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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Ash cloud restricts Irish flights for 4th day

(News Today) - Ash from an Icelandic volcano shut down airports in Ireland for a fourth day Friday, disrupting travel plans for thousands of passengers.

The airports in Shannon, Sligo, Knock, Galway and Kerry were closed to flights through 1 p.m. local time, the Irish Aviation Authority said. The airport in Donegal was expected to resume flights at midday.

"The restrictions are required as the increased level of recent volcanic activity has created a massive ash cloud stretching 1,000 miles long and 700 miles wide," the IAA said.

"While the northerly winds are keeping the bulk of the cloud out in the Atlantic, the increased size of the cloud is encroaching on Irish airspace along the west coast of Ireland."

The volcano, which erupted last month, has been expelling denser and coarser ash higher into the atmosphere since Tuesday afternoon, the IAA said.

That ash is being carried down from Iceland toward Ireland and the United Kingdom, causing the flight problems, it said.

Airports in Ireland, Northern Ireland and western Scotland were shut earlier this week because of the ash.

Flights between North America and Europe are still permitted to fly over the ash cloud at higher altitudes, the IAA said.

"The IAA appreciates the difficulties facing passengers and airlines at this time," it said in a statement. "Decisions are taken solely on the grounds of safety."

It urged passengers to contact their airlines for the latest information on their flights.

Volcanic ash is a serious hazard to aircraft, reducing visibility, damaging flight controls and ultimately causing jet engines to fail.

It is the first time the ash had caused problems for British and Irish airspace since last month, when it forced the shutdown of airports across the European continent for six days and stranded tens of thousands of passengers around the world.

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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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Containment dome lowered at oil leak site

Venice, Louisiana (News Today) - A massive dome began its descent into the Gulf of Mexico to cap a gushing oil leak about 5,000 feet below the surface, a BP official said Friday.

The arduous process of lowering the four-story containment dome and getting it in place is expected to continue into the weekend. The technique has never been attempted at the depth of the leak spewing from the sunken oil rig, officials said.

"If all goes according to plan by early next week, we hope to make it operational," said Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of BP. "As we always do, though, we stress this has never been done before. We'll likely encounter numerous challenges, but we'll remain committed to make it work."

The stakes are high for the beleaguered oil company and the many residents of coastal Louisiana who make their living from fishing in the Gulf.

Oil washed ashore on Louisiana's barrier islands and drifted west past the mouth of the Mississippi River on Thursday. An ominous pinkish-orange foam mixture of seawater and crude oil streaked across large stretches of water in the northern Gulf and turned up on the shores of the Chandeleur Islands, off southeastern Louisiana.

The slick has been spreading across the northern Gulf of Mexico since late April, when BP's drilling rig Deepwater Horizon blew up and sank about 40 miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River. Eleven missing workers who were aboard the rig are presumed dead.

Efforts to shut down the well have failed, leaving it spewing about 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) of oil per day into the Gulf, and concern is rising that the oil could kill wildlife and damage livelihoods for thousands in the Gulf states.

BP has conducted more control burns in an effort to destroy "several thousand" barrels of oil on the surface Wednesday, Suttles said.

But the real hope for quelling the massive surge of oil was the containment dome.

The hope is that the container will collect the leaking oil, which would be sucked up to a drill ship on the surface. If the operation is successful, BP plans to deploy a second, smaller dome to deal with a second leak in the ruptured pipe.

Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, said he is keeping the faith that the containment dome will work.

"I think we're all hopeful that this will have an impact on this leak," Allen said. "It's been done before, but never at these depths and you think it goes to show the amount of effort that's going in to try everything potential to diminish the oil coming out of the ocean floor but this will be difficult."

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Cameron: Labour has lost its mandate to govern

London, England (News Today) - If the predictions are borne out by results, the UK is heading for a "hung parliament" in which no single party controls an overall majority.

The leader of the largest party traditionally gets the first chance to form the government and become prime minister. But if no party has a majority, the sitting prime minister has the right to stay in office and try to win a confidence motion in parliament.

"The sitting prime minister and the incumbent government are given the first chance to create a majority that commands the confidence of the House of Commons, and if they fail to do that it passes to the leader of the opposition," top Labour politician Peter Mandelson told CNN.

Several high-profile incumbents lost their seats overnight, including former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, of Labour; Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist party; and Liberal Democrat Lembit Opik, who had been in parliament for 13 years.

All had been implicated in last year's parliamentary expenses scandal. Robinson's loss could hurt the Conservatives, robbing them of a potential supporter in the Commons should the party need to form a coalition.

The Green Party, which favors environmental and social justice policies, gained its first-ever member of parliament when Caroline Lucas was elected in Brighton, in southern England.

There were some scenes of voter anger across the country over long lines to cast ballots or polling stations running out of ballot papers, but it was not immediately clear how widespread problems were.

Anger at polling stations

"We will be doing a serious and thorough review of this and making recommendations to parliament and the government," Electoral Commission Chairwoman Jenny Watson said.

The United Kingdom's system of voting is "Victorian, antiquated, left over from an era when less people had to vote" and not designed to cope with mass participation, she said, adding that the system is now "at breaking point."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg expressed his anger after hundreds of voters were turned away from a polling station in his Sheffield constituency.

"I share the bitter dismay of many of my constituents who weren't able to exercise their democratic right to vote at this election," he said. "It is not right that hundreds found themselves unable to vote -- and that is something should never ever happen again in our democracy."

Clearly disappointed by his party's showing as results filtered in, he added: "This has obviously been a disappointing night for the lib-dems -- we haven't achieved what we hoped. But I think we conducted a positive campaign full of optimism."

It's very unusual for no party to get an absolute majority of seats in the Commons. The last time it happened, in 1974, voters were back at the polls within months.

After the election there will be 650 seats in the Commons, four more than in the previous parliament. Voters chose representatives for only 649 seats, however, because the death of a candidate in northern England postponed that election to May 27, local officials said.

Under the British electoral system, the candidate who receives the most votes in a constituency wins. The system, known as "first past the post," is praised for its simplicity and the strong ties it forms between voters and representatives, but critics dislike its failure to provide proportional representation.

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Kerry, Lieberman to pursue climate change measure

Washington (News Today) - Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman are working to resurrect long-planned climate change legislation that got knocked off track last month after Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham stopped participating in talks about the legislation.

Two Senate sources familiar with the plans confirm that Kerry, D-Massachusetts, and Lieberman, I-Connecticut, will likely hold a press conference next week to announce their bill. But Kerry told CNN Thursday that the details of when to unveil it are still being worked out.

One of the sources said that Kerry continued to hold meetings with colleagues, business and environmental leaders and others even after original plans for a bipartisan bill with Graham crumbled.

"We have a bill and we want people to see it," said the source.

Looming large over this legislation is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The broad measure is expected to include proposals to expand both on- and offshore oil drilling.

Sources familiar with the senators' plans say Kerry and Lieberman intend to keep those proposals in their bill, but they understand safety regulations and standards will and should be scrutinized and added to their legislation in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida has vowed to filibuster any legislation that includes an expansion of offshore drilling.

Kerry, Lieberman and Graham were set to announce their bill April 26, but abruptly canceled their news conference after Graham angrily withdrew because of a dispute with Democratic leaders over immigration reform.

The South Carolina Republican was furious that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had signaled he wanted to try to take up immigration reform in the Senate before climate change.

"Moving forward on immigration -- in this hurried, panicked manner -- is nothing more than a cynical political ploy," Graham wrote in a sharply worded letter April 24.

Now, Kerry is hoping that there has been some time for "immigration politics settle out," according to the source familiar with the plans, and that even if Graham doesn't attend next week's possible announcement, that perhaps ultimately Graham would be on board.

"Sen. Graham stands by this bill," Kerry said Thursday when asked if Graham is still supporting the legislation. However, Kerry added that he doesn't necessarily expect Graham to be at the unveiling because "we still have immigration issues."

A spokesman for Graham has not yet returned CNN calls for comment.

Some Democratic sources suggest that, despite the renewed push, it's unlikely that climate change legislation will make it to the Senate floor this year.

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Stop profiling on terrorism and in Arizona

San Diego, California (News Today) - Michael Bloomberg is out a quarter. That's how much New York's mayor, who has an estimated net worth north of $15 billion, wagered that he knew exactly what type of person would try to set off a car bomb in Times Square.

I'm sorry for Bloomberg's financial setback. But he can take comfort from the fact that he taught Americans a valuable and timely lesson about the dangers and limits of profiling.

The lesson: Profiling -- especially of the racial and ethnic variety -- isn't just wrong. It's also imperfect. It can lead police to focus on the wrong people while the right ones get away.

In October 2002, Washington authorities -- in pursuit of a serial killer in the Beltway sniper attacks -- spent days looking for a white male because that's what the profile says serial killers look like. Ultimately, two suspects were arrested, charged and convicted. Both were African-American.

In the case of the New York bombing plot, before any arrests were made, Bloomberg told "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric that the suspect was likely a domestic, anti-government terrorist acting alone.

"If I had to guess 25 cents," he said, "this would be exactly that -- homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything."

A person who doesn't like the health care bill, eh? Why not just say the words "Tea Party" and get it over with?

Now that an arrest has been made, let's see how Bloomberg did in his attempt to play FBI profiler.

The bombing suspect, who reportedly admitted his role in the plot and was charged by federal authorities, is a 30-year-old Pakistani-American named Faisal Shahzad. He is not homegrown; Shahzad was born in Pakistan and became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Apparently, he didn't act alone but rather as part of a conspiracy; authorities in Pakistan have made at least a dozen arrests in connection with the attempted bombing.

There is no evidence that Shahzad is mentally deranged; while he obviously could have benefited from reading "Car Bombs for Dummies," he also allegedly participated in a premeditated international conspiracy. And, finally, there's no evidence that Shahzad is a member of the Tea Party movement or even drinks tea.

He doesn't seem to have been motivated by an opposition to Obama-care; an official familiar with the investigation said Shahzad thought Islam was under attack.

So, it seems, Bloomberg's profile didn't hold up very well. But he wasn't alone. The day before Shahzad was arrested, I heard a radio talk host in Los Angeles -- a conservative but also a critic of the Tea Parties -- speculate that the attempted bomber was a "right-wing militia type." That's how profiling works. People use it to fit whatever political agenda they're pushing at the moment.

Of course, it's one thing when politicians acting as pundits jump to conclusions about a terror suspect. There's no evidence that Bloomberg's theory about the profile of the bomber drove the investigation down what would have been a dead-end road. It's a bit more serious when law enforcement agencies are encouraged to jump to conclusions about who could be an illegal immigrant. Then you're playing with fire.

Let's say, you live in the state of Arizona. And let's say that, after at least two decades of hiring illegal immigrants or at least turning a blind eye to friends and neighbors who do, you and other 'zonies are suddenly afraid -- not of Mexican drug cartels but of changing demographics, taco trucks, Spanish billboards, having to "press 1" for English, quinceañeras, and other signs of the cultural apocalypse.

Why you might be willing to buy a pig and poke and support a ghastly, half-baked law that -- as originally written and signed by Gov. Jan Brewer -- didn't just allow for racial profiling of people (read: Latinos) who look like illegal immigrants (although even Brewer admitted to reporters that she doesn't have the faintest idea what an illegal immigrant looks like) but all but required it by threatening law enforcement agencies that refused to do this kind of dirty work.

This is how broken the law is. It had to be "fixed" before the governor's signature had even dried. One week after Brewer signed the law, apparently without reading it carefully, she took a "do-over" and signed an amendment intended to address concerns about the potential for racial and ethnic profiling.

Shows how much I know. I would have thought a halfway-competent governor would have made sure those concerns were addressed before signing the bill in the first place.

Be that as it may, one of the changes is that, under the revision, police officers can hunt for illegal immigrants only in the course of enforcing some other law or ordinance. Before, it was open season. Another change is that now the state attorney general or a county attorney cannot investigate complaints that are, in any way, based on a person's race, color or national origin. Before, the law allowed for race, color and national origin to be considered as one of several factors and only prohibited law enforcement from focusing "solely" on those characteristics.

Those changes do not satisfy one of the law's most spoken critics from the world of law enforcement -- Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. A law enforcement veteran who has been on the job for more than 50 years, Dupnik has had the courage and good sense to call Senate Bill 1070 what it is -- a "stupid" and "racist" and "unnecessary" law.

Dupnik thinks the law is a license to profile and said he won't enforce it because it's impossible for his deputies or any other law enforcement in the state to make a judgment call about who is or isn't an illegal immigrant without taking race and ethnicity into account.

Take it from the law enforcement professionals. Profiling may make for good politics. But, in the hands of those who lack the proper training, it makes for lousy police work.

I think most Americans understand that. They know that, when police are looking for lawbreakers, casting a wide net isn't the best way to go. The more details you have about a suspect, the better off you are. And they bristle when it's their group being caricatured and targeted. How dare someone make generalizations about us or groups with which we identify? Yet we have no trouble condoning the practice when it's done to someone else.

Maybe what we should be profiling for is hypocrisy. Having situational ethics is the same as having no ethics at all.

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New Orleans mayor asks feds to review city police force

New Orleans, Louisiana (News Today) - The new mayor of New Orleans has asked the Justice Department to review the city's embattled police department.

In a letter sent Wednesday, Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked Attorney General Eric Holder to assign a team from the department's civil rights division to help the city address and prevent police misconduct.

"I have inherited a police force that has been described by many as one of the worst police departments in the country," Landrieu says in the letter.

"It is clear that nothing short of a complete transformation is necessary and essential to ensure safety for the citizens of New Orleans," it says. "The police force, the community, our citizens are desperate for positive change."

Landrieu, the brother of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, took office Monday and met with Justice Department officials Wednesday. A detailed plan for a partnership between federal officials and police is still in the works, mayor spokesman Ryan Berni said.

On Thursday, Landrieu also announced he had tapped a new police superintendent, current Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas, to lead reforms. Landrieu said Serpas, a New Orleans native with a track record of reducing violent crime, was the candidate who was "best prepared to turn around the NOPD and start delivering results on day one."

There are at least eight federal civil rights investigations of New Orleans Police Department officers, FBI Special Agent Sheila Thorne told CNN. She declined to provide further details because the investigations are ongoing.

Federal prosecutors have investigated several New Orleans police officers involved in a shooting on the Danziger Bridge four days after Hurricane Katrina roared ashore in 2005.

Two civilians were killed in that shooting -- a 19-year-old man and a severely disabled 40-year-old man. Four people were hurt.

Four former city police officers pleaded guilty in federal court to charges relating to the shooting and to an alleged cover-up of the incident. Former officer Robert Barrios pleaded guilty in April to a charge he failed to report a cover-up. His plea came after guilty pleas from three other former New Orleans police officers: Michael Lohman, Jeffrey Lehrmann and Michael Hunter.

The mayor said in his letter that most officers "honor their commitment to protect and serve each day," but an independent investigation must evaluate the department.

"The force itself has been dealt a demoralizing blow with investigations, indictments and resignations stemming from incidents in the days following Hurricane Katrina," the mayor's letter says.

Investigations of city police by the Justice Department are not uncommon, but cities themselves rarely initiate them, according to Merrick Bobb, executive director of the Police Assessment Resource Center in Los Angeles.

Washington, D.C., officials took a similar approach in 1999 when they asked the Justice Department to investigate whether city police were using excessive force, he said.

"I think it reflects very well on Mayor Landrieu that one of the first things he is doing is attending to the problems of the New Orleans Police Department, which for many years has been considered one of the most troubled police departments in the United States," he said.

Working with federal officials will help close the "chapter of corruption" that has plagued police, said Melanie Talia, chief executive officer of the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation.

"Civil rights violations are not the norm, but they obviously have occurred. The Department of Justice will be here to help us weed those out and put an end to it," she said.

Peter Scharf, a criminology professor at Tulane University who helped advise the mayor on his search for a new police superintendent, said officials must make significant cultural changes within the police department, including improving legal ethics and regaining the community's trust.

"People are more afraid of the police than they are of the criminals, and we have really scary criminals," he said.

More than a decade before Katrina hit, federal officials stepped in to investigate New Orleans police corruption in a wide-reaching probe that led to the arrest and prosecution of a dozen officers.

A federal jury convicted former New Orleans police Officer Len Davis and sentenced him to death in 1996 for ordering a hit on a woman after she filed a civil rights complaint against him.

Davis' arrest came after an undercover FBI operation, dubbed "Shattered Shield," which also revealed that police were extorting from drug dealers and engaging in other corrupt activities, according to an account on the website of the FBI's New Orleans division.

A dozen officers were arrested and prosecuted after the investigation, and then-Chief of Police Richard Pennington worked to improve police ethics education with the Department of Justice, the FBI, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Louisiana State Police, the FBI website says.

But Landrieu's letter said "malfeasance by members of the Police Department" has persisted.

He told reporters in New Orleans that a partnership with the federal government fits with his goal of protecting city residents.

"This is about examining patterns and practices, thinking about excessive force, dealing with internal affairs and basically to engage in what I would consider to be transformational, systemic reform," he said.

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Chaz Bono gets legal name (and gender) change

(News Today) - A year after undergoing a sex change, Chaz Bono is now legally a man.

A Santa Monica, Calif., judge granted the political and social activist's petition for a gender and name change Thursday, according to a spokesperson for the Transgender Law Center, which represented Bono.

"Chaz couldn't be happier," said Kristina Wertz, legal director for the Transgender Law Center. "This is an important step in his transition and will allow him to change a variety of his identity documents to show who he truly is."

Born Chastity Bono to famous parents Cher and Sonny Bono, Chaz started the female-to-male sex change March 2009, shortly after his 40th birthday.

"It's hard for me to articulate how this feels -- when you've lived your whole life in a body and having everybody relate to you as something you don't feel," Bono, 41,told PEOPLE back in December. "When that finally gets righted, it's just amazing. I finally get to live my life the way I've always wanted to."

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Boycotts put Arizona's reputation on the line

(News Today) - As the voice of opposition to Arizona's controversial immigration law gets louder, the state's reputation can expect to take a hit.

Critics of the law are calling for economic boycotts of Arizona, urging corporations and organizations to refrain from holding conventions in the state.

They're also pressuring Major League Baseball to take its 2011 All-Star Game elsewhere, much like the National Football League did in 1993 when Arizona refused to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday.

While Arizona can ride out the backlash in the short term, the impact could hit hard later on, said Brayden King, assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

"The reputational consequences will have long-term economic consequences if it's not resolved," King said.

Critics have said the law, which allows police to ask anyone for proof of legal U.S. residency, will lead to racial profiling. Supporters argue it will crack down on illegal immigration.

Latino rights groups, others call for Arizona boycott

Days after the bill was signed into law, Debbie Johnson, president and CEO of the Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association, said three conferences were canceled, including a gathering of the American Immigration Lawyers Association scheduled for fall.

The calls for boycotts are coming from across the country. The Boston City Council approved a resolution calling on the Massachusetts city to pull investments from Arizona. The Oakland, California, City Council voted this week to boycott Arizona businesses. Chris Coleman, mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota, banned city-funded travel to the state.

Coleman also planned to write letters to the chairmen of the Republican and Democratic national committees, encouraging them not to choose Phoenix as the host city for their 2012 conventions.

In Arizona, the Tucson and Flagstaff city councils voted this week to file suit against the immigration law. The city councils said they're taking action because of concerns over enforcement costs and negative effects on Arizona's tourism industry.

Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup said up to 38 percent of retail sales in the city come from legal Mexican visitors.

The Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association has set up a Facebook page titled "Don't Boycott AZ Tourism," which urges visitors not to scapegoat the tourist industry and its workers.

Supporters of the law outside of the state are mobilizing. Organizers with Voice of the People USA and Tea Party Patriots Live announced Thursday they planned to hold rallies in Phoenix and across the country the week of June 5 to counter any boycotts and show support for the immigration law.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has dismissed the notion that the state's immigration law would hurt economic development, saying many businesses have long wanted tougher action. The law is slated to go into effect late this summer unless court challenges hold it up.

What does the law do?

In an editorial on ESPN.com, Brewer said the recent boycotts and calls for MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to move next year's All-Star game are misguided.

"Put simply, history shows that boycotts backfire and harm innocent people. Boycotts are just more politics and manipulation by out-of-state interests. As a border state, Arizona has already paid a heavy price for the federal government's failure -- hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in unreimbursed costs -- and its citizens should not be punished further," she wrote in the Wednesday article.

But King, the Northwestern professor, said history also has shown the opposite to be true.

Citing the Boston Tea Party in the 1770s and the civil rights-era boycotts in the South, King noted, "Those did not hurt the innocent, and they had real impact on political and social change."

A majority of Americans support Arizona's law, even though most of them think it could lead to racial profiling, according to a recent national poll.

A CBS/New York Times survey released Tuesday indicates that Americans overwhelmingly believe that the country's immigration laws need to be changed.

A Gallup Poll released last week showed similar public attitudes: Nearly four in 10 Americans supported the law, with three in 10 opposed, and 31 percent saying they had not heard of the new law at the time, or had no opinion.

While the boycotts are keeping the law in the spotlight, King predicted that even those apathetic about the issue could take a side.

"Even people who wouldn't have cared in the first place are now becoming aware of it and are starting to develop opinions about it. They may have been lukewarm or moderate in the beginning, but they are probably becoming polarized as they become more educated about the issue," he said, noting that Arizonans' opinion on the issue could change as well.

"[Brewer's] constituents will not be happy if Arizona loses major business revenue like a Super Bowl or an All-Star Game," he said. "Even if their own pocketbook is not being affected, they're not going to want to be associated with that kind of negative press."

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Obama has no room for error

Washington (News Today) - In looking back on his presidency, Bill Clinton posed the notion that presidents are defined by the crises they confront. His own tenure was without a major war or huge fiscal crisis. For Clinton, it seemed to be an almost melancholy reflection.

Barack Obama will not have the same complaint.

Let's see: a historic fiscal crisis before even taking the oath of office, two wars, a series of thwarted terrorist attacks, not to mention a slew of ongoing natural disasters. And, for the legacy-meisters, two Supreme Court vacancies to fill. So far.

In the face of all of that, President Obama stuck with his ambitious campaign agenda, tackling the politically perilous health care reform (and now the more popular financial reform), on top of controversial economic stimulus and bailout plans. And there's chatter (and plans) about tackling immigration reform and climate change legislation. No one much expects either to pass, but there is this sense that Obama is checking off all of the promises on his to-do list. Which, by the way, is long.

Here's the reality: No matter how much Obama wants to get through his list, events control the presidency. Agendas are set, the plans made. Then the world intervenes. And suddenly, the president is judged not on whether he has kept his long-time political promises but rather on his real-time performance as a competent, take-charge crisis manager.

And, by the way, he does not get extra credit for doing his job well. That is expected by this time in his tenure. But should he misstep, he gets the blame. All of it.

So consider the way life has intruded on policies these days. In February, the president pushed for new clean-coal technology. By mid-April, he was knee-deep in dealing with questions about the Massey mine disaster.

Then in late March, Obama ended a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along parts of the East Coast. Along comes the Gulf Coast oil spill last month, and the administration found itself backing off its plans to drill until the disaster is "better understood."

"No president wants an important policy blown up by events," a top Democratic strategist says. "They're probably wishing they had waited a few more weeks to give that 'drill, baby, drill' speech."

And it's no different on the terrorism front: At Christmas, a young man with incendiary powder in his underwear tries to blow up an airplane, and the entire defense and national security establishment is tested: Why was the administration initially so slow to acknowledge that this was a very big deal, with serious implications?

Why didn't they have an eye on the bomber even after his father tried to tell an American embassy he was dangerous? Why didn't the new and complex system for surveillance coordinate well? Why didn't the vacationing president keep the American people more immediately informed?

Fast-forward to the Times Square bomb attempt. Aside from yet another initial attempt to downplay it as a "one-off" event, there's an obvious effort to not make the same mistakes: a presidential press conference, then another press conference after the arrest that screamed coordination -- with the attorney general, the chief of Homeland Security, assorted law enforcement officials.

"There's a sense they were lashed up" together this time in working on this, says a source who has been briefed on the events. "They were not going to make the same mistakes they made last time."

Indeed. This time, Attorney General Eric Holder called this a "terrorist" event repeatedly. And when it came time to explain how the bomber -- on a no-fly list -- still managed to get on an airplane, there was a quick explanation. Then came an overnight change (literally) in the law that now requires airlines to push the "refresh" button on the list more than once daily.

So lessons learned here, clearly. But no one gets any bonus points.

Now on to the next event: a Supreme Court nominee. There is no time to breathe and no room for error.

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Goodluck Jonathan: By name and nature?

(News Today) - Who is Nigeria's new president, Goodluck Jonathan?

In keeping with his name, he is sometimes regarded as one of the luckiest men in Nigerian politics. Goodluck Jonathan, 52, with a degree in zoology worked as an environmental officer until he entered politics. He ran as deputy governor for Bayelsa state in 2001-- one of Nigeria's main oil-producing states in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.

After the state governor -- Diepreye Alamieyeseigha -- was indicted by Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on corruption charges in 2006, Jonathan was promoted to governor of one of the richest regions in Africa.

This rather obscure politician is then widely regarded by political analysts as having been hand-picked by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo to run as vice-president with Umaru Yar'Adua in the 2007 national elections.

In what are widely considered the most flawed in Nigeria's history they won.

Then in November 2009, President Umaru Yar'Adua was taken to Saudi Arabia because of a heart condition -- but without signing over power to his vice president.

Since November, Jonathan and his supporters struggled to gain presidential power against an array of factions competing for influence and power. In February, Jonathan was finally made acting president by the House of Representatives. With Yar'Adua's death and the consequent swearing in of Jonathan to the presidency he has now solidified his position.

Some Nigerians put Jonathan's rise to power down to 'good luck.' The removal of those above him -- through no act of his own -- provided the opportunity for his rise. Others credit him with the political patience to sit out events until they play in his favor.

Whatever the case he has no further to rise and his political prowess and skill will now be truly tested to try to introduce any of his promised reforms before elections next year.

How well known is he on the African stage?

Not at all, and not especially even in Nigeria. Jonathan's first main interview after assuming the vice presidency was CNN's "Amanpour" show.

He is a quiet man, who appears to have had little obvious ambition in reaching the dizzying heights of the presidency.

However, his recognition has skyrocketed as he assumed the presidency of Africa's most populous country, with about 150 million people. His agenda before the elections will be less about projecting Nigeria's image across the continent and world -- but maintaining stability and preparing the country for elections next year.

What was his relationship with Yar'Adua?

Very little is known about the private relationship between Yar'Adua and now-President Jonathan, who had little public influence in the administration during Yar'Adua's tenure.

Nigeria holds an unofficial policy of power sharing between the south-west, south-east and north. Yar'Adua was the north's "turn" and Jonathan's appointment to the vice presidency was seen as appeasing the South-East in the power-sharing arrangement.

However, both Yar'Adua and Jonathan were members of Nigeria's biggest political party -- the PDP or Peoples Democratic Party. With little opposition it's a party with little coherent political alignment other than maintaining control of Nigerian politics. Both Yar'Adua and Jonathan agreed on the main polices of the administration and now Jonathan promises to continue Yar'Adua's main agenda of political reform and peace in the Niger Delta.

How likely is Jonathan to get re-elected next year?

The 2011 elections are the prize for the on-going political struggles. Jonathan has not said publicly that he will run but he has also not ruled out running.

Already several of Nigeria's big political players are intimating that they will run -- in particular Ibrahim Babangida, an ex-president who annulled the country's elections in 1993.

However, holding the presidency would give Jonathan considerable influence and support as the incumbent if he decided to run. But many analysts believe Jonathan's much touted electoral reform will be difficult to implement if he decides to run in a race that he is also trying to influence through his reforms.

Jonathan also hails from Nigeria's south, and the PDP's unofficial policy of power rotation means that the presidency still belongs to the north. They are traditional powerbrokers in much Nigeria's history since independence in 1960 and feel that despite Yar'Adua's death, the president should continue to belong to a northerner for at least one more term.

In April Jonathan fired the whole of the cabinet. Why did he do this?

Jonathan and his supporters struggled to maintain their grip on power after Yar'Adua left for Saudi Arabia because of a heart condition.

What was widely criticized by political commentators and even some ministers as a "cabal" of ministers around both the president and his wife, Turai, tried to prevent the transfer of power to Jonathan and keep control of Nigeria's massive oil economy and political power for the upcoming elections for themselves.

During the political impasse, hundreds were killed in ethno-religious violence in central Nigeria, attacks against oil facilities in the oil-rich Niger Delta resumed and thousands of protesters took to the streets.

To try to clear the impasse, assume political control, bring a sense of stability, as well as bow to popular pressure Jonathan fired the entire cabinet. His new cabinet is widely regarded as trying to appease most of the factions -- bringing back some of Yar'Adua's ministers, introducing ministers of his own, as well as Former Goldman Sachs executive Olusegun Olutoyin Aganga as finance minister whom many hope will continue economic reforms.

What is his attitude toward the militants in the troubled oil-rich Niger Delta region?

Jonathan is from the Niger Delta, and has plenty of political experience in the region after his time as governor of one most oil-rich states in the region.

As a politician from the Niger Delta he carries considerable political influence with the armed gangs and militants in the Niger Delta, who now see his rise to the presidency as their opportunity to wield true political power and implement long-term changes in favor of the region.

However, the Niger Delta is a region of many ethnic and political groups and many do not support Jonathan -- some even attempting to prevent him assuming the Presidency.

An amnesty for militant groups introduced under Yar'Adua maintains a relative peace in the region -- and Jonathan has stated his aim to support the amnesty and rehabilitation of militants who accepted it.

However, it must be noted that the militants were originally funded and armed by politicians in the Niger Delta who used the armed young men to win political power. This is the background against which politicians like Jonathan rose to power in the region. There is a concern that with the 2011 elections the cycle could begin again.

What other key issues face Nigeria? What are Jonathan's plans?

Nigeria has a host of problems it needs to tackle -- corruption, ethno-religious violence in central Nigeria, armed gangs in the oil-rich Niger Delta, the rise of Islamic sects in the north, dependency on oil (oil accounts for 80% of budgetary revenue), and a overwhelming population explosion.

Perhaps the most important key to alleviating most of these issues is free and fair elections and Jonathan is promising electoral reform.

However, so too have many of his predecessors, and Jonathan's rise to power is on the back of what are widely regarded as some of the most flawed elections in the country's history. But even some a small improvement in the election process would help return from what is a complete erosion in the legitimacy of government in the eyes of Nigerians, and in turn hope to promote better governance.

Jonathan is a product of Nigeria's current political system who has attempted few big reforms against the status quo during most of his time in office. Why would he start now? Nigerians don't care -- they just want him to start.

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Navy SEAL acquitted of assaulting Iraqi detainee

Norfolk, Virginia (News Today) - Navy SEAL Matthew McCabe, who was accused of punching an Iraqi detainee, was found not guilty on all charges by a military jury Thursday.

McCabe, a 24-year-old petty officer 2nd class, had been charged with assaulting Iraqi detainee Ahmed Hashim Abed, who was arrested in September in Iraq for allegedly orchestrating the 2004 murders of four U.S. contractors in Falluja. The contractors' burned bodies were later hung from a bridge.

Besides assault, McCabe had been charged with dereliction of duty for failing to protect a prisoner and with lying to investigators.

"It's over and done with," McCabe said at a press conference after the four day court-martial. "We're moving on with our careers."

Two other Navy SEALs -- Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe and Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas -- were charged with dereliction of duty for allegedly abusing the same detainee, but were acquitted in April in military court in Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Charles Cleveland, the convening authority in all three cases, on Thursday defended his decision to let the courts-martial go forward.

"Despite the opinions of some who preferred that these charges not proceed, I allowed these charges to go forward because I truly believe that the best process known for uncovering the truth, when the facts are contested, is that process which is found in our adversarial justice system," Cleveland said in a statement after McCabe's acquittal.

"There is no better way to discover the truth than by presenting the evidence to an unbiased panel of members, having witnesses testify under oath, and having rigorous cross examination," he said.

One of two defense witnesses, Huertas said Thursday he was with McCabe during the alleged incident and did not see McCabe strike the detainee.

The second defense witness, Dr. Curtis Schmidt, said blood found on Abed's clothing could have been caused by Abed biting a canker sore. During cross-examination, Schmidt, who phoned in his testimony from Iraq, also said the bleeding could have been caused if Abed fell.

On Wednesday, the government's key witness, Petty Officer Kevin Demartino, testified that he saw McCabe hit Abed in the abdomen.

Demartino, who is not a SEAL, testified that he did not initially report the September assault to his superiors because "this is these guys' lives. Some guys can see something and start singing like a bird. I couldn't do it," he said.

"I should've done it. By the book, it's a failure to report," he added.

Demartino testified that his conscience eventually got the better of him, so he finally reported his version of the events surrounding the detainee's beating.

"It was either being in the good graces of the SEALs or being in the good graces of God," Demartino said.

McCabe's defense attorneys called a series of witnesses who questioned Demartino's version of events and said he was distraught due to his deployment. Some directly contradicted Demartino, saying that statements he attributed to them during his testimony were false.

"He had issues," McCabe said of Demartino after his verdict was announced. "Everybody made that clear."

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Alaska fishermen still struggling 21 years after Exxon spill

Cordova, Alaska (News Today) - For third-generation fisherman John Platt, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill is a financial and psychological nightmare that won't end.

Three years after the 11 million-gallon spill in Prince William Sound blackened 1,500 miles of Alaska coastline, the herring on which he and other Cordova fishermen heavily relied disappeared from the area. Platt and some others stuck around, fishing for salmon and hoping things would improve.

The herring never returned to Cordova. Platt's income plummeted, severely straining his marriage and psyche. He dipped into his sons' college funds to support his family.

"People's lives were ruined," Platt said. "There were damn good fishermen here in the Sound, and they just said, 'Screw it' and left, and tried to make a living elsewhere."

As for Platt, who stayed: "I wasted 20 years of my life," he said.

Platt and other people in the Alaskan village of about 2,500 people say they still are suffering economically and emotionally 21 years after the oil disaster. About 3,400 miles away, an oil leak that started last month in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening the Gulf Coast.

"Here we go again," Platt said of the oil leak in the Gulf. "I feel real bad for the people who are going to potentially go through what we did here."

Reporter's notebook: Exxon Valdez revisited

The herring loss alone has cost the region about $400 million over the past 21 years, according to R.J. Kopchak, a former fisherman who is now developmental director at Cordova's Prince William Sound Science Center.

The average fisherman suffered a 30 percent loss in income after the spill, but those who specialized in just herring lost everything, Kopchak said.

Sociologists who spent years around the Sound after the disaster concluded that a fifth of all the area's commercial fishermen suffered severe anxiety, and as many as 40 percent suffered from severe depression.

"People went bankrupt. People lost things," said Mike Webber, a Cordova fisherman. He said perhaps 30 to 40 families have left Cordova since the disaster.

Webber, who fished for herring and salmon before the spill and continued fishing for salmon in the years after, said he began drinking heavily after 1989. He then lost his marriage.

"I blame my divorce on Exxon -- the oil spill," Webber said. "It was just aggravation and frustration that tore us apart."

The surface oil from the spill had largely disappeared within three years of the spill, according to studies conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Response and Restoration. But oil residue still can be found on the shore.

"It is a lingering problem, as they say, with no easy solution," Kopchak said.

Money from Exxon hasn't made the fishermen's problems disappear. Besides the $2.5 billion that Exxon is estimated to have paid for the cleanup, it reportedly paid $300 million soon after the disaster to 11,000 fishermen, fish processors and others affected.

In 1994, a federal jury ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages, but appeals reduced that award to $507.5 million. Last year, a federal court ordered Exxon to also pay $470 million in interest on the punitive damages.

Platt says he has received about $600,000 from Exxon. But most of it was used to clear liens on his fishing permits and boats, he said.

Before Exxon's successful appeals, fishermen were expecting a lot more, Platt said.

"I think the general perception is that we were compensated a long time ago, that everything is rosy. That's not the case," Platt said.

Exxon says the spill had nothing to do with the herring disappearance. In a statement, Exxon said the herring catches were outstanding for the first three years after the spill, and that scientific studies showed that the subsequent decline was caused in part by ocean factors that led to poor nutrition, and perhaps by disease. Other studies, Exxon said, pointed to competitive interactions between young herring and young salmon, and to predators.

"The Valdez oil spill was a tragic accident and one which ExxonMobil deeply regrets," Exxon said in a separate statement. "We took immediate responsibility for the spill and have spent over $4.3 billion as a result of the accident, including compensatory payments, cleanup payments, settlements and fines."

"As a result of the accident, Exxon undertook significant operational reforms and implemented an exceptionally thorough operational management system to prevent future incidents. ExxonMobil has a long history of community support throughout Alaska and we continue to expand that focus," the statement said.

For Platt, the nightmare continues.

"We got hosed here in Cordova, and nobody cares," Platt said.

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Mom, 4-year-old rescued by swim coach, floating ottoman

(News Today) - More than 30 people have died in historic flooding in the Southeast. Neelyann Sheucraft and her 4-year-old daughter barely escaped being among them.

On Saturday, Sheucraft, a college teacher, was sitting on the couch in her Nashville, Tennessee, home, grading papers.

The rain was hitting her windows so loudly, she briefly looked up. "Wow, that's pretty fierce," she thought and went back to grading.

A few minutes later, Sheucraft heard water lapping against her house. She told her daughter, Lowell Ann, to stay put and jumped up to look outside. Her Nissan Altima was halfway underwater. She called her parents.

"'Oh, my God, this is it. My house is going to flood," she said.

"A few minutes later, the water came gushing in -- through the vents or any openings there were, I'm not sure where it was all coming in from. But the water was rising and rising and rising."

Sheucraft called 911. The operator told her to get to the highest point in the one-story house. That meant climbing on the kitchen counter.

The 38-year-old mother's adrenaline was pumping. She picked up her daughter, their two small dogs and Lowell Ann's favorite baby dolls and sat them on the kitchen counter. She then went for the attic door, trying to yank it open.

"I told Lowell Ann to be good and not to move, to hold the dogs and her dolls tight," she recalled. "She said to me after some time passed, 'Mommy, 911 is going real slow.' "

Sheucraft pried open the attic door and grabbed her daughter, the dogs, the dolls and her cell phone. She began dialing as many people as she could. She talked to her parents, who were frantically trying to call anyone they knew who could help get their daughter out.

On a hill above Sheucraft's low-lying dead-end street, neighbors were trying to work in the downpour.

"We started getting canoes out of our garages, and some of us had Jon Boats," Brian Mitchell said. "We knew that when rescue workers got there, they would need help. The current, it was so strong. It was going to take a lot of people working together."

Word that Sheucraft and her daughter were trapped reached longtime friend John Morse, a swimming coach. She said he drove to the neighborhood, parked his truck where the water was relatively low and, risking his life, dived in.

When Morse reached the house, he shouted for Sheucraft and helped her out of the attic, she said. They grabbed a floating ottoman and told Lowell Ann to lie down on it. The little girl clutched a duffel bag, with the dogs peeking out.

"I told her, 'This is going to be really scary, and it will be like nothing you've seen before, but Mommy is going to be right beside you. It's going to be OK,' " Sheucraft said.

They got out of the house, and the current hit them hard. "It was stronger than any ocean," Sheucraft said. "I didn't think I could make it very long."

Mitchell and the neighbors were readying the canoes and setting out with rescue workers. When everyone spotted the floating ottoman, rescue workers tied it off to the only thing not underwater and pulled everyone to safety.

It was a happy ending, despite the destruction of a home and thousands in repair bills. Many others in the area have not been as fortunate. As more rain is predicted for hardest-hit Nashville, authorities said that 21 people have died in Tennessee, six in Mississippi and four in Kentucky.

On Sunday, a woman in Linden, Tennessee, watched her husband and daughter drown.

Bobby Qualls had saved his son from the rushing water in their backyard, but when he went back to try to save his daughter, Kylie, they were both swept away.

"From his neck up, he was staring at me. He didn't say anything, just staring at me," Sherry Qualls told CNN affiliate WSMV. "She was screaming for her daddy to help her, and then by the time the rescue squad got her, I didn't see them anymore."

In addition to the gut-wrenching stories of lost lives are the tales of people who have lost everything they own.

On Wednesday, Hands On Nashville volunteer Jefferson Dorsey and a crew went to a trailer park in southern Antioch. During the flood, neighbors realized that an elderly man who lived there was missing, and they boated to his home.

They found him sitting in his easy chair in chest-deep water, Dorsey said. He had apparently suffered a stroke before the flood and couldn't move. The neighbors saved him.

"It was absolutely heartbreaking to dismantle his entire life," Dorsey said. "We saved what we could, but he has very little left. He hasn't been well enough to come home and see the destruction."

Laura Mitchell, Brian Mitchell's wife, said the couple has hosted four families and numerous pets in their house since the weekend. A family friend has been delivering food for everyone. But the situation is not sustainable.

"We seem to be running out of water," Laura Mitchell said. "When you turn on the water, the pipes shake. Everyone in the city has been ordered not to use water unless it's an emergency. I haven't had a shower in four days.

"This is frightening for so many people," she said. "I don't know how much longer this city can do without real help."

Source : CNN

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Violence in Athens after Greek austerity vote

Athens, Greece (News Today) - Violence broke out briefly between police and demonstrators here Thursday night, hours after Greek lawmakers approved an unpopular package of budget-cutting measures.

Thousands of demonstrators had gathered in front of Parliament to show their anger, and as dusk fell bottles were thrown at police, who responded with tear gas and pepper spray, said CNN's Diana Magnay, who was at the scene.

The government is cutting public-sector salaries, raising the retirement age for women in the public sector and imposing new taxes in order to secure billions of euros in loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Crowds dispersed quickly, Magnay said.

Four people were arrested, police said.

Demonstrations Thursday were smaller and generally more peaceful than a day earlier, when general strikes turned violent and three people were killed when a bank was fire bombed.

iReport: Are you there? Send your pics, video

Two unions had called on workers to meet Thursday evening in front of Parliament to protest the measures, which include higher taxes on cigarettes, fuel, gambling and luxuries, and an increase in the value-added tax consumers pay on purchases.

Athens police say about 8,000 protesters were outside the Parliament building while the voting was taking place and another 10,000 were at Omonia Square, including members of the militant left-wing PAME union, who planned to walk toward Parliament later.

It is not clear who started the violence. Shortly before it began police said the PAME supporters had dispersed peacefully.

Greek lawmakers voted 172 to 121 to approve the controversial package of cost-cutting measures, despite the protests, the prime minister's office announced.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted as the protests broke out, falling nearly 1,000 points and dropping below 10,000 before climbing back up and ending slightly above 10,500. Shortly after the close, the Nasdaq said faulty Procter & Gamble stock quotes were a major factor in markets' huge drop.

The European Union announced a 110 billion euro ($140 billion) aid package for Greece earlier this week.

Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou announced the tough cost-cutting measures to meet European Union and International Monetary Fund conditions for the deal.

Prime Minister George Papandreou said Wednesday night that no amount of unrest on the streets would change his support of the budget cuts, and he has already said he is prepared to risk not getting a second term in office because he feels the package is so important for Greece's future.

"We are all to blame for where we are today -- even those not in government who at every stage have blocked every attempt at change," Papandreou told Parliament.

"Other countries are voting to save Greece," Papandreou said in comments directed at the opposition. "What do we say to them? Can we not unite?"

Thursday at the burned bank, people placed flowers at a memorial for the victims killed in Wednesday's violence.

Greek government debt threatens to undermine the stability of the euro, the currency used by 16 countries in the European Union, including Greece.

International ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Greek debt to "junk" recently, making it harder and more expensive for Athens to borrow money commercially. That's when the European Union and International Monetary Fund decided to intervene.

What are the protests about?

Leaders of the countries that use the euro were planning to meet Friday evening in Brussels, Belgium, to finalize the bailout and discuss the effect it's having on the eurozone.

"This crisis has demonstrated that all euro-area member states have a responsibility for the stability of the euro area as a whole and the strength of the single currency," French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote in a joint letter Thursday to the presidents of the European Council, which is hosting the summit, and the European Commission.

Sarkozy and Merkel urged country leaders at the summit to consider tougher fiscal surveillance and more effective sanctions for eurozone members.

They also pushed for better-quality statistics, saying, "The lack of reliability of the Greek statistics explains to a large extent the markets' distrust in this country."

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Times Square suspect had Taliban ties

Washington (News Today) - Investigators believe that Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad had ties to TTP, a Pakistani Taliban group, a senior law enforcement official and a U.S. intelligence official said Thursday.

The law enforcement official said the extent of Shahzad's involvement with TTP has not been determined and could range from communications to training, and does not necessarily mean that TTP directed the attack.

TTP released a video making a claim of responsibility for the attack on a website established the day before the failed bombing attempt, but a spokesman for TTP has denied any connection with the 30-year-old Pakistani-American.

A U.S. official said earlier in the day that connections to TTP were "plausible," but noted that numerous connections among insurgent groups in Pakistan made it difficult to zero in on a single responsible group.

The advance came shortly after a senior U.S. official said that new leads developed from the Pakistani end of the investigation show Shahzad likely had training in Pakistan from extremists. The official has direct knowledge of discussions between senior U.S. and Pakistani officials about the case.

"Did he receive help in Pakistan? Yes he did," said the official. The official said Shahzad is believed to have received training of some sort but would not say if the training was specific to the Times Square bombing attempt.

The official and another U.S. official said investigators had not concluded from which group Shahzad may have received help.

Also Thursday, a high-level team of U.S. and Pakistani investigators grilled Shahzad's father and interrogated four people linked to a notorious Pakistani militant group, intelligence officials said.

The interrogators questioned Bahar Ul Haq in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar. The retired senior Pakistani air force officer is the father of Shahzad.

Ul Haq -- who lives in the Peshawar suburb of Hayatabad -- was neither detained nor arrested, the source said.

Another official said the team was also questioning four men suspected of having links to the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Banned in Pakistan, the group's aim is to unite the disputed territory of Kashmir with Pakistan and to expel foreign troops from Afghanistan, according to the National Counterterrorism Center. It is also close to al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. India and Pakistan have had disputes over Kashmir for decades.

Shahzad told investigators he recently received bomb-making training in the Waziristan area of Pakistan, sources said. North and South Waziristan are regions in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas; both border Afghanistan.

Officials said they suspect that Shahzad may be part of the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group fighting Pakistani forces. While the Pakistani Taliban has praised Shahzad in the wake of the failed bombing, it has denied a link to the man.

In recent days, authorities in Pakistan have rounded up a number of people for questioning.

One was Muhammed Rehan, an alleged associate of Shahzad who allegedly has links to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a senior Pakistani official said. Rehan allegedly was instrumental in making possible a meeting between Shahzad and at least one senior Taliban official, the official said.

The official said that Rehan drove Shahzad on July 7 to Peshawar. At some point, they headed to the Waziristan region, where they met with one or more senior Taliban leaders, the official said.

Several officials in Karachi said Rehan was picked up in Karachi's North Nazimabad district. They said others were taken into custody for questioning on Wednesday, but they could not say how many, who they were or where they were seized.

It was not clear if Rehan was one of the four with alleged Jaish links being questioned on Thursday.

Others taken in for questioning include Iftikhar Mian, the father-in-law of the suspect, and Tauseef Ahmed, a friend of Shahzad. They were picked up in Karachi on Tuesday, two intelligence officials said.

Meanwhile, efforts to determine what may have motivated the suspect continued. An official familiar with the investigation said Wednesday that Shahzad felt Islam was under attack.

Any grudge Shahzad may have held against the United States appears to have developed recently, according to a senior U.S. official who is familiar with the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly.

The investigation has found nothing to indicate that Shahzad had any long-standing grudge or anger toward the United States, the official said.

In Connecticut, where Shahzad was living, a prominent member of the Pakistani-American community said Thursday that he had maintained a low profile and appeared to have become more religious over the past year.

CNNMoney: Faisal Shahzad's $65,000 home equity piggy bank

"He was somebody who was under the radar; he was never a part of our community, never a part of our events or meetings," said Dr. Saud Anwar, founder and past president of the Pakistani American Association of Connecticut.

After news broke about the suspect, the pulmonologist sent out e-mails to others in the community to dredge up what he could about Shahzad.

"As a physician, I look at it as a disease," Anwar said of Shahzad's apparent radical turn. "I try to understand what led to the disease ... how we can prevent a disease like this."

Anwar said his e-mails turned up a man who studied with Shahzad at the University of Bridgeport and had stayed in touch with him since then, but does not want to be identified publicly.

"He recalled him as a regular individual, outgoing, interacting with people, interested to learn, not isolated," Anwar said.

But, in the past year or so, "he felt there was a change in his personality," Anwar said, explaining that Shahzad appeared to become introverted, asocial and "a little bit more religious."

Anwar added, "There was a little anger in there. [The friend] felt [Shahzad] was looking at things as true black and white."

Returning to his disease analogy, the physician said that, after Shahzad returned from Pakistan early this year, "The disease became a little bit more progressive, much stronger."

Shahzad told his friend that, as a Pakistani-American, he was looking for work in the Middle East "because he was having challenges with his job over here," Anwar said.

"He just mentioned that he was seeking something. I don't know if he found anything or not."

Shahzad has admitted he drove a Nissan Pathfinder into Times Square on Saturday night and attempted to detonate the vehicle, which was packed with gasoline, propane tanks, fireworks and fertilizer, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New York.

The previous day, he carried out a dry run, parking his Isuzu SUV on West 38th Street between 9th and 10th avenues a few blocks from Times Square to be used the following day as a getaway car, a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation told said.

But on Saturday, after he left the smoking Pathfinder on West 45th Street just west of Broadway and walked to the Isuzu, he realized he didn't have the Isuzu keys, the source said. So he headed to Grand Central Terminal and boarded a train to Connecticut.

Two store owners on West 38th Street said they had turned over surveillance tapes to authorities at their request.

After a 53-hour police manhunt, Shahzad was arrested late Monday at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport after boarding a flight bound for Dubai, United Arab Emirates. His final destination was to have been in Pakistan.

Read complaint filed in federal court Tuesday (PDF)

He has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, and three other counts in connection with the incident. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

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Latino rights group, others call for Arizona boycott

Washington (News Today) - A Latino rights group and other immigrant and labor organizations called Thursday for a national boycott of Arizona over the state's new immigration law, which allows police to ask anyone for proof of legal U.S. residency.

The call for a boycott was led by the National Council of La Raza, which bills itself as the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.

Other organizations calling for the boycott include the Asian American Justice Center, the Center for Community Change, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Puerto Rican Coalition, the Service Employees International Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

The groups pledged not to hold major conventions, conferences or other special events involving significant travel to Arizona from out of state and "asked others to consider whether their purchases of goods and services might perpetuate the unjust and discriminatory law in Arizona," La Raza said on its website.

"When a law so contrary to our values is passed, we must act decisively," said La Raza President and CEO Janet Murguia. "We are calling for a boycott because this law will blow open the door to increased racial profiling, wrongful arrests and other discrimination."

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the immigration measure April 23, says it does not involve racial profiling or any other illegal acts.

The law, known as SB 1070, is scheduled to go into effect this summer.

The measure has drawn criticism in the United States and abroad.

In Arizona, the Tucson and Flagstaff city councils voted this week to file suit against the measure.

The city councils said they're taking action because of concerns over enforcement costs and negative effects on Arizona's tourism industry.

In Tucson, council member Regina Romero introduced a motion for "the city attorney to bring a legal challenge" because the immigration bill is "unconstitutional" and "a bad law, which could cost the city millions of dollars in lawsuits."

"This bill opens the door to racial profiling, and it puts Latinos in Arizona in automatic suspect mode," Romero said.

Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup said up to 38 percent of retail sales in the city come from legal Mexican visitors.

The state immigration law threatens Tucson's businesses, Walkup said, just when "the city is just beginning to recover from the economic downturn."

Criticism also has come from abroad, with the Mexican government issuing an advisory to its citizens last week to avoid travel to Arizona.

The Organization of American States expressed its concern about the law last week, and presidents of South American countries meeting in Argentina for a gathering of the Union of South American Nations condemned the law Tuesday.

Well-known Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes recommended this week that dark-skinned people, men with mustaches, women who use shawls, or anyone who does not speak English well should not go to Arizona, because the state has "officially declared itself racist," the government-run Notimex news service reported Wednesday.

The Phoenix Suns basketball team also criticized the new law, and wore jerseys marked "Los Suns" in Wednesday night's NBA playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs.

"The frustration with the federal government's failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed state law," Suns managing partner Robert Sarver said in a statement. "However intended, the result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona's already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them."

Arizona legislators say they passed the law because the federal government has failed to safeguard the border with Mexico, allowing more than 450,000 undocumented immigrants to settle in the state.

On Thursday, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York wrote a letter to Brewer, asking Arizona to delay implementing the law for one year "in order to permit Congress sufficient time to enact comprehensive immigration reform to address Arizona's security needs."

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NFL Hall of Famer charged in rape case

(News Today) - Hall of Fame football linebacker Lawrence Taylor was charged Thursday with rape and patronizing a prostitute in a case involving a 16-year-old girl, police in Ramapo, New York, said.

Taylor's attorney said the former New York Giants star denied the charges and will fight them.

"My client did not have sex with anybody. Period," Arthur Aidala said, adding: "Lawrence Taylor did not rape anybody."

Taylor appeared at an afternoon court hearing where a judge set bail at $75,000. Taylor was not asked to enter a plea and left the courthouse after posting bail.

Seeing television cameras outside the courthouse, Taylor said, "I'm not that important" as he walked away.

Taylor, 51, was arrested in a Holiday Inn room a few hours after the alleged rape took place, according to Christopher St. Lawrence, the town supervisor and police commissioner in Ramapo, about 30 miles northwest of New York City.

Police Chief Peter Brower said Taylor was charged with third-degree rape, a felony, for allegedly engaging in sexual intercourse with someone younger than 17. Taylor also was charged with third-degree patronization for allegedly paying the underage victim $300 to have sex, Brower said.

According to Brower, the rape charge carries a possible four-year prison term, and the patronization charge, a misdemeanor, could bring up to a year in prison.

Asked whether Taylor knew that the victim was underage, Brower said "ignorance is not an excuse" for having sex with a minor.

Aidala said after the bail hearing that Taylor "is denying and preparing to fight each and every one of those charges."

Aidala said that "no violence, no force, no threat, no weapons" was involved in the case. He noted that the rape charge against Taylor was for consensual sex with a minor and said Taylor denied it.

St. Lawrence and Brower said the alleged victim, since March a runaway from New York's Bronx borough, was allegedly brought to Ramapo by a pimp on Wednesday night.

When the pimp and the girl returned to New York early Thursday, she texted an uncle who notified the New York police, St. Lawrence said.

New York police arrested the pimp and called Ramapo police, and Taylor was arrested in his hotel room at around 4 a.m., according to St. Lawrence.

The alleged victim had facial injuries that police determined occurred before she entered the Holiday Inn room, St. Lawrence said.

Detective Lt. Brad Weidel said police knocked twice on Taylor's hotel door and identified themselves before entering the room. Weidel and St. Lawrence said Taylor was cooperative with authorities.

Taylor was a 10-time All-Pro linebacker for the New York Giants from 1981 to 1993 after earning All American honors at the University of North Carolina.

A punishing tackler and pass rusher known by his initials "L.T.," he was on two Super Bowl champion teams and was inducted into the National Football League's Hall of Fame, which noted that he "redefined the way the outside linebacker position was played."

However, Taylor was twice suspended by the NFL for substance abuse and battled a cocaine addiction long after retirement, resulting in several arrests and a downward spiral that he chronicled in a 2003 autobiography.

After kicking drugs, he worked as a sports commentator and appeared as a contestant on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" in 2009. Taylor and his dance partner on the program, Edyta Sliwinska, were eliminated in the seventh week of competition.

Brower said that police found a bottle of alcohol in Taylor's hotel room but that Taylor showed no sign of inebriation. Brower said that no drugs were found in the room.

Mark Lepselter, Taylor's agent, said Taylor was very upset about the charges against him.

"He's worked very hard over the last 12 years to change perceptions about him," Lepselter said.

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Politicians such as Palin aren't the real Tea Party

(News Today) - The Tea Party movement began when a small group of conservatives organized protests on Twitter against the stimulus bill in 22 American cities on February 27, 2009. The majority of us had never attended a protest and had to take a vacation day to attend.

From these few hundred people, a national movement demanding fiscal conservatism, national sovereignty and the rule of law landed on America's political front lawn.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans fully understand the Tea Party's inner workings or how to manipulate or co-opt it -- and they won't be able to. The modern-day Tea Party movement is managed by political newcomers whose primary motivation is love of country and a desire for a better future for their children.

Like anything else that grows into a national phenomenon, the Tea Party has seen some enter the scene with ulterior motives. Generally, the motives center around money. Some have slapped the Tea Party name on their tired political action committees. Others are organizations with political interests and agendas, but foremost are the money-gathering operations.

Others are big-name politicians or media personalities such as Sarah Palin, who charge up to $100,000 a speech before packing up and taking their show to another city. They leave little lasting substance, and their words are quickly forgotten.

I don't fault anyone for making money, even on the Tea Party name. Like Don Barzini said in "The Godfather," "After all, we are not communists."

However, these individuals and organizations are what I call "tea turf" groups, echoing Nancy Pelosi's early labeling of the Tea Party movement as an "astro turf" grassroots movement controlled by the Republican Party.

Technically, these tea turf groups and personalities are a part of the movement but most likely would not be if big dollars were not involved.

I regard the "pure in heart" Tea Party leaders as the real center and strength of the movement. These are the people who work full-time jobs, have family responsibilities and make time to manage and grow their own group.

The Dallas Tea Party has subdivided the Dallas-Fort Worth metro region into ZIP codes and voting districts. Each zone has one or more neighborhood coordinators charged with recruiting members, organizing meetings, getting out the vote and spreading the Tea Party message of fiscal responsibility, the rule of law and national sovereignty to their friends and neighbors.

Nearly every night of the week, dozens of meetings are taking place throughout the metro region, taking on school board, city council, state government legislation and other issues.

The goal is to get middle-class taxpayers engaged in local politics and into the primary and general election voting booths as never before. Each of these neighborhood coordinators and the people they lead are volunteers.

The time they devote to the Tea Party movement comes at the expense of something else in their busy lives. These people don't get huge speaking fees. They don't appear on national news shows. They don't sell books or merchandise. They do what they do because of their devotion to Tea Party principles. These people are the true heroes of the Tea Party movement.

The Tea Party will continue to grow in numbers and power as our leaders in Washington continue to govern irresponsibly. There will be many who try to take ownership of the movement. Certainly, the mainstream media would like nothing more than a single target to attack.

Yet, the Tea Party will succeed. If one leader in a sea of thousands falls, another will replace him or her just as a starfish grows another arm if one is cut off. The Tea Party movement is not about individuals but ideals.

The ideals found in the Constitution set the course for the United States becoming the most powerful and wealthy nation in history. The true leaders of the Tea Party are doing that because of love of country and a belief in constitutional principles.

That's something no tea turf PAC can buy -- not even for $100,000 a speech.

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