7 injured after trains collide in Missouri

Sat, 25 May 2013 17:04:55 GMT

Two freight trains collided at an overpass near Chaffee, Missouri, early Saturday morning, injuring seven people, authorities said.

The overpass collapsed when one of the trains struck a pillar, Scott County Sheriff Rick Walters said.

A fire broke out on one of the train engines and was extinguished, Walters said.

There were no cars on the overpass when it collapsed, but two cars on the highway drove into the collapsed structure in the dark, said Trooper Clark Parrott, spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Five of the injured were in the cars, and two on the train. All but one of the injured were treated and released from the hospital.

The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team to investigate the collision and bridge collapse, the agency said.

A tornado's heading your way: Now what?

Sat, 25 May 2013 17:04:32 GMT

You've just that heard a tornado is headed directly toward you. You don't have a safe room, and you're not near a shelter. Do you hunker down and hope for the best or do you flee?

Emergency officials have long held that you should just stay put if you're inside anything other than a mobile home -- and head for the lowest floor and the inner-most room.

Yet even with improvements to severe weather prediction, no one can say with certainty what a tornado will do.

In Moore, Oklahoma, a woman and her brother took shelter inside their restaurant's walk-in freezer and survived. Another woman and her baby did the same thing at a convenience store -- and died.

Terimy Miller initially put her three sons into a closet but changed her mind when she turned on the TV and heard a reporter talking about her neighborhood.

"He said, 'Get out now if you have no shelter. If you have shelter, get in it. But if you don't, get out ... it's not safe. Go! It's too huge!'"

So Miller put the boys -- 6, 7 and 11 -- into her car and drove off, her radio on.

"They said, 'It's getting right close to 19th and 4th," she recalled. "I said, 'Boys, it's right behind us! You can see it, you can see it!' "

She steered out of its path, escaping unharmed. When she returned, her home -- closet and all -- was destroyed.

Another woman who hid inside her closet survived unharmed after the closet door landed on top of her and protected her.

Outrunning the storm?

While the most common advice is to shelter in place, some experts say it may sometimes be smart to do what Miller did -- get into a car and drive -- especially if you have enough warning.

"You rarely ever have less than 15 minutes, and usually considerably more," said Ed Bates, an architect who designs buildings that incorporate storm shelters.

"With the good lead time, I'd tell people to get in their automobile and go 90 degrees from that perceived path," said Bates. "It's manageable and easy to do -- even in a city environment."

Given open roads and a reliable vehicle, the race should not be close. Funnel clouds can travel as fast as 70 mph, but their average forward speed is only 30 mph, according to FEMA.

The tornado that ripped through Moore on Monday was one of the strongest on record, with winds topping 200 mph. Twenty-four people were killed, 10 of them children. Hundreds more were injured.

The twister damaged or destroyed about 12,000 homes, and state insurance adjusters expect the claims to exceed $2 billion.

Aerial views of what's left of the Oklahoma City suburb testify to the danger courted by those who sheltered in place.

Residents of Moore had 36 minutes from the time the National Weather Service issued its warning until the time the twister entered the city.

But even that lead time would not necessarily have persuaded Ernst Kiesling to try to race out of harm's way.

"It's a tough question," said Kiesling, a civil engineering professor at Texas Tech University who has spent his life studying tornadoes and developing above-ground storm shelters to protect against them.

"My advice would be to seek the safest place available. That is: lie in a ditch or ... (get) behind a heavy object if you had a tractor or even a tree."

He cited the 1979 Wichita Falls, Texas, tornado as a cautionary lesson. That twister killed 54 people and, Kiesling noted, "many people were killed in automobiles because they tried to outrun it."

Still, Kiesling allowed, there may be times when fleeing an impending tornado might be a good option.

"If you have good information on the storm, if you have plenty of warning, if you have an automobile, it may make sense, but I personally don't feel that's the advice that we want to give the public."

A better answer, he said, would be to plan. "I think there is today a storm shelter or solution for just about every situation, so I would urge people to consider procuring a storm shelter for their home."

The options for shelters are many: above-ground, below-ground, mounted in the garage, on the patio, on a poured slab or even in a space carved out beneath the slab.

Shelters at schools

Ed Bates said he includes provisions for storm shelters in the buildings he designs, but sometimes it's a tough sell.

"It's just disgraceful for me to see how many schools in Oklahoma continue to get built with all the priority on athletic facilities," the architect said. "They don't seize the opportunity to protect from a very imminent danger in this area."

That was not the case at Northeastern State University in Tulsa, where his proposals were welcomed. "We were able to build honest-to-goodness tornado vaults, concrete vaults, as double-purpose classrooms," he said.

Inside the shelter's blast-resistant doors is ample space to accommodate the school's thousands of students and staff members, he said. Its value was driven home soon after it was completed, when a tornado struck nearby, causing damage, he said.

"I went out there to the campus about three days later, and three of the lady professors just ran up and hugged me and said, 'Mr. Bates, we just want to thank you,'" he said. "They said, 'What a peace of mind!' "

Teachers at schools without shelters can find themselves in untenable positions, he said. "A tornado gets announced, and then the teachers have no choice but to stay right there until every one of the parents of those children arrive," he said. "That's not the way it ought to be."

The fact that seven students at Plaza Towers Elementary School were among the dead has given momentum to advocates for shelters in schools. Plaza Towers had neither a basement nor a shelter, and neither did Briarwood Elementary, which was also destroyed, although there were no fatalities there.

The schools that were rebuilt in Moore after a tornado in 1999 do have storm shelters, he said. That one, too, was an EF5, the most powerful category of storm. Such tornadoes represent a tiny fraction -- about one-tenth of a percent -- of all tornadoes, according to FEMA.

Most of the schools in Oklahoma don't have a shelter because of the cost, Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis told CNN. But he predicted that will change.

"There should be a place that, if this ever happened again during school, that kids can get to a safe place," said Mikki Dixon Davis, whose 8-year-old son, Kyle, died at Plaza Towers.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, said it was not clear Kyle would have survived even if he had had access to a shelter. "Some of the shelters that were utilized collapsed or were destroyed by the tornado," he said.

"We'll never replace her child or fill that void in her heart, and we ought to do what we can do to prevent this kind of result, but there's only so much we can do. We put 200 shelters in in the last four, five years in Oklahoma in schools, so it's not like the state hasn't been making an effort."

Leslie Chapman-Henderson rejected "chatter" suggesting that no above-ground shelters could have withstood Monday's winds.

"We don't know that; that hasn't been determined," said Chapman-Henderson, the president and CEO of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes Inc.

"We're concerned it's going to set the cause of tornado safety back decades if we can't get fact-based conversations rolling forward," Chapman-Henderson said.

She expressed confidence that Oklahomans will learn from Monday's events. "I hear a very diverse voice converging on one message: that this time, we have got to do this differently."

As the debate continues over whether to invest in storm shelters, here are a few tips that experts say everyone should follow:

-- Don't ignore those warnings

There's a saying in Oklahoma: If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes. The skies can change fast and that makes it hard for weather forecasters to predict the weather.

But whether you're in Oklahoma or anywhere else, don't dismiss tornado watches and warnings just because the forecaster got last week's predictions wrong.

And don't fall victim to thinking a tornado can't happen in your neighborhood.

"Time and fading memories are the worst enemies," said Chapman-Henderson. "People think it can't happen twice, but in the case of Moore, Oklahoma, the tragedy here is this is the third strike -- 1999 to 2003."

Tornadoes can sometimes form so quickly that little, if any, warning is possible, according to FEMA.

-- Grab a helmet

As Monday's tornado approached, football players at Southmoore High School were getting ready for practice. The coach rounded up the players and ordered them to put on their helmets, he told Fox Sports Southwest

The tornado just missed the school.

It's an important lesson: Protect your head. A 200 mph gust of wind can turn a stick into a lethal weapon, something even a $10 bicycle helmet might protect against.

-- Work with what you've got

There's a good chance that if a tornado approaches, you might not be near a storm shelter or a basement or your emergency kit, so it's important to use what you have at the time of the impact to increase your survival chances.

Emergency room doctors at Moore Medical Center pulled mattresses and blankets off hospital gurneys and used them to cover themselves and their patients as the tornado approached.

Those simple items might have saved lives as the tornado wiped out the hospital's second floor.

Workers and customers at a credit union got inside the bank vault, which proved to be the only thing standing after the tornado reduced the rest of the building to rubble.

Teachers and parents lay on top of kids at Briarwood Elementary, using their bodies to shield the children from debris as they rode out the storm.

The tornado wiped out the school and many sustained serious injuries, but everyone survived.

The Red Cross and the National Weather Service have more tips on their websites.

World's second-oldest man dies at 113

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:57:22 GMT

Do 41,363 days sound like much time? You very likely won't live that long, but James Sisnett did.

That's long enough to have seen the first silent movie, when it came out, provided a movie theater even existed back then on the island of Barbados, where Sisnett spent his life.

He was 3 years old the first time Orville Wright took the first-ever flight in an airplane and barely a teenager when World War I broke out.

When he died Thursday, Sisnett was the oldest man in the Western Hemisphere, whose age had been validated, according to the Gerontology Research Group. He was likely the second oldest man on the planet.

GRG is a private organization that verifies the ages of centenarians, people over 100 years of age, and supercentenarians, people over 110.

Living as long as Sisnett did is quite a feat, but since women outlive men on the whole, there are a few women still alive between Canada and Argentina, who are even older than he was, according to GRG.

Five of them live in the United States.

The verified oldest living person in the world is Jiroemon Kimura of Japan. He turned 116 in April, GRG said.

The oldest person who ever lived was Louise Calment of France, a woman who topped 122 years, the Guinness Book of World Records reports.

On the island of Barbados, which is less than 30 miles long, Sisnett was a celebrity, family member Gerard Sisnett told CNN.

He was considered a living reference for historic events there, where he was known under the nickname "Grandad." As a symbol of honor, he was given the keys to the capital of Bridgetown when he turned 100. That was well over a decade ago.

The government may make the national stadium available for his funeral, Gerard Sisnett said.

James Sisnett was born in the last year of the 19th century, on February 22, 1900, and was 113 years and 90 days old, when he passed away in his sleep, Gerard Sisnett said. That's 41,363 days, including 28 extra days for leap years.

Originally a blacksmith by trade, Grandad retired in 1970.

He was about 70 years of age then. That's nearly three years more than the average lifespan in the United States.

Seventy years add up to 25,550 days, not including extra days from leap years.

Seize one, while you can.

Sexual assault scourge 'must be stamped out'

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:50:01 GMT

Sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military "are a profound betrayal of sacred oaths and sacred trusts," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told cadets Saturday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

"This scourge must be stamped out," he said during a commencement address. "we are all accountable and responsible for ensuring that this happens. We cannot fail the Army or America. We cannot fail each other and we cannot fail the men and women that we lead."

Hagel cited similar admonitions made Friday by President Barack Obama to newly commissioned officers at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Sexual assaults in the armed forces undermine Americans' confidence in the military, the commander-in-chief said.

"That's why we have to be determined to stop these crimes," Obama said. "Because they have no place in the greatest military on Earth."

Their comments came in the wake of a series of allegations of sexual impropriety in the military and an estimate that their incidence is growing:

-- This week, the Army said it had suspended Brig. Gen. Bryan Roberts, the top general at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, after allegations of adultery and assault.

-- Last week, a U.S. Army sergeant first class stationed at West Point was charged with covertly shooting videos of female cadets in showers and latrines.

-- This month, an Army sergeant first class assigned to the sexual assault prevention unit at Fort Hood, Texas, came under investigation for alleged sexual assault, pandering, abusive sexual contact and maltreatment of subordinates. He has been relieved of duty while investigators look in to the allegations.

-- Also this month, an Air Force officer who managed an assault prevention unit, was charged with sexual battery, accused of grabbing a woman and groping her buttocks and breasts in an Arlington County parking lot near his Washington office.

-- The Department of Defense estimated this month that 26,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact -- from groping to rape -- occurred last year in the military, 35% higher than the estimate from 2010. The vast majority of those incidents went unreported as crimes, the study showed.

Report: 24 killed in key Syrian town

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:02:30 GMT

Shelling by Hezbollah fighters killed 24 people Saturday in the strategically important western Syrian town of Qusayr, an opposition group reported.

The Local Coordination Committees in Syria said the fatalities included women and children. Another opposition group, the Syrian Observatory from Human Rights, said that 18 of the dead were rebel fighters.

Hezbollah, the pro-regime and pro-Iranian Shiite militia regarded as a terrorist group by the U.S. government and Sunni countries, is fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad's security forces.

The government-run Syrian Arab News Agency said government forces were carrying out an operation against "armed terrorist groups" in the town, and had killed large numbers of them.

In Istanbul, Turkey, a Syrian opposition leader called for weapons, fighters and other aid.

"In today's Syria, terrorism is killing tolerance; ignorance is killing logic; barbarity is overwhelming civility!" Syrian National Coalition Acting Chairman George Sabra told reporters.

Referring to Hezbollah forces, he said, "You are heading in the wrong direction. The resistance should not be in the north, in Qusayr or Daraya. Due to sectarianism and blindly following the most tyrant regime in the world, some Lebanese are sent to Syria!"

Marchers angry over Woolwich killing

Sat, 25 May 2013 15:58:31 GMT

Waving flags and chanting, far-right marchers rallied in northern England Saturday, their numbers apparently swelled by anger over the slaying of a British soldier by attackers who claimed an Islamist motive.

Protesters on the march organized by the far-right English Defence League told CNN that the soldier's killing in Woolwich, southeast London, had opened their eyes to the country's situation, and called for Muslims to leave.

Addressing the crowd in Newcastle, EDL leader Tommy Robinson said: "We cannot allow this soldier's death to be in vain.

"We are the only ones who dare say it. When did the truth become hate speech?"

Police said between 1,500 and 2,000 people joined the EDL protest -- many more than the 300-500 protesters that EDL organizers told CNN they were expecting ahead of the event.

Glass bottles were thrown at one point as EDL protesters skirmished with a group of bystanders opposed to their march.

A counter demonstration was held by a group called Newcastle Unites to coincide with the far-right rally. Police estimate that 350 to 400 people took part in that event.

Dipu Ahad, a Labor councilor in the city and a leader of Newcastle Unites, told CNN the EDL were "opportunists" who were making use of anger over the killing to push their message.

Newcastle Chief Supt. Gary Calvert said the day had passed off without major incident.

Police made a number of arrests, mostly alcohol-related or to prevent public order offenses, he said in a statement, but the "vast majority of those taking part were well behaved."

The march came amid concern over growing anti-Muslim sentiment as evidence emerges of apparent links between one of the two suspected attackers and radical Islamist groups.

Friends, acquaintances and British media have identified 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo, a British national of Nigerian descent, as the suspect seen in a gory video from the scene of the Woolwich killing. He is said to be a Muslim convert.

A self-proclaimed friend of the suspect was arrested Friday night at BBC Broadcasting House after giving an interview in which he said Michael Adebolajo had been approached by Britain's domestic security service, MI5. Police said the arrest was made under the Terrorism Act and was not connected to the Woolwich inquiry.

Politicians and community leaders have been trying to tamp down tensions in the wake of the murder of the soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby, and police numbers have been boosted in vulnerable areas.

Members of the EDL clashed with police near the scene of the killing late Wednesday. A tweet from its official account proclaimed then that "it's fair to say that finally the country is waking up!:-) NO SURRENDER!"

Northumbria Police arrested three people on suspicion of posting racist tweets ahead of the EDL rally.

A message posted on the EDL Facebook page Saturday urged members to abide by the law or risk arrest.

"NO swearing, NO incitement to violence, No racist remarks, No threats. Please be very aware that the authorities can, do & will monitor these pages & it seems from information we are getting are visiting and arresting people. Keep it safe please," it said.

'Abused in the street, online'

A group which monitors incidents of anti-Muslim abuse, the Tell Mama project, said Saturday morning it had seen a huge increase in the number of reported incidents.

Fiyaz Mughal, a coordinator of Tell Mama, told CNN Saturday morning that 162 incidents had been reported in the past 48 hours -- compared with four to six incidents a day on average before the Woolwich attack.

The latest include street-based incidents like name calling, assaults and materials being thrown at individuals, Mughal said, as well as online incidents, where targeted hate is directed at individuals through the Internet and social media.

Eight incidents of attacks against mosques across Britain are also included in the figure.

Mughal, also director of an interfaith national hate crime reporting project, Faith Matters, said he had observed that people are scared, particularly female Muslims who wear headscarves and have told Tell Mama that they are afraid to go out. "It's quite endemic," he said.

Tell Mama recorded 632 incidents of anti-Muslim abuse in the year from March 2012, it said, about three-quarters of which occurred online. More than half were directed at women.

Imams sign letter condemning attack

The apparent increase in abuse comes as Muslim leaders, as well as their Christian counterparts, seek to keep communities calm.

Shaykh Shams Adduha, founder and director of Ebrahim College, which teaches Islamic studies in London, is one of nearly 100 imams and Muslim groups to have signed a letter Friday condemning the "outrageous attack" on Rigby and offering their condolences to his family.

"We share the absolute horror felt by the rest of British society at the sick and barbaric crime that was committed in the name of our religion. We condemn this heinous atrocity in the strongest possible terms. It is a senseless act of pure depravity worthy of nothing but contempt," it read.

Shams Adduha told CNN Saturday that the Muslim community had reacted promptly and was working hard to defuse tensions.

"First of all we've been very open in our condemnation and very open about the fact that there is no place ... in Islam for this kind of act," the imam said.

"At the same time we've been calling for calm, we've constantly been talking to our communities to make sure that their fears are allayed. But of course the reactions are happening -- and they will happen."

These types of attacks are also a reaction, he said, to problems and grievances among "angry young people out there in the world."

With regards to the Woolwich attack, he said, Muslim leaders must make clear that what happened is "un-Islamic" and seek to educate young people so they are not susceptible to "fringe voices."

Prime Minister David Cameron stressed Thursday that "the fault lies solely with sickening individuals who carried out this attack," adding that "nothing in Islam ... justifies this truly dreadful act."

'Eye for an eye'

One of the attack suspects apparently approached a man filming the gory scene in the Woolwich neighborhood and suggested that Rigby had been targeted only "because Muslims are dying daily" at the hands of British troops like him.

"We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," he said in the video aired by CNN affiliate ITN.

Britain's armed forces have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. All its combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

The identity of a second man, aged 22, seized at the scene by armed police has not been released. Both suspects were shot and remain in hospital.

A third man, aged 29, who was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder on Thursday is also still in custody.

Donations flood in

It is understood that the two individuals suspected of carrying out the knife and cleaver attack were known to Britain's domestic security service. They had featured in previous investigations into other individuals, but were not themselves under surveillance.

CNN understands that one line of inquiry being examined in the Woolwich terror investigation is that suspect Adebolajo might have attempted -- but failed -- to travel to Somalia some time last year.

The brutal slaying of Rigby near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, a working-class, multicultural neighborhood, shocked people across the United Kingdom.

The 25-year-old, who was married and had a 2-year-old son, was a machine gunner who became a recruiter. He was also a ceremonial military drummer.

His family spoke Friday of their sorrow at losing a son, husband and brother who was dedicated to his job and devoted to his family.

Help for Heroes, a charity which helps injured military veterans and servicemen and women, said Saturday that nearly £600,000 ($907,590) in public donations had poured in since the news of Rigby's murder -- with more still coming in.

"The nation has rallied behind our Armed Forces in an extraordinary and wonderful display of support," the charity said.

Gas explosion kills 16 children in minivan

Sat, 25 May 2013 15:54:25 GMT

Sixteen children and a teacher in Pakistan were killed Saturday after a gas canister used to fuel a school minivan exploded on a hot spring day, police in Gujrat said.

The blast injured 10 other people, according to Nadeem Ulla, a local police official.

"It's over 100 degrees (38 degrees C), the heat probably caused the explosion," Ulla said. "We do not expect any foul play ".

Compressed natural gas is used as an alternative fuel to gasoline because the engines are more energy efficient and cheaper to run.

Oklahoma principals recall day tornado hit

Sat, 25 May 2013 14:20:01 GMT

It was like any other day. If anything, it might have been a little better than usual -- with more deserved honors for the kids, more jokes and songs, more smiles. Even Mother Nature, after storms the previous day, seemed at first to cooperate as the sun shone brightly.

But things changed quickly.

And in Oklahoma, where adults and children alike habitually practice what to do if a tornado strikes, change can prove deadly.

Things are different, more heartbreaking now for students and staff at Plaza Towers and Briarwood elementary schools in Moore, both of them leveled by a tornado.

"A lot of pain, a lot of tears, very little food and very little sleep is the way you get through it," Plaza Towers principal Amy Simpson said Friday.

The memories linger. They are not just of the horrible moments when the twister tore through their schools, but the minutes before as teachers did what they could to keep their students safe and in control as it approached, the short time before that as frenzied parents rushed in looking for their sons and daughters, and the hours before that when everything seemed perfect.

"What started off as a normal day at Plaza Towers tuned into a horrible, horrible thing for seven families," said Simpson, referring to the seven of her students killed by the storm.

A frenzied, yet controlled few horrific minutes

Each school week at Plaza Towers starts with "Rise and Shine." It's a chance for students to see their teachers and counselors, to sing and recite the school creed, and to honor youngsters' accomplishments inside and outside school.

"During that morning meeting, we celebrate kids," the school's principal said.

On Monday, the celebrations didn't end there. Simpson recalled then heading to an hour-long award ceremony for first and second graders to toast their many achievements, then to a practice for sixth-graders' commencement exercises.

After that, kids started filing into the cafeteria for the first of six lunch sessions the school has.

"Everything in the morning went exactly as it has for the last 170 days," Simpson recalled.

It was after lunch that teachers first got word to be on alert for severe weather.

Still, at that point, no one knew a twister was heading their way. Simpson continued to go about her business, interviewing a candidate for a pre-kindergarten position, when she noticed heavy thunderstorms roll through.

Simpson ended the interview and noticed parents starting to stream in to pick up their kids. This happens often when it rains heavily, but the principal sensed something abnormal was up as parents rushed in faster and in greater numbers than usual.

"At that point, I made a decision that you didn't have to check out your child the formal way," Simpson recalled, saying she stood out front to see who was coming and going.

Some parents were noticeably scared. One father, Simpson said, was "in a panic." She told him that he had to calm down -- so as not to alarm any students -- before he went through the hallways to retrieve his child.

This steady stream lasted 5 or 6 minutes before the sirens went off, indicating a tornado on the ground. Simpson got on the intercom and told everyone to do what they'd practiced in all those drills. Then she walked up and down the hallways. (She couldn't get to where her second and third-graders were, however, as they were in a different building.)

Some teachers tracked the twister on mobile devices, until Simpson asked them to turn them off. She did another walk-through and saw her staffers rubbing the backs of their students, some of whom -- with their heads down and hands over their heads -- sang.

When the principal got back to the front of the school, the tornado was nearly on top of them. She got on the intercom one more time.

"It's here."

Rising from the rubble

Simpson huddled in a bathroom with four other women. "The only time I yelled (I said), 'In God's name, go away, go away.' I said it about four times."

Debris was still flying when Simpson pushed out the door, stepped over a sink, and noticed "the whole neighborhood was gone."

Somehow, her phone rang. It was her mother, and she told her to call 911.

There were no more walls left in her school. The bumper of a car sat between the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students.

"I could see the kids peeking around what used to be a corner," Simpson said.

Justin Ayres, a fifth-grade teacher who was the first to spot the twister, was the first one out on one side of what had been the school. Men and women, meanwhile, were running foward to help.

Within minutes, Simpson recalled, the pre-K, kindergarten and first graders were safely out. Her husband soon arrived and put his hand on her shoulder.

"I said, 'Go help second and third grade,'" referring to those students who were in a different, nearby building. "I haven't seen any of them yet."

More and more students emerged, some of them heading to a nearby church. But what had been the second- and third-grade building was precarious, at best.

"I made my way around there, then I begged and pleaded for the human chain to get me up there," Simpson said. "They did. And they were pulling out students and teachers."

All seven killed at Plaza Towers died in that rubble.

"The rest of the evening was a nightmare."

'They grew up really fast'

Briarwood Elementary Principal Shelley Jaques-McMillin's first impression of Monday?

"I remember thinking, "Yeah, it's sunny! So we're going to be able to go outside."

School started, as it always does, with what's called the Grizzly Growl -- a time for singing, dancing, celebrating.

"(I remember) the happy faces, how excited they were, just seeing them smile," said Jaques-McMillin. And there was laughter when a special guest -- a sheep -- made a special appearance. Staffers had to give it a kiss, because a group of students had reached their reading goal.

Lunchtime that day was especially fun.

"This is what school is about," Jaques-McMillin remembered saying at the time. "This is why we do what we do. They're so happy."

The next few hours went by in a blur -- in some ways, much like at Plaza Towers. There were the students and staff doing what they'd practiced in tornado drills -- the sirens, and more.

Jaques-McMillin felt stronger, more resolute this time than when the last EF5 tornado -- the strongest such classification -- came through Moore. When that happened, she was alone and horrified.

This time was different. She had a sense of purpose, beyond simply making sure they survived.

"I have 675 students that I promise their parents every single day, I will protect your kids," Jaques-McMillin said. "I'll feed them, they'll be safe, and I'll give them back at the end of the day."

Briarwood Elementary didn't survive the tornado, but everyone who had been inside did.

They included 4-year-olds and students set to move onto seventh grade, though they were still kids at heart.

Yet on Monday, one of them reached down to a teacher, who was trapped in the rubble with water from a busted pipe blowing in her face.

"He grabbed her hand and said, 'Calm down, I'm going to dig you out."

And he did, just a few days after letting loose during a "Glow in the Dark" party.

"Here they were, being silly on Friday night, ... dancing, being sixth-graders," Jaques-McMillin said. "They grew up really fast."

Judge says Arizona sheriff was profiling

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:58:14 GMT

Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio has required prison inmates to wear pink underwear and saved taxpayers money by removing salt and pepper from prisons. He has, at times, forbidden convicted murderer Jodi Arias from speaking to the press.

The stern Maricopa County Sheriff has said the federal government will not stop him from running his office as he sees fit. But on Friday it did.

A judge ruled Friday that Arpaio's routine handling of people of Latino descent is not tough enforcement of immigration laws but instead amounts to racial and ethnic profiling.

Some of those profiled sued Arpaio, and Judge Murray Snow found their complaints to be legitimate.

The federal court in Phoenix ordered "America's Toughest Sheriff" -- a moniker Arpaio sports on his website -- to stop it immediately and has banned some of his operating procedures.

The sheriff's office has a history of targeting vehicles with occupants with darker skin or Latin heritage, scrutinizing them more strictly and detaining them more often, Snow ruled.

The sheriff's lawyers dispute the judge's conclusion.

Defense attorney Tim Casey said he's "very disappointed by the outcome of the decision. The MCSO and the sheriff have never used race and will never use race in their decisions."

The sheriff's office in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, is planning to appeal the ruling.

"This is vindication," said immigration rights activist Lydia Guzman, happy about the verdict. "They've been stopping people based on the color of our skin, just because someone suspected we might not be authorized to be in this country."

Being profiled

Plaintiffs in the civil trial gave accounts alleging discriminatory treatment.

Officers stopped Manuel Nieto and Velia Meraz after they witnessed Maricopa County Sheriff's Office deputies detaining two Latino men. A deputy then ordered them to leave, but they were pulled over again in front of their family business, according to the ACLU, which represented plaintiffs.

The second stop was at gunpoint, they said. Nieto dialed 911, but deputies grabbed him and threw him against his car, according to the suit. Once they saw that Nieto and Meraz were U.S. citizens, they let them go -- without an apology.

Plaintiff Manuel Ortega Melendres was vising Arizona on a valid visa. He does not speak English.

In September 2007, he was arrested after the car he was riding in was pulled over by deputies.

Melendres said he showed the officers his identification but was nonetheless treated roughly and arrested. He sat in a cell for hours before a federal immigration agent confirmed that his documents were in order.

A professor of criminal justice presented a statistical analysis he said corroborated that profiling in the county was systematic.

Ralph Taylor of Temple University testified that Hispanics are more likely to be checked for immigration status during saturation patrols than non-Hispanics are.

Casey blamed the incidences on bad training by U.S. Immigration and Customs agents. The court's ruling will prevent local law enforcement from playing a potential role in immigration enforcement, he said.

No longer allowed

The court's ruling prevents the sheriff's office from carrying out some of Arpaio's policies that it said amounted to a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and the Fourteenth, which guarantees equal protection under the law.

The MCSO will no longer be allowed to use race or Latino heritage to make any law enforcement decisions, including stopping vehicles, making detentions or holding suspects longer than necessary to resolve specific allegations.

The ruling is another slap from the federal justice system against Arizona's immigration policies.

The U.S. Supreme court in June 2012 struck down parts of the state's controversial immigration law, including provisions for law enforcement that were similar to those practiced by Arpaio, and which the court deemed unconstitutional.

Law enforcement veteran

Arpaio's office claims to be the third largest sheriff's office in the United States and boasts more than 3,400 employees.

Before becoming sheriff, Arpaio was a federal narcotics agent, who eventually headed the Arizona office of the Drug Enforcement Agency, according to his biography on the MCSO website.

In April, a postal inspector intercepted an explosive package addressed to him. It was mailed a day after the department received a death threat from a major drug cartel.

In a CNN interview before his trial began, Arpaio said his department would continue to pursue illegal immigrants.

"I know I'm doing the right thing. I'm not going to surrender by those little small groups, people that don't like what I'm doing. You think I'm going to surrender? It'll never happen," the sheriff said at the time.

But on Friday attorney Casey said "America's Toughest Sheriff" will comply with the court's ruling -- for now.

Report: 12 wounded in attack in Dagestan

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:26:10 GMT

A suicide bomber on Saturday wounded 12 people -- five of them police officers -- in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, the country's state news agency Ria Novosti reported.

The attack occurred in Makhachkala, capital of the semi-autonomous region of Dagestan.

The attacker, who targeted the regional police headquarters, was the widow of a militant who had been killed by law enforcement, the news agency reported, citing police.

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