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Marseille, France (CNN)The French prosecutor leading an investigation into the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 insisted Wednesday that he was not aware of any video footage from on board the plane. Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin told CNN that "so far no videos were used in the crash investigation." He added, "A person who has such a video needs to immediately give it to the investigators." Robin's comments follow claims by two magazines, German daily Bild and French Paris Match, of a cell phone video showing the harrowing final seconds from on board Germanwings Flight 9525 as it crashed into the French Alps. All 150 on board were killed. Paris Match and Bild reported that the video was recovered from a phone at the wreckage site. The two publications described the supposed video, but did not post it on their websites. The publications said that they watched the video, which was found by a source close to the investigation. "One can hear cries of 'My God' in several languages," Paris Match reported. "Metallic banging can also be heard more than three times, perhaps of the pilot trying to open the cockpit door with a heavy object. Towards the end, after a heavy shake, stronger than the others, the screaming intensifies. Then nothing." "It is a very disturbing scene," said Julian Reichelt, editor-in-chief of Bild online. An official with France's accident investigation agency, the BEA, said the agency is not aware of any such video. Lt. Col. Jean-Marc Menichini, a French Gendarmerie spokesman in charge of communications on rescue efforts around the Germanwings crash site, told CNN that the reports were "completely wrong" and "unwarranted." Cell phones have been collected at the site, he said, but that they "hadn't been exploited yet." Menichini said he believed the cell phones would need to be sent to the Criminal Research Institute in Rosny sous-Bois, near Paris, in order to be analyzed by specialized technicians working hand-in-hand with investigators. But none of the cell phones found so far have been sent to the institute, Menichini said. Asked whether staff involved in the search could have leaked a memory card to the media, Menichini answered with a categorical "no." Reichelt told "Erin Burnett: Outfront" that he had watched the video and stood by the report, saying Bild and Paris Match are "very confident" that the clip is real. He noted that investigators only revealed they'd recovered cell phones from the crash site after Bild and Paris Match published their reports. "That is something we did not know before. ... Overall we can say many things of the investigation weren't revealed by the investigation at the beginning," he said. What was mental state of Germanwings co-pilot? German airline Lufthansa confirmed Tuesday that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had battled depression years before he took the controls of Germanwings Flight 9525, which he's accused of deliberately crashing last week in the French Alps. Lubitz told his Lufthansa flight training school in 2009 that he had a "previous episode of severe depression," the airline said Tuesday. Email correspondence between Lubitz and the school discovered in an internal investigation, Lufthansa said, included medical documents he submitted in connection with resuming his flight training. The announcement indicates that Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, knew of Lubitz's battle with depression, allowed him to continue training and ultimately put him in the cockpit. Lufthansa, whose CEO Carsten Spohr previously said Lubitz was 100% fit to fly, described its statement Tuesday as a "swift and seamless clarification" and said it was sharing the information and documents -- including training and medical records -- with public prosecutors. Spohr traveled to the crash site Wednesday, where recovery teams have been working for the past week to recover human remains and plane debris scattered across a steep mountainside. He saw the crisis center set up in Seyne-les-Alpes, laid a wreath in the village of Le Vernet, closer to the crash site, where grieving families have left flowers at a simple stone memorial. Menichini told CNN late Tuesday that no visible human remains were left at the site but recovery teams would keep searching. French President Francois Hollande, speaking Tuesday, said that it should be possible to identify all the victims using DNA analysis by the end of the week, sooner than authorities had previously suggested. In the meantime, the recovery of the victims' personal belongings will start Wednesday, Menichini said. Among those personal belongings could be more cell phones belonging to the 144 passengers and six crew on board. Check out the latest from our correspondents. The details about Lubitz's correspondence with the flight school during his training were among several developments as investigators continued to delve into what caused the crash and Lubitz's possible motive for downing the jet. A Lufthansa spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday that Lubitz had a valid medical certificate, had passed all his examinations and "held all the licenses required." Earlier, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Dusseldorf, Christoph Kumpa, said medical records reveal Lubitz suffered from suicidal tendencies at some point before his aviation career and underwent psychotherapy before he got his pilot's license. Kumpa emphasized there's no evidence suggesting Lubitz was suicidal or acting aggressively before the crash. Investigators are looking into whether Lubitz feared his medical condition would cause him to lose his pilot's license, a European government official briefed on the investigation told CNN on Tuesday. While flying was "a big part of his life," the source said, it's only one theory being considered. Another source, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation, also told CNN that authorities believe the primary motive for Lubitz to bring down the plane was that he feared he would not be allowed to fly because of his medical problems. Lubitz's girlfriend told investigators he had seen an eye doctor and a neuropsychologist, both of whom deemed him unfit to work recently and concluded he had psychological issues, the European government official said. But no matter what details emerge about his previous mental health struggles, there's more to the story, said Brian Russell, a forensic psychologist. "Psychology can explain why somebody would turn rage inward on themselves about the fact that maybe they weren't going to keep doing their job and they're upset about that and so they're suicidal," he said. "But there is no mental illness that explains why somebody then feels entitled to also take that rage and turn it outward on 149 other people who had nothing to do with the person's problems." Germanwings crash compensation: What we know. Who was the captain of Germanwings Flight 9525? CNN's Margot Haddad reported from Marseille and Pamela Brown from Dusseldorf, while Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen, Pamela Boykoff, Antonia Mortensen, Sandrine Amiel and Anna-Maja Rappard contributed to this report.

Marseille prosecutor says "so far no videos were used in the crash investigation" despite media reports. Journalists at Bild and Paris Match are "very confident" the video clip is real, an editor says. Andreas Lubitz had informed his Lufthansa training school of an episode of severe depression, airline says.

He's a blue chip college basketball recruit. She's a high school freshman with Down syndrome. At first glance Trey Moses and Ellie Meredith couldn't be more different. But all that changed Thursday when Trey asked Ellie to be his prom date. Trey -- a star on Eastern High School's basketball team in Louisville, Kentucky, who's headed to play college ball next year at Ball State -- was originally going to take his girlfriend to Eastern's prom. So why is he taking Ellie instead? "She's great... she listens and she's easy to talk to" he said. Trey made the prom-posal (yes, that's what they are calling invites to prom these days) in the gym during Ellie's P.E. class. Trina Helson, a teacher at Eastern, alerted the school's newspaper staff to the prom-posal and posted photos of Trey and Ellie on Twitter that have gone viral. She wasn't surpristed by Trey's actions. "That's the kind of person Trey is," she said. To help make sure she said yes, Trey entered the gym armed with flowers and a poster that read "Let's Party Like it's 1989," a reference to the latest album by Taylor Swift, Ellie's favorite singer. Trey also got the OK from Ellie's parents the night before via text. They were thrilled. "You just feel numb to those moments raising a special needs child," said Darla Meredith, Ellie's mom. "You first feel the need to protect and then to overprotect." Darla Meredith said Ellie has struggled with friendships since elementary school, but a special program at Eastern called Best Buddies had made things easier for her. She said Best Buddies cultivates friendships between students with and without developmental disabilities and prevents students like Ellie from feeling isolated and left out of social functions. "I guess around middle school is when kids started to care about what others thought," she said, but "this school, this year has been a relief." Trey's future coach at Ball State, James Whitford, said he felt great about the prom-posal, noting that Trey, whom he's known for a long time, often works with other kids. Trey's mother, Shelly Moses, was also proud of her son. "It's exciting to bring awareness to a good cause," she said. "Trey has worked pretty hard, and he's a good son." Both Trey and Ellie have a lot of planning to do. Trey is looking to take up special education as a college major, in addition to playing basketball in the fall. As for Ellie, she can't stop thinking about prom. "Ellie can't wait to go dress shopping" her mother said. "Because I've only told about a million people!" Ellie interjected.

College-bound basketball star asks girl with Down syndrome to high school prom. Pictures of the two during the "prom-posal" have gone viral.

The United States and its negotiating partners reached a very strong framework agreement with Iran in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Thursday that limits Iran's nuclear program in such a way as to effectively block it from building a nuclear weapon. Expect pushback anyway, if the recent past is any harbinger. Just last month, in an attempt to head off such an agreement, House Speaker John Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to preemptively blast it before Congress, and 47 senators sent a letter to the Iranian leadership warning them away from a deal. The debate that has already begun since the announcement of the new framework will likely result in more heat than light. It will not be helped by the gathering swirl of dubious assumptions and doubtful assertions. Let us address some of these:. The most misleading assertion, despite universal rejection by experts, is that the negotiations' objective at the outset was the total elimination of any nuclear program in Iran. That is the position of Netanyahu and his acolytes in the U.S. Congress. But that is not and never was the objective. If it had been, there would have been no Iranian team at the negotiating table. Rather, the objective has always been to structure an agreement or series of agreements so that Iran could not covertly develop a nuclear arsenal before the United States and its allies could respond. The new framework has exceeded expectations in achieving that goal. It would reduce Iran's low-enriched uranium stockpile, cut by two-thirds its number of installed centrifuges and implement a rigorous inspection regime. Another dubious assumption of opponents is that the Iranian nuclear program is a covert weapons program. Despite sharp accusations by some in the United States and its allies, Iran denies having such a program, and U.S. intelligence contends that Iran has not yet made the decision to build a nuclear weapon. Iran's continued cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency inspections is further evidence on this point, and we'll know even more about Iran's program in the coming months and years because of the deal. In fact, the inspections provisions that are part of this agreement are designed to protect against any covert action by the Iranians. What's more, the rhetoric of some members of Congress has implied that the negotiations have been between only the United States and Iran (i.e., the 47 senators' letter warning that a deal might be killed by Congress or a future president). This of course is not the case. The talks were between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia) plus Germany, dubbed the P5+1. While the United States has played a leading role in the effort, it negotiated the terms alongside its partners. If the agreement reached by the P5+1 is rejected by Congress, it could result in an unraveling of the sanctions on Iran and threaten NATO cohesion in other areas. Another questionable assertion is that this agreement contains a sunset clause, after which Iran will be free to do as it pleases. Again, this is not the case. Some of the restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities, such as uranium enrichment, will be eased or eliminated over time, as long as 15 years. But most importantly, the framework agreement includes Iran's ratification of the Additional Protocol, which allows IAEA inspectors expanded access to nuclear sites both declared and nondeclared. This provision will be permanent. It does not sunset. Thus, going forward, if Iran decides to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, monitors will be able to detect such a move in a matter of days and alert the U.N. Security Council. Many in Congress have said that the agreement should be a formal treaty requiring the Senate to "advise and consent." But the issue is not suited for a treaty. Treaties impose equivalent obligations on all signatories. For example, the New START treaty limits Russia and the United States to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. But any agreement with Iran will not be so balanced. The restrictions and obligations in the final framework agreement will be imposed almost exclusively on Iran. The P5+1 are obligated only to ease and eventually remove most but not all economic sanctions, which were imposed as leverage to gain this final deal. Finally some insist that any agreement must address Iranian missile programs, human rights violations or support for Hamas or Hezbollah. As important as these issues are, and they must indeed be addressed, they are unrelated to the most important aim of a nuclear deal: preventing a nuclear Iran. To include them in the negotiations would be a poison pill. This agreement should be judged on its merits and on how it affects the security of our negotiating partners and allies, including Israel. Those judgments should be fact-based, not based on questionable assertions or dubious assumptions.

Richard Klass: Iran framework agreement on nukes is strong, but opponents will cast doubts on this and try to obscure its facts. He says the deal would cut uranium stockpile, centrifuges, implement rigorous inspections; it should be judged on merits, not disinformation.

Police in the Indian city of Malegaon, in the western state of Maharashtra, are requiring identity cards for an unusual group of residents: Cattle. Following a recent state-wide ban on the sale and consumption of beef, authorities in the city have asked residents to take a 'mugshot' of their cattle and submit it to the police. Along with the photograph, the residents have to give information about their animal's 'unique features,' such as the coloring and age of the cow, along with the length of its tail and other distinctive characteristics. Police officials believe this is the only way to solve cow slaughter cases and enforce the law. Cows are considered holy and revered by that state's majority Hindu population. "We are creating a database. If we get an information of a cow slaughter, we can quickly go to the resident's place and check whether it is there or not", Mahesh Sawai, Deputy Superintendent of Malegaon Police told CNN. "I believe this will be very effective" So far over 100 owners have complied with the police order and more are lining up outside police stations across the city to get their livestock photographed. The ruling came in the wake of a recent case of cow slaughter in Malegaon, where two men have been charged for killing the animal and and selling its meat. The Maharashtra Animal Preservation Bill now includes bans on the killing of bulls and bullocks in its list of non-bailable offenses. Even the consumption or sale of beef could now land you in prison for five years. The slaughter of buffaloes, however, is still permissible. However, beef traders in the country strongly reacted to the decision and called a month-long strike, which ended Wednesday. The traders refused to even slaughter buffaloes and deprive the state of all bovine meat. They have now vowed to file a case in the state's high court. Red meat lovers weren't too delighted either, arguing the government doesn't have a right to interfere in an individual's personal preference. Maharashtra is not the only Indian state to tighten its laws on cow slaughter. Haryana state has implemented a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison, the toughest penalty in the country. Rajnath Singh, India's Home Minister has promised that he would do all to devise a country-wide law against cow slaughter.

Authorities in the Indian city of Malegaon have asked residents to take a 'mugshot' of their cattle. Cows are revered by the majority Hindu population, and many parts of the country have laws banning the slaughter of cattle. Officials in Malegaon believe this is the best way to solve cow slaughter cases and enforce the law.

The terrorist group Al-Shabaab has claimed an attack on Garissa University College in eastern Kenya, in which many people have been killed and still more taken hostage. The attack is another step in the ongoing escalation of the terrorist group's activities, and a clear indicator that the security situation in East Africa is deteriorating fast. Somalia-based Al-Shabaab has been behind a string of recent attacks in Kenya, the most well-known of them being the massacre at the Westgate Shopping Centre in Nairobi in 2013. Cross-border raids into Kenya by the group, however, date back to 2011. Al-Shabaab incursions triggered a military response by the government in Nairobi, which sent troops to Somalia as part of an African Union mission in support of Somalia's internationally recognized government that had been under pressure from Al-Shabaab and other militants for several years. Al-Shabaab is predominantly driven by the same radical interpretation of the Koran as al-Qaeda and ISIS (also known as Islamic State), but also employs more opportunistic approaches to shoring up local support. Its origins lie in Al-Ittihad al-Islami (Unity of Islam), one of several militant factions that emerged in the wake of the fall of Siad Barre in 1991. These disparate groups fought each other and a U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Somali civil war that led to the complete collapse of the country, from which it has yet to recover almost quarter of a century later. Al-Shabaab (literally "the Youth") split from Unity of Islam in 2003 and merged with another radical Islamist group, the so-called Islamic Courts Union. As their alliance obtained control of Somalia's capital Mogadishu in 2006, Ethiopia, the only majority Christian country in the region, took military action against the group. The offensive weakened Al-Shabaab and pushed it back into the rural areas of central and southern Somalia, but it failed to defeat it. To the contrary, Ethiopia's invasion and occupation of parts of Somalia -- although invited by the Somali government and backed by the African Union -- enabled Al-Shabaab to partially re-invent itself as both an Islamist and nationalist force opposing a foreign "Christian" invasion. Initially, the group primarily attacked Ethiopian forces, but soon began to "expand" its activities against the Somali government as well. The first attack outside Somalia was an attack in the Ugandan capital of Kampala in 2010. Soon after this, cross-border raids in Kenya began, predominantly targeting Christians there. Increasing its links with al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab declared its full allegiance in 2012 -- and it is not clear whether it will switch allegiances to ISIS. Much will depend on how the relationships between al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a long-time ally of Al-Shabaab based in Yemen, and ISIS develop. The key point is that Al-Shabaab's attack in Garissa is part of a broader regional context of instability fueled by a huge number of factors. It must not be interpreted simply as another act of garden-variety fundamentalist terrorism. Clearly, the presence and activities of terrorist groups in the region is a major concern, and it is undoubtedly driven by radical and exclusivist interpretations of Islam. But the entire region also suffers from a range of other problems: from economic development challenges to environmental degradation; from organized crime to inter-tribal and inter-communal violence; from corruption to serious deficits in human rights and good governance. These entrenched inequalities help Al-Shabaab appeal to a wide variety of potential recruits, who may sympathize with and actively support the group for any number of reasons. Attacking a university in northern Kenya and separating Christian from Muslim students epitomizes the way Al-Shabaab advances itself by exploiting religious, tribal and nationalist identities. Ultimately, though, this all comes down to a struggle for control -- over people, over territory, and over resources. As long as the majority of people in the region remain excluded from any meaningful political, economic, and social participation in their societies -- which are dominated by primarily self-interested elites that put their own advance before that of their communities -- human lives matter little in the pursuit of selfish interests. It is important to counter Al-Shabaab directly, including by military means. But there won't be any lasting solution to the wider region's security problems without a more comprehensive and concerted effort to address the deeper problems of exclusion suffered by the citizens of the countries challenged by Al-Shabaab. As Garissa shows, these problems are still providing oxygen for nihilistic ideologies and their deadly fruit. Copyright 2015 The Conversation. Some rights reserved.

Terrorist group Al-Shabaab has attacked a Kenyan college, killing and taking hostages. It is a clear indicator the security situation in East Africa is deteriorating, says Stefan Wolff. More than military action aloe is needed to combat terrorism in the region, he says.

Universal's "Furious 7" continues to build momentum at the Friday box office for a weekend debut in the $135 million-$138 million range, the largest opening in North America since fall 2013. That includes a projected Friday take of $58 million-$60 million. The final film featuring the late Paul Walker, "Furious 7" is opening around the globe this weekend and earned a record-breaking $60 million internationally on Wednesday and Thursday for a possible worldwide debut approaching or crossing $300 million by the end of Easter Sunday. "Furious 7" is getting the widest release in Universal's history. Domestically, it will be playing in 4,003 theaters by Good Friday. Internationally, it has booked more than 10,500 screens in 63 territories, although it won't open in China, Japan and Russia until later. The current record-holder for top April opening domestically is "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," which debuted to $95 million from 3,928 theaters last year. "Furious 7" is likewise poised to nab the biggest opening of 2015 to date. And it will easily beat the $121.9 million launch of "The Hunger Games Mockingjay — Part 1" in November 2104, making it the largest three-day opening since "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" ($158 million) in November 2013. The movie enjoys massive awareness and interest, due to both the popularity of the street-racing series and Walker's death. The last film, "Fast & Furious 6," debuted to a franchise-best $117 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend in 2012, including $97.4 million for the three days, on its way to grossing $788.7 million worldwide. Universal intended to open "Furious 7" on July 11, 2014, but production was halted in November 2013 when Walker died in a car crash during the Thanksgiving hiatus. After director James Wan, writer Chris Morgan and Universal pored over existing footage and tweaked the script, production resumed in April 2014. CGI and voice effects were used in some scenes featuring Walker's detective character, Brian O'Conner, with Walker's brothers, Caleb and Cody, used as stand-ins. "Furious 7" pits Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto and crew (which includes Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese Gibson, among others, as well as Walker) against Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw, out for revenge after the death of his brother. Dwayne Johnson also reprises his role as Hobbs. ©2015 The Hollywood Reporter. All rights reserved.

The final film featuring the late Paul Walker, "Furious 7" is opening around the globe this weekend. It's worldwide debut may approach or cross $300 million by the end of Easter Sunday.

When I was elected to the Kentucky State Senate in 1967, I became the first woman and the first person of color to serve in the body. Five decades later, I find it almost unfathomable that a politician from my own state is attempting to launch his presidential campaign on a record that includes questioning landmark voting rights and civil rights legislation. But that is what Rand Paul, who today declared he's running for president of the United States, is doing. His campaign team told reporters last week that his campaign announcement message would be about "expanding the Republican Party" -- a message of inclusion. But those of us listening today who he is hoping to include, heard nothing more than hype. I'm not buying it. Since coming to the U.S. Senate, Paul has tried to sell himself as a different type of Republican. He's tried to brand himself as the GOP's minority outreach candidate. The problem for Paul, and the GOP at large, is that they don't back up their words with their policies. Yes, it's about time that Republicans started seriously considering the fact that black voters are an important piece of the electoral puzzle. But they can't actually appeal to the community unless they have a real commitment to the issues facing minority communities. A quick survey of Sen. Paul's positions makes clear that he does not. Paul kicked off his announcement speech in Louisville by declaring "I have a message that is loud and clear: We have come to take our country back." I have no doubt that under Paul's leadership, he would indeed take our country back -- in the wrong direction -- way back to a time when we were debating the Civil Rights Act -- which Paul has done since landing on the national stage; when there was no Department of Education -- a department he thinks "should be done away with;" when women didn't have choices -- choices Paul seeks to limit in Washington; when DREAMers weren't protected from deportation -- protections Paul currently opposes. In his inept speaking engagements at historically black colleges and universities, he has come across as condescending and lacking basic cultural competency. But Paul has also questioned the Civil Rights Act, and even claimed that private business owners have a right to discriminate. When asked about the need for a more robust Voting Rights Act following the Supreme Court's dismantling of the law, Paul dismissively remarked, "We have an African-American President." When President Obama stood with John Lewis and other veterans of the civil rights movement in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge last month to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, he inspired us all by saying: "With effort, we can roll back poverty and the roadblocks to opportunity. ... With effort, we can protect the foundation stone of our democracy for which so many marched across this bridge -- and that is the right to vote." America is better -- and we solve more problems -- with more democracy, not less. Unfortunately Rand Paul has demonstrated that he disagree with that basic principle. Paul tried once again from that stage in Louisville to fashion himself as the one member of his party courageous enough to try to broaden Republican appeal to constituencies they ignore year after year. But his record makes it very clear that his views are outdated, outside of the mainstream, and disqualifying for a man who wants to lead our country. The American people deserve a leader who won't disrespect their intelligence, who won't pander to them when it's convenient, and who won't work to dismantle the progress we have made over the last five decades. What I heard today, didn't change the facts about Rand Paul's record. The American people deserve better than Rand Paul.

Georgia Powers: Rand Paul, running for president, would like minorities to think he's an advocate. His record on rights shows otherwise. On civil rights, women's choice, voting rights, immigrant DREAMers, education, he has shown he'd take country backwards, she says.

For those wondering if we would ever hear from the Bluth family again, the answer would appear to be yes. "Arrested Development" executive producer Brian Grazer said the show will return for a fifth season of 17 episodes. The Hollywood mogul was interviewed on Bill Simmons' podcast recently, and let it drop that fans can expect more of the quirky comedy. Netflix had no comment for CNN when asked to verify his statements. The fourth season was streamed exclusively on Netflix in 2013, after Fox canceled the show several years before. Despite critical acclaim, the series never had big ratings, but has a devoted fan base, who often quote from the show. It was not yet known if the full cast, including Jason Bateman, Michael Cera and Will Arnett, will return for the season.

Fan favorite series "Arrested Development" to return for a fifth season, according to producer. Brian Grazer claimed the show would be back in a podcast. Netflix is not commenting.

A nuclear submarine being repaired at a Russian shipyard has caught on fire, according to a law enforcement source speaking to Russia's state-run news agency ITAR-Tass. "The submarine is in a dry dock," Tass reports, citing the source, and there is no ammunition on board. "The rubber insulation between the submarine's light and pressure hull is on fire," Tass reported. Russia's RIA Novosti news agency says insulation caught on fire as welding work was being done on the submarine. Tass reported that the fire began on a sub in the Zvyozdochka shipyard in northwestern Russia. Zvyozdochka spokesman Yevgeny Gladyshev told the news agency that the sub had been undergoing repairs since November 2013. "Nuclear fuel from the sub's reactor has been unloaded," he reportedly said. "There are no armaments or chemically active, dangerous substances, fissionable materials on it," Gladyshev said to Tass. "The enterprise's personnel left the premises when the submarine caught fire, no one has been injured. The fire presents no threat to people and the shipyard."

Submarine is in Zvyozdochka shipyard, in northwestern Russia. No "dangerous" substances on the submarine, shipyard spokesman told ITAR-Tass.

Police in India are putting aside their batons in favor of an overhead solution to angry and unruly crowds: pepper-spraying drones. Yashasvi Yadav, Senior Superintendent of police in Lucknow, northern India, told CNN the city's force has bought four drones and is in the process of purchasing one more. "The drones have been tested in controlled conditions," he said. "They have been very successful and will be used by the Lucknow police whenever there are violent protests or mob attacks." The miniature aircraft will be fitted with a camera and pepper spray; each drone costs between $9,560 and $19,300, Yadav added. Views on the new measure are mixed, with some concerned about the suppression of freedom of speech -- an already contentious issue in India. Last month, the country failed to enforce a law that would allow authorities to arrest people who post offensive material on social media. Others believe the country could learn from events further afield. Some say this method of crowd control needs regulation too. Questions have also been raised as to why the police are resorting to aggression. "While I think it is bound to fail if not be another scam in the making, it also shows the mindset of the administration to not use dialogue and mediation to solve problems but use authoritarian and forceful methods," photojournalist Chirag Wakaskar in Mumbai told CNN. "What they could do is start by having video surveillance in sensitive areas and have swifter justice." Protests are a common occurrence in India, a country with a population of 1.2 billion; Lucknow, the capital of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, also used drone cameras to monitor crowds at a recent religious festival. As well as being used as a security measure in other cities including Delhi and Mumbai, the unmanned, airborne vehicles have been used in tiger hunts, disaster relief and criminal investigations -- and even pizza deliveries. Reports suggest that the drone surveillance will be officially launched by the Chief Minister of Lucknow, Akhilesh Yadav, later this month. Kunal Sehgal contributed to this report.

Police in Lucknow, northern India, have bought four drones to help control crowds. The unmanned aerial vehicles are being fitted with cameras and pepper spray to subdue angry protesters. Some Indians have questioned why police are resorting to "authoritarian and forceful methods"

That's some rich "American Pie." The lyrics to the famed Don McLean song sold for $1.2 million Tuesday morning at an auction held by Christie's. "Don McLean's manuscript of 'American Pie' achieved the 3rd highest auction price for an American literary manuscript, a fitting tribute to one the foremost singer-songwriters of his generation," Christie's Tom Lecky said in a statement. McLean told Rolling Stone that it was time to part with the manuscript. "I'm going to be 70 this year," the singer and songwriter said in February. "I have two children and a wife, and none of them seem to have the mercantile instinct. I want to get the best deal that I can for them. It's time." Over the years, "American Pie" has become one of the most dissected and argued-about songs in the pop music canon. McLean has said that the opening lines were inspired by the death of Buddy Holly, but after that, it's all been conjecture -- which hasn't stopped a marching band's worth of analysts from trying to parse the symbols in the 8-minute, 33-second opus. Is the jester Bob Dylan? The football game Vietnam? The "girl who sang the blues" Janis Joplin? (One thing's certain: Buddy Holly's plane was NOT named "American Pie.") "Over the years I've dealt with all these stupid questions of 'Who's that?' and 'Who's that?' " McLean said. "These are things I never had in my head for a second when I wrote the song. I was trying to capture something very ephemeral and I did, but it took a long time." The song catapulted the former folk singer to headliner status. The song hit No. 1 in early 1972, despite its length. (The 45-rpm single split the song in half on its A and B sides.) The draft that was auctioned is 16 pages: 237 lines of manuscript and 26 lines of typed text, according to Christie's. It includes lines that didn't make the final version as well as extensive notes -- all of which should be revealing, McLean said. The record for a popular music manuscript is held by Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," which sold for $2 million in June. Opinion: What's so great about 'American Pie'?

Don McLean's "American Pie" lyrics auctioned for $1.2 million. The song is dense with symbolism; McLean says lyrics, notes will reveal meaning. "Pie" is McLean's biggest hit, was No. 1 in 1972.

The outlines of a nuclear deal with Iran are in place. Unfortunately, it seems like too many in President Barack Obama's administration have forgotten that the only reason this terrorist-supporting state came to the negotiating table in the first place was because of tough sanctions imposed by the U.S. Congress. Indeed, the reality is that President Obama is giving up enormous leverage in his nuclear deal with Iran -- and I worry we will lose it for good. Bleeding money, and faced with falling oil prices, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei gave his government rare permission to bargain with the "Great Satan" -- the United States. But just as U.S. and European sanctions were forcing Iran to the nuclear crossroads, President Obama has given Tehran an easy exit. For Khamenei, the "framework" announced last week looks like a win-win: He gets to keep his nuclear infrastructure, and in return gets billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Congress offered a better strategy when the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, and I introduced a bill to hit Tehran with its toughest sanctions yet. Unfortunately, this bill -- which passed the House in a 400-20 vote -- was blocked in the Senate last year, despite the fact that it would have sharpened the Ayatollah's choice: Dismantle your nuclear weapons program or see your economy collapse. President Obama once had a tougher line, when in 2012 he said: "The deal we'll accept is they end their nuclear program. It's very straightforward." But the framework announced last week does nothing of the sort. Negotiated between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, the framework concedes that Iran can maintain "a mutually defined enrichment program," operate thousands of centrifuges, and continue its research and development of nuclear technologies. The deal currently on the table would hand Tehran billions of previously sanctioned funds, filling the coffers of the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism, with strongholds in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. Meanwhile, the strictest restrictions on Iran's enrichment will expire in only 10 years, despite the President receiving a letter from 367 Members of Congress -- both Democrats and Republicans -- in which we insisted that "verifiable constraints on Iran's nuclear program must last for decades." The President admitted as much when he conceded that "in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero." But as bad as these concessions are, the most concerning aspect of the April 2 deal is that it lacks tough safeguards to stop Iran from cheating. The key question is this: Will the inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency be allowed to inspect these military sites without warning? Because if the IAEA cannot conduct "anytime, anywhere" inspections, Iran will be able to "sneak out" to a bomb. It has been done before. Remember, in 1994, when President Bill Clinton told us he had struck a deal with North Korea that would "make the United States, the Korean Peninsula, and the world safer"? President Clinton sounded a little too much like the current Secretary of State John Kerry, when he promised that the North Korea agreement "does not rely on trust" and that "compliance will be certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency." Twelve years after these assurances, North Korea detonated its first nuclear bomb. Iran could easily do the same. The best predictor of its future behavior is its past behavior -- between 2004 and 2009, the Iranian government built a huge centrifuge facility named Fordo under a mountain deep in the Iranian desert. Luckily for the world, Western intelligence agencies discovered Tehran's deception. But we cannot rely on such luck in the future, particularly when Iran still hasn't come clean about its history of secret weapons development and is still dodging basic questions from the IAEA. Let's not forget the other things Iran has been doing while its diplomats have been bargaining with the U.S. and its partners. While Iran was showing its friendly new face to the world, it has simultaneously been helping Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad kill his own people, training and funding the terrorist group Hezbollah, which aims to annihilate Israel, and supporting the Houthis, who started a civil war and overthrew the government in Yemen -- one of America's more reliable counterterrorism partners in the region. If President Obama is going to hand over billions of dollars to a regime that behaves like this, run by a man who publicly declares: "Death to America," it has to be a better deal. The framework we have before us keeps Iran's nuclear door well and truly open.

Ed Royce: Best predictor of Iran's future behavior is its past behavior. New framework keeps Iran's nuclear door well and truly open, he says.

Hip-hop star Nelly has been arrested on drug charges in Tennessee after a state trooper pulled over the private bus in which he was traveling, authorities said. The 40-year-old rapper from St. Louis, who shot to fame 15 years ago with the track "Country Grammar," has been charged with felony possession of drugs, simple possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security said. The state trooper stopped the bus carrying Nelly and five other people on Interstate 40 in Putnam County on Saturday because it wasn't displaying U.S. Department of Transportation and International Fuel Tax Association stickers, according to Tennessee authorities. The trooper was about to conduct an inspection of the bus, a Prevost motor coach, when he "noticed an odor of marijuana emitting from the vehicle," authorities said in a statement. Two troopers then searched the bus, finding "five colored crystal-type rocks that tested positive for methamphetamine, as well as a small amount of marijuana and other drug paraphernalia," the statement said. The search also turned up several handguns and 100 small Ziploc bags, which the statement said are commonly used for selling drugs. The guns included a gold-plated .50-caliber Desert Eagle pistol, a .45-caliber Taurus pistol and a .500 Smith & Wesson magnum. Nelly, whose real name is Cornell Haynes, was taken to the Putnam County Jail along with another passenger. He later posted bond and left the jail, the Putnam County Sheriff's Office said. CNN couldn't immediately reach Nelly's representatives for comment Saturday. CNN's Janet DiGiacomo contributed to this report.

State troopers say they found methamphetamine and marijuana on a bus carrying Nelly and five others. Nelly has been charged with felony possession of drugs.

A 32-year-old Massachusetts man is facing murder charges, authorities said Wednesday, four days after another man's remains were found in a duffel bag. The Middlesex District Attorney's Office said that Carlos Colina, 32, will be arraigned the morning of April 14 for murder in connection with the remains discovered Saturday in Cambridge. Earlier this week, Colina was arraigned on charges of assault and battery causing serious bodily injury and improper disposal of a body. A Middlesex County judge then revoked bail for Colina in another case he's involved in, for alleged assault and battery. The victim in that case is different from the one whose remains were found in recent days. Police were notified Saturday morning about a suspicious item along a walkway in Cambridge. Officers arrived at the scene, opened a duffel bag and found human remains. After that discovery, police say, a surveillance video led them to an apartment building, where more body parts were discovered in a common area. That location is near the Cambridge Police Department headquarters. The remains at both locations belonged to the same victim, identified Monday as Jonathan Camilien, 26. Camilien and Colina knew each other, according to authorities. "This was a gruesome discovery," District Attorney Marian Ryan said. CNN's Kevin Conlon contributed to this report.

Prosecutor: Carlos Colina, 32, will be arraigned on the murder charge next week. He's already been arraigned for alleged assault and battery, improper disposal of a body. Body parts were found in a duffel bag and a common area of an apartment building.

There was a larger message in the article about a purported gang rape that Rolling Stone retracted on Sunday night -- a part of the story that was never disputed: The University of Virginia is under continuing investigation over how it handles sexual assault on campus. The school has never expelled a single student for sexual assault -- even when the student admitted to it. The Virginia attorney general asked the law firm of O'Melveny & Myers to take a look at how the university historically handled allegations of sexual assault by its students. That includes how UVA officials handled the allegations in the discredited Rolling Stone article by a student the magazine called "Jackie," especially since the school knew about the allegations for more than a year before the article came out. The alleged gang rape at a fraternity house was in 2012, and Jackie told the university about it the next spring. She started telling her story very publicly, including at a "take back the night" rally. But Charlottesville police didn't hear about it until after a separate incident in the spring of 2014, in which Jackie claimed someone threw a bottle that hit her in the face. When a university dean arranged for her to talk to police about that alleged assault, she also told the story of the alleged 2012 incident. In both cases, police said Jackie refused to cooperate and so they could not pursue the case. But more women came forward to talk about their experiences -- women whose stories were not as dramatic or horrific as Jackie's. Rolling Stone's story opened up a conversation about the topic, and then women began coming forward to talk about a culture on campus that was not sensitive to victims. Many women told CNN about a euphemism for the word rape used by other students on campus. They'd call it a "bad experience." Others told CNN that there were fraternities with reputations for being "rapey" and for using date-rape drugs. That some judged who could come in based on the sluttiness of a woman's outfit. And if a woman did report her rape, some women complained that the internal process didn't seem worth it if their abuser wouldn't be kicked out of school. Rolling Stone had a line in its original story: "UVA's emphasis on honor is so pronounced that since 1998, 183 people have been expelled for honor-code violations such as cheating on exams. And yet paradoxically, not a single student at UVA has ever been expelled for sexual assault." After the article published, UVA admitted this and instituted a zero-tolerance policy on sexual assault going forward -- although that policy was never defined, so it's unclear what it means. When the story was deleted from Rolling Stone's website, that was lost. "You lose a lot of other people's voices who were in that article," said Sarah Roderick, a survivor and UVA student, "and a lot of good things that could have come about. Fixing problems with administration here and on our campus" -- and, she added, across the nationo. Along with the O'Melveny & Myers investigation, there's also an open Title IX investigation into UVA by the U.S. Department of Education as a result of a civil suit. The attorney who filed the suit, James Marsh, told CNN that UVA medical staff lost or destroyed evidence from the alleged sexual assault victim he's representing, making it impossible for her to move forward and get justice. When the Columbia Journalism School's 12,000-plus-word critique is summed up, it really boils down to this: The mistake could have been avoided if the writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, had picked up the phone and made just a few more phone calls to the friends of Jackie who she claimed were with her that night. They'd later tell other media outlets, including CNN, that they remembered a very different story. Rolling Stone says their account would have been a red flag. And all three say they would have talked if they'd been called. Ryan Duffin, one of the trio, said he felt deceived by Jackie, but he also pointed out that Erdely's mistake in fact-checking was about one single incident, and the fallout has caused a much bigger issue to be lost. "Had she gotten in direct contact with us, it probably wouldn't have been printed, at least in that way," he said. "A lot of the article was still based in truth, but the focal point would have been different." It might have been less dramatic, but it would have probably focused on some of the other UVA students who shared much more common stories of acquaintance rape on campus. "I think my problem with it was that this reporter wanted to sensationalize an experience that's not very common," Roderick said. "... And I wonder if it would have been different if (it dealt) with someone with a less horrific story -- something that happens to more people. I think this discredits what a lot of survivors go through. Something this physically horrific is not what everyone goes through. Now it's like, 'If I wasn't assaulted by more than one man then my story is not as worthy of attention.' It's frustrating that this is how rape is portrayed on college campuses because this is not the norm." Before the report came out, Abraham Axler, the student body president, said that some good had come from the article because it forced UVA to institute new policies and to open up a conversation on a topic that needed to be discussed nationwide. But some survivors and advocates are afraid the retraction set back their progress. "I do feel like there's a possibility people will be afraid to come forward. If you come forward and share your story, if you don't have the date right, every detail down, you'll think, 'I'm going to be accused of being a liar. It's easier for me to keep it to myself,'" Roderick said. "There are very serious and unresolved questions about the university's performance," said Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. "Rolling Stone teed that subject up. I wouldn't say that everything about Rolling Stone's treatment of that subject was perfect, but it certainly doesn't fall under the same category as their reporting about Jackie's narrative."

University of Virginia is under continuing investigation over how it handles sexual assault on campus. Some fear retraction of Rolling Stone story about one case takes focus off the broader issue. After the story came out, UVA instituted a zero-tolerance policy on sexual assault going forward.

Fans of the late actor Paul Walker knew that watching him in "Furious 7" would be bittersweet. Even so, many moviegoers said the final scenes of the new film, which earned a record $146 million over the weekend, still packed an emotional wallop. "Not gonna lie, I shed a few tears at the end of Furious 7. The tribute to Paul Walker was very well done," one woman said Monday on Twitter. Hers was just one of a flood of messages on social media from people who said they got choked up during scenes featuring Walker, who died at 40 in a car crash in November 2013, before filming on "Furious 7" was completed. To finish Walker's scenes, the makers of the movie used body doubles, computer-generated images and even the actor's brothers. But it was the ending that really got to moviegoers. In finishing "Furious 7," the film's producers sought to retire Walker's character, Brian, while paying homage to his role in the blockbuster "Furious" action franchise. But they felt that killing him off might appear exploitative. "If they had gone down the other path, I think I would have refused to finish making this movie," director James Wan told BuzzFeed. Instead, the movie's makers chose to "retire Paul's character in the most sincere and elegant way (they) could," Wan said. Their idea was to have Brian retire from his dangerous, high-octane lifestyle out of a sense of responsibility to his growing family with girlfriend Mia, who is pregnant with their second child. A scene late in the movie shows him and Mia playing on a beach with their son while the crew looks on -- essentially saying goodbye. Then his longtime buddy Dom reminisces about their years together, leading to a montage of Walker scenes from the first six movies. The song that plays over the montage is "See You Again," a collaboration between Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth. Co-star Vin Diesel shared the video for the song late Sunday on his Facebook page, where it has more than 1.5 million likes. Fans on Twitter and Facebook mostly praised the movie's ending as a fitting tribute -- and an emotionally wrenching one. "Man I don't care how tough u are or how gangsta u claim to be . ...the last five minutes had me choked up in the movie theater ... I saw it 3 times in one day ... ...the ending is the deepest ending I've ever seen," one man wrote on the movie's Facebook page.

Moviegoers are tearing up during the emotional ending of "Furious 7" The movie's end is a tribute of sorts to actor Paul Walker, who died during filming.

Two Alabama college students are accused of gang raping a woman while on spring break at Florida's Panama City Beach. Ryan Calhoun and Delonte Martistee, students at Troy University, were arrested and charged with sexual battery by multiple perpetrators, according to a statement from the Bay County, Florida, Sheriff's Office. The Troy, Alabama, Police Department found video of what appeared to be a Panama City gang rape during the course of an investigation into an unrelated shooting. The video was turned over to the Bay County Sheriff's Office. The Bay County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division has identified the victim in the video but said state law prevents the office from releasing any information about her. She was a visitor in Panama City. "We are not releasing her location or any additional information on victim to protect her from further trauma," said sheriff's spokesman Tommy Ford. After interviewing witnesses, Bay County investigators determined the alleged rape took place sometime from March 10, 2015, to March 12, 2015, behind Spinnaker Beach Club, a popular bar and dance club for spring breakers. A statement from Troy University confirmed the two men are current students. "The students have been placed on temporary suspension from school per the university's standards of conduct and disciplinary procedures. Martistee, a member of the track and field team, has also been removed from the team." The investigation continues and more arrests are expected, the Bay County Sheriff's Office said. Calhoun and Martistee will have their first court appearance Saturday morning, a Bay County deputy said. CNN could not determine if the men have attorneys.

Case begins when police find video of what appears to be a gang rape. 2 students from Troy University in Alabama are charged in the case.

What would you do if a complete stranger asked you for $100, or offered you an apple in a parking lot without explanation? These are only two of the 100 challenges Chinese-born, American-based Jia Jiang put himself up to when he decided to blog about "100 Days of Rejection", a project he launched after he quit his comfortable six-figure job to follow his dreams of being an entrepreneur at the age of 30, just weeks before his first child was born. After his tech start-up was declined investment, Jiang decided to confront his fear of rejection head-on. This led to his writing his book called Rejection Proof, part self-help and part motivational/autobiography, which is being released this week. Famously, in 2012 on his third day of the project, Jiang asked Austin, Texas, Krispy Kreme manager (Jackie Braun) to make him five interlinked donuts to mimic the Olympic symbol. To his surprise, she rose to the challenge and his rejection request faltered. He shared his video and it went viral on Reddit. Before long, Jiang (and Braun) were invited on talk shows and Jiang was being asked to speak at events across the US. Jiang was even offered jobs as his project continued and his fame grew. That wasn't the goal of the project though. "I'm really just a person trying to overcome my own fears," explained Jiang. The project started out to help "fix my own problems, and now I'm helping others fix theirs," he said. "The fear of rejection really holds people back. I'm trying to demystify the idea of rejection." Jiang, who as a child dreamed of being Bill Gates and has been viewed 7 million times on YouTube, has found his entrepreneurial dream in a different role for the moment. "My goal is to turn rejection into opportunity. I always thought it was something to run away from, but if we can embrace it, we can turn it into a lot more than an obstacle." 8 top tips in making rejection work for you:. 1 - The fear of rejection holds us back a lot more than actual rejection. By putting ourselves out there, the world will usually open itself up to you. Though the world can seem cruel and cold, actually humans have a hard time saying no. So open yourself up, don't be afraid to ask for something. If you fail, remember it's not about you. 2 - Rejection is more or less a numbers game. Sometimes the most far-fetched idea gets a yes. If you talk to enough people, somebody will say yes to you. J.K. Rowling went through 12 rejections to get her yes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. 3 - You cannot use rejection to measure the merit of an idea. Sometimes if you really want to change the world, getting rejection is a must. Rejection is a human interaction with two sides. It often says more about the rejector than the rejectee, and should never be used as the universal truth and sole judgment of merit. 4 - Don't run away after a no. The most common thing we do when we're rejected is we want to run because rejection is painful - you're hurt, angry and you lose confidence. But actually if we know how to handle it, we can often minimize the chance of rejection. Be confident, engaging, collaborate. I used all of these traits to maximise getting a yes. 5 - Ask why? When you get rejected you have to find out why. Then spend time to find solutions to solve that why. Sometimes through this process you learn there is something else you can ask for. Ask for an intermediate position rather than the top position. 6 - Set a number of how many no's you can take. In his book, Jiang helps his wife set out to get her dream job at Google. He tells her that instead of thinking about getting a job, she needs to prepare herself for how many no's she can take. In the end, she was offered a job at Google. 7 - Be invincible. By the end of his project, Jiang said he felt he could ask anything from anyone and not have the pain of rejection. It was a gradual process - gradually my comfort zone expanded. It's like a muscle, I could become stronger and stronger. 8 - Stand tall and remember rejection is an opinion. People are who they are. A lot of people will reject you because of their mood, their education, their upbringing, and you can't change who they are. But you can stand confidently. Innate confidence comes across. How missing sleep can damage your IQ. The surprising benefits of doing nothing. 7 habits of highly ineffective people.

One man's entrepreneurial quest turned into unexpected success. "100 Days of Rejection" took Jiang out of his comfort zone. It's the fear of rejection, more than rejection itself, which holds us back.

Irish betting company Paddy Power is backtracking after tweeting that "Newcastle have suffered more Kop beatings over the last 20 years than an unarmed African-American male." The tweet, a pun on the name of the famous home end at Liverpool Football Club, alluded to recent controversial incidents in the United States in which unarmed African-American men have been killed by police. Paddy Power -- well-known for its use of publicity stunts -- used it to link to a piece showing statistics for games between Liverpool and Newcastle United ahead of their English Premier League match on Monday. A Paddy Power spokesman told CNN before Liverpool's 2-0 victory at Anfield: "It was a joke, and no offense was meant." The tweet has since been deleted, but its removal -- along with the statement -- did little to placate social media users who condemned the organization, with some calling for the person who wrote the tweet to be sacked. In January, Paddy Power attracted headlines after backing David Ginola's failed candidacy for the presidency of world football's governing body. The former Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham player could not persuade enough FIFA football associations to back his bid. He needed five to have any chance of unseating Sepp Blatter. Paddy Power started the funding for the candidacy, but its penchant for publicity stunts quickly led many people to dismiss Ginola's bid as another attempt to grab headlines. Paddy Power, the son of one the company's founders and its marketing spokesman, explained: "We've been known for some mischievous activity around the world. This is not that. This is for real." Last year, the company generated anger when it promised "money back if he walks" in relation to the trial of disgraced South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius. Monday's win put Liverpool fifth in the table, four points behind defending champion Manchester City, which holds England's final European Champions League qualification spot with six games left to play this season. Young England forward Raheem Sterling, who has turned down a new contract, scored a fine solo goal in the first half, and midfielder Joe Allen's 70th-minute strike condemned 13th-placed Newcastle to a fifth successive league defeat. Newcastle, which had France international midfielder Moussa Sissoko sent off in the 83rd minute, has not won at Anfield since a 1-0 victory in the League Cup in November 1995.

Company known for use of publicity stunts. Tweet contained pun on name of Liverpool's Kop stand. It was used to link to Liverpool-Newcastle stats. Social media backlash leads to apology.

The new emojis are here! On Thursday, Apple released a new version of its mobile operating system that includes more diversity than ever when it comes to the race, ethnicity and sexual orientation of its emojis -- those cute little images that users can insert into text messages or emails when words alone just won't cut it. The reaction to this new lineup is, as should be expected with almost anything new in today's hypersensitive climate, a range of cheers and jeers. Why is any of this important, you may ask? For many, these images are far more than tiny clip art for texting. Rather they are seen as recognition that their own ethnicity, sexual orientation, race or even hair color is part of mainstream America -- despite what others might say. This matters in a digital age where texting is how most people communicate and represent themselves dozens -- if not hundreds -- of times every day. Think receiving a text of an image of a person smiling. Or more accurately, think of a white face smiling because up until Thursday's update, all the emojis had pale skin. But that has all changed. Now there's a range of emoji skin tones to pick from, including yellow, brown and black. I'm sure few people will be upset with this development. But how about in December? Why? Now that will be able to choose the skin tones for each human emoji, and that will also include ... Santa Claus. That shrieking sound you may have heard was from Fox News' Megyn Kelly, who famously stated in 2013 that Santa Claus is absolutely, definitely and without a doubt a white guy. In fact, thanks to Apple, we may even see Brown Santa emojis this December. (Could that mean he's a Muslim Santa?! Cue even more shrieking from Fox News.) There is more. Apple has now given us gay and lesbian couple emojis, kissing with a heart over their heads. This inclusiveness was cheered by at least one gay news service on Twitter. It's not yet clear if a person who likes to use same-sex kissing emoji couples can be denied service by a person who objects on grounds of "religious liberty." But it would be interesting to hear what any of the 2016 GOP presidential candidates might have to say about "gay emojis." And I would predict some conservative will claim that the kissing gay emojis will turn children gay. The fact is, when you embrace diversity, you will still leave out other minority groups. Redheads, for example, are pretty pissed off because there are no emojis featuring their hair color. In fact, supporters of a redheaded emoji have started a petition that has already garnered several thousand signatures. Even expanding the flags represented by emojis, as Apple has done, comes at some peril. Apparently Canada is overjoyed that finally Apple has included it. But Armenians are not happy they were left out. I must admit that being partially of Palestinian heritage, it's heartening to see that despite the fact that some refuse to recognize a Palestinian state, Apple has chosen to now include a Palestinian flag emoji. Armenia, I feel your pain. Of course the bigger question in the whole diverse-emoji issue is: What took Apple so long? How hard could it have been to add different skin colors to pick from? That the company (finally) did is a step in the right direction: America's demographics are changing, so our representations of who we are -- even representations as tiny as emojis -- should reflect this. Apple has "evolved" in showing diversity -- from brown people to same-sex couples. Maybe "religious liberty" conservatives who discriminate will follow.

Dean Obeidallah: Apple's new emoji lineup is diverse in race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. It's just like America, but what took Apple so long? Obeidallah asks. He says change may rankle (or win over?) conservatives who discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation.

As Americans mark the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's death this week, let us remember that he not only belongs to the ages, but also belongs, in a special way, to Illinois. Lincoln's two greatest legacies -- indivisible union and irreversible emancipation -- grew organically from his Midwestern roots. He knew firsthand that no defensible border shielded the land of corn from the land of cotton. The entire region from the Appalachians to the Rockies drained through the Mississippi River, enabling farmers in this vast basin to float their goods down to market through New Orleans and from there to the world. He thus could never allow a potentially hostile power to control this geostrategic chokepoint in particular, or Dixie more generally. The U.S. landmass, he insisted, "is well adapted to be the home of one national family; and it is not well adapted for two, or more" because "there is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to divide." Lincoln supplemented his Midwestern geography lesson with a distinctly Midwestern claim about constitutional history: "The Union is older than any of the States; and in fact, it created them as States." Lincoln did not need to make this controversial claim to prove his case, and elsewhere he stressed the decisive legal point that the Constitution's text clearly prohibits unilateral secession. The Constitution is always and everywhere the supreme law of the land -- no matter what an individual state says. But Lincoln's additional assertion that the Union created the states, not vice versa, provoked strong disagreement in other parts of the country. Most Virginians, including Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, insisted that of course Virginia had come first! At the outbreak of the American Revolution, the Old Dominion was already a century and a half old. Generations of Lees had helped govern Virginia long before the United States was born. But if Lee was, first and always, a Virginian, Lincoln was an American. His father came from Virginia, his grandfather hailed from Pennsylvania, and before that, the family had probably lived in New England. Abe himself had been born in Kentucky and had moved as a boy to Indiana, and later, as a young man, to Illinois. These latter two Midwestern states had undeniably been formed by the Union itself. These places had begun as federal territory -- the common inheritance of all Americans -- and it was the federal government that had indeed brought these new states to life. When young Abe moved to Indiana, it was just becoming a state, thanks to federal governmental action. It was a wise set of federal policies -- proper land surveys and a commitment to public education -- that had drawn the Lincolns and countless other Kentuckians to leave the Bluegrass State for a brighter future in the Midwest. Retracing Lincoln's assassination 150 years later. That brighter future also involved freedom from slavery. The Old Northwest had always been free soil, as provided for by a Northwest Ordinance that predated the U.S. Constitution. The words of the 13th Amendment -- the only constitutional amendment that Lincoln would live to sign -- promised to end slavery everywhere in America and did so by borrowing verbatim from Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance. True, geography is not inexorable destiny. Many other Midwesterners in Lincoln's era embraced slavery and secession. Hugo Black, the Supreme Court justice who did the most to make Lincoln's constitutional vision a reality over the next century, was born and raised in Alabama. But geographic variation has always been a large part of America's constitutional saga. In the 1860 election that brought him to power, Lincoln swept almost all the Northern states, but did miserably in the slaveholding south. John Wilkes Booth, the dastard who ended Lincoln's life 150 years ago this week, was an embittered extremist from a slave state. So was Lincoln's nemesis on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roger Taney. Taney's most infamous ruling, the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision in 1857, had emerged from a court dominated by the South; although slave states accounted for less a third of America's free population, this region held an absolute majority of the seats on the court. Remembering Lincoln's murder. In our era, given the fact that Republican appointees have held a majority of the court for the last 40 years, the court has been rather moderate. Much of this moderation has come courtesy of northern Republicans on the Court -- most notably, Minnesota's Harry Blackmun, Illinois' John Paul Stevens, and New Hampshire's David Souter. All nine of the current justices learned their law in liberal New England, at Harvard or Yale, and the Republican appointee most attentive to gay rights, Anthony Kennedy, grew up in northern California, a corner of the country renowned for its respect for alternative lifestyles. Which takes us back to Lincoln. When Anthony Kennedy was a lad in California's state capital, the governor, a friend of the Kennedy family, was a Lincoln Republican named Earl Warren -- a man who would later author the Court's iconic opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, vindicating the constitutional amendments enshrined by Lincoln and his allies. Today, both parties at their best claim Lincoln. Jeb Bush aims to appeal to the better angels of our nature and Rand Paul is a Kentuckian who professes interest in racial outreach. Hillary Clinton was born an Illinois Republican. And the leader of her adopted political party -- who also happens to be president -- is a lanky and brainy lawyer from Illinois who knows how to give a good speech, and who swept to power in 2008 by recreating Lincoln's geographic coalition, winning every state within a four-hour drive of Chicago. In the largest sense, then, all Americans, of both parties and all regions -- whether or not they have ever set foot in Illinois -- are living in the Land of Lincoln.

Akhil Amar: Lincoln's two biggest legacies, keeping union together and abolishing slavery, had Midwestern roots. Lincoln saw the federal government as pre-eminent and believed there was no logical border for dividing the U.S.

Two years ago, the storied Boston Marathon ended in terror and altered the lives of runners, spectators and those who tried to come to their rescue. Just last week, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted on 30 charges related to the bombings at the race and the dramatic violence that dragged out for days afterward. The jury will begin deliberating his punishment next week. The death penalty is on the table. Dzhokhar and his brother Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police, were intent on terrorizing not just Bostonians, but all Americans, prosecutors said. But the Tsarnaevs were not on the minds of most people in Boston on Wednesday. The injured victims and those who lost their lives were spoken of with reverence in somber ceremonies. Relatives of 8-year-old Martin Richard, the attack's youngest victim, and the family of Krystle Campbell stood with Gov. Charlie Baker and Mayor Martin Walsh. Bagpipes played and banners whipped in the wind on Boylston Street, the Boston Globe reported. Boston University graduate student Lingzi Lu also was killed in one of the two horrific blasts that brought chaos to the competitors and spectators near the race's finish line on April 15, 2013. Who were the victims? Many bombing survivors were in the crowd for Wednesday's events, the newspaper said. They wore white, blue and yellow pins celebrating "One Boston Day," which was created to recognize acts of valor and to encourage kindness among Bostonians. Many there and those who couldn't observe the day in person tweeted their respect and memories using #BostonDay. The marathon historically happens on a Monday. This year, runners will take on the 26.2 mile challenge April 20. "I think today will always be a little emotional for me -- Marathon Monday is my favorite day of the year, and will continue to be, despite these tragedies," Boston resident Lindsey Berkowitz told CNN. "I have so much respect and support for all of the survivors, and hope the city continues to come together on this day to embrace the strength and resilience of Boston, and the love we all have for this great city." Melanie DiVasta was working just a mile from the finish line in 2013 when one of the bombs set by the Tsarnaevs exploded. Several of her friends were waiting at the finish line. They were unharmed. "It was just an overwhelming feeling of shock to start hearing about it and seeing images," DiVasta said. "You couldn't help but cry and just ask why." What's next for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? CNN's Jareen Imam contributed to this report.

Citizens gather to honor victims on One Boston Day, two years after the marathon bombings. "Today will always be a little emotional for me," one Bostonian tells CNN.

Kano, Nigeria (CNN)An explosion late Thursday outside a bus station in the northeast Nigerian city of Gombe ‎killed at least five people and injured more than a dozen others, witnesses said. The explosion outside the Bauchi Motor Park‎ happened around 8:30 p.m. after a woman left her explosives-laden handbag near a bus filling up with passengers. The bus was heading to the central Nigerian city of Jos, 125 kilometers away. "There has been an explosion just outside the motor park and five people have been killed while more than 12 others have been seriously injured," said Adamu Saidu, an employee at the bus station. "Some of the injured have had their limbs blown off‎ and one of them has had his eye gouged out," said Saidu, who was involved in the evacuation of the victims to a hospital. The woman pretended to be going to Jos and lingered around the bus, which was ‎waiting to fill up with passengers, according to Falalu Tasiu, a grocer near the bus station. "The woman kept talking on the phone and dropped her bag beside the bus, pretending to be waiting for the bus to fill up," Tasiu said. "She moved towards shops overlooking the bus station as if she was going to buy something and disappeared. Moments later the bag exploded and set the bus on fire, killing five people and inujuring around 15 others," Tasiu said. Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Boko Haram Islamists have repeatedly carried out suicide and bombing attacks on bus stations and markets in Gombe and other northern cities, making the group the main suspect. Boko Haram has in recent months been under sustained pressure from sweeping offensives from a four-nation regional alliance of Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon. The regional offensives have considerably weakened Boko Haram's capabilities, which has prompted the Islamists to resort to attacks on soft targets such as bus stations, markets and schools. The explosion was the first attack since Nigeria held its presidential election at the weekend, which was won by opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari, who vowed to crush Boko Haram when he assumes office in late May.

Woman leaves explosives-laden handbag beside bus during boarding. No group has claimed responsibility, but Boko Haram is suspected.

Lady Antebellum singer Hillary Scott's tour bus caught fire on a Texas freeway Thursday morning, but everyone on board was safely evacuated. Michael Barnett captured dramatic video of the fire, on Interstate 30 just northeast of Dallas, and uploaded it to CNN iReport. Smoke and flames poured from the rear of the bus as traffic slowed to a crawl and Barnett slowly approached in his vehicle. As he drew closer to the bus, Barnett decided to stop filming because he didn't know what to expect. "It was shocking," he said. "I didn't know what I was about to see. I didn't know if anyone was hurt." Barnett said he didn't realize at the time that the bus belonged to the country band. Hillary Scott, co-lead singer for the band, posted a photo of the charred bus on Instagram and noted that she, her husband, the tour manager and the driver were all evacuated safely. "Thanking God for our safety and the safety of all of those who helped put this fire out and keep us safe," she wrote. The tour manager told CNN affiliate KTVT that the bus stopped after a rear tire blew out. It burst into flames after everyone had gotten off. Scott also posted an Instagram photo and message saying that the fire destroyed everything in the bus's back lounge except her Bible. The band's two other members, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood, were not traveling on the bus, KTVT reported. Lady Antebellum is set to perform at the 50th Academy of Country Music Awards on Sunday in Arlington, Texas.

Country band Lady Antebellum's bus caught fire Thursday on a Texas freeway. A CNN iReporter captured the dramatic scene on video. Singer Hillary Scott shared a pic of the charred bus on Instagram.

Tulsa, Oklahoma (CNN)Amid growing scrutiny over whether a 73-year-old volunteer deputy who killed a suspect during a sting operation was qualified to be policing the streets, a new report raises a troubling allegation. Some supervisors at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office were told to forge Reserve Deputy Robert Bates' training records, and three who refused were reassigned to less desirable duties, the Tulsa World newspaper reported. Claims that the volunteer deputy's records had been falsified emerged "almost immediately" from multiple sources after Bates killed Eric Harris on April 2, reporter Dylan Goforth said. Bates claims he meant to use his Taser but accidentally fired his handgun at Harris instead. The newspaper's story does not say who allegedly asked the supervisors to falsify the training records or why. But the orders apparently started years ago, before Harris' death, "back when (Bates) was trying to get on as a deputy," reporter Ziva Branstetter told CNN's "New Day." The Sheriff's Office denied the allegations in the Tulsa World's report. It also declined a CNN interview to respond to the claims. In an email to CNN, the department's Maj. Shannon Clark said the lack of named sources in the newspaper's report leaves him dubious. "Just keep in mind that the Tulsa World reporter cannot validate her sources and claims anonymity, which leaves us skeptical that her claims are unsubstantiated and deceptive," Clark wrote. Clark Brewster, an attorney who represents Bates, said the accusations are based on an affidavit from a former Sheriff's Office employee who's now facing a first-degree murder charge. "I don't put a lot of stock in that report or the credibility of who would further that report," Brewster said. Shooting casts spotlight on volunteer police programs. Sheriff Stanley Glanz and other sheriff's officials have repeatedly insisted Bates was properly trained. The Tulsa County Sheriff's Office has released a summary of Bates' training courses only over the past seven years. The office rejected CNN's request for the full training records because Bates' case is under investigation. Branstetter said she's run into similar obstacles when asking for the names of supervisors who'd signed off on Bates' training records. "You would think the Sheriff's Office, if in fact there has been no pressure applied, no falsification of records, that they would be forthcoming with these documents," she told CNN's "New Day." "We've asked for them. They've said they don't believe they're public records." Bates was classified as an advanced reserve deputy for the Sheriff's Office. That means he would have had to complete 480 hours of the field training officer program to maintain that classification, the paper said. Bates would also have needed firearms certification training. But the sheriff himself has acknowledged there is a problem with Bates' gun certification records -- his office can't find them. "Bob went out and qualified with three different weapons with an instructor," Glanz told KFAQ radio this week. He said Bates "qualified with a young lady that was a firearms instructor." But she is no longer there. "She has left the Sheriff's Office and is now a Secret Service agent," Glanz told KFAQ. "And we're trying to get a hold of her and talk to her about ... we can't find the records that she supposedly turned in. So we're going to talk to her and find out if for sure he did qualify with those." Opinion: Who gave this reserve cop a gun? Even before the Tulsa World story, inconsistencies were apparent in Bates' history with the Sheriff's Office. In his statement to investigators, Bates said he "became an advanced TCSO Reserve Deputy in 2007." But the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office has said Bates had been a reserve deputy since 2008. It also said Bates had undergone 300 hours of training. That would be less than the 480 hours of field training that the Tulsa World said is required to be an "advanced" reserve deputy, which Bates claimed to be. In a statement he made to investigators after the shooting, Bates said the gun he used was his personal weapon, adding that he last qualified at the range in autumn. He also said he'd attended "numerous schools and seminars related to drug investigations and the tactical operations associated with the apprehension of suspects involved in drug trafficking," a five-day homicide investigation school in Dallas and training from Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on responding to active shooters. But an Arizona official told CNN Bates never trained with the agency. "He didn't come to Arizona," the official from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said, "and he certainly didn't train with us." Brewster said that line in Bates' statement was referring to a lecture given at a seminar in Washington by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The seminar was part of extensive training Bates received at classes across the country and through work in the field, he said. "He met every training regimen," Brewster said. "He met every requirement, and all he did was give of himself." Bates is now charged with second-degree manslaughter for Harris' death. He turned himself in to authorities Tuesday and immediately posted bail of $25,000. His attorney has said he's not guilty, calling the death an "excusable homicide." The lawyer for Harris' family claims Bates wasn't qualified to be on the force, but received preferential treatment because he'd made donations to the agency and was a friend of the sheriff -- an accusation officials deny, saying they stand by his training record. Tulsa Police Sgt. Jim Clark, who has been brought in to review the case, has said Bates fell "victim" to something called "slip and capture," a term to describe a high-stress situation in which a person intends to do one thing and instead does something else. It's a controversial claim that hasn't convinced critics of the department, and calls for an independent investigation into the Sheriff's Office and the case are growing. Earlier this week, the office spokesman rejected any idea of outside investigators into the shooting. "We're not scared to prosecute our own. ... There's nobody in this culture that can be tougher on cops than their own," Clark said. "You know that analogy that you'll eat your young? You know, that's the same thing in law enforcement. If we have a dirty cop in our ranks, we will disclose them much quicker than the media." A spokesman for Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said his office is concerned about allegations reported in the media about the case "and will continue to monitor and assess what appropriate measures, if any, are warranted." Glanz has stated publicly that he's reached out to the regional office of the FBI to look into the shooting. Special Agent Terry B. Weber told CNN there's no open FBI investigation into the case. How easy is it to confuse a gun for a Taser? CNN's Ed Lavandera reported from Tulsa. CNN's Holly Yan and Catherine E. Shoichet reported from Atlanta. CNN's Dave Alsup and Jason Morris contributed to this report.

Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona says Robert Bates never trained with them. "He met every requirement, and all he did was give of himself," his attorney says. Tulsa World newspaper: Three supervisors who refused to sign forged records on Robert Bates were reassigned.

Los Angeles (CNN)Former rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight was ordered Thursday to stand trial for murder and other charges stemming from a deadly hit-and-run confrontation on the movie set of the biopic "Straight Outta Compton" earlier this year. In addition to that ruling, Judge Ronald Coen also lowered Knight's bail to $10 million from $25 million, a figure that defense lawyers called excessive. The judge also dismissed one of the two counts of hit-and-run against Knight. In all, Knight will stand trial on one count of murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of hit-and-run, the judge ruled after holding a two-day preliminary hearing this week that ended Thursday. Knight, 49, faces up to life in prison if convicted. Knight suffers diabetes and blot clots, and the case has clearly strained him: He collapsed in court last month after learning of the $25 million bail and he was taken to the hospital for treatment. Knight was in court Thursday. At the end of hearing, he turned around and looked at his family in the gallery, and he smiled to his fiancee as deputies led him handcuffed out of the courtroom. In a press conference after the hearing, fiancee Toi Kelly said regarding Knight's health that he is "doing much better." The judge dismissed the other hit-and-run count because California law says no more than one charge of hit-and-run should be brought against a defendant when the same weapon, in this case the vehicle Knight was driving, is used against several people. Knight is accused of running over two men, killing one of them, during an argument. Killed was Terry Carter, 55. The survivor is Cle Sloan, 51, who in testimony this week declined to identify Knight as his attacker because Sloan doesn't want to be a "snitch" who sends Knight to prison, according to CNN affiliates KABC and KTLA. Prosecutors offered Sloan immunity, but he still refused to testify against Knight on Monday, the affiliates reported. The deadly incident happened on January 29, after a flare-up on the set of the biopic "Straight Outta Compton," a film about the highly influential and controversial rap group N.W.A. The alleged argument spilled over to the parking lot of Tam's Burgers in Compton. At the time, Knight was out on bail in a separate robbery case. The hit-and-run was captured on videotape and allegedly shows Knight inside a red truck. In the video, the truck pulls into the entrance of the Compton restaurant, and he is then approached by Sloan, who was working security on the site. The two men appear to talk for a few moments, with Knight still in his vehicle. Suddenly, the vehicle backs up, knocking Sloan to the ground. While still in reverse, the truck moves out of range of the security camera. The vehicle is then seen zooming forward, back into camera range, running over Sloan a second time, and then running over a second man, Carter, a former rap music label owner. Carter later died. In closing arguments prior to the judge's ruling, Knight's attorney Matthew Fletcher argued that Knight was the victim. Knight was only defending himself against Sloan, whom the defense attorney accused of possessing a gun at the time. "Mr. Sloan is the initial and consistent aggressor," Knight's attorney argued. "There's no intent to kill, there's an intent to survive." "Even without a gun, we know Mr. Sloan was brave enough to attack in broad daylight," the defense attorney said. Fletcher added that Knight's defense was to stand his ground. Sloan "needed immunity because he was the actual aggressor," Fletcher said. "He is the person who got Terry (Carter) killed." Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Barnes argued, however, told the judge that Knight was engaged in "mutual combat situation" where he used his car as deadly weapon. If Knight "ever had the right of self-defense, the moment he backed-up and Mr. Sloan was ran-over, he lost the right of self-defense," Barnes said. "There was pre-mediation and intent when he (Knight) ran over him a second time." Knight is scheduled to be arraigned on April 30. The incident is the latest run-in with the law for Knight, who founded the wildly successful Death Row Records in 1991 and signed artists such as Snoop Doggy Dogg (now known as Snoop Lion) and Tupac Shakur. Knight was driving the car in which Shakur was a passenger when the rapper was shot to death in Las Vegas in 1996. Shortly afterward, Knight spent several years in prison for violating parole on assault and weapons convictions. That prison time -- along with Shakur's death, feuds between Knight and a number of rappers, and desertions by Dr. Dre, Snoop and others -- contributed to the label's bankruptcy in 2006. In August, Knight and two other people were shot while inside a celebrity-filled Sunset Strip party hosted by singer Chris Brown on the eve of the MTV Video Music Awards.

Former rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight will be tried for murder in a videotaped hit-and-run. His bail is reduced to $10 million from $25 million. A judge dismisses one of four charges against Knight.

Deputies rushed Kenneth Morgan Stancil III from court Thursday after the 20-year-old murder suspect swore at a judge and tried to flip over a table. Stancil is accused of killing an employee Monday at Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Relatives have said victim Ron Lane was gay, CNN affiliate WNCN reported, and investigators are looking into whether the shooting was a hate crime. Authorities arrested Stancil after he was found sleeping on a Florida beach on Tuesday. Just a few minutes into Thursday's hearing on the first-degree murder charge he faces, Stancil snapped back at the judge after he was offered a court-appointed lawyer. "No, I don't need one," said Stancil, who stood before the judge with his legs shackled and his arms handcuffed in front of him. "You know what I'm saying? I knew I would get life anyway." Superior Court Judge Arnold O. Jones interjected, pointing out that the maximum sentence Stancil faces is the death penalty. "Yes, I know that," Stancil fired back. "But when I knew what I had to do and I knew when I got caught, you know, I knew in my mind that I could get life, I could get the death penalty. You know what I'm saying? Do you follow my topic? I would have killed you, you know what I'm saying, if you're a f---ing child molester." The judge told him not to swear. "I don't give a f--- what you want," Stancil said, lunging forward and lifting up the table in front of him. Deputies quickly corralled him and hustled him from the courtroom. The hearing resumed about 25 minutes later, when Stancil was brought back into the courtroom, this time with his arms handcuffed behind him. When asked again by Jones whether he wanted a lawyer, his response was quick -- and calm. "Yes, sir," he said. In an interview with CNN affiliate WRAL, Stancil described himself as a neo-Nazi and said he hates gay people "with a passion." Stancil had worked for Lane, the school's print shop operator, as part of a work-study program, but was let go from the program in early March because of poor attendance, college officials said. During the interview, and during a court appearance in Florida on Tuesday, Stancil said Lane deserved to die, accusing him of being a child molester who'd made advances in online messages to Stancil's 16-year-old brother. Lane's family has described those accusations as untrue and slanderous. His cousin, Steve Smith, told WRAL that Lane never made sexual advances toward children or anyone with whom he worked. He described him as a loving man who was dedicated to family and friends. "Yes, Ron was gay. But people need to get over it," Smith said. "That's between him and the Lord, him and his savior."

Kenneth Morgan Stancil, charged with first-degree murder, swears at the judge. Deputies escort him from court after he tries to flip over a table. Stancil is accused of killing an employee at Wayne Community College.

Canadian actor Jonathan Crombie, who co-starred in the "Anne of Green Gables" TV movies, died this week at age 48. Crombie died Wednesday from complications of a brain hemorrhage, "Anne of Green Gables" producer Kevin Sullivan said. "It's a real tragedy to see someone at age 48 go like that," he said. "I will remember him as someone who worked extremely hard to make the roles he played onscreen come to life." Based on Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery's children's books, "Anne of Green Gables" debuted in Canada on CBC TV in 1984 and became a cultural touchstone. The plot focused on the adventures of fiery orphan Anne Shirley, played by Megan Follows, who is sent to live on a farm in Prince Edward Island. Crombie played Gilbert Blythe, who evolves over time from Anne's pigtail-tugging tormentor to friend to husband. Follows and Crombie reprised the roles in the sequels "Anne of Avonlea" (1987) and "Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story" (2000). The movies were carried in the United States by the Disney Channel and PBS, drawing a cult following beyond Canada and extending to Japan, which made its own animated series based on the books. Crombie, son of former Toronto Mayor David Crombie, was cast in the role at 17, beating out other aspiring Canadian actors of the era, including Jason Priestly, Sullivan said. Despite his lack of acting experience, Crombie's boy-next-door looks and cool demeanor made him the perfect actor to star opposite Follows, Sullivan said. "It was an amazing chemistry between him and Megan Follows," Sullivan said. "There was a lot of affection, but they kind of grounded each other." The movies spawned various spinoffs, including "Road to Avonlea," starring child actor Sarah Polley, and turned Anne's fictional home on Prince Edward Island into a popular tourist destination. The role made Crombie a heartthrob of his time, a sentiment expressed by many fans in the wake of his death. As one person said on Twitter, "I don't know any female Canadian from my generation that *didn't* have at least a little bit of a crush on Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert." Crombie went on to play roles in other American and Canadian TV shows, including "21 Jump Street" and "The Good Wife," but even his Facebook page acknowledges he is best known for his portrayal of Gilbert Blythe. Crombie's sister told CBC News that her brother happily answered to the name Gil when greeted by fans in public. "I think he was really proud of being Gilbert Blythe," she said. "He really enjoyed that series and was happy, very proud of it -- we all were." People we've lost in 2015.

Jonathan Crombie is best known for playing Gilbert Blythe in "Anne of Green Gables" Book, movies about girl sent to live on Canadian farm.

When Etan Patz went missing in New York City at age 6, hardly anyone in America could help but see his face at their breakfast table. His photo's appearance on milk cartons after his May 1979 disappearance marked an era of heightened awareness of crimes against children. On Friday, more than 35 years after frenzied media coverage of his case horrified parents everywhere, a New York jury will again deliberate over a possible verdict against the man charged in his killing, Pedro Hernandez. He confessed to police three years ago. Etan Patz's parents have waited that long for justice, but some have questioned whether that is at all possible in Hernandez's case. His lawyer has said that he is mentally challenged, severely mentally ill and unable to discern whether he committed the crime or not. Hernandez told police in a taped statement that he lured Patz into a basement as the boy was on his way to a bus stop in Lower Manhattan. He said he killed the boy and threw his body away in a plastic bag. Neither the child nor his remains have ever been recovered. But Hernandez has been repeatedly diagnosed with schizophrenia and has an "IQ in the borderline-to-mild mental retardation range," his attorney Harvey Fishbein has said. Police interrogated Hernandez for 7½ hours before he confessed. "I think anyone who sees these confessions will understand that when the police were finished, Mr. Hernandez believed he had killed Etan Patz. But that doesn't mean he actually did, and that's the whole point of this case," Fishbein has said. But in November, a New York judge ruled that Hernandez's confession and his waiving of his Miranda rights were legal, making the confession admissible in court. Another man's name has also hung over the Patz case for years -- Jose Antonio Ramos, a convicted child molester acquainted with Etan's babysitter. Etan's parents, Stan and Julia Patz, sued Ramos in 2001. The boy was officially declared dead as part of that lawsuit. A judge found Ramos responsible for the boy's death and ordered him to pay the family $2 million -- money the Patz family has never received. Though Ramos was at the center of investigations for years, he has never been charged. He served a 20-year prison sentence in Pennsylvania for molesting another boy and was set to be released in 2012. He was reportedly immediately rearrested upon exiting jail in 2012 on failure to register as a sex offender. Since their young son's disappearance, the Patzes have worked to keep the case alive and to create awareness of missing children in the United States. In the early 1980s, Etan's photo appeared on milk cartons across the country, and news media focused in on the search for him and other missing children. "It awakened America," said Ernie Allen, president and chief executive officer of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "It was the beginning of a missing children's movement." The actual number of children who were kidnapped and killed did not change -- it's always been a relatively small number -- but awareness of the cases skyrocketed, experts said. But the news industry was expanding to cable television, and sweet images of children appeared along with destroyed parents begging for their safe return. The fear rising across the nation sparked awareness and prompted change from politicians and police. In 1984, Congress passed the Missing Children's Assistance Act, which led to the creation of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Former President Ronald Reagan opened the center in a White House ceremony in 1984. It soon began operating a 24-hour toll-free hot line on which callers could report information about missing boys and girls. Joe Sterling and CNN's Lorenzo Ferrigno contributed to this report.

The young boy's face appeared on milk cartons all across the United States. Patz's case marked a time of heightened awareness of crimes against children. Pedro Hernandez confessed three years ago to the 1979 killing in.

Editor's Note: Ines Dumig was recently announced as a CENTER Grant Recipient. Sahra, a Somali refugee, left her home at 14 years old. Throughout her journey in search of asylum, she managed to overcome dangers and discomforts. But she never gave up, and she continuously reminded herself to keep going. She's the focus of Ines Dumig's photo series "Apart Together." Dumig met Sahra through a photo workshop at Refugio, a shelter in Munich, Germany, for refugees and torture victims. What drew Dumig to Sahra specifically was her strength and her ability to effectively reflect on all of her experiences. "It really impressed me how she deals with everything," Dumig said. "She's strong in her way of connecting with the culture here and also reflecting on what happened, the culture where she comes from." The number of refugees seeking asylum in the European Union increased by 25% last year, with Germany receiving the most applications. One of the reasons Dumig decided to photograph Sahra is because growing up in Germany made Dumig realize that she lived a fortunate lifestyle. Another reason has to do with Dumig's interest in people's emotions and finding one's identity. "I realized so many people want to come to Europe, and I always had the feeling to disappear or to go away," Dumig said. "Seeing how people live in other parts of the world made me realize how privileged I am." "Apart Together" serves not only as a documentation of Sahra, but as a far-reaching story about people from all backgrounds. The title of Dumig's work refers to the fact that although people may be physically apart from one another, the comparable feelings they experience are what link all people together. "Sometimes we feel strong, sometimes we feel lost -- that's kind of universal, I think," Dumig said. "That's why I want to universalize (Sahra's) story as well, not only make it about her." The underlying themes of "Apart Together" include the feelings of isolation and "otherness" and the search for a valuable human dignity. Social media. Follow @CNNPhotos on Twitter to join the conversation about photography. "Every one of these (refugees) have strong stories, and in the bureaucratic system, they are just a number or a document," Dumig said. "But they are a person, they are people with emotions and lives." Sahra is currently under the status of "suspension of deportation," meaning German immigration officials may grant her discretionary relief from deportation. Dumig describes Sahra as someone living through an unresolved situation. Regardless of the challenges Sahra faces as a refugee in Germany, she is a survivor and the embodiment of resilience, determined to establish a new life for herself. She has learned to speak German fluently, and she has started working in the nation as well. Like an unsolved photographic puzzle, each photo within "Apart Together" provides a piece of insight into Sahra's experiences. There is no certain and clear way in which to arrange the pieces, because they are a representation of the fragmented nature of Sahra's life. Many of Dumig's photos are not of Sahra herself, but instead show her surroundings. This makes "Apart Together" rich in symbolism and challenges viewers to develop their own perceptions. The photos are powerful because of this symbolic nature, as there are infinite interpretations attached to each one. "I think everyone interprets by themselves, by however way they perceive it through their own experience. That's up to the viewer," Dumig said. "It depends on who looks at the pictures. ... Everyone will see something different." "Apart Together" allowed Dumig to share various special moments with Sahra, and they were both able to learn from each other. "It was just something we both got something out of," Dumig said. Ines Dumig is a photographer based in Germany.

Ines Dumig's photo series "Apart Together" follows a Somali refugee living in Germany. The underlying themes include isolation and "otherness" and the search for human dignity.

More than 300 suspects have been arrested in South Africa in connection with deadly attacks on foreigners that have forced thousands to flee, the government said Sunday. "We once again unequivocally condemn the maiming and killing of our brothers and sisters from other parts of the continent," the government said. "No amount of frustration or anger can justify these attacks and looting of shops." Thousands sought refuge in temporary shelters after mobs with machetes attacked immigrants in Durban. The attacks in Durban killed two immigrants and three South Africans, including a 14-year-old boy, authorities said. Heavily armed police have scrambled to stop clashes after local residents accused immigrants from other African nations of taking their jobs. The government praised law enforcement agencies for stopping further bloodshed in Durban. "We believe that their commitment to duty has prevented injuries and even deaths that could have happened if they security forces had not acted," it said. The xenophobic sentiment is certainly not representative of all South Africans. "There has been an outpouring of support from ordinary South Africans who are disgusted with the attacks not only because they are foreign, or African, but because they are fellow human beings," said Gift of the Givers charity, which is helping those seeking refuge. The charity said last week that about 8,500 people had fled to refugee centers or police stations because of the violence. South Africa's government implored citizens to remember the country's history of overcoming challenges with the support of African neighbors. "During the Apartheid many South Africans fled persecution and death at the hands of the Apartheid government," it said in its statement. "Africa opened its doors and became a home away from home for many South Africans." President Jacob Zuma has canceled a trip to Indonesia and visited displaced foreign nationals in Chatsworth to express his support, the government said. The Gift of the Givers charity assured immigrants that it has a facility in Johannesburg to help those who might need shelter there. "We have tents and all essential supplies on standby but pray that sanity prevails and this does not become necessary," it said. In the past, Johannesburg has been the epicenter of anti-immigrant tensions. In 2008, scores were killed in attacks in the poorest areas of Johannesburg. Most of the victims were Zimbabweans who had fled repression and dire economic circumstances. In that attack, police arrested more than 200 people for various crimes including rape, murder, robbery and theft. CNN's Larry Register contributed to this report.

South Africa is battling xenophobic violence after some said foreigners are taking jobs away. A 14-year-old boy is among those killed after a mob with machetes targeted foreigners.

The bored teenager who gunned down a college baseball player in Oklahoma simply because he and his two friends "had nothing to do," is now a convicted murderer. Chancey Allen Luna was found guilty of first-degree murder Friday for his role in the August 2013 drive-by shooting of Christopher Lane, a 23-year-old college student in Duncan, about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City. Luna was 16 at the time of the shooting. Lane, an Australian attending East Central University, was jogging when he was shot in the back by a gun fired by Luna. A jury recommended Friday that Luna spend life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to court records. Because he was under 18 when the crime was committed, he is not eligible for the death penalty. He'll be formally sentenced in June. The vehicle's driver, Michael Jones, pleaded guilty in March to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Jones, who was 17 at the time of the murder, will be eligible for parole starting in 2051, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Prosecutors dropped first-degree murder charges filed against the third suspect, then only 15, after he agreed to testify against Luna and Jones, according to CNN affiliate KSWO. He will now be tried as a juvenile with accessory to murder after the fact. Duncan police Chief Danny Ford told Australian radio station 3AW that when police arrested the teens, Jones offered a motive that made clear that Lane, a baseball player on scholarship, was chosen at random. "We were bored and didn't have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody." After the verdict, Luna appeared to be crying as deputies led him out of the courtroom in handcuffs, whimpering "I'm sorry" to a reporter. CNN's Greg Botelho contributed to this report.

Chancey Luna convicted of murder for gunning down Oklahoma college student as he jogged. Police: Luna and his friends "were bored" so they decided to kill somebody.

Recently, Robert Kennedy Jr. was in Sacramento, California, to campaign against Senate Bill 227, which makes it harder for parents to opt out of vaccinations. In his remarks at an anti-vaccination movie screening, he decided to compare "vaccine-induced" autism to the Holocaust. He said, "They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone," Kennedy said. "This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country." A few days later, he apologized to people who were outraged on behalf of the memory of the Holocaust. To many, it's sacrilege to compare any lesser issue to the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis. In a statement, Kennedy said, "I want to apologize to all whom I offended by my use of the word to describe the autism epidemic. I employed the term during an impromptu speech as I struggled to find an expression to convey the catastrophic tragedy of autism, which has now destroyed the lives of over 20 million children and shattered their families." Robert Kennedy Jr. has apologized for the wrong things. First and foremost, vaccines do not cause autism. The two have nothing to do with each other. Second, he seems to think people with autism are "gone," their lives "destroyed" and their families "shattered." Autism is not a death sentence. People with autism are not missing or destroyed. They are everywhere, trying to live their lives in a society that too often demeans them as subhuman, missing or worthless. Kennedy's rhetoric is a problem, even beyond the fraudulent basis for his claims about vaccines. People who believe autism is an environmental disease try to cure kids with quack treatments like giving them bleach-based enemas. Others, believing autism functions as a death sentence, even kill their children. I am worried about the effect of having such a powerful, high-profile member of our political class endorse this demeaning depiction of life with autism. I reached out to a number of autistic activists for comment. Ari Ne'eman, president of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, wrote, "Robert Kennedy Jr, who has engaged with autism only to spread lies, misinformation and dehumanizing rhetoric, has never meaningfully engaged in efforts to improve the lives of autistic Americans. While his father, uncle and many others in the Kennedy-Shriver family championed the rights of people with disabilities, he has instead cast his lot with those who use pseudo-science to question our humanity." These are harsh words, but try to see the situation through Ne'eman's eyes. Not only is Kennedy perpetuating a discredited theory, but he's also suggesting that it's better to let your children get preventable and sometimes fatal diseases than risk becoming autistic. The usual response to people like Ne'eman is that he is "high functioning," but what of the burden to families who are struggling to care for less able individuals? Henry Frost, an autistic teenager and writer, is devastated by this focus on burden. Last year, he wrote a post to other autistic children: "Know you are not a burden or trouble for being. You are a person who has every right to be. A family that is saying love but saying you are so hard so wrong for not being as they wanted. The family is wrong. Not You." Meanwhile, Amy Sequenzia, an autistic activist and blogger, wrote, "I am very disabled, have most of the usual not autism but co-occurring conditions, seizures almost every day, but am happy, proud and accomplished, with the human supports I have. That's what is missing. Acceptance." As children, Sequenzia and Frost might well have been just the kinds of people labeled as "gone," by Kennedy. Clearly, both are very much present. The solution lies in understanding autism and related conditions as part of human diversity. Michael S. Monje Jr., an autistic writer and editor with Autonomous Press, wrote, "The neurodiversity movement is a direct counter to this kind of attitude. It is a way for autistic people, as well as anyone else who experiences the world differently due to their neurology, to assert that these natural divergences in human development are just that -- natural. The fact that they are largely unsupported by our society as it is currently configured does not make them in any way less natural, less worthy, or less beautiful than other ways of being in the world." I wish Kennedy realized how much his apology demeaned people with intellectual disabilities, even as he defended the sacred status of the Holocaust. There is, though, one story from the Holocaust that he might do well to consider. The first group the Nazis systematically exterminated, in the infamous Action T4, were people with intellectual and other kinds of disabilities. Thousands of children, adolescents and adults were sent to gas chambers, laying the groundwork for the later, larger scale acts of genocide. Underlying Action T4 was the belief that people with disabilities were devoid of value. We fight those beliefs by celebrating neurodiversity, not by fearmongering. Kennedy owes a lot of people another apology.

David Perry: Robert Kennedy Jr. compared autism to the Holocaust, wrongly tied it to vaccines. He says it's sad such a prominent Kennedy demeans people with autism.

Five years after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and unleashed the largest marine oil spill in the nation's history, we are still experiencing -- yet only beginning to truly understand -- its profound environmental and economic repercussions. The immediate aftermath of the oil spill has been well documented, with declines in tourism and the seafood industry, as well as the significant destruction of wildlife in the region. Since then, the amount of oil in the area has dissipated and communities have started to show signs of recovery. In fact, reports indicate that the Gulf of Mexico's seafood industry, which supplies the United States with roughly 40% of its seafood, is finally starting to rebound. However, profound challenges remain, in part because so many questions about the long-term consequences remain unanswered. To this day, it's still unclear where all of the oil went, exactly how much remains or whether the reappearance of wildlife is a result of adaptation or a signal that the crisis is truly abating. One of the populations that can provide insight into these questions is the Gulf crab. Crabs play an important role in the region: Roughly 60 million pounds were fished in the Gulf in 2012, earning tens of millions in revenue. Yet in the aftermath of the spill, changes to crustacean communities in the area were quite apparent to the naked eye. Researchers documented substantial differences in appearance, and deformities in crabs that were affected by the spill including lesions so numerous they ate through the joints, forcing limbs to fall off. These traits have affected not only the crabs' market value but also likely their ability to survive. While these changes in outward appearance have dissipated in the short-term, the health of these crabs could still be precarious. I have been working with colleagues at Florida International University and University of Louisiana at Lafayette to better understand what might be happening biologically inside the crab when it is exposed to oil and the dispersant used to respond to the spill. Using the power of genomics and computational biology, we analyzed the genes of flat back mud crabs that were exposed to oil from the Macondo Prospect where the Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling when it exploded or to a combination of oil and dispersant in the lab. By studying gene expression, the process that turns information from a gene into a product that functions within a cell, we searched for indicators that might signal exposure to oil and, based on the types of changes we might see, clues as to how the crabs respond. Although we are still in the early stages of our research, we are seeing significant differences in gene expression connected to exposure -- meaning the crabs are turning some genes on or off in response to oil and dispersant. We are still working to determine whether these changes impact their ability to survive and reproduce. It's not just Gulf crabs that are experiencing changes. Research on different species and other aspects of the regional environment is starting to show that there could be long-term effects resulting from the oil spill and the response to the spill. This not only has consequences for the Gulf area, where oil drilling continues, but also for communities along the Atlantic Coast, where the Obama administration has recently announced a plan to open unprecedented oil and natural gas exploration. (BP's vice president of communications, Geoff Morrell, told CNN that wildlife species in the Gulf have "bounced back and "there is no data that suggests there are any long-term population-level impacts to any species.") With the virtual certainty of more spills, we need a lot more information on the consequences of these disasters and how we can combat them effectively and efficiently. The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency are making some progress. In coming months, they are releasing changes to regulations and response plans based on the early lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon spill. But government agencies cannot just rely on the short-term data to determine the best response for the next oil spill crisis. Instead, the government and oil companies should work together to support ongoing, long-term ecological research so that we have a better grasp of what "normal" looks like and what factors are important in maintaining those conditions even after a disastrous oil spill. Only then will we truly understand the impact of offshore drilling and the best ways to respond to crises to protect our most important natural resources.

Keith Crandall: Five years after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, we are only beginning to understand its effects on the Gulf. A crab species may be a key indicator of the impact, he says.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Robert Finn, who remained on the job for years after becoming the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official convicted in connection with the church's long-running sex abuse scandal, the Vatican announced Tuesday. Finn, who led the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, was found guilty in 2012 of failure to report suspected child abuse. The case was tried by a judge instead of by jury because prosecutors wanted to protect the young victims' anonymity. Finn was convicted of one count but not a misdemeanor charge he'd also faced. He was put on two years' probation but was not forced to spend time in jail or pay a fine, according to the Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Two charges against his diocese were dropped. At the time of his conviction, Finn said, according to CNN affiliate KCTV: "I truly regret and am sorry for the hurt these events have caused." Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said the conviction and penalty, which included starting a $10,000 fund for sexual abuse counseling and mandatory training for church officials on how to report abuse, would have positive ramifications. "We can be assured now that if an allegation of child abuse comes to the attention of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, there will be no hesitation to report it immediately to the proper authorities," Baker said. The case against Finn revolved around his diocese's dealings with Shawn Ratigan, an Independence, Missouri, priest who pleaded guilty in August 2012 to five child pornography charges. Church officials found disturbing images on Ratigan's computer but didn't notify police until nearly five months later, prosecutors said. In those interceding months, the priest kept on working. And Finn kept his job as bishop, even after his 2012 conviction. The official website of the Catholic diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph still listed him as its bishop Tuesday morning. Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who took over the abuse-shaken Boston archdiocese and has become one of the Pope's point men in the United States, has acknowledged the inconsistency that someone who wouldn't be allowed to teach Sunday school was still running an American diocese. "It's a question that the Holy See needs to address urgently," O'Malley said in a "60 Minutes" interview in November. "There's a recognition of that ... from Pope Francis." Candida Moss -- a professor at Notre Dame, a Catholic university in Indiana -- said it "doesn't look very urgent" that a decision came down only now, nearly three years after the conviction and five months after O'Malley's comments. Several factors may have played a role in the delay, including views from lawyers or power players at the Vatican, who may be reluctant to cast blame at high-level officials who don't report allegations quickly enough to government authorities. But the timing of the announcement may make sense given that it comes weeks after Francis came under fire for the installation of a new bishop in Chile, Juan Barros, despite protesters' claims he was complicit in sexual abuse cases there. "It kind of shook Francis' reputation," said Moss. "Having this resignation and putting right one of the more visible injustices on this, especially in the U.S., I think this is a typical Francis way to reinstall confidence." Now that the case has been addressed, the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese has a new leader: Kansas Archbishop Joseph Naumann. Under the Pope's directive, Naumann will be the Kansas City diocese's apostolic administrator, in addition to his regular responsibilities in Kansas, until a permanent bishop is appointed, according to an announcement on the diocese's website. "I pray that the coming weeks and months will be a time of grace and healing for the Diocese," Naumann said in an open letter to parishioners. "All of us, who are privileged to serve in leadership for the Church, do so for only a season. It is not our Church, but Christ's Church." Moss, the Notre Dame professor, predicted that the shuffling at the western Missouri diocese will be "very well received," though some may question why it took so long. "It's not just that it's late," Moss said, "but it's that Francis could have been more explicit." To that point, the co-director of BishopAccountability.org asked for more elaboration than the Vatican's one-line announcement that Francis accepted the resignation "in accordance with ... Canon Law." Anne Doyle, from the watchdog group that documents the Catholic church's abuse crisis, called Finn's removal "a good step but just the beginning." "The pope must show that this decision represents a meaningful shift in papal practice -- that it signals a new era in bishop accountability," Doyle said. "... What no pope has done to date is publicly confirm that he removed a culpable bishop because of his failure to make children's safety his first priority. We urge Pope Francis to issue such a statement immediately." CNN's AnneClaire Stapleton contributed to this report.

Expert: Decision "doesn't look very urgent," but it appears "well-timed" for Pope Francis. Robert Finn remained a bishop after a 2012 conviction for failure to report abuse. Leader of watchdog group calls the Pope's decision "a good step but just the beginning"

Washington. New York. Philadelphia. Havana? The Vatican says Pope Francis may add another leg to his trip to the United States this September, visiting Cuba just months after he helped negotiate a diplomatic thaw between the two nations. The possibility, which would add a dimension of international intrigue to an already highly anticipated trip, was first reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. In response to reporters' questions, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement, "The Holy Father has taken into consideration the idea of making a stop in Cuba" on his way to or from the United States this September. "However, contacts with the Cuban authorities are still in too early a phase for it to be possible to regard this as a firm decision or an operative plan," Lombardi continued. Francis, the first pontiff to hail from Latin America, played a key role in the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, earning praise from both President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro. The Pope made personal pleas to Obama and Cuban leaders in private letters, writing that the two nations should try to reset their relations after decades of friction. The Vatican also hosted talks between U.S. and Cuban delegations in October, where they hashed out aspects of a new trade policy and discussed the release of jailed American contractor Alan Gross, who was freed as part of the detente between the two countries. "I want to thank His Holiness, Pope Francis, whose moral example shows us the importance of pursuing the world as it should be, rather than simply settling for the world as it is," Obama said in December as he announced the U.S. policy shift. Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has displayed a deep interest in international affairs. He repeatedly urged Western leaders not to bomb Syria, hosted a prayer service between Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Vatican and waded into diplomatic controversy on Sunday by referring to the killing of 1.5 million Armenians a century ago as a "genocide," a move that deeply upset Turkish leaders, who recalled their Vatican ambassador. The Pope is expected to continue his international activism this July with a trip to South America, where he will visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay. Just a few months later, in late September, Francis will visit Washington, where he will address Congress; New York, where he will address the U.N. General Assembly; and Philadelphia, where he will celebrate a public Mass that's expected to draw more than 1 million people. In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Friday, Archbishop Charles Chaput, the Pope's host in Philadelphia, said he'd hadn't heard about the potential for a papal visit to Cuba until he turned on the morning news. Two previous Popes have visited the Caribbean nation: St. John Paul II in 1998 and former Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

Pope Francis played key role in re-establishing diplomatic ties between Cuba and U.S. "Contacts with the Cuban authorities are still in too early a phase," Vatican spokesman says.

It seems iPads hold their value pretty well, especially if they have papal connections. One that Pope Francis once owned just sold for $30,500, according to Castells, an auction house in Uruguay. The Apple tablet had all the personal touches. "His Holiness Francisco" and "Vatican Internet Service, March 2013" were engraved on the back in Spanish and Italian. It also came with a keyboard and a certificate signed by the Pope's personal secretary. The proceeds will go to a school in Montevideo, Uruguay. It's not the first time a papal hand-me-down has gone for big bucks. Last year, the Pope donated a Harley-Davidson that he was given to charity. The motorcycle sold for $284,000 at auction, more than 10 times its normal sales price. A Harley motorcycle jacket signed by Francis sold for nearly $68,000. CNN's Marilia Brocchetto contributed to this report.

The iPad was engraved with "His Holiness Francisco" and "Vatican Internet Service, March 2013" A Harley-Davidson the Pope donated to charity sold for $284,000 last year.

The parents of the youngest victim of the Boston Marathon bombings are making an emotional, passionate plea to take the death penalty off the table for the man convicted in the case. Last week, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 charges he faced related to the bombings at the 2013 race and the dramatic violence that dragged out for days afterward. A look at all of the charges. The sentencing phase begins Tuesday, a day after this year's edition of the landmark race. It is expected to last four weeks. The 13th Juror: Now it gets real. In a front-page opinion piece in The Boston Globe, Bill and Denise Richard wrote about the toll taken on their family after the death of their 8-year-old son, Martin. Their daughter, Jane, also was severely injured. "Our family has grieved, buried our young son, battled injuries, and endured numerous surgeries -- all while trying to rebuild lives that will never be the same," they said in the Globe column titled "To end the anguish, drop the death penalty." "We sat in the courtroom, day after day, bearing witness to overwhelming evidence that included graphic video and photographs, replicated bombs, and even the clothes our son wore his last day alive." They said they understood the "heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed." "We were there. We lived it. The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul." But now the Richards are urging the Justice Department to bring the case to a close. "We are in favor of and would support the Department of Justice in taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all of his rights to appeal," they wrote. They go on to say: "We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We hope our two remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring." Martin Richard and two others were killed and more 200 people wounded when a pair of bombs went off within 12 seconds of each other at the finish line on April 15, 2013. Tsarnaev was convicted last week, while his brother, Tamerlan, was killed in a shootout with police two years ago. The Richards never mention Tsarnaev by name. They stress that they were only speaking for themselves when they argue against the death penalty. "We believe that now is the time to turn the page, end the anguish, and look toward a better future -- for us, for Boston, and for the country," they wrote.

Parents of Martin Richard argue against death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The 8-year-old boy was youngest of victims in the Boston Marathon bombings. Sentencing phase for Tsarnaev begins next week.

Too little, too late. That's the mayor's response to an artist's apology and offer to cover the cost of fixing the "Scary Lucy" statue that has put the New York town of Celoron in the spotlight this week. The bronze figure of comedian and area native Lucille Ball has elicited comparisons to a "Walking Dead" zombie and inspired the Facebook campaign "We Love Lucy! Get Rid of this Statue." The sculpture, a gift to the town from its original owners, has been on display since 2009. Artist Dave Poulin has "had plenty of opportunity to step forward, and our last conversation he wanted $8,000 to $10,000," Celoron Mayor Scott Schrecengost said. "And then he stated that if we didn't have the funds and we didn't like the statue, we should take it down and put it in storage." After the story of the statue caught fire online this weekend, Poulin publicly apologized Monday for his "most unsettling sculpture" in a letter to The Hollywood Reporter. "I take full responsibility for 'Scary Lucy,' though by no means was that my intent or did I wish to disparage in any way the memories of the iconic Lucy image," Poulin wrote in the letter (PDF). "From the day of its installation, I have shared my disappointment in the final outcome and have always believed it to be by far my most unsettling sculpture, not befitting of Lucy's beauty or my ability as a sculptor." Poulin said he has been talking to Celoron officials for several years about removing and redoing the sculpture. It seems that cost has been the chief barrier. "It puzzles me when an art work is donated to a community, they accept it, and then get angry and insist you redo the art work at your own expense." Poulin wrote in the letter. But the recent media attention to the sculpture seems to have changed his mind. "I am willing to put my time and money into redoing the Lucy sculpture and feel confident after ten years I can do a much better job," Poulin wrote. No thanks, Schrecengost said. He said the town is looking for a new sculptor to fix the statue. "It would be reworked from the shoulders up -- the entire head, neck and shoulders, not just the face," Schrecengost said in a news release Tuesday. The town has set up a post office box for donations, which can also be made through Kickstarter. But the controversy may not be over. It seems that nearby Jamestown, New York, also has ties to Lucille Ball's early years and might be interested in its own tribute to the comedic legend. Schrecengost's Tuesday statement referred to an anonymous Facebook campaign that he claims is aimed at raising Jamestown's Lucille Ball profile at the expense of the Celoron statue. "The best place for a life size statue of Lucy is right where it is now -- in Lucille Ball Memorial Park in her hometown, in the Village of Celoron, NY," he said. CNN's Emanuella Grinberg contributed to this story.

An artist apologizes for his Lucille Ball statue. In a public letter, the sculptor offers to pay for fixes to the statue. The mayor says he's not interested in having the original artist work on the statue.

"Success Kid" is likely the Internet's most famous baby. You've seen him in dozens of memes, fist clenched in a determined look of persevering despite the odds. Success Kid -- now an 8-year-old named Sammy Griner -- needs a little bit of that mojo to rub off on his family. His dad, Justin, needs a kidney transplant. About a week ago, Laney Griner, Justin's wife and Sammy's mother, created a GoFundMe campaign with a goal of $75,000 to help cover the medical expenses that go along with a kidney transplant. The campaign is already a success. By Wednesday it had topped its goal. Griner told The Daily Dot that her husband was diagnosed with kidney disease in 2006 and suffered complete kidney failure three years later. "One can only survive with no natural kidney function ... for so long," Laney Griner said. "His energy and mood are affected; he can no longer work, and he spends 12 hours a week in dialysis clinic. "Having been on dialysis for this long greatly increases his risks of developing further complications. The only way to save his life is to get a transplant. There's no other way around that," she said. The family doesn't know when a kidney might become available. Their GoFundMe page has a link for potential donors. Sammy's Internet fame began in 2007 when his mom posted a picture of him on a beach with a fist full of sand and a satisfied look on his face. Myspace picked it up, so did Reddit. The rest is Internet history. Success just seems to run in some families.

The GoFundMe campaign has already topped its $75,000 goal. Justin Griner, the dad of "Success Kid," needs a kidney transplant.

New York (CNN)Wall Street is more than ready for Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state confirmed on Sunday what the political world has expected for months -- eight years after her first failed White House bid, Clinton will once again seek the Democratic Party's nomination for president. "I'm hitting the road to earn your vote, because it's your time," Clinton said in a video released Sunday afternoon officially kicking off her campaign. "And I hope you'll join me on this journey." As Clinton sets off onto the campaign trail to reintroduce herself to voters and court donors across the country, Wall Street elites are ready to roll out the red carpet. But while the enthusiastic support from the industry will be a financial boon for Clinton's newly launched campaign, it will also pose a delicate balancing act when it comes to appeasing a vocal wing of her party that is antagonistic toward the banking sector. Clinton, 67, has long enjoyed a close relationship with the financial industry. As a New York senator for almost a decade, she represented Wall Street and courted the industry aggressively during her last presidential campaign. And there is a certain degree of nostalgia within the industry for her husband's two-term presidency, marked by the 1990s bull market and broad financial deregulation, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banking from riskier investing activities. Now Clinton's allies in the finance world are eager to galvanize a broad network of potential donors in New York and beyond. Many on Wall Street and in the broader business community view her as a dependable, business-friendly force within a Democratic Party that has grown increasingly populist during President Barack Obama's time in office. Robert Wolf, the former CEO of UBS Americas and a close Obama associate who will back Clinton in 2016, said there's an "incredible amount of enthusiasm" for her campaign to get off the ground. "We know the secretary from the years of being first lady to the senator to the secretary, so we have decades of working relationship with her," Wolf, who now runs a boutique consulting firm headquartered in Manhattan, told CNN. "I don't think it's surprising that the former senator of New York is close to the finance community." Longtime Clinton friend and prominent Democratic fundraiser Alan Patricof, who founded the venture capital firm Greycroft Partners, said Clinton has "an enormous following" both inside and outside of the finance world. "There are a lot of people who perhaps didn't know her as well before who are all set to jump on the bandwagon," Patricof said. As compared with 2008, he added: "There is no diminishment, just the opposite -- an acceleration of interest in her running for the presidency." But the fanfare won't sit well with everyone. The former first lady's perceived coziness with Wall Street is a source of irritation for liberal activists, who hope to push the eventual Democratic nominee to embrace progressive ideals during the 2016 primaries. Clinton, who lost her first presidential campaign to a challenger from the left, seems to recognize that the liberal wing of the party has grown even more vocal and influential since then, especially on economic matters. Her video message on Sunday centered on the theme of upward mobility and an economic recovery that has left some behind. "Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top," Clinton said, vowing to be a "champion" of "everyday Americans." That statement tracks closely with her tone in recent public appearances, where the former secretary has been hitting on populist economic themes. She has taken on a range of issues that most appeal to liberals, such as the wealth gap, minimum wage and equal pay, in the months leading up to her announcement. In January, she took to social media to defend the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, which contains provisions that the industry has tried to roll back. "Attacking financial reform is risky and wrong," she wrote on Twitter. Bill Daley, a longtime Clinton ally and former Obama chief of staff, said Clinton has to reintroduce herself to the party. If she defends policies viewed as having contributed to the financial crisis, Daley said, "that's a problem." He continued: "My guess is she'll have enough policy positions that says she's not in the tank with them." Clinton's early gestures have not satisfied some activists, who point to Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren as their candidate of choice. Several liberal groups have even launched a formal draft campaign to elevate the senator and highlight her progressive views. Former Republican New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, who served as head of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, said part of Clinton's challenge stems from the fact that "the center of the Democratic Party has moved very much to the left." "Hillary has always been much more rational on these issues and much more mainstream," Gregg said. "I presume she's going to get the nomination, but she may be contested from the left." While Warren has shown no interest in running for president this cycle, other Democrats have been taking aim at big banks as they tour the early presidential states. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, are all testing the waters. They have made economic populism central to their potential campaigns, proposing to crack down on the banking sector, reform the culture on Wall Street and toughen financial regulations. None of these potential candidates will be able to compete with Clinton's extensive fundraising apparatus. But their presence in the race could exert pressure on Clinton to embrace progressive policies. After Clinton's announcement Sunday, a collection of liberal activists declared that the former secretary of state must prove her progressive bona fides. "We look forward to Hillary Clinton and other candidates laying out their platforms and hearing whether they embrace the fights that Sen. Warren has spent her life leading," said Ready for Warren campaign manager Erica Sagrans. "In the coming days, Ready for Warren will be stepping up our efforts to convince Warren to run for president." Now that she is a formally declared candidate, political strategists expect Clinton to be more outspoken, laying out her economic priorities quickly and in her own terms. Democratic strategist Chris Lehane downplayed the notion of Clinton-Warren tension in the Democratic Party, predicting that with Clinton as an announced candidate, "she'll offer a pretty compelling rationale" for her campaign. Lehane, who worked in Bill Clinton's administration, said he envisioned an economic message for Clinton anchored in her biography: "I grew up in the Midwest in a middle class family, I understand the challenges that they face, we need to make sure that America gives people a fair shot." Despite Clinton's embrace of more populist rhetoric, finance and business leaders aren't too concerned that she will back policies that are anathema to them. They expect that she will be able to articulate a broad economic goals aimed at the middle class rather than one that rails against bailouts and financial excess, particularly as the country gets more distance from the last financial crisis. Kathy Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a prominent business coalition, predicted that Clinton would be able to maintain her relationship with Wall Street without alienating the liberal base. The fact that Clinton "is knowledgeable and maintains good, open relationships with the business and financial world does not suggest that she's in anybody's pocket," Wylde said. "She's demonstrated that she's an independent force."

Hillary Clinton developed a close relationship with the financial world as a New York senator. Clinton's allies there are eager to galvanize a broad network of potential donors. Her coziness with Wall Street irritates liberal activists, who are a growing influence in the Democratic Party.

Seoul, South Korea (CNN)On March 20, 2013, a cyberattack brought chaos to several banks and media outlets in South Korea. Then more ominously on December 23 last year, computers at the country's nuclear operator were breached. Again cybercrime was suspected. The source of these attacks? North Korea. And South Korean investigators say they have proof -- the actual malicious codes used in the attacks. They shared this data with CNN. The 2013 attack, known as "Dark Seoul," paralyzed an estimated 48,000 computers at a number of major banks and broadcasters, disrupting network systems and wiping their hard disks clean. "It would try to delete essentially all your files... then restart the system. You would come back up and nothing would be there," Joshua James, a digital forensic expert, told CNN. "If it infected more financial systems, it could have deleted all financial data in Korea. I mean, it is dangerous," the visiting professor at Chuncheon's Hallym University added. Live footage of the breaches showed computer screens at the media companies completely down, while bank customers were unable to make withdrawals, or transfer money online. "Dark Seoul" happened shortly after the North Korean government announced it would end the armistice agreement that brought the three-year Korean War to an end in July 1953 amid growing tensions with its neighbor. The latest high-profile digital incursion, in December, attempted to steal data from South Korea's nuclear operator, including plant blueprints and personnel information. Though investigators said no critical data was stolen, the attack raised serious concerns about the safety and security of the 23 nuclear power plants it runs. The attack itself was described by James as a "spear-fishing" exercise where unsuspecting victims -- retired and current employees of the nuclear operator -- were prompted to open up a disguised document in their email. "As soon as you double click on it, it starts running in the background of your computer where you can't see ... it's also trying to open up your computer -- what we call a back door -- to give access to the infected system by the attacker," he told CNN. The attack, which James said was simpler than "Dark Seoul," came just a few days after Sony Pictures said their systems has been "hacked," another attack the South Korean authorities blamed on North Korea. "From a law enforcement or investigation side, we're trying to actually trace back to who did it," said James. Seoul announced in mid-March that some of the IP addresses used in December incursion could be traced back to Shenyang, China, which can be easily accessed from the North Korean border. Codes used in the attack were said to be similar in pattern to those used by the North Koreans, South Korean authorities said. "The malicious codes used in the attack were same in composition and working methods as "Kimsuky" codes known to be used by North Korea," the prosecutor's office that leads 17 other government agencies and Internet companies in the investigation said in the statement in March. Pyongyang has dismissed the claims it launched these attacks, calling them a "plot and fabrication that can never win over the truth." But many experts say North Korea appears to be investing more in cyberwarfare because it is cheaper than spending on conventional weapons and can cause significant economic damage to its southern rival. Indeed South Korea's Defense Ministry estimates that North Korea is operating a "cyberarmy" of 6,000 workers as it focuses on strengthening its asymmetrical warfare capability. "Hacks are going on all the time, constantly -- though how many actually make the news is a very small amount," said James. "How many are detected in general? I think the average person would have no clue they've been hacked. "Organizations need to invest the same amount that hackers are investing to protect themselves and right now they're not," he added. Many in South Korea believe not enough effort is being put into defending against cyberattacks. A report by the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, a government-funded think tank, estimates that "Dark Seoul" caused about $820 million worth of damage. Its report, published in 2014, predicted that by 2020, South Korea could be exposed to hacking attacks causing up to $25 billion in economic damage.

South Korean investigators say they have proof that North Korea is launching cyberattacks. Reports say the North is investing heavily in digital warfare. December attack on banks in South Korea caused about $820 million worth of damage, a report says.

A SkyWest Airlines flight made an emergency landing in Buffalo, New York, on Wednesday after a passenger lost consciousness, officials said. The passenger received medical attention before being released, according to Marissa Snow, spokeswoman for SkyWest. She said the airliner expects to accommodate the 75 passengers on another aircraft to their original destination -- Hartford, Connecticut -- later Wednesday afternoon. The Federal Aviation Administration initially reported a pressurization problem and said it would investigate. Snow said there was no indication of any pressurization issues, and the FAA later issued a statement that did not reference a pressurization problem. SkyWest also said there was no problem with the plane's door, which some media initially reported. Flight 5622 was originally scheduled to fly from Chicago to Hartford. The plane descended 28,000 feet in three minutes. "It would feel like a roller coaster -- when you're coming over the top and you're going down," CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo said, describing how such a descent would feel. "You know that these pilots knew they were in a very grave and very serious situation."

FAA backtracks on saying crew reported a pressurization problem. One passenger lost consciousness. The plane descended 28,000 feet in three minutes.

Soon, America will be too fat to fight. Forget about rampant diabetes, heart attacks and joint problems -- the scariest consequence arising out of our losing battle with the bulge is the safety of our country. In about five years, so many young Americans will be grossly overweight that the military will be unable to recruit enough qualified soldiers. That alarming forecast comes from Maj, Gen. Allen Batschelet, who is in charge of U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Obesity, he told me, "is becoming a national security issue." I was so taken aback by Batschelet's statement that I felt the need to press him. Come on! Obesity? A national security crisis? The General didn't blink. "In my view, yes." Of the 195,000 young men and women who signed up to fight for our country, only 72,000 qualified. Some didn't make the cut because they had a criminal background, or a lack of education, or too many tattoos. But a full 10% didn't qualify because they were overweight. Before you accuse me of sensationalizing, it's that 10% figure that worries General Batschelet the most. "The obesity issue is the most troubling because the trend is going in the wrong direction," he said. "We think by 2020 it could be as high as 50%, which mean only 2 in 10 would qualify to join the Army." He paused. "It's a sad testament to who we are as a society right now." The problem is so worrisome for the Army that recruiters have become fitness coaches, like the trainers on the NBC show, "The Biggest Loser." Yes, your tax dollars pay for Army recruiters to play Dolvett Quince or Jillian Michaels to whip could-be recruits into shape with the hope they can diet and exercise their way to become real recruits. If they lose enough weight, they're sent to boot camp. Some make it; many don't. But, General Batschelet told me the Army must try. "We are the premier leader on personal development in the world," he told me. "We want to see you grow and become a leader. That is a great strength in our Army." Except the Army never considered the type of growth it's now contending with. Nowadays "personal development" means working on both character and ... girth. The general, along with so many others in this country, is struggling with why so many Americans, despite all the warnings, continue to eat too much and exercise too little. I have a theory. It ain't pretty. But it's got to be true: We just don't care. "The acceptance of obesity is prevalent," according to Claire Putnam, an obstetrician and gynecologist who believes obesity is a national crisis right now. "When you look around you, 70% of adults are overweight or obese. It's seems normal," she said. Just look at the numbers: More than one-third of U.S. adults are obese. Seventeen percent of all children and adolescents in the U.S. are obese. That's triple the rate from just a generation ago. So, maybe we should face the fact that we've grown comfortable with our girth. It is crystal clear we haven't the foggiest idea of who needs to lose weight and who doesn't. Just the other day, Twitter trolls scolded the singer, Pink, for gaining weight. Pink is not remotely fat. Neither is Selena Gomez, haters. Or Britney Spears, hecklers. If 70% of us are overweight in this country, why are there so many willing to fat-shame people who are not remotely obese? Maybe it's easier to criticize others for carrying extra weight than to admit we have a weight problem ourselves. Because it is abundantly clear we are wallowing in denial. Dr. Putnam points to one of Kaiser Permanante's medical questionnaires. You know, the paperwork patients are asked to fill out before they see the doctor. There is actually a box on the form that allows the patient to "opt out of talking about obesity." Some patients refuse to step on the scale. "You want to be sensitive to that patient," Putnam told me. "You don't want to nag. But, doctors need to step in and say we need to fix this." CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, agrees with Putnam. "Perceptions of weight are a big part of the problem," he said to me. "If a person is overweight -- as difficult as it is -- they ought to be told. You know, this issue reminds me of the issue with concussions. We should call them what they really are: a brain injury, not 'getting your bell rung.' In the same vein, we should tell people who are overweight or obese that, clinically, they're 'overweight' or 'obese' and at risk for just about every chronic disease in the book." In other words, chubby is not the proper way to describe a person who is obese. Just like "fat" is not the proper term for Pink or Selena Gomez. And, yes, semantics matter. According to the CDC, 81% of overweight boys and 71% of overweight girls believe they are just the right weight. We've clearly lost our perspective on what's normal when it comes to a healthy weight. So much so it's becoming a national security problem. So what will it take? The answer cannot be the U.S Army.

In a few years, the military will be unable to recruit enough qualified soldiers because of America's obesity problem. Carol Costello: We have a serious national security issue at hand, but it's within our control if we could own up to it.

The NFL draft begins on April 30, and while the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are on the clock with the No. 1 overall pick, the clock is still ticking for another team -- the New England Patriots -- as they await the results of the "Deflategate" investigation, which has already lasted more than three months. In January, the NFL launched an investigation into the Patriots to determine why 11 of the 12 game balls they provided for the AFC Championship game were underinflated. The league hired attorney Ted Wells -- who also investigated the Miami Dolphins bullying scandal -- to run the investigation. Jeff Pash, the NFL's executive vice president and chief counsel, is assisting Wells in the effort. The league has also retained Renaissance Associates, an investigatory firm with sophisticated forensic expertise, to assist in reviewing electronic and video information. But three months later, it's still not clear when the investigation will be completed and when the findings will be announced. "We have not put a time frame on Ted Wells," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said March 25. "We asked him to be thorough, complete and when he is finished with that -- he'll give that to us and to the public in general." On Monday, CNN reached out to Wells and the NFL for an update on the investigation but has not heard back. On January 18, the Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 to advance to the Super Bowl. They scored 28 of their points in the second half -- after game officials had pumped the balls back up to their regulation pressure -- so it's unlikely that the ball pressure made much difference in the outcome of the game. In February, Colts General Manager Ryan Grigson said at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis that prior to the AFC Championship game, his team notified the league of its concerns about the footballs. "We went into the game, we had some issues, but we are going to do what we can and that's to participate with the league and the investigation and wait until the Wells report comes out," Grigson said February 19. "We really have no other recourse than to wait until that investigation comes out." Each team provides a dozen footballs to the referee for testing two hours and 15 minutes before kickoff. The home team also supplies 12 backup balls, and for outdoor games, the visiting team has the option of bringing another 12 balls. NFL rules state the referee "shall be the sole judge as to whether all balls offered for play comply with these specifications. A pump is to be furnished by the home club, and the balls shall remain under the supervision of the Referee until they are delivered to the ball attendant just prior to the start of the game." The ball attendant brings the footballs to the field, and ball boys keep them on the sideline. It's been speculated that deflated footballs are easier to grip for the quarterback and receivers. However, there isn't a consensus by players on that view. The day after the AFC Championship game, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady called the accusation of using deflated footballs "ridiculous." A few days later, he told reporters he has always played by the rules. Following a practice on January 24, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said that the Patriots try to do everything right. "At no time was there any intent whatsoever to try to compromise the integrity of the game or to gain an advantage," Belichick said at the time. "Quite the opposite, we feel like we follow the rules of the game to the letter in our preparations, in our procedures." After arriving in Arizona for Super Bowl XLIX, Patriots owner Robert Kraft said he expects the NFL to apologize if the investigation does not uncover any wrongdoing. "Many jump to conclusions and made strong accusations against our coach, quarterback, and staff questioning the integrity of all involved," Kraft said then. "If the Wells investigation is not able to definitely determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs, I would expect and hope the league would apologize to our entire team and in particular coach Belichick and Tom Brady for what they have had to endure this past week." In terms of punishment, the Patriots could be fined and/or docked a draft pick. After Spygate in 2007 -- where the Patriots illegally videotaped the New York Jets defensive coaches' signals -- the league took away a Patriots first-round draft pick, fined the team $250,000 and fined Belichick $500,000. However, it's not expected that the punishment would be that serious for Deflategate. In March, two other teams were punished by the NFL for different rules violations. Cleveland Browns General Manager Ryan Farmer admitted to using his phone to text the Browns staffers during games during the 2014 season. It's against the rules to use certain electronic devices during games. Farmer will be suspended without pay for the first four regular-season games of the 2015 season, and the Browns were fined $250,000. During the suspension, Farmer cannot be involved in any team matters and is prohibited from being at the Browns' offices, practice facility or at Browns games. According to the league, there was no evidence in the NFL's review that Browns ownership or any other team executives had knowledge of the prohibited conduct. The Atlanta Falcons acknowledged the use of prerecorded crowd noise, which is also a violation of NFL rules, during home games in the 2013 and into the 2014 season. The rule states that "at no point during the game can artificial crowd noise or amplified crowd noise be played in the stadium." The Falcons were fined $350,000 and lose their fifth-round draft pick in the 2016 NFL draft. The league's investigation found that the Falcons' former director of event marketing was directly responsible, but that senior executives, including team president Rich McKay, were unaware of the use of the piped-in crowd noise. Still, McKay was suspended from the NFL Competition Committee starting April 1. Starting June 30, he can petition Goodell for reinstatement to the committee. As to what happens to the Patriots, and when, it's still anyone's guess. But Goodell has previously stated that a violation of rules will be taken seriously. "Whenever there is a charge potentially of the violations of our rules, we take it very seriously and that's our obligation," Goodell said in March. "That's our obligation to the other 31 clubs. Ted Wells will be going through the report. If there is anything that we as a league did incorrectly we will know about it in that report." What the heck is Deflategate?

NFL investigating why game balls provided by New England Patriots for championship game were underinflated. It's not clear when investigation by attorney Ted Wells will be complete. Patriots say they follow the rules and expect to be vindicated and get an apology.

Sao Paulo, Brazil (CNN)Brazilian police have arrested the treasurer of the ruling Workers' Party, bringing the bribery investigation at the state-run oil company Petrobras a step closer to President Dilma Rousseff. Federal police arrested Joao Vaccari Neto at his home in Sao Paulo on Wednesday morning. Vaccari faces charges of corruption and money laundering as part of the broader probe into corruption at Petrobras. Former executives who have turned state's evidence claim that construction companies paid large sums under the table to Petrobras officials and politicians in order to secure lucrative contracts with the oil giant. Vaccari has denied any wrongdoing and recently told a congressional commission that all donations to his party were legal and were reviewed by electoral authorities. Vaccari is the closest political figure to Rousseff so far implicated in the investigation. Rousseff herself has not been implicated, although she was the chairwoman of Petrobras when much of the alleged corruption took place. Rousseff has insisted she supports the probe and has not in any way interfered with the investigation. Sources quoted in Brazilian media have said investigators are looking at whether some of the bribes went toward Rousseff's election campaigns. Anger over what has ballooned into a multi-million dollar corruption scandal has eroded Rousseff's approval rating and prompted hundreds of thousands of Brazilians to take to the streets in protest. On Sunday, about half a million people participated in demonstrations across the country. But turnout was smaller than a month earlier, when roughly one million people marched in protest, raising questions about how long the demonstrations can last.

A top official with President Dilma Rousseff's ruling party is arrested in bribery probe. Joao Vaccari Neto denies wrongdoing, says all donations were legal. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians have protested against Rousseff in the last few months.

The United States is urging China to release five young feminists who face years in prison over their campaign for gender equality. Authorities detained the women in three cities -- Beijing, Guangzhou and Hangzhou -- a few days ahead of events planned for International Women's Day on March 8. "Each and every one of us has the right to speak out against sexual harassment and the many other injustices that millions of women and girls suffer around the world," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement Friday. "We strongly support the efforts of these activists to make progress on these challenging issues, and we believe that Chinese authorities should also support them, not silence them." The detention of Wei Tingting, along with Wu Rongrong, Li Tingting, Wang Man and Zheng Churan has drawn harsh criticism from the international community. Protesters in several cities have called for their release and taken to social media with the phrase "free the five" as a hashtag. Wang Qiushi, the lawyer for Wei, said police recommended Monday that prosecutors press charges of "assembling a crowd to disturb public order." Prosecutors have seven days -- until Monday -- to decide whether to pursue the charges, according to the lawyer. "We can do nothing but wait," Wang said. The five were initially held on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." Wang said he didn't know why the charge against the women changed. "Neither should constitute a crime," he said. Campaign group Amnesty International said the new charge was less serious but still carried a maximum prison term of five years. "The women were doing nothing wrong, nothing illegal. They were simply calling for an end to sexual harassment," said William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International. Wang said that Wei was subjected to lengthy cross examinations during her detention. Two of the women are said to be in poor health. He added that the charges relate both to the activities the women planned for International Women's Day and earlier campaigns against domestic violence. The five are members of China's Women's Rights Action Group. They had planned to hand out stickers with slogans saying "stop sexual harassment, let us stay safe" and "go police, go arrest those who committed sexual harassment!" on International Women's Day. This week, Kerry's predecessor, Hillary Clinton, tweeted that the activists' detention was "inexcusable." Chinese authorities rebuked her comment, saying public figures should respect the nation's sovereignty and independence. CNN's Katie Hunt and Shen Lu contributed to this report.

The international community is calling for the release of the five women. Chinese authorities detained them last month over their campaign for gender equality.

Georgia Southern University was in mourning Thursday after five nursing students were killed the day before in a multivehicle wreck near Savannah. Caitlyn Baggett, Morgan Bass, Emily Clark, Abbie Deloach and Catherine (McKay) Pittman -- all juniors -- were killed in the Wednesday morning crash as they were traveling to a hospital in Savannah, according to the school website. Fellow nursing students Brittney McDaniel and Megan Richards were injured as was another person, who was not identified by the Georgia State Patrol. The young women were on their way to finish their first set of clinical rotations. "Today should have been a day of celebration for this bright group of students," at St. Joseph's/Candler hospital said in a Facebook posting. "It was their last day of clinical rotations ... in their first year of nursing school." Clinicals include hands-on instruction at a health care facility. A post commander for the Georgia State Patrol said a tractor-trailer smashed into an eastbound line of cars that had slowed for a prior accident on Interstate 16. "He came along from behind them and he just did not stop for those cars," Sgt. Chris Nease said. There were four passenger vehicles and three tractor-trailers involved in the 5:45 a.m. accident. The women who were killed were in two cars, a Toyota Corolla and a Ford Escape. One of their vehicles caught on fire, Nease said, but it will take an investigation to determine whether the women died on impact. CNN Savannah affiliate WTOC reported one witness tried to help. "Right about the time I got here, the car was just about catching on fire," Cayne Monroe told the station. "The car just burned up really quickly. And I run up there, but there was nothing anyone could do. I've never witnessed something like that in my life. It was pretty tragic." The state patrol said the truck driver is from Louisiana. The 55-year-old man had not been charged as of Thursday evening, Nease told CNN. "Every one of our students contributes in no small measure to the Eagle Nation," university President Brooks A. Keel said in a statement. "The loss of any student, especially in a tragic way, is particularly painful. Losing five students is almost incomprehensible." Georgia Southern flew flags at half-staff and counseling was offered to students. A campuswide vigil was held Thursday night. On the university's Twitter page, a tear was added to the profile logo of the eagle mascot. The school has a student body of about 20,000 and is in Statesboro, about 60 miles from Savannah. "You could tell that they really loved what they did," Sherry Danello, vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer at St. Joseph's/Candler, said on the hospital's Facebook posting. "They didn't just go through the task, they really connected to the patients." Luke Bryan, a country music star and school alumnus, tweeted his condolences: "Praying for everyone at Georgia Southern and the families who lost loved ones." CNN's Matthew Stucker contributed to this report.

Georgia State Patrol provides more details of crash. Georgia Southern University mourns five nursing students killed in auto accident. Five cars and two tractor-trailers were involved in crash on Interstate 16.

A sweat-smothered man in a wide-brimmed hat, knee-high leather boots and a khaki uniform machetes his way through lush jungle foliage. As thick tangles of vine fall beneath his blade, he pushes into a clearing, then suddenly staggers back. The fanged mouth of a primordial stone beast gapes toward him. Before him rise the crumbled ruins of an enormous portal of rock, black with age but with a colossal grandeur not yet lost -- a fine example of what archaeologists call a "zoomorphic portal" or, more popularly, a "monster mouth gate." What was once the gateway to an ancient Mayan city, built circa 700 AD and mysteriously abandoned four centuries later, stands before him. He has found the lost city of Lagunita. Now that the planet has been mapped, circumnavigated, measured and tagged in every way imaginable, the age of explorers discovering new worlds seems a quaint memory. But there are still adventurers exploring forgotten corners of the globe, and some find astonishing things. One such explorer, part Indiana Jones, part Magellan, is Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc. The sprightly Šprajc wears the weathered face of a man who has spent much of his 60 years beneath a hot sun at excavations, or hacking his way through dense jungle. He has been the first to see ancient pyramids, 30 meters high, that he spotted in aerial photographs from his office among the Baroque Mitteleuropean cobbled streets of Ljubljana, Slovenia, some 10,000 kilometers away. But in terms of the thrill of discovery, it doesn't get any better than his encounter with Lagunita's monster portal. What does it feel like to find a lost city? "It's a victory," says Šprajc, "especially when the efforts are long. On several occasions we've had two, three weeks of just cutting through the bush to get to some location, without knowing what we would find. When we get to the site it feels like a big victory, like we've done it. If it had been easy, then other people would have done it already." Since 1996, he and his team have discovered more than 80 ancient Mayan cities in the jungles of Mexico, few of which the modern world had known before. But how can an entire city, which once may have been home to tens of thousands, simply vanish? Šprajc explains that the region in which he has found such riches had gone unexplored because it's so inaccessible: "It's so hard to get there. It's a biosphere, a protected natural area that has never been densely populated since the collapse of the Classical Mayans, for the past thousand years or so." When a primal jungle is allowed to grow rampant for centuries, it can indeed swallow entire cities. But just why so many settlements were simply abandoned, long before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, remains a mystery to which these long lost sites may provide an answer. "Ninety-nine percent of settlements in the central and southern lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula were abandoned in a matter of 200 years. By 1000 AD, practically everything was abandoned. That was the situation when the Spaniards came. But not so in the northern section of the peninsula and the Guatemala highlands, where there was no rupture until the arrival of the Spaniards." So what happened in that enormous area that led to this mass evacuation? "Nobody knows the exact sequence of events, but it was definitely a combination of droughts, climate change, (and) overpopulation, but other things must have come as consequences: devastating raids and wars among the Mayan states, which resembled the constantly battling ancient Greek city-states. "In this Late Classical period, wars intensified with devastating consequences, for if one city-state was destroyed or overcome, it had a ripple effect on trade networks. It was a sort of globalized Mayan world." To learn more would require extensive, time-consuming surveys of each site, which is a different sort of fieldwork than Šprajc likes to practice. His team will map what appears to be the core of a settlement, but there simply isn't time or manpower to map it all, so hundreds of structures are left for others to survey and excavate. The adrenaline of the treasure hunt is what drives Šprajc, the "Eureka" moment when he finds the buried treasure. He is not in the least proprietary about what he discovers, preferring to let other research teams dive in to the sites he has found to slowly excavate, catalogue and analyze what he finds. "[This extensive mapping] is not our job. We are taking the first step into an unknown area." Šprajc is a throwback to the great 19th century explorers -- a dying breed as the world becomes smaller and science bleaches out its mysteries. But in the heat of the jungle, science can only get you so far. Intrepid spirit, calloused palms, sweat, blood and patience are more important than gadgetry. As Šprajc likes to say, "We can survive without computers, but not without machetes." Noah Charney is a professor of art history and best-selling author. He teaches a Guardian Masterclass called "How to write about art."

Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc discovers ancient Mayan cities in the jungles of Mexico. His discoveries could help explain why so many Mayan cities were abandoned before the arrival of the Spaniards.

We want our killers to be kind. To walk into court and show remorse, tell us that they are really nice people who only did it because they feared for their lives, or they were temporarily insane. Even though those things may not be true, too often they are accepted as legitimate excuses for murder. Well, Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end and now convicted murderer, made none of those excuses. He walked into court with an air of bravado, his head held high like the $40 million, NFL superstar he was just a couple of years ago. Several times he was even caught winking at his fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins, during the trial. And we didn't like his swagger. Hernandez didn't offer a plausible alibi. He didn't look ashamed or remorseful. He never wept. His own attorney, James Sultan, admitted that Hernandez "witnessed" the killing of Odin Lloyd, "committed by somebody he knew," but said his client did not commit the crime. Even before the guilty verdict came down Wednesday, for many -- at least those covering the trial -- audacity seemed to be the defendant's biggest crime. "The Arrogance of Aaron Hernandez," a New Yorker headline accused. I don't get it. What does it matter that Hernandez was arrogant in court, or walked with too much swagger, or even smiled at his girl? Like it or not, that is who he is. The evidence is what matters. And for once, this time it appears the jury carefully considered the damning mountain of circumstantial evidence against this defendant and came to the right decision: guilty of first-degree murder in the 2013 slaying of Odin Lloyd. Hernandez, 25, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He was also found guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition. It was the right decision. Still, it's hard not to feel sadness over such a senseless waste of life for both Lloyd and now Hernandez, who were once friends. Football was the best thing Hernandez ever had, especially after he father died suddenly after a routine hernia surgery in 2006. Hernandez was 16. After that his life got complicated. At 17, Hernandez went off to the University of Florida and seemed headed for greatness. There he won the John Mackey Award as the nation's best tight end and led the team in receiving during its 2009 Bowl Championship Series win. But off the field, his life was to beginning to unravel. Trouble started: bar fights, reports of marijuana use and failed drug tests. He was even questioned in relation to a shooting after a fight at a Gainesville, Florida, nightclub. By the time he was drafted in 2010 by the New England Patriots, Hernandez had already been labeled a "troubled player." But neither the Patriots nor the NFL has anything to be ashamed of in how they handled the Hernandez case. They did everything right this time. Hours after Hernandez was charged with murder, he was let go from the team. And his coaches didn't spend any time trying to convince the public that their star tight end was a decent, family-loving guy, as the league has done too many times in the past when its players got in trouble. This time justice worked. There's no reason to second-guess what went wrong, to ask "How could a star NFLer be a murderer?" The NFL for the most part does a great job vetting its players, and certainly Hernandez is an anomaly in the league, where despite the ugly headlines, the overwhelming majority of players are upstanding, law-abiding citizens. And Patriots bashers (me included) would be mistaken to try to find fault with the team for drafting Hernandez despite his troubled past. No one really knows what evil lurks in the hearts of others, even those closest to us. Not the mothers whose sons go off and commit schoolyard killing sprees, or wives whose husbands gun down innocent people, and certainly not employers who are mostly concerned about performance on the job. There was no way to predict Hernandez would end up a murderer. He was a guy who had all the talent and opportunity in the world, but he still went wrong. Hernandez himself may have explained it best as he was being taken out of the courtroom:. According to a law enforcement source close to the case, Hernandez told officers escorting him, "'Hey man, I'm going to miss you guys. ... I don't need any luck any more.' He gave you the impression, 'It's kinda like no big deal. ... It is what it is.' "

Roxanne Jones: Jury right to find Hernandez guilty, but the waste of life for player and his victim is tragic. She says NFL, Patriots knew his troubled past, but could not have predicted his actions, and both handled case well.

One of the youngest suspects yet has been arrested on terror-related charges in England. A 14-year-old boy was taken into custody after encouraging an attack on an Australian parade honoring the war dead and urging the beheading of "someone in Australia," Deborah Walsh, deputy head of counter terrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service, said in a statement Thursday. The teenager was taken into custody April 2 after UK's Greater Manchester police examined electronic devices and discovered communications between the teen and a man in Australia, police said in a statement. The teenager, arrested in Blackburn, Lancashire, was not named "because of legal reasons," the statement said. He was charged with two counts of inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism overseas and will appear in Westminster Magistrate's Court on Friday. He was communicating with suspects in Operation Rising, an Australian law enforcement operation that apprehended several men suspected of planning terrorist actions, police in Victoria, Australia, said on the department website. Australia: Charges in foiled 'ISIS-inspired' plot. Those acts of terror were planned for Anzac Day (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps Day) on Friday, the centennial of the Gallipoli Campaign in World War I, police said. "The first allegation is that, between 15 and 26 March 2015, the defendant incited another person to commit an act of terrorism, namely to carry out an attack at an ANZAC parade in Australia with the aim of killing and/or causing serious injury to people," Walsh said. "The second allegation is that on 18 March 2015, the defendant incited another person to behead someone in Australia." Australian law enforcement officers arrested several people last weekend in Operation Rising. Tuesday, Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police charged Sevdet Ramdan Besim with conspiracy to commit acts done in preparation for, or planning, terrorist acts. Authorities have not named the person with whom the 14-year-old in Britain was communicating. British teens face terror charges after being detained en route to Syria. CNN's Alexander Felton contributed to this report.

The 14-year-old had communicated with terror suspects in Australia, authorities said. Police: The teenager encouraged others to attack a parade and behead someone in Australia.

(The Hollywood Reporter)Geoffrey Lewis, a prolific character actor who appeared opposite frequent collaborator Clint Eastwood as his pal Orville Boggs in "Every Which Way But Loose" and its sequel, has died. He was 79. Lewis, the father of Oscar-nominated actress Juliette Lewis, died Tuesday, family friend Michael Henderson said. No other details were immediately available. Lewis began his long association with Eastwood in "High Plains Drifter" (1973). He also appeared with the actor in "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" (1974), "Bronco Billy" (1980), "Pink Cadillac" (1989) and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" (1997). Lewis scored a Golden Globe nomination for playing bartender Earl Tucker on the 1980s CBS sitcom "Flo," the spinoff of "Alice" that starred Polly Holliday, and he had recurring roles on such series as "Falcon Crest" and the syndicated "Land's End." Hollywood Reporter: "Fast 8" nowhere near starting line. Lewis portrayed real-life Prohibition-era gangster Harry Pierpont in "Dillinger" (1973), and his résumé also includes such notable films as "The Great Waldo Pepper" (1975), "The Wind and the Lion" (1975), "Lucky Lady" (1975), "The Return of a Man Called Horse" (1976), "Heaven's Gate" (1980), "Catch Me If You Can" (1989), "The Lawnmower Man" (1992), "The Man Without a Face" (1993), "Maverick" (1994) and "The Devil's Rejects" (2005). Hollywood Reporter: Acclaimed satirist Stan Freberg dies. The actor also stood out as a gravedigger turned vampire in the 1979 Tobe Hooper CBS miniseries "Salem's Lot," an adaptation of the Stephen King novel. Lewis had appeared on such 1970s TV shows as "Then Came Bronson," "Bonanza" and "The Name of the Game" before scoring a minor role as a cowhand in "The Culpepper Cattle Co." (1972). Later, he showed up on such series as "Mod Squad," "The Waltons," "Police Woman," "Mork & Mindy," "Lou Grant," "Gun Shy," "Magnum, P.I." and "The X-Files." Lewis was a co-founder of the spoken-word performance group Celestial Navigations, working with musician and songwriter Geoff Levin. People we've lost in 2015. ©2015 The Hollywood Reporter. All rights reserved.

Geoffrey Lewis appeared in many movies, TV shows. Actor was frequently collaborator with Clint Eastwood. Actress Juliette Lewis, his daughter, called him "my hero"

Panic. Tears. Fear. All those feelings and more permeated cities, villages and camps around Nepal on Saturday, after a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck around midday. Hours later, after a wave of relentless aftershocks, many people still were too scared to go back inside any buildings. Others crowded around rubble, including men and women racing to rescue those trapped. And then there are the hundreds already confirmed dead, not to mention the hundreds more who suffered injuries. Below are some accounts from witnesses in the mountainous Asian nation, in their own words. Fast Facts: Earthquakes. Anderson, an American who was in Nepal for trekking and meditation, was in his hotel room when the quake struck. "I went outside five minutes after the major tremors stopped. I went to a parking lot nearby for one hour or so, then walked down the main road," he said. He took a series of photos on the main road between Thamal and Durbar Squares, that he shared via CNN iReport. Kumar posted a photo of people in his neighborhood sheltering in a makeshift tent after the quake. He sent updates via Twitter about what he was seeing in the Lalitpur District of Kathmandu. "It's getting dark, no power and no water supply in Lalitpur area, but people are helping each other with food and other items. "Almost everyone staying outside home...Hard time for small kids & older people. "People are very worried & are planning to stay out on the street overnight, but they lack sufficient food & water." Joshi is a UNICEF communication officer who was on the ground at the time of the quake. "The shake was like nothing I have experienced in my 57 years. It was strong and it shook for a long time." Old monuments and temples fell, Joshi wrote of his experience. There were fears that other buildings would collapse. "When I went out in the evening, I saw many people preparing to camp out in the main open parade ground in the middle of the street. Relatives were crying in the main government hospital where the dead were being lined up in front of the hospital building. "My family is traumatised. We are 5 generations living under one roof -- from a 100 year old grandmother to my 16 month old granddaughter. Strong aftershocks are keeping most of us up!" "Some of the historical sites are completely devastated. "Most of the people -- a lot of the people -- are walking through the city. They're confused and scared. A lot of people are crying. "They're out with their pets and their families and a lot of locals are volunteering in rescue operations. "In several parts of Kathmandu, a lot of people seem trapped under the rubble. Locals are trying to rescue these people because they can still hear them." Are you in Nepal or have loved ones affected? Please share with us if you are in a safe place. "We are scared and waiting for the tremors to end. We are all sitting outside because there is more news of another quake. "There is no power and families are listening to the FM radio inside their cars. News of multiple building collapses. "I've seen many cracked walls and roads and buildings. "The Dharahara was packed with people a while ago. There are police everywhere trying to move rubble to make space on the roads for ambulances. Everyone is very scared. " "I see many cracked buildings and people are panicked and all running down to the streets. "The main landmark in Kathmandu is a spire, Dharahara, and it has fallen down, it is about 140 feet high in the center city. "Another aftershock is hitting now, it is really strong. "Airplanes are circling now overhead and helicopters are flying and not clear if the airport is open. We hear it is damaged." How are earthquakes measured? "Many historic buildings have collapsed in the city. "In all my years I have never seen such a big earthquake here. "There are sometimes small shaking, sometimes bigger but this is the worst and my home has been cracked and it is a relatively strong house." "Around where I am, people are in open spaces. There have been several aftershocks, I think they're all waiting, hoping they know what to do. "You can see glass walls, portions of buildings and cracks in the building. People are confused. they're staying out in the open." Can wild animals help us predict earthquakes? CNN's Mariano Castillo, Henry Hanks and Greg Botelho contributed to this report.

Massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake has struck Nepal near its capital, Kathmandu. As the death toll rises, witnesses describe devastation and panic.

Fast-food outlet Burger King will sponsor the wedding of an Illinois couple. Not just any couple -- these are the nuptials of Joel Burger and Ashley King. They accepted the restaurant chain's offer to pay for their July affair on Monday. "We are very appreciative of Burger King and can't thank them enough for their generosity!" said King. It all started after their engagement in October. The couple had a little fun with the name coincidence and posed by a Burger King restaurant sign for a photo. They were interviewed by reporter Dave Bakke of the State Journal-Register in Springfield, the state capital. Burger King got wind of the article and was immediately interested in the happy couple, tweeting for help to locate them. They were invited on Skype on Monday to learn of a surprise: Burger King will pay for their whole wedding. "We were shocked (and still are)," said King. The fast food romance was many years in the making. Burger, now 24, and King, 23, met in kindergarten and grew up together in New Berlin. In fifth grade, classmates Joel Burger and Ashley King were asked to stand as student council representatives during an assembly with a motivational speaker. "He said our names to the school," King told CNN, "and then laughed and pronounced that together we were Burger King." The motivational speaker wasn't too far off -- a merger was in the works. The two became friends by high school, then dated in college. When the time came to propose, "Joel took me out on his boat to go fishing, and he popped the question while we were on the water." Burger King's message for the happy couple: "Congratulations, Joel and Ashley on falling in love your way."

Joel Burger and Ashley King have been engaged since October. Their engagement photo with a Burger King sign attracted, and the company offered to pay for their wedding.