North Korea, China hold talks

Beijing, China (News Today) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has held talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing, Chinese state-run media reported.

The meetings took place during Kim's "unofficial" visit to China that began Monday and concluded Friday, according to the Xinhua news agency. No other details were available.

Kim's trip to China comes as North Korea is seeking a conditional return to the six-party talks, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, citing the terms as a peace treaty with the United States to end what North Korea considers a state of war on the Korean Peninsula and the lifting of U.N. sanctions against North Korea.

North Korea last year cut off the six-party talks also involving the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, in anger over international criticism of its nuclear and missile tests.

The trip also came amid increasing speculation that North Korea may have attacked a South Korean warship that sank in March, killing dozens of sailors. Seoul is demanding answers in the probe into the sinking before six-party talks can resume.

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U.S. extends travel warning to Mexico

Washington ((News Today) - The U.S. State Department on Thursday extended a travel warning that had been issued for Mexico because of the region's high level of drug and gang violence.

The State Department warning also notes that the authorized departure of family members of U.S. government personnel from U.S. consulates in the northern Mexico border cities of Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Matamoros has been extended.

The State Department issued similar warnings in March and April.

The Mexican government said in April that more than 22,700 people have been killed in drug-related violence since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon declared war on narcotraffickers.

"While most victims of violence are Mexican citizens associated with criminal activity, the security situation poses serious risks for U.S. citizens, as well," the State Department warning says.

Much of the recent violence has occurred in northern Mexico, where two drug cartels have been waging a bloody war since January.

The area, which borders Texas, has seen ferocious fighting between the Zetas and Gulf cartels after a recent gangland slaying. Hours-long gun battles are common, and U.S. officials were forced earlier this year to temporarily close the consulate in Reynosa, a city in Tamaulipas state.

Ciudad Juarez remains the most violent city in the nation, though.

"Since 2006, three times as many people have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez, in the state of Chihuahua, across from El Paso, Texas, than in any other city in Mexico," the State Department travel warning says. "More than half of all Americans killed in Mexico in FY 2009 whose deaths were reported to the U.S. Embassy were killed in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana."

The State Department targets six Mexican states as particularly dangerous.

"Recent violent attacks and persistent security concerns have prompted the U.S. embassy to urge U.S. citizens to defer unnecessary travel to Michoacan and Tamaulipas, to parts of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango and Coahuila and to advise U.S. citizens residing or traveling in those areas to exercise extreme caution," the warning says.

The latest trouble in Tamaulipas and neighboring Nuevo Leon state started January 18, when Gulf cartel members killed top Zeta lieutenant Victor Mendoza. The Zetas demanded that the Gulf cartel turn over the killers, but the narco group refused.

The Zetas, composed mostly of former elite military troops, had been the armed enforcers for the Gulf cartel since 2001. They have become more independent in recent years, and authorities say the all-out war between the two cartels indicates the split is permanent.

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Cumberland River recedes as Tennessee cleans up

(News Today) - The Cumberland River in Tennessee was receding Tuesday as favorable weather was in the forecast, bringing some relief to the flood-battered state.

Severe weather over the weekend was blamed for at least 28 deaths across the Southeast -- 19 of those in Tennessee -- between Saturday and Monday, emergency officials said. Ten of the Tennessee deaths occurred in Nashville and surrounding Davidson County, the Nashville mayor's office said.

President Obama on Tuesday named parts of Tennessee major disaster areas.

The designation makes federal funding available to affected residents in the counties of Cheatham, Davidson, Hickman and Williamson, according to the White House.

The Cumberland River crested Monday evening at 51.9 feet, 11.9 feet above flood stage, National Weather Service Meteorologist Sam Herron said.

"It's going to continue dropping through today," he said.

The National Weather Service expects the river to fall below flood stage by Thursday morning. The water should recede enough to leave the downtown Nashville area by Tuesday night, Herron said.

"Conditions are going to improve from this point out," he said.

In western Tennessee, significant flash flooding swamped a U.S. Navy base and affected a large part of its operations, a base spokesman said Tuesday.

Water rushed into base housing and several other buildings at Naval Support Activity Mid-South in Millington, Tennessee, less than 20 miles from Memphis.

Base officials shut all the affected buildings to limit long-term damage.

On the website for the base, a message from the commanding officer announced, "For Tuesday, May 4, only those personnel directly involved in recovery efforts need to report to work. All other personnel should check in with their chains of command."

Some buildings were undamaged, but some communication systems remained down.

Vice Adm. Mark Ferguson said engineers had assessed some of the residential streets and determined that some homes are safe for sailors and their families to return.

Those residents can go only to and from their homes; the rest of the base is still closed and considered unsafe. No visitors were being allowed on base.

At Tennessee State University, which sits on the banks of the Cumberland River, the university's president was involved in the rescue of a faculty member.

Using a boat, President Melvin Johnson and a graduate student were able to rescue a professor who had been stranded by flash flooding on Sunday.

Johnson said he got the faculty member, who was suffering from hypothermia, to a hospital.

Officials at the state and local level responded well to the flooding, but "this tragedy was so widespread that we couldn't wait on the emergency response teams to our campus," Johnson said.

Tennessee State wasn't the only Nashville university affected.

According to the Vanderbilt University website, exams were canceled on Monday. As of Tuesday, things were getting back to normal, the website said. "We still have numerous cleanup and restoration efforts going on across campus," said Mark Petty, assistant vice chancellor for Plant Operations.

Chris McDonald shot video of streets covered by water around the university that he submitted as a CNN iReport.

"It was just shocking to see the extent of the flooding. We had been hearing about it, but seeing it for myself was a whole different perspective," he said.

In a news conference Tuesday, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean praised the high number of residents who had volunteered to help those affected by the flooding.

The city was soliciting donations of large quantities of diapers, formula, cleaning supplies, brooms, mops and generators, the mayor said.

"We are now officially beginning to transition from the response to the recovery stage of this disaster," he said.

"We are looking at a long recovery period," the mayor said, adding that he believed that Nashville would recover completely from the flood damage.

This was a "500-year flood," said Larry Nash, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Part of the reason the river was receding at a slow pace was because the Corps of Engineers were strategically releasing some water upstream from some dams.

Map: iReporters document flooding

The releases were necessary for the dams and actually stemmed flooding down river, Lt. Col. Anthony Mitchell, commander of the Corps' Nashville District, said in a statement.

"The perception is that flooding along the Cumberland River was made worse by releases from Corps dams," he said. "The truth is that Corps dams kept the flooding throughout the region from being much worse."

There were also questions about how Nashville would be economically affected by the flooding.

iReport: Have you been affected by the flooding? Send photos, video

The CMA Music Festival, one of Nashville's signature music events, will continue as planned in June, organizers said.

The music festival brings in more than $22 million in direct visitor spending to Nashville, Country Music Association board chairman Steve Moore said.

"We cannot think of a better way to help our local economy at this time of great need than to continue the 39-year tradition of CMA Music Festival," he said.

CNN affiliate WKRN-TV: Recovery efforts expand

Country music artist Keith Urban told CNN's Rick Sanchez that his road equipment was likely lost as a result of the flooding.

He may have lost his equipment, but "this pales in comparison to people who have lost homes and everything," Urban said.

"Nashville is just such a great community and that community spirit has never been more evident than it is now," he said, predicting that benefit concerts in the music-rich city may help raise funds to restore it.

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Remembering Kent State, 40 years later

Atlanta, Georgia (News Today) - I enrolled at Kent State University in 1967, three years before that fateful day when Kent State became synonymous with tragedy.

Unsure of what I wanted to do with my life, I joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, taking classes on military history and planning for a career in the Army.

But everything changed for me that first week of May in 1970.

It was just a few days after President Richard Nixon announced he had authorized the bombing of the Viet Cong's supply lines in Cambodia.

Seeing the action as an expansion of the Vietnam War, some of my fellow students showed their anger by staging a demonstration on Kent State's campus on May 1 that eventually found its way to downtown Kent, Ohio.

Up until then, campus unrest at Kent State had remained relatively minor compared to other schools at the time, which had regular protests stemming from the dissent of the Vietnam War and the turmoil over the civil rights movement.

ROTC students, including myself, were kind of careful around the protests, because we had been warned against the possibility of getting arrested. So we tried to observe from a distance.

As the bars were closing that Friday night, people became unruly and broke several windows. A few students were arrested, but order was eventually restored.

By itself, it wasn't much of a demonstration, but student activists seized the opportunity to make a statement the next night. A handful of protesters set fire to one of the old wooden ROTC buildings in the center of campus.

The Fire Department tried to extinguish the blaze, but after being challenged by rock-throwing protesters, the firefighters felt threatened and left.

The blaze destroyed the ROTC building where I had spent hours in class, as well as working a campus job cleaning rifles.

That same night, at the request of Kent's mayor, Ohio Gov. James Rhodes sent National Guard units to the campus. Normally it would have taken a lot longer to deploy the Guard, but the troops had already been activated to deal with an intense truckers strike in Ohio.

Rhodes was also in the middle of an election bid, and clamping down on the destructive protests was seen by many as the politically expedient thing to do.

The troops arrived on campus, many in armored personnel carriers. The images of armed troops on an American college campus immediately caught the interest of the national media.

The National Guard managed to keep the protesters under control the next day, but the stage was set for another protest at noon on Monday, May 4.

I left town that morning, but heard about the events from the national media. According to those reports:

On May 4, as the demonstrators assembled near the burned-out ROTC building, the National Guard troops ordered the protesters to disband.

While many students watched from the sidelines, a much smaller group began to taunt the Guard. Troops chased them up a hillside and down onto a practice football field on the other side of the hill.

When rocks were thrown at the troops, the guardsmen took up firing positions with their weapons pointing directly at the protesters.

After several standoffs, the troops headed back up the hill in the direction of the ROTC building. As they reached the top, they turned toward the demonstrators and opened fire.

Four students were killed and nine others were wounded by the 67 rounds fired in a 13-second volley.

The school was immediately closed and a nationwide strike involving more than 4 million students followed.

Five days after the shootings, 100,000 protesters went to Washington to demonstrate against the incident and the war.

As I watched the four days unfold, I was struck by the images I saw in person and the stories on the national news.

I heard news reports of "thousands" of student protesters, but I had only seen a few hundred in the protests before May 4. Many were like me, just watching what was going on.

It amazed me that the events unfolding at this small university could affect people's opinion of their country and their government.

I was also impressed by the dramatic photos that captured the events, including one shot by John Filo, a Kent photojournalism student.

It showed a 14-year-old girl kneeling beside the body of Jeffrey Miller, one of the dead students. The photo earned a Pulitzer Prize for Filo. It also had a huge impact on the American public.

The power of the media coverage of the Kent State protests opened a whole new world for me.

For the first time I began to think about journalism. Six week later, when school reopened, I began to take my education more seriously. My grades dramatically improved, and I started focusing on a profession. I returned home to California and started taking writing and photography classes at Pasadena City College. The more I learned, the more obsessed I became with the news business.

With the help of friends working for televisions stations in Los Angeles, I learned to operate a television news camera.

Two years later, I heard about Ted Turner's new experiment in 24-hour news, and I started working for CNN's bureau in Los Angeles.

It all started with an unexpected lesson learned from a tragedy 40 years ago.

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Tuesday primary showdowns in 3 states

(News Today) - The battle for Congress picks up steam Tuesday as three states hold primaries.

Among the most interesting contests are a Republican Senate nomination fight in Indiana and Democratic Senate primary battles in Ohio and North Carolina.

In Indiana, former Sen. Dan Coats is hoping to win back his old seat. The Republican former lawmaker, who is the establishment candidate in the race, is facing off against a number of opponents in Tuesday's primary, including former Rep. John Hostettler and state Sen. Marlin Stutzman.

Conservative Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina has endorsed Stutzman, who is also the favorite of local Tea Party groups in Indiana.

Last week, a political action committee that DeMint chairs announced it has raised more than $200,000 in campaign donations for Stutzman, who was once considered a long shot in the primary contest.

But Coats is considered the man to beat. He has endorsements from conservative lawmakers Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, as well as Chris Chocola, president of Club for Growth -- an organization that preaches fiscal conservatism -- and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.

The big question is whether some conservatives will be less than inspired by a Coats victory.

"I think what happens on Wednesday in Indiana is more important than what happens on Tuesday," said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. "Republicans will need to unite behind a Coats candidacy in order to take back a Democratic-held Senate seat. Indiana is not a Democratic state, but Coats will need every Republican vote possible to win."

The winner of the primary will take on Democratic Rep. Brad Ellsworth in the general election. The race is to fill the seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, who's not running for re-election this year.

It's a mirror image in Ohio, where all the action in the Senate primary is on the Democratic side.

On the eve of Ohio's primary, a new Quinnipiac University poll of likely Democratic primary voters indicated that Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher held a 20-point lead over Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in the race for their party's Senate nomination.

"Lt. Gov. Fisher started the campaign better known and raised more money to keep him better known and able to get out his message," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The primary winner will face off in November against Republican Rob Portman, a former congressman who also served as budget director in the administration of President George W. Bush. The race is to succeed retiring Republican Sen. George Voinovich.

Over the weekend Brunner told reporters that she would not campaign for Fisher if he won the primary.

"There's been a lot of talk about divisive Republican primaries, but Ohio's a case of a divisive Democratic contest," said Gonzales. "In order to win this seat in November, Fisher can't afford to have Democratic voters standing on the sidelines."

In North Carolina, six Democratic candidates are vying for the chance to face off in November against Republican Sen. Richard Burr. Polls suggest that North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, and attorney Ken Lewis are the top three contenders for the Democratic nomination.

All three states are also holding primary contests for House seats as well as for state and local lawmakers.

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Mexican drug violence claims 24 lives in 24 hours

(News Terupdate) - Drug violence in the Mexican state of Chihuahua left 24 people dead in the span of 24 hours this weekend, the state attorney general's office said Sunday.

The killings were scattered over four locations throughout the state, with eight dead in Juarez, 10 killed in the capital of Chihuahua, five killed in Cuauhtemuc and one killed in Parral.

All the slayings occurred in public places, with the killings in Cuauhtemuc occurring in a bar, said Carlos Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general.

The killings took place between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, Gonzalez said.

The victims -- all male -- ranged in age between 18 and 25 years old.

No other details about the killings or the victims were immediately available.

"This is an indicator of the incrementally increasing war between the two cartels battling for Juarez Plaza, the state's drug trafficking corridor," Gonzalez said, referring to an ongoing battle between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels for dominance in the area. Juarez Plaza is a major thoroughfare through the area.

"I can't give you a reason why the violence is picking up the last week of April going into this month," Gonzalez added.

Some Mexican news organizations have reported that the Sinaloa Cartel had defeated the rival Juarez organization but Gonzalez said, "There is no winner to this war."

The spate of weekend killings followed another bloody week in the Ciudad Juarez area.

On Wednesday, at least 15 people were killed in drug-related violence in Juarez, authorities said.

The slayings included four people whose bodies were found at one location, another three -- one of them a woman -- who were found slain at a second location, and another eight victims who were killed at a bar, police spokesman Jacinto Seguro said.

On Tuesday, 10 people were killed, Seguro said, including three who were shot outside a supermarket. Another victim was killed outside a shopping mall.

In all, 25 people were killed between Tuesday and Wednesday, Seguro said.

Ciudad Juarez is the most violent city in Mexico, with more than 2,600 drug-related deaths in 2009. No official numbers are available for this year, but more than 500 killings have been reported by local media. Some reports have the figures as high as 810 in Juarez this year.

According to a report released in April by the Mexican government, Chihuahua state is Mexico's hardest-hit state by drug violence, with 6,757 people killed since the start of the drug war at the end of 2006.

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Iran's Ahmadinejad heads for U.S.

(News Terupdate) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left Sunday for the United States to take part in a conference on nuclear nonproliferation, a Foreign Ministry spokesman told state television.

Ahmadinejad will address the the United Nations Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in New York on Monday, spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told Iran's News Network.

Ahmadinejad told reporters in Tehran before his departure that the NPT has failed.

"The biggest threat to the world today is the production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons," he said.

"Unfortunately the [International Atomic Energy Agency] in the past 40 years has not been successful in its mission. We have no disarmament or nonproliferation and some countries have even procured the nuclear bomb during this period," Ahmadinejad said Sunday.

A top Ahmadinejad adviser, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, said Saturday that the Iranian president planned to offer major proposals at the conference but that the plans would allow Iran to maintain its nuclear program, the IRNA official news agency reported.

Iran insists its program is aimed at producing nuclear energy, while Washington accuses it of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

With the United States pushing for new international sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear program, Ahmadinejad said Saturday that his nation "cuts any hand that signs a document against Iran," according to the semiofficial FARS news agency.

Ahmadinejad began his trip a day after saying he has proof that the United States and Israel are linked to the world's leading terrorist organizations, according to state-run media.

"We have documents that prove [Washington] is the root of world terrorism," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Tehran, Press TV reported. "It has been aiding and abetting extremist groups over the past years."

The United States "is the only country to have used the atomic bomb in military conflict," Ahmadinejad said Saturday, according to Press TV. "They even admit themselves that they resorted to using [similar weapons] during the war they waged on Iraq."

The United States has not admitted using such weapons in the Iraq war.

Ahmadinejad urged the United States to engage his government, saying that "companionship is better than confrontation," FARS reported.

His remarks came at a ceremony celebrating May Day, or International Workers' Day.

The U.S. State Department said Friday that it is granting some of the visas requested by the Iranian delegation planning to attend next week's conference but would give no details about a visa for the Iranian president.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned Ahmadinejad in some of the Obama administration's strongest language to date.

"Iran, with its anti-Semitic president and hostile nuclear ambitions, also continues to threaten Israel, destabilize the region, and sponsor terror," Clinton said, addressing the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee.

"The United States is committed to pursuing [a] diplomatic path," she said. "But we will not compromise our commitment to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons."

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Ahmadinejad blasts U.S. before visit

(News Terupdate) - Just days before his planned trip to New York, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he has proof the United States and Israel are linked to the world's leading terrorist organizations, according to state-run media.

"We have documents that prove (Washington) is the root of world terrorism," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Tehran, Press TV reported. "It has been aiding and abetting extremist groups over the past years."

Ahmadinejad said his nation "cuts any hand that signs a document against Iran," according to the semi-official FARS news agency.

His remarks came as the United States pushes for new international sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad plans to attend a United Nations summit on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which opens Monday,

The United States "is the only country to have used the atomic bomb in military conflict," Ahmadinejad said Saturday, according to Press TV. "They even admit themselves that they resorted to using (similar weapons) during the war they waged on Iraq."

The United States has not admitted using such weapons in the Iraq war.

Ahmadinejad planned to offer at the U.N. conference major proposals that would allow Iran to maintain its nuclear program, his top adviser, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, said, according to IRNA official news agency.

Iran insists that its program is aimed at producing nuclear energy, while Washington accuses it of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad urged the United States to engage his government, saying that "companionship is better than confrontation," FARS reported.

His remarks came at a ceremony celebrating May Day, or International Workers' Day.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned Ahmadinejad in some of the Obama administration's strongest language to date.

"Iran, with its anti-Semitic president and hostile nuclear ambitions, also continues to threaten Israel, destabilize the region, and sponsor terror," Clinton said, addressing the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee.

"The United States is committed to pursuing [a] diplomatic path," she said. "But we will not compromise our commitment to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons."

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China lifts ban barring entry to foreigners with HIV and AIDS

(News Terupdate) - The Chinese government has lifted a 20-year-old rule that banned foreigners with HIV and AIDs, sexually transmitted diseases and leprosy from entering the country, according to the country's state news agency.

State-run news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday that China's State Council decided to repeal the ban after realizing it did little to prevent the spread of disease and caused problems when the country was hosting international events.

The revision came days before the opening of the six-month Shanghai World Expo, which organizers expect will draw 70 million people. The government had previously lifted the ban temporarily for other large-scale events, including the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Xinhua said the health ministry estimates the number of people living with HIV in China had reached 740,000 by October 2009, with deaths caused by AIDS totaling 49,845 since the first case was reported in 1985.

China's decision comes several months after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed HIV infection from the list of diseases that prevent non-U.S. citizens from entering the country.

Until January, the U.S. was one of seven countries with laws barring entry of people with HIV, according to amfAR, an AIDS research organization.

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