Storm death toll at 31 as floodwaters recede

Nashville, Tennessee (News Today) - Water continued to recede in flood-struck Tennessee Thursday, as the Cumberland River fell below flood stage for the first time since heavy weekend rains overflowed it.

As of Thursday afternoon, the river stood at 39.5 feet, or about half an inch under flood stage, officials said.

The waters had receded in much of the city of Nashville, six days after the record-setting rains swelled rivers to historic levels and flooded several neighborhoods.

Nashville's major business and government district, Metro Center, partially reopened at noon Thursday. Business owners and workers were allowed access to their properties at Metro Center, but the area remained closed to the public.

Other parts of downtown were also reopened Thursday to residents and shop owners, the Nashville mayor's office said.

The death toll in three states has risen to 31 from the storms, authorities said Thursday.

Has the Tennessee flooding affected you? Share your story, images

Twenty-one people have died in hard-hit Tennessee, authorities said. One person died in a tornado in Hardeman County that was spawned by heavy storms, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

The same storm system killed six people in Mississippi and four in Kentucky, emergency management officials said.

The death toll could rise as rescue crews continue to search for several people who have been reported missing, including two kayakers in Kentucky and several people in Tennessee, officials said.

Latest updates on the flooding and aftermath

"Nashville has obviously been hard-hit, and it's a well-known city, but there are so many other counties in the state and areas ... that have been hit very hard as well," Gov. Phil Bredesen said from Nashville on Thursday morning.

"A lot of people who didn't have flood insurance, because they never thought floodwaters would ever come anywhere near their home, are really looking at a total loss of their home," he said. "It's very tough on a lot of people right now."

President Obama has declared 10 Tennessee counties disaster areas, he said.

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said his agency was looking to add more counties to the federal disaster declaration.

The flooding was one of the biggest responses FEMA has made under his leadership, Fugate said at a news conference Thursday.

He asked those affected by flooding to contact FEMA to verify damage and apply for federal aid, if possible, he said.

As the floods recede, Bredesen said, people are facing the damage.

"We're going to get through this," he said. "This is a very resilient state."

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean was also optimistic Wednesday night.

"We are coming out of this thing," Dean said. "This has been devastating, but right now we're going to be focused on getting our city back up and working. "

The iconic Country Music Hall of Fame is also expected to reopen before week's end.

Nashville "will remain Music City and we will go forward doing what we've been doing," Dean said.

The mayor estimated the flood damage to his city to easily top $1 billion.

One of the city's main water treatment plants remained closed because of the flooding Thursday, prompting the city to tell residents to put off washing dishes and limit toilet flushing.

"Citizens are using water at a greater rate than we can treat it and pump it out to the community," said Sonia Harvat of Nashville's water department.

See photos as the cleanup begins

Harvat said "assessment and repairs are proceeding well at the K.R. Harrington Water Treatment Plant."

"There is still a significant amount of inspection, repair and testing to accomplish before the plant can be placed back in service and operations evaluated," she said in an e-mail to CNN.

The city would be forced to rely on bottled water unless more people started conserving, officials said.

Bredesen warned residents to be wary of con artists looking to capitalize on the flood response.

"There are always people who come in and do these scams of charging people -- and they seem to prey on elderly people an awful lot -- just charging people an awful lot to do something," Bredesen said.

Singer and Nashville resident Kenny Chesney flew home to check on his house.

The damage Chesney saw from the air while flying in was nothing compared to what he's seen on the ground, he said.

"I didn't know what to think. I was numb to it all," he said.

The road leading to Chesney's 40-acre waterfront property was under five feet of water, accessible only by a motor boat.

"I lost a lot but not near as much as a lot of people," he said.

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Mumbai gunman sentenced to death

(News Today) - The only surviving gunman in the 2008 Mumbai attacks was sentenced to death on Thursday.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani, was convicted Monday of murder, conspiracy, and waging war on India.

More than 160 people were killed in Mumbai during the three-day siege in November 2008, as 10 men attacked buildings including the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower and Oberoi-Trident hotels, the city's historic Victoria Terminus train station, and the Jewish cultural center, Chabad House.

Kasab was photographed holding an assault weapon during the attacks.

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Personal assistant gets 27 to life in celebrity realtor's murder

New York (News Terupdate) - The personal assistant to "realtor to the stars" Linda Stein was sentenced Monday to 27 years to life in prison for stealing from Stein and beating her to death in her Park Avenue apartment.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers said Natavia Lowery, 28, "acted with uncommon and almost inhuman calculation," calmly lying to Stein's ex-husband and friends "at a time when her bloody corpse lay at her feet."

"An old and wise adage: The truth will come to light. Murder cannot be hid long," the judge said.

Lowery was convicted in February of second-degree murder in Stein's 2007 slaying. She also was found guilty of stealing thousands of dollars from Stein.

Lowery received 25 years to life for the murder and at least an additional two years for the larceny convictions.

She read from a three-page written statement, her voice barely audible in a crowded courtroom ringed with a dozen deputies.

"The fight has just begun," she said. "My innocence will continuously remain as it did since October 30, 2007. This case was turned into a media circus, it was never about evidence."

Stein's daughters offered emotional victim impact statements at the sentencing hearing.

"I toss and turn, unable to sleep because of the vivid imagery of my dead mother," said the victim's daughter, Mandy Stein. She found her mother's bludgeoned body.

Her older sister, Samantha Stein-Wells, directed her comments to Lowery.

"Natavia, there's so much I want to say to you but cannot say in this courtroom. I'm a lady," she said. "Where is your apology? You can't even look me in the eye. Natavia, you know the truth. You will forever live the legacy of a murderer and a thief."

Lowery had given detectives a written and verbal confession, which she later recanted, according to police and prosecutors.

Prosecutors had asked for the maximum sentence, 40 years to life in prison.

"Imagine the kind of person it takes to stand there and crush her skull, literally beating her to death," Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzi-Orbon told the judge. "Imagine what it felt like to stand over someone and crush her skull repeatedly."

Stein "had no idea she was letting in a sociopath" when she hired Lowery, she said.

Defense attorney Paul Brenner said he would appeal.

Brenner, who didn't try the case, was emotional in court, saying he was outraged that Lowery was expected to apologize or show remorse for something she says she didn't do.

"She's unjustly accused," he said.

Stein, 62, was one New York City's top real estate brokers and was known for her list of celebrity clients, including Madonna, Sting, Michael Douglas and Angelina Jolie.

She got her first taste of the limelight as manager of the Ramones -- a legendary 1970s punk rock group of the 1970s.

Stein was found dead in her posh Fifth Avenue apartment in October 2007, a victim of "blunt impact injuries of the head and neck," the New York medical examiner's office said.

Police said no sign of forced entry was found at the apartment.

Lowery told police that Stein had been verbally abusive to her and on the day of the murder had blown marijuana smoke into her face and waved a "yoga stick" at her, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said at the time.

Lowery had been Stein's personal assistant for four months, Kelly said.

Lowery's only known previous arrest stemmed from an identity theft case in 2006, in which she stole another woman's identification and used it to get a credit card in her name, Kelly said.

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Actress Lynn Redgrave dies at 67

(News Terupdate) - Actress Lynn Redgrave died Sunday after a seven-year battle with breast cancer, according to her family.

Redgrave, 67, was surrounded by her children at her Connecticut home when she died, the family said in a statement Monday morning.

The star of stage, film and television was twice nominated for an Academy Award: for best actress in 1966 for her role in "Georgy Girl" and for best supporting actress in the 1998 film "Gods and Monsters."

"She lived, loved and worked harder than ever before," the family said. "The endless memories she created as a mother, grandmother, writer, actor and friend will sustain us for the rest of our lives. Our entire family asks for privacy through this difficult time," the statement said.

Redgrave is from "a family of actors, embracing as it does more than five generations," she wrote on her official website.

She is the younger sister of Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave and the aunt of the late actress Natasha Richardson.

Her parents, Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, were British stage and film actors.

Her paternal grandparents, Roy Redgrave and Margaret Scudamore, were stage and silent film actors.

Redgrave teamed with daughter Annabel Clark in 2004 to produce the book "Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery from Breast Cancer."

"I thought I was living very fully before this happened," she said in 2005. "But in comparison, no, I really wasn't. I wasn't taking the time to notice things. I didn't see things as brightly or as sharply or as memorably as I do now.

"I really don't let a moment slide by. I just don't. It's a big price to pay, isn't it, to have to have cancer to learn that? But it is in the end, I have to say, a price worth paying," Redgrave said.

Redgrave's professional acting debut was in 1962 at London's Royal Court Theatre in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." A year later, she was invited to join Britain's National Theatre for its inaugural season under the direction of Sir Laurence Olivier, according to her personal biography.

Her first film performance came in "Tom Jones," a 1963 movie co-starring Albert Finney and her mother.

Redgrave's "Georgy Girl" role three years later, opposite James Mason, earned her a best actress Golden Globe and the Academy Award best actress nomination. Her portrayal of a wisecracking young woman was a box office hit.

Other early film roles included "The National Health," "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex," "The Happy Hooker" and "Getting It Right."

Redgrave enjoyed a revitalized film career late in life. She won a second Golden Globe and her second Oscar nomination for her comedic role in "Gods and Monsters."

She continued to make movies despite her illness, including her last film role in "Confessions of a Shopaholic," which hit theaters a year ago.

Redgrave debuted on Broadway in 1967 in "Black Comedy." The first of three Tony nominations came in 1976 for "Mrs. Warren's Profession." She was nominated again for her Broadway roles in "Shakespeare for My Father" in 1993 and "The Constant Wife" in 2005.

She teamed with her sister Vanessa Redgrave on the London stage in "Three Sisters" in 1991.

The sisters worked together the same year in a television version of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Her three Emmy nominations all came for TV work in the 1980s, including an episode of "House Calls" in 1981, "The Shooting Company" in 1982 and "Walking on Air" in 1987.

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Death penalty sought for Fort Hood shooting suspect

(News Terupdate) - The Army officers responsible for prosecuting the Fort Hood shooting suspect will be seeking the death penalty, the suspect's attorney told CNN.

John Galligan -- the attorney for the suspect, Maj. Nidal Hasan -- said that the filing of a memo by the prosecutors Wednesday indicated that finding Hasan guilty of more than one of the murders would constitute the "aggravating factor" necessary for the Army to seek the death penalty.

Thirteen people died in the shooting spree at the Texas base last November.

"It is the first 'formal notice' but, of course, it has been a virtual given from the start," Galligan wrote in an e-mail to CNN. "In short, the Army has been pursuing death from the git-go."

The actual decision to seek the death penalty occurs after an Article 32 hearing. The hearing -- the military justice system's rough equivalent of a grand jury hearing -- is scheduled to start June 1 at Fort Hood in Texas.

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Somalia rebels battle pirates, government troops

Mogadishu, Somalia (News Terupdate) - Islamist rebels advanced on a pirate haven in central Somalia and battled government troops in Mogadishu in a clash that killed at least 10 people, ambulance crews and a local journalist reported Sunday.

Fighters from the al Qaeda-linked militia al-Shabaab were advancing on Harardhere, the pirate stronghold on the Somali coast, a local journalist in contact with pirate sources told CNN. The pirates recently captured a boat loaded with weapons from Yemen that were intended for the militia, and had stopped paying bribes to the Islamists, said the journalist, whose identity is not being disclosed for security reasons.

The journalist said a spokesman for al-Shabaab, which is trying to topple Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government, said the Islamists are only a few kilometers from Harardhere. The journalist reported that the pirates appeared to be retreating from Harardhere to the port town of Hobyo, Somalia with their captured ships.

No further details were immediately available, and the European Union naval force that patrols the waters off Somalia said it had no information about the situation.

U.N. reports have found that Yemen is a source for arms shipments into Somalia despite a longstanding U.N. embargo on weapons. The Yemeni government, which is battling its own al Qaeda uprising, has attempted to crack down on arms dealing within its territory but also faces an influx of Somali refugees.

The advance on Harardhere, about 430 km (270 miles) north of Mogadishu, came the same day a clash between al-Shabaab fighters and government forces left at least 10 people dead and 40 wounded, ambulance crews reported. Heavy shelling followed an attempt by government troops to ambush al-Shabaab fighters, witnesses reported.

Al-Shabaab has ties to al Qaeda and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, but it has taken control of much of Mogadishu and southern Somalia.

The fighting has escalated a long-running humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa nation, which has not had an effective central government since 1991.

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Taliban suspected of sickening female Afghan students

(News Terupdate) - Afghan authorities will investigate the sudden illness of students and staff at three schools in the past week in northern Afghanistan, the Afghan Human Independent Rights Commission said on Sunday. Local doctors suggested the Taliban may be the perpetrators of possible poison attacks.

"During the last seven days three cases of poisoning [have] occurred in Kunduz Province," said Syed Karim Talash, the director of the commission office in the province.

At least 88 girls and teachers became ill in separate cases at three girls' schools.

The cause of the illnesses was not known, but Talash said poison gas was suspected.

"It is really big concern for us, and big concern for the family of the girls," Talash said.

Dr. Mohammad Qasam Khamoosh, who treated girls from two schools, said "unknown gases" were responsible for the mass illnesses.

These are "terrorist activities against education in the country," he said.

Girls were not allowed to attend school during the Taliban's rule. Girls' schools have been open in the region since 2001.

Khamoosh said authorities were able to gather a sample of the gas, which has been sent off for testing.

Kunduz province has seen a drastic influx in terrorist activity, particularly by the group known as Hizb-e-Islami, led by the notorious leader Gulbudeen Hekmatyar. It's an independent group that has increasingly worked under the Taliban umbrella in recent years.

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Rescuers comb debris for survivors after Mississippi tornado

Yazoo City, Mississippi (News Terupdate) - Rescue crews in Mississippi continued to search for survivors Sunday from a powerful tornado that ripped through the state a day earlier, killing 10 people, injuring dozens of others and leveling scores of homes.

Two children and a 3-month-old baby were among the victims.

Two sisters, 9 and 14, were killed inside a mobile home, Choctaw County Coroner Keith Coleman told CNN.

The tornado tore a path nearly a mile wide and decimated neighborhoods as it raked cities from the central western border with Louisiana northeastward to Alabama. It leveled a church, sheared roofs off houses, overturned cars, snapped down hundreds of trees and plunged large swaths of the state in darkness as it toppled power lines.

The same storm system that unleashed Saturday's twister delivered severe weather to other parts of the South on Sunday, with tornadoes hitting Alabama and South Carolina.

On Sunday, a tornado in Darlington County in northern South Carolina overturned as many as four mobile homes and toppled trees and downed power lines.

Three people were hospitalized with minor injuries, according to Linwood Epps of the county's emergency management agency. He said that the local Cain Elementary school was damaged, with part of its roof missing.

The National Weather Service on Sunday gave the Mississippi tornado a preliminary rating of at least 3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale of 0-5, with wind speeds of up to 160 miles per hour and a preliminary path width of one and a half miles.

Were you affected by the tornado? Send in pics, video

Ron Sullivan, a store owner in Choctaw County, said he was lucky to be alive after the storm hit around midday Saturday. "They always talk about you hearing the train," Sullivan told CNN. "There was no train. There was a bomb."

He said two customers were walking toward the door of his store when the tornado struck and that "when they opened the door, it hit and blew me back."

"The only thing that went through my mind were two things -- 'Please don't let anything else fall on me' and 'I hope my wife is OK,' " Sullivan said.

The hardest-hit counties were Yazoo and Choctaw, where assessment and rescue crews continued operations Sunday, though a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said there weren't any specific reports of people trapped inside the rubble.

Authorities had recorded at least 681 homes damaged across six counties, according to MEMA spokesman Greg Flynn.

The agency was reporting 33 injuries, but it hadn't received counts from Yazoo and Choctaw counties.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said he has not yet requested emergency federal aid but plans to do so on Monday. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were scheduled to arrive Monday, anticipating an application for a disaster declaration, Flynn said.

Nearly 80 Mississippi National Guard troops, including 50 military police, had been deployed to Choctaw and Yazoo counties, MEMA reported. Forty highway safety patrol troops were also sent to the affected areas.

Five of the dead were from Choctaw County, in the north central part of the state; four were from Yazoo County, north of Jackson; and one was from Holmes County, also in north central Mississippi, said Flynn.

Barbour, who was in Yazoo City where his home is located, called the twister gigantic and said that "in places (it) seemed to be to be several miles wide."

Only 38 people stayed overnight in shelters in Yazoo City, Flynn said, adding that most of the affected were able to stay with family or friends.

Mississippi residents shared stories of tragedy and survival on Sunday.

"You could just feel the glass and debris flying in and cutting you," said Stacy Walker, who took cover in a hair salon in Yazoo City where she worked. "It felt like minutes and minutes. but I'm sure it was just seconds the time that it lasted."

Walker made it out safe but later learned that a high school friend died protecting her children.

Dale Thrasher was inside Yazoo City's Hillcrest Baptist Church when it was flattened by the tornado. "I went in the sanctuary and got under the pulpit table and the whole building fell around me," he said. His injuries: "Three little scratches."

In all, 12 counties reported injuries, with some of the injured airlifted to a level one trauma center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

Local coverage from CNN affiliate WAPT

President Obama has "been briefed on the tragedy in Mississippi and the situation is being followed by the White House," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Mississippi residents reported that the path of the twister was a half-mile to a mile wide, said Mark McAllister, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Jackson.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras said the twister had traveled 150 miles across Mississippi, starting in the western part of the state and moving northeast before weakening as it moved into Alabama.

Early Sunday morning, Alabama's emergency management officials confirmed a tornado touched down in Marshall County in the state's north.

At least one mobile home park and some homes in Albertville were destroyed, said CNN affiliate WAFF in Huntsville, Alabama.

On Sunday, Nancy Brooks surveyed the damage to her Albertville home, which was extensive. Part of home's roof was blown off, and debris littered the floors, which were now barely visible.

Brooks awoke to the sound of the incoming tornado, only to witness a moment later a large tree branch rip into her bedroom just feet from where she sleeps.

"I'm very lucky, I'm very fortunate," she said, as friends helped her begin the cleanup process.

Saturday's tornado was part of a broad band of storms that stretched from Missouri to the panhandle of Florida, Jeras said.

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Lawyers hopeful for 'sorcerer' on death row

(News Terupdate) - A Lebanese man sentenced to die for "sorcery" in Saudi Arabia remains on death row but may not be executed -- at least not yet, the man's lawyer said.

May El Khansa said that Lebanon's justice minister met with Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Lebanon this week in an effort to spare the life of her client, Ali Hussain Sibat.

The Saudi ambassador told Lebanon's justice minister, Ibrahim Najjar, that Sibat wouldn't be beheaded because a final verdict had not been reached, El Khansa said, citing an account of the conversation that she received from the Lebanese justice minister.

Religious police in Saudi Arabia charged Sibat with sorcery as he visited the country in 2008. A court convicted him and sentenced him to death.

Saudi authorities have not disclosed details of the charge for which Sibat has been condemned. They also have declined to comment about the case.

Najjar could not be reached for comment this week, but he has told CNN that he considered the sentence "disproportionate."

"As far as I know, such an act doesn't deserve such a punishment," he said last month, "unless there is something else -- something that I have not had the possibility to study or to examine myself."

Sibat used to offer predictions and advice to callers on a Lebanese television network. Saudi Arabia's religious police charged him with sorcery while he was on an Islamic pilgrimage in the countr€y in 2008.

Outraged international rights groups have called on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to pardon Sibat.

His lawyer says her conversation with the Lebanese justice minister gave her reason to hope.

"I trust Miniser Najjar," El Khansa told CNN, "and I know he's doing so much to make sure Ali Sibat will be released.

"I have put my trust in the Saudi justice system and hope he will soon be allowed to come back to Lebanon," said El Khansa, who has asked Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to pardon her client.

Sibat, the married father of five, was convicted by a court in Medina and sentenced to death in November, El Khansa said. He appealed, and his case was sent back to the trial court for reconsideration. But the judges in Medina upheld their original verdict in March, she said.

Sibat's wife made an emotional plea for mercy last month.

"All I ask is for the Saudi king and the Saudi government to show him mercy -- let him come back to his country and his family," Samira Rahmoon said.

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