(CNN)The United States is failing its partners. If you want to understand one of the reasons that terrorism has been allowed to spread, it is that the majority of our partners do not have credible and capable special operations forces to respond to and defeat the current threat -- and we're not doing nearly enough to address the problem. The trouble is that little of our foreign military financing -- including the recent Counterterrorism Partnership Funds -- goes toward this vital facet in our efforts to counter extremism. As a result, violent extremists are making troubling gains. It's not because we don't recognize the problem -- nor that we don't talk the talk. The 2015 National Security Strategy speaks to the importance of American-led partnerships, while the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review noted that we "will rebalance our counterterrorism efforts toward greater emphasis on building partnership capacity." Despite this apparent recognition, the United States is not where it needs to be and instead finds itself constantly responding to crises instead of heading them off because of the failure to prioritize long-term investment in special operations units in key partner nations. As a result of this neglect, since the attacks of September 11, 2001, we have seen deadly terrorist attacks not just in the Middle East, but also in Indonesia, India and sub-Saharan Africa. Just look at the case of Kenya. On September 21, 2013, Al-Shabaab jihadists attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, executing dozens of unarmed men, women, and children. Less than two years later, at Garissa University, Al-Shabaab jihadists attacked university dormitories, butchering almost 150 people. The perpetrators were separating the Christians from the Muslims and systemically executing the Christians before detonating their suicide vests. During both incidents, the Kenyan forces' response was horribly executed. Sadly, Kenya is not the exception -- and it is by no means the only country missing out on vital U.S. assistance. In 2015, U.S. taxpayers are providing $5.65 billion in foreign military finance, the majority of which is going to Israel and Egypt. Kenya, meanwhile, was slated to receive a mere $1.2 million. Nigeria, which is grappling with the rising threat of violent extremists in the shape of Boko Haram, has been afforded only $600,000. Simply put, the United States is spreading foreign military assistance too thin, while also failing to make necessary long-term commitments. It takes years to build special operations forces with credible capabilities. But although it is a worthwhile investment in terms of resources and energy, U.S. security assistance is not supporting enduring programs that build credible special operations partners. The reality is that we are not selling or giving our partners the capabilities that are critical to defeating the imminent threats they face today in hybrid warfare. We are also failing to develop long-term programs of record, bringing to bear all elements of national power as we did with Plan Colombia. This program, as well as the recent U.S. mission to support our Filipino partners against Abu Sayyaf, demonstrates the power of a persistent presence by U.S. Special Forces when coupled with

Summary: Meaghan Keeler-Pettigrew, Stuart Bradin: U.S. must rethink special forces . United States is spreading foreign military assistance too thin, they say .


(CNN)The presence of a harmful pesticide at a luxury villa in the U.S. Virgin Islands may have resulted in the illness of a Delaware family, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday. Paramedics were called last week to a rented villa at the Sirenusa resort in St. John after the family of four fell ill. They had rented the villa from March 14 to March 22, and were later hospitalized. The illness was reported to the EPA on March 20. "Our preliminary results do show that there was a presence of methyl bromide in the unit where the family was staying," said Elias Rodriguez, an EPA spokesman. Exposure to methyl bromide can result in serious health effects, including central nervous system and respiratory system damage, according to the EPA. The use of the pesticide is restricted in the United States because of its acute toxicity. It's not allowed to be used indoors. Only certified professionals are permitted to use it in certain agricultural settings. "It's an ongoing investigation; we're still on the island doing our assessment," Rodriguez said. "We have been doing different types of air sampling and wipe sampling." Final test results were expected next week. The EPA is working with local government agencies to investigate whether the family was made ill after a fumigation at the resort on March 18 and whether any environmental regulations or laws were violated. "Pesticides can be very toxic, and it is critically important that they be applied properly and used only as approved by EPA," said Judith A. Enck, a regional administrator for the EPA. "The EPA is actively working to determine how this happened and will make sure steps are taken to prevent this from happening to others at these vacation apartments or elsewhere." Depending on the season, the luxury villa where the family stayed rents between $550 and $1,200 per night. Sea Glass Vacations, which acts as a rental agent for several units at Sirenusa, said that the unit directly below the one where the family stayed was recently treated for pests, but that their unit was not treated. The company said it licensed an outside company, Terminix, for the pest control services. "Sea Glass Vacations does not treat the units it manages for pests but instead relies on licensed professionals for pest control services," the company said in a statement. The U.S. Department of Justice has initiated a criminal investigation into the matter, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing made Monday by ServiceMaster Global Holdings, the parent company of Terminix. In an email to CNN, a spokesman for Terminix wrote that the company is "committed to performing all work ... in a manner that is safe for our customers, employees, the public and the environment" and is "looking into this matter internally, and cooperating with authorities." "We're thinking about the family, and we join the community in wishing them a speedy recovery," Terminix wrote. James Maron, an attorney who has been a spokesman for the family, has not responded to requests for comment. The SEC filing described the

Summary: Delaware family becomes ill at the Sirenusa resort in the U.S. Virgin Islands . Preliminary EPA results find methyl bromide was present in unit where family stayed . U.S. Justice Department has initiated a criminal investigation into the matter .


(CNN)The man who beat serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to death inside a Wisconsin prison says he did it because of Dahmer's creepy sense of humor -- which included turning prison food into fake limbs covered with ketchup to resemble blood, the New York Post reports. Christopher Scarver, who was sentenced to two life terms in prison for killing Dahmer and another man at Columbia Correctional Institution in 1994, said the confessed cannibal would leave the fake limbs around the prison where others would find them. "He crossed the line with some people -- prisoners, prison staff," the newspaper quoted Scarver as saying. "Some people who are in prison are repentant -- but he was not one of them." In a separate story, the Post quotes Dahmer's former prison minister as saying the convict would make jokes about this cannibalistic past. "If he saw a guard that was nervous and standing near enough to hear him, he would say, 'I bite,'" the newspaper quoted the pastor, Roy Ratcliff, as saying. "Usually the guard would jump away and that would make Jeff laugh." "He sort of played with his persona to exaggerate it and make people more fearful," Ratcliff said. "This was just his way — a morbid humor to deal with his hopeless situation." Scarver was convicted of killing Dahmer on November 28, 1994. He told the Post that he killed Dahmer and another inmate, Jesse Anderson, after an altercation while they were together unsupervised on a work detail. Scarver said he kept a newspaper article detailing Dahmer's crimes, which included killing 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, having sex with corpses, keeping some of the body parts and eating others. Just before he killed Dahmer, Scarver said, he confronted him with the clipping. "I asked him if he did those things 'cause I was fiercely disgusted. He was shocked. Yes, he was," the Post quoted Scarver as saying. Scarver said he hit Dahmer twice in the head with a metal bar from a weight room. He then killed Anderson, who was working in a different room.

Summary: Jeffrey Dahmer's killer tells New York Post he did it because of the convict's creepy practical jokes . Dahmer's former minister tells the paper he'd say to guard, "I bite"


Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN)Kathmandu is a city with few good stories right now, but Tanka Maya Sitoula has one of them. The 40-year-old mother-of-four was at home when Saturday's deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck, bringing the 5-story building down around her ground floor apartment. In the wake of the disaster, which has left at least 4,500 people dead across Nepal, Sitoula endured 36 long hours trapped in a room on the ground floor, before she was freed by an Indian rescue team. Remarkably, she escaped without injury, apparently protected by a beam. Sitoula, who talked to CNN through an interpreter, says she remained confident she would survive throughout her ordeal amid the rubble. "I heard people making noise outside so I thought I would be rescued," she said, as she and her family sheltered in the grounds of a nearby school. "I was confident that everybody was there outside and that I would be rescued." What did she do for 36 hours? "I was just lying down," she says. "There was no room to move here and there." Sitoula's husband Mahendra, a butcher, said he called out for help for hours after the quake, as he could hear her shouting in the rubble of the collapsed building. "I was totally confident that she was there," he said. "I never stopped calling her. And also from down below she was making sounds and I could hear her." It took 18 hours before the necessary help arrived, he said. And it took another 18 hours to free her. "I was asking people for help. Traffic police, whoever I could find. What happened was there were no tools to cut through the metal debris." Eventually, a rescue team from India had the equipment required, he said. Throughout the ordeal, he never gave up hope, he says: "I was confident that my wife was safe and sound." He was only concerned about how she would fare during the attempt to free her. Inspector Karam Singh from India's National Disaster Management Authority was supervising search and rescue efforts at the Sitoulas' former home Tuesday -- a bright pink building, pancaked into two levels, with an entire wall sheared off to reveal its purple interior. He described the rescue efforts as physically draining work -- "cutting, pushing and pulling" -- but extremely rewarding in the case of Sitoula. "She was happy, so so happy. She wasn't stopping praising us," he said. "We said it's good to have a [survivor]." Singh said workers had recovered one body from the building, adding that he believed eight to 10 others remained trapped inside. But as a French team of sniffer dogs completed a sweep of the ruins with no promising signs, following a search with a sensor earlier which also showed no signs of life, Singh said there was "no chance" of finding any survivors. As a digger worked to clear the rubble of her former home, Sitoula agreed: two days after her rescue, she says it is highly unlikely there are others as lucky as her, still surviving beneath the rubble. The

Summary: Tanka Maya Sitoula was at home in Kathmandu, Nepal, when deadly quake struck . She was trapped inside the ruins of her wrecked home for 36 hours .


(CNN)Their eyes reflect childhoods marked by tragedy. Their faces show wrinkles made deeper by pain and the passage of time. Tomasz Lazar spent hours photographing and interviewing adults who were ripped from their homes as children in the 1940s and forced to live thousands of miles away in Siberia. "For me those faces are like maps," Lazar said. "The more you look at them, the more you are discovering." Soviet authorities invaded Poland during World War II and deported hundreds of thousands of Poles. Some were sent to prison camps in the frozen wilderness of central Russia. Many were children. In effect, Moscow stole much of an entire generation of young Poles, a handful of whom Lazar has located seven decades later. During Lazar's interviews, many of the survivors broke down in tears. "It was very traumatic for them," he said. "Some lost mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters -- killed by the Soviets." Lazar remembers hearing 84-year-old Boguslaw Dokurno recall his grandfather's dying wish. Dokurno's grandfather asked his grandson to return home to Poland after his death to retrieve Polish soil and bring it back to his Siberian gravesite. Another exile, Sofia Bocian, told Lazar how her brother escaped their prison camp, leaving her with the horrifying experience of being interrogated by Soviet secret police. Lazar began his professional photography career in 2006 after fully realizing the medium's storytelling power. "For me when you're doing photography -- whether it's conventional journalism or other types -- you want to share something with people," he said. Social media . Follow @CNNPhotos on Twitter to join the conversation about photography. Lazar said the interviews surprised him. Despite his subjects' traumatic experiences, "they welcomed me with open arms," he recalled. "They really wanted to share their stories." Fearing for their safety, they couldn't tell their stories publicly until the fall of the Soviet Union. Now that they're in their 80s, time is running out for them to document their struggles. Look at Lazar's images. The faces fill each frame. Each portrait is unique. Before taking each photo, he waited "for the moment when they really started going inside themselves," he said. "Those people are really strong in their souls." Their stories should be documented for history, he said, to remind future generations "not to make the same mistakes." Tomasz Lazar is a Polish photographer. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Summary: The Soviets invaded Poland in World War II and deported hundreds of thousands of people . Tomasz Lazar photographed some of these Poles and listened to their stories .


(CNN)According to an outside review by Columbia Journalism School professors, "(a)n institutional failure at Rolling Stone resulted in a deeply flawed article about a purported gang rape at the University of Virginia." The Columbia team concluded that "The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking." Hardly a ringing endorsement of the editorial process at the publication. The magazine's managing editor, Will Dana, wrote, "We would like to apologize to our readers and to all of those who were damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout, including members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and UVA administrators and students." Brian Stelter: Fraternity to 'pursue all available legal action' The next question is: . Can UVA, Phi Kappa Psi or any of the other fraternities on campus sue for defamation? The Virginia Supreme Court said in Jordan v. Kollman that "the elements of libel are (1) publication of (2) an actionable statement with (3) the requisite intent." "Actionable" means the statement must be both false and defamatory. Of course, the law of defamation must be balanced against the freedom of speech protected under not only the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, but also the Virginia Constitution. True statements cannot be defamatory. Neither can pure statements of opinion, because they theoretically cannot be either true or false. But the Rolling Stone article certainly purported to be fact, and it apparently is not exactly what the law considers "true." The individual members of the fraternity will likely be considered private individuals, and not public figures; the latter have a harder time proving defamation. A private person suing for defamation must establish that the defendant has published a false factual statement that is about the person and that it also harms the person's reputation. The private plaintiff also must show that the defendant knew that the statement was false, or believed it was true but lacked a reasonable basis, or acted negligently in checking the facts. At first blush, that sounds like it fits perfectly, right? The Columbia report may go a long way toward establishing at least a modicum of the required intent. But that's only half the battle. There are strict rules about who can be a plaintiff in a defamation action like this. The identity of the aspiring plaintiff matters. First, let's eliminate UVA. The university is a public university, and therefore it is a governmental entity. The Supreme Court has been clear on the issue of libelous statements about the government: The government cannot sue for defamation. There is no such cause of action in American jurisprudence. Now the fraternities, starting with Phi Kappa Psi. A fraternity is not an individual, but a group. A plaintiff in a defamation case must show that the statements were "of or concerning" the plaintiff. It sounds obvious, but if you're going to say a statement hurt you, you have to prove the statement actually was about you to begin with. When the statements are about a group without naming an individual, it's hard to say the statement is "concerning" the individual --

Summary: An outside review found that a Rolling Stone article about campus rape was "deeply flawed" Danny Cevallos says that there are obstacles to a successful libel case, should one be filed .


(CNN)As the model for Norman Rockwell's "Rosie the Riveter," Mary Doyle Keefe became the symbol of American women working on the home front during World War II. The 92-year-old died this week at her home in Simsbury, Connecticut. As a 19-year-old telephone operator, Keefe posed for the famous painting that would become the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943. Although she was petite, Keefe was transformed into the iconic -- and burly -- embodiment of the character by Rockwell. "Other than the red hair and my face, Norman Rockwell embellished Rosie's body," Keefe said in a 2012 interview with the Hartford Courant. "I was much smaller than that and did not know how he was going to make me look like that until I saw the finished painting." People we've lost in 2015 . Keefe pocketed $10 for the two mornings of modeling work she did in Arlington, Vermont. Rockwell lived in neighboring West Arlington at the time. "Rosie the Riveter" is often confused with another popular image from the same era. The poster shows a woman flexing her arm under the slogan "We Can Do It." It was part of a nationwide campaign to sell war bonds, but is not the same character. Still, many folks on social media paid tribute to Keefe using the image. Both show the key role women played in the war effort.

Summary: "Rosie the Riveter" appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943 . Mary Doyle Keefe was a 19-year-old telephone operator at the time .


(CNN)For the fifth year in a row in 2014, ambush attacks on police officers were the No. 1 cause of felonious deaths of law enforcement officers in the line of duty. Nevertheless, Google continues to market a smartphone application that lets lawbreakers pinpoint the location of police officers in the field. Google's executives won't even discuss the subject with organizations representing law enforcement. Google's popular real-time traffic app, Waze, uses GPS navigation and crowdsourcing to alert users to traffic jams, automobile accidents, stalled cars, and through its "traffic cop" feature, the presence of law enforcement. Most people undoubtedly use Waze's police-finding feature to avoid traffic tickets, but the app poses an enormous risk to deputies and police officers. In the days before he assassinated New York police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu at point blank range while they sat in their patrol car last December, Ismaaiyl Brinsley is known to have used the Waze application to monitor the movements of police officers. The killer identified the location of police on his own Waze account and even posted screen captures to Instagram. While Google (which acquired Waze in 2013 for a reported $1.1 billion) claims the app "is all about contributing to the 'common good' out there on the road," the risks far outweigh the potential benefits. Every day, thousands of police officers and deputies enforce traffic laws, execute arrest and search warrants, investigate domestic violence complaints and perform countless tasks that are needed to keep our neighborhoods safe and remove criminals from the streets. It takes just a couple of clicks on Waze's "traffic cop" icon to identify their locations and indicate whether -- in the opinion of the anonymous user -- the officer is "visible" or "invisible." At that moment, the officer or deputy becomes an identifiable target whose whereabouts are available to any one of Waze's 50 million users worldwide. Social media has made enormous contributions to law enforcement as a "force multiplier" that lets citizens help police protect our communities. As we have seen with the emergence of crimes like identity theft, however, technology has the potential for evil as well as good. In the case of Waze, we are confronted with a tool that can be lethal to police officers and deputies, whose roles in society are to protect our citizens and enforce the laws that keep our communities safe. Google, whose stated mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," is now marketing an app with the potential to obstruct law enforcement and put the lives of police officers and deputies at risk. Even the more benign uses of Waze's "traffic cop" feature are concerning. In 2013, 10,076 people were killed in alcohol-related automobile accidents. And in 2011, 9,944 people lost their lives in speed-related fatal crashes. Is the highest, best use of Google's geo-mapping and crowdsourcing capabilities to help drunk drivers avoid checkpoints and give speeders assistance in evading speed limits? It's not just the speeders and drunk drivers who have access to the locations of police officers through

Summary: David A. Clarke Jr. and Jonathan Thompson: Why does Google have an app that ambushes police? With Waze, we are confronted with a tool that can be lethal to police officers and deputies .


Rome (CNN)The Italian navy has boarded and retaken control of a fishing boat that had been seized hours earlier by gunmen off the coast of Sicily, the Italian military said Friday. The boat, named Airone, was intercepted some 90 kilometers (56 miles) from the Libyan port of Misrata, according to a statement from the Italian Joint Forces. An Italian naval unit boarded the fishing boat and took custody of a Libyan soldier on the vessel, according to a statement by the Italian Navy. It said during the operation, rifle shots were accidentally fired, and one of the seven fisherman on board was slightly injured. The Airone, carrying three Sicilians and four Tunisians, had embarked from Mazara del Vallo in Sicily five days earlier to fish for shrimp. The Airone's captain said there were about 10 other ships in the area when it was seized, according to Vito Mazzarino, the boat's owner. "At a certain point a tug boat came up and flanked the fish boat and some Libyans came on board," Mazzarino said, quoting the captain, Alberto Figuccia. "They were armed. And at that point chaos erupted." Italy is a major gateway to Europe for migrants from North Africa. Thousands of people each year make the dangerous sea journey from North Africa to Europe's Mediterranean coast, to flee war and poverty. Italy registered more than 10,000 migrants in the first three months of 2015, according to the International Organization for migration. On Monday, gunmen on a speedboat fired shots in the air and sped away with a wooden boat that was being used to transport migrants, according to Frontex, the European Union's border management agency. That incident occurred 60 nautical miles from the Libyan coast. The 250 migrants on board had already been transferred on to a different boat, Frontex said on its website. "This is a sign that smugglers in Libya are running short of boats and are more willing to use weapons to recover those used to transport the migrants," said Fabrice Leggeri, Frontex's executive director, in a news release. Italian police: Muslim migrants threw Christians overboard .

Summary: Italian Navy retakes fishing boat seized by smugglers . Boat was being steered towards Libyan port of Misrata . Italian navy says shots were fired accidentally, one fisherman injured .


(CNN)I've been a chef in some form or another since I was 14 years old, but I didn't become a food activist until much later. It was 2007, and a young girl my wife mentored was found rooting through the trash just to find something to eat. That inspired me to found Food Policy Action and become politically active in a range of food issues, from hunger to factory farms. Of course, I haven't been alone in this work. One of the biggest catalysts has been "The Meatrix," a 2003 animation parody based on "The Matrix" and produced by the GRACE Communications Foundation, which crystallized the public health risks and environmental harms of factory farming. Recently, "The Meatrix: Relaunched" came out. Much more than a comical redux, it's an important benchmark in the evolution of the sustainable food movement and compels us to look back at how far we've come over the last decade -- and how far we still have to go. A decade ago, concepts like "sustainable farming," "animal welfare" and "organic food" were considered fringe. While some consumers were beginning to take interest in where their meat and produce came from, public knowledge of sustainable food was limited. The standard gut-wrenching images of animal cruelty and sickly calves were ineffectual and mostly turned people off instead of urging them to make better food choices. Meanwhile, factory farms continued to reap large profits while producing subpar meat, polluting air and water resources, and damaging the public's health. To be sure, America's food system is complex, and some may argue that industrial farming has been a necessity to meet our country's food needs. However, the quality of our food has been sacrificed at this supposed altar of necessity, as industrial farms reap enormous profits that they direct toward lobbying rather than improving the quality of food they produce. In 2014 alone, the biggest meatpackers and their trade groups spent a combined $4.3 million on lobbyists. And it has paid off for them: Factory farms often avoid penalties for the damage they cause to the environment and public health; and they receive ridiculous subsidies from the U.S. government that totaled $58.7 million in 2012, according to the Environmental Working Group. These factors drive down the cost of industrially sourced meat at a rate that smaller farms can't keep up with. And since the actual costs of industrially raised meat are hidden, humanely raised meat appears expensive by comparison. That's neither fair nor safe. We all deserve to know where the food we eat comes from and that it is wholesome, and we need our elected officials to take a stand against big agri-businesses to quit letting them profit off of meat and produce that jeopardize the health of the environment and the public. It's time that consumer demand for sustainable and humane food trumps the power that industrial farms hold over our elected officials. The original "Meatrix" cartoon used pop culture references and family-friendly cartoons to educate consumers about the dangers of factory farming, compel them to make better food choices and

Summary: Tom Colicchio: "The Meatrix: Relaunched" is an important benchmark of the evolution of sustainable food movement . But factory farms continued to reap large profits while producing subpar meat, polluting nature and damaging our health . Colicchio: We need to ask members of Congress to promote sustainable farming .


(CNN)The announcement this year of a new, original Dr. Seuss book sent a wave of nostalgic giddiness across Twitter, and months before publication, the number of pre-orders for "What Pet Should I Get?" continues to climb. To keep up with demand, the book's first printing was increased from 500,000 to 1 million copies, Barbara Marcus, president and publisher of Random House Children's Books, said in a news release Monday. "We were absolutely overjoyed to see the response to 'What Pet Should I Get?' from every corner of the book world -- the bookselling community, media, educators, and readers nationwide," Marcus said. The publisher also released to CNN a never-before-seen image from the new volume by Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Geisel. It features a brother and sister familiar to Seuss fans as they ogle a prim feline in a pet shop window and ponder: . "We want a pet. We want a pet. What kind of pet . should we get?" When "What Pet Should I Get?" debuts July 28, it will be the first new, original Dr. Seuss book since "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" in 1990. It features the spirited siblings from the beloved classic "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish" and is believed to have been written between 1958 and 1962. "Ted loved and had pets himself, as a young boy on up through adulthood, and that makes the wonderful excitement and buzz for this new book all the more special," said Susan Brandt, president, licensing and marketing of Dr. Seuss Enterprises. Geisel's widow, Audrey Geisel, found the manuscript and illustrations in their California home soon after her husband died in 1991. The materials were set aside and then rediscovered in 2013. Random House Children's Books said in February that it expects to release additional books from the found materials. It only seems to prove the brother and sister's lesson from "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish." "From there to here, . from here to there, . funny things . are everywhere."

Summary: Dr. Seuss' new book, "What Pet Should I Get?" will have a first printing of 1 million copies . The publisher released a never-before-seen image from inside the book by Theodor Geisel .


Atlanta (CNN)It was a scene worthy of any top cop show on TV -- bullets flying, banged-up cars and the FBI chasing an armed robbery suspect. In the end, two agents were injured in a crash and the suspect was shot before being captured. FBI agents and task force officers were following 36-year-old Kevone Charleston of Austell, Georgia, as he pulled into a CVS pharmacy in Forsyth County, Georgia, early Saturday. Charleston is suspected of involvement in 32 commercial robberies dating to November 2013, according to FBI officials. "The incident all happened around 7 o'clock Saturday morning," said FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett. "There were multiple agents and officers that were following him based on his prior MO, and when they saw he was about to rob another CVS, they moved in." Authorities say Charleston parked his vehicle nearby and then popped the hood as if there were something wrong. Then he walked to the CVS, preparing to enter. When agents confronted him, Charleston ran, got in his car and traveled about 75 yards as agents opened fire. "There were several FBI vehicles that were rammed or were hit by the suspect's vehicle when he was trying to flee. One government vehicle sustained heavy damage to its front and side, and another government SUV ended up on its side. That's how the two agents sustained their injuries," Emmett said. Twelve FBI agents and six government vehicles followed Charleston. Emmett said Charleston "was trying to get away, our agents were trying to stop him. He collided with the first government vehicle, the Taurus, then the second, and the SUV ended on its side. "The perp was stopped 8 feet away in the median, and that's where he received his gunshot wounds." The two agents were treated at an area hospital and released, according to Emmett, who says "they are fine." Charleston was shot and wounded by FBI agents and task force officers, but his injuries are not life threatening, according to Forsyth County Sheriff's Deputy Robin Regan. Although he declined to give details of the 32 previous robberies, Emmett said it was an intensive investigation that was already underway as a priority for the FBI's violent crimes and major offender squad. He added, "His MO involved armed confrontations, so our officers went into this fully prepared for an armed confrontation based on his past history." Emmett says he's relieved that the FBI's officers and agents are OK and that the suspect is in custody. He said it was the "conclusion of an intensive and lengthy investigation." CNN's Vivian Kuo and Ryan Scallan contributed to this report.

Summary: FBI agents and a suspected serial robber exchange gunfire in an FBI stakeout . Two FBI agents are injured and the suspect is shot during the gunfight .


(CNN)Slamming world powers' framework nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday demanded that any final deal include a "clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel's right to exist." Netanyahu has been perhaps the most vocal critic of nuclear talks with Iran, insisting again and again it can't be trusted. He took his case to the U.S. Congress last month, at a time before negotiators had hammered out any sort of agreement, over the objections of President Barack Obama. There's never been any dispute about his take, but the Prime Minister has sharpened his rhetoric in recent days, saying the deal increases the risk of a "horrific war." Iranian President: We will stick to our promises on nuclear deal . Netanyahu has lobbied hard for a deal that dismantles and disassembles Iran's nuclear infrastructure -- rather than limiting its usage or repurposing Iran's facilities -- but such stipulations were not part of the framework agreement. He has also called for the removal of sanctions to be tied to the reduction of what he characterizes as Iran's aggression in the region, not just its moves on its nuclear program . In the absence of both elements, Netanyahu is calling the emerging deal a historic mistake. After an emergency Cabinet meeting Friday afternoon hours before the Jewish holiday of Passover, Netanyahu said the agreement "would pose a grave danger to the region and to the world and would threaten the very survival of the state of Israel." " ... I want to make clear to all: The survival of Israel is non-negotiable," Netanyahu said. "Israel will not accept an agreement which allows a country that vows to annihilate us to develop nuclear weapons, period." Obama called Netanyahu after Thursday's announcement of the framework agreement to reassure him that Israel's security will remain a prime concern in the ensuing negotiations and the final deal, which faces a June 30 deadline. "There is no daylight when it comes to our support for Israel's security," Obama said, reaffirming the American commitment to Israel's security. But Netanyahu said he isn't convinced Israel is safe from Iran. "Just two days ago, Iran said that 'the destruction of Israel is non-negotiable.' And in these fateful days Iran is accelerating the arming of its terror proxies to attack Israel." The Israeli leader added that "this deal would legitimize Iran's nuclear program, bolster Iran's economy and increase Iran's aggression and terror throughout the Middle East and beyond."

Summary: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slams nuclear framework deal with Iran . He says it would legitimize Iran's nuclear program and bolster its economy .


(CNN)He's been part of a wildly popular superhero team since its very beginning. But there's something we never knew about Bobby Drake, aka Iceman of the X-Men. Wednesday's issue of "All-New X-Men" No. 40 reveals the truth: Bobby is gay. "There are thousands if not millions of stories of people who, for many different reasons, felt the need to hide their sexuality," Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote the issue, said in a statement to CNN. "The X-Men, with the conceit of time travel, give us a fascinating platform in which to examine such personal journeys. This is just the first little chapter of a much larger story that will be told." Iceman's outing happens in an unusual manner. In the "All-New X-Men" storyline, members of the X-Men team travel to the past, as younger versions of themselves. Mind-reading mutant Jean Grey (also an X-Men original) asks Bobby why he calls women "hot," when she knows he is gay. In comic book pages provided to CNN, Bobby doesn't immediately acknowledge that she is telling the truth. The character of Iceman is perhaps best known for his appearances in many of the "X-Men" films, as well as the 1981 animated series "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends." The "X-Men" series of comics have long been progressive in terms of diversity, with a black female character, Storm, appearing in the 1970s, and the first gay mainstream comic book character, Northstar (who later married in the pages). DC Comics has also had prominent gay characters in recent years, like Batwoman and the original Green Lantern of Earth 2. Catwoman recently came out as bisexual, and Harley Quinn is portrayed that way as well. Bendis further shared his thoughts on Twitter about the attention surrounding the story when it leaked on Tuesday: "i swear on my dogs, i wanted the issue to come out and just be. no press. no sensational headlines. no leaks. oh, well..."

Summary: "X-Men" original character Bobby "Iceman" Drake is revealed to be gay in latest issue . "All-New X-Men" No. 40 has psychic Jean Grey discovering Drake's sexuality . Iceman has been in Marvel Comics for over 50 years .


(CNN)Indiana Gov. Mike Pence issued an executive order Monday to extend a public health emergency in his state in response to a rampant HIV outbreak that first began in mid-December. As of Tuesday, there were 135 cases -- 129 confirmed, and six preliminary -- of HIV. The increase has been linked to injection drug use, primarily of the prescription opioid opana. Pence issued an order in March for Scott County, which then had 79 confirmed cases of HIV since mid-December. The county normally averages about five new cases a year. "Scott County is facing an epidemic of HIV. But this is not a Scott County problem -- this is an Indiana problem," Pence said in March. Officials expect more cases as more individuals are tested, particularly because it can take up to three months for HIV to appear in a person's system after initial infection. The emergency order was first issued last month and set to expire Friday, but now will be in place until May 24. It calls on multiple state agencies to coordinate a response to the unprecedented outbreak and provides additional resources. Law enforcement, emergency agencies and health officials are working together. Most notably, a temporary needle exchange program that began April 4. As of Tuesday, more than 4,300 clean syringes had been distributed and more than 3,100 used needles had been turned in, according to the Indiana Department of Health. A team from the CDC Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention was working on site with state and local officials. In extending the public health emergency declaration, the governor said: "While we've made progress in identifying and treating those affected by this heartbreaking epidemic, the public health emergency continues and so must our efforts to fight it."

Summary: Gov. Mike Pence extends public health emergency by 30 days . 129 cases of HIV have been confirmed since mid-December . More than 4,300 needles have been distributed through temporary needle exchange program .


(CNN)If I had to describe the U.S.-Iranian relationship in one word it would be "overmatched." We're playing checkers on the Middle East game board and Tehran's playing three-dimensional chess. Iran has no problem reconciling its bad and contradictory behavior while we twist ourselves into knots over our tough choices, all the while convincing ourselves that America's policy on the nuclear issue is on the right track. Iran isn't 10 feet tall in this region, but by making the nuclear issue the be-all and end-all that is supposed to reduce Iran's power, the United States is only making Tehran taller. Consider the following: . The U.S.-Iranian relationship is not symmetrical. It's not as if we both are doing terrible things and are looking for a fair and equitable compromise to stop our respective bad behaviors. Iran is about to try a U.S. citizen and Washington Post reporter and we have made a judgment that even while we protest, we will keep the nuclear issue separated not just from this case but from Iran's serial abuse of human rights, including the behavior of its Shia militias in Iraq. I can only hope there is a carefully orchestrated behind-the-scenes plan to have Iran release Jason Rezaian. If not, we're legitimizing a bad regime and compromising U.S. values and interests in the process by not ensuring that all Americans being held by Iran come out as part of the nuclear deal. America is alienating some of our closest allies because of the Iran deal, and Iran is picking up new ones and bolstering relations with old ones who are growing more dependent because they see Iran's power rising. Our friends aren't perfect, particularly the Saudis and even the Israelis. But we need them precisely because Iran is rising. Sadly, the administration is sending signals that cutting a deal on the nuclear issue takes precedence over their priorities. In the meantime, Iran's allies, Bashar al-Assad's Syria, Hezbollah and now the Houthis -- not proxies, but instruments of convenience -- see what's happening and are willing to play and cooperate even more in the Iranian game. The Russians, too, realize that the nuclear issue gives them cover to sell sophisticated missile defense systems and soon to export even more to gain influence and hard currency. We're losing friends; Iran is gaining them. And in one of the cruelest ironies, Iran's way back into the global economy is as a result of the very issue that made it such a pariah: the nuclear issue. As the Arab world melts down and lacks a traditional epicenter of strength and power, (Egypt, Iraq, Syria), Iran is rising. The argument here is not that Iran is taking over the Middle East. But in its zone of influence, a zone critical to the United States -- Syria, Iraq, the Gulf, Yemen, Lebanon -- it is expanding its influence, not contracting. Washington doesn't play this kind of game well. It is tripping all over itself trying to figure out how to combat ISIS in Syria and yet not empower al-Assad (no answer), how to

Summary: Miller: While the U.S. entangles itself in the nuclear negotiations, Iran is gaining a freer hand to assert its regional influence . He says United States is being outfoxed, not outgunned .


(CNN)From late January, when New England was living through one of its bleakest and snowiest winters, to a warm and sunny afternoon in April, the jurors in the first-degree murder trial of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez have considered how a promising young athlete who earned millions came to take the life of his onetime friend and future brother-in-law, Odin Lloyd. The jury of seven women and five men listened to more than 130 witnesses and reviewed more than 400 pieces of evidence over the months-long trial. On Wednesday, they convicted Hernandez, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, after deliberating more than 35 hours over parts of seven days. After the verdict, jurors agreed to meet with reporters, at times laughing nervously while shedding light on what some described as the grueling deliberation process. Here are five things to know about what they said: . While declining to discuss specifics of what happened in the jury room, jurors said they came away satisfied with their decision. "It's a very big decision to make, and every one of us ... made sure we came to the best conclusion," one juror told reporters. At one point on Monday, jurors asked Judge Susan Garsh to allow smoking breaks, which were permitted during trial. Some observers thought this signaled weeks of deliberations. A male juror said some panel members had meticulously filled four to eight notebooks as they listened to testimony. "It was hard ... for everyone," said a woman on the jury. "Everyone's life changed because of this." Asked to elaborate, she told a reporter, "I've been here for as long as you have." "It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life," she said later about serving on the jury. "Absolutely, by far." Asked whether they would say anything to Hernandez, one of the women on the panel said simply, "Nothing." Others nodded in apparent agreement. Do they have any feelings about the 25-year-old former star? "For me, Judge Garsh said, 'Keep your mind suspended,' " said a female juror. "We went in there every day with open minds. We listened to the evidence. We heard what they had to say. We got to go into a room and see and touch and feel all the evidence and that's when we came to our conclusion." Did they know anything about Hernandez or the case before the trial? One juror responded: "Nothing." "Very little," said another. About six jurors raised their hands when asked who among them was a New England Patriots fan. The jurors said they found out about Hernandez's other legal woes from Garsh only after they reached a verdict. Hernandez potentially faces three more trials, one criminal and two civil actions. Next up is another murder trial in which he is accused of killing two men and wounding another person near a Boston nightclub in July 2012. Prosecutors have said Hernandez fatally shot Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado when he fired into their 2003 BMW. Another passenger was wounded and two others were uninjured.

Summary: Female juror: "Everyone's life changed because of this" The jurors said they didn't learn of the other charges against Hernandez until after the verdict . For these jurors, the system worked: It's "designed to be fair to both sides"


(CNN)Getting caught napping on the job is never good. Getting caught napping on the job in the cargo hold of a plane takes it to a whole different level. Alaska Airlines Flight 448 was just barely on its way to Los Angeles from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Monday afternoon when the pilot reported hearing unusual banging from the cargo hold. "There could be a person in there so we're going to come back around," he told air traffic control. The banging in the cargo hold did come from a person and he turned out to be a ramp agent from Menzies Aviation, a contractor for Alaska Airlines that handles loading the luggage, the airline said. The man told authorities he had fallen asleep. It appears he was never in any danger. The cargo hold is pressurized and temperature controlled, the airline said. The plane was also only in the air for 14 minutes. The passengers knew something wasn't right, almost as soon as the plane took off. "All of a sudden we heard all this pounding underneath the plane and we thought there was something wrong with the landing gear," Robert Higgins told CNN affiliate KABC. The pounding grew louder. "At that point, we started hearing yelling, screams for help, very, very faint," Jamie Davis said. "That's when we notified the flight attendant that there was somebody underneath us." As the banging continued, a federal air marshal sprang into action. "At some point, the marshal kind of made himself known," said Troi Ge. "He started banging back, and he yelled really loud and said, 'We're getting ready to land, hold on to something.'" The emergency landing spooked the folks aboard Flight 448. Affiliate KOMO spoke to Marty Collins, another one of the passengers. "We just took off for L.A. regular and then ... about five minutes into the flight the captain came on and said we were going back and we'd land within five to seven minutes, and we did," Collins said. "When we landed was when all the trucks and the police and the fire trucks surrounded the plane." "I think it's scary and really unsafe, too," Chelsie Nieto told affiliate KCPQ. "Because what if it's someone who could have been a terrorist?" The ramp agent appeared to be in OK after the ordeal. He was taken to an area hospital as a precaution, the airline said. He passed a drug test and was discharged. The employee started work at 5 a.m. and his shift was scheduled to end at 2:30 p.m., just before the flight departed. "During a pre-departure huddle, the team lead noticed the employee was missing. The team lead called into the cargo hold for the employee and called and texted the employee's cell phone, but did not receive an answer. His co-workers believed he finished his shift and went home," the airline's blog said. Alaska Airlines said it's investigating. The man had been on a four-person team loading baggage onto the flight. All ramp employees have security badges, and undergo full criminal background checks before being hired,

Summary: Ramp agent tells authorities he fell asleep in cargo hold, Alaska Airlines says . The cargo hold is pressurized and temperature controlled .


(CNN)On Thursday, NPR -- headquartered in Washington, just 40 miles away from Baltimore -- ran its latest update on the urban turmoil that has erupted in the wake of the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray because of still-unexplained spinal injuries that occurred while he was under police custody. Unfortunately, while it was a freshly produced segment, it was hardly a new story. Titled "Baltimore Unrest Reveals Tensions Between African-Americans And Asians," the five-minute piece is urgently introduced with the promise that it will reveal "what's really happening in the more troubled neighborhoods of this majority black city," going on state that a key ingredient of the unrest was African-Americans "targeting Asian-owned businesses for destruction." A similar claim was made after Ferguson's uprising in August of last year. Indeed, it has been a toxic feature of the coverage of many episodes of mass metropolitan violence since the late 1980s, the era during which the trope of widespread hostility between Asian and black communities first took root in the media consciousness. Yes, interethnic tensions continue to exist, though they are hardly limited to Asians and blacks. And yes, this has resulted in troubling incidents and tragedies on both sides. But while reports say that during the chaotic social breakdowns of the past year, black-owned businesses were mostly protected during bouts of violence, there's little evidence to suggest a pattern in which Asian businesses have been actively targeted out of racial animus. Instead, it seems as if Asian-owned stores have experienced damage partly because they make up a portion of establishments operating in the most economically vulnerable and socially volatile of neighborhoods. In other words, they were collateral damage, along with other stores in the vicinity of riots. So it's time to call this persistent meme what it is: A misleading, hyperbolic and dangerous distraction, one that shifts blame away from the real issues. As Jennifer Lee, sociology professor at University of California, Irvine, and author of the 2002 book "Civility in the City: Blacks, Jews and Koreans in Urban America," notes, "the mainstream media continues to pit minority groups against one another to draw attention from larger structural problems that plague poor, disadvantaged communities. By directing our attention to interminority conflict, it directs blame away from the structures that perpetuate gross inequality and toward individual problems." Let's be honest. There were then -- and still are -- legitimate issues that exist between immigrant storeowners and the largely African American customers they serve that are rooted in extensive cultural differences. There's no denying that friction exists in the daily transaction between embattled communities trying hard to coexist under economic and social pressures. For example, in 1993, the robbery and shooting of Joel Lee, a 21-year-old Korean American at Towson State University, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, was a point of contention between the Korean and African American communities. But things are different now. Decades after the height of media-inflamed tension between Asian and African Americans, patterns of immigration have shifted. Stores once operated by recent Korean immigrants are now owned by strivers from

Summary: Jeff Yang: The media has a misconception about urban unrest in light of Baltimore turmoil . He says there's no pattern of African Americans "targeting Asian-owned businesses for destruction"


(CNN)English actress Michelle Keegan has been named the sexiest woman in the world by British men's magazine FHM. The 27-year-old actress is best known for her roles on the BBC series "Ordinary Lies" and the long-running British soap opera "Coronation Street." Her "Coronation Street" character Tina McIntyre was the show's first character to act as a surrogate, according to IMDB. Keegan is followed by reality television star and model Kendall Jenner, Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover girl Kate Upton and British television host Caroline Flack, who dated One Direction's Harry Styles for a few months. Sandra Bullock doesn't appear anywhere on FHM's list, even though People magazine named her the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" a week ago. The "FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World" issue goes on sale Thursday, April 30.

Summary: British actress takes FHM's top spot in the list of 100 sexiest women in the world . People's most beautiful woman is nowhere on the list .


(CNN)Looks like another really, really, ridiculously good-looking person is joining the cast of "Zoolander 2." Actress Penelope Cruz will appear in the upcoming sequel to the popular 2001 film, Ben Stiller announced Friday. Stiller, who plays the title role of male model Derek Zoolander, dropped the news by sharing a photo of "Little Penny" Cruz as a child and saying he was "excited" to welcome her to the cast. Stiller and Owen Wilson, who plays so-hot-right-now model "Hansel" made a surprise appearance at Paris Fashion Week to promote the film. It is scheduled for release in February 2016. Stiller has been sharing photos on social media from the film's production in Italy, dropping hints to the plot. For example, it looks like Zoolander has a son in the sequel! Stiller, a producer on the film, is also slated to produce the sequel to "Dodgeball," another fan favorite from his resume.

Summary: Ben Stiller announces that Penelope Cruz will join cast of "Zoolander 2" "Zoolander 2" is scheduled for release in 2016 .


(CNN)This weekend, millions of people are expected to tune in to watch two men beat each other up. Why is this? We'll explore, but first let's get something out of the way: The big fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather won't "save" boxing, a sport that has fallen precipitously since its 20th century heyday. If anything, the so-called "Fight of the Century" just reinforces the sport's problems, as two aging heroes collide in what might be the last nationally relevant fight for a very long time. There's so much wrong with boxing's business model, but all you really need to understand is this: Most sports fans probably can't name a single active boxer after Mayweather and Pacquiao. Some might know that the long-reigning heavyweight champ is a towering Ukrainian with a boring jab-happy style, but most wouldn't come up with his name (Wladimir Klitschko). Boxing isn't fading away because we've finally awoken to its brutality but from a combination of catastrophic mismanagement and competition from Mixed Martial Arts -- a younger, more dynamic and better-managed competitor. The rocket rise of MMA's premier organization, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has matched boxing's equally dramatic decline. In the course of just two decades, the UFC has grown from a freaky-violent carny sideshow into a mainstream sport. In fact, the fan base of the UFC now rivals that of the world's most popular fighting sport: ice hockey. Some aficionados spin elaborate defenses of the hundreds of fist fights that break out every year in NHL games, claiming they make the game safer by punishing dirty play. But that's so weak. Everyone knows why the NHL hasn't cracked down on fighting hard enough to end it: fans love it way too much. As the hockey announcer Don Cherry once said, "When [legendary tough guy] Bob Probert was fighting, did you ever see anyone get out of their seat and go get coffee." But why do we like to watch fights in the first place? Over the past 20 years, I've watched boxing and MMA in a spirit of nervous fascination. Watching fighters kick, punch and strangle each other, I'd be thinking, I'm a civilized person. I appear not to be a sociopath. So why am I watching? What's wrong with me? And what's wrong with all of us? Who among us hasn't felt the giddy, guilty thrill of a fistfight breaking out -- whether in a schoolyard, a hockey rink or a prize ring? We all claim to hate violence, but I think we protest too much. Inside us all, there's a creature that adores it. How else are we to explain our yen for carnage in rough sports, films, gory video games and literature? So is that it? Are we drawn to a big fight like Mayweather-Pacquiao simply by bloodlust and barbarism? Actually, I think that's only part of the story, and not the biggest part. If we just wanted blood and pain, we wouldn't bother with the tame violence of pay-per-view fisticuffs. Instead, we'd fire up a web browser and watch ISIS snuff videos

Summary: Jonathan Gottschall: Millions to tune in to see Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, but this doesn't show resurgence of declining sport of boxing . So why will so many watch?He says a fight is metaphor for the whole human condition, with everything noble and ugly on display .


(CNN)The officer charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black man in South Carolina has been fired as anger continues to build around his case. A video shows Officer Michael Slager, who is white, firing eight shots at 50-year-old Walter Scott as Scott has his back to him and is running away. Scott, who was unarmed, was struck five times. Timeline of events . The FBI is investigating, and once again, a shooting involving police has sparked national outrage. "I have watched the video, and I was sickened by what I saw," North Charleston police Chief Eddie Driggers told reporters Wednesday. The mayor spoke at the same news conference that was repeatedly interrupted by protesters, who chanted: "No justice! No peace!" They called for Mayor Keith Summey to step down. Summey told reporters that the city has ordered an additional 150 body cameras "so every officer on the street" in the city will have one. That is in addition to 101 body cameras already ordered, he said. Just before the conference was set to begin, demonstrators walked in. They were led by a man wearing a "Black Lives Matter" T-shirt who shouted, "This is what democracy looks like!" Scott's shooting stirred memories of the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri, where an unarmed black teenager was killed by a white police officer. A grand jury declined to indict the officer in that case. But not everyone agreed that Scott's case is like Brown's or that race was a factor. "We can't get into the brain of another individual, so we can't state that," Scott family attorney Chris Stewart said. "I think it would be irresponsible to say that and try and inflame a community or anything of that nature." An autopsy of Scott showed that he "sustained multiple gunshot wounds to the back of his body," and his death was the result of a homicide, the Charleston County Coroner's Office said. Asked whether CPR was performed on Scott after Slager shot him, Driggers said: "In the end of it (the video), what I saw was (what I) believed to be a police officer removing the shirt of the individual and performing some type of life-saving (procedure), but I'm not sure what took place there." The North Charleston Police department was not legally obligated to but chose to hand the case over to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, according to a news release from Scarlett A. Wilson, the Ninth Judicial Circuit solicitor. Though Wilson said she is subject to rules that limit what she can say publicly, she stated: "My role is to hold accountable those who harm others unlawfully, regardless of profession. This office does not dictate nor comment upon police policy, training and procedure. I am, however, deeply concerned when those who are sworn to serve and protect violate the public's trust." Slager pulled Scott over on Saturday morning for a broken taillight, authorities have said. The beginning of the video shows the two men standing close to each other. Any words exchanged between Scott and Slager

Summary: Witness who took the video says "Mr. Scott didn't deserve this" North Charleston police Officer Michael Slager is fired . The city orders an additional 150 body cameras .


(CNN)While the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq holds the world's gaze, a simultaneous transformation is getting less attention: the deterioration of al Qaeda. In an audio message released Sunday, al Qaeda confirmed that two of its leaders, known as Ustad Ahmad Farooq and Qari Abdullah Mansur, were killed in CIA drone strikes in January in North Waziristan, near the Afghan-Pakistan border. Farooq's real name was Raja Mohammad Suleman, al Qaeda said. He was a Pakistani who acted as the group's liaison to the Pakistan Taliban and was the deputy commander of al Qaeda's South Asia branch. (Mansur's real name was Qari Ubaidullah, a Pakistani who oversaw suicide missions against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan). Al Qaeda's South Asia branch is relatively new, announced with some fanfare back in September by al Qaeda's top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The creation of the terror group's South Asia branch was seen by some terrorism analysts as an attempt to steal some of the limelight from ISIS, which is embroiled in a public dispute with al Qaeda for leadership of the global jihad movement. The deaths of the two men continue the decimation of al Qaeda's bench of leaders. On Monday, in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, local al Qaeda commander Nurul Hassan was killed in a raid, said Arif Hanif, district inspector general of police. Florida-raised Adnan Shukrijumah, 39, who was in charge of al Qaeda's operations to attack the West, was killed in December in a Pakistani military operation. Texas-born Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, who also played a planning role for al Qaeda's operations, was arrested in Pakistan last year. The deaths of Ubaidullah and Suleman underline the fact that there are almost no top leaders of al Qaeda left except al-Zawahiri. Both Ubaidullah and Suleman were Pakistani. This is an indicator of how al Qaeda has become a largely Pakistan-focused group, increasingly able to do nothing of any significance outside of Pakistan or Afghanistan. Indeed, al Qaeda has virtually no capacity to carry out attacks in the West. The last successful al Qaeda attack in the West was the London transportation system bombings a decade ago. Al Qaeda is now reduced only to holding American hostages such as 73-year-old aid worker Warren Weinstein, who was kidnapped from his home in the Pakistani city of Lahore on August 13, 2011. To be sure, al Qaeda's Yemen-based affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, continues to pose a threat to American aviation. The group has built hard-to-detect bombs, which it has placed on U.S.-bound flights. Luckily, those bombs were faulty or were detected. The group also trained one of the gunmen who attacked the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January, killing 12, but it's not clear if AQAP had any direct role in planning this attack. Meanwhile, ISIS continues to attract Western recruits and also inspire "homegrown" terrorists in the West, but the core al Qaeda organization that killed almost 3,000 men, women and children on 9/11 is on life support. Al Qaeda's confirmation of

Summary: Al Qaeda confirms that two of its leaders were killed in January drone strikes . Other leaders have been killed or captured recently . The terrorist group's capacity to carry out attacks in the West has been greatly diminished .


(CNN)Craig Hicks, who is charged in the deaths of three Muslim college students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, earlier this year, can face the death penalty, a judge ruled Monday, according to CNN affiliates. Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. ruled that Hicks' case is "death penalty qualified," WRAL and WTVD reported. The 46-year-old was arrested February 10 in the deaths of Yusor Mohammad, 21, her 23-year-old husband, Deah Shaddy Barakat, and 19-year-old sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. All three were shot in the head. Hicks, who was the victims' neighbor, turned himself in to police the night of the killings. The next week, he was indicted on three counts of first-degree murder and a count of discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling. He had no prior criminal record, police said. Police said "an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking" might have been a factor in the shootings but also said they weren't dismissing the possibility of a hate crime. On what is believed to be Hicks' Facebook page, numerous posts rail against religion. The victims' family members have called on authorities to investigate the slayings as a hate crime. The U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement in February saying the department's Civil Rights Division, along with the the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of North Carolina and the FBI, have opened "a parallel preliminary inquiry" to determine whether any federal laws, including hate crime laws, were violated. "It has always been our position that Mr. Hicks should be held responsible for his actions to the full extent of the law. His killing of three college students was despicable, and now he must face the consequences of his actions," said Rob Maitland, an attorney for Hicks' wife. Karen and Craig Hicks are in the process of divorce.

Summary: Hicks is charged in the deaths of three Muslim college students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina . Victims' family members have called on authorities to investigate the slayings as a hate crime .


(CNN)An Amnesty International report is calling for authorities to address the number of attacks on women's rights activists in Afghanistan. The report, entitled "Their Lives on the Line," examines the persecution of activists and other champions of women's rights not only by the Taliban and tribal warlords, but also by government officials. Its publication is timely. The brutal murder of Farkhunda, a young woman in Afghanistan, whose body was burnt and callously chucked into a river in Kabul, shocked the world. Accused of burning pages from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, many protested the 27-year-old's innocence. But what also made international headlines was the fact that for the first time in history, women in Afghanistan became pallbearers, hoisting the victim's coffin on their shoulders draped with headscarves, under the gazes of men; unreservedly sobbing and shouting messages of women's solidarity as they marched along the streets. In a country ranked in 2011 by a Thomson Reuters Foundation poll as the most dangerous place in the world for women, this feminist act seemed perilous. Latest figures suggest they were risking their lives to be heard. In 2013, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released statistics that showed the number of women killed in the country had increased by 20% from the previous year, although the number of civilian victims had decreased, said Amnesty in the report. The Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General in Afghanistan at the time, Jan Kubis, told the U.N. Security Council that "the majority (of women killed) is linked to domestic violence, tradition, culture of the country. "Women activists have been deliberately targeted." And according to the human rights group, little support has come from those in power. "The Afghan government has done very little to protect them," Amnesty's Afghanistan researcher, Horia Mosadiq, tells CNN. "Perpetrators almost always walk free, and threats reported by women rights defenders are often simply ignored. "Many women defenders we spoke to said that even when they received some protection from authorities, it was often significantly less than what male counterparts or colleagues were afforded." During the attack on Farkhunda, "many eyewitnesses have testified that police officers stood idly by while this woman was being lynched and killed," says Mosadiq. Twenty-six people were arrested and thirteen police officials suspended in connection with the attack, but she argues that this is insufficient. "Suspending police officers is not enough, those who failed in their duty must also be held to account -- anything less will just encourage further mob violence." But what is striking is the resilience of the activists, who continue their work despite their lives being on the line. "It was a remarkable moment," says Mosadiq, recalling the female protesters at Farkhunda's funeral. "Unlike anything I have seen in my decades of campaigning for women's rights in our country." Selay Ghaffer, 32, is a women's rights activist and spokesperson for the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan -- a small but outspoken political party based in Kabul and twenty provinces that fights for issues such as democracy, social justice and women's rights. The party

Summary: An Amnesty International report calls for attacks on women's rights activists in Afghanistan to be investigated . The report examines the persecution of activists not only by the Taliban and tribal warlords, but also by government officials . Some activists continue their work despite their lives being at risk .


(CNN)A video shoot in Nepal for an Internet comedy series took a serious turn on Saturday as the earth began rumbling. The Nepali Pranksters were in the middle of shooting an episode for their hidden camera series when the magnitude-7.8 earthquake broke out. The team kept the camera rolling as they moved through the crowded streets, surveying destruction to homes and historic sites and capturing scenes of heroism and chaos. The Nepali Pranksters' videos show people's reactions to various "pranks" that challenge cultural norms. One video shows the pranksters walking up to strangers and taking their hands for a long, awkward, handshake; another shows them complimenting men and women on their clothes and appearance, with mixed results. For their next prank based on Nepal's ban on plastic bags, Ashish Prasai and Akash Sedai were in Jawalakhel, Sedai said in an email to CNN. The town, in Lalitpur District, is home to Nepal's famed Central Zoo. The camera was rolling when they felt the ground shaking around 11:55 a.m., Sedai said. People started screaming and crying and vehicles came to a standstill as a building collapsed in the background. But earthquakes are a fact of life in Nepal, and "we were still thinking it was a just a simple earthquake," Sedai said. They kept the camera rolling for 18 minutes as they traversed the streets full of crying and shouting people. They found homes destroyed, where people were pulling survivors out from piles of rubble. They stopped and talked to motorists, urging them to keep the streets clear for emergency vehicles, Sedai said. They continued filming as they made their way to to the historic Dharahara tower and Basantapur Durbar Square, a UNESCO world heritage site, where people crawled among the ruins. By then, they realized their country was in a "very bad condition," Sedai said. The Nepali Pranksters made it through the first day of the earthquake, as did their families, Sedai said. But with aftershocks and crumbling infrastructure still posing threats, safety is a temporary state of mind right now in Nepal. "We are scared. ... Earthquakes waves are occurring now," he said. "Hope we will be alive and the problem will get solved soon."

Summary: Nepali Pranksters make hidden camera videos of awkward social situations . The three-person team was filming as the Nepal earthquake began .


(CNN)It lays claim to being the most isolated human settlement on earth, a volcanic archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, home to just under 270 people. Now, the tiny settlement of Tristan da Cunha is seeking the help of architects and designers the world over to secure its future well into the 21st century. With the help of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the UK overseas territory is holding an international competition to improve aging infrastructure and make the island self-sustainable as it approaches the 200th anniversary of its settlement. As a sign of just how removed Tristan da Cunha is from the rest of the world, there are only seven family names on the islands. Those who live there are mainly the descendants of Dutch, American and Italian sailors as well as 19th century British explorers. There are also a handful of expatriate Brits. But watching hit TV series "Lost"or reading up on William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" won't be required research for competition entrants. Instead, those with experience of renewable energy in remote regions, modern housing and developing cost-effective agrarian systems are encouraged to apply. "The competition is looking at enhancing the built environment on the island (and) making all structures more energy efficient," the island's administrator, Alex Mitcham told CNN when visiting the UK recently. Mitcham explained that most existing homes and public buildings on Tristan da Cunha are small, bungalow-type structures made from made from a mix of concrete and local volcanic rock. Few have simple insulation that can lead to energy savings while the infrastructure for things like renewable power generation and internet provision remain limited. The island is also only accessible by sea 60-days-a-year through a small port in its only town, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas. According to James Porter of RIBA Competitions, contestants will have to factor in irregular design questions such as "how can we get the material ashore and how can we actually think of ways that we can put things together once there?" "There are limitations on the amount of cargo that can be trans-shipped," he added. In total, Tristan da Cunha is made up of four islands. Tristan is the largest land mass and the only one to house people. Two more unpopulated islands, Nightingale and Inaccessible, lie close by. A third, Gough, is situated roughly 230 miles away. Both Gough and Inaccessible are UNESCO World Heritage sites. The closest mainland port is Cape Town, South Africa, some seven days sailing time and 1,750 miles north-east. Tristan already has a pub, shop, cafe, dance hall, museum, catholic church and swimming pool. There are also two expatriate doctors, two Tristanian nurses and school teachers with some 30 students of varying ages. The island's main industry is lobster fishing, with exports reaching as far afield as the U.S., Australia, Japan and the EU thanks to a fishing company that has exclusive rights to fish in the surrounding waters. Tristan earns additional income from the sale of unique stamps, coins and handicraft souvenirs, Mitcham explained. Modest revenue also flows from

Summary: Tristan da Cunha holds competition for architects and designers . Islands are most isolated inhabited archipelago on earth .


(CNN)It's a hard-knock life, Jay Z, especially on Twitter. The uber private rapper/entrepreneur broke out of his usually reserved social media shell over the weekend to defend the performance of his new music streaming service, Tidal. Using the hashtag #TidalFacts, he attempted to refute talk that the company has been doing a less than stellar job in taking on competitor Spotify. He launched the subscription-based music service last month with a star-studded news conference in which artists such as Madonna, Kanye West, Daft Punk and Jay Z's wife, Beyonce, came together in support of what singer Alicia Keys told the crowd was "The first ever artist-owned global music and entertainment platform." CNN Money: Jay Z's TIDAL music service to be owned by artists . But less than a month after its debut, there's been chatter that the service is underwhelming, and Jay Z's "stream of consciousness" tweets denying that were met with some derision. And, of course, a Tidal Facts parody Twitter account was quickly created to offer some "facts" of its own.

Summary: The rapper/entrepreneur went "stream of consciousness" on Twitter . He asked users to be patient with Tidal, his new music streaming service . A parody account was set up to mock his hashtag .


(CNN)It took more than seven decades, but England finally got its delivery of tons of silver coins. For most of those years, the money was deep at the bottom of the Atlantic, the monetary casualty of a cruel World War II sinking. In November 1942, the unguarded SS City of Cairo was sunk by a German U-boat while carrying 296 civilians and cargo that included 100 tons of silver. The vessel sunk to more than 16,800 feet under the surface (5,150 meters) where it went undiscovered until 2011 when Deep Ocean Search decided to go looking for it. The sinking was the stuff of legend. The City of Cairo was bringing silver rupees from India to England as part of the war effort. After a stop in Brazil, two torpedos sank the ship in the Atlantic. After the ship went under, the U-boat reportedly surfaced and the captain said to the survivors in lifeboats: "Goodnight, sorry for sinking you." The captain's lament is the title of a book about the event. Only a handful of people died as the ship sank but about 100 more passed away during the desperate attempt of the six boats to make it to land, which was hundreds of miles away. When the last of the lifeboats was found 51 days later, all but two people in it had died. Deep Ocean Search said in a news release that during the 2011 search it located an unnatural object on radar. A sub found the City of Cairo split into two parts, buried by silt. "Under contract to the UK Ministry of Transport, DOS recovered several tens of tons of silver coins from a depth of (5,150 meters)," the company said. The depth is a world record, the company claimed. Other deep-water operations reported in the media that are close to this depth include the 1987 search for the wreck of a South African Airways plane at 16,000 feet (4,700 meters) and the discovery of the SS Gairsoppa at about 15,400 feet (4,800 meters) in the North Atlantic in 2011. The BBC reported the City of Cairo salvage operation was completed in September 2013, but the British government made the company keep it secret until this week. The coins were melted and the silver sold, the BBC reported. Deep Ocean Search got a percentage of the sale, and the UK Treasury the rest, according to the BBC. At today's rates, 100 tons of silver would be worth about $50 million. Remains of USS Oklahoma crew to be exhumed at Pearl Harbor . CNN's Jessica King contributed to this report.

Summary: The ship was sunk in 1942 hundreds of miles of the coast of South America . A British company says the salvage operation occurred at a world record depth . The torpedoing is the subject of the book "Goodnight, sorry for sinking you"


Garissa, Kenya (CNN)Freshly laundered clothes still hang Friday in the dormitory at Garissa University College. Stuffed animals remain in one room. On the wall in another hangs a poster on proper preparation for Muslim prayer. These small reminders of college life at this Kenyan school belie the horror of what happened here: the slaughter of at least 147 people, many of them students who lived in this building. On Friday afternoon, more than 36 hours after the attack, investigators and Kenya Red Cross crews were finishing up the task of removing the bodies of dead students. The corpses of four Al-Shabaab attackers -- dressed head to toe in black and still clutching their AK-47s -- remained where they fell, their bodies shattered in a torrent of bullets. Kenya terrorist attack: 6 things you need to know . Investigators marked the locations of students' bodies with numbered tags before Red Cross workers came in to send them off to morgues. They would call out to each other with the locations of the dead, reducing once promising lives, for the time being at least, to numbers. 221. 214. 216. 217. Sometimes, the cell phones of the dead would ring, taking the workers aback. Beyond the bodies, evidence of what had happened at the dormitory was everywhere. Shattered glass and shell casings littered the floor. Walls and ceilings were marred by bullet holes. In some places, the blood was as thick as mud. The problems plaguing Kenya's security efforts . According to students and authorities, militants burst onto the campus around 5 a.m. Thursday. The gunmen, from the Al-Shabaab terror group, first stormed a Christian prayer service, killing some students, taking others hostage. They rampaged across the campus, shooting non-Muslims, sparing Muslims, a witness said. One student, Hellen Titus, told CNN she hid inside a wardrobe for nearly an hour before the gunmen came for her. Come out, they told her, you won't be shot. "They were lying," she said. The gunmen herded her and maybe three dozen other students into a community room where they'd usually hang out and watch television. They were told to lie down, lectured about how the Quran forbids killing women. And then the men, Titus said, were shot in the head. One of the gunmen egged on the others. "Shoot them! Shoot them!" he would say, according to Titus. More lecturing: the land, the gunmen said, didn't belong to nonbelievers. We, the gunmen said, have just two missions: to kill, and be killed. And then they started shooting the women. "Anyone who is breathing, shoot them," Titus said the gunman in charge said. "We just lay there hopelessly, because we know automatically we're going to be killed," Titus said. It was then she saw the blood of a fellow student coursing toward her on the floor. She smeared it onto her face and body to make it appear she, too, was dead. "In the time of shooting, they skipped me," she said. She survived with only a hand wound. Many of the other students were shot in the back

Summary: Shell casings, glass and blood stains litter dorm at Garissa University College . At least 147 died in Thursday attack at the Kenyan college .


(CNN)Recently, a New York judge issued an opinion authorizing service of divorce papers on a husband completely via Facebook. What exactly is "service of process"? Serving people with legal papers is an industry and its own body of law premised on one guiding principle: if you are going to sue someone, you should at least let them know about it. Sounds simple, right? In theory it is. In practice, it turns out people don't like being sued. It also turns out that, to many defendants, procrastination of a lawsuit is a viable defense. Just as you may avoid bad news in life, defendants tend to avoid process servers. Once a defendant has been served, that means the judicial proceedings begin. Unfortunately, that means defendants have an incentive to go "off the grid". Although every state is different, the law of service of process has evolved this way: the ideal and fairest way to notify a person of a lawsuit is to have another human hand the papers to the defendant in person, and have some proof that the person was the defendant. In-person service is not always possible, for obvious reasons. So, the law had to develop methods of alternate service, but carefully balance a defendant's right to have notice of a lawsuit, against a diligent plaintiff's access to court if a defendant is avoiding the inevitable. As reliable as the U.S. mail is, regular mail is not a reliable form of serving papers. Not because the postmen can't be trusted; they can. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, will keep them from delivering those papers. Instead, it's defendants -- no wait, all of humanity -- that can't be trusted. Every one of us has ignored mail or even pretended we didn't get it. Defendants are no different. One form of alternate service is "nail and mail" service. This means that you take a hammer and nail, and nail the papers to the defendant's front door. The problem with that is that many defendants are nomadic by nature. Just because you find a house that a defendant stayed at, doesn't mean he'll be back there anytime soon. Another, even odder form of "service" is service by publication. This is an almost laughable legal fiction. If you can't find a defendant, a judge might let you serve by publication. That means that a plaintiff can take out an ad in five point font for a week in an obscure publication, on the off chance you are reading the classified ads of the Secaucus Law Journal looking for lawsuits against you. As laughable as serving someone by tweeting it sounds, it's at least more rational than this antiquated method. At first blush, the idea of service by Facebook seems to offend traditional notions of ensuring notification of a defendant of a case against him. When it comes to serving papers, however, "traditional" doesn't necessarily mean "good." Service by publication or nailing paper to the door of an empty apartment is hardly reliable; it's just service of last resort. For those

Summary: A court allowed a wife to serve divorce papers via Facebook . Danny Cevallos: Why not let people be found via social media?


(CNN)The U.N. Security Council voted Tuesday in favor of an arms embargo on Houthis -- the minority group that has taken over large swaths of Yemen, including its capital, Sanaa -- and supporters of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The resolution "raises the cost" for the Houthis, according to Mark Lyall Grant, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations. In addition to the arms embargo, it also demands that the Shiite group pull back and refrain from more violence and includes sanctions aimed at controlling the spread of terrorism, according to Grant. Russia abstained from Tuesday's vote, saying it didn't like the inclusion of sanctions. In recent weeks, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition that is conducting airstrikes on targets associated with Saleh's supporters and the Houthis, who have emerged as Yemen's most dominant force in recent months. Also Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Saudi Arabian Minister of Defense Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz agreed to form a joint military commission to discuss the implementation of a major strategic maneuver inside Saudi Arabia, Egypt's state-run Ahram news agency reported. Egypt announced that it would dispatch several naval ships to help halt the rebels' advance. In response to media reports, Egyptian officials said no troops have yet been sent to Yemen. The Houthis forced President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi from power in January, though Hadi still claims he is Yemen's legitimate leader and is working with the Saudis and other allies to return to Yemen. Those allied with Hadi have accused the Iranian government of supporting the Houthis in their uprising in Yemen. They include Yemen's current ambassador to the United Nations, Khaled Mahfoodh Abdulla Bahah, who said Tuesday, "We refuse (the) influence of Iran in Yemen affairs." CNN's Richard Roth and Dominique Dodley reported from New York, and CNN's Greg Botelho wrote this report from Atlanta. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz contributed to this report.

Summary: Egypt, Saudi Arabia to launch joint military maneuvers inside Saudi borders . The arms embargo applies to the Houthis and backers of ex-President Saleh . Russia abstains from the U.N. Security Council vote over the inclusion of sanctions .


(CNN)Whether quaffing artisanal cocktails at hipster bars or knocking back no-name beers on the couch, more Americans are drinking heavily -- and engaging in episodes of binge-drinking, concludes a major study of alcohol use. Heavy drinking among Americans rose 17.2 percent between 2005 and 2012, largely due to rising rates among women, according to the study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines heavy drinking as exceeding an average of one drink per day during the past month for women and two drinks per day for men. Binge drinking is defined as four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men on a single occasion at least once during the past month. The increases are driven largely by women's drinking habits as social norms change, researchers found. In Santa Clara County, Calif., for example, women's binge drinking rates rose by nearly 36 percent between 2002 and 2012, compared with 23 percent among men. Nationwide over the course of the decade, the rate of binge drinking among women increased more than seven times the rate among men. Opinion: Why are more women drinking? "It seems like women are trying to catch up to the men in binge drinking," said Ali Mokdad, a lead author of the study. "It's really, really scary." The study is the first to track adult drinking patterns at the county level. In 2012, 8 percent of Americans were considered heavy drinkers and 18 percent were binge drinkers. Despite the increases in heavy drinking, the percentage of people who drink any alcohol has remained relatively unchanged over time, researchers found. Madison County, Idaho, reported the lowest rate of binge drinking in 2012, at 6 percent, while Menominee, Wis., had the highest rate, at 36 percent. Hancock County, Tenn., had the fewest heavy drinkers (2 percent of residents) and Esmeralda County, Nev., recorded the most (22 percent). Related: 1 in 5 high school girls binge drink . About 88,600 U.S. deaths were attributed to alcohol in 2010, the researchers note, and the cost of excessive drinking has been estimated at more than $220 billion per year. The increase in binge drinking doesn't surprise Terri Fukagawa, clinical director of the New Life Recovery Centers in San Jose, Calif., where 15 of her 24 treatment beds are filled with clients primarily addicted to alcohol. She said she's seen more people seeking treatment for alcoholism in the past four years. Still, she noted, "there are a lot of people still out there needing treatment, but they won't come in unless they have a consequence like losing a job or [getting] a DUI. They think they have control over it." Public health experts offer a number of cultural and economic explanations for the increase in excessive drinking. As a result of changed social norms, it's now more acceptable for women to drink the way men traditionally have, said Tom Greenfield, scientific director at the Alcohol Research Group at

Summary: Heavy drinking among Americans rose 17.2 percent between 2005 and 2012 . The increase is driven largely by women's drinking habits . It's now more acceptable for women to drink the way men traditionally have, says one expert .


(CNN)They are superstars flown in from across the globe -- and they probably had more legroom than you. The world's leading showjumping and dressage horses have reached Las Vegas for this week's World Cup Finals. The man who arranged their travel says, for horses, it's business class all the way. "There are two horses per box," explains Tim Dutta, who oversaw the loading of more than $150 million in equine talent onto a Qatar Airways flight at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport earlier this month. "We pay attention to each horse's little idiosyncrasies and requirements -- do they like wet hay, or not? Do we use sea salt to encourage them to drink? "I like the horses to have some quiet time too, they need that. So when the aircraft is at cruise then they are left alone for a while, to have a snooze and relax, without being bothered by anyone." No horse is snoozing now. The flights are over and they're in Las Vegas to work. Vegas is home to the finals for the sixth time since first hosting showjumping in 2000. The venue is the Thomas & Mack Center, a stone's throw from the Strip, which had the distinction of being opened by Frank Sinatra and Diana Ross in 1983. Organizers believe more than 80,000 fans will attend this week's event, which boasts an $8 million budget. Expect Elvis Presley beaming down from the Jumbotron; chefs from the Bellagio serving VIP guests who paid upwards of $1,500 a ticket; and tennis legend Steffi Graf presenting the trophies. In the past, that was not your usual showjumping and dressage atmosphere -- but that's something the sport is trying to change. Hosting world-class horsesport in Vegas is a way to raise its profile in the United States. As with this month's showjumping on Miami Beach, the thinking is location, location, location. For the riders, few locations are comparable. "It's like a Wrigley Field feel," said Tim Keener, one of the Vegas organizers, describing how the bowl of the arena will seat spectators unusually close to the action. Showjumping comes here for the showbiz. In previous years, trophies have been handed out by flying showgirls descending from the rafters. Elvis impersonators have burst into the arena on horseback. This year, a "selfie booth" will let fans crowd in with leading riders for awkward photos on their phones -- and there will be quite some choice of riders. Since the World Cup Finals are among the most prestigious titles available, the cast list over the next four days features almost all of the world's top names. In showjumping, Germany's Daniel Deusser is both the defending World Cup champion and the new world No. 1, unseating Britain's Scott Brash. The Germans are the most successful nation at the World Cup Finals, with 10 showjumping victories, and three-time champion Marcus Ehning will also compete. The hosts have a superstar and 2013 champion in Beezie Madden, while 2012 champion Rich Fellers will ride aptly named "comeback king" Flexible, a horse undeterred by a series of illnesses and injuries

Summary: Horses complete transatlantic trip to Las Vegas in 'business class' luxury . 80,000 fans expected as organizers spend $8m bringing horses back to Vegas . Celebrity chefs and legends of sport will mix with top jumping and dressage riders . World Cup Final trophies to be won -- some of the most prestigious in the sport .


(CNN)The cover-up is often worse than the crime. Henry Louis Gates stands accused of scrubbing part of a segment in his PBS documentary series "Finding Your Roots" because the actor Ben Affleck put pressure on him. Affleck's concern was that the segment would have aired his family's dirty laundry, which includes a slaveholding ancestor, Benjamin Cole. Affleck said, in a statement posted on Facebook, that he "didn't want any television show about my family to include a guy who owned slaves. I was embarrassed." And Gates later explained that he subbed that part of the segment for another that made for more "compelling television." But providing a window into the importance of slavery's past to America's present should never just be about what makes for good television. Gates missed an opportunity. And Affleck's initial reluctance to acknowledge his truth (an impulse, he said on Facebook, he regrets) is surprising. Last month, Affleck lent his star power to support continued foreign assistance for the Democratic Republic of Congo by testifying before Congress. He isn't shy about aligning himself with causes and issues. What more could he do if his instinct is also to tackle issues closer to home: the legacy of slavery in his own family tree and how it is possible -- necessary -- to reject the racism passed through generations even today. He should have shown the courage to stay in an uncomfortable place. What a teachable moment for the country. In any case, why did he agree to do a television show if he was concerned about what might be discovered? He could have paid a genealogist to uncover his ancestry, if privacy was what he wanted. The irony here is that none of this would have ever been found out if Sony's emails had not been hacked and if Gates hadn't written to Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Entertainment, for advice. In the leaked exchange, Lynton advised: "I would take it out if no one knows, but if it gets out that you are editing the material based on this kind of sensitivity then it gets tricky." Gates acknowledges that to delete the segment at the request of a guest "would be a violation of PBS rules." Then he does it anyway. Gates, however, denies doing this. After the story came to light, he released a statement saying that he "maintained editorial control" and decided what made "for the most compelling program." For Affleck's "Finding Your Roots" segment, he substituted a Revolutionary War ancestor instead of the slave-owning one. If Gates thought there was no need for the slavery segment because it didn't make for good television, there would have been no need to consult with Lynton; Gates could have given Affleck what he wanted because he made the assessment of how strong Affleck's story was. The original script, reprinted on Gawker and elsewhere, makes it clear, however, that the slave-owner angle makes for better television. Here are some excerpts: . Gates sets up the segment describing Benjamin Cole as living in Savannah, Georgia. Affleck responds that he has

Summary: Dorothy Brown: Ben Affleck and Henry Louis Gates scrubbed segment about Affleck's slave-owning ancestors from TV show . She says they two missed a chance to discuss racial issues that still fester in this country .