
"Seven million Californians voted to preserve or restore what marriage has meant since the | [
"what is the landmark case"
] | [
[
"arguing that California's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional."
]
] | Trial focuses on constitutionality of ban on same-sex marriage .
It could become landmark case, like Brown v. Board of Education .
Lawyer for group behind Prop 8 says issue should have ended when voters made choice .
Lawyer for couples: "The right to marry is a fundamental right in the United States" |
San Juan, Puerto Rico (CNN) -- Investigators don't know if the massive fire at a fuel storage facility near San Juan was deliberately started or was an accident, the agent in charge of the FBI's San Juan office said Monday. The blaze, which started with an explosion at the Caribbean Petroleum Corp. facility in Bayamon municipality early Friday, was extinguished Sunday, firefighters said. Some of the tanks continued to smolder and crews stood ready to fight any flare-up. "We don't know if it's a crime scene," said FBI Special Agent Luis Fraticelli. "We don't know if it's an accident, so we're not making any determinations at this point until our experts do their work, do their analysis and then provide input to us as to what they feel happened here." Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. The FBI is investigating graffiti found on two San Juan tunnels that referred to a fire, Special Agent Harry Rodriguez said Friday. A spray-painted message on the tunnels, less than three miles apart, said: "Boom, fire, RIP, Gulf, Soul, ACNF." Caribbean Petroleum owns the Gulf Oil brand, but Rodriguez said he did not know what ACNF referred to. Hundreds of firefighters battled the blaze, which began with an explosion early Friday morning. That explosion shook the ground with the force of a 2.8-magnitude earthquake, authorities said. Flames shot into the air while plumes of thick, black smoke hovered over the region. Agents from the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were investigating to determine whether the explosion was an act of sabotage or an accident. Seventeen tanks were destroyed by flames and the initial explosion. Puerto Rico's governor, Luis Fortuno, said the main priority of his government is to counter any long-term effects of air and water pollution caused by the disaster. Representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency have been checking air quality near the fire. "We're not finding levels that would be of concern," said Bonnie Bellow, EPA spokeswoman. She said the fire had been so intense because it was "burning off chemicals that are part of the fuel." About 600 displaced people stayed in shelters on Sunday night, but many were being sent home. Dr. Lorenzo Gonzalez, Puerto Rico's health secretary, tests conducted on the air and water showed no reason for concern. Because they were placed in close proximity in the facilities, everyone in the shelters and all the emergency personnel were vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus as a precaution, Gonzalez said. President Obama declared an emergency in Puerto Rico, which frees up federal aid. Fortuno said the blaze has cost the island at least $6.4 million. The governor sought to allay fears over gasoline supplies. Caribbean Petroleum owns 200 gas stations in the island and several inland distribution facilities, and supplies much of the island's fuel. Puerto Rico will receive 3.6 million gallons of regular gasoline, more than 1 million gallons of premium gasoline and more than 1 million gallons of diesel fuel to help make up for what may have been lost, Fortuno said. The company has been cited for violations of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the main law in the United States that deals with the disposal of solid and hazardous wastes, according to EPA spokeswoman Bellow. Caribbean Petroleum is under a corrective-action plan, she said. CNN's Rafael Romo and Arthur Brice contributed to this report. | [
"What will Puerto Rico receive to make up for loss?",
"What evidence made reference to fires?",
"When did the explosion occur?"
] | [
[
"3.6 million gallons of regular gasoline, more than 1 million gallons of premium gasoline and more than 1 million gallons of diesel fuel"
],
[
"graffiti found on two San Juan tunnels that referred"
],
[
"early Friday morning."
]
] | Blaze started with massive explosion early Friday .
Graffiti found in two San Juan tunnels made reference to fires .
Puerto Rico to receive fuel imports to make up for what burned . |
San Juan, Puerto Rico (CNN) -- A humanitarian mission to aid Haitian earthquake victims turned into a major embarrassment in Puerto Rico on Friday as pictures emerged of doctors drinking, mugging for cameras and brandishing firearms amid the victims' suffering. The ethics committee of the commonwealth's medical board said it was launching an investigation into whether those involved should be disciplined. Puerto Rican Secretary of Health Lorenzo Gonzalez called the episode "a sad situation." "The poor judgment of a few basically damages the beautiful effort that many others have put in place in terms of providing good medical care," Gonzalez said. "When I saw the pictures, I was very concerned that they have taken pictures of people without any consent." Some of the photos, which were posted on the social networking site Facebook, show smiling doctors holding guns or toasting each other, bottles of scotch or other alcohol in their hands. Others show medical personnel in what appears to be a clinic, grinning as they attend to patients. Another shows a quake victim on a hospital bed, naked from the waist down except for a thin strip of cloth covering the genitals. "You can't ever take pictures of patients if you don't have a written agreement and much less publish photos of patients half-nude," the president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons told CNN. Dr. Eduardo Ibarra added, "This is a clear violation of the Hippocratic Oath ... We're going to take all the measures possible to correct this." Ibarra said some of the photographs were taken in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic after the group had operated on 70 patients who were in critical condition. "In any form, the question of drinking beer while wearing their surgical gear is bad -- it's like a police officer drinking beer while wearing their uniform," he said. "They violated the rules of conduct." He said the ethics committee members would identify the doctors and evaluate their acts, "always with the presumption of innocence." Though the committee has yet to decide on a course of action, some doctors have already suffered consequences, he said. "Some of them already lost their jobs," he said. "They're going to lose probably their careers. It's a mess. Only because of some stupidity." An anesthesiologist who traveled with the group said she was saddened by the photographs, but said her colleagues "gave 200 percent" with limited resources. "Their work was excellent," Dr. Enid Garcia told Puerto Rico's Primera Hora newspaper. The story led the Friday evening news broadcast of CNN affiliate WAPA, in San Juan, which devoted 12 minutes to the subject, including an interview with one of the doctors who appeared in a photograph carrying a rifle. "I regret it," said Dr. Carlos Ortiz. He said the pictures were intended as nothing more than a reminder of their work, and that soldiers had handed them their weapons to hold while posing. The embarrassment was heightened by the fact that the mission was coordinated by Puerto Rico's Senate. Days after the January 12 quake in Haiti, the Senate announced it would oversee sending more than 100 doctors to set up a field hospital near the town of Jimani, across the border in the Dominican Republic. The town has been flooded with Haitians injured in the quake, seeking medical help unavailable at home. Prior to sending the medical professionals on January 15, Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz told them, "With you goes the heart of all the people of Puerto Rico." On Friday, in a news release, he called the conduct of some of them "imprudent" and "indiscreet." The soldiers should be investigated, he said, for having allowed the health professionals to pose with their weapons. CNN's Nick Valencia, Benjamin Fernandez and Jennifer Deaton in Atlanta, Georgia, contributed to this report. | [
"what does the anesthesiologist who traveled with the group says about their work?",
"Who said their work was excellent?",
"What did the photos show?",
"Who is having a medical ethics board meeting?",
"on what social media did the Photos emerged?",
"what are some photos showing off?",
"who travelled with the group",
"where did pictures emerge"
] | [
[
"she was saddened by the photographs, but said her colleagues \"gave 200 percent\""
],
[
"Dr. Enid Garcia"
],
[
"doctors drinking, mugging for cameras and brandishing firearms amid the victims' suffering."
],
[
"committee of the commonwealth's"
],
[
"Facebook,"
],
[
"doctors drinking, mugging for cameras and brandishing firearms"
],
[
"An anesthesiologist"
],
[
"Puerto Rico"
]
] | Anesthesiologist who traveled with the group: "Their work was excellent"
Photos emerge on Facebook of doctors drinking and grinning among suffering Haitians .
Puerto Rican medical ethics board meeting Friday; investigation announced .
Some photos show smiling doctors holding guns, bottles of liquor . |
San Juan, Puerto Rico (CNN) -- The father of a 7-year-old girl abducted and killed near her north Georgia home this month said Sunday he is "relieved" to have his daughter back in Puerto Rico, where she will be buried this week.
A funeral for Jorelys Rivera will be held Monday in Penuelas, her father, Ricardo Galarza, said. The burial will take place Tuesday, he said.
Services were held Saturday for mourners in Georgia before her body was flown to Puerto Rico.
Galarza told CNN last week that he last saw his daughter two years ago, when she visited for the summer. She was supposed to visit for Christmas this year, Galarza said.
Jorelys disappeared December 2 near a playground at a Canton, Georgia, apartment complex. Searchers found her body in a trash bin three days later. Authorities have accused 20-year-old Ryan Brunn -- a maintenance worker at the complex -- of killing her.
Jorelys died of blunt force trauma to the head and was stabbed and sexually assaulted, according to authorities.
A date for Brunn's arraignment has not been set. David Cannon Sr., one of Brunn's court-appointed attorneys, has said that his client will plead not guilty. | [
"Who has been accused of killing her?",
"Where will the girl be buried?",
"When did the little girl disappear?",
"What did Rivera's father say on her return?",
"What age was the girl?"
] | [
[
"20-year-old Ryan Brunn"
],
[
"Puerto Rico,"
],
[
"December 2"
],
[
"he is \"relieved\" to have his daughter back in Puerto Rico,"
],
[
"7-year-old"
]
] | Jorelys Rivera's father says he is "relieved" to have her back in Puerto Rico .
Girl, 7, will be buried in Penuelas on Tuesday, he says .
Child disappeared December 2 and was found dead three days later .
20-year-old maintenance worker is accused of killing her . |
San Salvador, El Salvador (CNN) -- The remnants of Tropical Storm Agatha were headed into the Caribbean Sea late Sunday after leaving behind more than 80 dead in Guatemala and El Salvador, authorities in those countries reported.
Most of the dead were in Guatemala, where heavy rains triggered mudslides that collapsed homes and forced thousands to evacuate. The country's preliminary death toll was 73 on Sunday, with 49 of those reported in the province of Chimaltenango, said David de Leon, Spokesperson for the National Commission for the Reduction of National Disasters. That toll was expected to rise, he said.
And El Salvador reported nine deaths from the storm. The government issued a red alert, the highest warning level, which shut down schools and opened up shelters for families in the affected areas, President Mauricio Funes said.
Agatha, an Eastern Pacific storm, struck land Saturday and was downgraded from a tropical depression to a remnant storm on Sunday. It was last reported moving toward the western Caribbean on Sunday afternoon, but was expected to keep producing heavy rains through Monday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
In Guatemala, the storm damaged more than 3,500 homes and forced the evacuation of more than 61,000 people, the nation's emergency office said Sunday. And in Mexico, the government's National Meteorological Service predicted torrential rain for Chiapas state, intense downpours in Tabasco and strong showers in Quintana Roo.
Four other Mexican states were predicted to receive moderate rain. Strong winds also were forecast.
Swollen rivers and mudslides were a concern. In Guatemala, four children were buried in a landslide outside Guatemala City, the nation's capital. Four adults were killed in the capital, disaster officials said. Another two children and two adults were killed when a boulder, dislodged by heavy rains, crushed a house in the department of Quetzaltenango, 125 miles (200 km) west of Guatemala City, officials said.
Guatemala is already under a 15-day state of calamity because of Thursday's eruption of the Pacaya volcano, which killed at least three people. At least 1,800 people had already been evacuated to shelters. The volcano also shut down the capital's international airport.
Ash from the volcano that covered city streets and other areas mixed with the heavy rain, forming a goo that caused many drainage systems to clog.
Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said damage from Agatha was probably worse than the destruction caused by Hurricanes Mitch in 1998 and Stan in 2005, both of which devastated the Central American country.
"The country is suffering a great tragedy, this attack by nature," Colom said from the Guatemalan emergency agency center.
Emergencies were reported in all of Guatemala's 22 states, called departments. The worst, Colom said, was the Pacific Ocean port of Champerico, which is isolated.
"We have no way of getting there to help the public, which is in danger because of flooding," Colom said.
The president said he has asked the international community for help.
Agatha is the first named storm of the Pacific hurricane season. The Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1.
CNN's Esprit Smith and journalist Merlin Rodriguez contributed to this report. | [
"How many dead in El Salvador?",
"Where did storm Agatha occur",
"Who counts 73 dead in wake of Tropical Storm Agatha?",
"on what country are Nine dead counted from the tropical storm Agatha?",
"What day of the week did the storm strike",
"on what day did Agatha struck on?",
"how many people Guatemala counts dead?",
"How many died in El Salvador",
"What struck on Saturday?"
] | [
[
"nine"
],
[
"Guatemala and El Salvador,"
],
[
"Guatemala,"
],
[
"El Salvador"
],
[
"Sunday"
],
[
"Saturday"
],
[
"more than 80"
],
[
"more than 80"
],
[
"Agatha, an Eastern Pacific storm,"
]
] | Guatemala counts 73 dead in wake of Tropical Storm Agatha .
Nine dead in El Salvador .
Agatha struck on Saturday, by Sunday was a remnant storm .
In Guatemala, more than 3,500 homes damaged, 61,000 people evacuated . |
Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab disappeared in Yemen for more than two months before he allegedly tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines jet with explosives concealed in his underwear.
Investigators want to know if, during that time, he heeded the call to prayer coming from the hills above Yemen's capital, where an Islamic university headed by a fiery cleric has helped the country earn its reputation as an incubator of extremism.
The students who pray at Al-Iman University now, two weeks after that failed Christmas Day attack, say the school has been made a scapegoat, and that what AbdulMutallab is accused of having done is wrong.
"It's against Islam," one says.
"The thoughts in their heads go against Islam," says another.
AbdulMutallab's alleged attempt to ignite explosives as the jet approached Detroit, Michigan, resulted in a fire on his lap -- and serious burns -- before passengers and flight crew subdued him and put out the flames.
Al-Imam's leader is Sheikh Abdel Majid al-Zindani, a provocative cleric with a flaming red beard. The United States considers him a terrorist, accused in 2004 of supplying weapons to al Qaeda.
But in Yemen, al-Zindani is a free and influential man.
Al-Zindani denied CNN's request for an interview but allowed the network to tape at the school he's built from the ground up since the early 1990s.
Every year, thousands of Islamic students from Yemen, Africa and around the world are cocooned in al-Zindani's compound, where they study their faith and are instilled with a strident defense of that faith.
Last year, al-Zindani made a public plea to recruit millions of young men to fight jihad against Israel.
But the students say they don't think AbdulMutallab was ever at the school, and investigators don't appear to have come to ask. Yemeni authorities, it seems, have taken a hands-off approach to the university.
"To my knowledge, no security, no investigation teams came here," political science professor Ismail al-Suhaili said. "Nobody thought that AbdulMutallab was here."
In Yemen, Al-Iman University is highly respected and its leader admired, making it difficult for investigators to find out for sure if the Christmas Day bombing suspect was ever there. | [
"Who runs the school?",
"What do officials want to know?",
"what says students?",
"Who is running the school?",
"What students say about terrorism?"
] | [
[
"Al-Zindani"
],
[
"if, during that time, he heeded the call to prayer coming from the hills above Yemen's capital,"
],
[
"they don't think AbdulMutallab was ever at the school,"
],
[
"Al-Zindani"
],
[
"\"It's against Islam,\""
]
] | Officials want to know if attack attempt suspect visited Al-Iman University .
School is run by Sheikh Abdel Majid al-Zindani, who the U.S. considers a terrorist .
Students at the university say terrorism goes against their Islamic faith . |
Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- At least five people were killed in Yemen when pro-government gunmen shot at anti-government protesters in the capital, medics in Sanaa's Change Square told CNN Thursday.
The violence came a day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down from power after months of protests against his 33-year rule. He became the fourth leader to leave office as a result of the Arab Spring unrest that has roiled much of the Middle East and North Africa this year.
Protests against the Yemeni government Thursday were bigger than some expected given Saleh's agreement to transfer power, with youth saying their demands have not yet been met.
At least 41 people were injured, including 27 from gunshot wounds and the others from baton beatings, medics said. Three of the wounded are currently in critical condition.
A senior Interior Ministry official denied that the government was responsible for the attacks.
"The protesters were attacked but they were not attacked by government forces. We will investigate this," said the official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
The official conceded that many people were "angry that Saleh signed the power transfer proposal."
"Such attacks were expected, though we tried to prevent them," said the official. "The opposition is trying to damage (the) reputation of the current government. Anything that happens is always blamed against the ruling family without them even investigating the case."
Heavy gunfire continued for more than 30 minutes on Zubairy Street, when youth marched to condemn the immunity given to Saleh. They vowed to continue their revolution until Saleh is tried for his crimes.
"He is the reason for the deaths of more than a thousand innocent youth in Yemen this year and now the opposition wants to give him immunity," said Mohammed Mosleh, a youth activist who participated in Thursday's march.
"The government planned today's attacks," he charged. "We will not stay quiet..."
He said the opposition does not represent all Yemenis and should not have agreed to give Saleh immunity.
Protesters in Sanaa said they saw the gunmen escape the scene of the attack using government security vehicles.
Protests continued, meanwhile, in 15 provinces throughout the country.
Government forces also attacked protesters in Taiz province Thursday, eyewitnesses said, injuring three as they were marching calling for Saleh to face justice in the International Criminal Court.
"The killer must not be forgiven," youth protesters said in Taiz. | [
"where did Demonstrators want Ali Abdullah Saleh?"
] | [
[
"International Criminal Court."
]
] | NEW: An official denies the government is responsible for deaths of protesters .
At least five people are killed by pro-government gunmen, medics say .
Protests are bigger than expected a day after the president steps down .
Demonstrators want Ali Abdullah Saleh to face trial . |
Sandy Springs, Georgia (CNN) -- During the week before Halloween each year, Lt. Steve Rose of the Sandy Springs Police Department in Georgia knocks on the doors of every registered sex offender in his jurisdiction.
Rose set out in his unmarked Dodge Charger Wednesday with a printout of 20 names to verify that the people on the list live where they say they live.
His mission brings him and members of his force to subdivisions, houses, hotels and and apartment buildings in this Atlanta bedroom community of about 85,000 people.
"We do this to give people a level of comfort so they know we're keeping tabs on them," said Rose, a former sex crimes detective with 34 years of police experience.
Sandy Springs is one of many local law enforcement agencies across the country taking extra steps this Halloween to assure the community that the agencies are keeping track of the sex offenders living among them.
There are 686,515 registered sex offenders in the United States, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The Houston, Texas, Police Department says members of its Juvenile Sex Offender Registration Unit performed checks on the residences of registered sex offenders to ensure they are in compliance with the provisions of their parole or probation. They were also told not to decorate their homes, distribute candy, turn on their porch lights or answer the door.
Similar restrictions are in place in Nashville, Tennessee.
"This is a proactive effort on our part to ensure community safety," said Melissa McDonald, spokeswoman for the Board of Parole and Probation.
Some registered sex offenders in parts of Arkansas, Texas and Illinois must report to mandatory meetings, which critics have mockingly nicknamed "sex offender Halloween parties," for a few hours on Saturday evening.
In Rose's experience, however, most sex offenders keep to themselves on Halloween. In some areas, they cannot attend Halloween parties or events such as haunted houses or corn mazes.
"They just want to stay out of trouble," he said. "But it's still incumbent on us to provide the community with the most up-to-date information about these people who are living in here."
Technically, Sandy Springs police are not responsible for verifying the addresses for the state's sex offender registry.
As soon as all the addresses are verified, Rose says he includes the information in his weekly newsletter to the local homeowners' associations. He'll also notify the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, whose jurisdiction includes Sandy Springs, of any incorrect listings.
After maneuvering through traffic for nearly three hours in the sprawling suburb, Rose had visited five residences. He spoke with one man, who calls a room at the Intown Suites home. Weekly rates start at $199.
"They don't have to worry about background checks in places like these," Rose said as he made his way down the fluorescent-lit hallway, the faint scent of fast food wafting through the vents.
He knocked twice, announcing himself as Sandy Springs police, and a tall, thin man opened the door, revealing a sliver of the pitch black room as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.
"Just checking in to verify your address. Has anyone else been by lately? Sheriff or probation?" Rose asked.
"Yes. Sheriff. I'm off probation," answered the man, who was convicted of receiving child pornography in 2001.
"Everything OK here?"
"Yes sir."
"OK then. Have a good day."
"Thank you sir," the man said, closing the door.
In two other stops, Rose confirmed with the leasing offices that the offenders were no longer living at the listed addresses. He failed to gain entry to another, and spoke with the roommate of another.
"We'll go back until we find them," he said.
Such measures, which have been part of the season for years now, are widely perceived to provide the community with a sense of comfort, said Ernie Allen, president of the National | [
"What day must the offenders go to meetings?",
"what do police check",
"What does the president of a child safety group say?",
"What state is checking addresses?",
"What do police say about keeping tabs on sex offenders?",
"when do sex offenders have to attend meetings",
"what do police say",
"What is the reason for keeping tabs on them?"
] | [
[
"Saturday"
],
[
"residences of registered sex offenders"
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[
"are widely perceived to provide the community with a sense of comfort,"
],
[
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[
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[
"on Saturday evening."
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[
"members of its Juvenile Sex Offender Registration Unit performed checks on the residences of registered sex offenders to ensure they are in compliance with the provisions of their parole or probation."
],
[
"ensure they are in compliance with the provisions of their parole or probation."
]
] | Police in Georgia take it upon themselves to check sex offenders' addresses .
Sex offenders in parts of Arkansas, Texas, IIllinois must attend meetings Halloween night .
Keeping tabs on sex offenders provides community with sense of comfort, police say .
Measures can create false sense of security, president of child safety group says . |
Santa Ana, California (CNN) -- A judge has postponed an arraignment hearing scheduled for a former Marine accused of fatally stabbing four homeless men in Southern California.
The hearing for Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, was postponed Wednesday until February 17 after Judge Donald F. Gaffney granted a defense motion asking for more time.
Ocampo, 23, remains jailed without bail. He is in a protective "suicide blanket," defense attorney Randall Longwith said.
Longwith told reporters he asked for the delay because he had not been given enough time to meet with his client. Authorities only allowed him to talk with Ocampo for 15 seconds Tuesday, he said.
"There was no basis for a plea at this point. I don't have enough information to even make a plea," he said.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told reporters Wednesday that Ocampo was a "serious, vicious killer."
"He appears to be lucid, calm, intelligent, somebody who knows what he's doing. And his acts are very intentional," Rackauckas said.
Describing his brief conversation with Ocampo, Longwith painted a different picture.
"He looked at me. He answered when I asked him questions. It was a flat affect and a distant look in his eyes. ... He looked frightened in there, starry-eyed," Longwith said.
The attorney said he did not know whether his client had been medicated. He said he hoped to have doctors examine Ocampo as soon as possible.
Ocampo faces four charges of first-degree murder. He was arrested Friday night after he allegedly stabbed a transient to death, Anaheim Police Sgt. Bob Dunn said.
Rackauckas said Tuesday that prosecutors had not decided whether they would seek the death penalty in the case.
Attached to the 1st Marine Logistics Group at Camp Pendleton, California, Ocampo was a corporal and a motor vehicle operator, serving in the Marines from July 2006 until July 2010, and was deployed to Iraq for six months in 2008, according to Marine service records. He received an Iraq campaign medal with one star, a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and a National Defense Service Medal, records showed.
Ocampo's family members watched Wednesday's hearing on a video monitor at the courthouse, but did not speak to reporters.
The arrest left those who know Ocampo confused.
The suspect's father, Refugio Ocampo, who is himself homeless, told the Orange County Register it was hard to believe his son could be involved in the killings.
"I saw him so many times giving the last money he had in his pocket ... to the homeless, to the people that (are) asking for some help. ... My son's always been a role model," Refugio Ocampo said in a video interview posted on the newspaper's website.
Norberto Martinez, a family friend who lives with the veteran's uncle, mother and two siblings in Yorba Linda, California, said family and friends were surprised to learn that the mild-mannered 23-year-old was a suspect in the slayings.
Martinez said he watched ballgames on television and went on walks with Ocampo, but avoided talking about the war because it upset the veteran.
"I wouldn't talk to him about Iraq," Martinez said. "Whenever he talked with me, he was normal."
The four slaying victims are James McGillivray, 50, who was killed December 20; Lloyd "Jimmy" Middaugh, 42, who died December 27; Paulus "Dutch" Smit, 57, killed on December 30; and John Berry, 64, who was stabbed to death January 13.
CNN's Linda Hall, Michael Martinez, Jaqueline Hurtado and Gabriel Falcon contributed to this report. | [
"what is the age of the accused?",
"what is Itzcoatl accused of?",
"What is the date of the arraignment hearing?",
"What age is Ocampo?",
"What does the prosecution say?",
"What is Ocampo accused of?",
"when is the arraignment scheduled for?",
"Who is accused of stabbing?",
"When is the hearing scheduled for?"
] | [
[
"23,"
],
[
"fatally stabbing four homeless men"
],
[
"February 17"
],
[
"23,"
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[
"that Ocampo was a \"serious, vicious killer.\""
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[
"fatally stabbing four homeless men in Southern California."
],
[
"February 17"
],
[
"Itzcoatl Ocampo,"
],
[
"February 17"
]
] | An arraignment hearing is scheduled for February 17 .
Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, is accused of fatally stabbing four homeless men .
A defense attorney says he was not given enough time to meet with Ocampo .
A prosecutor calls the former Marine a "serious, vicious killer" |
Santiago, Chile (CNN) -- Aid poured in for Chile from home and overseas, with a local television station hoping to raise $27 million by Saturday and the United Nations pledging funds toward recovery efforts after a massive earthquake. "Chile Helps Chile," a telethon that started Friday, runs until Saturday night, according to TV Chile's Web site. The site includes phone numbers and and e-mails for making donations in nearly 20 countries outside the South American nation. Hundreds of people died when the 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile last Saturday. The world's fifth-strongest earthquake since 1900 resulted in a tsunami that toppled buildings, particularly in the Maule region along the coast. It's still unclear exactly how many people died. Army divers have been searching the waters near the city of Constitucion for the bodies of as many as 400 tourists who were camping on an island during a summer festival. "There were horrible screams. People calling out for us to go and rescue them. They were crying for help. But there was nothing we could do," local fisherman Agustin Diaz said. Full coverage of Chile's earthquake United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday pledged up to $10 million to support relief and recovery efforts during a two-day visit, where he met with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. "I am visiting this city with a deep sadness," Ban told reporters Saturday while in Concepcion. "Standing before this destruction, I can feel for your loss, your struggle. "At the same time I am very grateful, very moved by such a strong determination," he added. "The leaders, the people on the ground, they are all united." Ban also announced Friday a team effort between U.N. agencies and the Chilean government to determine the priority areas for funds, with emphasis on health, shelters, education and water. The secretary-general plans to bring the matter in front of the United Nations on his return. Chileans proud to help out their own The Chilean government has asked the United Nations for items such as field hospitals with surgical facilities, dialysis centers, generators, saltwater purifying systems, mobile bridges and field kitchens. Chile endured two more strong aftershocks Friday -- the first a 6.0-magnitude earthquake and the other 6.6. They were the latest in scores of aftershocks that have hit in the past week. Friday's aftershocks did not cause any known injuries or damage and no tsunami warnings were issued. A six-member U.S. Agency for International Development disaster response team has been sent to Chile to assist with relief effort, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. Shocking scenes hours after quake The United States has sent 71 satellite phones, plastic sheeting and two mobile water treatment units, the State Department said. Six more water treatment units are to arrive within a week. A field hospital and two C-130 aircraft to assist with moving supplies around the country have also been deployed. The United States has also sent $1 million to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to aid their efforts. Chile has announced three days of national mourning beginning Sunday. Every house has been authorized to hang the national flag in memory of those who perished. Share your story from the earthquake in Chile The death toll was revised downward Thursday as authorities reviewed discrepancies in the reported number of dead in the Maule region. To limit confusion, Deputy Interior Minister Patricio Rosende read aloud the names of 279 Chileans whose bodies had been identified by Thursday evening. The new tally does not account for hundreds of unidentified victims. "It takes months sometimes to compile the information, because one of the biggest problems in the affected areas is the lack of precision and uncertainty at the scene," Rosende said. Despite the disaster, the Chilean Davis Cup tennis team will open competition Saturday in Coquimbo, Chile, against Israel. Team officials and players said they would be playing in honor of quake victims. "It will be difficult, but we will do our best for our country," said player Fernando Gonzalez | [
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Region still dealing with aftershocks a week after 8.8-magnitude earthquake .
Three days of national mourning set to begin Sunday . |
Santiago, Chile (CNN) -- Heavily populated parts of Chile still were without water service and electricity Sunday night because of Saturday's 8.8-magnitude earthquake, and reports of looting raised fears about security in some areas.
The nation's hardest-hit major city, Concepcion, declared an overnight curfew. The death count from the earthquake doubled on Sunday from a day earlier, to 708 deaths.
Calling Saturday morning's quake an "unthinkable disaster," Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said a state of catastrophe in the hardest-hit regions would continue, allowing for the restoration of order and speedy distribution of aid.
Looting broke out in parts of the country, including in Concepcion in central coastal Chile, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) from the earthquake's epicenter.
Desperate residents scrounged for water and supplies inside empty and damaged supermarkets. On Sunday morning, authorities used tear gas and water cannons to disperse looters in some areas.
The quake struck before dawn Saturday, toppling thousands of houses and dealing a serious blow to one of Latin America's most stable economies. The Chilean Red Cross reported that about 500,000 homes had considerable damage as a result of the quake.
Did you feel the quake? Share photos, videos, info with CNN
Chilean President-elect Sebastian Piñera, scheduled to take office in March, warned Sunday that looting could grow worse with nightfall. He called for more government help in restoring order.
"Tonight we will experience a very, very difficult situation with public order, particularly in the area of Concepcion," Piñera told Radio Bio Bio.
Concepcion, the capital of the Bio Bio region, didn't have enough police to control all those seeking food and supplies from stores. Some became desperate as supermarkets closed and gasoline was unavailable, CNN Chile reported.
On Sunday afternoon, people were seen entering a mill looking for ingredients for bread. In the evening, a CNN team passed a dozen gas stations that were being looted, with people siphoning gas. Military officers were guarding a few gas stations, but few other signs of a government response could be seen.
Looting was being done not just by desperate residents, but by others who were merely opportunistic, said Concepcion mayor Van Rysselberghe.
"They are robbing everything," she said, asking for a stronger military response to restore calm.
In addition to food, gas and emergency supplies, looters were targeting appliance and electronics stores, Van Rysselberghe said.
Watch chaotic scene in damaged supermarket
Some small business owners resorted to protecting their shops with rifles and shotguns, said Rysselberghe, who also considered the current police force inadequate.
Concepcion is under curfew from 9 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday because of the looting. The city government is distributing water from the central plaza.
Concepcion and its adjacent sister city of Talcahuano, Chile, have a population of 840,000.
Video from Concepcion showed collapsed walls of buildings exposing twisted rebar. Whole sides of buildings were sheared off, and at least two structures were on fire.
Chile's Office of Emergency Management launched a C130 helicopter Sunday with a contingent of 40 specialized firefighters and 10 search dogs for the rescue effort in Concepcion.
People in their homes lacked electricity. Hundreds faced sleeping in tents on Sunday night.
Bachelet said her government reached an agreement with the country's major supermarkets that would allow them to give away basic foodstuffs to those affected by the quake.
The armed forces were available to help with security and the distribution of food, she said.
In Concepcion on Sunday, a long line of people waited for foodstuffs as military personnel stood watch. "I have nothing," one woman told CNN Chile. "I have no bread. I am a widow. I am 81 years old."
Of the 708 reported dead as of Sunday afternoon, 541 had died in Chile's Maule region, and 64 in the Bio Bio region, both in south-central Chile.
"I am certain that these are numbers that will continue to grow," Bachelet said.
Bachelet said Saturday that some 2 million people had been affected | [
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Death toll from Chilean quake rises to more than 700, president says .
Supermarkets will give away supplies on hand to quake victims, president says .
More than 90 aftershocks recorded, a day after massive quake shook Chile . |
Santiago, Chile (CNN) -- Sebastian Pinera was sworn in Thursday as president of Chile, taking over a country battered by a recent earthquake but with a strong economy and stable social institutions. Pinera, 60, succeeded Michelle Bachelet, a popular president who steered the country through the global economic downturn and promoted progressive social reforms. Pinera, a billionaire, is the first conservative to lead Chile since the fall of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship in 1990. Educated in Chile and at Harvard University in the United States, Pinera is an economist, investor, businessman and former senator. Bachelet, a liberal, defeated Pinera in the presidential elections in 2005. She endorsed Pinera's opponent in a runoff election in January. But Pinera said recently that responding to the earthquake requires the country to transcend partisan differences. "These are times when we have to act with a sense of national unity," he said. "It is not the time for conflict between government and opposition." The 8.8-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami February 27 killed more than 500 people and affected up to 2 million. A 7.2-magnitude temblor struck Thursday as dignitaries were filing into the congressional hall in Valparaiso for the transfer of presidential power. Under Chile's constitutional term limits, Bachelet could not run for a second consecutive four-year term. "I leave sad because of the pain of our people but with my head held high," a teary-eyed Bachelet said in a brief farewell address from the La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile's capital. "I leave proud of what we have been able to build as a nation, of the role we have played. "I leave, above everything else, very proud of the country we are." | [
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] | Sebastian Pinera, 60, succeeds Michelle Bachelet .
Term limits prevented Bachelet from seeking second consecutive term .
Pinera is first conservative to lead Chile since fall military dictatorship in 1990 . |
Santiago, Chile (CNN) -- Sure, Luke Mescher felt a trembling fear when the walls around him started to shake Saturday, but standing around confused and scared wasn't an option.
"I was more focused on we need to get out of here and we need to get out of here as fast as we can," said Mescher, a University of Iowa student studying Spanish in Chile.
Mescher, 27, was at the home of his host family when the 8.8-magnitude quake struck early Saturday. He was talking with friends on his computer when the power went out. Immediately after, he felt a subtle vibration that progressed into a violent shaking, he said.
His host mom cried as the walls around them shook and her daughter attempted to comfort her, he said. "They were "paralyzed with fear," he said.
"I was like, we don't have time for this," Mescher said. "We need to get the hell out of here."
He grabbed his head lamp, the two women, and ran barefoot and bare-chested into the dark street.
The three met dozens others in the staircase scurrying out the 20-story apartment building, he said. The exit was "surprisingly orderly," Mescher said.
But others faced more of an ordeal.
CNN iReporter Matias de Cristobal said the earthquake destroyed many homes in her Santiago neighborhood.
Cristobal tried to climb upstairs to check on her three children -- age 6, 9, and 11 -- after she began feeling tremors on Saturday, but she was slowed by shifting ground and falling objects.
Mirko Vukasovic, a 25-year-old illustrator in Santiago, had been dancing at a club early Saturday when the disco ball began swinging wildly. A chaotic evacuation was under way when the lights went out, but everyone managed to escape, Vukasovic said. "Broken windows and falling building parts was what welcomed us in the streets," he said.
iReport: Read Mescher's firsthand account
Vukasovic submitted iReport video showing the damage to his fourth-floor apartment. "What used to be a beautiful bathroom is now torn, a beautiful crack," he said as his camera panned to a pile of tile and plaster that had been shaken loose from the walls.
Some in Chile reacted to the quake with disbelief. "It was 3 or 4 in the morning and I had come home late," said Aneya Fernando, an American who teaches English in Santiago. "Suddenly my bed was moving so violently that it woke me up."
"I'm on the 10th floor of a building and it was swaying and shaking," Fernando, 23, said. "Suddenly it was just gone and I was confused. I thought it was in my head."
When Fernando's electricity returned 30 minutes later, she learned of the earthquake on TV.
Scott Ireland, a business traveler from Rochester, New York, who was staying at the Sheraton San Cristobal when the earthquake struck, submitted iReport photos of cracks in the exterior walls of his hotel.
Ireland, 48, had experienced two earlier earthquakes -- one in Turkey in 1966 and another in Southern California in 1971. "Not only was this the most severe," he said, "the duration was longer than anything I'd ever experienced. Luckily the damage here was minimal."
Meschler, the Iowa student, encountered faces of confusion and concern when he and his host family left their apartment building and entered the street.
Some tried using their phones to call out with no luck, others ran to neighboring apartment complexes, looking to help.
iReport: Watch video of damage at an apartment
Many throughout the city don't have their basic utilities, the Salvation Army reported.
Mescher doesn't have gas, but his power and water are back on.
The elderly seemed most frazzled by the rattling, he said. One elderly man had suffered a wound to his head.
When the aftershocks began and kept rolling in jolts to his Santiago neighborhood, Mescher said some neighbors prepared for a night | [
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] | NEW: CNN iReporter says many homes destroyed in her Santiago neighborhood .
NEW: Witness to previous quakes said this one was strongest, most long-lasting .
Luke Mescher, a U.S. college student, was with host family in Chile when quake hit . |
Santiago, Chile (CNN) -- Three strong earthquakes rocked Chile on Thursday, causing significant damage in at least one city, the country's newly inaugurated president said Thursday. A 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit at 11:39 a.m. local time (9:39 a.m. ET), followed by a 6.7-magnitude quake 16 minutes later, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. A third, measured at magnitude 6.0, came 27 minutes later. They were the strongest aftershocks to rattle Chile since a February 27 earthquake on the country's west coast that toppled buildings and spawned a tsunami, killing several hundred people. Thursday's quakes shook the ground near Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins near the coast just as Chile prepared to inaugurate a new president, Sebastian Pinera. The central Chilean city of Rancagua was affected, Pinera said. "There is significant damage in Rancagua," the new president said. "We're going to send the necessary armed forces to guarantee citizens' safety." Rancagua Mayor Eduardo Soto said that no fatalities were immediately reported and that the biggest worry was damage to homes, CNN Chile reported. After his inauguration Thursday, Pinera visited Rancagua, where he confirmed there were no initial reports of fatalities. He said that no curfew would be imposed for now and reiterated his call for calm. A priority is for the school year to start as scheduled next week, he said. He also said Thursday afternoon that he would declare the area a catastrophe zone. The country's national emergency authorities also put in place a tsunami alert for the coastal area near where the earthquakes hit, and authorities ordered evacuations of some coastal areas. "I don't want to alarm anyone, [the alert] is solely precautionary, but we have to take precautions when there are human lives at risk," Pinera said. The epicenter of Thursday's first quake was about 95 miles (152 km) south-southwest of the capital, Santiago, and about 90 miles (145 km) away from Valparaiso, where Pinera was to be inaugurated. Television footage showed the inauguration proceeding without a hitch. A second earthquake -- with an initial magnitude of 6.9 -- struck moments later. It was about 89 miles (143 km) southwest of Santiago, the USGS said. The third was about 86 miles (138 km) southwest of Santiago. Rolando Santos, senior vice president and general manager of CNN Chile, said he and his colleagues felt one of the quakes. "I can tell you within our newsroom in Santiago, which is state of the art in terms of seismic construction, it shook for more than 45 seconds," he said. He said that he told staffers to get under desks and that three people burst into tears. In the last two days, people had kind of gotten used to aftershocks, but "there was no question this one got everyone's attention," he said. Are you there? Send pictures Pinera, a conservative billionaire businessman, became the Chilean president about 12:15 p.m. local time, roughly 20 minutes after the second quake. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in a statement that "a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected" as a result of the quakes, and that there is no tsunami threat to Hawaii. However, the center also said that "earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within" about 62 miles (100 km) of the epicenter. Hundreds of people were killed when the magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile's west coast February 27. That quake also triggered a tsunami that toppled buildings, especially in the coastal Maule region. How to help: Impact Your World Authorities this week released the names of 279 people whose bodies had been identified in the quake, but officials said the new tally does not include hundreds of unidentified victims. The February 27 earthquake was violent enough to move the Chilean city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west and Santiago about 11 inches to the west-southwest, researchers said. | [
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Pinera to send "necessary armed forces," declare area a catastrophe zone .
First quake hit at 11:39 a.m. local time; second 16 minutes later; third 27 minutes later .
First shook the ground near Chilean coast; epicenter about 90 miles from Valparaiso . |
Santiago, Chile (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived Friday in earthquake-damaged Chile, which endured two more strong aftershocks while working to recover from last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami. "I'm here to express [the] solidarity of the United Nations, of the international community, to the people and government of Chile," Ban told reporters at the airport in the capital, Santiago. "I know that this is one of the worst natural disasters in recent history of Chile; at the same time, I'm very moved to see such strong courage and fortitude and resilience of Chilean people," Ban said. Earlier, shortly before 9 a.m. Friday, an aftershock with a magnitude of 6.6 struck the area, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The aftershock followed another with a 6.0 magnitude, the survey said. The two are the latest in scores of aftershocks that have hit after the massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake and subsequent tsunami Saturday. Full coverage of Chile's earthquake Friday's aftershocks did not cause any known injuries or damage, Chile's National Emergency Office said, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Tsunami Center did not issue any warnings. The tsunami and 8.8 magnitude earthquake -- the fifth-strongest worldwide since 1900 -- killed hundreds of people and toppled buildings, particularly in the Maule region along the coast. Shocking scenes hours after quake Roads were torn up and power was cut off in many areas. Thousands have been left homeless. Food, water and the restoration of basic services, such as electricity, are top priorities, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs. The Chilean government, which is leading the rescue and relief efforts, has asked the United Nations for items such as field hospitals with surgical facilities, dialysis centers, generators, satellite phones, structural damage evaluation systems, saltwater purifying systems, mobile bridges and field kitchens. Ban said Friday that he will talk to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and President-elect Sebastian Pinera about how the United Nations can best help. Pinera, a conservative billionaire businessman, takes office next week. The secretary-general said he will visit hard-hit Concepcion to assess the damage and will bring the matter to the United Nations. "Now it is time for the United Nations and international community to stand with the Chilean people and government," he said, after noting the Chileans' generosity in helping Haiti after its 7.0 earthquake on January 12. That quake flattened much of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, and killed hundreds of thousands of people. A 24-hour telethon, "Chile Helps Chile," which organizers hope will raise $27 million for earthquake victims, was scheduled for Friday. Residents in devastated Constitucion expressed a determination to rebuild. "It very hard, but it's not impossible. We have to be strong; we have to reinvent ourselves," said resident Antonieta Biachi. "You have to start from scratch; there is no other option." Though he is not yet in office, Pinera has named six officials to lead recovery efforts. More than 13,000 soldiers and other military personnel have been dispatched to restore order in the earthquake-damaged area. Food and water began to arrive earlier this week in Concepcion, and officials said they distributed 3,500 aid packages Wednesday. But many residents have complained that federal aid has been slow to arrive. A six-member U.S. Agency for International Development disaster response team has been sent to Chile to assist with relief effort, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. The team should arrive Saturday, he said. A USAID contractor also is embedded with the Chilean National Emergency Response Office, the country's equivalent of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. The United States sent 71 satellite phones, plastic sheeting and two mobile water treatment units, the U.S. State Department said. Six more water treatment units are to arrive within a week. A field hospital and two C-130 aircraft to assist with moving supplies around the country have also been deployed. The United States also sent $ | [
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Two strong aftershocks, magnitudes 6.0 and 6.6, strike Friday morning .
Chilean government asks U.N. for field hospitals with surgical facilities, generators .
Some Chileans complain federal aid has been slow to arrive to quake-hit region . |
Santiago, Chile (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived Tuesday morning in Chile, bringing with her more than two dozen satellite phones and a pledge of U.S. commitment to the earthquake-damaged nation. "The United States is ready to respond to the requests that the government of Chile has made so we can provide not only solidarity but specific supplies that are needed to help you recover from the earthquake," Clinton said at a brief news conference with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. "The people of Chile are responding with resilience and strength," Clinton said. The secretary of state said she brought with her 25 satellite phones, one of which she presented to Bachelet at the news conference. Eight water purification units are on their way to Chile, Clinton said, and the United States will provide a mobile field hospital unit with surgical capabilities. The United States will also work to provide autonomous dialysis machines, electricity generators, medical supplies and portable bridges, Clinton said. The secretary of state also said that Americans would be told how they can contribute to the recovery effort. In addition to meeting with Bachelet at the airport in Santiago, Clinton also met with President-elect Sebastian Piñera, who will be sworn in next week. "I have been visiting sites of disaster for more than 30 years ... [and] it is very clear to me that Chile is much better prepared, much quicker to respond, more able to do so," Clinton said at a news conference with the president-elect. She congratulated Piñera, a conservative billionaire businessman, on his inauguration. Piñera extended an invitation to President Obama to visit Chile. Bachelet leaves office with high approval ratings for having steered the country through the global economic downturn and promoted progressive social reforms. Clinton is in the midst of a six-nation tour of Latin America, planned before the earthquake. She attended Monday's inauguration in Uruguay of President Jose Mujica, and then traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to meet with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Clinton next travels to Brazil, where she is expected to talk with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva about his planned trip to Iran. The United States and other nations believe Iran has undertaken a program to build nuclear weapons, an assertion Iran denies. She will stop in Costa Rica for meetings with President Oscar Arias and President-elect Laura Chinchilla, who takes office in May. She also will attend Pathways for Prosperity, a meeting of hemispheric officials. The initiative includes such things as "microcredit" loans and ways in which women can be empowered, a State Department spokesman has said. Clinton's final stop will be Guatemala. She will meet with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom and leaders of other Central American countries and the Dominican Republic before returning to Washington. The State Department has "strongly" urged U.S. citizens to avoid tourism and non-essential travel to Chile after the massive earthquake. | [
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U.S. secretary of state meets with Chilean officials three days after massive earthquake .
Clinton's trip, planned before the quake, includes five other Latin American countries . |
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (CNN) -- A man who acted as a legal adviser to the American missionaries arrested on child kidnapping charges in Haiti is himself facing allegations of human trafficking in El Salvador and human smuggling charges in the United States.
An international arrest warrant was issued Saturday for the legal adviser on sex-trafficking charges. Salvadoran police raided a home in May that turned up passports and an ID card in the names of both Jorge Torres Puello and his alias, Jorge Torres Orellana.
Each of the documents bore photos of the same man. His wife was arrested in that raid and charged with sex trafficking, and her trial is pending.
In a phone interview with CNN on Sunday, Jorge Torres Puello acknowledged he is the same man wanted by Salvadoran authorities. He denied the charges against him.
Full coverage of the earthquake aftermath in Haiti
According to the warrant, Torres Puello is accused of running an international sex trafficking ring that lured women and girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution with offers of modeling jobs. A wanted poster released by Interpol, the international police organization, includes crimes against children as one of the offenses that Torres Puello is being sought for.
"I never did anything," Torres Puello said Sunday. "I started helping a Dominican pastor helping a lot of people who were stranded to get back to their home countries. We once gave some Nicaraguan and Costa Rican women some money to return home and instead they went to the authorities and put in a complaint against us. I never had anybody against their will."
Torres Puello also denied Salvadoran allegations that he ran a brothel out of his home with wife Ana Josefa Ramirez Orellana, who remains jailed pending trial, according to Salvadoran police.
"I want to clear the Salvador matter up and I am hiring a lawyer to do that," he said. "I know I am innocent and I want to clear my past."
His mother, Soledad Puello, told CNN Sunday that she first heard of the Salvadoran accusations when her son called to tell her of his wife's arrest. She said her son told her he had known about the sex ring, but wasn't involved in it.
Soledad Puello led CNN to believe that her son remained in the Dominican Republic, but she would not say where.
Torres Puello, who said he was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1977 to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father, also said he is wanted in the United States on charges of smuggling people between Canada and the United States, which he also denied.
He said he spent 18 months in a Canadian jail pending what he called an unsuccessful extradition request by U.S. authorities.
He has served jail time in the United States before, he said -- one year in 1998 for handling funds related to a drug-trafficking operation, and was jailed again briefly between late 2001 and January 2002 for violating parole. He denied the drug charge.
Both his mother and Torres Puello say he served briefly in the U.S. Army in a military intelligence unit, and Torres Puello said he also worked undercover with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.
A family photo shows Torres Puello in a military uniform alongside a truck with the words "U.S. Military" printed across the bumper.
CNN was unable to reach government officials to confirm his claims of working with the military, the DEA and Homeland Security.
Torres Puello's statements regarding the charges against him could not be immediately verified. But on Sunday, four men showed up at his mother's home while CNN reporters were present.
The men said they were from the U.S. Embassy and looking for Torres Puello. One of the men told Soledad Puello that her son has three outstanding arrest warrants -- two in the United States and one in El Salvador. He did not specify the charges. One of the men was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "U.S. Marshals Service, Fugitive Task Force."
Torres Puello said he made contact with the Central Valley Church in Idaho and their family representatives | [
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[
"Jorge Torres Puello"
],
[
"El Salvador"
],
[
"Ana Josefa Ramirez Orellana,"
]
] | Jorge Torres Puello acting as legal adviser to 10 Americans charged with kidnapping .
He faces allegations of human trafficking in El Salvador, human smuggling charges in U.S.
An international arrest warrant was issued Saturday for the legal adviser .
Torres Puello acknowledges he's wanted by Salvadoran authorities, denies the charges . |
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (CNN) -- A man who provided legal advice to 10 American Baptists accused of kidnapping 33 Haitian children after the earthquake there was arrested Thursday night in the Dominican Republic and accused of human trafficking, the country's anti-narcotics agency said Friday.
The man, identified as Jorge Torres-Puello, is linked to a network that trafficked in Haitian and Central American children and is wanted in the United States, El Salvador and Costa Rica, the National Drug Control Agency said.
Torres-Puello had been hiding in the Dominican Republic after he was accused of using the country to take Haitian children to North America, it said.
Members of the drug agency took Torres-Puello, also known as Jorge Torres Orellana, into custody without incident at 8 p.m. in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant in the capital, the news release said.
Torres-Puello is a Dominican who was born in New York, it said. "According to documents of authorities in the United States, the Dominican Republic as well as El Salvador and Costa Rica, this person is an important part of a network of traffickers of undocumented people, especially women and children from Central America and the Caribbean," the news release said.
Torres-Puello faces charges in the United States of conspiracy to take foreigners into the country illegally, it said. In El Salvador, he and his wife, Ana Josefa Ramirez Orellana, face charges of presumed sexual exploitation of minors and women, it said. Ramirez Orellana is jailed in El Salvador. The drug agency said Torres-Puello forced Nicaraguan and Dominican children to work as prostitutes in El Salvador.
Torres-Puello is also wanted in Vermont on alien smuggling offenses and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for probation violations for fraud, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said. He is also wanted in Canada.
Shortly after the American missionaries were arrested in Haiti on kidnapping and abduction charges, Torres-Puello contacted their church in Idaho, identified himself as a legal authority on Haitian and Dominican law, obtained a retainer and began representing himself as their attorney/spokesman, the U.S. agency said.
But Torres-Puello is not registered in the country's College of Lawyers, implying that he was practicing without a license, the Dominican drug agency said.
In February, law enforcement authorities in El Salvador suspected that the missionaries' legal adviser looked like a man they were seeking, and asked Interpol to help. The international police agency coordinated the efforts of various agencies that resulted in Thursday's arrest, the ICE statement said.
In a phone interview last month with CNN, Torres-Puello acknowledged he is the same man wanted by Salvadoran authorities but denied the charges against him.
"I never did anything," Torres-Puello said. "I started helping a Dominican pastor helping a lot of people who were stranded to get back to their home countries. We once gave some Nicaraguan and Costa Rican women some money to return home and instead they went to the authorities and put in a complaint against us. I never had anybody against their will."
He also denied Salvadoran allegations that he and his wife ran a brothel out of their home. "I know I am innocent and I want to clear my past," he said.
Journalist Diulka Perez contributed to this story from Santo Domingo. | [
"Who gave legal advice to missionaries in quake case?",
"Who gave legal advice to the missionaries?",
"Who was trafficked in Haitian and Central America?",
"What network is he linked to?",
"What was Torres=Puello arrested for?",
"What was Torres-Puello accused of?",
"Who did Jorege give advice to?",
"Of waht was Torres-Puello accused in Dominican Rebulic?",
"Who did Torres-Puello have links with?"
] | [
[
"Jorge Torres-Puello,"
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[
"Jorge Torres-Puello,"
],
[
"children"
],
[
"that trafficked in Haitian and Central American children"
],
[
"human trafficking,"
],
[
"using the country to take Haitian children to North America,"
],
[
"10 American Baptists"
],
[
"human trafficking,"
],
[
"a network that trafficked in Haitian and Central American children"
]
] | Jorge Torres-Puello gave legal advice to missionaries in quake case .
Torres-Puello arrested in Dominican Republic, accused of human trafficking .
He is linked to network that trafficked in Haitian and Central American children, officials say . |
Sao Paulo, Brazil (CNN) -- Rio de Janeiro's special police forces declared Sunday that they were in full control of one of the city's biggest and most notorious shantytowns, Rocinha, after a predawn operation aimed at wresting control from drug traffickers.
The operation, involving 3,000 police and security forces, had successfully occupied Rocinha and neighboring slums Vidigal and Chacara do Ceu, the Rio de Janeiro government said on its website.
"The next stage will be looking for the criminals that were able to get out of the places we are working," military police Col. Alberto Pinheiro Neto told reporters Sunday morning.
About 100,000 people live in Rocinha.
Some 200 navy commandos with armored personnel carriers and helicopters also participated in the operation. Roads were blocked at 2:30 a.m. and troops started moving in around 4 a.m., according to the local government.
CNN affiliate Band News TV showed military assault vehicles rolling in and heavily armed police patrolling the streets.
The massive operation is part of Rio's efforts to eliminate crime and arrest drug traffickers in one of the country¹s most violent cities ahead of the 2014 World Cup.
Rio de Janeiro Gov. Sergio Cabral said the so-called "Shock of Peace" operation was a "historic chapter."
"We are rescuing communities that were abandoned for decades and dominated by parallel powers," he told reporters. "These are people who need to be able to raise their children in peace."
Residents told Band News TV that they were happy that police had stepped up their presence.
The operation will have an impact beyond Rocinha, which supplies 80% of the drugs in Rio de Janeiro, Congresswoman Marina Magessi told Band News TV.
"We are certain that from now until the end of the year, there will be a shortage of drugs present in Rio," said Magessi, a former police inspector responsible for catching some of Rio's top criminals.
Police have already "pacified" dozens of favelas since they began operations in 2008, but it's an uphill battle. About one-fifth of Rio¹s residents live in the city's 1,000 shantytowns, many of them perched on steep hills overlooking beachside condominiums.
Sunday's operation stands in stark contrast to the invasion of the Alemao favela last year when more than 30 people were killed in shootouts.
Police arrested Rocinha's top suspected drug trafficker days before they moved in. They found Antonio Francisco Bomfim, known as Nem, in the trunk of a car.
On Sunday, police reported capturing a handful of automatic guns and other weapons. They also found the steep and winding roads leading into Rocinha covered with oil, apparently an attempt to make it more difficult for police to enter.
CNN's Marilia Brocchetto contributed to this report. | [
"Rio de Janeiro is trying to crack down on what?",
"What are steep roads in Rocinha covered with?",
"What are steep roads in Rochina covered in?",
"What does the Governor say?",
"What will the operation do?",
"When does the World Cup take place?",
"What did the inspector say?",
"What did the Governor claim?"
] | [
[
"drug traffickers"
],
[
"oil,"
],
[
"oil,"
],
[
"the so-called \"Shock of Peace\" operation was a \"historic chapter.\""
],
[
"eliminate crime and arrest drug traffickers"
],
[
"2014"
],
[
"\"We are certain that from now until the end of the year, there will be a shortage of drugs present in Rio,\""
],
[
"\"These are people who need to be able to raise their children in peace.\""
]
] | NEW: A former police inspector says the operation will cut down on Rio's drug supply .
Governor: "We are rescuing communities that were abandoned for decades"
Rio de Janeiro is trying to crack down on crime before the 2014 World Cup .
Steep roads in Rocinha are covered in oil, possibly in an attempt to hinder police . |
Sara, 29, has lived in Miami for five years, where she works as freelance writer and film maker. Her blog, All Purpose Dark, keeps tabs on the city's nightlife and restaurants, and she is also the editor of the Miami edition of UrbanDaddy.com.
Sara has lived in Miami for five years and says the city has a vibrant arts scene.
CNN: What made you start blogging the city?
Sara: When I moved down here I realized there was so much more to the city than just the beach and the hotels.
There were lots of extravagant condo-building parties at the time -- the type where you'd go to the construction site, because the building was still in the planning stages, and they'd throw this lavish catered party with open bar and feather dancers in an effort to get people to buy units. We were going to at least three of these events a week and I felt the need to document it.
So my blog started out as kind of a nightlife, event-driven blog and eventually became a chronicle of my adventures in the city, focused now mostly on my eating adventures.
CNN: What makes Miami so special to you?
Sara: I think Miami is a place of unbridled optimism. It's also a place of great opportunity. There's lots of room here for entrepreneurial spirit and it's very much encouraged and appreciated. Just look at how much the city has changed in five years, in terms of the revival of Downtown and the Design District, and the thriving art scene. It's a place that is still evolving identity-wise and I'm excited to be a part of it.
CNN: Is there anything you dislike about the city?
Sara: The seasonal aspect of the city can be frustrating -- the way it shuts down in the summer and then revs up in the winter.
Also, the crowding in the winter, when all the seasonal residents come back and suddenly there are no parking spaces, the lines at the grocery store are horrendous and you realize you're trying to live in a tourist Mecca and get your errands done when everyone around you is vacationing. Oh and the drivers -- possibly the worst driving etiquette in the country.
CNN: Is Miami just about the sun and sand, or is there more to it?
Sara: There's definitely more to this city than the tropical getaway. There's a vibrant art scene, where each month the gallery district is alive with opening receptions and throngs of people interested in getting out and seeing the scene. There's also the internationally renowned Art Basel art fair that comes to town every year putting Miami on the cultural map.
Also, food-wise there's lots of exciting things going on, from an incredibly diverse selection of Latin cuisine. Everything from Argentinean to Venezuelan food, to Haitian, to Caribbean -- there's a ton of great ethnic food here. There's also a growing high-end dining scene, where a lot of the national trends, like organic, locally sourced cooking, are happening on a very high level.
CNN: Could you describe a typical Miamian's weekend?
Sara: A typical weekend would probably entail going to dinner in the Design District on Friday night, going for a walk or a bike ride along the beach on Saturday morning, then lunch on Lincoln Road. Saturday night there are usually some great DJs in town, so it's worth checking out the Downtown club scene, or if it's Art Walk, the galleries in Wynwood.
Sunday is spent perusing farmers markets, which are popping up in most neighborhoods, and lazily reading the paper over brunch. Sunday night is always bingo at the Standard hotel, a hipster hangout.
CNN: Where do you shop?
Sara: I usually head to the Aventura Mall if I'm looking to hit a bunch of stores in one fix. There's Bloomingdales, Urban Outfitters and your typical mall stores, like Banana Republic, etc. Collins Avenue in South Beach between 10th and 6th is good for Barney's Co-op | [
"What are some cultural activities in the place mentioned above?",
"What does Sara do for work?",
"The city has a vibrant what?",
"What is Sara's job?",
"What city does she say is a place of great opportunity?",
"What is Sara's profession?",
"What city does Sara blog about?",
"What does Sara blog about?",
"What does Sara say about Miami?",
"What place does Sara describe?",
"What are Sara's jobs?"
] | [
[
"There's a vibrant art scene, where each month the gallery district is alive with opening receptions and throngs of people interested in getting out and seeing the scene. There's also the internationally renowned Art Basel art fair that comes to town every year putting Miami on the cultural map."
],
[
"freelance writer and film maker."
],
[
"arts scene."
],
[
"freelance writer and film maker."
],
[
"Miami"
],
[
"freelance writer and film maker."
],
[
"Miami"
],
[
"city's nightlife and restaurants,"
],
[
"the city has a vibrant arts scene."
],
[
"Miami"
],
[
"freelance writer and film maker."
]
] | Sara is a freelance writer and film maker who blogs about Miami's nightlife .
She says Miami is a place of unbridled optimism and great opportunity .
The city has a vibrant arts scene and exciting international cuisine, says Sara . |
Sargodha, Pakistan (CNN) -- The mother of one of the five young men arrested in Pakistan told CNN Thursday that her son was in that country to get married, not to plot terror attacks as Pakistani police have alleged.
The FBI was in Pakistan on Thursday interrogating the men, who some U.S. and Pakistani law enforcement officials have identified as Americans, according to Usman Anwar, head of the district police of Sargodha, about 120 miles south of Islamabad.
The five had been reported missing from Virginia, and police are confident they were planning terrorist acts, Tahir Gujjrar, deputy superintendent of police in Sargodha, told CNN on Wednesday.
Pakistani authorities said they believe the young men tried to connect with militant groups.
In an interview with CNN, Subira Farouk said her son, Umar, was one of the young men detained in the case. She said her husband also was arrested, which would bring to six the number of people in custody. Police confirmed they have six people in custody, not five, as was originally reported.
Farouk said her son would never plot a terror attack. She described him as a business student at George Mason University in suburban Washington.
Farouk said she and her husband went to Pakistan to arrange a marriage for their son, who surprised her by traveling from the United States.
The arrests came after a raid Wednesday on a home in Sargodha, Gujjrar said. Investigators found laptops and maps of Pakistan containing highlighted areas that correspond to regions where terrorists have been active, Anwar said.
It is too premature to link the men with any terrorist organizations, he said, but preliminary investigations suggest they had sought to link up with the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Jamaat ud Dawa militant organizations. Neither group showed interest, he said.
President Obama said Thursday that he envisioned "a series of investigations" into the arrests.
"I think the details are still forthcoming," Obama said. "There will undoubtedly be a series of investigations surrounding these events, so I'd prefer not to comment on them at this point."
Farouk said her son mentioned that he planned to go to a conference with friends. She said she did not hear from him, grew concerned and began calling his friends' parents. That's when she realized that he and his friends were missing. She said she thought they had been kidnapped.
Their families contacted the Council on American Islamic Relations and U.S. law enforcement authorities. Farouk said the authorities advised her to stay in Pakistan.
Later, Farouk said she got a call from a relative in Pakistan who said her son was in the country with several friends. She said she was relieved, thinking her son had surprised her, but then authorities arrested her husband, her son and his friends.
The U.S. law enforcement official said none of the five missing men had shown up on law enforcement's radar before they were reported missing.
Authorities believe their intent was to wage jihad overseas rather than in terrorist acts in the United States, the official said, but "there is still a lot of uncertainty about what they were up to."
CNN's Arwa Damon, Jeanne Meserve and Elise Labott contributed to this report | [
"who was in Pakistan to get married?",
"What does she say about her husband?",
"how many people reported missing from Virginia?",
"who is arrested?",
"Who is reported missing from Virginia?"
] | [
[
"Umar,"
],
[
"was arrested,"
],
[
"five"
],
[
"five young men"
],
[
"five young men"
]
] | Mother says son was in Pakistan to get married, not plot attacks .
Her husband also arrested, she says .
Five young men reported missing from Virginia . |
Saudi Arabia's Cabinet was reassured Monday about the condition of its crown prince, according to state-run media, amid mounting speculation about his health. Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud is in Morocco recovering after medical treatment. The country's second deputy prime minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, spoke to ministers about the condition of Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud while leading a Cabinet session in Jeddah, according to the Saudi Press Agency. The crown prince has been convalescing at his residence in the Moroccan city of Agadir, where he arrived in May, after undergoing surgery and treatment in New York for an undisclosed illness. Speculation has mounted since he arrived in New York in February. The crown prince's age has never been officially announced but most estimates put him in his 80s. Earlier this week, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, stopped in Agadir to visit the prince and check on his health. The Saudi Press Agency issued a statement during the king's trip, saying he was "reassured about the health of his brother the crown prince." Though Saudi officials have maintained publicly that Sultan's health has improved, the appointment in late March of a second deputy prime minister raised more questions. In April, King Abdullah named the interior minister, Prince Nayef -- the powerful brother of the crown prince and half-brother to the king -- to the post of second deputy prime minister. While many Saudis took the appointment to mean that Nayef is now the country's crown prince in waiting and second in line to be king, others interpreted it as a simple administrative move, ensuring leadership at home if Abdullah and Sultan are abroad at the same time. | [
"wich are the conditions of the sultan?",
"Where did the crown prince receive treatment?",
"Is Sultan currently on bed-rest?",
"What is the crown prince's name?",
"where is the prince right now?",
"Who maintains that the sultan's health has improved?"
] | [
[
"health has improved,"
],
[
"New York"
],
[
"convalescing at his residence"
],
[
"Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud"
],
[
"Morocco"
],
[
"second deputy prime minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud,"
]
] | Crown prince recovering after treatment in New York for an undisclosed illness .
Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud believed to be in his 80s .
Has been convalescing at his residence in the Moroccan city of Agadir .
Saudi officials have maintained publicly that Sultan's health has improved . |
Searchlight, Nevada (CNN) -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin kicked off a Tea Party rally Saturday in Sen. Harry Reid's hometown, encouraging disgruntled Americans to "take back our country" while attacking what she called the "Obama-Pelosi-Reid spending spree."
"There's no better place to kick off the Tea Party Express than Harry Reid's hometown," Palin said at the rally, dubbed "Showdown in Searchlight," aimed at conjuring up support for the Senate Majority Leader's defeat in November elections.
Activists -- some of whom are calling the gathering the largest retirement party in the world -- hope it will carry a strong symbolic message.
Reid, the Senate majority leader, is credited with helping push through Congress the controversial health care bill that President Barack Obama signed Tuesday, as well as the "fixes" measure that passed Thursday.
"Washington has broken faith with the people that they are to be serving," Palin told the crowd, which numbered in the thousands.
Palin said the message to government leaders was "loud and clear."
"The big government, the big debt, Obama-Pelosi-Reid spending spree is over. You're fired," she said, prompting cheers from the crowd.
Are you there or at another Tea Party? Share your video, images
Palin's speech Saturday echoed many of her recent appearances at Tea Party events as she promoted "common sense conservative values" and decried "elites in Washington" and big government spending.
She addressed recent criticism of a post on her Facebook page that called for conservatives not to retreat in the wake of the health care vote, but "reload." Some critics have suggested the post encouraged violent acts against those who voted in favor of the legislation.
"Let's clear the air right now," she said. "We're not inciting violence. Don't get sucked into the lame-stream media lies about Americans standing up for freedom. it's a bunch of bunk that the media is trying to feed you. Don't let them try to divert" attention from the issue.
Other expected speakers included Gov. Jim Gibbons, a Republican, who told CNN's Ed Henry the event was "a great way to kick off a very intense political season."
In a statement to CNN, Reid said he was "happy so many people came to see my hometown of Searchlight and spend their out-of-state money especially in these tough economic times. Ultimately, though, this election will be decided by Nevadans, not people from other states who parachute in for one day to have a tea party."
Not far from the rally site, the State Democratic party and the Reid campaign have set up a hospitality tent.
"We are serving tea and donut holes in recognition that Sen. Reid just passed health care reform, and [that] we're closing the Medicare donut hole," said Zac Petkanas, deputy communications director for the Reid campaign.
It's staffed, he added, "with real Nevadans from Nevada and folks from Searchlight who support Reid."
The senator, meanwhile, is spending Saturday with the National Rifle Association's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre. The Reid campaign describes LaPierre as "one of the senator's supporters." The two are attending the grand opening of the $60 million Clark County Shooting Park north of Las Vegas that, according to the Reid campaign, wouldn't have opened without the senator's help.
Reid is arguably the Tea Party's top target. He carries a lot of political baggage in a year that finds much anger directed at incumbents.
"He is one of the three faces of the Democratic agenda in Washington, which right now is unpopular," said Nevada political newsletter editor Jon Ralston.
Recent polls from the Mason-Dixon organization show 33 percent of those polled have a favorable view of Reid, while 52 percent said they have an unfavorable view of the senator -- some of the worst numbers he has faced in years.
"I don't think many voters in | [
"When are the Tea Party activists holding their rally?",
"Who is headlining the event?",
"Where was the rally held?",
"What did Sarah Palin address?",
"Who did Palin address?",
"What do polls suggest?"
] | [
[
"Saturday"
],
[
"Sarah Palin"
],
[
"Searchlight,"
],
[
"recent criticism of a post on her Facebook page"
],
[
"Tea Party rally"
],
[
"show 33 percent of those polled have a favorable view of Reid, while 52 percent said they have an unfavorable view of the senator"
]
] | NEW: Sarah Palin addresses crowd .
Tea Party activists to hold rally Saturday in Harry Reid's Nevada hometown .
Polls suggest Senate majority leader faces tough re-election battle .
Former GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin to headline "Showdown in Searchlight" event . |
Seattle (CNN) -- Self-styled superhero Phoenix Jones unmasked himself before cameras Thursday and vowed to keep fighting crime after prosecutors delayed a decision on whether to press assault charges against him.
Jones -- who told reporters his real name is Ben Fodor -- routinely patrols downtown Seattle streets decked out in a rubber suit and mask. He was arrested early Sunday on four counts of assault after police said he used pepper spray on a group of people leaving a nightclub. A spokesman for Fodor said he was trying to break up a fight.
Video shot by a documentary crew and posted on Phoenix Jones' Facebook page showed a chaotic scene, with the self-styled super hero being chased by a purse-wielding woman and then shooting what appeared to be pepper spray at a group of people. Fodor was the only person arrested in the incident.
Seattle Police said Fodor overreacted, and asserted that the city is not in need of vigilante crime fighters.
"If you see something that warrants calling 911, call 911. You don't need to dress up in a costume to do that," police spokesman Mark Jamieson said.
In court Thursday, Fodor appeared wearing a hood, which a judge's assistant asked him to remove. Told charges had not been filed against him, Fodor put the rubber hood back on and left the court with a swarm of media cameras following him.
Outside the courthouse, Fodor told reporters he would continue his anti-crime patrols and then removed his hood.
"In addition to being Phoenix Jones," he said. "I am also Ben Fodor, a father and brother. I am just like everybody else. The only difference is that I try to stop crime."
Fodor also said he would invite the public to accompany him on future patrols. He then walked off without taking any questions from reporters.
An Internet search showed Fodor has competed in mixed martial arts events, with a record of 11 wins and no losses.
Kimberly Mills, a spokeswoman for the city attorney's office, said prosecutors will decide whether to file charges against him after they finish interviewing witnesses and complete the investigation into the incident Sunday. | [
"What might be filed later?",
"What may be filed later",
"Who is he the alter ego of?",
"Who is the alter ego of Ben fodor",
"What did the city attorney's office say?",
"Have charges have been filed against him?",
"Where does he appear?",
"Who was told not charges have been filed"
] | [
[
"charges"
],
[
"charges"
],
[
"Ben Fodor"
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[
"Phoenix Jones"
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[
"prosecutors will decide whether to file charges against him"
],
[
"had not"
],
[
"In court"
],
[
"Ben Fodor"
]
] | Superhero Phoenix Jones is revealed to be the alter ego of Ben Fodor .
He appears in court, but is told no charges have been filed against him .
Charges may be filed later, the city attorney's office says . |
Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- Instead of the traditional bad guys, it was the costumed, self-styled superhero that ended up behind bars after an altercation Sunday in Seattle.
Phoenix Jones, the moniker used by a man who dons a skintight black-and-gold rubber suit and mask, was arrested on four counts of assault after allegedly trying to break up a fight with pepper spray, the Seattle Police Department said.
According to the statement, a group of men and women were leaving a downtown Seattle club at 2:32 a.m. Sunday and "were dancing and having a good time" when an "unknown adult male suspect came up from behind and pepper sprayed the group," the statement said.
"He inserted himself and sprayed them with pepper spray," Seattle Police spokesman Mark Jamieson told CNN. Jones was arrested and charged with four counts of assault, Jamieson said.
But Jones claimed he used the pepper spray only to break up a fight and to protect himself. "I would never hurt or harm another person if they were not causing harm to another human being," read a message from Jones on his Facebook page.
For about a year, the masked Jones has patrolled the streets of Seattle, often with a film crew in tow, looking for crime and generating international headlines.
Jamieson said it is unclear how many -- if any -- crimes Jones has assisted police with. Police urge people to call 911 rather than take the law into their own hands, he added.
On a video released by Jones of the incident that led to his arrest, Jones is heard telling the film crew to call 911, then rushes into a crowd of people who appear to be engaged in an altercation.
A spokesman for Jones said he had no recourse but to get involved. "The fight was a huge group of people against a smaller group," said Peter Tangen. "It was an unfair fight, he went there to break it up."
A chaotic scene unfolds on the 13-minute video after Jones runs toward a man and woman who appear to be fighting. The man walks away and the woman then tries to hit Jones with her purse but instead falls onto the street.
"What is this, Halloween?" another woman calls out to rubber-suited Jones.
Eventually Jones is seen spraying several of the individuals with what appears to be a can of pepper spray.
Police spokesman Jamieson said Jones' actions were overkill. "If you see something that warrants calling 911, call 911. You don't need to dress up in a costume to do that."
Tangen asked CNN and other media not publish Jones' real name, which is listed in his police booking. "His family is at risk of retaliation from criminals," he said. Many, but not all, news outlets were going along with the request.
After he was arrested Sunday and before he was released without bond, Tangen said, Jones was roughed up by two men in the cell he was being held in. The spokesman said Jones was wearing his costume but police had taken away his mask.
Tangen said Jones was shoved but was not seriously hurt and plans to keep fighting crime despite his run-in with police.
"He will always be an activist," Tangen said. | [
"Where does he operate?",
"Was he charged with anything?",
"What did Jones do?",
"What did he use?",
"What happened to him?"
] | [
[
"Seattle,"
],
[
"four counts of assault,"
],
[
"four counts of assault after allegedly trying to break up"
],
[
"pepper spray,"
],
[
"arrested on four counts of assault"
]
] | Phoenix Jones, as he calls himself, says he jumped in to stop a fight .
The people he hit with pepper spray say they were dancing .
"What is this, Halloween?" a woman calls out to rubber-suited Jones .
Jones patrols the streets of Seattle, often with a camera crew, looking for crime . |
Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- Investigators searching for the suspected killer of four Seattle-area police officers have rounded up several of his relatives and friends to keep them from helping him escape, a sheriff's spokesman said Monday.
Police have brought in five or six relatives and other acquaintances of Maurice Clemmons, "and we expect that number to grow," Pierce County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer said.
Some of Clemmons' family and friends have been trying to help him elude police and seek treatment for a gunshot wound, and they have tried to divert investigators by calling in false leads, he said.
"What we're going to do is eliminate those people, so he'll have no place to go," Troyer told CNN. A raid in the southern Seattle suburb of Renton late Monday was aimed at cutting off Clemmons from that support network, he said.
Clemmons, 37, is an ex-convict with a long rap sheet in Washington and Arkansas, according to authorities and documents. He is wanted in what police called the ambush-style killing of four police officers from Lakewood, near Tacoma, about 40 miles south of Seattle. Witnesses say Clemmons was shot in the torso during the Sunday morning attack, and blood and gauze bandages were found in a truck linked to Clemmons, Troyer said.
The sheriff's department said associates who refuse to cooperate with the investigation could face criminal charges.
Clemmons is thought to have slipped away from a home in Seattle's Leschi neighborhood Sunday night, before police surrounded the residence for about 12 hours. He was not found in the home when the investigators moved in Monday morning, Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel told reporters.
His escape was "an unlucky thing for us, and a lucky thing for him," Troyer said Monday night. "But his luck's going to run out, because he doesn't have people to help him do that any more."
The slain officers, three men and a woman, were killed at a coffee shop in Parkland, a suburb of Tacoma. Early Monday, authorities started identifying Clemmons as a suspect, rather than as someone wanted for questioning.
The night before the shootings, Clemmons had threatened to kill police officers, but witnesses did not report those threats until after the slayings, Troyer said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Clemmons was accused of child rape and assaulting a police officer in May. He had been released on $150,000 bond five days before the shootings, according to court records.
After his arrest, Clemmons' sister told police that he "had not been himself lately" and that his behavior was "unpredictable and erratic."
"He had said that the Secret Service was coming to get him because he had written a letter to the president," an affidavit quoted her as telling investigators.
In addition, neighbors had complained that he had been throwing rocks through their windows. Clemmons' wife told deputies that she and her husband had argued over a "newly discovered child," and she suggested that was why he went on his rock-throwing spree, according to an arrest affidavit.
In 2000, then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted a 95-year prison sentence for Clemmons, according to documents from the Arkansas Department of Community Correction. He returned to prison in 2001 but was paroled in 2004.
"Should he be found responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state," Huckabee's office said in a statement Sunday night.
During his 2008 presidential bid, Huckabee was criticized for granting clemency to another inmate, convicted rapist Wayne DuMond, who was later convicted of raping and murdering a woman in Missouri. Huckabee's statement brought a sharp response from Troyer on Monday.
"We're disappointed that Gov. Huckabee came out in the middle of the night without calling anybody here and blamed this on the criminal justice system in the state of Washington," Troyer said. "We're guessing that's probably a spin doctor, not him." | [
"What did the police do?",
"What is Clemmons being sought for?",
"Who's been helping him?",
"Who sought for the shooting?",
"How many officers were killed?"
] | [
[
"have brought in five or six relatives and other acquaintances of Maurice Clemmons,"
],
[
"suspected killer of four Seattle-area police"
],
[
"several of his relatives and friends"
],
[
"Investigators"
],
[
"four"
]
] | Police round up relatives, friends of suspect to keep them from helping him escape .
Maurice Clemmons, 37, is sought in the shooting deaths of 4 officers in coffee shop .
Police: Some of Clemmons' family, friends have been trying to help him elude police .
Clemmons is an ex-convict with a long rap sheet in Washington and Arkansas . |
Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- Nearly 10 years ago, Maurice Clemmons pledged to make a fresh start. "I come from a very good Christian family and I was raised much better than my actions speak," Clemmons said in a clemency application brief to then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2000. "I'm still ashamed to this day for the shame my stupid involvement in these crimes brought upon my family's name." Clemmons was 27. He'd spent the past 11 years in an Arkansas prison, convicted of offenses including robbery, burglary, theft and taking a gun to school. He was facing a 95-year sentence. A decade later, Clemmons is the subject of an intense manhunt in Washington state, suspected in the deaths of four Lakewood, Washington, police officers who were shot to death Sunday as they met in a coffee shop before starting their shifts. Authorities have said Clemmons is believed to have entered the Forza Coffee Company and opened fire on the officers with no warning. Police tracked Clemmons to an east Seattle home Sunday night, but after a standoff that stretched to nearly 12 hours, they entered the home and found that he was not there. In 2000, Clemmons told Huckabee that the crimes occurred when he was 16, had just moved to Arkansas from Seattle and had fallen in with the wrong crowd. "Where once stood a young 16-year-old misguided fool ... now stands a 27-year-old man, who has learned through the 'school of hard knocks' to appreciate and respect the rights of others," his petition to Huckabee said. Huckabee commuted Clemmons' sentence in 2000, citing his young age at the time of sentencing, making him eligible for parole. It was granted in July 2000, after he told Arkansas parole officials that he "just wants the opportunity" and "is not the same person he was when he came in," the documents said. "It was not something I was pleased with at the time," said Larry Jegley, who prosecuted Clemmons for aggravated robbery and other charges in Pulaski County, Arkansas, regarding the commutation. "I would be most distressed if this is the same guy." In 1989, as he was being prosecuted, Clemmons demonstrated violent behavior; he hid a piece of metal in his sock at a pretrial hearing, and before the start of another hearing he grabbed a padlock off his holding cell and threw it at a court bailiff. He missed and instead struck his mother, who had come to bring him clothes. In his 2000 brief to Huckabee, Clemmons said his mother had died while he had been in prison, providing him with further motivation to turn his life around. "I have never done anything good for God, but I've prayed for him to grant me in his compassion the grace to make a start," he said. "Now, I'm humbly appealing to you for a brand new start." But after receiving a second chance, Clemmons was apparently unable to stay on the right side of the law, according to documents and authorities in Arkansas and Washington. Arkansas parole board documents show that he was back in prison by September 2001. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that he was arrested for aggravated robbery and theft and taken back to prison on a parole violation. The paper said he was not served with the new arrest warrants for the robbery and theft charges until he was paroled three years later in 2004. His attorney argued that the charges should be dismissed because too much time had passed, and prosecutors complied. Huckabee went on to become a 2008 Republican presidential candidate and has not ruled out a second try for the White House in 2012. In a statement Sunday night, his office said Clemmons' commutation was based on the recommendation of the parole board that determined that he met the conditions for early release. Read the clemency documents for Clemmons "He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him," the statement said. | [
"Who is Maurice Clemmons?",
"How many years did he spend in prison?"
] | [
[
"the subject of an intense manhunt in Washington state,"
],
[
"11"
]
] | Maurice Clemmons told Arkansas governor crimes brought shame to family .
Then 27, he had spent 11 years in prison for robbery, burglary, theft .
He is suspected in Sunday's shooting deaths of four police officers .
Incident may be "result of a series of failures," says ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee's office . |
Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- The plastic Ziploc bag thrown in the trash in Seattle, Washington, spent a week traveling 300 miles to an Oregon landfill. The old Apple iBook that was recycled is a month into its journey. And a pair of worn Asics running shoes is still logging miles even after being dropped in a bin for used shoes.
Those are just some of the trails of trash exposed in a high-tech trash study.
"Normally, you think about the trash for minutes while you take it out to the can," says Ethan O'Connor, "and this trash we are going to be watching on our Web browsers for weeks."
O'Connor and Shannon Cheng are volunteers in a study tracking their trash -- and giving them the opportunity to reflect on what they use and discard. The tracking devices are about the size of small cell phones and allow for near-real-time tracking of thousands of pieces of garbage.
The tracking is not part of some top-secret government program to spy on garbage, but rather the brainchild of MIT researchers who wanted to learn if society could more efficiently dispose of what it throws out.
"The idea with this tagging exercise is to bring an invisible system to life," said Assaf Biderman, associate director of MIT's SENSEable City Lab. "By knowing how long it stays in the system, where it goes, we are hoping to create an increased awareness in the public."
Before that increased awareness could be created, however, the scientists needed to devise a way to track pieces of trash, some for hundreds of miles and for up to six months.
Researchers are doing most of the tracking via volunteers in Seattle. They plan to expand the program to other cities and compare the attitudes that people in different regions have about garbage.
Working with the telecommunications company Qualcomm, the MIT researchers created a device -- or, as the researchers call them, "traces" -- that could track a piece of trash using both GPS and cell phone towers.
The researchers then asked volunteers to supply items they were already planning to get rid of and put the tracking "traces" on the items. The volunteers then threw the material out as they usually would.
Just getting the trace on the piece of trash presented its own challenges. Some needed to be taped or sewn into the garbage; others were stuck to the trash with a sticky aerosol spray.
The researchers stipulated that the trace not alter how the garbage traveled through the waste system or call attention to the item.
"The thing about trash is that each object is very different," Biderman said. "Different sizes, different textures, different constraints."
O'Connor and Cheng live on a houseboat, where space is at a premium. Participating in the study has allowed the couple to think of larger-picture issues about the trash they produce.
But it's not just the trash's owners who are tracking the tems.
Waste Management Inc., a waste removal and recycling company, is helping fund the study in the hope that it will show that the trash they dispose of goes where it should. Officials say they are also looking for ways to better deal with garbage.
"It could make a huge difference," Waste Management spokeswoman Rita Smith said. "We want to do everything we can to get our materials to their destinations as efficiently as possible; not only because of the economic cost, but also because of the environmental cost. There's no point in hauling material around in circles."
Researchers are still compiling data as the trash makes its journey.
Even though the study has not been completed, the MIT group sees its efforts as a step toward better informing Americans about trash.
"Can we create a situation of minimum waste?" Biderman said. "In a certain way, it's about telling people about what they throw away, making people more aware about waste, and perhaps changing their behavior."
Participating in the study has already altered O'Connor's outlook.
"The disposal is one part | [
"What the study shows?",
"What does the trash study track?"
] | [
[
"the trash they dispose of goes where it should."
],
[
"trails of"
]
] | Trash study tracks how pieces of garbage may travel hundreds of miles .
MIT researchers hope study will help people better understand impact of garbage they produce .
"Can we create a situation of minimum waste?" researcher says . |
Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- The suspect in Sunday's fatal shooting of four police officers was shot and killed early Tuesday by an officer after the suspect approached him and "reached into his waist area," authorities said in a statement. Although the medical examiner has not formally identified the man shot and killed in south Seattle about 2:45 a.m., detectives recognized him as Maurice Clemmons, sought in the killings of four Lakewood, Washington, police officers shot Sunday at a coffee shop, Seattle police said in the written statement. Pierce County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer said earlier Tuesday that Clemmons was carrying a weapon taken from one of the slain officers and had been shot in the abdomen in Sunday's shooting at the Forza Coffee Company in Parkland, Washington. He had had stuffed gauze and cotton into the wound and put duct tape over it, Troyer said Tuesday. Clemmons had been the subject of an intense manhunt for two days. Two people accused of helping Clemmons evade authorities, brothers Eddie and Douglas Davis, appeared in court Tuesday. Both are charged with rendering criminal assistance, a felony. A man who police believe is the getaway car driver was also in custody, along with a second man. Neither has been charged. The men accused of trying to help Clemmons provided medical aid, housing, a cell phone and money and were trying to get him out of the state, Troyer said earlier Tuesday. They also called in false leads to police to divert investigators. Early Tuesday, a patrol officer saw an unoccupied car in south Seattle that was running and had its hood up, police said. He determined the car was stolen and was doing paperwork in his vehicle when he saw a man approach his patrol car from behind on the driver's side, the statement said. The officer got out of the car and ordered the man to stop and show his hands, but the man refused, the statement said. Follow local coverage on CNN affiliate KIRO-TV "As the officer was drawing his gun, the suspect reached into his waist area and moved," the police statement said. "The officer fired several times, striking the suspect at least twice." He was pronounced dead at the scene. The officer is a four-year member of the Seattle police force and is a military veteran, police said. He will be placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure after a shooting involving an officer. Authorities said they regretted the shooting death but are glad the two-day ordeal is over. "Right now, it's just a feeling of relief," said Jim Pugil, the assistant Seattle police chief. "Another tragic time has come upon us, and we're just happy that it's over." Additional arrests in the case are likely, Troyer said Tuesday. "I am thankful the suspect in this horrible crime is no longer a threat to our community," Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire said in a statement. "I hope this provides some closure for the families and colleagues of our fallen officers. ... We should now focus our attention on providing comfort and support to those who have lost a loved one." Clemmons had made comments before Sunday's shootings that he was going to kill some officers -- comments that were not reported to authorities until after the shootings -- but officials believe he was the lone gunman. "We don't think anyone helped him plan this murder," Troyer said. The manhunt for Clemmons began Sunday after the four Lakewood officers -- three men and a woman -- were gunned down while meeting at the coffee shop before their shifts began. Clemmons was an ex-convict with a long rap sheet in Washington and Arkansas, according to authorities and documents. Clemmons slipped away from a home in Seattle's Leschi neighborhood Sunday night before police surrounded the residence for about 12 hours. He was not found in the home when investigators moved in Monday morning, Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel said. Officials said Tuesday that they missed him by mere minutes. Clemmons was accused of child rape and | [
"What made the officer shoot?",
"What was the suspects name?",
"Where did Maurice Clemmons wound occur?",
"Was the suspect reaching towards the officer's waist or his own waist?",
"What was the name of the suspect?",
"What kind of wound did the suspect have?",
"Maurice Clemmons was being sought by the authorities for what reason?",
"Will charges be brought against the individuals who aree accused of helping Clemmons to elude police?"
] | [
[
"suspect approached him and \"reached into his waist area,\""
],
[
"Maurice Clemmons,"
],
[
"shot in the abdomen"
],
[
"the suspect reached into his waist area"
],
[
"Maurice Clemmons,"
],
[
"shot in the abdomen"
],
[
"in the killings of four Lakewood, Washington, police officers shot Sunday at a coffee shop,"
],
[
"Both are charged"
]
] | Police: Officer fired gun after suspect approached and reached toward waist .
Maurice Clemmons had been sought in killings of four police officers .
Slain suspect had abdominal wound, victim's gun, police say .
At least three accused of helping Clemmons elude police . |
Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- When Amanda Knox's parents head to Italy for closing arguments in their daughter's murder trial they'll be carrying a present they hope desperately she can use soon: a plane ticket home. In that purchase lies one family's entire hope. Curt Knox and Edda Mellas say their daughter is nothing like the person they've seen depicted before and during her trial. They grimace at the description prosecutors have used in court: that Amanda Knox was a resentful American so angry with her British roommate Meredith Kercher that she exacted revenge during a twisted sex misadventure at their home two years ago. Prosecutors say Knox directed then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and another man infatuated with her, Rudy Guede, to hold Kercher down as Knox played with a knife before slashing Kercher's throat. "She is totally nonviolent, almost a passive person," Mellas told CNN in a joint interview with her former husband. So passive was Knox, the parents said, that she couldn't even continue a kickboxing class because she felt it was too violent. She was so caring, they said, that she would make her friends stop a car to let a spider out rather than kill it. Knox was an easy child to raise in Seattle, Washington, along with her younger sisters Deanna and Ashley, her parents said. She took to soccer early on but hit the books as hard as she played. It was on the field that she earned the nickname Foxy Knoxy, though they say it was rarely used and taken out of context when Kercher was found killed to portray their daughter as a sex-hungry party animal. "It was totally associated to soccer and how she prepared herself as a defender, waiting to take on a striker going down," Curt Knox said. "So how people read this nickname is totally wrong." Eventually, though a star player at college, Knox gave up the sport to focus on her education. She knew she wanted to study in Italy and wouldn't be able to leave the team to go abroad. Her mother said she threw herself into jobs to help the family save for the trip, working as a soccer coach, a barista and in a gallery. They recall a young woman far different from the wild party girl depicted by prosecutors, one they said found more enjoyment in going to a coffee house and reading a book than going out to a club. They say she met her former boyfriend and co-accused Sollecito at a classical concert. Yes, they concede, Knox, now 22, and Sollecito say they were smoking marijuana and having sex at his home the night Kercher was killed, but that was as wild as it got. They reject the idea of revenge as a motive for Knox to kill Kercher. Mellas said her daughter e-mailed and called to tell her about her new roommate regularly. Knox told her they got along great and spent time together, going to libraries and a chocolate festival. What has happened in Perugia, Italy, is unfathomable to them. On November 2, 2007, at 4 a.m. in Seattle, Mellas was awakened by the phone. "Amanda called [and said] 'I hate to wake you up, but something's not right here, I think someone's been in my house,' " Mellas recalled. The door to the home she shared with Kercher had been ajar when she came home that morning, and when Knox got out of a quick shower, she noticed drops of blood. Kercher's door was locked, and Knox couldn't reach her, she told her mother, adding that Sollecito was calling the police. Later, when officers broke down the door to Kercher's room, Mellas said her daughter struggled to understand what was going on, hanging on the few words of Italian she understood at the time. "They were screaming 'A foot, a foot,' that's what they could see," Mellas recalled Amanda Knox saying. When she learned Kercher was dead in the room, a hysterical Knox | [
"Whose parents are hopeful of aquital?",
"Who says they still hope their daughter will be acquitted?",
"Who is being referred to as a \"vengeful killer?\"",
"Do the parents agree with their daughters portrayal by the prosecution?"
] | [
[
"Amanda Knox's"
],
[
"Curt Knox and Edda Mellas"
],
[
"Amanda Knox"
],
[
"nothing like the person they've seen depicted"
]
] | Parents of Amanda Knox say they still hope murder trial will acquit their daughter .
They say they don't recognize the vengeful killer portrayed by the prosecution in Italy .
Knox's parents say they know they're luckier than parents of victim Meredith Kercher . |
Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- While dramatizing the against-the-odds rescue of a noble, harmonious alien society called the Na'vi, James Cameron's "Avatar" may also effectuate the rescue of a nasty, contentious alien society known as Hollywood -- or at least save Tinseltown's annual Oscar extravaganza from its long-term ratings slump.
The annual Academy Awards telecast used to be one of the big, unifying cultural events that most Americans shared and talked about -- like the Super Bowl, or presidential election night, or Christmas Eve. As recently as the 1990's, more than 40 million U.S. viewers -- according to The Nielsen Company -- watched the broadcast in whole or in part, and spoke the next day about the best and worst gowns, the dumbest acceptance speeches, and the biggest surprises in the major categories.
Beginning with the awards for the film year 2003, however, the ratings for Hollywood's big show took a sharp turn for the worse, dipping consistently below the 40 million figure (despite sharply increased population) and reaching an all-time low in 2008, according to Nielsen.
The problem wasn't the quality of the hosts or the clumsiness of the big musical numbers, but the year-after-year nature of the top nominated films, with deeply depressing, art-house fare ("Million Dollar Baby," "Crash") reliably crowding out more popular releases.
The infamous 2008 Oscar telecast experienced a crash all its own, with just 31.76 million viewers -- or barely one out of ten Americans, according to Nielsen. As The Hollywood Reporter observed, the collapse in the size of the audience had everything to do with the gloomy nature of the leading nominees, all of which scored high on "the depression meter. ... 'Atonement,' 'Michael Clayton,' 'Juno,' 'No Country for Old Men,' and 'There Will Be Blood' were the bedsheet-noose best picture nominees."
The ratings last year rebounded slightly, with the relatively upbeat "Slum Dog Millionaire" delivering some old-fashioned uplift with its reassuringly familiar poor-boy-makes-good and love-conquers-all messages, despite the exotic (and sometimes brutal) Mumbai, India, settings.
For this year's March 7 broadcast, however, industry insiders tell me they expect a spectacular increase in the size of the TV audience -- perhaps even surpassing the huge 1998 ratings that set a recent record: 55 million viewers, nearly twice the viewership for 2008, according to Nielsen.
Sure, Billy Crystal's sprightly humor helped attract the hordes who viewed the '98 spectacle -- but the big attraction was a very big movie: "Titanic," the ultimate winner of 11 Oscars and, at the time, the top grossing motion picture ever released. No wonder James Cameron proudly proclaimed himself "king of the world" while scooping up his gold baldie for Best Director.
Well, 2010 will witness the "Return of the King" (you should pardon the expression), with "Avatar" replacing "Titanic" as history's top money-maker and listed as a heavy favorite for numerous Academy Awards (particularly in the technical arena).
The Oscar telecast will get a huge boost from all the avid "Avatar" fanatics, many of whom have seen the movie over and over again. Popular favorite Sandra Bullock, odds-on favorite to win Best Actress (she's already won the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and tied for the Critics Choice Awards) will draw additional viewers who made the heartwarming, faith-family-and-football saga "The Blind Side" one of last year's most successful surprises.
Ironically, the presence of such populist fare on any list of sure-thing nominees makes the much-ballyhooed reform of the Best Picture category largely unnecessary when it comes to insuring a successful telecast.
Instead of five nominees as in the past, this year the Academy selected 10 films as candidates for the top prize, hoping to guarantee at least a few popular box office winners to go along with the usual | [
"Who will get a big boost from avid \"Avatar\" fanatics?",
"what does Medved says about insiders?",
"How much boost in TV viewers do insiders expect"
] | [
[
"The Oscar telecast"
],
[
"they expect a spectacular increase in the size of the TV audience"
],
[
"55 million"
]
] | Film critic Michael Medved: Expanded Oscar nominations fragment culture .
Insiders expect boost in TV viewers -- perhaps more than '98's 55 million, says Medved .
Oscar telecast will get a big boost from avid "Avatar" fanatics, says Medved .
Ratings have slumped since 2003 because of depressing, artsy movies, he says . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- The Obama administration's first high-level direct talks with North Korea yielded no promise by Pyongyang to return to six-party negotiations aimed at ending its nuclear program, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday nonetheless called the meeting "quite positive."
In Washington, Clinton said she agreed with special envoy Stephen Bosworth that the talks were "very useful," adding, "It does remain to be seen whether and when the North Koreans will return to the six-party talks, but the bottom line is that these were exploratory talks, not negotiations."
North Korea has refused to return to the talks conducted by the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, insisting that it wants to talk directly with the U.S.
In April, Pyongyang declared the talks "dead" in anger over international criticism of its nuclear and missile tests this year.
Clinton previously said the United States was willing to meet bilaterally with North Korea but only within the framework of the six-party talks. She also has warned the United States will not normalize ties with Pyongyang or lift sanctions unless North Korea takes irreversible steps toward dismantling its nuclear program.
Of his three-day visit, Bosworth said, "My purpose ... was to facilitate the resumption of the six-party talks and to reaffirm the goal of fully implementing the September 2005 joint statement."
Holding a news conference Thursday in Seoul after his visit to North Korea, Bosworth said, "I communicated President Obama's view that complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a fundamental undertaking of the six-party process ... and that the absence of progress on denuclearization is an obstacle to improving our relations."
As Obama "has made it clear, the United States is prepared to work with allies, partners in the region to offer ... North Korea a different future," he said.
Bosworth said he held talks with North Korean officials, but not President Kim Jong Il, because "we did not ask" for a meeting with the leader. He said they did not make plans for a future meeting.
Many observers are wondering what's behind the North's latest moves, and some said Bosworth's trip is a positive.
"The visit gives North Korea a lot of 'face,' a sense of importance," said Wenran Jiang, political science professor at the University of Alberta in Canada.
Some analysts said North Korea might be trying to buy time.
Earlier reports in Seoul claimed that North Korea is in the final stages of restoring its Yongbyon nuclear plant, which Pyongyang had begun to disable before walking away from the six-party talks. Given the secrecy of the North, those reports could not be verified.
Analysts said North Korea also is desperate to break out of its diplomatic isolation and ease its economic pain, especially after the U.N. Security Council imposed tougher sanctions on the country in response to Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests.
A joint statement issued by the six-party nations in September 2005 said North Korea had "committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs."
CNN's Jill Dougherty contributed to this report. | [
"Who is the first Obama administration official to hold direct talks with North Korea?",
"What city did envoy Stephen Bosworth visit?",
"When did North Korea abandon six-party talks?",
"Who did Bosworth meet with?",
"Who described the talks as \"very useful?\"",
"Who is the first Obama administration official to hold talks with North Korea?",
"Who described talks with North Korea as \"very useful\"?",
"What does Hillary Clinton describe the North Korean talks as?"
] | [
[
"Hillary Clinton"
],
[
"Washington,"
],
[
"April,"
],
[
"Clinton"
],
[
"Stephen Bosworth"
],
[
"Stephen Bosworth"
],
[
"Stephen Bosworth"
],
[
"\"quite positive.\""
]
] | NEW: Hillary Clinton describes North Korean talks as "very useful"
Envoy Stephen Bosworth is first Obama administration official to hold direct talks with North .
North Korea abandoned six-party talks in April after criticism over nuclear tests .
U.S. says it's unclear if North will return to six-party talks . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- A delegation of South Koreans traveled to the Communist North Monday to pay their respects to the late leader Kim Jong Il, lying in state at Kumsusan Memorial Palace.
The 18-member civilian delegation was led by Lee Hui-ho -- the widow of the former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at nurturing reconciliation between the two Koreas -- and Hyun Jeong-eun, the widow of Chung Mong-hun, the former chairman of Hyundai Group who pushed for heavy industrial investments in the North.
"I hope this helps improve North and South relations," Lee said in a statement read by one of her aides prior to her departure at the border.
The South Koreans arrived in Pyongyang after passing through the Kaesong Industrial Park, just to the north of the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries, reported the Korean Central News Agency, the North's official news agency.
North Korea's new leader Kim Jong Un greeted the delegation in Pyongyang, said a statement from the Unification Ministry.
The delegation plans to stay overnight.
The visit comes at a delicate point in relations between the two Koreas.
The death of Kim Jong Il, announced by Pyongyang on December 19, has put the region on edge, as the world waits to see how the leadership succession will play out in the secretive regime.
Seoul expressed its sympathy to the North Korean people and gave the green light to Lee and Hyun's group to visit the North. But it said it will not send an official delegation to pay respects to Kim Jong Il.
Pyongyang sent delegations to South Korea when the former president Kim and the former Hyundai chairman Chung died in 2009 and 2003 respectively. | [
"Who greeted the civilian delegation?",
"When was Kim Jong II's death anounced?",
"Who announced Jong's death?",
"When was the death announced?",
"Who greets the civilian delegation?",
"Who is leading the group?"
] | [
[
"Un"
],
[
"December 19,"
],
[
"Pyongyang"
],
[
"December 19,"
],
[
"Un"
],
[
"Lee Hui-ho"
]
] | NEW: Kim Jong Un greets the civilian delegation .
The group is led by a former first lady and the widow of an industrial tycoon .
The visit comes at a delicate point in relations between the two Koreas .
Pyongyang announced Kim Jong Il's death on December 19, putting the region on edge . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- An explosion at close range, and not a direct hit, caused the 1,200-ton patrol ship Cheonan to sink last month, a team of South Korean military and civilian investigators has tentatively concluded.
The investigators' determination was reported Sunday by the Yonhap news agency.
"Instead of being directly hit by a torpedo or other underwater weapon, the Cheonan was affected by a strong explosion that occurred below its bottom at a close range," the news agency quoted a government official as saying.
The explanation matches one that investigators offered shortly after the ship's stern was salvaged 10 days ago.
A final result is not expected for a month, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told reporters.
He said that the most likely cause of the sinking was a "bubble jet" created by the external explosion under the ship.
A bubble jet effect occurs when an explosion goes off under a ship. The change in pressure causes a huge column of water that strikes the ship with great impact.
On Saturday, recovery crews found the body of a missing sailor in the wreckage of the ship.
The ship sunk in the Yellow Sea near the western sea border with North Korea on March 26.
Forty of Cheonan's 104 crew members have now been confirmed dead, and six more are also believed dead, though they are still listed as missing.
Fifty eight others were rescued before the vessel sank.
South Korea has not ruled out a theory that North Korea was involved.
But Seoul has avoided directly blaming North Korea, which sloughed off allegations it is responsible.
The families of the dead sailors began a five-day mourning period on Sunday.
On Thursday, the South Korean navy will hold a funeral ceremony at a naval command in Pyeongtaek, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Seoul.
The navy has also decided to posthumously promote the dead seamen by one rank and award them a military honor for their patriotism. | [
"What caused the sinking of the ship?",
"Where did the ship go down?",
"When does the mourning period begin?",
"What caused South Korean ship to sink?",
"How many people are dead?",
"What caused the S. Korean ship to sink?",
"In what body of water did the boat sink?",
"How many sailors are listed as missing?",
"How many died when the ship went down?"
] | [
[
"An explosion at close range, and not a direct hit,"
],
[
"in the Yellow Sea near the western sea border with North Korea"
],
[
"Sunday."
],
[
"An explosion at close range,"
],
[
"Forty"
],
[
"An explosion at close range, and not a direct hit,"
],
[
"Yellow Sea"
],
[
"six"
],
[
"104"
]
] | Report: Close-range explosion caused S. Korean ship to sink .
Families of dead sailors on Sunday begin period of mourning .
Ship went down in Yellow Sea; cause not yet known .
Death toll now stands at 40; six sailors listed as missing . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Just like any other first family in the world, North Korea's secretive Kim dynasty is often the focus of gossip and rumors, especially in neighboring South Korea.
There was a lot of speculation after a recent report that Kim Jong Il's grandson, identified as 16-year-old Kim Han-sol, was scheduled to enter an international school in Bosnia. Less than a week after the report, YouTube screen shots and pictures -- reportedly of the grandson -- have been plastered on the news in South Korea.
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported that it had tracked down photos of the grandson from the Bosnian school's Facebook page and published the pictures. The young man appears in photos wearing a suit and black horn-rimmed glasses posing with a woman at what appears to be a party.
In another photo, the young man sports a blonde hairdo and is wearing a black T-shirt on the streets. The news agency reported Kim's nationality on the school website was set as North Korean. The school, the United World College in Mostar, confirmed its acceptance of a 16-year-old North Korean student named Kim Han-sol through a press release but stopped short of confirming the identity of the individual.
"The entry of a student from North Korea, furthermore from a very well-known family, has understandably generated surprise and comment, some of it critical," it said in a statement.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Kim Han-sol is the son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's oldest son, Kim Jong-nam. Kim Jong-nam is the family's most outspoken member and has been seen at airports and other venues outside of North Korea. He is viewed by many as the outcast of the Kim family. It is believed the oldest Kim fell out of favor when he was stopped in Japan trying to enter on a forged passport on his way to Disneyland in 2001.
The South Korean media has also focused on YouTube postings that Yonhap News Agency says feature Kim Han-sol. Yonhap released shots in which the YouTube user claims to be a North Korean studying in Macau. The person also claims to be "related (to the Kim family)."
CNN could not independently confirm the identity of the YouTube user or the person shown in the pictures in the South Korean media. There are no known public photographs of Kim Han-sol and there's been no comment from the Kim family.
The reclusive nature of the family leaves media outlets to leap at whatever opportunity they can to gain more insight into the lives of the Kim Jong Il family. Experts have commonly used photos released by the North Korean state-run news agency to speculate on the health of Kim Jong Il, examining facial color, posture, and even the style of shoes the leader is wearing.
But the lack of access to verify most of what is circulated in the news has also led to blunders in the past. A photograph once released as an exclusive shot of one of the leader's sons later turned out to be an average South Korean man. The incident was only corrected after the man in the photo spoke out saying he was shocked to see he had turned into a Kim dynasty member overnight.
As the latest round of speculation continues, the YouTube account reportedly linked to the grandson is no longer accessible and has been closed. | [
"who will reportedly attend a Bosnian international school?",
"whose family is rarely shown in photographs?",
"who has published alleged photos of Kim Jong Il's grandson?",
"Where did the pictures come from?"
] | [
[
"Kim Han-sol,"
],
[
"North Korea's secretive Kim"
],
[
"South Korea's Yonhap News Agency"
],
[
"YouTube"
]
] | Yonhap News Agency has published alleged photos of Kim Jong Il's grandson .
The 16-year-old Kim Han-sol will reportedly attend a Bosnian international school .
The reclusive North Korean first family is rarely shown in photographs . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea reacted to a South Korean anti-submarine exercise early Thursday by saying it would meet "confrontation with confrontation" and war with "all-out war," according to North Korean state-run media.
"Now that the puppet group challenged the DPRK [North Korea] formally and blatantly, the DPRK will react to confrontation with confrontation, and to a war with an all-out war," according the KCNA news agency.
The news agency referred to South Korean leaders as a "group of traitors" and said they would experience "unheard of disastrous consequences" if they misunderstand North Korea's will.
The response comes amid high tensions on the Korean peninsula, after Seoul blamed Pyongyang for the sinking in March of a South Korean warship. An official South Korean report has accused the communist North of firing a torpedo at the ship, killing 46 sailors.
Explainer: Why are the two Koreas so hostile?
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Seoul on Wednesday, called the sinking "an unacceptable provocation by North Korea" and said the international community should respond.
Also Thursday, the general staff of North Korea's military -- the Korean People's Army, or KPA -- said it was enacting new measures to deal with any "all-out confrontation."
The steps would "retract all measures for providing military guarantees for the North-South cooperation and exchange, and the promise of a physical strike.
"The KPA will make a prompt physical strike at the intrusion into the extension of the Military Demarcation Line under our side's control in the West Sea of Korea," the army said, according to the KCNA news agency. | [
"Who did Seoul blame for sinking the warship?",
"Who calls South Korean leaders a \"group of traitors\"?",
"Who said North \"will react to confrontation with confrontation,\" ?",
"Who does North Korea call a \"group of traitors\"?",
"What does Seoul blamed Pyongyang for?",
"South Korean anti-submarine exercise prompts what kind of response ?",
"Who did Seoul blame for sinking warship ?",
"What prompts angry response?"
] | [
[
"Pyongyang"
],
[
"KCNA news agency."
],
[
"Korean state-run media."
],
[
"South Korean leaders"
],
[
"the sinking in March of a South Korean warship."
],
[
"meet \"confrontation with confrontation\" and war with \"all-out war,\""
],
[
"Pyongyang"
],
[
"a South Korean anti-submarine exercise"
]
] | South Korean anti-submarine exercise prompts angry response .
North "will react to confrontation with confrontation," news agency says .
North Korea calls South Korean leaders a "group of traitors"
Response comes amid high tensions, after Seoul blamed Pyongyang for sinking warship . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- President Obama wrapped up an eight-day tour of Asia on Thursday, holding talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and speaking to American troops at Osan Air Base.
Nuclear negotiations involving North Korea and Iran highlighted a news conference held by the leaders.
Obama announced that he will send American envoy Stephen Bosworth to North Korea on December 8 for bilateral talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear program.
"If North Korea is prepared to take concrete and irreversible steps to fulfill its obligations and eliminate its nuclear weapons program, the United States will support economic assistance and help promote its full integration into the community of nations," Obama said. "That opportunity and respect will not come with threats. North Korea must live up to its obligations."
Obama also said the United States and its allies were working on steps to take against Iran after its apparent rejection of a nuclear deal.
"We have begun discussions with international partners about the importance of having consequences," Obama said. "Our expectation is that, over the next several weeks, we will be developing a package of potential steps we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran. I continue to hold out the prospect that they may decide to walk through this door. I hope they do."
Iran rejected a key plank of a deal Wednesday designed to ease international fears that Tehran aims to build nuclear weapons.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his country will not send its partly enriched uranium abroad to be turned into material for medical research, but added that Tehran might allow its nuclear material to be reprocessed inside Iran, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.
The deal hammered out in November with the help of the U.N. watchdog agency aimed to reduce the amount of raw material Iran has to build a nuclear bomb.
Tehran denies that it wants to do so, saying its nuclear program is to produce civilian nuclear energy and do medical work.
During their news conference, Obama and Lee also expressed support for a stalled U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement. The deal was signed in 2007, but has yet to be ratified by the legislatures of either country.
South Korea was the final stop on Obama's four-nation tour of Asia.
Obama began his trip in Japan before traveling to Singapore, where he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations economic forum, meeting on the sidelines with world leaders including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Obama then traveled to China, where he met with leaders including President Hu Jintao. After their talks, the two spoke of a common vision of shared responsibilities and economic opportunities.
Trade, nuclear proliferation, climate change and the sticky issue of human rights were part of their discussions.
Obama, whose flight will stop for refueling in Alaska, is due back in the United States on Thursday. | [
"Obama met with whom?",
"What did Obama announce?",
"Who is returning from Asia?",
"Who did Obama meet with?",
"Obama announced?",
"what did Obama met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak ?"
] | [
[
"South Korean President Lee Myung-bak"
],
[
"he will send American envoy Stephen Bosworth to North Korea on December 8 for bilateral talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear program."
],
[
"President Obama"
],
[
"South Korean President Lee Myung-bak"
],
[
"he will send American envoy Stephen Bosworth to North Korea on December 8 for bilateral talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear program."
],
[
"Nuclear negotiations involving North Korea"
]
] | President Obama returning to United States after four-nation tour of Asia .
Obama announced plans to send envoy to North Korea for nuclear talks .
Obama met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to discuss free trade agreement . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Samsung Electronics said Friday it is expecting weaker third quarter sales as demand for flat screen televisions and computer chips falls.
The South Korean technology giant forecasts an operating profit of 3.75 trillion won ($3.5 billion), down 13% from a year earlier. Profits are expected to rise though from the previous quarter by 12%.
Analysts say Samsung's handset sales are helping weaknesses in other businesses.
"Semi conductors are still strong and even if they don't make as much profit, it's not because they're less competitive, it's because the semiconductor market as a whole went down. As for smart phones, they are becoming comparable with Apple, they haven't surpassed Apple yet but they are catching up very fast," Lee Sun Tae of Meritz Securities in Seoul said.
Experts also say the strengthening US dollar against the Korean won helps exports and the bottom line. Lee estimates a small increase in the dollar's strength of less than one cent could result in an extra $250,000 profit for Samsung. Lee believes the US dollar will continue to gain strength for the rest of this year. | [
"What does the strengthening US dollar help?",
"Analysts say Samsung's handset sales are helping what?",
"Which company's handset sales are helping weaknesses?",
"What is the name of Korean currency?",
"Experts also say the strengthening US dollar against the Korean won helps what?",
"Analysts say who handset sales are helping weaknesses?"
] | [
[
"exports and the bottom line."
],
[
"weaknesses in other businesses."
],
[
"Samsung's"
],
[
"won"
],
[
"exports and the bottom line."
],
[
"Samsung's"
]
] | Analysts say Samsung's handset sales are helping weaknesses .
Experts also say the strengthening US dollar against the Korean won helps exports . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Seven crew members from a South Korean cargo ship remained missing Tuesday after the boat sank Monday in the South China Sea, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said.
Fourteen people have been rescued, according to the ministry.
The ship was headed from Penang, Malaysia, to China and disappeared after sending out an emergency signal Monday afternoon. While six South Koreans and eight crew members from Myanmar were rescued by nearby vessels, seven seamen are still missing.
The Foreign Ministry said it is still hopeful, as one crew member was rescued at noon on Tuesday -- almost 20 hours after the ship requested assistance.
Hong Kong rescuers have deployed two helicopters and seven ships to help with the search and rescue operation, while two Chinese naval vessels were en route to the scene, according to the Foreign Ministry.
The 15,000-ton sunken vessel is the same ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2008 when eight sailors were held captive for 37 days, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. The cause of the sinking so far is unknown. | [
"how many tons had the ship sank",
"when was hijacked?",
"how many persons were rescued?",
"how many person was rescued on tuesday",
"what day the boat sank",
"when the ship sank?",
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] | [
[
"15,000-ton"
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[
"2008"
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[
"Fourteen"
],
[
"Fourteen people"
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[
"Monday"
],
[
"Monday"
],
[
"a South Korean cargo ship"
]
] | Foreign Ministry: One person was rescued Tuesday, about 20 hours after a distress call .
It is unclear why the ship sank on Monday .
Report: The 15,000-ton sunken vessel was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2008 . |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Three Japanese lawmakers were denied entry at a South Korean airport Monday after they announced they would attempt a visit to an island near disputed territory in what Korea calls the East Sea and Japan calls the Sea of Japan.
The lawmakers arrived at Gimpo International Airport near Seoul at 11:20 a.m. but were denied entry by the immigration service, according the Ministry of Justice.
The trio is expected to return to Japan on a later flight, but details were not yet available, the Ministry of Justice said.
The Japanese politicians announced they would visit Ulleung Island -- adjacent to the disputed Dokdo islets -- after the two countries clashed over a civilian aircraft running a test flight over the area.
The islets in the sea to the east of Korea, known as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan, have been a prickly issue for both countries. Japan has long claimed the islets as its territory, but Seoul said all Korean territory was returned after the country won independence from colonial rule by Japan in 1945.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry warned Friday that the government would not allow the three politicians to enter the country, saying it cannot guarantee the safety of the lawmakers and that the decision is out of consideration of bilateral relations.
Monday's visit is widely viewed as an act of protest by right-wing politicians after the two countries clashed over the islets last month.
The Japanese government issued a ban on flying with South Korea's flagship airline, advising Japanese officials to refrain from flying with Korean Air in July. Korean Air had conducted a test flight over the islets twice to celebrate the launching of its new aircraft in June.
Seoul demanded Tokyo withdraw the ban, but with no success.
South Koreans view the islets as a source of national pride and have taken various measures to reassert its ownership of the islets. The land is largely uninhabited with only seven registered residents. | [
"what are islands known as?",
"What are the disputed inlets known as?",
"What are the disputed islets?",
"who conducted test flight over islets?",
"When did Korean Air conduct a test flight?",
"who announced their intent to visit disputed territory?",
"Who tested a flight over the islets in July?",
"What was announced by politicians?"
] | [
[
"Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan,"
],
[
"Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan,"
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[
"Dokdo"
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[
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[
"June."
],
[
"Three Japanese lawmakers"
],
[
"Korean Air"
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[
"they would visit Ulleung Island"
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] | The politicians announce their intent to visit an island near disputed territory .
The disputed islets are known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan .
In July, Korean Air conducted a test flight over the islets .
The Japanese government issued a ban on flying with Korean air . |
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (CNN) -- Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, under investigation in the deaths of protesters, remained Saturday in a Sharm el-Sheikh hospital where he has been receiving treatment since Tuesday, officials said.
Earlier, a military official told CNN that Mubarak had been transferred to a military facility in Cairo. However, later in the day, an official with the military in Cairo said the former leader is still in the hospital in the Red Sea resort town.
Hospital and police personnel had insisted that Mubarak was still being treated at the facility and hadn't moved from a heavily guarded section of the building.
"As long as Mr. Mubarak is here, we will stay here," said police Capt. Karim Yusuf, one of the dozens of riot police standing in a human chain outside the Sharm el-Sheikh hospital.
Justice Minister Mohamed Abdel Aziz had earlier said that when the former leader's health improves, he will be imprisoned.
Despite his health issues, Mubarak has been questioned and been under investigation by the Egyptian prosecutor-general's office since Tuesday.
He is being investigated in connection with the deaths of hundreds of activists during the recent uprising that led to his departure from office February 11. He is also under investigation for allegations of corruption and misuse of state funds.
Mubarak has been treated at the hospital since Tuesday for heart palpitations and blood pressure problems and is listed in stable condition, officials said.
He and his sons were taken into 15-day detainment Tuesday, according to a Justice Ministry spokesman. His sons are in custody in Cairo.
Aziz also said Mubarak's wife, Suzanne, will be questioned by the ministry's Office of Illicit Profiteering.
CNN's Ivan Watson, Mohammed Fadel Fahmy and Dina Amer contributed to this report. | [
"what The former leader is under investigation for?",
"Who is receiving treatment in hospital?",
"What is the reason he is under investigation?",
"what is also the subject of a corruption probe?",
"Where is Mubarak being treated?",
"Where was Mubarak moved to?",
"Who is under investigation?",
"Who was moved to a Cairo military facility?"
] | [
[
"deaths of protesters,"
],
[
"Hosni Mubarak,"
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[
"deaths of protesters,"
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[
"Mubarak"
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[
"Sharm el-Sheikh hospital"
],
[
"military facility in Cairo."
],
[
"Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak,"
],
[
"Mubarak"
]
] | NEW: A military official says Mubarak is receiving treatment at hospital .
A military official said earlier that Mubarak was moved to a Cairo military facility .
The former leader is under investigation for the deaths of activists .
He is also the subject of a corruption probe . |
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (CNN) -- The arduous Middle East peace talks continued on Tuesday in Egypt, where officials from Israel and the Palestinian Authority "have begun a serious discussion on core issues," a top U.S. diplomat said.
"They have agreed to begin first on working to achieve a framework agreement for permanent status. That work is now well under way," said U.S. special envoy George Mitchell.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas attended the sessions, along with Mitchell and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Officials met for an hour and 40 minutes in bilateral and multilateral meetings.
Mitchell briefed the media after the session and said the goals remain a two-state solution, condemnation of violence and working toward security, and a resolution of all issues. He reiterated the Obama administration's position that Israel should extend the moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank, a hiatus scheduled to end later this month.
"We believe we are moving in the right direction overall," he said.
The parties are aiming toward resolving all core issues within the next 12 months in a process that kicked off recently during a meeting between Netanyahu, Abbas and Clinton in Washington. Issues separating both sides include Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the future of Palestinian refugees, Israeli security, and the status of Jerusalem.
Clinton and Mitchell are expected to continue talks with the leaders in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Tensions are growing over the issue of possible new Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu is under pressure from the Palestinians and the Obama administration to extend a 10-month moratorium on building Israeli settlements in the disputed West Bank territory. That moratorium is set to expire September 26.
Palestinians have said the construction would torpedo the talks, but Israel says some construction is likely.
Acknowledging that the settlement issue is sensitive in Israel, Mitchell said both sides have a responsibility to continue the meetings and he called on Abbas to take steps to advance the talks.
"All issues ultimately must be resolved by the parties themselves," Mitchell told reporters. "The United States will, as we've said on many occasions, be an active and sustained partner throughout the talks and will, when necessary and appropriate, make proposals and provide encouragement to the parties. In the end, matters must be resolved by parties themselves and we hope and expect that they will do so."
Mitchell said he wouldn't divulge many details about the talks, noting the importance of confidentiality and sensitivity. But he did say "our vision is for a two-state solution."
"That includes a Jewish, democratic state of Israel living side by side in peace and security with a viable, independent, sovereign and contiguous state of Palestine. But of course, this is one of many sensitive issues the parties need to resolve themselves and that's the point of negotiations. The parties will reach agreement on all major issues."
Prior to arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Tuesday morning, Clinton said if there are no negotiations, there will be no security for Israel and no state for the Palestinians.
This isn't Clinton's first time to participate in an attempt to secure a two-state solution.
As first lady, though not a principal negotiator, she traveled to the Middle East to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in support of President Bill Clinton's policies on the issue. The president eventually hosted Israeli and Palestinian leaders at Camp David, Maryland, for what proved to be unsuccessful final-status talks.
Now, as secretary of state, Clinton has a second chance and a more direct platform to help the parties reach a comprehensive settlement.
Should Clinton help shepherd an agreement, it would "fulfill a longtime desire to succeed in this area," said Ned Walker, who was U.S. ambassador to Israel during part of President Clinton's second term.
"She has something of a long history of being involved" in the region, said Walker, who also used to be an assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. "This would | [
"What does Mitchell say?",
"What Mitchell says about discussion?",
"Where the Israeli-Palestinian meeting was hold?",
"What is the serious discussion about?",
"Who is meeting in Egypt?"
] | [
[
"\"They have agreed to begin first on working to achieve a framework agreement for permanent status. That work is now well under way,\""
],
[
"\"They have agreed to begin first on working to achieve a framework agreement for permanent status. That work is now well under way,\""
],
[
"Egypt,"
],
[
"core issues,\""
],
[
"officials from Israel and the Palestinian Authority"
]
] | NEW: Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet in Egypt .
NEW: A "serious discussion" of core issues has started .
NEW: Mitchell says "we believe we're moving in the right direction overall"
Tensions are high over the issue of building Israeli settlements in the disputed West Bank territory . |
She told stories, flirted outrageously with boys and was constantly changing her hairstyle. Anne Frank hid with her family in a secret room at her father Otto Frank's office in Amsterdam. It could be the description of almost any young girl growing up in Europe. But this is how Eva Schloss remembers her childhood friend Anne Frank, who had she not died in a Nazi concentration camp, would have celebrated her 80th birthday this week. Schloss described Frank, whose account of hiding from Jewish persecution in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam is one of the world's mostly widely-read books, as a spunky young schoolgirl with a passion for storytelling that often got her into trouble. "She got her diary in 1942, so obviously her father knew she was interested in writing and I know she told stories," said Schloss. "She talked a lot and she was called Mrs Quack Quack. Very often she used to write hundreds of lines [at school] of 'I'm not going to talk so much,' and so on -- but obviously she had a lot to tell." In some ways the two friends lived parallel lives -- but tragically they had very different outcomes. Watch more about Schloss' story » Schloss and Frank both came from Jewish families who fled to Holland to escape the wave of anti-Semitism spreading across Europe as the Nazis rose to power in Germany ahead of the Second World War. But while Schloss was more of an introvert, Frank loved the limelight. Schloss said: "I was actually quite shy and she was the center of attention. We had steps where we sat, and she had a crowd of children around her. "She was a big flirt -- she loved boys. She was always showing us who was her boyfriend at that particular time. She was always interested in her clothes. Her style, she always changed it. Sometimes she had curls, then she had straight hair." Schloss says they were unaware of the full scale of what was going on around them as war escalated across Europe, placing their lives in increasing jeopardy. "Our parents really protected us so there was no talk about the horrendous things which happened. "You couldn't go out anymore after 8 o'clock, but for a 11 to 12 year old it didn't matter so much. Or not going to the cinema -- we were upset about those little things which we couldn't do, but we really didn't really take it seriously at that time." Like Frank, Schloss was also forced into hiding when the Nazis took control of Holland. Frank hid with her family in a secret room at her father Otto Frank's office. But Schloss and her family had to split up. Schloss stayed with her mother while her father and brother hid elsewhere. She and her mother moved around, staying in seven different hiding places over a two-year period. Eventually both families were betrayed and were sent to concentration camps, where Frank died at the age of 15. Schloss said: "My father and brother were betrayed by a Dutch nurse who was a double agent, and all four of us were arrested and taken to the headquarters to be interrogated. "I didn't know anything, which was a good thing. So eventually they realized this and they gave up torturing me. Within two days we were put on a transport to Auschwitz." Of her family, only Schloss and her mother survived Auschwitz, one of the most notorious concentration camps, located in southern Poland. Today Schloss, who has just celebrated her own 80th birthday, has a husband, three daughters and five grandchildren. Schloss says it took her decades to rebuild her life, with the help of Frank's father Otto, who also survived incarceration in a concentration camp. She met Otto in August 1945, when he showed her Frank's diary. Schloss said: "He read a few passages but he always burst into tears. It took me 20 years. I was really unhappy, but it was Otto who came to | [
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"What was Frank's religion?",
"Who would turn 80 this week?",
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"Where did Anne Frank die?",
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"Where did Frank die?"
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[
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[
"a Nazi concentration camp,"
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[
"80th"
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[
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],
[
"concentration camps,"
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] | Anne Frank would have celebrated her 80th birthday this week .
Frank, 15, died at Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland .
Her diary is one of the world's mostly widely-read books .
Like Frank, Eva Schloss and her family fled from Nazi persecution of the Jews . |
Singapore (CNN) -- While economists fret whether the sharp "V"-shaped drop of the financial crisis will turn into a double-dipped "W" recovery, Tan Pheng Hock is most worried about the "P" word: Protectionism. His Singapore-based ST Engineering builds aerospace and transport systems and control centers. Most of the group's $3 billion in revenues come from exports. "When you have protectionism it breeds like a disease whereby people become so dependent on it," Tan said. "The moment you remove it you get lots of resistance." As the business and government leaders gather for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Tan has good reason to be concerned. Few economies have borne the brunt of the financial crisis -- or the "financial tsunami," as many Asian nations call it -- as has export-driven Singapore. The city-state's economic output took a record fall, with its GDP dropping 9.5 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to government statistics. Singapore lives and dies by the global economy. With no natural resources and a small domestic market, in a generation the city-state transformed itself from the third world British colony into a first world economic power by building its economy on exports and business services. While Singapore's economic health is quickly rebounding -- second quarter GDP was down only 3.5 percent, the best performance since the financial crisis exploded in September last year -- protectionist winds threaten to shatter any nascent recovery. "With the crisis we've been through there have obviously been some protectionist tendencies beginning to rise, particularly in the Western world," Tan said. "I hope we will see those quashed during the course of this week (at APEC)." Although APEC was built as an avenue to promulgate freer trade among Pacific Rim economies, the first salvos of trade disputes between China and the U.S. have many concerned. In September, the U.S. placed tariffs on Chinese made automobile tires; China responded by cutting off imports of poultry parts (including chicken feet, a delicacy in China) and auto parts. More recently, China has begun an investigation whether Washington bailouts of U.S. carmakers constitutes unfair government supports of U.S. cars sold in China. The fact that the leaders of the two nations will be gathering here on Saturday ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's first visit to China puts implicit pressure to reduce the protectionist rhetoric, said Tan Khee Giap, chairman of the Singapore National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. "At least they have to say that they will resist any form of protectionism at meetings like this," Tan said. Whether words will match deeds remains an open question. A survey of 400 business leaders released Wednesday by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council found a majority of those polled believe protectionism is likely to increase if the global recovery stalls. CNN's Andrew Stevens and Kevin Voigt contributed to this story. | [
"what concerns many?",
"What has many concerned?",
"what may APEC meeting help?",
"what is down 5.3 percent?",
"What will APEC meeting do?"
] | [
[
"first salvos of trade disputes between China and the U.S."
],
[
"Protectionism."
],
[
"reduce the protectionist rhetoric,"
],
[
"second quarter GDP"
],
[
"resist any form of protectionism"
]
] | Singapore's 2Q GDP down 3.5 percent, best performance since crisis hit .
Performance follows 1Q GDP drop of 9.5 percent .
Trade disputes between China, United States have many concerned .
APEC meeting may help reduce protectionist rhetoric, observer says . |
Singapore (CNN) -- U.S. President Barack Obama, on his first Asia trip since taking office in January, arrived Saturday in Singapore to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum.
In addition to the meetings with the APEC heads of state, Obama planned to hold three bilateral meetings -- with the leaders of Russia, Indonesia and Singapore.
APEC's 21 member nations represent more than half of the world's economic output. The forum sees its goal as "facilitating economic growth, cooperation, trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region."
Obama will become the first U.S. president to take part in a summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic alliance. The formal meeting is Sunday.
Earlier Saturday, Obama told a packed house at Tokyo's Suntory Hall that all Americans should know that what happens in Asia "has a direct effect on our lives at home."
The president leaves Sunday for Shanghai, China.
The trip, which lasts more than a week, is Obama's first to Asia since taking office in January. In his Tokyo speech, Obama touted himself as America's "first Pacific president," and pledged a renewed engagement with Asia Pacific nations based on "an enduring and revitalized alliance between the United States and Japan."
He touched on nearly every part of the Asia Pacific region during his speech, and talked about a boyhood visit to Japan with his mother, his birth in Hawaii, a childhood spent partly in Indonesia and the United States' position as a Pacific nation.
"There must be no doubt: as America's first Pacific president, I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world," he said.
He emphasized that the United States was not interested in containing the emerging economic growth in China.
Obama also called on Myanmar to make more definitive moves toward democracy, including releasing all political prisoners.
He urged North Korea to return to the Six-Party Talks so the reclusive nation can be reintegrated into the world stage and pledged America's support for eliminating nuclear weapons and efforts to reduce the global effects of climate change.
In China, Obama will continue efforts to define and strengthen the United States' relationship with the world's largest emerging economy, which has a growing influence in Asia, said Jeffrey Bader, the National Security Council's senior director for East Asian affairs.
Bader cited North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the economy, climate change, human rights and Afghanistan as among the top issues for the China swing. On human rights, Bader said Obama is likely to address "freedom of expression, access to information, freedom of religion, rule of law and, certainly, Tibet."
Obama will make clear to Chinese President Hu Jintao that he intends to meet with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, Bader said. China, which rejects Tibetan aspirations for autonomy, opposes such high-level contacts with the Dalai Lama. | [
"Where is the APEC summit?",
"where will obama go",
"did obama say anything",
"Who arrived at the APEC summit?",
"Who does Obama renew ties with?",
"Where U.S. President Barack Obama arrive?",
"What did Obama say in Saturday speech?",
"what did obama do"
] | [
[
"Singapore"
],
[
"Shanghai, China."
],
[
"\"There must be no doubt: as America's first Pacific president, I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world,\""
],
[
"U.S. President Barack Obama,"
],
[
"Asia Pacific nations"
],
[
"Singapore"
],
[
"happens in Asia \"has a direct effect on our lives at home.\""
],
[
"attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum."
]
] | U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Singapore for APEC summit .
U.S. leader expected to individually meet with leaders of Russia, Indonesia, Singapore .
In Saturday speech, Obama renews U.S. ties with Japan, reaches out to China .
Obama: Rise "of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength . |
Sirte, Libya (CNN) -- Mutassim Gadhafi, a son of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, was reported captured Wednesday after a four-hour firefight in Sirte, said Abdallah Naker, the head of the Tripoli Revolutionary Council, who cited field commanders in Sirte as his sources.
But two senior National Transitional Council spokesmen said the report was unconfirmed and a third reportedly denied the claim.
Col. Ahmed Bani, the official spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said the capture had not been confirmed. And NTC spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah told CNN from Benghazi that the report had not been corroborated.
Abudlmolah said Hassan al-Droyee, NTC's Sirte representative who is currently in Tripoli, denied the report.
Mutassim Gadhafi and a number of aides were captured around noon in an area considered the center of operations for Gadhafi loyalists, Naker said. They were then taken to Benghazi, he said. The scion had been directing operations in Sirte, the hometown of his father, which had been surrounded since Tuesday night, Naker said.
CNN teams in Tripoli and Sirte heard celebratory gunfire ring out as reports of the capture spread. From Benghazi, National Transitional Council spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah said there was massive celebratory gunfire there, too.
Anti-Gadhafi forces have previously reported captures of Gadhafi relatives that proved to be untrue.
CNN's Mohammed Fadel Fahmy contributed to this story | [
"Where was the firefight?",
"Who was taken after a firefight in Sirte?",
"Who said the report is not confirmed?",
"Is the report confirmed?"
] | [
[
"Sirte,"
],
[
"Moammar Gadhafi,"
],
[
"two senior National Transitional Council spokesmen"
],
[
"unconfirmed"
]
] | NEW: Two NTC spokesmen say the report is not confirmed; a third denies it .
Mutassim Gadhafi taken after firefight in Sirte, says leader of revolutionary council .
Previous reports of captures of Gadhafi relatives have proven untrue . |
Sirte, Libya (CNN) -- On the outskirts of Sirte, a mansion with a columned facade lies in ruins, though its opulence is still evident under shattered glass and chunks of concrete. This was Moammar Gadhafi's home in the city of his birth.
The house had its own salon with barber chairs and massage tables. Ornate four-poster beds furnished the bedrooms and there were lavish decorations all around.
In the basement is a large conference room. Is this where Gadhafi planned his last stand or arranged for his escape?
The deposed leader has not been seen in public for months. His whereabouts are unknown but some believe he may still be hiding in Sirte.
People wandering through the house are stunned. They thought Gadhafi lived in a tent.
Most residents have abandoned Sirte after a month of fierce battles. Revolutionary forces have fought Gadhafi loyalists street by street, cornering the last vestiges of the old regime to one district. With their backs to the Mediterranean, the loyalists used machine gun nests and snipers atop buildings to fight back Friday.
The sound of rockets and artillery pierced the air; smoke billowed over the skyline.
Time and time again, the revolutionaries have come to the brink of victory. But they have not been able to claim it yet.
Until they do, the National Transitional Council will not declare liberation in Libya. Taking control of Gadhafi's hometown is key to moving forward in building a new nation.
Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF or in English, Doctors Without Borders) said some of Sirte's residents remain trapped in the fighting. The medical charity said it has been able to work at the Ibn Sina hospital. from where the International Committee of the Red Cross is evacuating patients to Tripoli.
The 50 remaining patients are mostly people who have suffered violent trauma, severe burns and fractures, according to MSF. Almost all patients need daily dressing and immediate medical care. There are also some pregnant women in the hospital.
There is no water supply in the hospital and one of four operating theaters has been shelled, MSF said. The medical staff has been working around the clock and are showing signs of exhaustion and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Outside, a rag-tag army marches into battle again, many of the men strangely nonchalant as they stroll to the fight. Friday, the transitional council fighters were forced to retreat. They will regroup and push again, hoping for a highly anticipated victory.
CNN's Dan Rivers and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report. | [
"What is deserted",
"What happened to Sirte?",
"Does deposed leader Gadhafi still has supporters?",
"What does the house have?"
] | [
[
"Sirte"
],
[
"fierce battles."
],
[
"loyalists"
],
[
"its own salon with barber chairs and massage tables."
]
] | Moammar Gadhafi's house had ornate furnishings and a salon with barber chairs .
Gadhafi loyalists are still putting up a fight in the deposed leader's hometown .
Sirte is largely deserted after a month of fighting .
Libya's new leadership is waiting for Sirte to fall to declare liberation . |
Smokers with high levels of a carcinogen byproduct (NNAL) are at higher risk of developing lung cancer. Smoking is a lot like Russian roulette: You never know who will end up developing lung cancer and who won't. But Dr. Jian-Min Yuan, as well as other researchers from the University of Minnesota, say they are one step closer to determining a smoker's risk for developing the disease. In a study, they tracked the carcinogen and nicotine levels in nearly 500 smokers through a simple urine test and discovered a link between the level of a specific carcinogen and lung cancer. Their findings were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference. Why did researchers track only the levels of one carcinogen? We all know that tobacco smoke is bad: It's loaded with 60 different carcinogens, which cause all sorts of health risks. There is one carcinogen in particular that researchers suspected for years contributed to human lung cancer. But there were never any scientific human studies showing this relationship. This carcinogen is known as NNK. It releases into your body when you inhale smoke, quickly passes through the liver, gets metabolized and releases NNAL, a byproduct of NNK, into the bloodstream. University of Minnesota researchers were tracking the NNAL levels via urine samples. Watch Dr. Gupta explain the findings » How much did a person have to smoke to develop high levels of NNAL? The exact amount is a little tricky to determine because a lot depends on how honest a person is about how many cigarettes he or she smoked per day. Additionally, the type of cigarette and how deeply a person inhales could affect the amount of carcinogens in the body. Researchers say a person with high levels of NNAL and high levels of nicotine (equivalent to smoking about a pack of cigarettes a day) is 8.5 times more likely to develop lung cancer compared with a smoker with lower levels. While the researchers point out that not everyone who has a high level of NNAL is going to develop lung cancer, it does help assign a number to a risk that was hard to quantify before. Isn't smoking bad for you regardless? What is the benefit of having this type of information? There is nothing healthy about smoking. Even if this test pegs you at low risk of developing lung cancer, it doesn't mean you won't develop a dozen other cancers commonly cause by smoking. If you smoke, the No. 1 thing you should do is quit. But that is easier said than done. If it were easy, 23 percent of adults in the United States would not smoke regularly. One benefit of knowing whether a smoker is at increased risk for lung cancer is for his or her doctor to screen the person regularly for abnormalities, in the hopes of catching the cancer early. Lung cancer is but one consequence of smoking, so this type of testing is not going to fix everything. But as far as lung cancer goes, it may give people a better idea of when and how often to get screened. Reported by CNN's Danielle Dellorto | [
"what was the study about?",
"What link has been quantified?",
"What could tests identify?",
"What was the risk for smokers?",
"What did researchers track?",
"What did the study quantify?",
"What did they do with urine samples?"
] | [
[
"they tracked the carcinogen and nicotine levels in nearly 500 smokers"
],
[
"between the level of a specific carcinogen and lung cancer."
],
[
"link between the level of a specific carcinogen and lung cancer."
],
[
"developing lung cancer."
],
[
"carcinogen and nicotine levels in nearly 500 smokers"
],
[
"a risk"
],
[
"tracking the NNAL levels"
]
] | First study to quantify link between carcinogen byproduct and lung cancer rates .
Researchers tracked levels of byproduct (NNAL) using urine samples .
Smokers with high levels of NNAL doubled their risk of developing lung cancer .
Test could identify high-risk people, aid in early detection and treatment .
Bottom Line: This test may one day be used to identify smokers at high risk for lung cancer, but won't help against smoking's other health hazards. |
South Hadley, Massachusetts (CNN) -- The 15-year-old girl who hanged herself last January after enduring months of bullying from schoolmates failed to alert others to her plight, the superintendent of South Hadley Schools said Thursday.
The girl, Phoebe Prince, "was apparently a very private person; she bore a lot without talking to friends or with her parents or with anybody at school," Gus Sayer told CNN.
"She didn't reveal to people what she was being subjected to and, unfortunately, until January 7, we were not aware of what she was being subjected to, so [there was] very little way we could have intervened in the bullying."
Sayer cited two incidents that occurred on January 7. In one, a girl walked into a classroom and called Prince "an Irish slut," he said. The name caller was taken to the principal's office and disciplined, he said.
In the other, a girl "said something threatening about Phoebe" to another girl, he said. A staff member overheard the comment and reported it to the principal, who took disciplinary action, Sayer said.
He said it was school policy not to specify what disciplinary actions may have been taken against any individual student, though he said the latter case did not include expulsion and that the student returned to school.
"To our knowledge the action taken was effective in ending their involvement in any bullying of Phoebe," he said.
Prince, who had recently moved with her family from Ireland to South Hadley, hanged herself on January 14 after enduring what Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth B. Scheibel described to reporters Monday as "a nearly three-month campaign of verbally assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm toward Phoebe, on school grounds, by several South Hadley High School students."
Six students were named in an indictment returned by a grand jury Friday and made public Monday. In addition, Scheibel said three female students received juvenile charges, but she would not clarify if they were among the six named in the indictment.
That left even Sayer confused. "There could be as many as nine, but I believe that six" is the correct number, he said.
Though authorities did not consider that the actions or failures to act by the faculty, staff and administrators of the school amounted to criminal behavior, prosecutor Scheibel called for them to undergo training to learn to intervene more effectively in such cases.
But administrators in the school district, who oversee the education of 2,100 students in four schools, are being unfairly blamed for the death, Sayer said.
Those critics include a number of parents who have demanded that the administrators resign.
"They really don't know what's going on in the schools, but they feel that this shouldn't have happened and that, somehow, it has to be the fault of the schools themselves," Sayer said. "Frankly, I think that grossly oversimplifies the situation."
Sayer said he had received hundreds of vituperative messages from the community. "They are awful," he said, citing one that said he should be "burning in hell."
He said he was trying to ignore them.
None of the six students identified in the indictment remains in school, he added.
Sayer said he supported the punishments meted out to the students.
"If they, as they have been charged, committed crimes, they should face the consequences for those crimes," he said.
But, he added, expulsion is something educators are reluctant to countenance.
"It's a terrible punishment because that changes their whole lives and what they are capable of doing, and they have to figure out a way to renew and complete their education."
CNN's Alina Cho contributed to this story. | [
"What happened to Phoebe Prince ?",
"Who received ugly messages and threats?",
"Whats the name of the person who commited suicide?",
"What age was the person?"
] | [
[
"hanged herself"
],
[
"Phoebe Prince,"
],
[
"Phoebe Prince,"
],
[
"15-year-old"
]
] | Irish immigrant Phoebe Prince, 15, hanged herself in January in Massachusetts .
South Hadley superintendent says Prince didn't let school officials know of her troubles .
Gus Sayer says first knowledge of bullying campaign came just one week earlier .
He says he's received hundreds of ugly messages, threats . |
Srinigar, Indian-administered Kashmir (CNN) -- Indian authorities flooded the streets of Srinagar with security forces Thursday to quell four days of violence sparked by the death of a schoolboy.
Authorities were attempting to disperse anti-India protesters Sunday when a tear gas shell hit the 13-year-old boy, Whamiq Farooq Wani, in the head and killed him as he played cricket in a stadium, protesters say.
While a formal curfew has not been declared, security forces have been keeping people off the streets.
Police said having security forces deployed has kept down violence over the last four days.
A senior police officer said more than 100 people, including members of the Indian security forces, were wounded in the violent clashes between the Muslim protesters and security forces -- who used tear gas and baton charges to disperse the mobs.
Two young protesters were hit by tear gas and smoke shells in Wednesday's violence in the old city, and hospital sources said their conditions are serious.
Clashes and incidents of stone-throwing by anti-India protesters continued to be reported from various points in Kashmir Thursday.
Srinagar, the capital city, remained shut along with other towns in protest of the teenaged boy's death. Shops, businesses and government offices were closed.
Indian police and paramilitary troops, as well as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), erected barricades at road intersections in Srinagar's old city to cut off pedestrian and vehicular traffic, witnesses said.
"The people were not allowed to go out of their homes to buy milk and other essential items this morning. The security forces are enforcing tight restrictions in our area," said resident Ayub Zargarc reached by telephone.
The security restrictions were not as stringent outside the old city, where some vehicular and pedestrian movement was seen on the streets patrolled by the Indian police.
"Barring a few stone-pelting incidents, the overall situation in Kashmir remained peaceful today," Farooq Ahmad, inspector general of police in the Kashmir zone, told CNN.
Authorities arrested two senior leaders of the pro-dialogue moderate separatist conglomerate All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and placed its chairman, Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq, under house arrest today, according to police. Authorities said they were arrested to prevent them from fomenting trouble in the city. | [
"What was a 13 year old boy hit with in the clash?",
"Where is the violence happening?",
"What hit the 13-year-old?",
"how many people were injured in the confrontation?",
"In what city did Indian security forces quell violence sparked by a schoolboy's death?",
"How many people were wounded in clashes between Muslim protestors and security forces?",
"How many people were wounded?"
] | [
[
"tear gas shell"
],
[
"Srinagar"
],
[
"tear gas shell"
],
[
"more than 100"
],
[
"Srinagar"
],
[
"more than 100"
],
[
"100"
]
] | Indian security forces in Srinagar to quell violence sparked by death of schoolboy .
Authorities trying to disperse anti-India protesters when tear gas shell hit 13-year-old .
Police say 100 people wounded in clashes between Muslim protesters and security forces . |
St. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- Cindy McCain praised her husband, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, as "someone of unusual strength and character" in a speech to the Republican National Convention on Thursday. Cindy McCain speaks at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night. "You can trust his hand at the wheel," she said, adding: "But you know what -- I've always thought it's a good idea to have a woman's hand on the wheel as well. So how about Gov. Sarah Palin!" Delegates erupted in cheers at the mention of McCain's running mate, the governor of Alaska. Cindy McCain said her husband's run for the White House "is not about us. It's about our special and exceptional country." She called Americans the most generous people in history, and said "our hearts are still alive with hope and belief in our individual ability to make things right if only the federal government would get itself under control and out of our way," prompting cheers from the delegates. Watch Cindy McCain speak at the convention » Cindy McCain wore jewelled pins reading "USMC" and "Navy" and a flag with a star in honor of her two sons in military service, Jimmy and Jack. She introduced a Rwandan genocide survivor she identified only as Ernestine to illustrate the importance of forgiveness, and said John McCain also exemplified the virtue. "Forgiveness is not just a personal issue: it's why John led the effort to normalize relations with Vietnam; to retrieve the remains of our MIAs; to bring closure to both sides," she said. "That's leadership -- national leadership. And it's leading by example," she said. "This is a good man, a worthy man, I know," she said. "I have loved him with all my heart for almost 30 years and I humbly recommend him to you tonight as our nominee for the next president of the United States." She left the stage to the strains of "Johnny B. Goode," which McCain often uses on the campaign trail. | [
"who is Cindy McCain?",
"What does American need?"
] | [
[
"her husband, Republican presidential nominee John"
],
[
"\"someone of unusual strength and character\""
]
] | Cindy McCain: America needs someone of unusual strength and character to lead .
Cindy McCain: "Someone exactly like my husband"
McCain served in Washington without becoming a Washington insider, she says . |
St. Petersburg, Florida (CNN) -- I first met Dan Wheldon in 2003, when he stepped into the cockpit of the Klein Tools/Jim Beam Indy car at Andretti Green Racing, just before the third race of the season at the Twin Ring Motegi racing track in eastern Japan.
He was a cocky, fastidious 23-year-old in those days, with a quick step and a winning way that made him seem like a modern-day Dickens character brought to life.
"Young Wheldon," I called him back then.
He loved that.
We began our Honda Racing careers together. I was hired by the company around the same time Dan was hired as test driver for development of the Honda engine that would make its IndyCar debut during that season.
In short order, he became one of Honda's favorite sons. In 2004, he became the first Honda-powered driver ever to win an IndyCar event at the magnificent Motegi complex. The Honda-owned course had not seen one of its own cars take the checkered flag at its signature event in six futile attempts.
He won Motegi again in 2005 and then went on to win that year's Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar Series championship, a feat that has not since been matched.
There were numerous highlights after that: 16 IndyCar victories in all, culminating in this year's completely implausible win in the Centennial Indianapolis 500.
Services held for Wheldon in Florida
That's what the record book says. It documents Dan's legacy in numbers. But it doesn't come close to capturing his legacy in the hearts of those who knew him.
The Dan I knew was more than a racer. He was a friend. A husband. A father. A hero.
He loved shoes. He loved watches. He loved the food my trackside chef, Tim Olszewski, prepared at virtually every IndyCar Series event. (That hardly made him unique -- Tim is a really good chef.)
What set Dan apart was his genuine interest in all the members of the hospitality staff. He treated them all as his equals, and as a consequence, they were all left equally shattered after the tragedy.
Around the track, just about everyone had their own "Dan Wheldon moment." He had an uncanny talent to connect quickly and personally with everyone he met -- whether high-dollar sponsor or Turn 3 bleacher-ite -- and to give each of them something far more valuable than an autograph or a photo. He left them with his kindness, his spirit.
He never turned down a single request, whether it was for an appearance at a dealer meeting, a ride-and-drive with the media or a quick "Hello" to a group of trackside guests.
In each case, he brought a smile that was manufactured only in the most literal sense -- his realigned teeth after his '05 championship were an ongoing source of paddock amusement -- but genuine in every other imaginable way.
In a world where part of the competitive ethos is to convey at all costs an impression of invulnerability, Dan was the exception. As a colleague said to me the other day, "He let you in."
My Dan Wheldon moment occurred after the Centennial Indianapolis 500 this past May. After winning the prestigious race for the second time, Dan had just concluded an exuberant celebratory victory lap at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He returned to Victory Circle to begin the Hat Dance -- that incessant procession of ballcaps and photo ops, which, for understandable reasons, lasts about five times as long at Indianapolis as at any other track on the IndyCar Series circuit.
Dan had just stepped into the cockpit, and had the first hat in hand, when he looked to his left and saw me standing along the railing that divided the race car from the rabble.
He placed the hat on the car's nose, got out, walked around to my side of the car and grabbed me. I barely remember what he said to me, but I do remember hearing a loud cheer from the grandstand above us in Victory Circle. | [
"who is He wore a genuine smile and shared his spirit?",
"What did Wheldon treat all hospitality staff as?",
"who is Dan Wheldon?",
"What did Wheldon do?",
"Who wore a geniune smile?",
"Who was a hero?"
] | [
[
"\"Dan Wheldon"
],
[
"his equals,"
],
[
"a cocky, fastidious 23-year-old"
],
[
"He placed the hat on the car's nose, got out, walked around to my side of the car and grabbed me."
],
[
"\"Dan Wheldon"
],
[
"Dan Wheldon"
]
] | Thomas "T.E." McHale: Dan Wheldon was more than a superb driver -- he was a hero .
McHale says Wheldon treated all hospitality staff members as his equals; his death was tragic .
He wore a genuine smile and shared his spirit with all who wanted a part of it, McHale says .
McHale calls Wheldon's spirit "something far more valuable than an autograph or a photo" |
State College, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Penn State students and alumni held a candlelight vigil late Sunday to honor and remember Joe Paterno, the iconic former football coach.
Paterno, 85, died Sunday at a State College, Pennsylvania, hospital, according to his family. He had been suffering from lung cancer and had recently broken his pelvis.
"It is with great sadness that we announce that Joe Paterno passed away earlier today," said the statement. "His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled."
Students braved freezing temperatures to attend the vigil on the lawn of the Old Main building on Penn State's campus. They held candles, locked arms, and sung the school's alma mater to say goodbye.
Later, they walked over to a statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium, which has become a sort of makeshift memorial.
"He's more than a coach; his family's more than a family," said Bethanna Edmiston, a local resident and alumna who met her husband at Penn State.
"It's extremely difficult for the whole Nittany nation," she said. "Unless you're part of Penn State, you just don't understand what it means."
Share your thoughts on Paterno's death
Earlier on Sunday, many fans were seen crying as they stood at the statue. It features Paterno with his index finger outstretched in the "No. 1" gesture. A quote from Paterno, who spent 61 years at Penn State, is on the wall behind the statue.
"They ask me what I'd like written about me when I'm gone," the quote says. "I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach."
Edmiston said she moved to State College at age 8, as Paterno took the reins at Penn State.
"Our family thanks Penn Staters, students & all people for prayers & support for my Dad," Paterno's son, Jay Paterno, tweeted Sunday, "He felt your support in his fight."
Family statement: "He fought hard until the end"
The gathering at the statue has been ongoing since Saturday night, after a family spokesman said Paterno's condition had worsened.
Some shoveled snow so others could walk up and touch Paterno's outstretched hand on his statue.
Signs, flowers and candles surrounded the statue, along with photographs of Paterno. "You're our hero," one said. Another one, flanked by candles, simply said: "Coach."
Jay Paterno tweeted Saturday night that he drove by the statue, and that the love and support inspired his father.
"He died as he lived," the family statement said. "He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been."
Media falsely report Paterno's death
Several websites that reported Saturday night that Paterno had died later apologized for the error, including the Penn State student news website Onward State, the first to report the erroneous information.
Paterno was fired in November amid outrage over the handling of accusations against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who faces more than 50 counts involving sexual acts with 10 boys since 1994. Sandusky has pleaded not guilty.
But several of those gathered at the statue Sunday remembered Paterno as a unifying presence both at the university and in State College.
"I want everyone in our whole country to know that Joe united us," said Diane Farley, a Penn State alumna and current university employee. "And I don't want anyone to point fingers at anyone anymore, and I want them to know that State College is a place that cares, because Joe cared, and there's just been a lot of confusion in the past six weeks ... We're all on this Earth together. We're all going to go out eventually, like Joe, and we need to be a little bit more loving and caring with each other."
"They're just | [
"Who felt supported by fans?",
"What was the reason for a candlelight vigil?",
"What did the student alumni hold?",
"Who was fired?",
"What day did the iconic coach die on?",
"Who died on Sunday?",
"What age was Paterno when he died?",
"What was Paternoster fired for?"
] | [
[
"Joe Paterno,"
],
[
"honor and remember Joe Paterno,"
],
[
"a candlelight vigil"
],
[
"Paterno"
],
[
"Sunday"
],
[
"Joe Paterno,"
],
[
"85,"
],
[
"amid outrage over the handling of accusations against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who faces more than 50 counts involving sexual acts with 10 boys since 1994."
]
] | NEW: Student, alumni hold a candlelight vigil .
Paterno's son to fans: "He felt your support in his fight"
The iconic coach died Sunday at age 85 .
Paterno was fired over the handling of sex abuse claims against a former assistant . |
Sumatra, Indonesia (CNN) -- A loud crack echoes throughout the canopy as two young orangutans come tumbling down, grasping at branches along the way to break their fall. They recover and sheepishly scamper back up. This is lesson one of jungle school here in the forests of central Sumatra, one of the few places where orangutans are being successfully rehabilitated into the wild. "They have to learn that their whole environment is completely different from the cage," says Peter Pratje of the Frankfurt Zoological Society. "They have to learn that branches and small trees -- the size of bars in the cage -- don't carry them any longer. They bend and break." "During the first phase of this jungle training, they are very often falling out of the trees because they use rotten branches." The two youngsters swing awkwardly between the trees. On the ground below, their trainers keep a watchful eye and try to coax them toward fruit trees. Learning to forage is another crucial lesson in survival. Back in the massive enclosure, the orangutans undergo enrichment exercises to keep their minds occupied and prolong their feeding time. Success here is critical. Scientists say the Sumatran orangutan will be the first great ape to go extinct. "The orangutan is an extremely vulnerable species because they have a very slow breeding cycle. Usually an orangutan stays for around 7 to 9 years with its mother," Pratje says. "Besides natural mortality, if there is only a little increase in mortality over a longer time already it drives an orangutan population to extinction." The numbers of Sumatran orangutans have already dwindled to around 6,000. The main reason for that is habitat destruction. Sumatra has lost 85 percent of its natural forest, mainly due to palm oil and pulp and paper companies, scientists say. The sanctuary, a Frankfurt Zoological Project, is just outside the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. The lowlands surrounding it are an ideal habitat for orangutans, and it's where those that have been released are choosing to build their habitats. According to the environmental group WWF, it's also home to the endangered Sumatran elephant and a quarter of the critically endangered Sumatran tigers left in the wild. But the area, which is not currently protected, is being threatened by pulp and paper companies that want to see the region turned into plantations. So far the government has rejected logging permits, but unless this is declared a conservation area, Pratje and other conservationists fear that could change. So far, more than 100 orangutans have been released here, with just over a dozen more in various stages of training. Pratje has lived here since he established the sanctuary seven years ago, dedicating his entire life to this project. "It's like fighting for a member of my family," he says. "I love them because they are smart, smarter than other great apes." But he says the fight is not just about the extinction of a species. The orangutan has become the ambassador for the threatened rainforest. "If we sacrifice these forests, we may sacrifice our chances for getting medicine for important diseases," he says. "The problem is there is no second chance. If you shut down an ecosystem that is hundreds of years old, you can't regrow it any longer. "So this is the last chance." | [
"What are orangutans in Sumatra threatened by?",
"What makes the orangutan vulnerable?",
"What is a vulnerable species?",
"What did Peter Pratje say?",
"What does Peter Pratje say about the orangutans?"
] | [
[
"habitat destruction."
],
[
"they have a very slow breeding cycle."
],
[
"\"The orangutan"
],
[
"\"They have to learn that their whole environment is completely different from the cage,\""
],
[
"\"They have to learn that their whole environment is completely different from the cage,\""
]
] | Peter Pratje says orangutans in Sumatra are threatened by pulp and paper companies .
He's working to introduce orangutans back into the wild .
"The orangutan is an extremely vulnerable species," Pratje says . |
Sunny Hostin is a legal analyst on CNN's "American Morning." Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano represented himself at his federal trial. The jury's still out. NEW YORK (CNN) -- There's a courthouse adage: A person who represents himself has a fool for a client. When a defendant utters those tragic words, "I'm going to represent myself," judges blanch, attorneys snicker, and even the court reporters grimace. I've been on the opposite side of those who have chosen to represent themselves. It wasn't pleasant. Since 1975, when the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment "grants to the accused personally the right to make his own defense," many defendants have decided to take the law literally into their own hands. The most recent self-represented "client" is Anthony Pellicano, the Hollywood private investigator who's been on trial for 78 counts lodged against him and two co-defendants. Pellicano's jury has been out for a week, so it's not yet clear whether the outcome of his case will follow the conventional wisdom. The 64-year-old celebrity sleuth is accused of leading a criminal enterprise that raked in more than $2 million by illegally spying, allegedly using wiretaps and law enforcement databases, on Hollywood's rich and famous. He then dished the dirt to their rivals. If convicted of leading a criminal conspiracy, known as a RICO charge, he could spend up 20 years to life in prison. RICO, by the way, stands for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. It's the law the Justice Department used to bring down the mob. Prosecutors have to prove that Pellicano and his co-defendants ran a corrupt enterprise that profited from information they obtained illegally. U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer granted Pellicano's request to represent himself, but she wasn't too happy about it. "If the U.S. Supreme Court didn't require me to let defendants represent themselves, I wouldn't do it," she said. Even without a law degree, Pellicano seemed to realize that getting the jury to acquit him of the conspiracy charge was important. During his 15-minute closing argument, he denied he led a criminal enterprise and insisted that he acted as a "lone ranger" while gathering information for his clients. He also told the jurors that he shared no information with colleagues as he conducted investigations and allowed others to learn only what he wanted them to know. "There was no criminal enterprise or conspiracy. Mr. Pellicano alone is responsible. That is the simple truth," he said, referring to himself in the third person. But unlike a seasoned attorney, he failed to address the evidence against him, including illegally taped conversations. Instead, he bragged about his career, while wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, saying of himself, again in the third person: "Perhaps his business card should read, 'I deliver,' because he did it over and over again." Courtroom observers said his "cross-examination" often consisted of little more than settling old scores. So is Pellicano a fool, or absolutely brilliant? Well, if history is our teacher, he would do better if he had a lawyer, even a bad one. If you have a bad lawyer and you get convicted, you can always argue on appeal that your lawyer was ineffective and get a new trial. The following self-appointed lawyers learned the hard way that they had fools for clients: In fact, I can't think of a defendant who represented himself or herself as well, or better, than a lawyer. So maybe I'm biased, but lawyers are trained professionals. We're trained in the art of trial war. Let us do our jobs. | [
"who represented himself?",
"Anthony Pellicano chose to represent himself at what?",
"Who usually doesn't do well with juries?",
"what is his job?",
"what is he accused of?",
"Pellicano is accused of what?",
"Who chose to represent himself at his trial?"
] | [
[
"Anthony Pellicano"
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[
"his federal trial."
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[
"Anthony Pellicano"
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"a legal analyst"
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[
"spying, allegedly using wiretaps and law enforcement databases,"
],
[
"leading a criminal enterprise"
],
[
"Anthony Pellicano"
]
] | Private eye Anthony Pellicano chose to represent himself at his trial .
Pellicano is accused of illegally gathering dirt for A-list clients .
People who represent themselves usually don't do well with juries . |
Surrey, British Columbia (CNN) -- Canadian authorities braced for protests expected to take place near Vancouver, British Columbia, on Thursday outside an event where former U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are scheduled to appear.
Amnesty International called on Canadian authorities to arrest Bush for "war crimes" while activists announced Occupy Wall Street-style protests of the economic summit in Surrey where the former presidents were scheduled to speak along with world finance experts.
"We would prefer his home country try George W. Bush," said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada.
Neve said Bush should face trial for ordering the so-called enhanced interrogation, such as water boarding, of suspected terrorists.
"But the Obama administration has made it clear they do not intend to do that, so we are asking Canada to. We are not naive. It's an uphill fight but we feel we have a strong case," Neve said.
Across social media and the Internet, activists called for an "Occupy Surrey" protest similar to demonstrations in dozens of cities decrying Wall Street excess.
Several recent Occupy Wall Street demonstrations led to property damage and arrests.
Authorities in Canada said they were prepared for potential clashes with protesters, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
RCMP Cpl. Drew Grainger said in a statement the force is going to "respect the rights to democratic and lawful protest and is approaching this event no different than other similar events with a potential for conflict."
The summit is taking place in Surrey, a city just south of Vancouver with a population of about 370,000.
Organizers are charging about $600 a head for an audience of about 500 people to listen to speakers, including Bush and Clinton.
According to the summit agenda, the two ex-presidents will share the stage for about an hour to discuss a variety of topics including "new realities of the North American economy."
The talk given by the two presidents is scheduled to begin at 3:45 p.m. ET and will be closed to the media, organizers said. The government of Canada, a close U.S. ally, has not commented on protesters' calls to arrest Bush.
But the country's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told the Vancouver Sun newspaper the request was not being taken seriously.
"Amnesty International cherry-picks cases to publicize based on ideology," Kenney said. "This kind of stunt helps explain why so many respected human rights advocates have abandoned Amnesty International."
Last month, protesters appeared at a Vancouver event for former vice president Dick Cheney promote his book. | [
"What is expected at an event in Vancouver?",
"What does Amnesty International want?",
"Where will the event take place?",
"Where will they speak?"
] | [
[
"protests"
],
[
"to arrest Bush for \"war crimes\""
],
[
"Vancouver, British Columbia,"
],
[
"Surrey, a city just south of Vancouver"
]
] | Protests are expected at a Vancouver event with Bush and Clinton .
Amnesty International wants Bush arrested for war crimes .
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is ready for clashes .
The ex-presidents plan to speak at an economic summit . |
Suzanne Simons is an executive producer at CNN as well as author of the book "Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War" (Collins, June 2009). Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, is pictured in Afghanistan in November 2007. (CNN) -- The private military contractor formerly known as Blackwater has held classified contracts with the Central Intelligence Agency for nearly a decade, but an allegation that the contractor was part of a secret CIA program to kill al Qaeda operatives -- if true -- would take the relationship to a whole new level. The CIA hired the private security firm Blackwater USA in 2004 to work on a covert program aimed at targeting and potentially killing top al Qaeda leaders, a source familiar with the program told CNN. Former company executives deny knowing about the program. Current leaders of the company did not return calls to CNN. The CIA won't comment on classified contracts. The classified program, canceled by CIA director Leon Panetta earlier this year, was part of a broader effort inside the CIA to develop the capacity to conduct training, surveillance and possible covert operations overseas, according to the source. The program was outsourced to contractors to "put some distance" between the effort and the U.S. government. Other contractors were brought in for other parts of the program, another source said, and Blackwater's involvement ended by mid-2006. But one thing is clear: The company that renamed itself Xe earlier this year in an effort to escape controversy surrounding a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead has had a long relationship with the world's most famous spy agency. When Erik Prince first opened his Blackwater training facility in the late '90s, his clients included special forces teams and law enforcement agencies from around the country. Prince had expressed frustration with the training facilities he visited during his time as a Navy SEAL, and a sizable inheritance allowed him the financial freedom to retire from the military and try his hand at creating a better facility. His first clients were indeed SEAL teams. But they also included teams from other government agencies, including the CIA. Case officers and protection details, the people generally accustomed to working in the shadows, began showing up for training on the shooting range or the driving track in a rural part of North Carolina. When then-CIA Executive Director Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, whose own son was a Navy SEAL, visited the facility, former Blackwater President Gary Jackson suggested he meet with Prince, who worked out of an office in the Washington area. The two had lunch and Krongard immediately took a liking to the man who would later lead the world's most notorious private contracting company. At the time, contacts like these were essential to building the business, so when terror struck the heart of America in September 2001, Prince called up his new friend Krongard and offered to help. Sources inside the agency at the time say that Krongard in fact, was pushing hard for Blackwater to be given the first urgent and compelling, no-bid contract to protect CIA facilities in Afghanistan. The military, it seems, wasn't up to the task of staffing such an effort. Once awarded the initial contract, Prince maintained a close relationship with Krongard, and made trips to Afghanistan to make sure things were going smoothly. The idea that the agency came to Blackwater for help on any other contracts, including one with the overall goal of locating and assassinating al Qaeda operatives, wouldn't come as a huge surprise, particularly since so much of the intelligence budget is spent on private contractors. But with investigations under way into just what was done and by whom at the CIA under the Bush administration, people are remaining tight-lipped. Especially under the threat of possible prosecution, should it go that far. | [
"what does blackwater do",
"The private contractor renamed itself what?",
"what is the relationship",
"what is the point of the relationship",
"Recent allegation says contractor was a part of what?"
] | [
[
"private military contractor"
],
[
"Xe"
],
[
"held classified contracts with the Central Intelligence Agency for nearly a decade,"
],
[
"killing top al Qaeda leaders,"
],
[
"a secret CIA program to kill al Qaeda operatives"
]
] | Relationship between Blackwater and CIA goes back almost a decade .
Recent allegation says contractor was part of CIA program to kill al Qaeda operatives .
Blackwater was given contract to protect CIA facilities in Afghanistan after 9/11 attacks .
The private contractor renamed itself Xe earlier this year . |
Syracuse, New York (CNN) -- A second man who has publicly accused a former Syracuse University coach of molesting him told CNN's AC360 on Tuesday that he was speaking out so that no other children would be hurt.
Mike Lang accused former men's assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, 65, of touching him inappropriately at least dozens of times when he was a boy.
"I just hope that no other kids get abused, and that's the main reason why I came out and said what I had to say. ... I don't want this to happen to anybody else," Lang said.
Fine's house used to be like a home to him, and the coach was a father figure, a "great guy," he said.
Syracuse fired Fine on Sunday, less than a month after the university placed him on administrative leave after Lang and his stepbrother, Bobby Davis, came forward to publicly accuse him of molesting them over several years.
See a timeline of the Syracuse sexual abuse scandal
A third man, Zachary Tomaselli, now 23, has also said he was abused by Fine -- while in a hotel room in Pittsburgh, where he'd gone to watch a Syracuse game.
Police in Syracuse and Pittsburgh are investigating the allegations and looking for other potential victims, authorities have said.
Police say they'll change reporting procedures
When the allegations first surfaced, Fine -- married with a son and two daughters -- called them "patently false." He has not commented since.
The investigation at Syracuse comes in the wake of a sex abuse scandal at Penn State University that received nationwide attention. Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky is accused of sexually abusing boys over a span of 14 years.
When asked what his reaction was when he saw the Penn State story break, Lang said his "stomach just turned."
"All I can think of is what me and my little brother went through, and it's happening all over again," he said.
Regarding Jim Boeheim, head men's basketball coach at Syracuse, Lang said, "I honestly believe he didn't know anything about this."
While some have called for Boeheim to be fired, he said, "I just don't want that to happen. He's a Syracuse man in and out and ... I don't believe that he had any knowledge this was going on."
Lang, now 45, said he used to tell Fine to stop touching him, but that "you couldn't tell him no."
"It was hard to say anything, because you think you're with a god -- just hard to come out and say anything to anybody about it," Lang said.
Watch Anderson Cooper 360° weeknights 10pm ET. For the latest from AC360° click here. | [
"who was fired sunday",
"Who said his stomach turned when he heard about the scandal?",
"What did lang allege?",
"What university fired Fine?",
"what did the university do",
"Who was fired on Sunday?",
"What did mike lang say?",
"what did lang say",
"Who did the university fire?"
] | [
[
"Fine"
],
[
"Lang"
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[
"former men's assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, 65, of touching him inappropriately at least dozens of times when he was a boy."
],
[
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[
"fired Fine"
],
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"Fine"
],
[
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],
[
"\"I just hope that no other kids get abused, and that's the main reason why I came out and said"
],
[
"Fine"
]
] | Mike Lang says his stomach turned when he heard about the Penn State sex abuse scandal .
Syracuse University fired assistant men's basketball coach Bernie Fine on Sunday .
Lang alleges that when he was a boy, Fine touched him inappropriately many times .
Now 45, Lang says he considered Fine a father figure and a "great guy" |
TACOMA, Washington (CNN) -- At a time when she really needed a miracle, Annamarie Ausnes found one in an unusual place. Sandra Andersen, right, donated a kidney to Annamarie Ausnes. Last fall, Ausnes, 55, was one of nearly 75,000 Americans in need of a kidney. Today, she is recovering from a successful kidney transplant -- thanks to her local Starbucks barista. Sandra Andersen only knew Ausnes as her upbeat morning customer who always ordered a short cup of coffee. What Andersen didn't know was that Ausnes suffers from a genetic kidney disease called polycystic kidney disease. When both of her kidneys began failing, she was placed on a kidney transplant waiting list. "I was kinda losing a little hope," said Ausnes. Her next step would be dialysis. "I'd read the statistics. People have been waiting on dialysis for many, many years before a donor comes forth. I felt like the control was being taken away from me," Ausnes said. "But I did have control over one thing, and I knew how to pray. And I just started praying for someone; for God to please send me an angel." Andersen recalls one particular morning last October when her customer's normally cheerful demeanor had changed. "I could tell that she just wasn't feeling real well," said Andersen. "So I asked her what was wrong." Across the counter, Ausnes confided in her barista: Her kidneys were failing rapidly and no one in her family was a match. Without hesitation, Andersen said she would test for her. Ausnes remembers the moment vividly. "She threw her hands up in the air. She said, 'I'm testing. I'm going to test for you.' And it was a complete shock to me." Even more so because Andersen didn't even know Ausnes' name. Andersen can't explain it either. "I just knew in my heart, I can't tell you why. I knew I had to find out as much info as possible," recalls Andersen. Watch Ausnes recall how she met her "miracle donor." » After getting her blood tested, she signed a release to become an organ donor and began an interview process to move forward. Then the day came when she was able to break the good news to Ausnes. "She walked in to get her short cup of coffee. I said, 'I'm a match,' and we both just stood there and bawled," said Andersen. "From that day forward we knew this was gonna happen." On March 11, Andersen and Ausnes underwent a kidney transplant at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Washington. The surgery was successful. "We are doing well!" Ausnes said Monday night. "We're moving slower but we feel good. I talk to Sandie every day, and sometimes I sit here and bawl because of what she's gone through for me." Watch how Andersen's gift became 'A kidney named Rose.' » Andersen says her kidney started working faster in Ausnes than the hospital expected. "Annamarie is doing better than me! I'm just trying to do too much," laughs Andersen, explaining why she's tired. "We're just excited to get together for lunch sometime soon!" Watch Andersen and Ausnes describe the best kind of donor » E-mail to a friend | [
"When did the transplant procedure occur?",
"What do nearly 75,000 Americans need?",
"Who was tested and found out she was a potential donor?",
"what Both are doing well?",
"what Annamarie Ausnes told her?",
"Who need a kidney transplant?",
"Who told her story to a worker?",
"Who did Annamarie Ausnes tell her story to?",
"Who is doing well after the transplant?",
"what Nearly 75,000 Americans need?",
"Who needs a kidney transplant?"
] | [
[
"March 11,"
],
[
"a kidney."
],
[
"Sandra Andersen"
],
[
"Andersen and Ausnes"
],
[
"kidneys were failing rapidly and no one in"
],
[
"Annamarie Ausnes."
],
[
"Ausnes"
],
[
"Sandra Andersen"
],
[
"Annamarie Ausnes."
],
[
"a kidney."
],
[
"Annamarie Ausnes."
]
] | Nearly 75,000 Americans need a kidney transplant .
Annamarie Ausnes told her story to a worker at her regular coffee shop .
The barista, Sandra Andersen, tested and found out she was a potential donor .
Both are doing well after a transplant procedure on March 11 . |
TAIJI, Japan (CNN) -- Mention a dolphin to someone in the United States and they'll think about a trip to Sea World or the 1960s-era TV program "Flipper."
Residents in Taiji, Japan, have been hunting dolphins for hundreds of years.
Talk about a dolphin in rural Japan and some people think of dinner.
Fishermen hunt dolphins about every day in Taiji, a town of about 3,000 in southwestern Japan that juts into the Pacific Ocean.
Locals know they offend Western sensibilities by eating dolphins, but they say it's a tradition hundreds of years old. And they say outsiders have no more right to tell them to stop eating dolphins than they would have to demand that Westerners stop slaughtering, say, chickens or cows. Watch fishermen catch dolphins »
"I know there are many different ways of thinking in different societies, but for us who've been eating this for a long time ... it's an awkward thing to be criticized for," says Kayoko Tanaka, a retired middle school teacher. "I either fry dolphin meat or turn it into a stew."
That disgusts Ric O'Barry, a 68-year-old retired dolphin trainer from Miami who makes a second home in Taiji, where he goes to unusual lengths to fight against the tide of local tradition.
O'Barry sometimes dresses as a woman or wears a large surgical mask to disguise his Western identity on trips to spots overlooking the ocean. He prowls the cliffs with a video camera, hoping to catch fishermen in the act with footage that could stir emotions and raise awareness in the West.
"This here is ground zero for the largest slaughter of dolphins on planet Earth," says O'Barry, who trained five dolphins to play "Flipper" on the TV series of that name. "It's absolutely barbaric and it needs to stop."
He says the dolphins face a cruel fate.
"It takes a very long time to die. They bleed to death. And some of them are dragged in the boats with hooks while they're still alive," he says. "Many of them are gutted while they're still alive."
Looming beyond questions of whether the slaughter is humane, however, are larger and more complex questions of culture and perspective.
To some puzzled people in rural Japan, the question comes down to this: What's the difference between killing and eating a dolphin and killing and eating a fish? Or a chicken? Or a cow?
Most Japanese do not eat dolphins -- it's common in a few small fishing villages -- but the government respects the rights of people in towns like Taiji, says Joji Morishita, the international negotiator for Japan's Fisheries Agency.
Many Japanese consider the deer a sacred messenger from the gods, he says, but they would never suggest that people in other parts of the world stop venturing into the woods on a quest for venison, Morishita says.
"We don't like to play God to say this animal is just for food and this is not," he says. "Because we know nation to nation we have totally different ideas."
That's obvious in the growing clash between Australia and Japan over whale hunting.
Japanese ships crisscross the Antarctic Ocean each winter to capture and kill up to 1,000 whales. Whaling is allowed under international law when done for scientific reasons, which Japan cites as the legal basis for its hunts.
Legal justifications aside, however, the whale hunts offend many people in Australia, where new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has turned up the political pressure on Japan.
His government has dispatched a customs ship to monitor and videotape the whalers. And Rudd says Australia could even file charges against Japan in an international court to try to stop the whaling.
Back in Taiji, the fishermen are well aware of the Western sentiment that motivates whaling opponents. They realize the danger to their way of life that can come with prying cameras from other countries.
When CNN trained its cameras on fishermen gutting some freshly killed dolphins, the fishermen erected some tarps to obstruct the view.
Representatives | [
"Where are Dolphin hunts carried out in?",
"What was slaughtered?",
"What hunts have been carried out?",
"What can we do to stop this?"
] | [
[
"Taiji, Japan,"
],
[
"dolphins"
],
[
"dolphins"
],
[
"monitor and videotape the whalers. And Rudd says Australia could even file charges against Japan in an international court"
]
] | Dolphin hunts have been carried out in Japanese town for centuries .
Westerners protest "barbaric" slaughter of the marine mammals .
Local residents say other nations have no right to criticize dolphin hunts .
Japanese government has found unsafe mercury levels in dolphins . |
TAIJI, Japan (CNN) -- Mention a dolphin to someone in the United States and they'll think about a trip to Sea World or the 1960s-era TV program "Flipper."
Residents in Taiji, Japan, have been hunting dolphins for hundreds of years.
Talk about a dolphin in rural Japan and some people think of dinner.
Fishermen hunt dolphins about every day in Taiji, a town of about 3,000 in southwestern Japan that juts into the Pacific Ocean.
Locals know they offend Western sensibilities by eating dolphins, but they say it's a tradition hundreds of years old. And they say outsiders have no more right to tell them to stop eating dolphins than they would have to demand that Westerners stop slaughtering, say, chickens or cows. Watch fishermen catch dolphins »
"I know there are many different ways of thinking in different societies, but for us who've been eating this for a long time ... it's an awkward thing to be criticized for," says Kayoko Tanaka, a retired middle school teacher. "I either fry dolphin meat or turn it into a stew."
That disgusts Ric O'Barry, a 68-year-old retired dolphin trainer from Miami who makes a second home in Taiji, where he goes to unusual lengths to fight against the tide of local tradition.
O'Barry sometimes dresses as a woman or wears a large surgical mask to disguise his Western identity on trips to spots overlooking the ocean. He prowls the cliffs with a video camera, hoping to catch fishermen in the act with footage that could stir emotions and raise awareness in the West.
"This here is ground zero for the largest slaughter of dolphins on planet Earth," says O'Barry, who trained five dolphins to play "Flipper" on the TV series of that name. "It's absolutely barbaric and it needs to stop."
He says the dolphins face a cruel fate.
"It takes a very long time to die. They bleed to death. And some of them are dragged in the boats with hooks while they're still alive," he says. "Many of them are gutted while they're still alive."
Looming beyond questions of whether the slaughter is humane, however, are larger and more complex questions of culture and perspective.
To some puzzled people in rural Japan, the question comes down to this: What's the difference between killing and eating a dolphin and killing and eating a fish? Or a chicken? Or a cow?
Most Japanese do not eat dolphins -- it's common in a few small fishing villages -- but the government respects the rights of people in towns like Taiji, says Joji Morishita, the international negotiator for Japan's Fisheries Agency.
Many Japanese consider the deer a sacred messenger from the gods, he says, but they would never suggest that people in other parts of the world stop venturing into the woods on a quest for venison, Morishita says.
"We don't like to play God to say this animal is just for food and this is not," he says. "Because we know nation to nation we have totally different ideas."
That's obvious in the growing clash between Australia and Japan over whale hunting.
Japanese ships crisscross the Antarctic Ocean each winter to capture and kill up to 1,000 whales. Whaling is allowed under international law when done for scientific reasons, which Japan cites as the legal basis for its hunts.
Legal justifications aside, however, the whale hunts offend many people in Australia, where new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has turned up the political pressure on Japan.
His government has dispatched a customs ship to monitor and videotape the whalers. And Rudd says Australia could even file charges against Japan in an international court to try to stop the whaling.
Back in Taiji, the fishermen are well aware of the Western sentiment that motivates whaling opponents. They realize the danger to their way of life that can come with prying cameras from other countries.
When CNN trained its cameras on fishermen gutting some freshly killed dolphins, the fishermen erected some tarps to obstruct the view.
Representatives | [
"Who protest about slaughter of the marine mammals?",
"What have Japan being doing for centuries?",
"What has been carried out in the Japanese town for centuries?",
"Who says other nations have no right to criticize dolphin hunts?"
] | [
[
"Ric O'Barry,"
],
[
"hunting dolphins"
],
[
"hunting dolphins"
],
[
"Residents in Taiji,"
]
] | Dolphin hunts have been carried out in Japanese town for centuries .
Westerners protest "barbaric" slaughter of the marine mammals .
Local residents say other nations have no right to criticize dolphin hunts .
Japanese government has found unsafe mercury levels in dolphins . |
TAIPEI, Taiwan (CNN) -- A Taiwan court early Tuesday ordered ex-President Chen Shui-bian, who is facing corruption charges, back to jail after deeming him a flight risk. Former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian speaks to reporters on December 12 in Taipei. Chen had been free on bail, but prosecutors sought his return to state custody. After 12 hours of deliberation, a panel of three district court judges approved the request at 3 a.m. Taiwan time. Chen was immediately taken to jail. The island's first former president to ever face prosecution, Chen was freed earlier in December after spending a month in jail while prosecutors prepared his indictment on several corruption charges, including embezzlement and accepting bribes. Judges ordered Chen released after the indictment was formally presented, saying they did not believe he was a flight risk. However, Taiwan's high court was not satisfied with the decision and assigned a new judge to the case. Chen's attorney, Jen Wen Long, told reporters after the court order: "We question the work of the Taipei district court. Changing the judge is an interference with the justice system." Chen, whose term ended in May, is accused of embezzling about $18 million. A trial date has not been set in the case. Prosecutors allege he also took bribes, laundered money and illegally removed classified documents from the president's office. Chen, 58, has denied any wrongdoing and insists the charges are politically motivated. His party favors independence for Taiwan, while the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou favors closer ties with mainland China -- from which the island split amid civil war in 1949. If convicted, Chen faces 25 years or more in prison, although prosecutors did not seek any specific jail time in their indictment. Thirteen others, including Chen's wife, son, daughter-in-law and brother-in-law, also were indicted. Prosecutors have alleged that Chen's son has a Swiss bank account containing $22 million in what they believe is illegal proceeds. Journalist Andrew Lee contributed to this report. | [
"Who disagreed with the decision?",
"Who is facing trial on corruption charges?",
"When is his trial date?",
"What was Chen facing?",
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] | [
[
"Taiwan's high court"
],
[
"ex-President Chen Shui-bian,"
],
[
"has not been set"
],
[
"corruption charges,"
],
[
"about $18 million."
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] | Chen, facing trial on corruption charges, had been free on bail .
A court freed Chen in early December, but high court disagreed with decision .
Chen, whose term ended in May, is accused of embezzling about $18 million .
His trial date has not been set . |
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced Tuesday he would not run for re-election next year and instead will seek the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Mel Martinez. Gov. Charlie Crist appeared alongside Sen. John McCain, left, during the 2008 presidential campaign. Crist, who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 1998, was immediately endorsed by the Senate Republican campaign arm, which hopes to avoid a bruising primary fight. Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio declared his intention last week to seek the GOP Senate nomination. "Our country is facing the most profound public policy questions in our lifetime -- questions relating to the economy, taxes, healthcare, the environment and national security," Crist said in a statement released by his campaign. "The answers to these questions will have a lasting impact on the country we love and the nation we will leave to our children and grandchildren." He added in the statement: "Here in Florida, we've shown that when we put people first and work together, much can be accomplished, and I intend to bring that same approach to Washington. That is why, after thoughtful consideration with my wife Carole, I have decided to run for the U.S. Senate." A Quinnipiac Poll released last month showed Crist with a commanding 54 percent to 8 percent lead over Rubio in the Republican primary. But the poll also found that more people overall, and Republicans specifically, would rather see Crist run for re-election as governor than seek the Senate seat. Should Crist backers persuade Rubio to abandon his bid, it would help national Republicans focus money and resources on other races in 2010. The GOP needs to win back seats they lost in 2008 to help weaken the Democratic hold on the Senate. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's decision to change his political affiliation from Republican to Democrat and the increasing likelihood that Democrat Al Franken will eventually be named the next senator from Minnesota means that President Obama will have enough Democratic votes -- in theory -- for a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Last week, the Senate GOP was dealt a setback when former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, a popular Republican, decided not to challenge Specter. But news that Crist would enter a Senate race was welcomed by Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "While I believe Marco Rubio has a very bright future within the Republican Party, Charlie Crist is the best candidate in 2010 to ensure that we maintain the checks and balances that Floridians deserve in the United States Senate," Cornyn said in a statement. "Governor Crist is a dedicated public servant and a dynamic leader, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee will provide our full support to ensure that he is elected the next United States Senator from Florida." Rubio used a short blast on Twitter to chastise the NRSC for siding with Crist in the primary. "Disappointed GOP senate comm endorses Crist on day 1," Rubio wrote. "Remember that reform must always come from the outside. Status quo won't change itself." GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan, who had been considering a Senate bid, instead said he would run for another term in the House and endorsed Crist. Anticipating his entry into the Senate race, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last month aired its first television ad of the 2010 elections -- a small buy in the Tallahassee TV market -- that accused Crist of running away from the state's economic problems. Florida Democrats echoed that line of criticism Tuesday shortly after Crist declared his candidacy. "By running for U.S. Senate, Charlie Crist has cut and run on the Sunshine State, once again taking the easy way out, avoiding responsibility and leaving the hard work of facing Florida's problems to the next governor," Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman said. "At a time when Florida needs real leadership, unfortunately Charlie Crist is running from the mess he created, which is why Floridians are going to send Crist into retirement come Election Day." Still, Crist remains very popular in the state that he has led since he was | [
"What did the Gov. Crist says?",
"what are the policy questions",
"What did Marco Rubio declared?",
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"Who was unsuccessfully for senate?",
"what did Crist say",
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] | [
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"he would not run for re-election"
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"economy, taxes, healthcare, the environment and national security,\""
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[
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] | Gov. Crist says the country is "facing the most profound public policy questions"
Crist, a popular governor in Florida, ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 1998 .
Crist was immediately endorsed by the Senate Republican campaign arm .
Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio declared his intention to run last week . |
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That's what Florida's former prison secretary says he inherited when he took over one of the nation's largest prison systems two years ago.
This house, on prison grounds in Florida, is described as a party house where prison officials held orgies.
In fact, on his first day on the job, James McDonough says he walked into his office -- the same one his predecessor used -- and there was crime scene tape preventing anyone from entering.
"That was an indication we had a problem in the department," McDonough told CNN in an exclusive interview before he stepped down last Thursday.
McDonough revealed a startling list of alleged abuses and crimes going on inside Florida's prisons:
• Top prison officials admitting to kickbacks;
• Guards importing and selling steroids in an effort to give them an edge on the softball field;
• Taxpayer funds to pay for booze and women;
• Guards who punished other guards who threatened to report them.
"Corruption had gone to an extreme," McDonough said, saying it all began at the top. "They seemed to be drunk half the time and had orgies the other half, when they weren't taking money and beating each other up." Watch a corrupted prison system »
He added, "Women were treated like chattel in this department."
McDonough described a bizarre prison culture among those that ran the system -- one that he says seemed obsessed with inter-department softball games and the orgies after games.
"I cannot explain how big an obsession softball had become," he said. "People were promoted on the spot after a softball game at the drunken party to high positions in the department because they were able to hit a softball out of the park a couple times."
"The connection between the softball and the parties and the corruption and the beatings was greatly intertwined."
The parties and orgies were often carried out at a waterfront ranch house built on prison grounds for a former warden with taxpayer dollars, McDonough said. The house was complete with a bar, pool table and hot tub. See photos of the "party house" »
McDonough is a former Army colonel who commanded troops in Vietnam and Africa. He served as Florida's drug czar before taking on the job as the head of Florida's prison system, which oversees 90,000 inmates.
He left his post last Thursday as secretary of Florida's Department of Corrections because, he says, he feels he has cleaned up the corruption. It's time, he said, "to turn this over to law and order people that have made this their life's goal."
A Brooklyn, New York, native, McDonough says he witnessed the way the mafia worked in his youth and it provided him a keen insight into how his prison predecessor, James Crosby, operated.
"It reminded me of the petty mafia I saw on the streets of Brooklyn when I was growing up in the late 1950s, early 1960s -- petty, small-minded, thugish, violent, dangerous, outside the law, and completely intolerable for a society such as ours in the United States of America," he said.
Crosby would later plead guilty to bribery charges in relation to kickbacks from a prison vendor. He's now locked up in a federal prison. He refused CNN's request for an interview for this report.
"He's serving time in a federal prison. I hope he reforms and gets out and prospers," McDonough said.
He added, "When you have a rotten guy at the top, or gal at the top, it can be very invasive, and it's a cancer that needs to be excised."
And getting rid of this "cancer" is exactly what McDonough says he did. McDonough fired 90 top prison officials -- wardens, supervisors, colonels and majors -- claiming they were corrupt or, at the very least, not to be trusted. He demoted 280 others. | [
"What was the system run like?",
"What charges is the former head facing?",
"who put a stop to these orgies"
] | [
[
"the mafia."
],
[
"bribery"
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[
"James McDonough"
]
] | Former head of Florida's prisons says orgies were common before he arrived .
James McDonough also says the system was run like the mafia .
"They were like frat boys out of control," McDonough tells CNN .
His predecessor is currently in prison after pleading guilty to bribery charges . |
TAMPA BAY, Florida (CNN) -- Judging by her proud expression as she left the parking lot in her 1991 Honda Accord for the first time, Jessica Ostrofsky could have been driving a brand new sports car. Susan Jacobs' Wheels of Success program helps low-income workers get their own cars. "I'm so happy," she said with a laugh. "Having this [car] is going to change my life drastically because it's going to make me totally independent." Ostrofsky, 31, a single mother of three, had been leaving her house before dawn -- toting a stroller, car seat, diaper bag and purse -- to catch a bus. She would go first to her children's baby sitter and then to work. The trip took up to three hours. But on Labor Day, the St. Petersburg, Florida, resident and 19 others received their own cars, thanks to Susan Jacobs' Wheels of Success program. Since 2003, Wheels of Success has refurbished 280 donated cars for low-income individuals and families and helped another 280 clients with vehicle-related services. "Receiving ... the car is more than just the car," said Jacobs. "People literally see how it's going to change their life" by knocking down an obstacle that had gotten in their way due to lack of transportation. Jacobs would know. The 59-year-old Tampa resident lost access to reliable transportation more than a decade ago when she ended a relationship and left her car behind. While staying with a friend who lived far from a bus line and across town from Jacobs' evening job, she had to hitch rides to work. That did not last long, Jacobs said, thanks to a used car dealership owner who loaned Jacobs three clunkers while she saved the money to buy her own car. But soon she saw others in a similar predicament. In 2000, as the manager of a staffing agency, Jacobs was struck by the high number of clients who lost jobs in which her office had placed them because they couldn't always get there. Others turned down positions and promotions because limited public transportation kept them from early or late shifts. Jacobs was laid off from her job at the staffing firm in 2001 and turned it into an opportunity to figure out how to "keep working families working." She founded Wheels of Success in 2003 with two donated cars. The organization gives low-cost, donated and refurbished vehicles to qualified full-time workers or those with job offers. Employers or social service agencies refer the applicants to the group. Once they receive their vehicles, they must make low monthly payments based on their personal budgets. Those contributions average $40 and go toward repairing cars for other recipients. "These are used cars. They're not going to last forever," said Jacobs. "What I tell people is, 'This probably isn't your dream car, but hopefully it's going to get you to your dream.' " Jacobs' group is able to restore donated clunkers to roadworthy operation by partnering with local companies and corporations that help provide auto body work at significantly discounted rates. Wheels of Success cars come with a free, one-year membership to the American Automobile Association. The organization also helps clients with ongoing repair, licensing, insurance and replacement of a car when it dies. Watch how Jacobs and her group provide working wheels for families » Clients are required to complete a car maintenance class and donate three volunteer hours to Wheels of Success per month. This helps the group serve more clients and gives each recipient the ability to "pay it forward," said Jacobs. On any given day, Jacobs reports about 100 qualified recipients on the waiting list for vehicles. About 60 new requests come in every other month. "We would like nothing better than for there not to be a need for us," she said. "But that isn't realistic in the near future and might not be realistic even long-term for people who have three children and day care." And | [
"What does Wheels of Success do?",
"What often gets in the way of people making a living?",
"What did Susan Jacobs create?"
] | [
[
"helps low-income workers get their own cars."
],
[
"lack of transportation."
],
[
"Wheels of Success program"
]
] | Susan Jacobs created Wheels of Success to help low-income workers get cars .
The organization gives donated, refurbished vehicles to qualified applicants .
Lack of transportation often gets in the way of people making a living, Jacobs says .
The top 10 CNN Heroes will be announced on October 1 . |
TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- After witnessing the rapid devastation of a Cayman Island coral reef where he had been diving since childhood, Todd Barber was moved from horror to action. He gave up a six-figure salary as a marketing consultant and dedicated his life to restoring the world's ocean reef ecosystems. "I had been following this reef since I had been 14; it was where my first dive was," recalls Barber. "When that one little tiny reef was lost, that sparked something in me. If we lost one and it took that tens of thousands of years to get here, how fast is this happening?" Barber had caught a small glimpse of a larger global issue -- the destruction of the world's coral reefs -- and it scared him. According to the Nature Conservancy, if the present rate of destruction continues, 70 percent of the world's coral reefs will be destroyed by the year 2050. Not only are they home to 25 percent of all marine fish species, but the organization states that 500 million people rely on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods. So Barber and his father, a marine biologist and fellow diver, sat down to devise a solution to "put the reef back." What started as a basic idea to shape concrete around a beach ball led to three years of research, testing and prototyping with the help of friends and college professors. Watch as Barber explains his passion for saving reefs » "Our goal was to mimic nature, not dictate nature," says Barber. "And that meant that I couldn't come up with an idea; I had to design something that would fit exactly what the reef required." The result was what Barber calls a "Reef Ball." Made of concrete engineered to last more than 500 years, Reef Balls are circular structures with a hollow center that serve as a base habitat upon which a natural reef can grow. Portable, inexpensive and environmentally friendly, according to Barber, Reef Balls can be built anywhere and are used to mimic and rehabilitate all forms of oceanic reefs, such as mangrove, oyster and coral reefs. They can also help control erosion and stabilize shorelines. Watch as an organization in Tampa tries to restore habitats for oysters » To manufacture and place Reef Balls in marine habitats around the world, Barber established The Reef Ball Foundation in 1993. Today, the non-profit organization works with environmental agencies, universities, community groups and corporations and empowers others to build and restore their local marine ecosystems. "[Reefs] have an incredible bearing on human life," says Barber. "Without conserving these resources, they're going to be all gone before we even know what we've lost." According to Barber, marine conservation isn't just about Reef Balls, but they're one important tool. "It's about saving natural reefs. It's about changing our behaviors," says Barber. "It's better to save the reef that you have than to build a new one." Since its inception, the Reef Ball Foundation has placed Reef Balls in more than 59 countries. "For me, personally, the satisfaction comes from diving on a Reef Ball and seeing that the environment has been rehabilitated; that the reef is actually there," says Barber. "And that our grandkids will be able to see the same thing." E-mail to a friend | [
"What are reef balls?",
"Reef Balls are concrete spheres upon which a natural reef can grow",
"What is in danger according to estimates from the Nature Conservancy?",
"What helps control beach erosion?",
"What are concrete spheres upon which a natural reef an grow?",
"What is the number of people that rely on coral reefs for food?",
"What was Reef Balls?",
"What are in danger?",
"What is in danger?",
"The group says 500 million people rely on coral reefs for food"
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"Nature Conservancy,"
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] | Most coral reefs are in danger, according to estimates from the Nature Conservancy .
The group says 500 million people rely on coral reefs for food .
Reef Balls are concrete spheres upon which a natural reef can grow .
The objects also help control beach erosion and stabilize shorelines . |
TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- Don Stratton says he's just a good ol' boy. He's simple and plainspoken. But he has a painful past he can't leave behind. When he talks about it, the old emotions surface. Don Stratton says he and others were abused at the Florida School for Boys during the 1960s. Stratton attended a Florida reform school as a teenager in the early 1960s. Nearly half a century later, he's telling a chilling tale of alleged beatings, sexual abuse and violent death at the hands of reform school workers. He said he believes the bodies of slain boys are buried in unnamed graves on the grounds of the former reform school in Marianna, Florida. "These men are animals and need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Stratton told CNN in an interview at his attorney's office in Tampa. Stratton wore a black cowboy hat with a Harley Davidson logo. Despite his tough exterior, he fought back tears as he recounted how he was physically and sexually assaulted. Stratton is among a group of men, now in their 60s, who are suing state agencies in Florida as well as two former reform school workers over alleged abuse they received as teenagers. The suit was filed this month. "At 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, you'd hear a boy crying," Stratton told CNN. "And then the door would open and you'd see these guys come in and come up to somebody they liked, and they'd just tell you, 'Come on with me, you're mine for tonight. You're my boy for tonight.' And they would take you and do what they wanted to do with you." "They would take a leather strap, six inches wide and three feet long," he added, swinging his arm in a downward motion. "It's like a shotgun going off. And they beat you until you're bloody." Stratton's attorneys said they've interviewed 80 former students who say they were abused. Stratton and the other alleged abuse victims who spoke with CNN all said the beatings took place in a small white cement building they called "the white house." Gov. Charlie Crist has ordered an investigation into the alleged abuse. He has asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to uncover records, interview students and find former administrators. The agency also was asked to determine who, if anyone, is buried beneath the 31 rusting white crosses on the school grounds. "Whatever is below those crosses is crying out -- and it's screaming for us to bring justice," Stratton said. The truth of what happened at the Florida School for Boys may ultimately be lost to time. But investigators said they're making progress. "There are challenges due to the length of time that has passed," said Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Heather Smith. "We are confident that we can conduct a thorough and methodical investigation and establish, as much as we can, what happened here and what lies beneath in those grave sites." Smith said it was much too early in the investigation to say whether there would be an exhumation. Investigators said that, so far, the search for records from 50 years ago has been productive. They also have met with many of the men who have come forward. When they meet with Stratton, they will hear his claim that he witnessed the violent death of one boy who exposed himself to reform school workers on a dare. The boy was taken to "the white house." Stratton said that later, while he was working in the kitchen, he saw a brown 1949 Ford pull up. "They opened the back door and they carried him out and threw him in the back of the car," said Stratton, fighting tears. "They took him out there and buried him in the woods," he said. "I know they buried him somewhere, 'cause he never showed up again." Investigators will also hear Stratton's claim that he and many of | [
"How many white crosses were they during the investigation?",
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"What state is named in the lawsuit?",
"How many former residents have attorneys spoken to?",
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] | [
[
"31"
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[
"he and others were abused at the Florida School for Boys during the 1960s."
],
[
"80"
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[
"31"
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[
"Don Stratton"
]
] | Lawsuit alleges abuse at Florida reform school during 1960s .
Attorneys say they have spoken to more than 80 former residents .
Former resident Don Stratton says he was beaten, saw boy carried away .
Governor has ordered investigation of what lies beneath 31 white crosses . |
TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- Some Christian congregations, particularly in lower income, urban areas, are turning to an unlikely source for help -- the Church of Scientology.
Rev, Charles Kennedy uses Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's book during a Friday night sermon.
Scientologists do not worship God, much less Jesus Christ. The church has seen plenty of controversy and critics consider it a cult. So why are observant Christians embracing some of its teachings?
Two pastors who spoke recently with CNN explained that when it comes to religion, they still preach the core beliefs of Christianity. But when it comes to practicing what they preach in a modern world, borrowing from Scientology helps.
The Rev. Charles Kennedy, of the Glorious Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal church in Tampa, Florida, and the Rev. James McLaughlin, of the Wayman Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, are among the theological hybrids. Watch Rev. Kennedy preach »
They say they are not scared off by programs with ties to a church that critics say has aggressive recruiting, secretive ways and rigid theology. As men of God rooted in Christian values, they do not see Scientology as a threat to their faith, but rather as a tool to augment it.
Scientology was founded in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer. Followers are taught that they are immortal spiritual beings called thetans. Although the church says there is a supreme being, its practices do not include worshipping God.
"I'm looking for solutions, and the people that I help, they don't ask me who L. Ron Hubbard is," said McLaughlin, who works with addicts. "You know what they say? 'Thank God.' "
Critic Rick Ross, a court-certified Scientology expert, sees something more sinister at work. He warned that mainstream acceptance makes it easier for the Scientologists to achieve their ultimate goal -- new recruits.
"Their hope is that through these programs, people will become more interested in L. Ron Hubbard, what else Mr. Hubbard had to offer, and this will lead them eventually to Scientology," Ross said.
The church has long been in the headlines for practices critics say are little more than cult-like mind control. It is also known for its stable of devout celebrity followers.
And according to published reports, Scientology has been recently diversifying its outreach to include other religions and ethnic groups.
Kennedy, McLaughlin and a handful of other Christian church leaders -- no one can say how many -- are finding answers to their communities' needs in Scientology's social programs.
For Kennedy, it began two years ago when he attended a meeting at the Church of Scientology's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida. He was introduced to a book called "The Way to Happiness" -- Hubbard's 64-page, self-described "common sense guide to better living."
In the book, which lays out ways to maintain a temperate lifestyle, Kennedy found a message he believed could help lift his predominantly lower income African-American congregation. He said the book's 21 principles help them with their struggle in an urban environment where there is too much crime and addiction and too little opportunity.
Kennedy knew that before he could introduce any Scientology-related text to his congregation, he would have to prove that it did not contradict his Christian beliefs. And so, he found Scripture to match each of the 21 principles.
Now Kennedy uses "The Way to Happiness" as a how-to supplement to his sermons. He believes it is easier to understand and clearer to follow than ancient Scriptures taken from the Bible.
When asked whether Scientology's values contradict the religion of Jesus Christ, Kennedy replies, "Sometimes yes. Sometimes no." But he says his congregation can relate to "The Way to Happiness."
Kennedy admits other pastors have criticized him, but the disapproval is not enough to discourage him. He insists that he has witnessed the changes "The Way to Happiness" has inspired in people. He also maintains that the Scientologists, many | [
"What do Christian pastors borrow ideas from to preach temperate lifestyle?",
"From where do Christian Pastors borrow ideas for preaching temperate lifestyle?",
"Who think Scientology is a cult?",
"Who borrowed ideas from Scientology?",
"What do critics call Scientology?",
"who is the critic?",
"What do critics say is a cult?",
"what are christian pastors borrowing from scientology?",
"Who borrows ideas from Scientology?",
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"What do Christian pastors borrow ideas from?",
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"was founded in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer. Followers are taught that they are immortal spiritual beings called thetans. Although the church says there"
]
] | Christian pastors borrow ideas from Scientology to preach temperate lifestyle .
Critics say Scientology is a cult, always looking for recruits .
Pastor in Houston, Texas, claims 70 percent success rate with addicts . |
TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- Some Florida minimum-security inmates want to know: Can you handle the heat? Inmates work with peppers at the Hillsborough County Jail in Tampa, Florida. Hot sauce heat, that is -- Jail House Fire Hot Sauce, cooked up by inmates at the Hillsborough County Jail and now offered for sale. The idea to make Jail House Fire Hot Sauce came from a Cuban former inmate who thought food in the big house was bland. Allen Boatman, the head of the jail's horticulture program, remembers what his former trusty said: "We're growing these peppers. Why don't we use them?" Peppers are grown as part of the jail's horticulture program, which is voluntary and offered only to minimum-security trusties. The inmates learn about growing plants, ornamentals, trees, herbs and vegetables -- including more than 1,200 varieties of peppers. "I thought that was a great idea, so I started doing research on some of the recipes," says Boatman. The research led to a variety of hot sauces that can be bought for $7 a bottle at the jail in Tampa, Florida, or online at www.jailhousefire.org. There are three different sauces for sale: Coming soon is a fourth sauce: Misdemeanor. Watch the inmates at work on hot sauce » Orders for the Jail House Fire sauces have come in from as far away as Germany, England and even Australia. The inmates make no money from this product. The money goes back into an inmate fund that pays for things like the greenhouse where the peppers are grown. The horticulture program pays for itself, says Boatman, so no taxpayer money is used. Several times a year the program hosts a sale of its ornamentals, shrubs and trees, and the locals turn up to support the program. The money raised is used to purchase necessities like fertilizer and soil. A green thumb is not the only thing that inmate and program member Deline is developing, he says. "We learn a lot about professionalism, respect, teamwork, ya know -- all that helps," Deline says. And working in the fields is good for the inmates' self-worth, Boatman says. "They actually see something growing that they've been involved in. It gives them a lot of sense of pride and accomplishment," says Boatman. "Possibly that'll give them some momentum when they are released to go and get a job and start being a productive member of society." Boatman doesn't just wish his trusties a good future; he gives them an opportunity. When the inmates are released, they are given a certificate of completion in vocational horticulture. This certificate comes from the school board, with no mention of the program behind bars. Deline hopes this will work in his favor when he starts looking for a job. "Florida is full of a lot of landscaping [and] landscaping companies, a lot of nursery companies," Deline says. "Maybe I can use the experience to better myself in the future." | [
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] | [
[
"learn about growing plants, ornamentals, trees, herbs and vegetables"
],
[
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],
[
"House Fire Hot Sauce, cooked up by inmates at the Hillsborough County"
],
[
"purchase necessities like fertilizer and soil."
],
[
"Hillsborough County"
]
] | Florida minimum-security jail raises peppers, uses them in hot sauce .
Three inmate-produced sauces available: "Original," "Smoke" and "No Escape"
Proceeds from sale of sauces goes back into jail's horticulture program .
Jail program also teaches job skills to soon-to-be-released inmates . |
TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- TV pitchman Billy Mays' death appeared to be from heart disease, not a bump to the head, according to the Hillsborough County medical examiner. OxiClean pitchman Billy Mays apparently died from heart disease, according to the medical examiner. The final cause of death will not be known until after toxicology results are available, Dr. Vernard Adams said at a Monday news conference. Mays, 50, was pronounced dead at his home near Tampa Sunday morning, after his wife Deborah found him unresponsive, Tampa police said. The autopsy conducted Monday morning revealed Mays suffered from hypertensive heart disease, Adams said. "It's not uncommon to have a sudden death with this kind of disease," Adams said. Watch medical examiner discuss Mays' autopsy » "Billy would be overwhelmed to see that his life touched so many people in a positive way," Deborah Mays said in a statement Monday. "While it provides some closure to learn that heart disease took Billy from us, it certainly doesn't ease the enormous void that his death has created in our lives," she said. Billy Mays had told a friend before he went to sleep Saturday he was not feeling well. "He said he was groggy, he wasn't feeling that great. He wanted to get some sleep," Todd Schnitt said. Watch friends remember Billy Mays » Mays was on a US Airways flight from Philadelphia that had a hard landing Saturday at Tampa International Airport after the front tire of the plane blew out. After the flight, Mays told a Tampa TV station, "All of a sudden as we hit, you know, it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping. It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head." Watch Mays talk about hard landing » Mays, with his booming voice, was famous for fronting products such as OxiClean and Orange Glo in TV commercials. iReport.com: Mays imitator meets the real thing No evidence of exterior or interior head trauma was found during Mays' autopsy, Adams said. The Discovery Channel -- which airs "Pitchmen" co-hosted by Mays -- issued a statement saying, "It is with incredible sadness that we have to report that Billy Mays died in his sleep last night. Everyone that knows him was aware of his larger-than-life personality, generosity and warmth. Billy was a pioneer in his field and helped many people fulfill their dreams. He will be greatly missed as a loyal and compassionate friend." CNN's John Zarrella, Vivian Kuo and Chuck Johnston contributed to this report. | [
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"What company did Billy Mays work for?",
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] | [
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] | "Heart disease took Billy from us," wife says in statement .
Sudden death not unusual in heart disease cases, coroner says .
Billy Mays, 50, is best known for his ads in which he shouts the attributes of OxiClean .
The pitchman was pronounced dead Sunday morning, authorities said . |
TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- There's probably no way to describe the feeling. Joe Pirrone's pride and joy, his F350 Super Duty turbo diesel truck, turned out to be a stolen "clone." One moment, Guiseppe "Joe" Pirrone was on a long weekend at the beach. The next moment, he found out the pickup that he bought a year ago is stolen, and he is still on the hook for the $27,000 loan. Stories like Pirrone's are scattered across the country, and Tuesday the FBI announced that it has broken up one of the largest auto theft cases in the U.S. Capping "Operation Dual Identity," arrest warrants for 17 people were executed in Tampa and Miami, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; and in Mexico City and Guadalajara, Mexico. The suspects were accused of "cloning" vehicles, which is making stolen cars look like legal ones. The FBI says that the ring was operating in the U.S. for more than 20 years. More than 1,000 vehicles were stolen in Florida, with more than $25 million in losses to consumers and banks. "Individuals have been victimized at every level, from the average Joe, to the banks, to big companies," said Dave Couvertier, of the FBI's Tampa field office. Car theft rings clone vehicles by taking license plates, vehicle identification numbers (VIN), and other tags and stickers from a legal car and putting them on a stolen vehicle of similar make and model. "This does not just affect big business. Anyone could become an unwitting victim of this particular scam. It could happen to anyone," said Couvertier. Pirrone knows how it was done because it happened to him. Last year, he bought a used 2005 F350 Super Duty turbo diesel pickup to use for his landscape business in Fort Myers, Florida. He bought it off a small used car lot and took out a $27,000 loan from a credit union. "I had it for about nine months. It was a great truck," he told CNN. In the fall, Pirrone decided to drive across the state to spend a long weekend in Fort Lauderdale. He was lying on the beach when his father called him to tell him that a detective from the Lee County Sheriff's Office was at his house with a tow truck. Pirrone got back in his car and drove back home immediately. "I was confused, honestly," he said. "I had to ask the detective for credentials. I didn't believe what was going on." Pirrone said the detective explained to him that he was the victim of a scam, that he was sold stolen goods. Left without a truck, Pirrone called the Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union. He found that his $536 a month payment would live on after his truck was long gone. Pirrone said he was able to get a 30-day payment exemption, but was told that he had a signed agreement with the bank, and he was still obligated to pay the loan in full. "I am making payments on a piece of property that I don't have," Pirrone said. "They can't even repossess it. The bank doesn't have any help to offer me." The bank is a victim in the car cloning scam as well. Lisa Brock, a spokeswoman for Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union, told CNN that the company never discusses private information about any of its members. "It is a police matter, and it's nothing we can make any substantial comment on," she said. Pirrone has hired an attorney, and he is considering filing a lawsuit against the dealership to get the bank's money back. Pirrone said he was advised by his lawyer not to name the used car lot. Law enforcement hopes that this is the beginning of the end of the "car cloning" scam. The National Motor Vehicle Information system (NMVTIS) database was implemented in January. It allows state DMVs to share title and registration information. Cloned vehicles were moved | [
"How many arrests were made?",
"what has the fbi announced",
"What type of scam was going on?",
"What was the owner of the lost truck saddled with?"
] | [
[
"17 people"
],
[
"broken up one of the largest auto theft cases in the U.S."
],
[
"F350 Super Duty turbo diesel truck, turned out to be a stolen \"clone.\""
],
[
"the $27,000 loan."
]
] | FBI to announce 17 arrests in huge "car cloning" scam .
Under scam, VINs, other details taken from legal car, given to similar stolen model .
In one case, owner lost truck but was still saddled with payments .
Ring stretched from Chicago to Florida to central Mexico . |
TBILISI, Georgia (CNN) -- Russian forces appeared to be in control of two key Georgian cities early Friday, and there were reports of tanks on the move again. A woman outside a bombed apartment block in Gori, Georgia, on Thursday. Russia said Thursday that its withdrawal of Gori would be complete within hours, and the U.S. said it looked like the Russian military was gearing up to leave, but CNN's Michael Ware confirmed that Russian troops were comfortably in control of Gori in the early hours of Friday. The town was a base for the Georgian military and is near the breakaway South Ossetia province where the conflict began. Meanwhile, there are reports of Russian vehicles on the move towards Poti, a port city in the west of Georgia. Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili said that more than 100 tanks and other vehicles are traveling in convoy between the cities of Senaki and Kutaisi. CNN has not independently confirmed the claim. "I appeal for the help of every civilized person in the world to stop this uncivilized, barbarian, inhuman, treacherous, absolutely outrageous behavior, and to save innocent lives," Saakashvili said. He estimated that Russian soldiers control about one-third of his country and said his government has received 1,400 reports of brutal attacks. On Thursday, about 200 Russian troops were in Gori, just outside South Ossetia, the U.S. defense official said. A Russian general confirmed troops were in Gori, but said they should be withdrawn within hours. Watch Russian troops on the road to Tbilisi » The U.S. official said there were also troops in Poti, having been put ashore in the Black Sea port several days ago. Russians have been accused of bombing targets in Poti, including a military installation and ships. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied Wednesday that there were Russian troops in Poti. But a CNN crew that tried to drive to Poti on Thursday found the road blocked by Russian soldiers. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has been charged with a major humanitarian mission to Georgia, warned that U.S.-Russian relations could be hurt "for years to come" but ruled out any U.S. military action in the region. The conflict in Georgia began late last week, when Tbilisi launched a military incursion into South Ossetia in an effort to rout separatist rebels. Watch some of the destruction in South Ossetia » Russia -- which supports the separatists, many of whom claim Russian citizenship -- responded the next day, sending tanks across the border into the province. The conflict quickly spread to parts of Georgia and to Abkhazia, another breakaway region. Concern beyond Georgia's borders prompted European leaders, spearheaded by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to mediate a cease-fire deal and U.S. President Bush to offer humanitarian support. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in France. A senior State Department official familiar with the negotiations said she will be going to Tbilisi with a cease-fire document that allows Russia to keep some troops in Georgia, but it will not be the final version of the document. Watch the latest on Rice's mission » International agreements signed in the early 1990s allow Russian peacekeepers to maintain a presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia as part of a force including Georgians and South Ossetians. Analysts see the conflict as a gamble initiated by Georgia, which is seeking EU and NATO membership, to test the strength of its Western allies in the face of Russia's unwillingness to see the West encroaching on its doorstep. In five days of fighting, both sides accused the other of targeting civilians, with casualty reports in the thousands. Many more people have fled the fighting into Russia and Georgia, leaving heavily bombarded towns and cities deserted. Despite Tuesday's cease-fire deal, accusations of ongoing hostilities have continued on both sides, and Russia's incursion into undisputed Georgian territory has adding to confusion fueled doubts that a quick solution to the conflict can be found. Watch as a reporter is grazed by a bullet » Russian Gen. Nikolai Uvarov said Russia had invaded Gori because it is Georgia's main military base and an arms munition storage there had | [
"What was the source of the conflict?",
"What started the conflict?",
"What does the Russian military appear to be in control of?",
"How did the conflict begin?",
"What is the Russian military controlling?",
"Where did the millitary appear?",
"Why did the conflict begin?",
"How many tanks are there?",
"Georgia says how many tanks and vehicles moved?",
"Where were over 100 tanks moving?"
] | [
[
"Tbilisi launched a military incursion into South Ossetia"
],
[
"Tbilisi launched a military incursion into South Ossetia"
],
[
"two key Georgian cities"
],
[
"when Tbilisi launched a military incursion into South Ossetia in an effort to rout separatist rebels."
],
[
"two key Georgian cities"
],
[
"two key Georgian cities"
],
[
"Tbilisi launched a military incursion into South Ossetia in an effort to rout separatist rebels."
],
[
"more than 100"
],
[
"more than 100"
],
[
"between the cities of Senaki and Kutaisi."
]
] | Russian military appears in control of two key Georgia cities .
Georgia says more than 100 tanks, vehicles moving between Senaki and Kutaisi .
Source tells CNN draft peace deal could see some Russian stay in Georgia .
Conflict began when Georgia launched action against rebels in South Ossetia . |
TBLISI, Georgia (CNN) -- As Georgian troops launched a major military offensive Friday to regain control over the breakaway province of South Ossetia, the former Soviet republic's president accused Russia of bombing its territory.
Georgian troops fire rockets at seperatist South Ossetian troops from an unnamed location not far from Tskhinvali.
According to the Associated Press, Mikhail Saakashvili said in a televised statement that Russian aircraft bombed several Georgian villages and other civilian facilities.
He said there were injuries and damage to the buildings. "A full-scale aggression has been launched against Georgia," he said in a televised statement.
A Georgian official said seven people were hurt in the attack, AP reported.
Saakashvili urged Russia to immediately stop bombing Georgian territory. "Georgia will not yield its territory or renounce its freedom," he said.
Meanwhile, AP reported that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, speaking in televised remarks Friday during his trip to the opening of the Beijing Olympics, blamed Georgia for launching the effort to take control over South Ossetia and warned it would cause an unspecified retaliatory action. Watch more about the increased violence in Georgia »
The bombing charge came about an hour after Russia's ambassador to the United Nations brushed off a question about whether Russia would intervene militarily in a conflict between Georgia and its breakaway territory.
Violence in the former Soviet republic prompted an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council that lasted into Friday morning. The security council failed to issue a statement on the dramatic escalation of violence in a breakaway territory of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
Meanwhile, Georgia's president also announced that his government will be calling up reservists as fighting continued to rage in South Ossetia's capital.
Georgian forces launched fresh attacks into region late Thursday after a top government official said a unilateral cease-fire offer was met with artillery fire.
About 2,000 Georgian troops attempted to storm the breakaway territory's capital overnight and were regrouping south of the city, Tskhinvali, according to Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency.
Georgia's ambassador to the United Nations, Irakli Alasania, said that "Russia has become a party to the conflict." He said Russia has supported separatists in South Ossetia, a charge Russia dismissed.
Around 10 a.m. Friday, Georgia said Russian military aircraft violated Georgian airspace and dropped two bombs on Kareli, a part of Georgia that is about 50 miles northwest of the capital, Tblisi, and is not in the conflict zone, said Shota Utiashvili, spokesman for the Georgian Ministry of Interior. No casualties were reported, he said.
Georgian troops pushed into South Ossetia after separatists attacked Georgian soil, destroying one village and killing several civilians, soldiers and police officers, Alasania said.
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, denied allegations that his country planned to intervene militarily. In comments to the Security Council, he decried the "blatant aggressive action of Georgia."
The latest developments follow a week of sporadic clashes between the Georgian central government and authorities in South Ossetia, which declared its independence from Georgia in the early 1990s after a bloody ethnic conflict between Georgians and Ossetians.
Alexander Lomaia, the secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said his country had to act.
"The objective of the operation is to protect the civilian population, to ensure their security and then convince the separatists that there is not a military solution to this conflict," he said.
Lomaia said Georgian troops were responding proportionately to separatist mortar and artillery attacks on two villages -- attacks he said followed a Thursday evening cease-fire and call for negotiations by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
"There were up to 10 people killed, including peacekeepers and the peaceful population, and up to 23 people wounded, including four of them wounded quite badly," Lomaia said. But he said Georgia wants a peaceful solution to the conflict and is leaving the door open to negotiations and has offered the territory "the widest possible autonomy."
The official news agency of the South Ossetian government reported heavy shelling in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, that left dozens of buildings ablaze | [
"What did Georgia say the Russian aircraft do?",
"What nation launched a military offensive to regain control of South Ossetia?",
"Who is the Russian PM?",
"Where is Kareli?",
"What did Georgie launch the military offensive for?",
"What city did Russian aircraft drop two bombs on to?",
"Who dropped 2 bombs on Kareli?",
"Who warned about the retaliatory action?",
"Who launched military offensive to regain control of South Ossetia?",
"How many bombs were dropped on Kareli?",
"Who said, \"A full scale aggression has been launched?"
] | [
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"bombed"
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"Vladimir Putin,"
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[
"Kareli, a part of Georgia that is about 50 miles northwest of the capital, Tblisi,"
],
[
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"South Ossetia,"
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[
"Russian military aircraft"
],
[
"Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin,"
],
[
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],
[
"two"
],
[
"Mikhail Saakashvili"
]
] | NEW: Georgia said Russian aircraft violated its airspace dropping 2 bombs on Kareli .
NEW: Georgia's president: "A full-scale aggression has been launched"
Georgia launched military offensive to regain control of South Ossetia .
Russian PM warned it will cause an unspecified retaliatory action . |
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNN) -- Hours after the sitting president was deposed by a military-led coup, a new president of Honduras was sworn in Sunday. Honduras President Jose Manuel Zelaya was detained and sent to Costa Rica, the government said. But the former president was not ready to give up his powers. The political developments that swept Honduras over the past weeks and led up to Sunday's coup had the makings of a crisis, but the situation in the Central American nation of 8 million people was calm. Roberto Micheletti was sworn in as provisional president to the applause of members of Congress, who chanted, "Honduras! Honduras!" Outside the building, supporters of ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya protested, but their numbers were limited, and the streets remained mostly peaceful. Micheletti told CNN en Español Sunday evening that he has imposed an "indefinite" curfew. Micheletti, the head of Congress, became president after lawmakers voted by a show of hands to strip Zelaya of his powers, with a resolution stating that Zelaya "provoked confrontations and divisions" within the country. A letter of resignation purported to be from Zelaya was read to members before the vote. But the deposed president, Zelaya, emphatically denied in an interview with CNN en Español that he wrote the letter. Speaking from Costa Rica, where he was taken after the coup, he said he plans to continue exercising his presidential duties with a trip to Managua, Nicaragua, to attend a summit of Central American heads-of-state. Zelaya awoke to the sound of gunfire in his residence and was still in his pajamas when the military forced him to leave the country Sunday morning, he told reporters. He was flown to Costa Rica, where he has not requested political asylum. "This was a brutal kidnapping of me with no justification," Zelaya said. He called the coup an attack on Honduran democracy. "There are ways to protest without arms," Zelaya said. The coup came on the same day that he had vowed to follow through with a nonbinding referendum that the Honduran Supreme Court had ruled illegal. Watch details on "curious situation" in Honduras » The coup was widely criticized in the region, in strongest terms by Zelaya's leftist allies, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. A statement from Venezuela's foreign ministry said Zelaya was "violently expelled from his country by a group of unpatriotic, coup-mongering soldiers." The Bolivian government also condemned the coup, accusing Honduran troops of kidnapping Zelaya and violently expelling him from his country. Elsewhere, Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, strongly condemned the coup in a statement. And in Washington, President Obama said in a statement that he was "deeply concerned" by the news. "I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," Obama said. "Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference." The president of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, called the Honduran military's intervention a "criminal action." But in Honduras, the Supreme Court said in an official statement that the military was acting in accordance with a court order to put an end to Sunday's scheduled vote, which the court's justices had found illegal. Micheletti addressed the issue directly in his first remarks as provisional president. "I did not reach this position because of a coup," Micheletti said. "I am here because of an absolutely legal transition process." No other countries immediately recognized Micheletti as president. Zelaya, a leftist elected in 2005, had found himself pitted against the other branches of government and military leaders over the issue of Sunday's planned referendum. It would have asked voters to place a measure on November's ballot allowing the formation of a constitutional assembly that could modify the nation's charter to allow the president to run for another term. In | [
"What does Obama call all to do?",
"Where did the military fly Jose Zelaya to?",
"Where did Zelatya fly?",
"Who strips president of power?",
"Where is Jose Manuel Zelaya the former president of?",
"What was stripped of powers?",
"Who striped President Jose Manuel Zelaya of his powers?",
"What is the name of the president?"
] | [
[
"respect democratic norms,"
],
[
"Costa Rica,"
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[
"Costa Rica,"
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[
"lawmakers"
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[
"Honduras"
],
[
"Honduras President Jose Manuel Zelaya"
],
[
"lawmakers"
],
[
"Jose Manuel Zelaya"
]
] | Honduran Congress strips president of powers, names provisional president .
Obama statement: "I call on all ... to respect democratic norms"
Military detains President Jose Manuel Zelaya, flies him to Costa Rica .
Zelaya says he plans to continue exercising presidential duties . |
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department is calling on Honduras' de facto president to immediately rescind an emergency decree that limits constitutional rights such as freedoms of expression, travel and public congregation. Robert Micheletti, de facto president of Honduras, says he'll repeal an emergency decree, but not immediately. "The freedoms inherent in the suspended rights are inalienable and cannot be limited or restricted without seriously damaging the democratic aspirations of the Honduran people," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly in a statement late Monday night. Earlier Monday, Roberto Micheletti announced he would repeal the law, but it would not be immediately. The decree will undergo a legal review, he said. Still, Micheletti's announcement was an about-face. He had announced the policy less than 24 hours earlier in response to unrest that increased significantly after ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya secretly returned to Honduras on September 20 and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy. The 45-day decree announced Sunday night forbids any unauthorized public gatherings, allows officials to make arrests without a judicial order and lets the government close down news media that threaten "peace and order." Micheletti said he would consult with the supreme court to repeal the decree, after a meeting with the leading presidential candidates. "This decision was made because (Zelaya) was calling for insurrection ... but I'm going to listen to the other powers of the state and we're going to make the most wise decision in the interests of Honduras," Micheletti said, according to the newspaper La Prensa. Monday marked the three-month anniversary of Zelaya's ouster in a military-led coup on June 28. In the wake of Micheletti's decree, Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the OAS, said the Canal 36 TV station and Radio Globo were reported closed. The owner of Canal 36, Esdras Amado Lopez, told CNN that 60 soldiers entered his station Monday morning to shut it down. They removed all of the equipment, he said. "They say that we offended the dignity of the president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti," Lopez said, adding that he sees his station not as pro-Zelaya, but "pro-people." Honduran soldiers were stationed in front of the shuttered TV and radio stations and would not allow anyone to enter. The United Nations, the OAS and the European Union have condemned the coup and demanded that Zelaya be reinstated. Micheletti has vowed that Zelaya will never return to power and has said the deposed president will be arrested if he comes out of the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the nation's capital. Micheletti has accused Zelaya of using the embassy to instigate an insurrection and this weekend gave the Brazilian embassy 10 days to decide the ousted president's status. Brazil rejected the Honduran ultimatum. On Monday night, Zelaya addressed the United Nations General Assembly via a mobile phone that his foreign minister held up at the podium. A "serious crime is taking place when the voice of the people is silenced and when the people who are being repressed are likewise silenced," Zelaya said. CNN's John Zarrella, Kim Segal and journalist Elvin Sandoval contributed to this report. | [
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"when was he ousted as president",
"what did Roberto Micheletti say",
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] | [
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"offended the dignity of the president of Honduras,"
],
[
"limits constitutional rights such as freedoms of expression, travel and public congregation."
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[
"Sunday night"
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[
"June 28."
],
[
"he'll repeal an emergency decree, but not immediately."
],
[
"de facto president of Honduras,"
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[
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] | Roberto Micheletti said he would repeal decree but not be immediately .
Decree clamps down on public gatherings, lets government close news media .
Jose Manuel Zelaya was ousted as president of Honduras three months ago .
Zelaya has returned to Tegucigalpa and is holed up in Brazilian Embassy . |
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNN) -- The de facto president of Honduras denied Wednesday that his government turned off the power at the embassy where deposed President Jose Manual Zelaya surprisingly reappeared this week, and said that the people inside were free to come and go. A soldier takes a picture Wednesday of the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Honduran forces also will not enter the Brazilian embassy, where Zelaya has been housed since Monday, de facto President Roberto Micheletti said in an interview with CNN en Español. But these developments do not spare Zelaya, who was ousted in a June 28 coup, from being arrested and facing charges for violating the constitution if he leaves the safe haven of the embassy, Micheletti said. "President Zelaya should present himself before the tribunals of justice in our country where he has charges against him," Micheletti said. The de facto president challenged versions of events surrounding Zelaya's return. Despite local reports citing police officials that authorities turned off the power to the embassy and surrounding area ostensibly to discourage looting, Micheletti said that a congregation of pro-Zelaya protesters at the embassy short-circuited the power themselves. As of Wednesday, power was restored to the building, Micheletti said. A nationwide curfew was lifted Wednesday, but a security cordon remained in the area around the embassy. Micheletti said that the police were there because the people inside the embassy requested the protection, and said, "We are not impeding the exit nor the entrance of absolutely anybody." Zelaya's announced return has re-ignited a stand-off between the two disputed leaders of Honduras. Brazil now finds itself involved because of its embassy. Brazil wants an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss the situation, the official Brazilian news agency reported. In another development, Micheletti said he is willing to meet anywhere with ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya as long as Zelaya agrees to abide by presidential elections scheduled for November 29. But the de facto leader said in a statement read by his foreign minister Tuesday that his offer to talk with Zelaya does not nullify an arrest warrant issued against the ousted president by the nation's Supreme Court. "I think that what the whole world should understand about this country is that there is no immunity for anyone -- for anyone," Micheletti told CNN en Español. "And, no one can be above the law." Micheletti's willingness to engage Zelaya seemed to be a reversal of his position. On Tuesday, he had said in an interview with local network Televicentro that Zelaya's sudden appearance would not revive negotiations to have him return to power. The United States and Brazil have said they support dialogue between the two sides, centered on the San Jose Accord, an agreement negotiated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. That deal calls for Zelaya to be restored to power. The Brazilian request for a Security Council meeting came after the Honduran government isolated the embassy by cutting water, power and phone lines to the building, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly confirmed to reporters Tuesday in Washington. This was the same action that Micheletti denied Wednesday. Micheletti said that other nations have not given his government a fair hearing of its position. "This is what we Hondurans want: to be heard, for them to read our constitution, to read our laws, and to see what happened before June 28," Micheletti said. The de facto government argues that Zelaya was not removed in a coup, but in a constitutional transfer of power. Zelaya, a centrist whose politics took a strong turn to the left once in office, was ousted in a June 28 military-backed coup. Despite increasing political, diplomatic and economic isolation, Micheletti has steadfastly resisted pressure to allow Zelaya to return to power and Micheletti thwarted two very public attempts by Zelaya to return to his homeland. "Yes, we are alone, but we are surviving," Micheletti said. "Two months ago, people didn't think we would withstand all this time, but here we are almost three months later." Amnesty International issued | [
"Who cut utilities in the embassy?",
"what is the situation",
"Where was the ousted president?",
"what do the utilities include",
"who cut utilities"
] | [
[
"Honduran government"
],
[
"Zelaya's announced return has re-ignited a stand-off between the two disputed leaders of Honduras. Brazil now finds itself involved because of its embassy."
],
[
"Honduras"
],
[
"water, power"
],
[
"Honduran government"
]
] | Amnesty International official calls situation in Honduras "alarming"
Honduras reportedly cuts utilities at Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa .
Brazil official calls Honduran action on its embassy a "serious" move .
Ousted Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya inside embassy . |
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNN) -- He's no Julia Child, but Honduran President Manuel Zelaya showed Tuesday he can attack a cantaloupe and U.S. government claims in a single motion. President Manuel Zelaya chews on a slice of Honduran melon to demonstrate its safety. "It's not in our fruit," he said about last week's report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that some Honduran cantaloupes may be contaminated with salmonella. "It's not true what they are saying. Logically, we believe it is an error." Then, the 55-year-old father of four asked the viewers of CNN en Español to indulge him as he engaged in a show-and-tell demonstration. "Permit me a second," he said as he stretched his left arm across the tabletop and outside the view of the camera, then pulled into view a box of fruit. "Here I have the box of melons that we are exporting to the United States; here are the protective bags," he said. Zelaya lifted a cantaloupe from the box, placed it in front of him, then grabbed a knife and a fork. "Permit me to make a demonstration," he said, then cut open the fruit, sliced off a chunk, put it in his mouth and chewed vigorously. "I eat this fruit without any fear," he said with his mouth full. "It's a delicious fruit. Nothing happens to me!" Though the symptoms of salmonella infection -- nausea, vomiting, fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps -- typically do not occur for several hours after eating tainted food, the point was made. The demonstration came three days after the FDA said it had linked 50 cases of salmonella in 16 states and nine in Canada to melons from Agropecuaria Montelibana, a grower and packer in San Lorenzo, Honduras. Though there have been no reports of fatalities, 14 people have been hospitalized in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin, the FDA said. While the company has continued exporting to Europe and Central America and has received no reports of illness, the daily export of 45 containers of melon to the United States has halted, a company official said Monday. As a result, some 1,500 workers have been laid off, most of them single mothers, and company losses have exceeded $3 million, company officials said. The FDA alert advised U.S. grocers, food-service operators and produce processors to remove from their stock any cantaloupes from the company. The agency also recommended consumers throw away any cantaloupes determined to be from the company. E-mail to a friend CNN's Elvin Sandoval contributed to this story. | [
"who was laid off",
"What is salmonella?",
"what did the president do",
"Who is the grower?",
"what President Manuel Zelaya says?"
] | [
[
"1,500 workers"
],
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"infection -- nausea, vomiting, fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps"
],
[
"he can attack a cantaloupe and U.S. government claims in a single motion."
],
[
"Agropecuaria Montelibana,"
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[
"\"It's not in our fruit,\" he said about last week's report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that some Honduran cantaloupes may be contaminated with salmonella. \"It's not true what they are saying. Logically, we believe it is an error.\""
]
] | President Manuel Zelaya says Honduran fruit has no salmonella .
To prove his point, he eats some publicly "without any fear"
FDA links 50 cases of salmonella to Honduran grower .
1,500 workers laid off, grower reports losses in excess of $3 million . |
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