(CNN)Be afraid -- be very afraid. This is the warning the world deserves to hear. Because the leader of the free world refuses to look with clear eyes at the chief security challenges of the 21st century: the fruits of radical Islam. The results of the Obama White House's innovative efforts to make the world a better place can be accounted for in the ever-growing numbers of victims of radical Islam in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Not to mention here in the United States, Canada and Europe. Is it not a tragic irony that the Arab Spring-era policies of a Nobel Peace Prize recipient accommodated the transition of Syria into the world's newest jihad theater while leaving Libya a failed state and Yemen a failing state? The Syrian jihad gave rise to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which now uses Syria as a rear operating base to support its jihad in Iraq, which could soon spill over into Jordan. Plus, Libya is now being used as a rear operating base by ISIS and other global jihadist elements striving to redraw the map of the Middle East, even as they plan attacks in Europe and North America. Given the frightfully slow pace America's commander-in-chief is currently allowing our military and intelligence community to take action against both ISIS and its progenitor, al Qaeda, the picture of what's in store is clear: The body count will continue to grow in the places where these groups can generate buy-in for their agendas. And neither the United States nor our Western allies are immune to this cancer. Academics who must say something new or different to garner interest in their work may describe the agendas of ISIS and al Qaeda as distinctly different. But the fact is they are not -- their agendas, which constitute the foremost threats to the global security environment today, are manifestations of radical Islam. Of course, it's hardly a surprise President Barack Obama refuses to acknowledge all this in plain terms -- the president and his national security advisers have too often proven naïve, with a dangerous habit of viewing the world not as it is, but as they hope it could be. There is no shortage of examples that highlight the absence of sound foresight on the parts of the world's most powerful politician and his national security team. Just take the National Strategy for Counterterrorism published by the White House in 2011. That document contained the assertion that, "Since the beginning of 2011, the transformative change sweeping North Africa and the Middle East -- along with the death of Osama bin Laden -- has further changed the nature of the terrorist threat, par-ticularly as the relevance of al Qaeda and its ideology has been further diminished." Yet, fast forward to January 2014 and America's top intelligence official, director of National Intelligence James Clapper, advised Congress that al Qaeda was no less capable of threatening the United States and our allies than a decade earlier. Soon after Clapper acknowledged al Qaeda was not a

Summary: Authors warn President Obama must be clear about radical Islam threat . Al Qaeda still a looming threat, they say .


(CNN)The Solar Impulse 2, the experimental plane attempting to fly around the world without using a drop of fuel, has been grounded by the weather in China. What was supposed to be an overnight pit stop in the southwestern city of Chongqing has now stretched into a two-and-a-half week stay. It's an unexpected layover that is testing the patience of the pilots and more than 60 team members, just a quarter of the way along a journey that will cover some 35,000 kilometers (21,748 miles) over five months. "You can believe that your will can influence the weather," says pilot Bertrand Piccard, who comes from a long family line of explorers. But "then you'll be really disappointed because it doesn't work. "Or you just know that it's an adventure you do with the forces of nature." Piccard, along with Andre Borschberg, a Swiss engineer, are taking turns flying the single-seater aircraft, which took off from Abu Dhabi on March 9 and has successfully flown through Oman, India, and Myanmar. There is much at stake. Their mission, which the pilots say is aimed at proving the power of renewable energy, and inspiring innovation, has been 12 years in the making. In many ways, it has become Piccard and Borschberg's raison d'etre. But so far, the Solar Impulse 2 has been spending a lot of time on the ground. The latest setback came when a Thursday takeoff was canceled, because the cross winds in Nanjing, the plane's destination, were forecast to be too strong around its expected landing time. Because of its weight, at just 2,300 kilograms -- about the same as a large SUV -- the aircraft needs near perfect weather conditions, including cross winds of less than 4 knots, or about 7 kilometers an hour, in order to fly. While the team is used to waiting, they are clearly eager to move on. "Our boss is the sun," says Solar Impulse spokeswoman Claudia Durgnat. Durgnat says there may be a tiny window ahead, with the next possible departure from Chongqing on Tuesday. "It's not good before, and the days after don't look very clear." Even with the delay, Durgnat says, the plane technically isn't behind schedule. That's because the team needs to wait until the end of the month for the northern hemisphere days to get longer, before the plane can venture across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. With more than 17,000 solar cells along the tops of its wings and fuselage, the Solar Impulse 2 stores up energy during the day, in order to power the motors that carry it through the night, typically at speeds no faster than a car on a highway. Inside a specially constructed tent at the end of the runway at Chongqing International Airport, a skeleton team of less than a dozen people works to complete the day's tasks. The rest of the crew has been waiting for weeks in Nanjing. Even with the extended stay, no time is wasted. Piccard spends a few hours of the afternoon in the cockpit, training to prepare for the

Summary: Solar plane attempting to be first to circumnavigate world without using fuel is stuck in China . Solar Impulse 2 attempts to prove the power of renewable energy .


(CNN)Well, the thought experiments are finally over. Hillary Clinton's online declaration for president means the focus will now shift to the campaign and to what kind of president she might be. And nowhere will the speculation be greater than in the area of foreign policy, certain to be a major issue in the upcoming campaign. Should she win, Clinton will add to her potential "firsts": first woman president; the first president who had been a first lady. There's another one, too: the first secretary of state to become president since James Buchanan. Only a handful of the nation's top diplomats have gone to the White House (Thomas Jefferson; James Madison; James Monroe; John Quincy Adams; Martin Van Buren; and Buchanan). And none in the 20th century, a curious fact that suggests politics and statecraft are quite different animals. Too few of our secretaries of state have had the necessary experience of elected office or the desire, ambition and temperament to compete for the top job. Still, on balance, Clinton's tenure at the State Department should be a real advantage during the campaign, particularly when compared with the absence of foreign policy experience among her prospective Republican rivals. But this will be no cake walk for her on the foreign policy side. Clinton will have to negotiate and traverse several tricky and rocky paths to ensure that her State Department career remains an advantage and doesn't turn into a liability. Here's why: . The last president to serve in a top job in the administration of his immediate predecessor was George H.W. Bush. Circumstances were different then. Far from wanting to distance himself from Reagan, Bush 41 saw merit in reinforcing the association with a president who dominated his day in a way few chief executives have. Clinton will face a harder balancing act: how to stand by the policies that she helped craft in Obama's first term and still separate herself from an administration her opponents will blast as weak, vacillating and fairly or not, responsible for a world that is seen to be much worse, especially in the Middle East and with Russia, than when President Obama took office. In the process, she'll have to define her own approach to the world. Indeed, given the President's vulnerabilities on foreign policy, she can't afford to be seen as Obama's third term. In her memoir "Hard Choices," she's already laid the foundation for distancing herself from Obama on issues such as doing more for the Syrian opposition and being tougher on Russia's Vladimir Putin. And she can legitimately work to sharpen those differences without seeming to walk away from policies she supported and leaving herself open to charges that she has no principles, only politically expedient tactics. Too much loyalty to a president who is unpopular among independents will hurt her. But so will flip-flopping. Nowhere will her challenges be greater than on Iran. Clinton presided over the secret channel that laid the basis for the November 2013 interim accord and led directly to the putative understandings reached between the United States and

Summary: Miller: The former secretary of state has to decide whether she's going to differ with Barack Obama's handling of foreign policy . He says her experience overseas could be an asset as long as she doesn't get ensnared by controversy over Obama policies .


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

Summary: 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 .


Baghdad, Iraq (CNN)Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former top deputy to Saddam Hussein and more recently a key figure in Sunni extremist groups battling the Iraqi government, has been killed in a security operation in that country, Iraqi state-run television reported Friday. Al-Douri was the highest-ranking member of Hussein's regime to evade capture -- the "King of Clubs" in a deck of playing cards used by American troops to identify the most-wanted regime officials. He also was a man thought to have led the post-Hussein Sunni extremist group Naqshbandi Army. Military analysis website Globalsecurity.org says the Naqshbandi Army supports ISIS, which has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria. Al-Douri was killed in an operation by Iraqi security forces and Shia militia members in the Hamrin Mountains between Tikrit and Kirkuk, Iraq, Shia militia commander Hadi al-Ameri said. That militia is a predominantly Shiite fighting group that worked with Iraqi troops earlier this month to liberate the Iraqi city of Tikrit from ISIS. The death of al-Douri was also reported by the governor of Salahuddin province, Raid al-Jubouri, who spoke by phone on Iraqi television. Al-Douri's body arrived Friday in Baghdad, where DNA samples were taken to confirm the identity, said the spokesman of another Shiite militia called Hashd Shaabi in an interview with state-run Iraqiya TV. DNA test results could be available in 48 hours, Hashd Shaabi spokesman Yousuf al-Kilabi told the outlet. The U.S. military is aware of the media reports but doesn't have further information to evaluate them, said Col. Patrick Ryder, spokesman for U.S. Central Command. While officials are aware of al-Douri's role in the Hussein regime, Ryder declined to comment about whether the United States or the coalition was targeting any specific individuals. Al-Douri was a military commander and vice chairman of the country's revolutionary command council in Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime -- effectively Hussein's No. 2 man. Hussein's regime fell during a U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The U.S. military had said that after the Iraqi leader's fall, al-Douri helped finance a Sunni insurgency with money he transferred to Syria before the government collapsed. A month before the invasion, al-Douri presided over a military parade in Mosul, an event covered by CNN, and his participation became one of the last times he was seen in public, covered by CNN. Al-Douri saluted troops from the reviewing stand as they marched by. Then, just days before the U.S. invasion, al-Douri addressed an emergency summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to discuss ultimately unsuccessful ways to avert the war. Al-Douri accused the United States of aggression and blamed Kuwait for his country's suffering, calling leaders of the neighboring Gulf state "traitors" for cooperating with the United States and Israel. That comment prompted the Kuwaiti representative to stand up and protest, to which al-Douri countered, "Shut up, sit down you small agent [of the U.S.], you monkey!" Kuwaiti television cut away from the heated exchange and rejoined the conference later. Al-Douri's efforts were all in vain. The United States invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, ousting Hussein, al-Douri and the entire

Summary: U.S. military doesn't have further information to evaluate the Iraqi media reports . Al-Douri's body arrives in Baghdad where DNA samples are taken . Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri was the highest-ranking member of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime to evade capture .


Mogadishu, Somalia (CNN)A car bomb exploded at a restaurant near the presidential palace in the heart of Somalia's capital Tuesday, killing at least 10 people, including a woman and a boy, police said. Somalia-based Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack. Group spokesman Sheikh Abdiaziz Musab, speaking to pro-Al-Shabaab outlet Andalus radio, said the blast targeted and killed several Somali intelligence agents. Somali police spokesman Qasim Mohamed Roble told reporters that the car bomb killed no government official or soldier. Among the dead, he said, was a boy who shined shoes. The area is not a new target for Al-Shabaab, which has battled Somalia's government for years with the goal of establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. The restaurant is across the street from the Central Hotel, where Al-Shabaab killed at least 15 people in a bombing and gun attack in February. The streets outside the restaurant were "littered with debris and human body parts" after Tuesday's explosion, witness Mohamed Ali said. The blast damaged nearby buildings and vehicles at a parking lot, according to Ali. Ambulances took wounded people to a nearby hospital for treatment. Tuesday's bombing is at least the third high-profile attack near or at a Mogadishu hotel since February. On February 20, militants attacked the Central Hotel, blowing up a car bomb outside before shooting people and detonating another bomb inside. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack. More than a month later, on March 27, gunmen detonated explosives and shot people at a different Mogadishu hotel -- the Makka Al Mukarama -- leaving at least 20 people dead. The attack stretched into the next day before security personnel killed all the assailants. Al-Shabaab also said it was responsible for the Makka Al Mukarama attack, claiming it targeted the hotel because its guests were spies and government officials. Among those killed in the March 27 assault was Yusuf Mohamed Ismail Bari-Bari, Somalia's permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, the Somali government said. Journalist Omar Nor reported from Mogadishu. CNN's Jason Hanna wrote in Atlanta.

Summary: Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for the attack . The explosion happened across the street from a hotel that was attacked two months ago . Mogadishu has been the site of frequent attacks by Al-Shabaab .


(CNN)Thousands of Syrian and Palestinian refugees trapped in the Yarmouk refugee camp have suffered what can only be described as untold indignities. But while the story is in itself tragic, it is the individual lives at the heart of the camp that make the imperative for humanitarian action so compelling. I encountered two such individuals on my mission to Damascus -- Jihad and Mohammad -- tiny, vulnerable infants who were taken from Yarmouk in recent days, a place that was described last week by the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as "the deepest circle of hell." The fact that they are alive truly make them miracle children. Looking into those bright young faces, touching their pristine hands, the logic of our humanitarian mandate -- the mission to protect -- never felt stronger to me. Like the wider Syrian conflict, Yarmouk has a human face; the faces of young Mohammad and young Jihad. I want to introduce you to them in the hope that you, too, will understand why I am firmly convinced that turning away is not an option -- and why the international community must act in a concerted manner to respond to the many tragedies in Syria. Jihad Ya'qoub, the youngest Palestinian refugee to flee Yarmouk, was born on March 30. His mother, Said Fatima, never imagined bringing a child into this world could be so tough. "I was hoping to drink milk and eat eggs during my pregnancy, but our financial situation did allow us to buy these expensive food items," she said. Said Fatima was living in a community where the average person survived on just 400 calories a day. Mohammad was born in Yarmouk on January 25 of this year. When ISIS -- Islamic State of Iraq and Syria -- entered the camp and tensions heightened, his mother, Nadia, fled in search of safety. Her only thoughts were to save the life of her newborn son. Yet she has not lost hope in the possibility of a dignified future. She hopes that if and when life returns to normal, she will be able to live once more with her husband and son in the family home in Yarmouk. These tales of courage and human dignity are a lesson for us all. When I next brief the Security Council, as I did a few days ago, I will tell them about Jihad and Mohammad. I will continue to press the case for humanitarian access to other children like them inside Yarmouk, other civilians who need help where they are. To do this, hostilities will have to subside. Pressure must be exerted on armed actors in Yarmouk to this end. Beyond that, those civilians wishing to temporarily leave must be allowed to do so safely. These things are all possible. But it takes the necessary political will -- nothing more, nothing less. Yarmouk must be a place where the politics of the possible begin to take hold. I believe they can. Because to abandon such belief would be to abandon Jihad, Mohammad and thousands of other civilians like them. And

Summary: Yarmouk is a refugee camp near Damascus in war-ravaged Syria . Pierre Krähenbühl of the United Nations: Individual lives underscore need for humanitarian action .


(CNN)A North Pacific gray whale has earned a spot in the record books after completing the longest migration of a mammal ever recorded. The whale, named Varvara, swam nearly 14,000 miles (22,500 kilometers), according to a release from Oregon State University, whose scientists helped conduct the whale-tracking study. Varvara, which is Russian for "Barbara," left her primary feeding ground off Russia's Sakhalin Island to cross the Pacific Ocean and down the West Coast of the United States to Baja, Mexico. Varvara's journey surpassed a record listed on the Guinness Worlds Records website. It said the previous record was set by a humpback whale that swam a mere 10,190-mile round trip between the "warm breeding waters near the equator and the colder food-rich waters of the Arctic and Antarctic regions." Records are nice, but Bruce Mate, the lead author of the study, thinks the long trip might say more about the whale than just its ability to swim. During her 14,000-mile journey, Varvara visited "three major breeding areas for eastern gray whales," which was a surprise to Mate, who is also the director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University. "For her to go to Mexico," Mate said, "It's pretty strong evidence that it's where she's from." Varvara was thought to be an endangered western whale, but her ability to "navigate across open water over tremendously long distances is impressive," he said in the release, which could mean that some western gray whales are actually eastern grays. With only 150 western gray whales believed to be in existence, that number might be even lower. "Past studies have indicated genetic differentiation between the species, but this suggests we may need to take a closer look," Mate said. Fourth baby orca born this season .

Summary: The whale, Varvara, swam a round trip from Russia to Mexico, nearly 14,000 miles . The previous record was set by a humpback whale that migrated more than 10,000 miles .


(CNN)I don't always talk about news events with my daughters, but there was something about the story of ESPN reporter Britt McHenry and the wildly offensive way she spoke to that towing company employee that made me bring it up. One of the main things I preach to my girls, ages 7 and 9, is the importance of respecting other people, no matter who you are and what you go on to accomplish. It's something that my husband and I just do -- we show respect to everyone from a taxi driver to a teacher to the President of the United States. Let me say right here that I have lost my cool from time to time, whether it's been a phone call with a credit card company to complain about late fees or an experience of bad service at a restaurant. In those cases, when I feel like I'm going to pop, I keep saying, "This is unacceptable, This is unacceptable," and either hang up in disgust or storm off. (Not perfect ways of handling these incidents, but at no time would I ever think to insult or demean the other person in these situations.) Some of McHenry's comments, such as how she's "on television," imply that she may have the dangerous thinking that she, by dint of her career, education and income, is better than people who don't get paid what she does or have the same kind of career or educational opportunities. McHenry showed that she either forgot those "golden rule" lessons from childhood or that she hasn't really lived her life with that mantra. McHenry has since apologized on Twitter, saying she said "some insulting and regrettable things," and that as frustrated as she was during an experience at a towing company in Virginia, she should "always choose to be respectful and take the high road." But it's not clear that apology will satisfy anyone who watched the video of her exchange with the towing company worker. "I see this Britt McHenry video, and think: it's not just about how a celebrity shouldn't act in public, it's how all of us shouldn't act," wrote "Cait" on Twitter. Said "Shannon," also on Twittter, "I had no idea who Britt McHenry was before but ... now I know she's the kind of woman I hope I've taught my daughters not to be." "Her language and disdain brings shame on her, her profession, and her employer. People don't all of sudden have such a vile tirade. This comes after years of practice and a pattern of similar behaviors. Let's let her be an example to others," wrote C Cooper on a Change.org petition asking McHenry's employers to fire her. The McHenry story seemed to strike a chord in our household because my older daughter asked what was going to happen to her. This morning, I told her McHenry was suspended for a week by ESPN, and that led to another conversation. My kids seemed to get it and many celebrities also seem to remember to "treat other people the way you

Summary: ESPN reporter Britt McHenry caught on video berating a towing company employee . CNN's Kelly Wallace used the story as a teachable moment for her daughters . Wallace: McHenry could learn from other celebrities who responded gracefully in stressful situations .


(CNN)The night before her daughter's first triathlon, Kate Parker could tell the child was nervous. Ella and her younger sister, Alice, are athletic, loud, curious, wild-haired kids. They grew up watching their mother compete in races and Ella had asked to sign up for her own. Still, as they laid out everything she'd need the next day, Parker, a photographer, could tell she was afraid. "Why don't we get a picture?" Parker asked Ella, now 9. "Show me your strongest face, show me your bravest face, even if you don't feel that way right now." As she pulled the image up on her screen, she got chills from her daughter's direct stare. She looked, Parker said, like "a little badass." "You're going to be totally fine," Parker showed her. "Look at how tough you are." The next day, Ella participated in her race, and loved it. Looking back, "I wanted her to remember that she was scared and she went through with it, sort of as a memento of her conquering a fear, " said Parker, who lives near Atlanta. "As a mom, I really wanted to get a good picture of it, too." The photo is one of Parker's favorites from her series, "Strong is the New Pretty." It covers the last two years, but evolved from Parker's early days behind a camera, when she shot daily images of her girls to expand her knowledge of lighting and composition. It seemed that most images of little girls showcased perfectly placed hair bows, forced smiles and Photoshop-smooth skin. Hers didn't. "I didn't want to shoot pictures like that. I didn't want girls to think they had to look like that," said Parker, whose daughters are now 6 and 9. "Whoever they were, however they were, was worthy of an image. Whatever they were was good enough." So, she shot her girls and their friends as they were -- freckled, muddy, screaming, laughing, jumping in the pool, collecting worms in the creek, barreling into the wilderness of early adolescence on skateboards and bicycles. "I want to capture them before they lose that sense of 'I'm so awesome.' I wanted them to keep that as long as they could," Parker said. "I started to shoot with that in mind, but it was already there." The girls pose for an occasional portrait, but most are kid-inspired moments, shaped by childish wonderment and energy. As parents, Parker and her husband encourage their girls to play outside, make new friends and try new things without worrying about grass-stained knees and knots in their hair, Parker said. Now, the girls have the confidence and curiosity to do it on their own. "They're just being themselves, and I'm just recording it," Parker said. Responses to the images are mostly positive, Parker said, but there's the occasional complaint that she's showing just one type of girl. It's true, Parker said: They're the ones she's raising, the only ones whose adventures she can document 24/7. She hopes the project inspires parents to find their own creative ways to capture their children's

Summary: Kate Parker is the photographer and mother behind "Strong is the New Pretty" The photo series shows her messy, wild daughters as they are, Parker said .


(CNN)It sounds like the plot for a science fiction movie. Someone has a horrific accident and winds up in the hospital, brain dead and on life support. Doctors approach the family about organ donation, but instead of saving as many as eight lives, the family is asked to donate the whole body to save just one individual. Perhaps a quadriplegic with a mind that outmatches their malfunctioning body. As crazy as this sounds, to put an entire head on a new body, a human body, Italian physician Dr. Sergio Canavero says we are approaching HEAVEN (an acronym for head anastomosis venture; anastomosis is surgically connecting two parts). The pieces are coming together but there are still many hurdles to jump. Canavero says he has part of the funding secured, although he says he can't yet disclose where the money is coming from as a condition of the funding. He's also taking the 2015 layman's approach with crowd funding and book sales. He has identified Valery Spiridonov as the first patient. The 30-year-old Russian man suffers from a rare genetic disorder called Werdnig-Hoffman disease. Canavero says the man volunteered. The two men have talked via Skype but they have yet to meet in person and Canavero has not reviewed Spiridonov's medical records. Canavero says he has a stack of emails and letters from people who want this procedure. Many of them are transsexuals who want a new body, he says. But he insists the first patients will be people who are suffering from a muscle wasting disease. Another big obstacle is the need for a partner. Canavero can't just do this in his own Frankenstein lab. He needs a major academic medical center to host this endeavor and he has his eyes set on the United States. He hopes to get a buy-in this summer when he presents his plan to the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgeons, or AANOS, at its annual conference in June. He's counting on getting the green light he needs for the first human whole head transplant to take place in 2017. Nick Rebel, executive director of AANOS, says the group is not endorsing Canavero, it is simply giving him a platform to hear what he has to say. If Canavero doesn't get the support he needs in the United States, he'll look to China and his timeline will slide by a year. Once these pieces are in place, Canavero says he'll put together a staff of 150 nurses and doctors. Many of them, like the patient, are already identified because they've asked to be part of this team. Then they'll need to practice for what is anticipated to be a 36-hour operation. "I say two years is the time needed for the team to reach perfect synchronization," Canavero speculates. But what about the science? Is such an idea even plausible? He says he has research that supports it. Canavero points to Dr. Robert White, who transplanted the head of one monkey to the body of another at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1970.

Summary: Dr. Sergio Canavero says he is two years away from performing the first total human head transplant . The first patient will be a 30-year-old Russian man with a rare, genetic muscle wasting disease . One ethicist says Canavero should be helping paralyzed patients walk before performing body transplants .


Polk City, Florida (CNN)If you drove by it, you wouldn't even know it's there. The Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation sits on 200 acres of land in rural central Florida, halfway between Orlando and Sarasota, off a nondescript country road. An armed security guard greets you at the entrance. After a short drive down a gravel road, you get the sense this is a special place. "You can walk around and you don't hear anything," said Kenneth Feld, who opened the center in 1995. "These elephants, they have these large feet and they travel silently through the fields. I think it's very peaceful." Twenty-nine elephants currently live here, and 13 more will join the group by 2018, after Ringling Bros. decided this year to stop using elephants in its traveling circus. "This was a decision that our family had discussed for quite some time," said Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment, the company that owns Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. The change comes after years of repeated criticism and lawsuits by animal rights groups. The ultimate decision to phase out the elephants, Feld said, is the result of the different laws regulating the use of the animals in each of the 115 cities the circus visits every year. "You can't operate any business, much less with animals, if you don't have consistency from city to city," Feld said. "It's a definite expense to be in litigation and to be fighting legislation, and there is a saying and it's been around for a long time: 'You can't fight city hall.' And we found that to be the case in this situation." The circus business has been a part of the Feld family since 1967, when Irvin Feld purchased Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. When Irvin died in 1984, his son, Kenneth, took over. "This is a whole family affair," he said. "It's a family affair for our family but also for all the elephants." When the center opened 20 years ago, it housed fewer than 10 elephants. "It was a place for elephants to retire," Feld said. Today, the center houses elephants of all ages. "We have lots of different elephants, meaning males and females, youth elephants, older elephants, so it is a great place to study behavior," he said. The center is also focused on breeding the animals. Wendy Kiso, a research and conservation scientist, spends her days at an onsite lab, trying to figure out how to keep the species from going extinct. Part of her lab includes several tanks that "cryo-preserve" elephant sperm at negative-196 degrees. "We process the semen and we extend it in such a way that we can freeze it," Kiso said. "This is a genetic resource bank for Asian elephants." Twenty-six elephants have been born here, Feld said. Mike, the newest pachyderm to join the group, was born at the center's birthing barn nearly two years ago. "We have the largest and only sustainable herd of Asian elephants in the Western Hemisphere," Feld said. Caring for the elephants is no small task.

Summary: 29 elephants currently live at the circus sanctuary, and 13 more will join by 2018 . The expansion comes after Ringling Bros. said it would stop using elephants in circus . $65,000 worth of care annually includes pedicures, stretching and tons -- literally -- of food .


Miami (CNN)World heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko has an important title defense coming up, but his thoughts continue to be dominated by the ongoing fight for democracy in Ukraine. Speaking to CNN from his Miami training base ahead of the April 25 showdown with American challenger Bryant Jennings in New York, Klitschko said the crisis in his homeland has left him shocked and upset. "My country is unfortunately suffering in the war with Russia -- not that Ukraine tried to give any aggression to any other nation, in this particular case Russia, unfortunately it's the other way around," Klitschko told CNN. "I never thought that our brother folk is going to have war with us, so that Ukrainians and Russians are going to be divided with blood," he added. "Unfortunately, we don't know how far it's going to go and how worse it's going to get. The aggression, in the military presence of (Russian) soldiers and military equipment in my country, Ukraine, is upsetting." Klitschko is the reigning IBF, WBA, WBO and IBO champion and has, alongside older brother Vitali, dominated the heavyweight division in the 21st century. Vitali, who retired from boxing in 2013, is a prominent figure in Ukrainian politics. The 43-year-old has led the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform since 2010 and was elected mayor of Kiev in May last year. Tensions in the former Soviet state remain high despite a ceasefire agreed in February as Europe, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of France Francois Hollande, tries to broker a peace deal between the two sides. The crisis in Ukraine began in November 2013 when former President Victor Yanukovych scuttled a trade deal with the European Union in favor of forging closer economic ties with Russia. The move triggered a wave of anti-government protests which came to a head Kiev's Maidan Square in February 2014 when clashes between protesters and government security forces left around 100 dead. The following month, Russian troops entered Ukraine's Crimean peninsula before Russian President Vladimir Putin completed the annexation of Crimea -- a move denounced by most of the world as illegitimate -- after citizens of the region had voted in favor of leaving Ukraine in a referendum. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict to date. "People are dying in Ukraine every single day," Klitschko said. "I do not want to see it, nobody wants to see it ... it's hard to believe these days something like that in Europe -- and Ukraine is Europe -- can happen." But with the backing of the international community, Klitschko is confident Ukraine can forge a democratic future rather than slide back towards a Soviet-era style dictatorship. "I really wish and want this conflict to be solved and it can only be solved with Western help," he said. "Ukraine is looking forward to becoming a democratic country and live under Western democracy. This is our decision and this is our will to get what we want. "If somebody wants to try to put (us) back to the Soviet times and

Summary: Reigning world heavyweight champion discusses Ukraine crisis . Klitschko faces American challenger Bryant Jennings in New York on April 25 . "Ukraine is looking forward to becoming a democratic country," Klitschko says . Klitschko's older brother Vitali a prominent figure in Ukraine democracy movement .


(CNN)A look at Oklahoma City, 20 years later. A fly-by of Pluto, 4 billion miles away. And the struggle to save the last male northern white rhino in the world. These are your best videos of the week: . On April 19, 1995, the Alfred R. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was bombed by two disaffected young Americans. One hundred sixty-eight people died in the terrorist attack, including 19 children. As the 20th anniversary of the tragedy approaches, CNN captured video of the memorial that stands on the site today. The video is at the top of this story. The use of marijuana as a medicinal treatment actually dates back millennia, to at least 2730 B.C. CNN's Sanjay Gupta looks at the history of the herb in medicine -- including its prescription by Queen Victoria's doctor. Watch the video: . Just because you're a politician doesn't mean you come naturally to glad-handing. From the "swing and miss" to the "smile, the cameras are rolling," the video age has captured a number of strange attempts by politicians attempting to look socially casual. Watch the video: . Just as Jimmy Fallon become the go-to guy for viral video, newly minted "Late Late Show" host James Corden began staking his claim. CNN's Lisa France addresses the latest late-night matchups. Watch the video: . On Thursday, a video of ESPN reporter Britt McHenry insulting a tow company clerk came out -- and immediately went viral. McHenry was suspended for a week. Watch the video: . There are just four countries in the entire world that don't guarantee any form of paid maternity leave. The U.S. is one of them. This and other details of women's status in the United States are examined in this video, as well as a remarkable series by CNN's Jessica Ravitz. Watch the video: . Five northern white rhinoceroses are left in the entire world. All are in captivity -- and just one is male. He's now being protected by armed guards around the clock. Watch the video: . TEPCO, the Japanese utility, sent a robot in to examine the remains of the Fukushima nuclear plant, destroyed in a 2011 tsunami. What it recorded was startling. Watch the video: . Leave it to NASA to create a car that might make the problems of parallel parking a thing of the past. Oh, and it'll also probably work well on space missions. Former NFL player Aaron Hernandez was found guilty of murder earlier this week. What happened at his trial? Watch the video: . This summer, after nine years traveling through space, the New Horizons spacecraft is scheduled to reach Pluto. What will we learn? Some new pictures offer clues.

Summary: Videos of the week include drone footage of Oklahoma City . NASA has a car that drives sideways -- and a spacecraft headed for Pluto .


(CNN)A New York jury deliberating the fate of the man charged with the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz is struggling to reach a verdict. The little boy's disappearance, more than three decades ago, sparked an era of heightened awareness of crimes against children. Deliberations resumed on Thursday, one day after New York Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley ordered the jury to continue efforts to reach a decision on the guilt or innocence of a bodega worker named Pedro Hernandez. On the 10th day of deliberations, the jurors on Wednesday said in a note that they were unable to reach a unanimous decision. Hernandez confessed to police three years ago, but his lawyers said he made up his account of the crime. Etan Patz's parents have waited more than 35 years for justice, but some have questioned whether that is even possible in Hernandez's case. His lawyer has said that he is mentally challenged, severely mentally ill and unable to tell 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. Hernandez is charged with two counts of second-degree murder for allegedly intending to cause the boy's death and for a killing that occurred during a kidnapping. 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 immediately rearrested upon leaving jail in 2012 on charges of failing to register as a sex offender, The Associated Press reported. 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

Summary: Etan Patz disappeared in 1979; his face appeared on milk cartons all across the United States . His case marked a time of heightened awareness of crimes against children . Pedro Hernandez confessed three years ago to the killing .


(CNN)Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog has some competition. A newly discovered species of glassfrog looks an awful lot like the famous Muppet. Bulging white eyes, Kelly green skin, the works. But the name's not nearly so catchy as its famous counterpart: Hyalinobatrachium dianae, or Diane's bare-hearted glassfrog. If you have to, you can call it H. dianae for short. Scientists found the species on the Caribbean slopes of Costa Rica. This is big news in the scientific community. The last time a new glassfrog was found in Costa Rica was back in 1973, according to the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center. "Costa Rica is known to have 14 glassfrogs inhabiting its tiny national territory!" the center's Facebook page said. It's called a glassfrog because of its translucent belly. You can see its internal organs from underneath. Miss Piggy wasn't immediately available for comment.

Summary: The newly discovered species looks a lot like Kermit . You can see its internal organs through the translucent skin on its belly .


(CNN)The nominations for the 69th Annual Tony Awards were announced Tuesday morning. Past Tony winner and three-time nominee Mary-Louise Parker unveiled the nominees with Bruce Willis, who is set to make his Broadway debut in the upcoming play "Misery." The awards are set to be handed out June 7 in a ceremony airing live at 8 p.m. on CBS (tape-delayed on the West Coast) from Radio City Music Hall. Kristin Chenoweth, a nominee for "On the 20th Century," and recent "Cabaret" star Alan Cumming are set to host the ceremony. The full list of nominees is below. Best Play . "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" Author: Simon Stephens . Producers: Stuart Thompson, Tim Levy for NT America, Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, Nick Starr & Chris Harper for NT Productions, Bob Boyett, Roger Berlind, Scott M. Delman, Roy Furman, Glass Half Full Productions, Ruth Hendel, Jon B. Platt, Prime Number Group, Scott Rudin, Triple Play Broadway, The Shubert Organization, The National Theatre . "Disgraced" Author: Ayad Akhtar . Producers: The Araca Group, Lincoln Center Theater, Jenifer Evans, Amanda Watkins, Richard Winkler, Rodger Hess, Stephanie P. McClelland, Tulchin/Bartner Productions, Jessica Genick, Jonathan Reinis, Carl Levin/Ashley De Simone/TNTDynaMite Productions, Alden Bergson/Rachel Weinstein, Greenleaf Productions, Darren DeVerna/Jere Harris, The Shubert Organization, The David Merrick Arts Foundation . "Hand to God" Author: Robert Askins . Producers: Kevin McCollum, Broadway Global Ventures, CMC, Morris Berchard, Mariano V. Tolentino, Jr., Stephanie Kramer, LAMS Productions, DeSimone/Winkler, Joan Raffe & Jhett Tolentino, Timothy Laczynski, Lily Fan, Ayal Miodovnik, Jam Theatricals, Ensemble Studio Theatre, MCC Theater . "Wolf Hall Parts One & Two" Co-Authors: Hilary Mantel and Mike Poulton . Producers: Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Matthew Byam Shaw, Nia Janis & Nick Salmon for Playfull Productions UK, Carole Shorenstein Hays, Jam Theatricals, Ron Kastner, Kyodo Tokyo, Inc., Tulchin Bartner Productions, WLE MSG, Jane Bergère, Scott M. Delman, Rebecca Gold, Just for Laughs Theatricals, Kit Seidel, Triple Play Productions, Gabrielle Palitz, Georgia Gatti, Jessica Genick, Will Trice, The Shubert Organization, The Royal Shakespeare Company . Best Musical . "An American in Paris" Producers: Stuart Oken, Van Kaplan, Roy Furman, Stephanie McClelland, Darren Bagert, Carole L. Haber, James Nederlander, Five Cent Productions, Michael Leavitt, Apples and Oranges Studios/Dominion Pictures, Roger Berlind/Arch Road, Simone Genatt Haft/Marc Routh, Triptyk Studios/Spencer Ross, Ed Walson/Peter May, Adam Zotovich/Celia Atkin, Eugene Beard/Julie Boardman/Kalish-Weinstein, Stuart Ditsky/Jim Herbert/Sandy Robertson, Suzanne Friedman/Independent Presenters Network/Wonderful Productions, The Leonore S. Gershwin 1987 Trust/Jenkins-Taylor/Proctors, Harriet Newman Leve/Jane Dubin/Sarabeth Grossman, Caiola Productions/Jennifer Isaacson/Raise the Curtain, Elephant Eye Theatrical & Pittsburgh CLO, Théâtre du Châtelet . "Fun Home" Producers: Fox Theatricals, Barbara Whitman, Carole Shorenstein Hays, Tom Casserly, Paula Marie Black, Latitude Link, Terry Schnuck/Jack Lane, The Forstalls, Nathan Vernon, Mint Theatrical, Elizabeth Armstrong, Jam Theatricals, Delman Whitney, Kristin Caskey & Mike Isaacson, The Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, Patrick Willingham . "Something Rotten!" Producers: Kevin McCollum, Broadway Global Ventures, CMC, Mastro/Goodman, Jerry & Ronald Frankel, Morris Berchard, Kyodo Tokyo Inc., Wendy Federman, Barbara Freitag, LAMS Productions, Winkler/DeSimone, Timothy Laczynski, Dan Markley, Harris/Karmazin, Jam Theatricals, Robert Greenblatt, Jujamcyn Theaters . "The Visit" Producers: Tom

Summary: Actors Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming are set to host the 2015 Tony Awards ceremony . Best play nominees: 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," "Disgraced," "Hand to God" and "Wolf Hall Parts One & Two" The awards will be presented on June 7 in a ceremony airing live at 8 p.m. on CBS .


Beijing (CNN)Amid tight security, a Chinese court has convicted veteran journalist Gao Yu for revealing state secrets and sentenced her to seven years in prison. Gao, 71, immediately said she would appeal, her lawyer Mo Shaoping told CNN Friday. After a closed trial last November, the No. 3 Intermediate People's Court in Beijing had twice delayed handing down a verdict, giving Gao's supporters some hope that the authorities' apparent hesitation may lead to her acquittal and release. "Today's conviction is mainly based on a forced confession that she had since retracted," Mo said. "This is a totally wrong judgment that doesn't respect the facts or the evidence." The government had accused Gao of disclosing a highly confidential "Document No. 9" issued by the ruling Communist Party leadership in 2013 to an overseas Chinese-language news organization, according to her lawyer. The document revealed the Party's ideological battle plan to counter advocates of constitutional democracy, banning public discussions on topics ranging from press freedom, civil rights to judicial independence. "There is no defense against state secret charges in China, anything the Party or the government want to label as state secrets will be labeled and treated as such -- they can even do it retroactively," said Nicholas Bequelin, the Hong Kong-based East Asia director of Amnesty International. "Her sentencing is in line with the very stern approach President Xi Jinping's team has taken on dissent, information control and challenges to the Party," he added. Beijing police detained Gao in late April of last year -- ahead of the sensitive 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown -- and state broadcaster CCTV soon aired her "confession" on national television. Expressing "deep remorse" in the video, Gao told interrogators she "deeply regretted that her behavior had harmed national interests and violated the law." Mo, her lawyer, said the authorities had extracted the confession by threatening her son's safety and released the police video to CCTV without her knowledge. He added the alleged recipient of the leaked document even publicly denied that Gao was his source. An outspoken journalist and press freedom advocate, Gao began her career as a reporter for the state-run China News Service in 1979 and, in recent years, had been writing columns for overseas Chinese-language publications. She was arrested after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and released more than a year later. She was imprisoned for another six years for leaking state secrets in 1993 -- though the government has never disclosed details of that case. Since Xi took power over two years ago, his government has jailed hundreds of activists across China despite rising international concern. "We are in the midst of one of the most severe crackdowns on human rights activists," said Bequelin of Amnesty International. "What the state used to tolerate, it doesn't tolerate anymore."

Summary: Accused of leaking a document revealing Party's ideological battle plan to counter advocates of constitutional democracy . Amnesty: Her sentencing is in line with the very stern approach President Xi Jinping's team has taken on dissent . Gao was arrested in April last year, ahead of the sensitive 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown .


(CNN)North Korea accused Mexico of illegally holding one of its cargo ships Wednesday and demanded the release of the vessel and crew. The ship, the Mu Du Bong, was detained after it ran aground off the coast of Mexico in July. Mexico defended the move Wednesday, saying it followed proper protocol because the company that owns the ship, North Korea's Ocean Maritime Management company, has skirted United Nations sanctions. "Because the company has avoided the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council, the Mexican government is acting on the basis of its international obligations as a responsible U.N. member state," the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations said. The Security Council blacklisted Ocean Maritime Management in July, saying it "played a key role in arranging the shipment of concealed arms and related materiel" on another ship, the Chong Chon Gang, which was detained by Panama in 2013. But An Myong Hun, North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said there was no reason to hold the Mu Du Bong and accused Mexico of violating the crew members' human rights by keeping them from their families. "Mu Du Bong is a peaceful, merchant ship and it has not shipped any items prohibited by international laws or regulations," An told reporters at the United Nations headquarters Wednesday. "And we have already paid full compensation to Mexican authorities according to its domestic laws." According to Mexico's U.N. mission, the 33 North Korean nationals who make up the vessel's crew are free, staying at a hotel in the port city of Tuxpan and regularly visiting the ship to check on it. They will soon be sent back to North Korea with help from the country's embassy, Mexican authorities said. In the case of the Chong Chon Gang, Panamanian authorities found it was carrying undeclared weaponry from Cuba -- including MiG fighter jets, anti-aircraft systems and explosives -- buried under thousands of bags of sugar. Panama seized the cargo and held onto the ship and its crew for months. North Korea eventually agreed to pay a fine of $666,666 for the vessel's release. CNN's Jethro Mullen contributed to this report.

Summary: The Mu Du Bong was detained after it ran aground off Mexico's coast in July . North Korea says there's no reason to hold the ship and accuses Mexico of human rights violations . Mexico says it followed proper protocol because the ship's owner skirted U.N. sanctions .


(CNN)Before landing a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn Wednesday, Doug Hughes wrote about his intentions and the reasons behind them on a website called the thedemocracyclub.org. "The point of the flight is to spotlight corruption in DC and more importantly, to present the solution(s) to the institutional graft," the 61-year-old Florida postal carrier wrote in an online post titled "Your Pilot." "My flight is not a secret," the post says. "Before I took off, I sent an Email to info@barackobama.com. The letter is intended to persuade the guardians of the Capitol that I am not a threat and that shooting me down will be a bigger headache than letting me deliver these letters to Congress." Hughes' friend Michael Shanahan told CNN that Hughes called him Wednesday morning and told him to check out the website. Although the post is not signed, he lists an email address of "dhughes@thedemocracyclub.org," and the information in his self-description matches information about Hughes in public records. He refers to having multiple children -- the youngest an 11-year-old daughter -- and grandchildren as well. It's unclear exactly when the post published. Shanahan told CNN that when he searched for the site Wednesday morning, he was unable to find it. "The purpose of it was to call attention to the United States concerning our campaign finance laws, or the lack thereof," Shanahan told CNN's Brooke Baldwin. Hughes had his first appearance in court scheduled for Thursday. On Wednesday, he took off in his gyrocopter from Maryland and traveled through restricted airspace over Washington, landing on the Capitol's West Lawn. Inside the small personal aircraft he had letters for every member of Congress urging campaign finance reform. "There's no need to worry -- I'm just delivering the mail," Hughes wrote in his post. The incident shut down the Capitol for part of the day. Hughes' main purpose "was not so much to alert Congress to something they already know, but to make a statement, so that America would take notice," Shanahan said. The two men together run a website and nonprofit corporation called The Civilist Papers, which focuses on such issues, Shanahan said. In his post, Hughes wrote of his time spent in the Navy and described his family. Although he did not mention it in the post, one of Hughes' sons committed suicide 2 ½ years ago at the age of 24, the Tampa Bay Times reported. "Something changed in me," Hughes told the paper. Public records show Hughes had a son named John Joseph Hughes who died. "He told us that he felt like his son did something stupid, but he had made a point," said Ben Montgomery, the Tampa Bay Times reporter who broke the story of the gyrocopter flight. "He learned a lesson out of that. And it was: If you want to make a point, you've got to do something big, as sad as that seems," Montgomery told CNN's Jake Tapper. "He's been thinking about this for 2½ years. He's pictured every scenario you could possibly imagine," Montgomery said. Shanahan said Hughes mentioned the idea

Summary: Doug Hughes, 61, said the point was to present solutions to corruption . Hughes mentioned the idea a couple of years ago, his friend says . Hughes had a son who committed suicide, report says .


(CNN)Two people, one of them a licensed greyhound trainer, have been arrested in Australia after at least 55 dog carcasses were found dumped in Queensland bush, according to Australian media reports. Two Bundaberg residents, a 71-year old man and a 64-year old woman, were each charged with one count of unlawful possession of a firearm, broadcaster ABC reported. The woman, a licensed trainer, was also charged with obstructing police. Michael Beatty, spokesman for RSPCA Queensland, told ABC that inquiries were continuing. The animal rights organization is assisting Queensland police in their investigation. "A lot of people in the area who were involved in the greyhound industry were questioned, and it was as a result of information given to us that the joint Queensland Police Service and RSPCA investigation team made those arrests," he said. At a press conference Thursday, Queensland Police Minister Jo-Ann Miller described the discovery of the carcasses, which followed a tip-off from a member of the public, as sickening. "What I believe has happened here has been the mass murder of 55 greyhounds outside of Bundaberg," she said. She promised a zero tolerance approach to animal abuse. "The people who have perpetrated this crime, to me, are oxygen thieves, they are cowards and they are pathetic." Detective Superintendent Mark Ainsworth said the crime scene was "nothing short of abhorrent." "Some of the greyhounds were in different states of decay and that would sort of indicate to us that they've been dumped there over varying periods of time," he said. "The postmortem will reveal the cause of death of these dogs. However I will comment that a number of spent .22 cartridge shells were found in the vicinity." He said there had been a number of bushfires in the area surrounding the dumping site, which would also be factored into the investigation. Beatty said it appeared the dogs would have been culled by people involved in greyhound racing. "There's always been a lot of wastage in the greyhound industry," he said in a statement. "The indications are that these may just be young dogs that didn't have the speed, basically. But that's really all we know." Australia's greyhound racing industry has been under intense scrutiny since a television investigation revealing the illegal use of live bait in training dogs aired in February. The investigation, on the ABC network, showed footage of trainers fixing live possums, piglets and rabbits to lures to be chased and mauled to death by dogs, prompting a wave of bans and suspensions from the sport. Australians wager AU$4 billion ($3.03 billion) a year on greyhound racing, according to the ABC report. Ainsworth said the Queensland police had established a joint taskforce with the RSPCA to investigate the industry in the wake of the report. "We've not even tipped the iceberg as yet," he said, appealing for those involved in the industry to come forward. "You know who you are, you know what you've been involved in, and now is the time to stand up and be counted," he said. "It will only be a matter of

Summary: Australian police have arrested two people after the discovery of 55 greyhound carcasses in bushland . They believe the dogs were dumped by people involved in the lucrative greyhound racing industry . The industry has been under fire since a television investigation revealed live baiting and other abuses .


(CNN)In a sobering example of life imitating art, the chaos sweeping the streets of Baltimore may have been partly inspired by a series of action-horror movies. Baltimore police said rioting at a shopping mall and elsewhere Monday afternoon started amid rumors, spread on social media, of a "purge" led by large groups of marauding high school students. The term appears to be a reference to 2013's "The Purge" and its sequel, last year's "The Purge: Anarchy," about a dystopian future America where on one day each year, all laws are suspended for a 12-hour period and all crimes, including murder, become temporarily legal. In the movies, set in Los Angeles, people barricade themselves in their homes at night while gangs of violent "purgers" roam the streets. The government markets the sanctioned mayhem as a catharsis that reduces crime on the other 364 days of the year -- when in fact it's really a means of population control, mostly against people living in poor urban neighborhoods. Both "Purge" movies were box-office hits and a third installment, "The Purge: Vengeance," is planned for 2016. The Baltimore Sun reported that a flier circulated widely among city school students via social media touted a "purge" to begin Monday at 3 p.m. at Mondawmin Mall and end downtown. The flier included an image of protesters smashing the windshield of a police car in Baltimore on Saturday, the Sun said. How Baltimore police, protesters battle on Twitter . Maryland's largest city has been on edge since an African-American man, Freddie Gray, died April 19 from a spinal cord injury he suffered while in police custody. Peaceful protests gave way to violence Saturday night and again Monday, as agitators threw bricks at police, looted stores and set fire to cars and buildings. Scattered references to #purge and #ThePurge began appearing in Twitter and Instagram posts Monday about the unrest in Baltimore.

Summary: Some of Baltimore's unrest may have been inspired by the "Purge" movies . Movies are about a dystopian America where all crime is temporarily legal .


(CNN)Please, not even a demonstration. Freddie Gray's family had asked there be quiet on Baltimore's streets the day they laid him to rest. And above all, no violence. Raging hordes turned a deaf ear to that on Monday. But a handful of people repeated the family's message. They became criers in the desert against countless young people flinging rocks at police, breaking windows, looting and setting fires. The peacemakers -- clergy, Gray's family and brave residents -- placed themselves in the rioters' way. Their message was the same. "I want them all to go back home," said Rev. Jamal Bryant. "It's disrespect to the family. The family was very clear -- we've been saying it all along -- today there was absolutely no protest, no demonstration," he said. But the messengers were a finger in a dam that quickly crumbled, as rowdy groups swelled into a full urban riot. It overshadowed the message peaceful protesters delivered on prior days -- justice for Gray. The 25-year-old African-American man died from spinal injuries after being arrested earlier this month. The early fits of violence came in the afternoon, about the time mourners left Gray's memorial services blocks away, Rev. Bryant said. They bumped right into it. "For us to come out of the burial and walk into this is absolutely inexcusable," he said. He did not want to see it spread to downtown Baltimore, where some rioters said it would, and organized people to stand in the way. "We have a line of gentlemen from the Nation of Islam to build a human wall, as well as men from the Christian church making that human wall," he said. But as crowds turned into multitudes, the intervention became a drop in the bucket by compare, and police lines were also no match. As officers in riot gear receded, flames engulfed cars and stores and roared out of apartment buildings into the night sky. A senior living facility under construction by a Baptist church burned to the ground. The blazes stretched the fire departments' resources, as at least 30 trucks deployed. Looters streamed into a CVS, bodegas and liquor stores and walked out with what they could carry. A young man in a blue sweatshirt tried to talk people down by himself. He walked up to CNN correspondent Miguel Martinez, as a store nearby was being looted. It later went up in flames. The man, who didn't say his name, was disgusted at what was happening in his neighborhood and disappointed in the police response to rioting. There was a line of police down the street, not far away. "They could have moved down here to stop it," he told Martinez. The Gray family's lawyers, again, put the family's wish out to the public that there be no protests that day, let alone violence. It's marring the cause and hope for change that may have come out of the investigation into Freddie Gray's death, said family attorney Mary Koch. "That's just disintegrated into just looking at Baltimore city and thinking that the city is the city

Summary: Gray's family asked there be no protests; they condemned violence . Community leaders and brave residents got in between rioters and police .


(CNN)After deliberating for more than 35 hours over parts of seven days, listening intently to the testimony of more than 130 witnesses and reviewing more than 400 pieces of evidence, the teary-eyed men and women of the jury exchanged embraces. Since late January, their work in the Massachusetts murder trial of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez had consumed their lives. It was nothing like "Law & Order." The days were long and tedious. Now it was over. "It's been an incredibly emotional toll on all of us," Lesa Strachan told CNN's Anderson Cooper Thursday in the first nationally televised interview with members of the jury. A day earlier, Strachan, the jury foreperson, announced the first-degree murder conviction in the 2013 shooting death of Hernandez's onetime friend Odin Lloyd. Strachan said she was struck by the viciousness of multiple gunshots. "You shot him once but you kept going and you shot him six times. There's no need for that and there's no need to use a gun. Period." Before the trial, at least one juror -- Rosalie Oliver -- hadn't heard of the 25-year-old defendant who has now gone from a $40 million pro-football contract to a term of life without parole in a maximum-security prison. But Kelly Dorsey watches the Patriots every Sunday during the football season. She said so on her jury questionnaire. "I knew of him as a football player, not a person," she said. It didn't affect her vote to convict, she said. It didn't matter that he was a football player, she said. Nor did it matter whether he actually pulled the trigger in the murder. "To leave your friend on the ground, knowing that he's not there anymore -- he's either dead or he's going to die -- that's indifference," Dorsey said of Hernandez. "He didn't need to pull the trigger." That word -- "indifference" -- was used multiple times by members of the jury. Jon Carlson said he was struck by testimony and video evidence that Hernandez and two co-defendants were sunbathing poolside hours after the slaying, drinking smoothies. Hernandez at times left his then-8-month-old daughter with the two men. That indifference "surprised a lot of us," Carlson said. He stressed the fact that Hernandez played football for a living didn't influence the jury's decision. "It doesn't matter how much money you have or how much money you make. We're all people, and we're all equal, and we all deserve the same fair trial, and that's what we wanted to make sure we gave him," Carlson said. Lloyd was seen June 17, 2013, around 2:30 a.m. with Hernandez and Hernandez's friends, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, in a rented silver Nissan Altima. Later that day, a jogger found his body. He had been shot six times, according to prosecutors. Wallace and Ortiz, who were also charged with murder, have pleaded not guilty and will be tried separately. What's next for Aaron Hernandez? Rosalie Oliver -- the juror who hadn't heard of Hernandez before the trial -- said that, for her, the first shot was enough. "There

Summary: "We're all equal, and we all deserve the same fair trial," says one juror . The months-long murder trial of Aaron Hernandez brought jurors together . Foreperson: "It's been an incredibly emotional toll on all of us"


(CNN)The Arizona police officer who intentionally slammed his car into an armed suspect previously faced an excessive force lawsuit in New York, according to court documents. Officer Michael Rapiejko was with the New York Police Department from 2003 to 2006. Two years after he left, he was one of the defendants in a suit filed by a man who alleged that Rapiejko pointed a gun and threatened to shoot him and handcuffed and choked him in front of his family during a 2005 arrest. The lawsuit said Luis Colon had parked his car and gotten out when Rapiejko, with his gun aimed at Colon, ordered him back into the car. During his arrest on charges of obstructing governmental administration, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, Colon alleged he was yanked from the car, handcuffed and choked. The charges against Colon were dropped six months later. Colon also sued two unnamed officers who arrived after the initial confrontation, court documents show. Colon and the city settled the suit for $20,000. The settlement said the defendants were not admitting to any wrongdoing . Rapiejko had resigned voluntarily in 2006, and there is no indication of any disciplinary action against him from the NYPD, a senior law enforcement official told CNN. The NYPD has said that it will not release further details about Rapiejko. Rapiejko's actions in Marana, Arizona, in which he drove his patrol car into a man who had fired a rifle in the air minutes earlier and before that had pointed the gun at another officer, have stirred debate about what type of force police should have used. Authorities said no charges have been brought against the officer for the February incident. The suspect, 36-year-old Mario Valencia, survived and was hospitalized before being criminally charged. Marana police Chief Terry Rozema was asked Wednesday on CNN's "New Day" whether police were fortunate that Valencia didn't die. "That very well may be ... that it's luck that he is still alive. The fact of the matter remains, though, deadly force was authorized," Rozema said. "So if he ends up dying in that situation, (then) he ends up dying, and that's unfortunate, (but) that's not the desire of everybody," the chief added. In one of the dashcam videos, an officer who was tailing a walking Valencia at slow speed reports over the radio that the suspect has fired one round in the air with a rifle he is accused of stealing that morning from a nearby Walmart. Another patrol car zooms past, runs into the man from behind, then hits a short cinder block wall next to a driveway. Video from Rapiejko's camera shows the officer's vehicle running into Valencia, with the windshield smashing as the car hits the wall. Police in Marana justified Rapiejko's actions. "We don't know that if (Rapiejko) lets him go for another 10 seconds, (Valencia) doesn't take somebody out in the parking lot," Rozema said. "And then we're answering some completely different questions: 'Why didn't you act sooner? ... This guy had a gun ... Why didn't you stop this guy

Summary: Officer Michael Rapiejko was sued in New York over claims he used excessive force during an arrest . The city settled the lawsuit while Rapiejko and others admitted no guilt . Rapiejko left the NYPD voluntarily in 2006, source tells CNN .


(CNN)Emy Afalava is a loyal American and decorated veteran. He was born in American Samoa, a U.S. territory since 1900. He has been subject to American law his whole life and thinks he should be a citizen. The Constitution would agree. The Fourteenth Amendment declares that "All persons born ... in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." Yet, Afalava has been denied the right to vote because the federal government insists that he is no citizen. How can it be, in the 21st century, that Americans born on U.S. soil are denied the rights of citizenship? That injustice clouds the recent celebration of the 115th anniversary of the decision of American Samoa to join the United States. It is a wrong that Afalava and other American Samoans are now seeking to right in a federal lawsuit before the D.C. Circuit. A decision could come any day. Since the United States was established, it adhered to the rule that those born on U.S. lands were U.S. citizens. The rule is colorblind, yet the only exception that the Supreme Court has ever declared was not. The infamous Dred Scott case legitimized slavery as it declared that free African-Americans had "no rights that the white man was bound to respect." Though they were Americans, they were not citizens under the Constitution. A Civil War later, the 14th Amendment reversed the ruling in the Dred Scott case. Today, the Dred Scott case has come to be regarded as one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. But racial discrimination didn't end there. In 1904, a Puerto Rican woman named Isabel Gonzalez sailed for New York. Because Puerto Rico was U.S. territory, she believed herself to be a U.S. citizen. But officials at Ellis Island labeled her an undesirable alien and prevented her from entering the mainland. She sued, with some reason to hope for a favorable ruling. Yet the Supreme Court that eventually heard Gonzalez's case was still racist. In preceding years, for example, it had permitted a flat ban on naturalizing anyone of the Chinese race. And, in a case addressing the status of recently acquired island territories such as Puerto Rico, the justices had cited the alleged racial inferiority of tropical peoples as reason to treat these lands as second-class U.S. territories. Justice Edward Douglas White's opinion stated that U.S. sovereignty extended over them, but that their residents did not hold the same constitutional rights as other Americans. He did so, he privately revealed, because "he was much preoccupied by the danger of racial and social questions." In the Gonzalez case, the justices agreed unanimously that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and thus not subject to immigration laws. But they declined to decide whether or not Gonzalez was a citizen. Though preoccupied by fears that islanders were "savages" and racially unfit for citizenship, they were unwilling to violate the Constitution. As a result of the court ruling, federal officials were able to deny Gonzalez and others the full panoply of rights

Summary: Emy Afalava is a loyal American and decorated veteran; he's also an American Samoan . Sam Erman and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal: It is outrageous that he and others like him are denied citizenship .


(CNN)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

Summary: 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.


(CNN)As we approach April 27 when South Africa marks the anniversary of the first post-apartheid elections held that day in 1994, we are faced with yet another wave of deadly attacks against African migrants. Outrage triggered by this violence is being heard loudly throughout social media with "#WeAreAfrica" showcasing the need for a common front against this affront. These recurring attacks against migrants and their property might be read as one more indication of how the rainbow nation's dream has faltered. That vision not only symbolized a multi-ethnic South Africa, but one where living in dignity is shared across racial and class lines. Attacks against newcomers in South Africa are often reduced to attitudes of hate and resentment towards other black Africans. The national and international headlines use "xenophobia" as if any one word can convey the multifaceted crisis within which this phenomenon occurs. Labeling this turmoil as xenophobic fails to convey the conditions in which African migrants are scapegoated for the persistent legacy of apartheid in the post-liberation era. This word also does not tell us that extreme poverty now exceeds that experienced under apartheid. And it certainly does not account for how extreme inequality is now fully embraced and normalized by a new black elite joining the "white-haves" of yesteryear. The question of why foreign blacks are targeted and not foreign whites is also repeated ad nauseam, as if the majority of black citizens and African migrants share any common spaces and experiences with white South Africans or white foreigners. Contact between the majority of African migrant groups and native black South Africans mostly occurs in under-developed informal settlements and townships. In the interaction and competition between these groups in these spaces, we need to be wary of the simplistic treatment of South Africa's ailment as xenophobia. Such labeling does not and cannot explain the totality of the contact, competition and conflict between native poor black South Africans and foreign African entrepreneurs. Attention as to how such interactions occur in an environment where a vast portion of South Africa's black majority experiences segregation, persistent and relative poverty, and high crime rates in post-apartheid South Africa is paramount. Neglecting access to social rights, such as water, electricity, education and other services, is tantamount to violence by political leaders against the poor. Condemning and prosecuting those who incite violence is essential to maintaining law and order and protecting those vulnerable because of their nationality. But the evictions, harassment and ultimately brutal killings of foreigners cannot and should not be separated from the daily brutal violence poor South Africans in informal settlements and many townships experience. It cannot and should not be separated from South Africa's status as one of the most unequal societies in the world; it cannot and should not be separated from the fact that South Africa has one of the highest homicide levels in the world. A mantra of xenophobia wishes away the fact that the everyday lives of those in vulnerable positions in this society (the poor, the disabled, women, children, the elderly) are filled with violence similar

Summary: Xenophobia cannot explain the conflict between native poor black South Africans and foreign African entrepreneurs, says Abdi . Killings of foreigners cannot be separated from the brutal violence poor South Africans experience, she adds.


(CNN)Blue Bell ice cream has temporarily shut down one of its manufacturing plants over the discovery of listeria contamination in a serving of ice cream originating from that plant. Public health officials warned consumers Friday not to eat any Blue Bell-branded products made at the company's Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, plant. That includes 3-ounce servings of Blue Bell ice cream from this plant that went to institutions in containers marked with the letters O, P, Q, R, S or T behind the coding date. The warning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not affect other Blue Bell ice cream, including other 3-ounce servings, not made at the plant. But Blue Bell has recalled other products. The company is shutting down the Broken Arrow facility "out of an abundance of caution" to search for a possible cause of contamination. It is the third time Blue Bell has taken action in light of a listeria outbreak at a Kansas hospital that served the company's ice cream. Listeria monocytogenes was recently found in a cup of ice cream recovered from the hospital. The cup contaminated with the bacteria was produced at the Broken Arrow plant in April 2014, Blue Bell said. And, according to the CDC, listeria bacteria was found in additional samples of the same product that were recovered from the plant. The bacteria in the hospital sample and the factory sample appeared to match each other genetically, the CDC said. But they did not appear identical to listeria samples taken from patients infected in the Kansas outbreak. In a separate outbreak in Texas, the CDC did find that listeria samples taken from patients who came down with listeriosis between 2010 and 2014 in a hospital that served 3-ounce Blue Bell cups matched the listeria in recovered samples. None of this means the ice cream is the source of either spate of the infections. "Investigation to determine whether these illnesses are related to exposure to Blue Bell products is ongoing," the CDC said. In early March, in light of the Kansas listeria outbreak, Blue Bell recalled a group of products made at a plant in Texas. It later added 3-ounce cup servings to the recall. Five people were infected and three died in the past year in Kansas from listeria that might be linked to Blue Bell Creameries products, according to the CDC. All five of them were hospitalized at the same hospital before developing listeriosis, the CDC said. At least four of them had consumed milkshakes made with Blue Bell ice cream before developing the infection. "We are devastated and know that Blue Bell has to be and can be better than this," Paul Kruse, Blue Bell CEO and president, said in a statement. "Quality and safety have always been our top priorities. We are deeply saddened and concerned for all those who have been affected." The CDC advises that individuals and institutions should check their freezers for the recalled products and throw them away. In a statement on its website, Blue Bell said "this recall in no way includes Blue

Summary: A test in Kansas finds listeria in a Blue Bell ice cream cup . The company announces it is temporarily shutting a plant to check for the source . Three people in Kansas have died from a listeria outbreak .


Boston (CNN)Sending Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to prison for the rest of his life would bring years of punishment and rob him of martyrdom, jurors were told Monday. "We have seen more pain and more horror and more grief in this courtroom than any of you would have thought possible," attorney David Bruck said as Tsarnaev's defense team began what could be a two-week campaign to avoid the death penalty. "No punishment could ever be equal to the terrible effects of this crime on the survivors and the victims' families," he said. "There is no evening of the scales. There is no point of trying to hurt him as he hurt because it can't be done. All we can do, all you can do is make the best choice." Bruck told jurors there are only two punishments for them to choose from: death, or life in prison without any possibility of parole. "We are asking you to punish Jahar by imprisoning him for the rest of his life." Showing the court a photo of the federal Supermax prison in Colorado, Bruck said: . "This is where the government keeps other terrorists who used to be famous but aren't anymore. ... He goes here and he's forgotten. No more spotlight, like the death penalty brings. "No interviews with the news media, no autobiography, no messages from Jahar on the Internet. No nothing. "No martyrdom. Just years and years of punishment, day after day, as he grows up to deal with the lonely struggle of dealing with what he did. "The evidence will show that if you sentence Jahar to a lifetime of thinking about what he did, you'll both punish him and protect society." Tsarnaev, 21, was convicted this month of all 30 counts against him; 17 of those counts carry the death penalty for the murders of four -- Krystle Campbell, 29; Lingzi Lu, 23; Martin Richard, 8; and Sean Collier, 26. In deciding whether the former college student is executed for his crimes or spends the rest of his days in a high-security federal prison, jurors must weigh the heinousness of his crime and the toll on his victims against so-called mitigating factors, such as his relative youth, mental health and family background, and whether or not he is remorseful. He has shown no emotion as he sits in court, and he has avoided eye contact with maimed bombing survivors and relatives of the dead. Last week, federal prosecutors presented three days of gut-wrenching victim impact testimony, including an array of images showing the victims as happy, active people and edited videos that added a soundtrack featuring a loud explosion, screams and panicked voices to the horrific bombing scene outside the Forum restaurant, where Richard and Lu died. Lead defense attorney Judy Clarke -- a nationally known death penalty opponent -- has acknowledged that Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, set off the bombs and shot MIT campus cop Collier. But she is expected to build a narrative showing her client as a puppet of his dominant older brother. Tamerlan Tsarnaev,

Summary: Defense expected to show Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a puppet of his dominant older brother . A deadlocked jury would result in an automatic life sentence for Tsarnaev .


(CNN)He wouldn't give his name. But the name tattooed on his neck -- Gertrude -- gave him away. That's what Kankakee County, Illinois, Sheriff Tim Bukowski said Saturday about Kamron Taylor, the 23-year-old convicted murderer turned jail escapee until his arrest overnight in Chicago. Authorities around Illinois had been looking for Taylor since early Wednesday, when he jumped a correctional officer at Kankakee's Jerome Combs Detention Center, then took off with the guard's uniform and SUV. Surveillance video was the last officials saw of Taylor until just before midnight Friday, in Chicago. "They saw a guy that matched the description," Bukowski said. "And if you're in law enforcement very long, you just get a feeling that something's not right. ... I think that's what happened." The suspect ran five city blocks before being tracked down, carrying a loaded handgun. He didn't go easily, refusing to identify himself. But when Chicago police contacted their law enforcement counterparts about 60 miles south in Kankakee County and told them about the tattoo, it became clearer who the man was. As Bukowski said of the Gertrude tattoo, "It's not a common name to have around your neck." Fingerprints later confirmed that Chicago police had indeed caught up with Taylor. While not offering details beyond that no one is thought to have driven him north nor did a tipster call to specify his location, Bukowski did say "we have some ideas of where he went and how he ended up" in the Windy City. It wasn't immediately known either when Taylor will return to Kankakee County. But, when he does, the sheriff said the convict will likely face an attempted murder charge for his attack of the jail guard on top of his already extensive criminal history. Murderer overpowers guard, drives off in his SUV . Bukowski said he expects that Taylor will eventually be incarcerated outside Kankakee County, in part because "you don't want someone to raise" the idea that guards there might somehow seek retaliation for the attack on one of their own. What the sheriff doesn't want is for Taylor to go free ever again. This is a man, after all, who killed a man in a June 2013 botched robbery, had to be wrestled to the ground by bailiffs after his conviction in late February, then escaped jail after assaulting the guard. "He's not going to walk down the block again, I don't believe," Bukowski said. The assaulted correctional officer remains in an Illinois hospital, where his condition has improved and he's been able to talk to fellow authorities. This qualifies as very good news, given that authorities think Taylor "believed that he had killed that correctional officer by strangling him" around 3 a.m. (4 a.m. ET) Wednesday, according to the sheriff. The guard was making his rounds when he was attacked from the side, then severely beaten and choked. Taylor then allegedly disrobed the guard, a military veteran and 10-year employee of the corrections department. The guard was left on the jail floor, going in and out of consciousness, for about 35

Summary: The sheriff says a "big mistake" contributed to the inmate's escape . 2 months after being convicted of murder, Kamron Taylor escaped an Illinois jail . He is captured by police 60 miles away in Chicago, authorities say .


(HLNtv)Actress Alyssa Milano had some angry tweets for Heathrow Airport authorities Thursday morning after workers there allegedly confiscated breast milk she'd pumped for her daughter while she was on a plane. Milano, who was on a trip with her husband that she described in an earlier tweet as a "romantic getaway," was furious. According to the Heathrow Airport guidelines on its website regarding baby food and/or milk, the airport asks that travelers carry only what they need for the flight. A blogger mom apparently experienced a similar issue at the airport in 2011 when her pumped milk was also confiscated. Per the UK Department of Transport, travelers can carry breast milk through security and are allowed quantities larger than 100ml if necessary. Milano, who has long been an outspoken advocate of breastfeeding, said the cooler the milk was in was also confiscated. See the original story at HLNtv.com.

Summary: Milano had pumped while on plane . Travelers are asked to carry only what they need .


(CNN)This is week three of an ongoing series: A Catholic Reads the Bible. Read week one and week two. When I started this project, my brother texted me, "Wait until you get to Lot." By Sunday afternoon, I understood what he meant. I am horrified by the story of Lot in Genesis. Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was new to me. I actually hadn't put two and two together that Sodom is the origin of the word sodomy. (Feel free to call me dense as you read this). Lot is the central character in the grim story of Sodom and Gomorrah's demise in Chapter 19. You are introduced to the city by Abraham who tries to save the town. In the preceding chapter, Abraham asks God to agree that if he can find 10 good people in the town, God won't smite it. God agrees. Lot is visited by divine emissaries to investigate if there are indeed enough good people to save the town. The men of the town come to seek out the new visitors for "intimacies." Ahem. Yeah. Hospitable bunch, huh? Those "intimacies," we are meant to understand, account for Sodom's wickedness. And I guess meant that the town was doomed. ("Intimacies" is the term used in my 1991 edition of the New American Bible. The revised edition refers to "sexual relations.") To protect the emissaries from the mob, Lot offers up his virginal daughters. Which. Ugh. Anyway, it doesn't work. There apparently aren't enough good men to save Sodom, which leads to God destroying yet another population in Genesis. Oh, and while Lot's chosen family members flee the destruction, Lot's wife turns around and is turned to salt. She had been warned not to look back. After God destroys Sodom, Lot's daughters worry that there aren't any men left, so they get their father good and drunk and have sex with him. They need to have children to keep the human race going, the logic goes, I guess. After reading that section, I put my Bible down. I couldn't read anymore. Then I read it again. What was I reading? What are the morals, the meaning, I'm supposed to get from these ghastly stories? This is not the God that I have known for nearly 42 years. It's not the version of the God I pray to daily. I truly don't believe in a God that wipes out a town in general because of sexuality. Why are they wicked? I don't believe that my God that would go after one group -- any group. The God that I pray to doesn't punish the "wicked" like this. I can't comprehend this version of God. I can't believe in that kind of God. There were much easier things to write about this week in the pages that I read. But, I want to be truthful with you, my readers. The Lot story struck me -- hard. I wish that I had answers for you as to why this happened or how it was written many years ago. But

Summary: This is week three of an ongoing series: A Catholic Reads the Bible. Read week one and week two. This week's reading is a Lot to take in. Literally.