Saturday, September 3, 2011

Documents show ties between Libyan spy head, CIA (AP)

This image provided by Human Rights Watch on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2011 shows part of a secret document dated June 19, 2003 discovered by Human Rights Wa

TRIPOLI, Libya – The CIA and other Western intelligence agencies worked closely with the ousted regime of Moammar Gadhafi, sharing tips and cooperating in handing over terror suspects for interrogation to a regime known to use torture, according to a trove of security documents discovered after the fall of Tripoli.

The revelations provide new details on the West's efforts to turn Libya's mercurial leader from foe to ally and provide an embarrassing example of the U.S. administration's collaboration with authoritarian regimes in the war on terror.

The documents, among tens of thousands found in an External Security building in Tripoli, show an increasingly warm relationship, with CIA agents proposing to set up a permanent Tripoli office, addressing their Libyan counterparts by their first names and giving them advice. In one memo, a British agent even sends Christmas greetings.

The agencies were known to cooperate as the longtime Libyan ruler worked to overcome his pariah status by stopping his quest for weapons of mass destruction and renouncing support for terrorism. But the new details show a more extensive relationship than was previously known, with Western agencies offering lists of questions for specific detainees and apparently the text for a Gadhafi speech.

They also offer a glimpse into the inner workings of the now-defunct CIA program of extraordinary rendition, through which terror suspects were secretly detained, sent to third countries and sometimes underwent the so-called enhanced interrogation tactics like waterboarding.

The documents mention a half dozen names of people targeted for rendition, including Tripoli's new rebel military commander, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj.

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, which helped find the documents, called the ties between Washington and Gadhafi's regime "A very dark chapter in American intelligence history."

"It remains a stain on the record of the American intelligence services that they cooperated with these very abusive intelligence services," he said Saturday.

The findings could cloud relations between the West and Libya's new leaders, although Belhaj said he holds no grudge. NATO airstrikes have helped the rebels advance throughout the six-month civil war and continue to target regime forces as rebels hunt for Gadhafi.

Belhaj is the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a now-dissolved militant organization that sought to assassinate Gadhafi.

Belhaj says CIA agents tortured him in a secret prison in Thailand before he was returned to Libya and locked in the notorious Abu Salim prison. He insists he was never a terrorist and believes his arrest was in reaction to what he called the "tragic events of 9/11."

Two documents from March 2004 show American and Libyan officials arranging Belhaj's rendition.

Referring to him by his nom de guerre, Abdullah al-Sadiq, the documents said he and his pregnant wife were due to travel to Thailand, where they would be detained.

"We are planning to arrange to take control of the pair in Bangkok and place them on our aircraft for a flight to your country," they tell the Libyans. The memo also requested that Libya, a country known for decades for torture and ill-treatment of prisoners: "Please be advised that we must be assured that al-Sadiq will be treated humanely and that his human rights will be respected."

The documents coincide with efforts by the Gadhafi regime over the last decade to emerge from international isolation, even agreeing to pay compensation to relatives of each of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The documents show the CIA and MI6 advising the regime on how to work to rescind its designation as a state sponsor of terror — a move the Bush administration made in 2006. Both agencies received intelligence benefits in return.

The validity of the documents, not written on official letterhead, could not be independently verified, but their content seems consistent with what has been previously reported about intelligence activities during the period.

Later correspondence deals with technical visits to Libya to track the regime's progress in dismantling its weapons programs.

In one undated memo, the CIA proposes establishing a permanent presence in Libya.

"I propose that our services take an additional step in cooperation with the establishment of a permanent CIA presence in Libya," it says. It is signed by hand "Steve."

Another memo is a follow-up query to an apparent Libyan warning of terror plots against American interests abroad.

One document is a draft statement for Gadhafi about his country's decision to give up weapons of mass destruction.

"Our belief is that an arms race does not serve the security of Libya or the security of the region and contradicts Libya's great keenness for world peace and security," it suggests as wording.

But much of the correspondence deals with arrangements to render terror suspects to Libya from South Africa, Hong Kong and elsewhere. One CIA memo from April 2004 tells Libyan authorities that the agency can deliver a suspect known as "Shaykh Musa."

"We respectfully request an expression of interest from your service regarding taking custody of Musa," the memo says.

CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood declined to comment Saturday on specific allegations related to the documents.

"It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats," Youngblood said. "That is exactly what we are expected to do."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also declined to comment on intelligence matters.

In Tripoli, Anes Sherif, an aide to Belhaj, said the documents provided little new information: "We have known for a long time that (the British and U.S. governments) had very close relations with Gadhafi's regime."

Amid the shared intelligence and names of terror suspects are traces of personal relationships.

In one letter from Dec. 24, 2003, a British official thanks Gadhafi's spy chief Moussa Koussa — who later became foreign minister and defected early in the uprising — for a "very large quantity of dates and oranges" and encourages him to continue with reforms.

"Your achievement realizing the Leader's initiative has been enormous and of huge importance," the British official says. "At this time sacred to peace, I offer you my admiration and every congratulation.

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Officials: Egyptian military closing Gaza tunnels (AP)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007 file photo, a Palestinian tunnel digger, wearing a mask to conceal his identity, removes sand in a bucket from

CAIRO – Egypt's military has began an operation to close a network of smuggling tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border following tension with Israel, security officials said Saturday.

Hundreds of tunnels snake under the 9-mile (14-kilometer) border, where smugglers bring Gaza supplies and fuel limited by an Israeli blockade. Israel charges Gaza's Hamas rulers get weapons, ammunition and rockets through the tunnels and smuggle militants out.

Officials said that this week, three mechanized sensors were activated to identify tunnel locations and mark them for destruction. Earlier efforts were confined to trying to close tunnel openings, as well as one failed effort to drive a steel wall deep into the sand.

The officials were speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

Israel and Egypt are increasingly concerned about the tunnel threat following an attack last month near Israel's southern city of Eilat, near the Egyptian border and a rising presence of Islamic militants in Egypt's Sinai desert alongside Israel.

Israel says Gaza militants entered Sinai through the tunnels and crossed back into Israel, attacking vehicles and killing eight Israelis.

Israel-Egypt relations took a hit when five Egyptian police were killed during a firefight between Israeli forces and fleeing militants. Egypt was outraged, and Israel apologized.

Previous attempts to close the tunnels before have failed to curb illicit trade and people trafficking under the border, following the blockade imposed on the seaside territory in 2007, when Hamas seized control.

The officials said the operation, which began Wednesday, is closely coordinated by the military leadership. So far, three main arteries have been detected, and one was destroyed, they said.

The officials said the tunnels will not be blown up. Instead, they will be filled with cement and water.

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Libyan intelligence documents show ties to CIA (AP)

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, Mahmoud Jibril

TRIPOLI, Libya – The CIA worked closely with Moammar Gadhafi's intelligence services in the rendition of terror suspects to Libya for interrogation, according to documents seen Saturday by the AP, cooperation that could spark tensions between Washington and Libya's new rulers.

The CIA was among a number of foreign intelligence services that worked with Libya's agencies, according to documents found at a Libyan security agency building in Tripoli.

The discovery came as the Libyan rebels said they would surround pro-Gadhafi cities until the Sept. 10 deadline for their surrender.

Trying to "to avoid bloodshed and to avoid more destruction to public properties and national institutions, we have given an ultimatum of one week to the areas of Sirte, Bani Walid, Jufra and Sabha," the head of the rebels' National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, told reporters in Benghazi.

"It is an opportunity for these cities to peacefully join the revolution," he said, adding the rebels were providing humanitarian aid to the besieged areas along with water and electricity services.

The intelligence documents found in Tripoli, meanwhile, provided new details on the ties between Western countries and Gadhafi's regime. Many of those same countries backed the NATO attacks that helped Libya's rebels force Gadhafi from power.

One notable case is that of Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, commander of the anti-Gadhafi rebel force that now controls Tripoli. Belhaj is the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a now-dissolved militant group with links to al-Qaida. Belhaj says he was tortured by CIA agents at a secret prison, then returned to Libya.

Two documents from March 2004 appear to be American correspondence to Libyan officials to arrange Belhaj's rendition.

Referring to him by his nom de guerre, Abdullah al-Sadiq, the documents say he will be flown from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Libya and asks for Libyan government agents to accompany him.

It also requests American "access to al-Sadiq for debriefing purposes once he is in your custody."

"Please be advised that we must be assured that al-Sadiq will be treated humanely and that his human rights will be respected," the document says.

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, which found the documents, called the ties between Washington and Gadhafi's regime "a very dark chapter in American intelligence history, and it remains a stain on the record of the American intelligence services that they cooperated with these very abusive intelligence services."

In Washington, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood declined to comment Saturday on any specific allegation related to the documents.

"It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats," Youngblood said. "That is exactly what we are expected to do."

__

Rami al-Shaheibi contributed from Benghazi, Libya.

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MRSA: Protecting kids from superbug

(CNN) -- A few months before her second birthday, a small bump about the size of a pimple appeared on Audriana Willman's right leg. Her parents, Andrew and Chelsea, noticed the boil in the evening, as they prepared their daughter for bed.

"We had already been through this three other times, so we weren't too worried," explains Chelsea, who says she had taken her daughter to a pediatrician on several occasions to treat skin infections. As they usually did when a little red circle with a white head appeared on their toddler's body, they popped it like a pimple and cleaned the area with antibacterial soap. But this time, that small pimple would turn into a major problem.

"By the next morning, it wasn't just a bump anymore. Her leg was red and extremely swollen, and she could hardly walk. She was in pain, and her fever had spiked to 103," her mother recalls. "It went from minor to really, really bad overnight."

By 10:30 that morning, they had rushed Audriana to their pediatrician in Oroville, California. She was hospitalized, and the Willmans learned their daughter had developed methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which is a type of staph bacteria that does not respond to commonly used antibiotic treatments.

This type of infection has been a problem in hospital settings for many years, but starting around 2000, it began steadily making its way into the lives of otherwise healthy people, especially children, who are not typically at risk for the fast-moving bacteria. As children head back to school, epidemiologists are encouraging parents to be more aware of the drug-resistant strain of staph and how to protect their kids.

MRSA infections on the rise

"Everyone is at risk," said Dr. Patrick Romano, lead author of a new report that found the number of children hospitalized with MRSA infections, mostly acquired from within the community, has more than doubled since 2000. "MRSA really started as a bacterium that was seen in hospitals among high-risk patients. But during the last decade, we saw it spread to the general population."

"The problem is that MRSA began to affect people who were perfectly healthy," adds Dr. Jaime Fergie, author of a 2005 study that concluded that infections in children had reached "epidemic proportions." Mutations in the organism made it more virulent and easy to transmit, he says. "We continue to see more severe, life-threatening infections affecting the blood, lungs, muscles and even bones of previously healthy children."

In 2009, 71,900 children were hospitalized because of infections under the skin, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the CDC estimates there are approximately 10,800 deaths in the U.S. each year caused by staph, of which 5,500 are inked to MRSA.

The problem became so widespread that in January, the Infectious Diseases Society of America called the condition a "huge public health problem" and published its first-ever guidelines for the treatment of MRSA in pediatric patients.

Protecting your child from MRSA

"We have to live with the fact that it's out there, all around us in the community. At this point, we expect a certain level of these infections," Romano says. "Now, it's a matter of recognizing the early signs and treating it early when we see it."

Audriana Willman spent three days in a hospital and recovered without serious complication from her MRSA infection. Her parents say their previous experience has made them more cognizant of every little bump on their daughter. And because their daughter is prone to skin infections, they are even more vigilant about hygiene in their household. "We learned that the hard way, how quickly they can progress. The longer we can go without them, the better," her mother says.

As children head back to school, pediatricians are encouraging parents to become educated about MRSA to ensure that if their child gets an infection, they catch it early, before symptoms become severe.

Here are 5 things parents should know:

1. The infection site can resemble a spider bite

"Sometimes, parents mistake [a MRSA infection] for a spider bite because it is so intense and appears so suddenly," said Fergie, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas. "If you haven't seen a spider, don't assume it's a spider bite. If you recognize a painful red spot with a little bit of pus, that's enough of a concern to go to a doctor," he recommends.

To help you identify the infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has compiled several images to better visualize what MRSA infections may look like.

2. The infection may start like a pimple and advance rapidly

Dr. Jennifer Shu, an Atlanta pediatrician, says parents often don't realize how quickly the infection can progress. "This is what shocks parents the most. Something that looked like a pimple is all of a sudden the size of a nickel," explains Shu, who says the bacteria can spread within a matter of hours. She once saw a patient who developed more than 30 skin boils in two to three days.

3. Transmission among young athletes is prevalent

According to the National Athletic Trainers' Association, skin diseases accounted for 56% of all infectious diseases in competitive sports from 1922 through 2005. Athletes tend to share things like equipment and towels, and children engaged in high-contacts sports inevitably receive cuts, bruises and scrapes, which act as potential entryways for serious bacterial infections.

Last year, the association issued a position statement on skin disease among athletes warning that after a bacterial infection, they should not be allowed to return to a game until they complete a 72-hour course of antibiotic therapy and the infection has been completely drained. The CDC offers more prevention information and advice specifically for athletes on its website.

4. Treatment for MRSA not always the first option

Romano, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, Davis, says that when a child has an infection, doctors do not always start with a prescription that works against MRSA bacteria. In communities experiencing high MRSA rates, pediatricians may automatically default to medications that fight the bacteria, but they may choose not to in communities where there hasn't been an outbreak.

If someone in your home or another child in your child's school recently had a MRSA infection, alert a doctor, as it may be worth asking up front for a broader-spectrum antibiotic. Pages 12-15 of the Infectious Diseases Society of America's Clinical Practice Guidelines list the treatment recommendations for adults and children based on their symptoms. Return to the pediatrician as soon as possible if within 48 hours you do not notice less swelling or redness, or if the infected area remains warm, Romano advises.

5. Bleach baths and proper cleaning can help prevent spread

If you have several children, and one of them has developed a MRSA infection, you want to keep the spread to a minimum. Experts say to keep the infected area covered with a bandage until it heals.

The Willmans took the recommendation of an infectious disease specialist and gave their daughter a bleach bath using about a half-cup of bleach in about 13 gallons of water, a few times a week. There is the potential for skin irritation if the mixture is not diluted properly, so be sure to follow the guidelines outlined by the ISDA.

You'll also want to clean surfaces that might come in contact with the infection. The Environmental Protection Agency offers a list of registered cleaning products that are effective against MRSA.

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Two single-engine planes collide over Alaska

(CNN) -- A pilot is missing after two single-engine planes collided over western Alaska, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

A Cessna 207 and a Cessna 208 collided in midair Friday over an area southeast of Bethel, said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor.

The Cessna 208 crashed and burned.

"We do not know the fate of the pilot, who was the only person onboard," he said.

The Cessna 207 landed and its pilot was seen walking around the plane after the landing, according to the spokesman.

CNN's Greg Morrison contributed to this report.

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'Hunger Games' cast: Stardom cheat sheet

Editor's note: Mike Hess is the Managing Editor at Celebuzz.com.

(CNN) -- Four years ago, if someone said "Robert Pattinson" or "Taylor Lautner" to you, nine out of 10 people would have shrugged their shoulders and said "Who?"

Now, they're pretty much among the most wanted and talked-about actors in Hollywood -- and it's all thanks to the whopping success of the "Twilight" franchise. And while the "Breaking Dawn" films will mark the end of that series, nearly everyone in the know has pegged "The Hunger Games" as the next "Twilight."

So, take note of these names: Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth -- the next young megastars who will face the gift and curse of instant Hollywood fame. As the two male leads in "Hunger," their careers will receive an instant injection of megawatt star power and credibility, they'll be remarkably wealthy and among the A-list ... but they'll also be scrutinized and trailed by the paparazzi and media everywhere they go.

That's the trade-off these days, where any form of success or notoriety means everything in your life is now fair game -- chum in the water for the media sharks. Most actors and Hollywood stars gradually work their way up the ladder, but with the cult teen followings of "Twilight" and "Hunger" -- and both series' decisions to go with less-than-well-known names as the leads (save for Jennifer Lawrence in "Games") -- the transition from working actor to on-the-cover-of-everything can be a tough one to swallow.

Thankfully for Hutcherson and Hemsworth, they have co-stars, girlfriends (Hemsworth has been dating Miley Cyrus on and off, and Hutcherson was linked to Vanessa Hudgens) friends and past co-workers who can help steer them through the blinding headlights of fame that are bearing down on them.

Their "Hunger" co-star Lawrence experienced the same instant rise last year when she was nominated for an Oscar for her turn in "Winter's Bone." She went from relatively unknown actress to hot-new during awards season and will surely serve as a fame coach for her male counterparts.

She recently opined on her methodology for avoiding the pitfalls of fame in a Washington Post interview, saying: "As long as you remember what you're here for -- you're here for the work, you're here to make a film. ... There seems to be some very bizarre habit where as soon as you become big and famous, you think that you don't have to work anymore. And it's just such a weird trend that I'm starting to see. But I run into grounded people all the time. Given, most of them are behind the camera. But I definitely by no means think I'm the only one."

So with that mindset, what can Josh and Liam do to stay (relatively) grounded once they become the next big things? Here's a good checklist.

1. Choose wisely: This should apply to every aspect of your life, from who you surround yourself with and who you date, to what movies you are thinking of tackling. All of the minutiae of your life is now in full view, and a certain portion of the media loves nothing more than to exploit every misstep. Take a look to your left or right the next time you're in a business meeting or out with friends and ask yourself: "Is this person here for me, or for their own benefit?"

2. Stay (somewhat) private: We've already discussed the nosy media, but now with Twitter and other social media, celebrities can live out every action, thought and event in real time for all of the world to see. Sure, it's a great promotional vehicle, but it's one more trap that is 100% avoidable. Don't want your Twitter account hacked where someone posts nasty things in your name? Well, don't have a Twitter account. If you keep access to yourself somewhat limited, when you do actually have something to say, it makes it that much more powerful. Otherwise, people will get bored with hearing you tell them what you ate for lunch that day and miss the good stuff when you've got it. Plus, it adds a bit of mystery and allure to you.

3. Don't live in Los Angeles: Yes, it's where most movies are made and where all of your agents and associates are. Yes, it's got great weather, killer clubs/restaurants and all that. It also has a cannibalistic, frenzied media who pay their rent by looking to capture your lowest moments. Naturally, not having "low moments" is the more prudent option here, but keeping an apartment in L.A. for work trips and residing elsewhere ('Captain America' himself Chris Evans recently told us he couldn't take L.A. and moved back to his hometown of Boston) will surely minimize the paparazzi hassle.

4. Charity, charity, charity: You've struck it big -- now give back. Not only will it make you feel fulfilled (Josh has already been working with Straight But Not Narrow , a clever gay rights PSA), but it'll expose you to new audiences and groups who may not be drooling over "Hunger Games."

5. Don't be a jerk: If being well-adjusted and great acting travel at the speed of sound, news of being a difficult you-know-what whips through Hollywood at light speed. Agents, publicists, writers -- we all know each other, and we all talk about who's nice and who's a nightmare. Simply put: Just be nice.

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Walesa's son stable in Poland after spine surgery (AP)

Jaroslaw Walesa

WARSAW, Poland – A doctor says the son of Poland's former president, Lech Walesa, is in stable condition after surgery to his spine following a motorcycle accident.

Jaroslaw Walesa was operated on Friday night and a military hospital spokesman said Saturday his condition was stable. More surgery is planned later.

The 34-year-old Walesa sustained injuries to his spine, pelvis and shoulders on Friday when his motorcycle collided with an SUV in Stropkowo in central Poland. He was airlifted to a hospital in Plock and then to Warsaw.

Doctors are hopeful Walesa will be able to walk again.

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Friday, September 2, 2011

The new Bill Gates: Google's Larry Page

(CNN) -- When Bill Gates testified via videotape in Microsoft's antitrust trial in 1998, he was combative and defensive, as if he couldn't believe how stupid the entire procedure was.

He didn't expect the tape to be shown in court. It was, and it was a disaster. Public opinion turned -- instead of a billionaire genius who had built Microsoft into the most valuable tech company in the world, he was a condescending monopolist who didn't have time for the legal system.

Amazingly, Gates didn't see it coming. As Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen relates in his recent autobiography, the anti-Microsoft sentiment "cut Bill to the core." Gates told the media that government attorney David Boies was "really out to destroy Microsoft."

In his rational engineer's mind, Microsoft was simply a winner. It had beaten its competitors by being smarter and working harder. It seemed deeply unfair for the government to build a case based on the complaints of those competitors and undo everything that Gates had worked so hard for.

Flash forward a decade.

Google is the new Microsoft. It dominates its industry so completely that a few slight tweaks to its search engine can throw other companies into turmoil by burying them in search results. It's using the incredible cash generated by that business to expand in a million different directions at once, from online video to social networking to mobile phones.

The man running Google, co-founder Larry Page, has a lot in common with Gates.

Like Gates, Page is often described in otherworldly terms, a near-genius with autistic tendencies like counting the seconds out loud while you're explaining something too slowly to him. Like Gates, he has run his own company for his entire adult life and has had uninterrupted success. Like Gates, he has an engineer's soul and is obsessive about cutting waste -- one of his first acts after taking over as CEO in April was to send an all-hands e-mail describing how to run meetings more efficiently.

Like Gates, he is hugely ambitious -- he once suggested that Google hire a million engineers and told early investors that he saw Google as a $100 billion company. That's $100 billion in annual revenue, not just stock value. (It's about one-third of the way there.)

And like Gates, Page may have a blind spot about the intersection of business and the Beltway. For instance, when Google paid $3.2 billion to buy display ad firm DoubleClick in 2007, it got a search-engine marketing firm called Performics as part of the deal. Obviously, Google would have to let Performics go -- federal regulators would never let the dominant search company own a search marketing company.

Except Page wanted to keep it, just to see how it worked. (Google sold Performics to advertising conglomerate Publicis Groupe in 2008.)

Back then, Page had a tempering force in Eric Schmidt, who was the company's CEO and was originally brought in by its investors to provide "adult supervision."

But since Page reclaimed the CEO title, the brakes are off. In his first five months, Page has reorganized the company to his liking, cut a bunch of marginal projects like Google Health and mobile app maker Slide, launched a social network to compete with Facebook and bid $12.5 billion to buy Motorola's mobile phone business.

Now, antitrust investigators are circling Google -- just like they did with Microsoft. Europe has already launched a formal investigation, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is taking a close look as well.

As Google keeps expanding with big, bold moves, Page will find himself thrust into the spotlight like he's never been before. For Google's sake, here's hoping he handles it with more grace than Gates.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Matt Rosoff.

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Gulf system intensifies into Tropical Storm Lee

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: System intensifies into Tropical Storm Lee
  • The storm could bring 10 inches to 15 inches of rain to parts of the Gulf
  • Winds could reach 65 mph at landfall, CNN meteorologist says
  • Oil producers evacuate offshore platforms
RELATED TOPICS
  • National Hurricane Center
  • Gulf of Mexico
  • New Orleans

Are you being affected by Tropical Storm Lee? Share your photos and stories.

New Orleans (CNN) -- A slow-moving tropical system with the potential to douse summer-ending beach plans and bring up to 20 inches of flooding rain to parts of the Gulf Coast strengthened into a tropical storm Friday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Tropical Storm Lee could bring winds of 65 mph when it makes landfall this weekend, CNN meteoroloigist Sean Morris said.

The state of Louisiana and 10 of its parishes had declared states of emergency as of Friday afternoon, Gov. Bobby Jindal said. LaFourche Parish and the city of Grand Isle also issued voluntary evacuation orders, he said.

"This is going to be a slow-moving storm. It's going to bring a lot of rain," Jindal said.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour also declared a state of emergency for portions of southern Mississippi expected to be affected by the storm.

The storm was likely to reach land in the next 48 hours, forecasters said.

The storm is over water as warm as 90 degrees and atmospheric conditions that are limiting its development should become more favorable to strengthening over the next 24 hours, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said.

Tropical storm-force winds are being reported at several oil rigs in the Gulf, according to Morris and the National Hurricane Center.

The current track suggests a possible landfall west of Morgan City, Louisiana on Sunday morning, Morris said.

The storm was barely moving Friday morning, inching northward at 2 mph. At about 1 p.m. CT, it was located 210 miles southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River and had winds of 40 mph, the Hurricane Center reported. Heavy rain was spreading across southeastern and south-central Louisiana, the weather service said.

Tropical storm warnings were up for the Gulf coast from Pascagoula, Mississippi to Sabine Pass, Texas.

Portions of southern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama could see 10 inches to 15 inches of rain by Sunday, with isolated totals of 20 inches, according to the Hurricane Center.

New Orleans, much of which sits below sea level, is likely to see 8 to 10 inches of rain in the next few days, Mayor Mitch Landrieu told reporters.

"What we do know is there's high wind, there is a lot of rain and it's going slow," Landrieu said Thursday. "That's not a good prescription for the city of New Orleans should it come this way."

Some oil producers began evacuating employees ahead of the storm.

BP and ExxonMobil asked workers to leave their Gulf rigs and shut down wells, according to company officials.

Chevron has ordered nonessential workers off the platforms, and Shell said it had evacuated 550 workers as of Friday morning.

"The number of personnel evacuated today will depend on weather conditions, and we will only transport personnel if safe to do so," the company said in a statement.

In addition to expected flooding from heavy rains and storm surge, the weather is threatening to ruin the usually busy summer-ending Labor Day weekend for thousands of beach-goers. It's also brewing six years to the week after Hurricane Katrina came ashore, devastating portions Louisiana and Mississippi -- including New Orleans.

That city's mayor urged residents to be prepared and collect emergency items such as bottled water, batteries, nonperishable food, first-aid kits and family documents.

While they may not be needed this time, the region was entering an "active phase of the storm season," Landrieu said.

CNN's Dave Alsup and Vivian Kuo contributed to this report.

New Orleans (CNN) -- A slow-moving tropical system with the potential to douse summer-ending beach plans and bring up to 20 inches of flooding rain to parts of the Gulf Coast strengthened into a tropical storm Friday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Tropical Storm Lee could bring winds of 65 mph when it makes landfall this weekend, CNN meteoroloigist Sean Morris said.

The state of Louisiana and 10 of its parishes had declared states of emergency as of Friday afternoon, Gov. Bobby Jindal said. LaFourche Parish and the city of Grand Isle also issued voluntary evacuation orders, he said.

"This is going to be a slow-moving storm. It's going to bring a lot of rain," Jindal said.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour also declared a state of emergency for portions of southern Mississippi expected to be affected by the storm.

The storm was likely to reach land in the next 48 hours, forecasters said.

The storm is over water as warm as 90 degrees and atmospheric conditions that are limiting its development should become more favorable to strengthening over the next 24 hours, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said.

Tropical storm-force winds are being reported at several oil rigs in the Gulf, according to Morris and the National Hurricane Center.

The current track suggests a possible landfall west of Morgan City, Louisiana on Sunday morning, Morris said.

The storm was barely moving Friday morning, inching northward at 2 mph. At about 1 p.m. CT, it was located 210 miles southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River and had winds of 40 mph, the Hurricane Center reported. Heavy rain was spreading across southeastern and south-central Louisiana, the weather service said.

Tropical storm warnings were up for the Gulf coast from Pascagoula, Mississippi to Sabine Pass, Texas.

Portions of southern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama could see 10 inches to 15 inches of rain by Sunday, with isolated totals of 20 inches, according to the Hurricane Center.

New Orleans, much of which sits below sea level, is likely to see 8 to 10 inches of rain in the next few days, Mayor Mitch Landrieu told reporters.

"What we do know is there's high wind, there is a lot of rain and it's going slow," Landrieu said Thursday. "That's not a good prescription for the city of New Orleans should it come this way."

Some oil producers began evacuating employees ahead of the storm.

BP and ExxonMobil asked workers to leave their Gulf rigs and shut down wells, according to company officials.

Chevron has ordered nonessential workers off the platforms, and Shell said it had evacuated 550 workers as of Friday morning.

"The number of personnel evacuated today will depend on weather conditions, and we will only transport personnel if safe to do so," the company said in a statement.

In addition to expected flooding from heavy rains and storm surge, the weather is threatening to ruin the usually busy summer-ending Labor Day weekend for thousands of beach-goers. It's also brewing six years to the week after Hurricane Katrina came ashore, devastating portions Louisiana and Mississippi -- including New Orleans.

That city's mayor urged residents to be prepared and collect emergency items such as bottled water, batteries, nonperishable food, first-aid kits and family documents.

While they may not be needed this time, the region was entering an "active phase of the storm season," Landrieu said.

CNN's Dave Alsup and Vivian Kuo contributed to this report.

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U.S. warned to be 'vigilant' on 9/11

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: Government: No credible threat of 9/11-related terror, but travelers cautioned
  • Ceremonies are planned in New York, Washington and other cities commemorating the attacks
RELATED TOPICS
  • September 11 Attacks
  • Terrorism
  • United States

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. government is not aware of any specific threat of a terrorist attack to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement Friday.

But overseas travelers should remain wary, the State Department said in a worldwide travel alert.

"In the past, terrorist organizations have on occasion planned their attacks to coincide with significant dates on the calendar."

Ceremonies observing the anniversary of the attacks are scheduled for New York, Washington and many other communities around the country.

Napolitano reminded state and local authorities and individuals to remain watchful and to report any suspicious activities.

"While there is no specific or credible intelligence that al Qaeda or its affiliates are plotting attacks in the United States to coincide with the ten year anniversary of 9/11, we remain at a heightened state of vigilance and security measures are in place to detect and prevent plots against the United States should they emerge," she said.

The State Department travel alert adds to a July worldwide caution alerting travelers to the threats posed by the May killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces and the ongoing instability in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Such alerts are issued when short-term conditions "pose imminent risk to the security of U.S. citizens," according to a State Department explanation.

"While we have not identified any specific threats from (al Qaeda) affiliates and allies to attack the United States or our interests on the 9/11 anniversary, U.S. citizens should be aware that (al Qaeda) affiliates and allies have demonstrated the intent and capability to carry out attacks against the United States and our interests around the world," the State Department said in its alert.

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. government is not aware of any specific threat of a terrorist attack to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement Friday.

But overseas travelers should remain wary, the State Department said in a worldwide travel alert.

"In the past, terrorist organizations have on occasion planned their attacks to coincide with significant dates on the calendar."

Ceremonies observing the anniversary of the attacks are scheduled for New York, Washington and many other communities around the country.

Napolitano reminded state and local authorities and individuals to remain watchful and to report any suspicious activities.

"While there is no specific or credible intelligence that al Qaeda or its affiliates are plotting attacks in the United States to coincide with the ten year anniversary of 9/11, we remain at a heightened state of vigilance and security measures are in place to detect and prevent plots against the United States should they emerge," she said.

The State Department travel alert adds to a July worldwide caution alerting travelers to the threats posed by the May killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces and the ongoing instability in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Such alerts are issued when short-term conditions "pose imminent risk to the security of U.S. citizens," according to a State Department explanation.

"While we have not identified any specific threats from (al Qaeda) affiliates and allies to attack the United States or our interests on the 9/11 anniversary, U.S. citizens should be aware that (al Qaeda) affiliates and allies have demonstrated the intent and capability to carry out attacks against the United States and our interests around the world," the State Department said in its alert.

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Secrets of Alhambra to be revealed

(CNN) -- For centuries, it has enchanted visitors with its fortified walls, pointed arches, towers, ornamental flourishes, carvings, and spectacular gardens.

The Alhambra, a fortress and palace in the Spanish city of Granada was begun in the mid-13th century by the Nasrid Emirs of Granada, the last Muslim rulers in Spain.

Further palaces and Christian chapels were added to the complex in the centuries since, making it a fascinating mix of cultures and histories.

Full of mysterious nooks and crannies as well as grand spaces, the Alhambra attracts around two million visitors a year, according to the Patronato de la Alhambra in Spain, the organization that looks after the complex.

Now a sustainable tourism effort from the Patronato de la Alhambra, the World Monuments Fund and others is taking the Alhambra into the 21st century, using technology to bring previously hidden areas of the complex to light.

For many years now, we have worked with a model that limits access to a certain number of visitors per day
Maria del Mar Villafranca, director of the Patronato de la Alhambra

Entitled "The Hidden Alhambra," the project aims to expand the site for tourists, with an app. It will allow visitors to virtually explore delicate, closed-off areas on their iPhones, or on specially designed portable electronic tablets, as well as opening up new routes to related areas outside the complex.

"It is a site that gets many visitors, we can say that it's a major tourist destination," said Maria del Mar Villafranca, director of the Patronato de la Alhambra.

"For many years now, we have worked with a model that limits access to a certain number of visitors per day," she explained, saying "Hidden Alhambra," is designed to further take the pressure off "fragile zones."

Hidden areas that the application will bring to light include an underground space beneath the palace of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, as well as storage areas, towers and pavilions, according to Norma Barbacci, Program Director for Latin America, Spain, and Portugal at the World Monuments Fund.

"(Visitors will) be able to see images and video (on their iPhones) and get all kinds of information about these specific sites that are not open," she said.

(Visitors will) be able to see images and video (on their iPhones) and get all kinds of information
Norma Barbacci, Program Director for Latin America, Spain, and Portugal at the World Monuments Fund

"They are not able to walk down the stairs into the silos for example, but they can be close to them and get a lot of information," she continued.

The app is currently being developed and augmented reality features have not been ruled out, said Barbacci. The first phase of information-gathering for the application, namely photographing the various sites, is being undertaken, according to Villafranca. They are aiming to have the app ready for the public by summer 2012.

Virtual visitor experiences are an increasingly popular way of making delicate historic monuments accessible, said Barbacci.

"Once the technology began to improve, then we started looking at this as a way of promoting knowledge and caring for a building without trampling all over it," she said.

But it's not all virtual work: The World Monuments Fund is also contributing $300,000 to the conservation of the Oratorio del Partal, an elaborate mid-14th century chapel built during the reign of Yusuf I.

The conservation effort will include work on the roof, carved wood ceiling and decorative plaster work and will be incorporated into the "Hidden Alhambra" application.

"It's a very important part of the Alhambra, for its symbolic value being a part of the oldest area of the complex," explained Villafranca.

It is part of a long-term plan of conservation works to other fragile areas of the complex that, she hopes, will make more and more of it accessible to visitors -- and continue to pique their interest in it.

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Defiant Gadhafi claims capital moved

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: A transitional council member outlines an election timetable for Libya
  • The messages, aired on Syrian-based television, warn of a drawn-out fight
  • "They will not be able to fight a long war. They will retreat, day by day," he says
  • They come amid conflicting reports that anti-Gadhafi forces have extended a deadline to surrender

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- A message purportedly from Moammar Gadhafi says he has moved the Libyan capital to his birthplace of Sirte, days after the nation's new leaders issued a deadline for his forces to surrender.

In the messages broadcast Thursday, a man purported to be Gadhafi urged Libyans not to surrender to "imperialist" forces.

"We are ready for a long, drawn-out war," he said without revealing his whereabouts in the audio messages aired on Syria's Al-Rai Television.

"They will not be able to fight a long war. They will retreat, day by day."

The messages warned that those loyal to Gadhafi in Sirte and other strongholds were heavily armed and prepared to fight to the death.

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- A message purportedly from Moammar Gadhafi says he has moved the Libyan capital to his birthplace of Sirte, days after the nation's new leaders issued a deadline for his forces to surrender.

In the messages broadcast Thursday, a man purported to be Gadhafi urged Libyans not to surrender to "imperialist" forces.

"We are ready for a long, drawn-out war," he said without revealing his whereabouts in the audio messages aired on Syria's Al-Rai Television.

"They will not be able to fight a long war. They will retreat, day by day."

The messages warned that those loyal to Gadhafi in Sirte and other strongholds were heavily armed and prepared to fight to the death.

The warning came hours after conflicting reports surfaced that anti-Gadhafi forces extended a Saturday deadline by a week for fighters in Sirte to surrender. The National Transitional Council issued the ultimatum Tuesday for tribal leaders in towns still under the control of loyalists to surrender.

The transitional council's military commander in Tripoli said that the extension was an effort to prevent more deaths.

"We are doing the best to prevent the bloodshed of the people and the destruction of our cities," Abdel Hakim Belhaj told CNN on Thursday.

But critics say giving Gadhafi's forces a deadline allows his troops time to entrench themselves in Sirte, Bani Walid and other loyalist strongholds, making it more difficult for the transitional council's military to capture the cities.

Tarek Abuzgaya, a spokesman for the National Transitional Council in Benghazi, said the deadline was extended by a week for loyalists to surrender.

But in Tripoli, a military spokesman told CNN that transitional leaders were still meeting to hash out options to avoid further bloodshed.

"As of now, the deadline is this Saturday," Mahdi Al Arash said. "However, it could change if they see fit after the meeting."

Meanwhile, anti-Gadhafi forces on the outskirts of Sirte and Bani Walid have cut off supplies into the cities and are preparing to fight.

Anti-Gadhafi forces hope to employ a tactic in Bani Walid similar to one used in their successful advance on Tripoli, calling on their "revolutionaries" inside the city to rise up and fight, a military commander told CNN.

As the fighting rages, transitional council member Elamin Belhaj outlined a proposed timetable Friday for a new constitution and government.

Belhaj said simple elections would be held in eight months to choose members of a national congress -- an interim body that would replace the transitional council.

The national congress would form a committee to write a democratic constitution within three months, which would then be put to the Libyan people for a vote within a month, he said.

That would be followed by the formation of a political system, with parliamentary and presidential elections to follow within six months. It would probably take three to six months more to form a government, he said.

U.N. officials and Western diplomats who have been working with the NTC told CNN they consider this to be a very ambitious schedule, especially since fighting is still going on in Libya, and believe it may not be achievable in that time-frame.

The messages purportedly from Gadhafi carried a warning to his opponents that the conflict would not end soon.

"We will fight against you wherever you are; we will sacrifice our lives so that the sand and stones of Libya will become fire, and fight against you. You will never have peace of mind inside our land," he said.

Those opposing Gadhafi are intent on confiscating Libyans' water supply and setting back efforts he had made during his 42 years in power, he said.

"The Libyan people would rather die than be suppressed," he said. "This is something we will not allow the traitors to do -- let Libya be occupied and suppressed and humiliated."

The country's tribes are armed and not likely to bend to the will of foreigners, he said. "You cannot rule them," he said. "Even if you attack them by aircraft, armed tribes will not surrender."

The messages aired on the anniversary of the September 1, 1969, coup that saw Gadhafi oust King Idris, who fled the country and died in exile in Egypt.

Gadhafi has not been seen publicly since Tripoli fell, though a transitional council fighter reported seeing the ousted leader in the southern part of the capital later.

Questions over Gadhafi's whereabouts intensified in recent days following reports that his wife, daughter, two sons and other family members fled to neighboring Algeria, which described its acceptance of the family as a humanitarian gesture.

Algeria has denied that the country was ever an option for Gadhafi.

CNN's Nic Robertson, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Frederik Pleitgen and Elise Labott contributed to this report.

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The quest for an unhackable code

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Every day the news hits of another company, website or long list of credit cards that's been hacked. But what if there was a foolproof technology to fend off cyberattackers by keeping secret information secret?

Would an unhackable encryption algorithm do the trick?

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That's what a father and son team from Calgary, Ontario, say they've created. For the past several years, cryptographic hobbyists Robert and Frederik Kleiner have been working to develop Enigma-DS, an encryption code that they claim cannot be broken.

Rather than encrypt a bit of text letter by letter (A becomes Q, B becomes H, etc.), Enigma-DS converts text into code based on language, sentence structure and words. For example, the word "rose" could become "wp76546hj!lldrk," but "rise" might become "aq!@#Qh!21mb."

A unique key is generated for every encoded item. Even if someone were able to discover the key to unlock and decrypt one file, others would remain unaffected by the breach, the Kleiners say.

They're so sure of their code's security that the Kleiners ran a contest this summer offering $100,000 to anyone who could crack it. No one broke the code during the two months that the little-publicized competition ran.

They even challenged the National Security Agency to break it, which declined to comment beyond saying the agency welcomes such submissions.

If you're skeptical, so are cryptography and cybersecurity experts. Encryption, they say, is not the weakest link in the security chain. People are.

Security professionals already use cryptography that, for all intents and purposes, cannot be cracked. Tools like one-time pads, which generate new code-unlocking keys for each encryption, or encryption methods like the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) are so complex that they could not be broken by modern supercomputers in our lifetime.

But human beings, unfortunately, just aren't that dependable.

"The problem isn't encryption, the problem is people using weak passwords or the same passwords on 100 different places," said Chuck Easttom, a cybersecurity trainer at EC-Council's Center of Advanced Security Training. "The past six months have been replete with hacking stories, and not one has been because an encryption was broken."

For instance, RSA, a division of EMC Corp. (EMC, Fortune 500) and one of the world's preeminent security and encryption companies, was hacked in March, rendering many of its popular SecurID tags less secure. But RSA's encryption wasn't hacked -- attackers simply sent phishing e-mails with the subject line "2011 Recruitment Plan" to RSA employees. One worker opened the Excel file attached to the e-mail, which set loose a program letting the attacker control the employee's PC. From there, the attackers roamed through RSA's systems.

The cybersecurity landscape can change in an eyeblink -- as RSA found out.

"We're implementing techniques that just a couple of weeks ago I thought were in the realm of long-term roadmaps," Uri Rivner, RSA's head of new technologies for consumer identity protection, wrote in a blog post soon after.

A changing landscape

Even if we don't need better encryption now, we may need it soon -- perhaps even within the next decade or two.

Mathematicians say that the theories of quantum mechanics could eventually be applied to decryption, giving computers the ability to crack in seconds a code that a supercomputer today would take 150 years to crack.

"Virtually any encryption program can be broken, it's just a matter of time," said Patrick Carroll, CEO of security firm ValidSoft Limited. "Current models will stand the test of time for the foreseeable future, because modern resources can't break them quickly enough. But quantum theory is probably a decade or two away from commercialization."

Still, even experts who applaud the attempt say Enigma-DS raises two big red flags: no encryption algorithm was made available, and sufficient time was not given to test the code.

Analysts note that encryption algorithms are generally released to the public so that they can be tested for security. They also say peer reviews typically last several years. The 75 days Enigma-DS offered is not sufficient.

Uncrackable code claims are common, according to Brian Tokuyoshi, a product manager on Symantec's encryption team. Cyptography discussion groups are filled with them.

"There is a difference between unbreakable and unsolved," Tokuyoshi said. "There is a long list of famous unsolved encrypted messages."

One of the best-known is viewed daily by some of America's finest cryptographic minds. A sculpture called "Kryptos," which sits at the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters, features four encoded messages. Three have been deciphered, but the fourth still remains a mystery 20 years after the artwork's debut.

Typically, "unbreakable codes" remain unsolved if the sample encoded message is so short that cryptographers cannot do sufficient analysis on it or if the randomized key is known only to the author.

Both are true of Enigma-DS: Robert Kleiner says he is unwilling to share his algorithm, maintaining that it's intellectual property and the key to his business. The encoded text offered on his website is also relatively short.

Yet the Kleiners say they are willing to go through just about any test apart from divulging the algorithm to prove their concept. They say they will demonstrate it live, and they offered to provide analysts with a clear text to help them reverse-engineer the code.

"If you think it's too good to be true, then hack us!" Robert Kleiner said.

Some analysts we spoke to tried -- and failed. But that doesn't in itself indicate that it's unbreakable. A preliminary assessment of the code by EC-Council's Easttom, for instance, revealed that it failed every test of randomness he threw at it. Randomness is one of the key elements cryptographers look to when approving new encryption methods.

Multiple cryptography experts called Enigma-DS a publicity stunt. Alex Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Labs, dismissed it "snake-oil cryptography," citing the group's short peer review and desire to sell its technology.

Robert Kleiner, in turn, accused security professionals of having ulterior motives. In his view, an unhackable code could put them out of business.

"They're so stinkin' lazy," he said. "We always hear security professionals lament that there is no such thing as an unhackable code; now someone claims they have it and they immediately dismiss it. These security guys are a bunch of hypocrites."

So is Enigma-DS truly an unhackable code? Without sufficient testing, we may never be sure.

But as cybercrime escalates, the need for creative approaches -- even ones that sound crazy -- is also growing. To top of page

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Thursday, September 1, 2011

Remains of famous Australian outlaw identified

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Ned Kelly is considered by many in Australia to be a folk hero
  • Others have called him a cold-blooded killer
  • His remains have been positively identified; most of the skull is missing

(CNN) -- Edward "Ned" Kelly packed a lot of living, stealing and killing in his scant 25 years.

So much so that Mick Jagger portrayed him in a movie. As did Heath Ledger. Australian artist Sidney Nolan made Ned Kelly the subject of a series of paintings.

The cattle rustler, robber and cop killer was hanged in November 1880 after a string of crimes, including the deaths of three police officers in one incident. His reputed last words: "Such is life."

Australia's best-known outlaw, or bushranger, was buried in the Old Melbourne Gaol. But his remains became "lost" after they were transferred to another prison near Melbourne.

Thursday, Victoria Attorney General Robert Clark announced the search for the remains was over. Through DNA analysis, Kelly's headless skeleton has been positively identified.

"To think a group of scientists could identify the body of a man who was executed more than 130 years ago, moved and buried in a haphazard fashion among 33 other prisoners -- most of whom are not identified -- is amazing," Clark said in a prepared statement.

The official credited doctors and scientists at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.

A DNA sample taken from Melbourne schoolteacher Leigh Olver, great-grandson of Kelly's sister, was instrumental.

Opinions on the infamous Kelly and his gang are decidedly mixed, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Some scholars and observers have described the outlaw as cold-blooded and egotistical. Author Clive Turnbull said the son of an Irish immigrant showed courage, independence and sympathy for the underdog.

Kelly is an integral part of Australian cultural history, with his defiance of the oppressive British authority of the time striking a chord for many Australians.

Kelly was captured and hanged after a shootout with police in the Victorian town of Glenrowan.

In the shootout, the gang was wearing suits of homemade armor that had been fashioned from farming implements. In 2001, the State Library of Victoria purchased a piece of it for $100,000 (then Aust. $200,000). The library's collection includes the outlaw's helmet and breastplate.

According to Clark, the outlaw's remains were among those transferred from the Old Melbourne Gaol to Pentridge Prison in 1929. The skeletons were exhumed again in 2009.

"The project required examination of the remains of 34 individuals in total, many of which were co-mingled and incomplete, making the successful identification even more remarkable," according to Clark.

The investigation began when a skull believed to be Kelly's was given by an individual to officials in 2009. The skull "had been taken from the Old Melbourne Gaol in December 1978 where it had been on display next to the death mask of Ned Kelly. An ink inscription 'E. Kelly' was written on the side."

The skull analysis prompted forensic experts to try to identify Kelly's skeleton.

"Ned Kelly's remains turned out to be an almost complete skeleton found buried in a wooden ax box, although most of the skull was missing," Australian officials said. "Consultations will commence shortly with Ned Kelly's family and other parties involved, regarding the appropriate future resting place for Ned Kelly's remains."

One problem emerged in the process of identifying the remains, however: The skull from the Old Melbourne Gaol wasn't a match.

That mystery continues.

(CNN) -- Edward "Ned" Kelly packed a lot of living, stealing and killing in his scant 25 years.

So much so that Mick Jagger portrayed him in a movie. As did Heath Ledger. Australian artist Sidney Nolan made Ned Kelly the subject of a series of paintings.

The cattle rustler, robber and cop killer was hanged in November 1880 after a string of crimes, including the deaths of three police officers in one incident. His reputed last words: "Such is life."

Australia's best-known outlaw, or bushranger, was buried in the Old Melbourne Gaol. But his remains became "lost" after they were transferred to another prison near Melbourne.

Thursday, Victoria Attorney General Robert Clark announced the search for the remains was over. Through DNA analysis, Kelly's headless skeleton has been positively identified.

"To think a group of scientists could identify the body of a man who was executed more than 130 years ago, moved and buried in a haphazard fashion among 33 other prisoners -- most of whom are not identified -- is amazing," Clark said in a prepared statement.

The official credited doctors and scientists at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.

A DNA sample taken from Melbourne schoolteacher Leigh Olver, great-grandson of Kelly's sister, was instrumental.

Opinions on the infamous Kelly and his gang are decidedly mixed, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Some scholars and observers have described the outlaw as cold-blooded and egotistical. Author Clive Turnbull said the son of an Irish immigrant showed courage, independence and sympathy for the underdog.

Kelly is an integral part of Australian cultural history, with his defiance of the oppressive British authority of the time striking a chord for many Australians.

Kelly was captured and hanged after a shootout with police in the Victorian town of Glenrowan.

In the shootout, the gang was wearing suits of homemade armor that had been fashioned from farming implements. In 2001, the State Library of Victoria purchased a piece of it for $100,000 (then Aust. $200,000). The library's collection includes the outlaw's helmet and breastplate.

According to Clark, the outlaw's remains were among those transferred from the Old Melbourne Gaol to Pentridge Prison in 1929. The skeletons were exhumed again in 2009.

"The project required examination of the remains of 34 individuals in total, many of which were co-mingled and incomplete, making the successful identification even more remarkable," according to Clark.

The investigation began when a skull believed to be Kelly's was given by an individual to officials in 2009. The skull "had been taken from the Old Melbourne Gaol in December 1978 where it had been on display next to the death mask of Ned Kelly. An ink inscription 'E. Kelly' was written on the side."

The skull analysis prompted forensic experts to try to identify Kelly's skeleton.

"Ned Kelly's remains turned out to be an almost complete skeleton found buried in a wooden ax box, although most of the skull was missing," Australian officials said. "Consultations will commence shortly with Ned Kelly's family and other parties involved, regarding the appropriate future resting place for Ned Kelly's remains."

One problem emerged in the process of identifying the remains, however: The skull from the Old Melbourne Gaol wasn't a match.

That mystery continues.

Source

Car sales rise - against all odds

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Consumers shrugged off a slowing economy, plunging stock markets and even a hurricane to keep buying cars at a decent clip in August.

Industrywide sales were up 7.5% from a year ago in August. And the pace of August sales works out to an annual rate of 12.1 million, off only slightly from the July's 12.2 million pace.

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"All in all it wasn't a horrible month, which it sure looked like it could have been," said Michelle Krebs, analyst for Edmunds.com. "All those factors caused us pause when making the forecasts, but every week we saw sales holding up."

Even with consumer confidence falling to a two-year low in August most auto manufacturers posted gains of better than 10% compared to a year ago. Many sales reports came in close to analysts forecasts and Chrysler Group, which posted a 27.5% rise in sales, topped forecasts.

"Our view is consumers are being cautious, and appropriately so. But they are not retrenching," said Don Johnson, vice president of U.S. sales for General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), which posted an 18% rise.

Great Labor Day car deals

GM estimated it only lost 1,000 sales to Hurricane Irene. Krebs said other automakers told her they might have lost as many as 3,000 sales due to the storm. But most of those sales are expected to be made up quickly in September.

Sales could even get a lift from car owners who need to replace vehicles ruined by flooding.

The exceptions to the industrywide gains were the two leading Japanese automakers, Toyota Motor (TM) and Honda Motor (HMC), which are both still struggling to supply dealers after the March earthquake. Sales at Toyota dropped 12.7%, while Honda's plunged 24.3%.

"If you go to any Toyota or Honda dealer, there are no cars," said Krebs.

Domestic automakers got a 120-day respite from head-on Japanese competition as those automakers recover, said Paul Bale, economist for Nationwide. "By mid-September, early October, availability won't be an issue for Toyota and Honda any longer, and there could be some competition on pricing."

But with tight supplies from Japanese automakers in August, and with some domestic models gaining popularity, auto executives and experts said pricing was strong in the month. The big dollar incentive offers that typically came with the end of the model year clearance at the end of a summer was largely absent in August.

Also helping was a decline in gasoline prices, which lifted sales of pickups and SUV's that were hit by high pump prices earlier in the year. There was also better availability of credit to buyers, according to Krebs.

Despite gains in sales and market share, General Motors' and Ford Motor's (F, Fortune 500) stocks both lost ground on a down day for markets.

Jesse Toprak, analyst with sales tracker TrueCar said that the annual sales pace is still anemic. He said people are only buying cars if they absolutely need to replace vehicles that are no longer practical to repair.

"What we need is to get those people who'd like to get a car, not [just those who] need to get a car, back in the market," he said.

Still with the restructuring that the auto industry went through in recent years all the U.S. automakers are profitable, even with sales at these historically modest levels. Before the financial crisis and the bankruptcies GM and Chrysler Group were all losing money even with much more robust sales.

"That's the good news. If they're able to post profits at an 11 or 12 million sales, just wait till we get to 13 or 14 million" said Toprak. To top of page

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NOLA preps for storm

(CNN) -- New Orleans began preparations for possible flooding and heavy rain and oil companies evacuated workers from offshore platforms Thursday as a potential tropical storm brewed in the Gulf of Mexico.

A low-pressure system in the central Gulf of Mexico has about an 80% chance of becoming a tropical storm, the National Hurricane Center in Miami projected Thursday afternoon. But even if it doesn't, New Orleans -- much of which sits below sea level -- is likely to see 8 to 10 inches of rain in the few days, Mayor Mitch Landrieu told reporters.

"What we do know is there's high wind, there is a lot of rain and it's going slow," Landrieu said. "That's not a good prescription for the city of New Orleans should it come this way."

It was six years ago this week that Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, devastating coastal Louisiana and Mississippi and inundating much of New Orleans.

Landrieu urged residents to start collecting the items they might need in case of flooding or a hurricane, such as bottled water, batteries, nonperishable food, first-aid kits and family documents. They may not be needed this time, he said, "But we seem to be entering the more active phase of the storm season.

"It is important for citizens to remember it is individual preparation at the end of the day that matters the most," he said.

Firefighters had been battling a huge wildfire in a swamp on the city's east side for several days as the blaze spread smoke over much of the city. Landrieu quipped that city officials had hoped for rain, "and it appears as though our prayers have been answered."

As of 2 p.m. Thursday, the cluster of thunderstorms was centered about 250 miles south of the Mississippi coast has the potential to become a tropical depression Thursday or Friday.

In advance of the weather, BP and ExxonMobil ordered their Gulf rigs evacuated and have shut down their wells, spokesmen for those companies told CNN. Chevron, meanwhile, has ordered nonessential workers off the platforms, and Shell said it had begun taking some of its workers back to shore Thursday afternoon.

"Weather conditions are already impairing staff movement, but we are using all available resources to safely evacuate employees," Shell said in a written statement. "The number of evacuated personnel will depend on weather conditions, and we will only transport personnel if safe to do so."

"Interests along the entire northern Gulf of Mexico coast should monitor the progress of this disturbance," they noted.

CNN's Dave Alsup and Vivian Kuo contributed to this report.

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Diary of an alcoholic housewife

Editor's note: Brenda Wilhelmson is a journalist who has written for the Chicago tribune, Chicago Reader, Creativity, and The Huffington Post. Her first book is "Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife."

(CNN) -- If you're taking good care of your children, sleeping with your husband, feeding everyone well and keeping your house clean, your friends and spouse will not consider you an alcoholic.

As long as I was holding up my end at home, my friends were clueless and my husband wasn't bothered that I was knocking back a couple of bottles of wine each night to kill the fear that my life was going nowhere and I was nothing.

I'd had big plans. I'd gone to journalism school envisioning myself reporting news stories from war-torn regions. Instead, I was folding mounds of laundry, wiping dirty butts and writing about television commercials. I hadn't even tried to achieve what I wanted to do.

Out of college, I took a job as a feature writer at a suburban arts and entertainment paper, became an advertising scribe, got married, got knocked up. I was crazy in love with my children, but I felt like I'd given them my right arm. And that was a lie. I hadn't given them my right arm. My children were my underachievement scapegoat. My fears of inadequacy sacked my dreams.

I drank away the cloud of mediocrity. I drank away my plans to write a book because it probably wouldn't get published. I drank away my scowling husband stomping around the house spewing toxic vibes. I drank away the guy on the highway who cut me off and gave me the finger. The best part about drinking was how it allowed me to feel like I didn't give a damn.

One summer, I watched two women die -- my grandmother of old age and my mother-in-law from lung cancer. They withered down to helpless skeletons and died a week and a half apart from each other. I got wasted. I missed them, and the certainty of my own death slapped me hard.

Author Brenda Wilhelmson has inspired and helped others with her honest personal story.
Author Brenda Wilhelmson has inspired and helped others with her honest personal story.

Shortly after, sometime between my nightly first martini at 5 and last glass of wine at 11, it hit me that I was plastered or hung over all the time and I was figuratively and literally urinating my life away.

I'd made attempts to quit drinking before because, on a physical level, I knew it was unhealthy. This time, disgusted with my zombie life and hurting from a weekend of heavier than usual partying, I walked into a recovery meeting.

I didn't spend time in the loony bin, pimp myself out for mind-altering substances or get HIV from drunkenly screwing someone other than my spouse like other people at the meeting. I didn't drink around the clock or hide my bottles in toilet tanks either. I didn't believe I would ever become like those people and I wanted nothing to do with them. But I couldn't stop drinking on my own so I kept going to meetings.

An atheist's way through AAA

Day after day I convinced myself and re-convinced myself that going to meetings and staying sober was the right thing to do. Feeling unconnected to my alcoholic peers, I went to a bookstore to buy a memoir I could relate to but didn't find one. I figured there had to be thousands of people struggling like me, so I started keeping a journal and began blogging it. People began writing to me, and Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife became a book.

One of my readers wrote, "I couldn't believe my HUSBAND watched me pile the kids in the car and drive them to hockey practice night after night. ... I still don't understand how he watched me do that, but that sounds like he is to blame for letting me be an idiot, and how I loved blaming him as I lurched down the road."

Another wrote, "I want to quit. I want to feel normal. ... At the same time, I am afraid. I am scared of not being able to sleep, wanting a drink and not getting it, what I might FEEL if I don't drink, and I am afraid of what my family and my husband's family might think if they find out."

"I worked full-time and (am) the mother of two daughters," another wrote. "I would only drink on the weekends because I worked during the week. So if I didn't drink every day, I didn't have a problem, right? Wrong! I guess I was trying to escape my life and my weekends became blackouts."

"What a relief to finally find someone to relate to!" someone else said.

It's a relief for me, too. During the eight years I've been sober, it's gotten easier to relate to other alcoholics regardless of how they bottomed out. I have a large and diverse circle of friends, I'm my authentic self, and life is a cool, interesting ride. I'm living!

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Stocks head for sour September start

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks were headed for a lower start Thursday, a day after closing out the worst month in over a year, as investors await reports on unemployment claims and manufacturing sentiment.

Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (COMP) futures were down between 0.4% and 0.5% ahead of the opening bell. Futures indicate the possible direction of the markets when they open at 9:30 a.m. ET.

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Although stocks ended the last day of August slightly higher, overall it was a brutal month for the market. Investors battled through volatility, starting with the debt ceiling debate.

The turmoil really set in after Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating. That acted as the catalyst for two weeks of wild swings as investors feared the U.S. would tip back into a recession.

Hiding in cash. Is it time to get back into the markets?

A handful of recent economic reports have provided some relief for investors, but concerns about the recovery remain in the spotlight.

"Leading indicators suggest that this is not the end of the soft-patch period," said Lena Komileva, global head of G10 strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman. "The idea that the U.S. economy is growing at a pace that may be too slow to be sustainable is unlikely to fall of investors' radar."

Economy: The Labor Department's closely-watched weekly initial jobless claims data comes out at 8:30 a.m. ET, with economists expecting claims to drop slightly to a reading of 407,000 claims from last week's 417,000 claims.

Jobs recovery sputters

Investors are gearing up for Friday's monthly jobs report. A CNNMoney survey of 19 economists forecasts the U.S. economy added 80,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate remained at 9.1% in August.

Shortly after the market opens, Wall Street will get the Institute for Supply Management's August manufacturing index, as well as construction spending figures from the Commerce Department.

Economists expect the August ISM index will fall to a reading of 48.5 from last month's 50.9, while construction spending figures are expected to increase 0.1%, down slightly from last month's 0.2% increase.

Throughout Thursday, major automakers Ford (F, Fortune 500), Toyota (TM), GM (GM, Fortune 500) and others will report sales figures for August.

Companies: IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) agreed to buy Algorithmics, a Toronto-based risk analytics software company for $387 million.

Costco (COST, Fortune 500) announced that its CEO Jim Sinegal will step down at the start of 2012. The company's president and COO Craig Jelinek will takeover the top spot. Costco also said that same-store sales rose 11% in August from a year ago.

In other management changes, Bank of New York Mellon (BK, Fortune 500) ousted CEO Robert Kelly late Wednesday, citing "differences" in how the company was managed. The bank's president, Gerald Hassell, has taken on the chief executive and chairman roles.

World markets: European stocks were lower in morning trading. Britain's FTSE (FTSE) 100 fell 0.6%, the DAX (DAX) in Germany tumbled 1.6% and France's CAC (CAC) 40 dropped 1.2%.

Asian markets ended the session mixed. The Shanghai Composite (SHCOMP) fell 0.4%, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong (HSI) rose 0.3% and Japan's Nikkei (N225) gained 1.2%.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar gained ground against the euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound.

Oil for October delivery slipped 53 cents to $88.28 a barrel.

Gold futures for December delivery fell $10.10 to $1,821.60 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury rose, pushing the yield down to 2.20% from 2.22% late Wednesday. To top of page

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Libya rebels claim Gadhafi foreign minister caught (AP)

A boy, wearing a pre-Gadhafi flag, sits with at Tripoli's main square on the celebrations of the first day of Eid al-Fitr in Tripoli, Libya, Wednesday

TRIPOLI, Libya – Libyan rebels have captured Moammar Gadhafi's foreign minister, a rebel official said Thursday.

Ahmed Said, an adviser to the interior minister in the rebels' interim government, confirmed that the foreign minister had been captured but he did not identify him by name.

"We cannot give you details, but I can confirm that he is in custody," Said said.

A week ago, Gadhafi's Foreign Minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi told British broadcaster Channel 4 that Gadhafi's 42-year rule was over.

After six months of civil war, rebels have seized control of most of Libya, including the capital Tripoli, effectively ending Gadhafi's rule. The longtime leader and his family, however had not been captured and rebels are hunting senior figures in the ousted regime. Rebels say they are hot on Gadhafi's trail.

Late Wednesday, two men claiming to be two different sons of Gadhafi made conflicting appeals from hiding, one calling for talks with rebel leaders and the other urging regime loyalists to fight to the death.

The dueling messages reflected the growing turmoil in Gadhafi's inner circle on the eve of the 42nd anniversary of his rise to power. The rebels are pooling tips about Gadhafi's whereabouts from captured regime fighters and others, and believe he is most likely no longer in Tripoli, said Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the rebels' military chief in the capital.

Rebel forces have been advancing toward three regime strongholds: Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, the town of Bani Walid south of Misrata and Sabha, hundreds of miles south of the capital Tripoli.

There has been speculation that Gadhafi is hiding in one of those three towns.

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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Abuse survivor saves prostituted girls

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Lisa Williams founded Living Water for Girls, a safe house for prostituted children
  • A survivor herself, Williams uses her history to understand what the girls go through
  • Williams: "I tell [God] that as long as he opens the doors, I will show up"

Editor's note: Last month we brought you the story of Bea, a formerly prostituted child who left the "lifestyle" behind with the help of Living Water for Girls founder Lisa Williams. So many of our readers reached out with questions about Williams and notes of support that we decided to share more about her fight against the commercial sexual exploitation of children in America.

(CNN) -- The 10-year-old was being charged with prostitution. She wore a detention jumpsuit. She had shackles binding her skinny ankles.

It was an image that Lisa Williams couldn't comprehend.

She read through the newspaper article. Nowhere did it mention the pimp who had sold this girl or the men who had bought her -- they weren't being charged. Williams stared at the child's photo in horror.

"It's as if [the law] was saying she woke up that morning and decided she wanted to be sold to 10 to 15 men," Williams said. "That just didn't make sense to me."

So, Williams got on the phone. She called friends in seven states and asked them to take out their checkbooks. To start, they sent money to a small safe house mentioned in the article. But the safe house could only take in so many children, and Williams realized she needed to do more.

"It was my God nudging me, saying 'What part of six beds east of the Mississippi did you not hear?'" Williams said. "That clearly was not enough."

Research on the number of children being prostituted in the United States is lacking, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ estimates that 293,000 American youth are currently at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The majority who are "at risk" are runaways or have been abandoned by their families. According to a study funded by the DOJ in 2001, approximately 55% of girls living on the street engage in formal prostitution.

As Williams looked at that photo in the newspaper, her blood boiled. But what she couldn't see in that moment was something her husband and friends recognized instantly. Williams wasn't just fighting for that 10-year-old, or the hundreds of thousands like her.

Williams was fighting for herself, for the girl she used to be.

Nothing left to lose

At 7 years old, Lisa knew she was dying. Her whole body hurt. The blood kept coming.

Lisa was scared to die, but if her time had come she would accept it. She had just one thing to do first. She rose from the bathroom floor and crept upstairs. She knelt beside her grandfather, who was resting on the living room couch.

Quickly, in one breath, Lisa tattled on an older relative. She told her grandfather that this man stood in her doorway at night and called to her. She said he shoved things inside her in his room in the basement. She said he threatened her to keep her mouth shut. And she had, for months.

But now Lisa had nothing left to lose. She had to tell someone to save her sisters. They were toddlers and slept in her bed. They wouldn't be able to protect themselves when she was gone.

Her grandfather slowly opened his eyes, walked to his gun cabinet and took out his .22. Then he gave the man 30 minutes to get out of the house.

That night, Lisa didn't die.

Living Water for Girls

In August 2008, Williams' nonprofit organization Circle of Friends purchased a three-story house on seven acres in Georgia. Less than two years later, Williams welcomed the first child through the doors of Living Water for Girls. The safe house provides a refuge from "the lifestyle," as Williams calls it, for up to 10 formerly prostituted girls at a time.

A wooden porch guides visitors to a handpainted sign at the front door: "Girls Only." The quiet of the neighborhood is almost unsettling to those used to noisy downtown streets and glaring gas station lights.

(CNN) -- The 10-year-old was being charged with prostitution. She wore a detention jumpsuit. She had shackles binding her skinny ankles.

It was an image that Lisa Williams couldn't comprehend.

She read through the newspaper article. Nowhere did it mention the pimp who had sold this girl or the men who had bought her -- they weren't being charged. Williams stared at the child's photo in horror.

"It's as if [the law] was saying she woke up that morning and decided she wanted to be sold to 10 to 15 men," Williams said. "That just didn't make sense to me."

So, Williams got on the phone. She called friends in seven states and asked them to take out their checkbooks. To start, they sent money to a small safe house mentioned in the article. But the safe house could only take in so many children, and Williams realized she needed to do more.

"It was my God nudging me, saying 'What part of six beds east of the Mississippi did you not hear?'" Williams said. "That clearly was not enough."

Research on the number of children being prostituted in the United States is lacking, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ estimates that 293,000 American youth are currently at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The majority who are "at risk" are runaways or have been abandoned by their families. According to a study funded by the DOJ in 2001, approximately 55% of girls living on the street engage in formal prostitution.

As Williams looked at that photo in the newspaper, her blood boiled. But what she couldn't see in that moment was something her husband and friends recognized instantly. Williams wasn't just fighting for that 10-year-old, or the hundreds of thousands like her.

Williams was fighting for herself, for the girl she used to be.

Nothing left to lose

At 7 years old, Lisa knew she was dying. Her whole body hurt. The blood kept coming.

Lisa was scared to die, but if her time had come she would accept it. She had just one thing to do first. She rose from the bathroom floor and crept upstairs. She knelt beside her grandfather, who was resting on the living room couch.

Quickly, in one breath, Lisa tattled on an older relative. She told her grandfather that this man stood in her doorway at night and called to her. She said he shoved things inside her in his room in the basement. She said he threatened her to keep her mouth shut. And she had, for months.

But now Lisa had nothing left to lose. She had to tell someone to save her sisters. They were toddlers and slept in her bed. They wouldn't be able to protect themselves when she was gone.

Her grandfather slowly opened his eyes, walked to his gun cabinet and took out his .22. Then he gave the man 30 minutes to get out of the house.

That night, Lisa didn't die.

Living Water for Girls

In August 2008, Williams' nonprofit organization Circle of Friends purchased a three-story house on seven acres in Georgia. Less than two years later, Williams welcomed the first child through the doors of Living Water for Girls. The safe house provides a refuge from "the lifestyle," as Williams calls it, for up to 10 formerly prostituted girls at a time.

A wooden porch guides visitors to a handpainted sign at the front door: "Girls Only." The quiet of the neighborhood is almost unsettling to those used to noisy downtown streets and glaring gas station lights.

Inside, the serendipitous feeling is soothing. The Quest Room, where the staff greet visitors, has a stone fireplace and plush couches. The kitchen, with its sleek countertops and black saddle stools, could be on the cover of a home-and-garden magazine.

On nearly every wall in the house, colorful quotations contrast with neutral tones.

"If you are confident, you are beautiful."

Williams radiates trust. Not that she gives it easily. She's a fierce protector of the girls she calls her "babies."

"Lisa has a very powerful way of connecting with people," said Amanda Terry, the administrative director for Living Water for Girls. Terry knows this firsthand -- her daughter met Williams at a restaurant and was so enamored with Williams' story that she made Terry call Living Water for Girls. At the time, Terry was living in Florida.

"I wasn't really looking for a job, I was happy at that point," Terry said with a laugh. But only a few months after she and the woman she calls "America's Mom" connected, Terry began work at the Living Water for Girls office in Peachtree City, Georgia.

Girls are referred to the program through family, friends or the courts. Living Water has cameras placed strategically throughout the house and an unlocked-door policy. Williams visits the girls two or three times a week to ask them if they're being treated correctly.

"The girls expect us to do something bad to them -- because everyone who has ever been nice [to them] has," Williams said.

That said, she doesn't baby the girls. They have a strict schedule -- up at 7 a.m. to shower, breakfast is over by 8:30 and school starts at 9 a.m.

You don't give Miss Lisa any drama, her girls say. At lunch, they tease Williams about her off-key singing -- she wakes the girls up loudly belting out the words to the gospel children's song, "This Little Light of Mine."

"We get up because it's so bad!" one house resident laughs.

The girls attend therapy sessions, take photography lessons, work out and participate in computer classes. They say "Yes ma'am" and speak up when asked a question. Then it's lights out at 9:30.

"I do expect a lot out of my girls," Williams said. "We'll walk through some things, cry through some things, run through some things but there are no shortcuts."

"She's a very loving person but she means what she says," home manager Angie Lester said. "It's called tough love and I think what I've learned by working with the girls is that this is what they've always wanted."

The girls get rewards on the weekends if they've followed the rules. They can go out, buy a new item or choose to spend quality one-on-one time with Williams. Often, they choose Williams.

"I see them sometimes regurgitate little things that she's said, (things she) taught them," Lester said. "They really hold it in their heart. They look up to her -- they see her as a confident woman, who walks with her head up, proud of who she is. You see them trying to walk in those same shoes."

'I sold myself so that I could eat'

At 11, Lisa learned she was capable of killing.

Williams says that at the time, a man in her mother's life was grooming her to be a prostitute. She says he drove around the neighborhood where they lived, saying he could sell Lisa for a couple of bucks. He brought men to the house to look at her.

One night, he found Lisa on her mother's bed, watching television. Williams remembers him bolting the doors and unbuckling his pants and preparing to rape her.

"That night I decided that I would fight. And I'm fighting a 210-pound man. I am fighting him for my life. I knew if I could get a knife -- I knew if there was anything I could get to kill him -- I would have killed him that night."

In the middle of the struggle, they heard Lisa's mother banging on the door.

Months later, Lisa intervened in a particularly bad screaming match between Lisa's mother and the man. Interrupted, the man allegedly turned his rage on Lisa.

In a rain of punches, Lisa fell down the stairs. She fled to the neighbor's house and pounded on the door. With her face three times its normal size, she asked them to call the cops.

At the hospital, Williams says, her mother refused to press charges. Instead, she packed up Lisa's stuff and dropped the 12-year-old girl off at the bus station.

Over the next six years, Lisa bounced from house to house. Occasionally she found an angel -- the wife of her mother's ex-boyfriend who took her in, the cousin who sold her own body to feed them both.

When she graduated high school, she was on her own for good.

"I had some jobs and I did some things and when I didn't have a job I sold myself so that I could eat," Lisa said. "After all, that's what I had been groomed to do. That was my value. That was my worth."

Making a choice

Williams cries with her whole heart. The sobs stem from both the unspeakable stories she carries and the joyful passion she feeds on to move forward.

There is no anger in her tears. She forgave her family after 15 years of hate and now allows neither them, nor bitterness, a place at her table.

"The life I live today is such an amazing life," Williams said slowly, trying to explain. "I know that for many, many hundreds of thousands of women who have been abused or exploited, it haunts them every day, every day of their lives. Sometimes they can never escape it. It's not that way for me. The only thing that my past serves today is for my girls to know that I understand them."

Not everyone can do the work she does. Terry sees a lot of candidates for jobs at Living Water for Girls who say "Oh, I just want these girls to know how much they're loved. I want to hug them." But when those candidates encounter the profanity, the name-calling and the deep-seated anger at the house, they simply can't handle it.

"Miss Lisa has the stamina, the endurance for doing this kind of work," Terry said. "I think being a survivor lends itself to the fact that she does have the love and compassion that, of course, these girls need. But she's also able to relate to their fears, to their distrust, to their honesty and their dishonesty."

Williams doesn't tell her babies her whole story. She simply lets them know that there's hope. People called her a whore once too, but she stopped answering to that name. She tells the girls that she made a choice.

She chose to finish college while living out of her car, working two full-time jobs. She chose to earn her master's degree.

She chose to ignore those telling her she was worthless and graduated in the top 10 percent of her ROTC class before being commissioned as an officer of the U.S. military. She chose to become a petroleum engineer. She chose to open a line of day care centers with her husband, which eventually brought in nearly $40,000 a month.

She chose to start Living Water for Girls, to help sexually exploited children across the U.S. start over.

"If everything that I've gone through in my life had to happen in order for us to save this baby here ... it was all worth it," Williams said.

Sometimes Williams drives 75 miles from her home south of Atlanta to the Living Water for Girls house, simply to watch the girls sleep. Seeing their limbs splayed loosely in every direction, their faces serene, reminds her why she works 80-plus hours a week.

It's the small things that revive her spirit -- receiving a $150 donation from a 92-year-old man on a fixed income, finding handwritten notes from prayer groups in her mailbox, digging in the dirt on her farm.

"When I see my girls smiling from the inside out ... I am instantly renewed and refreshed. Because it's been so long since they've smiled like that."

"I tell [God] that as long as he opens the doors, I will show up. And when we don't have money, I will still show up. And all I know is that God continues to strengthen me, and he continues to send angels into the lives of me and these girls."

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