Ship Stranded: Love Boat to Horror Honeymoon

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A Texas couple's fantasy wedding quickly turned into a nightmare honeymoon when the fire-damaged Carnival Cruise ship carrying them became stranded in the Gulf of Mexico.


Rob Mowlam, 37, and Stephanie Stevenson, 27, of Nederland, Texas, got married on the Carnival Triumph on Saturday. The four-day cruise was meant to be back to shore on Monday, but was left disabled by an engine fire on Sunday.


The ship is being slowly towed to shore and is expected to dock in Mobile, Ala., on Thursday if weather permits. The vessel is without air conditioning, many working toilets and some restaurant service. Passengers, many who are sleeping in tents on deck, have told ABC News the smell on the ship is foul.


That is the honeymoon setting for Mowlam and Stevenson.


"[Rob Mowlam] had been with his girlfriend, or fiance, for a long period of time and they just took the next step," Mowlam's brother James Mowlam III told ABCNews.com. "The captain is the king of the world when they're on the boat and he hitched them up."


James Mowlam said he was shocked when he heard about the stranded boat and the increasingly dire conditions on the ship.


"It is an atrocious scene to be subjected to," he said.


Mowlam said he has not been able to communicate with his brother, but that his father has had sporadic communication with him.


"It would be my guess that this would probably not be on anyone's great list of memorable wedding experiences," Mowlam said with a laugh. "Although, my mom told him that she was hoping they had a memorable wedding and I think this would classify as a memorable wedding experience."






Lt. Cmdr. Paul McConnell/U.S. Coast Guard/AP Photo











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The bride's brother, Justin Davis, told ABCNews.com that his sister works for a doctor's office and the cruise was a gift from the doctor to the staff.


Davis has not been able to speak to Stevenson but said that her two young sons are being cared for by her mother. He said his sister is tough and he guesses she's probably not scared.


"She might be a little aggravated at the situation, but I'd say she's [probably] handling it really well," he said.


Others on the ship do not seem to be handling the situation so well.


Elderly and disabled passengers aboard the ship are struggling to cope with the worsening conditions, according to at least one passenger.


"Elderly and handicap are struggling, the smell is gross," passenger Ann Barlow text-messaged ABC News overnight. "Our room is leaking sewage."


The head of Carnival Cruise Lines said the British-U.S.-owned company was working hard to ensure the thousands of passengers stranded on the disabled ship were as comfortable as possible while the vessel was being towed to a port in Alabama.


"I need to apologize to our guests and to our families that have been affected by a very difficult situation," Carnival Cruise Lines president and CEO Gerry Cahill said at a news conference Tuesday evening.


It was the first time since a fire erupted in Triumph's engine room Sunday, knocking out its four engines, that a company representative had spoken publicly. The Triumph, with roughly 4,200 people on board, was left bobbing like a 100,000-ton cork for more than 24 hours. Giant sea-faring tugboats then hooked up to the ship and began towing the nearly 900-foot-long ship to land.


Carnival spokeswoman Joyce Oliva told The Associated Press Tuesday that a passenger with a pre-existing medical condition was taken off the ship as a precaution. Everyone else will likely have to weather conditions such as scarce running water, no air conditioning and long lines for food.


Back on land, passenger Barlow's 11-year-old twins told ABC News Tuesday they are worried as more passengers continue to talk about living with limited power and sanitation.






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Chinese in Costa Rica set record for fried rice

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SAN JOSE: Members of Costa Rica's Chinese community celebrated the the arrival of the Year of the Snake by setting the world record on Tuesday for the largest amount of fried rice ever cooked.

Briton Ralph Hannah, an inspector with the Guinness World Records, certified the win after putting the giant meal - enough to feed some 7,000 people - on a scale.

The official weight: 837 kilogrammes (1,845 pounds), which nearly doubles the previous record.

Armed with shovel-sized spoons, 52 cooks toiled over an enormous wok built especially for the event in San Jose's recently inaugurated Chinatown.

Some 735 kilogrammes of rice were used, along with 200 kilogrammes of chicken, 120 kilogrammes of ham, 20 kilogrammes of Chinese sausage, hundreds of eggs and vast amounts of chopped vegetables.

The Chinese Association of Costa Rica came up with the idea for the giant meal, said Godwin Pang, who helped coordinate the event.

Pang said the Chinese community wanted to mark the Year of the Snake, which began on Sunday, with a big event.

Most Chinese residents in Costa Rica are in the restaurant business. Chinese restaurants can be found even in small towns across this Central American country of 4.7 million.

Hannah, the Guinness representative for Latin America, said this was the first time that Costa Rica enters the world record book.

- AFP/de



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Most BJP legislators against dissolving House

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BANGALORE: A majority of BJPMLAs, including ministers, are not in favour of dissolving the assembly early.

"Governor H R Bhardwaj has said he would act even if a single MLA resigns. As of now, 12 MLAs' resignations have been accepted and two are pending with speaker K G Bopaiah. By moving a vote of confidence, the CM will expose the fence-sitters. Because they will be disqualified if they defy the whip,'' sources said.

The party has worked out various strategies to win the vote. "We have wooed four Congress MLAs to vote in our favour. Two or three BJP MLAs, including a minister from north Karnataka, are waiting to jump the ship. But their going does not matter to the party,'' a BJP insider said.

Despite all these strategies, it is learnt the BJP will not be perturbed if it loses the trust vote. "Yeddyurappa will be blamed for weakening the government . The party has better a chance if elections are announced at the earliest, whereas Yeddyurappa favours them in May for him to consolidate the KJP,'' the sources said.

Meanwhile, the BJP is keeping its fingers crossed over the dates for elections to 208 civic bodies. The legislature on Tuesday passed a bill that makes it compulsory for the State Election Commission (SEC) to announce the poll dates in concurrence with the government. If the assembly is dissolved, the SEC can go ahead with the polls.

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Where Will Pope Benedict XVI Retire?

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Someone with a suspicious mind and deep knowledge of Vatican trivia might have guessed that something was going on months ago. Last November, a community of cloistered nuns vacated the  Mater Ecclesiae monastery, located inside Vatican Gardens, two years before they were expected to do so.

The monastery has since been closed for renovation.

On Monday, in the press conference that followed Pope Benedict XVI's announcement that he will resign at the end of the month, Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office,  revealed that the monastery will be the retired pontiff's new home. (Photo Gallery: Inside the Vatican.)

"When renovation work on the monastery of cloistered nuns inside the Vatican is complete, the Holy Father will move there for a period of prayer and reflection," Lombardi said.

Until then, the pope will stay at the Apostolical Palace and the Pontifical Villas in Castel Gandolfo, a small lake town about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Rome, which serves as the traditional summer residence for popes.

The Mater Ecclesiae monastery was founded in 1992 by Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, "to create a place to house an international convent for contemplative life within the walls of Vatican City," according to the Vatican City State website.

It has housed small communities of cloistered nuns whose main task has been to provide spiritual assistance to the pope and to the Roman Catholic Church as a whole by praying in Latin and singing Gregorian chants.

The nuns would also embroider papal garments and cultivate a small organic orchard and a rose garden next to their residence. In a 2009 interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the monastery's then abbess said that Benedict particularly appreciated the special-recipe marmalade that the nuns would prepare out of the oranges and lemons they picked in the Vatican orchard.

It is not yet clear for how long the soon-to-be-former pope will stay at the monastery. Lombardi has said that Benedict will not participate in the March conclave that will elect his successor, stressing that there will be "no confusion or division arising from his resignation."

Lombardi also said that he wasn't sure of Benedict's future title-there are no canon law provisions or historical precedents regarding the statute, prerogatives, or titles for a retired pope.

Resignations of Popes Past

Only a handful of popes have willfully or forcefully resigned in the church's history, the last case going back to 1415, almost 600 years ago.

"It was Pope Gregory XII, who, in a very sacrificial gesture, offered to resign so that the Council of Constance could assume his power and appoint a new pope, and in so doing bring an end [to the] Great Western Schism," Donald Prudlo, associate professor of history at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, told Vatican Radio.

Italian and foreign commentators have been likening Benedict's choice to a famous case of papal abdication-that of Celestine V, who was elected in 1294 and left the Roman throne only five months later.

"At the end of the 13th century, a very holy hermit named Peter was elected as Pope Celestine V in order to break a deadlock in the conclave that had lasted nearly three years," Prudlo explained. "He was elected because of his personal holiness, sort of a unity candidate. And once he got there, being a hermit, not used to the ways of the Roman Curia, he found himself somewhat unsuited to the task."

So he resigned and lived as a hermit—or, some historians say, as a prisoner—in a castle belonging to his successor, Boniface VIII, before dying in 1296.

Celestine is widely recognized as the object of Dante Alighieri's scolding verses in his Divine Comedy. The former pope was proclaimed saint in 1313.

In 2009, Benedict XVI visited Celestine's tomb in L'Aquila (map) and left the pallium—a vestment that is the symbol of papal authority—on the grave. Now that gesture is being interpreted as a premonition of the choice he would eventually make.


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Wanted Ex-Cop Possibly in Shootout, Chase

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A suspect believed to be fugitive former cop Christopher Dorner has barricaded himself inside a mountain cabin near Big Bear, Calif., and exchanged gunfire with police who had pursued him after he broke into a home in the area.


Two cops were airlifted after being wounded in the exchange of gunfire with the suspect.


The suspect is believed to have broken into a home nearby and briefly taken two women hostage before stealing a car. Officials say the suspect crashed the vehicle and fled on foot before barricading himself in a cabin.


The two women were evaluated by paramedics and were determined to be uninjured.


Police have sealed all roads going into the area and imposed a no-fly zone above the cabin, which is in a wooded area that has received several inches of snow in recent days.


Four Big Bear area schools were briefly placed on lockdown.


The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department stopped all traffic leaving the area and thoroughly searched vehicles, as SWAT team and tactical units could be seen driving toward the cabin, their sirens blaring.






Los Angeles Police Department/AP Photo











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Dorner faces capital murder charges that involve the killing of Riverside police officer Michael Crain, who was gunned down in an ambush last Thursday.


Since then a massive manhunt has been underway, focused primarily in the San Bernardino Mountains, but extending to neighboring states and as far away as Mexico.


A capital murder charge could result in the death penalty if Dorner is captured alive and convicted. Crain was married with two children, aged 10 and 4.


The charges do not involve the slayings of Monica Quan and her fiance, who were found shot to death Feb. 3. Quan was the daughter of former LAPD Capt. Randal Quan, who was mentioned as a target of Dorner's fury in his so-called "manifesto," which he posted on his Facebook page.



PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings


In the 6,000 word "manifesto," Dorner outlined his anger at the Los Angeles Police Department for firing him, and made threats against individuals he believed were responsible for ending his career with the police force five years ago.


The LAPD has assigned 50 protection details to guard officers and their families who were deemed possible targets.



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White House warns Republicans on Hagel, Brennan votes

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WASHINGTON: The White House said Monday a top Republican was harming national security by delaying confirmation of new Pentagon and CIA chiefs in a row over the US consulate attack in Benghazi.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned Sunday he would block Chuck Hagel's Senate confirmation as defence secretary and John Brennan's as CIA director, unless the White House offered more information on the September 11 assault.

Spokesman Jay Carney, however, said the White House had answered all questions about the militant strike, which killed four Americans, and accused critics of shifting goalposts after repeated testimony by officials about the incident.

"What is unfortunate here is the continuing attempt to politicise an issue... through nominees that themselves had nothing to do with Benghazi, and to do so in a way that only does harm to our national security interests," he said.

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Senator Carl Levin said he would schedule a delayed vote to move Hagel's nomination to the full Senate on Tuesday.

The vote was put off last week, as Republicans assailed Hagel over his views on Iran, Israel and his stance on the war in Iraq.

Republicans on the committee had also demanded more details from Hagel on paid speeches he made between leaving the Senate in 2009 and his nomination to run the Pentagon during Obama's second term.

Graham has threatened to block Hagel until the White House was forthcoming about President Barack Obama's actions in response to the attack.

Under parliamentary rules, a single senator can prevent nominations from coming to a full Senate vote.

Carney argued that with more than 60,000 US troops still in Afghanistan, and other key international issues needing attention, it was detrimental to US national security for Obama's two nominees to be blocked.

"Senator Hagel, Mr Brennan, they need to be confirmed. They're highly qualified candidates for their posts. And we call on the Senate to act quickly to do just that," he said.

Graham warned on CBS television's "Face the Nation" that there would be "no confirmation without information" saying that president was "disengaged" on September 11 during the attack.

He demanded to know whether Obama had picked up the telephone to talk to Libyan leaders on that night and claimed that if he had, two of the four Americans killed that night could still be alive.

"I don't think we should allow Brennan to go forward for the CIA directorship, Hagel to be confirmed to secretary of defence until the White House gives us an accounting."

One of Graham's frequent Republican allies, Senator John McCain, said that though he was disappointed in Hagel's performance at a contentious confirmation hearing, the ex-senator had provided sufficient detail on his personal finances to the committee.

"I will not participate in any walkout of tomorrow's committee vote -- an action that would be disrespectful to Chairman Levin and at odds with the best traditions of the Senate Armed Services Committee," he said.

- AFP/jc



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Shiromani Akali Dal defends Rajoana clemency demand

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CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal on Monday took on J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah for asking for the hanging of former Punjab CM Beant Singh's assassin Balwant Singh Rajoana, saying the convict's hanging would cause unrest in Punjab.

SAD general secretary Prem Singh Chandumajra said the Badal-led Punjab government would continue defending the commuting of Rajoana's death penalty. "We have earlier said that the party is against capital punishment," he said.

Chandumajra slammed Omar for asking the UPA government to treat Rajaona's case just like that of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and not be selective in executing those convicted of attacking symbols of democracy. "Omar should not speak out of turn," he said. "There's no doubt that the decision to hang Guru was political. It's better if he restricts his political comments to his state."

Omar had questioned the UPA government on why it was also not in a hurry to carry out the executions of the killers of Beant Singh and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Defending SAD's stand of asking for mercy for Rajoana, Chandumajra said it was only to avoid any possibility of community clashes in the state. Rajoana was awarded the death sentence by a Central Bureau of Investigation special court in July 2007 — along with another terrorist, Jagtar Singh Hawara — in the Beant Singh assassination case.

'Fear of Modi glory led to Afzal hanging'

SAD general secretary Chandumajra on Monday said the Congress took "remedial action" to hang Afzal Guru after becoming fearful of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's increasing popularity as a national leader. "The decision to hang Guru was a political move by the Congress," he said. "They fear Modi's growing popularity among the masses." Chandumajra said his party would support the BJP if they chose Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

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Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival

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Benedict's Legacy Marred by Sex Abuse Scandal

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When Pope Benedict XVI resigns at the end of this month, he leaves behind a Church grappling with a global fallout from sex abuse and a personal legacy marred by allegations that he was instrumental in covering up that abuse.


As the sex abuse scandal spread from North America to Europe, Benedict became the first pope to meet personally with victims, and offered repeated public apologies for the Vatican's decades of inaction against priests who abused their congregants.


"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse," the pope said in a 2008 homily in Washington, D.C., before meeting with victims of abuse for the first time. "It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention." During the same trip to the U.S., he met with victims for the first time.


For some of the victims, however, Benedict's actions were "lip service and a public relations campaign," said Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents victims of sex abuse. For 25 years, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican office responsible for investigating claims of sex abuse, but he did not act until he received an explicit order from Pope John Paul II.


In 1980, as Archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger approved plans for a priest to move to a different German parish and return to pastoral work only days after the priest began therapy for pedophilia. The priest was later convicted of sexually abusing boys.






Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images







PHOTOS: Church Sex Scandals


In 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger became head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office once known as the Inquisition -- making him responsible for upholding church doctrine, and for investigating claims of sexual abuse against clergy. Thousands of letters detailing allegations of abuse were forwarded to Ratzinger's office.


A lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a victims' rights group, charges that as head of the church body Ratzinger participated in a cover-up of abuse. In an 84-page complaint, the suit alleges that investigators of sex abuse cases in several countries found "intentional cover-ups and affirmative steps taken that serve to perpetuate the violence and exacerbate the harm."


"Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, either knew and/or some cases consciously disregarded information that showed subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes," the complaint says.


Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the U.S., told the AP the complaint was a "ludicrous publicity stunt and a misuse of international judicial processes."


In the 1990s, former members of the Legion of Christ sent a letter to Ratzinger alleging that the founder and head of the Catholic order, Father Marcial Maciel, had molested them while they were teen seminarians. Maciel was allowed to continue as head of the order.


In 1996, Ratzinger didn't respond to letters from Milwaukee's archbishop about a priest accused of abusing students at a Wisconsin school for the deaf. An assistant to Ratzinger began a secret trial of the priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, but halted the process after Murphy wrote a personal appeal to Ratzinger complaining of ill health.


In 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a letter urging the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to pursue allegations of child abuse in response to calls from bishops around the world.






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Obama should focus on deficit in State of the Union

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President Obama is preparing to deliver his fourth State of the Union address on Tuesday at — or close to— the height of his political power. He has been reelected convincingly, won legislative showdowns with Republicans on debt and spending issues, and is basking in some of his highest approval ratings in years.


Of course, modern political history has shown that political momentum can disappear — or at least erode — rapidly. That’s especially true for a second-term president, who probably has until the midterm election — 2014 in Obama’s case — to either use or lose his political power.


So, how can Obama use the speech to keep on his current political roll? Here are three ideas.



It’s the deficit, stupid. A look back at Obama’s first three State of the Union speeches, plus the address to a joint session of Congress in 2009, suggests a similar thematic pattern: He starts with the economy, moves to education and then, in the middle section of the speech, addresses the deficit. (The exception was in 2011, when Obama began his speech with a riff on partisanship.) In 2012, Obama spent just five minutes on the debt — less time than he spent on partisanship (51/
2 minutes) or foreign policy (six minutes).

He should flip that script in this State of the Union and spend the bulk of his time talking about the deficit. Here’s why: In January 2009 polling by Pew Research Center, 53 percent of respondents said reducing the deficit was a “top priority.” In January 2013, that number soared to 72 percent, by far the biggest increase of any issue over that time. (By contrast, 85 percent said strengthening the economy was a top priority in 2009, while 86 percent said so at the start of this year.)

The debt is the issue of the day, and one that, if Obama is beginning to eye his legacy as president, could go a long way toward shaping how history remembers him. Make this speech a deficit speech.



Pressure Republicans. Much of Obama’s success since the November election has been born of a willingness to take advantage of the fact that congressional Republicans are not only deeply unpopular with the public at large but internally divided over the future of the party — and without a clear leader to guide them. (The choice of Marco Rubio as the Republican responder to Obama’s State of the Union address suggests the GOP establishment would like the Florida senator to be that leader.)

Polling tells the story. While Obama’s job approval rating was at 55 percent in a January Washington Post-ABC News survey, just 24 percent of respondents approved of the job performance of Republicans in Congress. And two-thirds of the sample (67 percent) said Republicans were doing too little to compromise with the president on major issues.

Given those numbers, there’s every reason for Obama to continue the aggressive approach he has taken in his dealings with Republicans since winning a second term in November. Act, oratorically speaking, and force Republicans to react.



Pick a pet issue, just one. A look at the Pew priorities polling conducted last month is a telling indicator of the public’s priorities. Of 21 issues tested, global warming ranked dead last among those priorities, while strengthening gun laws came in 18th and illegal immigration 17th.

And yet, that trio of issues — along with the economy — has been at the forefront of political and policy discussions in Washington over the past few months. (Circumstances obviously matter here; the shootings in Newtown, Conn., thrust gun laws into a spotlight they would never have had if that tragedy had not happened.)

What that discrepancy should tell Obama is that he needs to tread carefully on those issues in his State of the Union speech, and beyond. While most people would like to see all of them addressed, none are even close to the priority of fixing the economy or reducing the debt. And so, Obama would be smart to pick one — guns seems by far the most likely — and spend real time on it in the speech, with only a passing reference or two to the others.

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